The Fifth Step

Creak...

What set Kindling City apart from Qinggang was what it was like now. When the strange clanking of iron chains and bizarre, savage mental power suddenly filled the city, every resident of Kindling City—including the Kindling forces and Crimson Moon Club members around the stadium—felt a panic and despair akin to that experienced at the level of life itself. It was as if they had been swept away and drowned by the tides of fate.

At that moment, they could not even muster the ability to resist.

Because in their eyes, they could not make out even the enemy's appearance. They could only sense masses of bizarre mental power rapidly spreading through the city, linking together into enormous waves that rolled forward and instantly polluted every living thing in the city...

These were Pollution Sources with minds of their own.

Clearing even a single Pollution Source required extensive investigation, analysis, and preparation.

So many had appeared all at once. How could they possibly clear them?

Just as this terror welled up in them uncontrollably, they suddenly heard a huge, muffled sound.

It was like steel bars groaning under an unbearable strain, mixed with the thunderous impact of some enormous object dropping from above and the fierce roar of air compressed and violently blasted in every direction.

Dust billowed. The wind howled.

They instinctively scattered and raised their hands to shield their eyes.

After a while, when the wind around them died down and they opened their eyes, they immediately saw an astonishing sight.

Beside the stadium was a neat asphalt road. But after the battle between ability users, it had been ravaged into a mess, with broken stretches of pavement and traces of plasma rounds everywhere. Twisted vehicle wrecks had been tossed by the roadside.

Yet now, none