Highschool of the Dead

Time flew. In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed since Lin Qiye joined the Nightwatchers.

Of course, that half month meant nothing to Zhou Meng. For one thing, time flowed differently inside the psychiatric hospital than it did outside. For another, as an immortal god, the concept of time meant nothing to him in the first place.

But those two weeks meant a great deal to Lin Qiye.

After his fight with Hongying, the 136th Squad had reassessed Lin Qiye's strength and added an entry to his original list of abilities: suspected Forbidden Ruins [Formless].

After reassessing his abilities, they had stepped up the intensity of his training as well.

For the most part, that meant Lin Qiye ended up black and blue more often. Chen Muye was no longer his only sparring partner, either; Hongying had joined in.

When Wen Qimo trained his mortal divine realm perception, he also raised the speed of the bullets fired in the room by several levels.

The only training that hadn't grown more intense was Leng Xuan's shooting practice.

That was because Lin Qiye's talent for shooting could only be described as negative. If you had him fire a shot, missing the target was normal, and not hitting a teammate was a stroke of luck. Even if the gun blew up in his hands, it wouldn't be all that far-fetched.

"Brother Meng, why did I insist on using those traits back then?" Lin Qiye complained as he fed Nyx her medicine.

"Be grateful, kid. If it weren't for those traits of mine, how could you have improved so quickly? Haven't you already reached the middle level of the Cup Realm? Otherwise, you'd still be stuck at the beginner level!" Zhou Meng watched Lin Qiye feed her medicine, the corners of his mouth lifting uncontrollably.

Watching Lin Qiye get beaten up had become one of Zhou Meng's daily amusements.

Whenever he saw Lin Qiye beaten black and blue, Zhou Meng felt an indescribable sense of pleasure. Of course, he couldn't say exactly why, but he simply felt a little happy.

Still, getting beaten was fine, but not just by anyone! There was nothing wrong with taking a beating from his own people; Zhou Meng treated it as entertainment. But if a monster beat him up, Zhou Meng wouldn't stand for it!

"I see it now. You deliberately got me to use those traits so the captain and Sister Hongying would beat me up!" Lin Qiye felt he had figured it out. Besides God of Theft, Zhou Meng ought to add God of Mischief to his titles!

"Cut the crap. Why don't you admit you're too weak to handle an orange trait? Otherwise, wouldn't it be better if I gave you an orange trait and you went out and trounced Chen Muye? If you're bad, practice more. If you can't stand losing, don't play." Zhou Meng paid no heed to Lin Qiye's complaints.

At the same time, he began considering his next plan.

After his training, Lin Qiye would soon face the first official mission of his Nightwatcher career: the Nanda Snake Demon.

The mission wasn't particularly difficult, but it wasn't all that simple, either.

If he had to describe it in a phrase, it would be "Highschool of the Dead."

Zhou Meng vaguely recalled watching a similar anime. It was about zombies invading a school and students struggling to survive the zombie horde. Only, the anime's main selling point wasn't the zombies, but the schoolgirls.

In short, this mission was very similar to the anime he had just recalled. Only, instead of zombies, there was a monster called the Nanda Snake Demon. Its cultivation realm wasn't high, but it had a very troublesome ability: by eating people or giving birth to snake seeds, it could replace a host with its own offspring.

But that was only one part of the cunning creature's plan. Its real plan was to have its second personality, Li Yifei, join the Nightwatchers by helping them resolve the man-eating incidents at the school. That way, it could hide in plain sight, rest easy, and no longer fear for its life.

Unfortunately for it, it ran into two prodigies, Lin Qiye and An Qingyu. Although Lin Qiye's mortal divine realm couldn't identify Li Yifei's true form, it could identify the snake demon's other clones.

As for An Qingyu, he had many hidden identities, but his true identity was one of [Yog-Sothoth]'s fragments. For now, though, he was only an ordinary high school student who ranked first in the city.

So, with those two working together, the fact that the Nanda Snake Demon managed to avoid discovery until the very last moment made it no exaggeration to call it exceptionally intelligent.

However, Zhou Meng had no intention of revealing the relevant information directly to Lin Qiye. Spoilers wouldn't lower his psychiatric illness index; only lending Lin Qiye traits would do that. So Lin Qiye had to gain experience in all kinds of situations and use those traits.

And Zhou Meng had already chosen the trait for this occasion.

As his psychiatric illness index steadily fell to 99.5% and Lin Qiye's cultivation and strength improved, Zhou Meng discovered that he could steal one more blue trait, while Lin Qiye could also accommodate one more.

So Zhou Meng chose a trait from Bragi: ["Heavenly" Voice].

Zhou Meng had actually been interested in this trait for a long time.

As the Norse god of music and poetry, Bragi's musical accomplishments naturally went without saying. But those accomplishments lay mainly in music—in other words, instruments. As for his voice, it really left much to be desired.

So his Heavenly Voice wasn't truly heavenly. It was so awful that it was practically a form of mental attack!

If Bragi sang at full strength, even among the gods, few could withstand that assault of noise. An ordinary person would have long since passed out, or even suffered brain death.

Lin Qiye's strength was limited for now, however, so his singing wouldn't kill anyone. As such, Heavenly Voice was roughly equivalent to a wide-area crowd-control skill.

"Qiye, now that your cultivation has improved, I have another trait I can lend you," Zhou Meng said.

"Another new trait? What is it this time?" Lin Qiye was a little puzzled, but when he thought about everything that had happened before, he instinctively felt somewhat reluctant.

"What are you afraid of? Would I trick you? Catch! This trait is called Heavenly Voice!" Zhou Meng pointed, and a blue trait flew into Lin Qiye's body.

Lin Qiye suddenly felt an irresistible urge to sing.

What should I sing? How about "My Sun"! I happen to have two listeners right now! Let me sing a song for Mother and Zhou Meng!

The activity area had plenty of recreational facilities. Lin Qiye casually picked up a microphone and was just about to show off his singing when he noticed that one of his listeners had disappeared.

Zhou Meng had already gone a long way off, and he had stolen a pair of earmuffs from somewhere.

Even as a god, he could no longer hear anything.

"All right, Qiye, you can start!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

What mischief is this guy plotting now?

Lin Qiye was a little puzzled.

Forget it. If he won't listen, I'll sing for Mother!

Lin Qiye looked at Nyx, the serene and kindly goddess of darkness before him, and cleared his throat.

"Ah!!!!! My sun!!!!"