Chapter 28

The one with the long health bar was probably a Level 3 Aberrant. The other was either Level 4 or Level 5.

Thanks to their health bars, which stood out even in the rainy night like glow sticks at a concert, Qi Yue could see where the Aberrants were without straining his eyes to pick them out.

They were still a long way off. At their current speed... the Level 3 would reach the "battlefield" in thirty seconds, and the one with the shorter health bar in 39 seconds.

But... he could hear the Aberrants even from this far away. He could only imagine how big they were.

"..."

He was terrified. The mental torment made Qi Yue want to scream, but he couldn't even do that. It turned out that when fear reached its peak, the throat could make no sound.

As he endured the mental torment, Qi Yue kept brainwashing himself, telling himself that, as long as he maintained his Level, the only thing he had to do during this hunt for the dangerous Level 3 Aberrant was remain calm and aloof, let the Aberrants come to him, and let them die after stepping into the "traps" he had set.

In short, he absolutely could not move!

26 seconds.

20 seconds.

15 seconds.

Rumble—

With a tremendous crash, lightning tore through the sky, briefly lighting it up.

Each time lightning briefly lit up the sky, the rapidly moving Aberrants froze for an instant and let out eerie, terrifying rasps.

They were getting closer and closer.

Unable to move, Qi Yue could only watch as the human-faced Aberrant monsters drew nearer, their true, horrifying appearances revealed whenever the lightning caught them frozen in place. His heart nearly leaped into his throat.

No, there are still more than ten seconds before I can find out whether the traps work. If I keep staring and thinking about them, I'll have a breakdown.

I need to think about something else to distract myself.

What should I think about? Ah... right, health bars!

The Esper Ability Students in Class F had green health bars above their heads, while the Aberrants now had red ones. Did that mean... there were two different "copy" systems?

It seemed... the Riddle Panel had never told him that he could only copy Esper Ability Users.

They were both products of aberration, so perhaps it wasn't strange that Aberrants were also among the things eligible for 100% Perfect Copy.

If an Aberrant was successfully defeated by a trap, what could he "100% copy" from it? Its ghastly white, festering, pus-oozing skin? Or its deformed body?

Hiss—

The more Qi Yue thought about it, the colder he felt all over. He couldn't keep thinking about it.

Of course, this was only a tentative guess made in a panic. It wouldn't be the first time the Panel had applied a double standard. After all, the Esper Ability Students' faces were all mosaics to him, while every inch of the Aberrants came with a high-definition, magnified horror effect.

As Qi Yue's thoughts wandered in an attempt to ease his fear, the Aberrants came within five meters of him.

Four meters.

Two meters.

Qi Yue's scalp tingled. He fought to keep his pupils from shrinking and maintained his cold facade.

Too close. So scary.

Even if everything else goes right, what if the traps don't work? Can I really not dodge? Do I have to act strong? I'd better not be the first person to act strong all the way to a real death! Is this really not karma for constantly exploiting Panel bugs to make things easier for myself?!

Qi Yue frantically questioned himself.

All his thoughts finally came down to one honest plea: Don't come any closer!

Amid the lightning and thunder, the white-haired, red-eyed youth sat calmly atop the boulder, watching coldly as the enormous, ghastly white humanoid monsters charged through the rain toward him, their bodies swollen and shedding chunks of flesh...

"Ah!"

Just as Qi Yue was letting his thoughts run wild and forcing himself to wait for the traps to take effect, a piercing human shriek rang out behind him.

That voice—

Qi Yue: "!"

A member of the Manga Protagonist Group!

Chapter 28

When it rained, it poured. Sure enough, the very thing he feared had come to pass.

The sudden human scream distracted Qi Yue for a moment, though in some ways it slightly eased the creepiness of facing the Aberrants alone.

But—

When setting up the mechanisms on site to attack, Qi Yue had never considered that a second person might be present.

At the very start of the plan, Qi Yue had kept all the Class F trainees away from the place where the dangerous Level 3 creature appeared. Everything he considered was based on absolutely killing the Level 3 Aberrant, and on creating an atmosphere of overwhelming, unmatched slaughter for any scenes that might be drawn into the manga.

Thus, every spot radiating outward from the boulder at the center, where he sat—above or below ground, anywhere someone could set foot—was covered in traps.

With Teacher Yan Feichen's Dissection Notes for reference, Qi Yue would only use an excessive dose against the Level 3 Aberrant, never too little.

After all, he was using his own life as bait.

That was also why, as the monsters drew closer and Qi Yue's thoughts ran wild and he even considered fleeing, his body had stubbornly held firm, allowing him to remain seated without moving.

The Aberrants had long since lost the ability to think. Their actions followed no pattern; they would only charge at him, the bait, and inevitably step into the traps. Qi Yue didn't care which "mechanism" the monsters stepped on or which part melted, after which he would pull the threads to trigger the devices and set off a series of small explosions on their bodies. His goal would be achieved in the end.

As he steeled himself to face the approaching terror, he had doubts, but they were only fleeting thoughts. No one knew better than Qi Yue—he had no choice but to act strong. There was no retreat.

But... a small accident had occurred.

His traps absolutely could not kill a living person.

The moment he heard that familiar voice, the situation became worse still for Qi Yue.

Under the renewed pressure, Qi Yue had to resist the urge to turn around and look while continuing to pretend to be cold and composed.

He kept his icy gaze fixed on the monsters charging toward him, growing larger before his eyes, while manipulating the threads connected to the traps and devices without hesitation, just as he had planned.

At the same time, he had to spare a sliver of attention to rebuke the Manga Protagonist Group member behind him, who might otherwise rush into the trap-filled area around the boulder, using a cold, stern voice that he made sure the person could hear.

"Stop."

Whoosh—

Boom—

In the rainy night, Qi Yue's utterly icy voice rang out almost simultaneously with the sounds of the Aberrants exploding one after another.

The small explosive devices worked in concert with the liquid from the Melting Injections intended for Level 3 Aberrants: the ghastly white teeth clinging around their swollen, stitched-together heads, their black gums exposed; the sharp black nails on their seven hands; even the flesh that dripped pus and fell away as they moved at high speed, and the thirteen eyes dangling precariously...

Everything was torn apart in that brief, earth-shattering instant, reduced to countless tiny fragments reeking of death and decay...

Qi Yue: "..."

It worked!

The sounds of the monsters exploding and melting coincided with the scene bursting apart before his eyes. From the corner of his eye, Qi Yue glimpsed the number on his Wristwatch, which tallied kill points, rise by six, and his heart finally settled.

It seemed the second one was a Level 4 Aberrant.

His joy at succeeding made Qi Yue temporarily overlook the rotten chunks of flesh splattered on him. He could even ignore the stench for a while.

As the saying went, everything was difficult at the beginning. Succeeding on the first try laid a solid foundation for his future actions. At that moment, Qi Yue decided to be pleasant to everyone in the world.

Naturally, that included the protagonist group member who had barged in behind him at the crucial moment and nearly distracted him.

Of course, even though he wanted nothing more than to pop champagne and celebrate the successful kill, Qi Yue kept a "composed" expression on his face so he wouldn't break character when drawn into the manga.

"!"

The instant Qi Yue's cold, commanding voice rang out in the rainy night, Zhou Ziyao instinctively stopped in his tracks. Then he watched helplessly as the Level 3 Aberrant charging toward Qi Yue—over three meters tall and as wide as seven or eight people—suddenly exploded a little more than a meter away from him.

Amid the blood mist filling the air, Zhou Ziyao's eyes widened in horror as he clearly witnessed Qi Yue's back, turned toward him and utterly unmoving as he destroyed the monster. It was as though the bloody, terrifying scene before him was nothing more than an ordinary, insignificant spectacle in Qi Yue's eyes. The mercilessness and confidence Qi Yue exuded, as if he could crush anything, left Zhou Ziyao deeply shaken.

That was a Level 3 Aberrant!

And just like that, a little more than a meter away from Qi Yue, it had been reduced to fragments in an instant without him even lifting a hand.

What heaven-defying, terrifying Esper Ability power!

Because of their different Levels, Zhou Ziyao had been forced to separate from his older brother. With his strength greatly diminished, he had been roaming the edge of Area E in search of targets to kill. He had never imagined that faulty information would lead him astray and cause him to stumble into Qi Yue's hunt and witness such a brutal, horrifying scene.

Ah, right, the Level 4 Aberrant I was chasing...

Belatedly, Zhou Ziyao looked at the Level 4 Aberrant he had learned about from the wind. It had melted and shattered in the grass, leaving nothing of its former appearance. His face turned deathly pale, and his silence was deafening.

"..."

If Qi Yue's icy "stop" hadn't made him halt in time,

he would probably have died without an intact corpse, just like that Level 3 Aberrant and the Level 4 Aberrant.

Ever since the incident with Atas, he had only heard that Qi Yue's Esper Ability was similar to Beixing's. Now that he had witnessed it firsthand, it was far more than similar—it was vastly more terrifying. Beixing's Esper Ability activated passively, melting and mentally deranging any Esper Ability Users or Aberrants that approached him. Qi Yue's Esper Ability, on the other hand, was not only not triggered passively; he actively chose his targets, and the "objects" he selected died gruesome deaths.