BOOM

"Hey, Onee-sama, did you see the news from a couple of days ago? They said a murder case happened on a street near our neighborhood," Shirai Kuroko said, sitting on her dorm bed with her legs dangling.

"Mmm, I know a little. But I heard from the Disciplinary Committee that the scene was a bit gruesome," Misaka Mikoto said, looking a bit pale due to her sensitivity to such things. "Even though it's confidential information, they told me the bodies were apparently hollowed out? How terrifying. Are there really perverted serial killers in Academy City?"

"Well, maybe it wasn't done by a human..." Kuroko inexplicably teleported next to Misaka Mikoto and whispered into her ear with a creepy voice.

Misaka Mikoto immediately got goosebumps. She let out a dry laugh, "H-how could that be? It's just a brutal murder, how could it not be human? There are no supernatural beings in this world. Zombies and werewolves definitely don't exist." However, her tense posture betrayed her nervousness and fear.

Shirai Kuroko chuckled twice. She knew that her Onee-sama was usually brave when dealing with troublemakers, showing no fear or apprehension. But when faced with urban legend-level horror events like this, she was a bit out of her depth. Of course, most of the girls she knew seemed to be the same. Hatsuharu was like that too. She was clearly scared of watching ghost movies, yet she always insisted on going to watch them with Kuroko. Not only would she cling to Kuroko in fear, but she almost knocked over Senior Gufǎ's milk. Shirai Kuroko hadn't forgotten that painful experience, which led to Senior Gufǎ banning movie watching in the Disciplinary Committee office. Kuroko herself was almost disciplined.

Realizing her awkwardness was hard to hide, Misaka Mikoto decided to change the subject. "By the way, Kuroko, don't you have a Disciplinary Committee meeting today? Aren't you leaving yet?"

"No, the scheduled time hasn't arrived yet," Shirai Kuroko said, as if remembering something. "Oh, right, Onee-sama is supposed to come along too."

"Huh? Me? Why?"

"I'm really sorry about this, but I, Kuroko, took the liberty of agreeing to let one of my colleagues meet Onee-sama."

"Well, although I don't really want to go, since you've already promised someone, it won't hurt to go," Misaka Mikoto lightly tapped Kuroko's forehead and smiled nonchalantly.

Misaka Mikoto and the others' first meeting proceeded as scheduled. But what was Luo Yifang doing at this time? He wasn't staying home to grind games today. Instead, he was traversing the streets and alleys of Academy City, searching for any clues left behind by that corpse from the other day.

"This is really annoying, being outsmarted by a corpse." Luo Yifang had his hands in his pockets, in a bad mood. Last night, he had actually found a good opportunity to follow the trail and have the corpse lead him to the true mastermind behind the scenes. But he didn't expect it to intercept and kill a child halfway. Luo Yifang had no choice but to save the child. However, the corpse seemed to realize that Luo Yifang was not someone it could defeat. It used a strange escape method and managed to get away from Luo Yifang.

Luo Yifang couldn't stop that ability, which was similar to spatial movement. After that, he directly scanned an area of nearly a kilometer with his vector search but found no trace of it. It seemed like long-distance Space Magic. Luo Yifang really couldn't figure it out. A Necromancer-like guy also knows Space Magic? Is Space Magic so common now? Moreover, for such a long-distance spell, Luo Yifang didn't believe that just anyone could cast it.

Paqi seemed a bit confused by Luo Yifang's actions. "That guy clearly only comes out at night. Why are you out in broad daylight?"

"It escaped here last night. I wanted to see if there was anything valuable left behind," Luo Yifang said. He was busy tracking the corpse's whereabouts last night and didn't have time to check this place. He only came here after failing to find any clues.

As Luo Yifang walked, he pondered how that guy had escaped yesterday. Was it Reverse Summoning? Or Space Magic? He wasn't entirely sure even now. But when he reached the alley where the corpse had disappeared, he suddenly froze. He looked at the building next to him. After thoughtfully touching the wall, a cold glint flashed in Luo Yifang's eyes. "So that's how it is. That thing probably didn't escape at all. It found a way to enter the wall."

A strange energy was clearly leaking from the wall, but it was very faint. If Luo Yifang hadn't touched it with his hand, he wouldn't have been able to sense it. It had to be a very clever method. Luo Yifang looked up at the towering building and saw an open window. He lightly tapped the ground with his right foot, and his entire body seemed to ignore gravity as he entered the building through that window.

The interior of the building was pitch black, with only a sliver of light filtering in from the windows. Otherwise, almost nothing could be seen. But this did not affect Luo Yifang's vision at all. He looked around and found that it seemed to be a very ordinary office floor... But why was this building as silent as night in broad daylight? Or was it just this floor? Luo Yifang moved through the empty floor until he reached the entrance to the fire escape. He pushed it with his hand and found that this floor seemed to be locked. It seemed that even the exit to the stairwell had been sealed with cement.

"As expected, something's strange..." Luo Yifang muttered. He returned to the office area and began searching for useful information.

His efforts paid off. After more than half an hour, he finally found a magic array emitting a faint blue glow on the underside of a desk. Luo Yifang was overjoyed. Just as he was about to probe the energy and read the information, his hand had barely touched the magic array when a violent explosion suddenly erupted outside the building, shaking the entire structure. This tremor itself wouldn't have been a problem, but unexpectedly, the magic array was not stable. Luo Yifang only saw a flash of blue light.

A moment later, Luo Yifang stood with a dark expression next to the desk, which had turned to ashes. He gritted his teeth and spat out a few words, "Who the hell did this?"