Phantom Demon Seal (Part 2)

The camera filmed the ground at close range, and the microphone and similar equipment were still working. All that could be heard were the sounds of fists hitting flesh, followed one after another by screams, chaotic and confused.

At last, it seemed a group of people chased each other away, and the scene finally returned to calm.

Li Xuecheng was momentarily speechless. When he came back to his senses and saw that First Perspective would not be getting back on its feet anytime soon, he tried to adjust the camera remotely, muttering under his breath:

"Should've used a hovering model..."

The camera suddenly shook violently, its view shifting past buildings, lawns, the sky, and intermittent glimpses of people, swaying so wildly it made one dizzy.

"Steady yourself!"

Li Xuecheng thought First Perspective had recovered and hurriedly gave the command, but he quickly realized something was wrong.

In the shaking camera feed, the figure was far too close. And those cold, calm eyes gradually came into focus with the lens—why were they so familiar?

...Fuck!

Li Xuecheng slammed a fist hard against the armrest. He finally understood the situation. Ronan was carrying the unconscious First Perspective as he searched for clues, and he had quickly discovered the problem.

The camera's shaking grew weaker and weaker, while Ronan's face became clearer and clearer.

Meanwhile, Lian Yu's hands hurt more and more. She lifted her eyelids and looked at Li Xuecheng, so close beside her. Perhaps noticing her gaze, his ashen face became a little more animated. His lips twitched, and he finally forced out a smile.

"Looks like this round is game over."

His clumsy self-mockery, along with Lian Yu's relatively obedient demeanor, restored a little of Li Xuecheng's confidence. He raised his voice.

"But like I said, does he know who did it? Even if he knows it was me, can he reach me? For example, right now, I could say hello to him..."

Li Xuecheng prepared to switch the communicator to speaker mode, but halfway through, he saw Ronan's gaze, seemingly staring straight at him. He hesitated, then gave an awkward laugh and forcibly changed course.

"...Or I can ignore him!"

With that, he switched off the projector and refused to receive any more information from the other side. Facing Lian Yu's stare, he began rambling again.

"Jie Yu, I understood from a very young age that the power of capital is invisible, formless, and omnipotent. Today, that guy got lucky and survived the campus Black Gang. But tomorrow, what he faces may very well be the real Black Gang.

"Besides that, I have plenty of other ways to play. His Parents and family, his relatives and friends—every single one is a route to exploit. This is the real world, not those games constrained by crappy programming and plots. We can take our time with him!"

Li Xuecheng's words grew more and more impassioned, and confidence once again filled his chest. Yet held in his arms, Lian Yu felt that all it contained was deadly strong acid. Before it could hurt anyone else, it might already have burned his Five Viscera and Six Bowels full of holes.

Now that Li Xuecheng's sense of defeat had faded, lust rose in its place. With a seductive beauty in his arms, if he did not press harder and get what he wanted, wouldn't he be a complete idiot?

The thought had barely formed when even the heat of his breath rose another level. His mouth moved straight toward the junction of Lian Yu's neck and collarbone.

Lian Yu shuddered violently and tried to dodge, but Li Xuecheng held her tightly.

"Jie Yu, Jie Yu, Jie Yu..."

Blurred syllables rolled from Li Xuecheng's throat, and the heat of his whole body kept rising. Wrath of the Sky was an excellent place. He had achieved remarkable victories here before, and now this would be another great triumph...

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Someone suddenly knocked on the car window, hard enough that they were clearly angry.

Fuck, This Old Man hasn't even started rocking the car yet. What the hell are you knocking for?

Li Xuecheng was instantly enraged. He was even more furious at the bodyguards around him—what the hell were they doing if they could not even stop passersby? If Ronan came charging over, was he supposed to handle him personally too?

He lowered the window, ready to curse them out, but the face outside was Xie Junping's cold one.

Li Xuecheng froze.

Xie Junping's gaze swept over the entwined bodies in the car, and the corner of his lips curled up. "Xuecheng, shall we have a chat?"

Li Xuecheng got out of the car in a daze. Lian Yu, meanwhile, curled herself up inside, putting on the appearance of a White Lotus.

Xie Junping's arrival did not surprise her, because she had secretly sent him a message asking for help. But his attitude—from abandoning her in the early hours yesterday to that glance just now—still made her heart turn faintly cold.

This man was probably beyond her grasp.

If that was truly the case, Li Xuecheng would make a good backup choice. But that twisted appearance of his...

Just as she was conflicted, a muffled thud sounded outside, mixed with curses, reaching her ears clearly. Lian Yu hurriedly sat up to look, and what she saw outside instantly made her eyes widen.

Xie Junping was sitting on the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, looking somewhat dazed.

Li Xuecheng panted heavily, but he was grinning. Perhaps because his emotions were boiling over, he directly tore open his collar, exposing his lean, pale chest. It heaved violently with his breathing, large patches of red spreading across it.

"Ha, ha, Xie Junping, This Old Man has disliked you for a long time. Without your teleprompter, you're just an idiot who can only grin for the camera..."

As he spoke, Li Xuecheng actually walked over and kicked again. How could Xie Junping let him succeed? He blocked the incoming leg, yanked sideways, and forcibly pulled Li Xuecheng down. The two began grappling in a tangled heap.

The bodyguards who rushed up from behind were all dumbfounded. It was Lian Yu who shouted, "Hurry up and pull them apart!"

The scene became even more chaotic. For some reason, Lian Yu found it incredibly familiar. After thinking back in a daze, she remembered that during their detention, Ronan and Li Xuecheng's conflict had unfolded in much the same way.

Her slender fingers ran into her hair, but she could not smooth out the tangled mess of the situation. In the end, she could only look silently to the heavens.

Has this world gone mad?

At this moment, the chaos at Zhi Xing Institute had just settled down. Ronan raised his wristband and tapped confirm on the verification email sent by the International Science Exploration Association.

This should actually have been completed twenty minutes ago, but he had never found the time. Ever since entering Zhi Xing Institute, he had felt a powerful sensation of being watched, as though many people were staring straight at him.

At first, Ronan thought it was some kind of hallucination. But the feeling grew stronger and stronger, until eventually he even heard a faint rattling sound.

That "sound" was familiar to him. It was the Dark Heavy Chains he had visualized. For some reason, they had actively connected to reality, like a reenactment of the "divine weapon warning its master" trope from fantasy novels.

For that reason, Ronan truly became cautious. After observing several times, he finally discovered that multiple people were tailing him. He seized an opportunity and jumped out a window to escape.

Who would have thought they would make such a big show of it and still corner him in the end? If not for a Kind Soul who stepped in to help, there was no telling how things would have ended today.

Hmm, why had that Kind Soul not returned yet?

The situation had been too chaotic at the time. Ronan only remembered that The Visitor had been tall and burly, sweeping in like a gust of wind and chasing those campus punks all over the place... Then, after running for a while, The Visitor had vanished.

Zhi Xing Institute truly was a place where strange talents emerged in abundance!

Ronan shook his head. Seeing that no one was watching nearby, he took advantage of the lingering sensation and entered a Meditative State.

Entering a Meditative State was becoming easier and easier for him. In the center of the void, the Dark Heavy Chains were exceptionally active, coiling and circling both inside and outside the Contemplation Graphic.

But what drew the most attention was a faint clump of dark-red light at the front of the chains.

Within that glow, folded and twisted lines formed an abstract symbol... one that Ronan found deeply familiar.

The dark-red gleam was the best clue. A few seconds later, Ronan remembered: wasn't this the outline of Burning Demon Shadow's true form when it had unleashed a vast number of "spores" aboard the warship?

When Ronan had first sketched Burning Demon Shadow, many of the lines had overlapped with it as well, but they had been nowhere near as simple or abstract as they were now.