On the summit of Jade Emperor Peak, the mountain wind howled, causing the robes of the people from Jiangnan to rustle.
He lowered his head, his gaze falling on the stone tablet at his feet, its inscription mottled and covered in moss.
"Mount Tai... has returned to the way it came."
Jiangnan murmured to himself.
He slightly turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the mangled corpse of the Flesh Demon he had casually slain not far away.
The once ferocious, writhing mass now lay sprawled on the ground, its edges visibly shriveling.
It was as if something had sucked the last bit of life out of it from within.
More importantly, he could sense that the murderous intent lurking in the shadows was fading.
It's like the tide going out.
Jiangnan raised his eyes and looked down at the entire An City.
The morning light tore through the red clouds in the east, sparingly casting a few rays of light, yet the city remained eerily quiet.
The once bustling streets are now littered with overturned vehicles and dried bloodstains.
The city has been ravaged and riddled with holes.
"The situation... is terrible."
He whispered, but his voice was swallowed by the wind.
This so-called trial was wrong from the very beginning.
Jiangnan mentally laid out the clues one by one and quickly reassembled them.
What Sky Curtain said—the current dire state of Blue Star, the habits of the Flesh Demon, and those deliberately divided regions...
This is not just a simple test.
This is more like a kind of filtering, or a connection point.
The connection point between the Barbaric Realm and Blue Star.
And he, or rather, those who were thrown in, are the most crucial link in this chain.
Jiangnan closed his eyes, and the map that the Sky Curtain had once shown him floated into his mind.
The eight zones are positioned like eight chess pieces, precisely placed in various locations throughout the city.
Mount Tai
Nursing home,
Residential communities
Medical university,
Garden,
Shopping center,
Hotel,
There are also military bases.
Eight regions, eight possibilities.
The person Sky Curtain mentioned, whom he "must find," is hidden somewhere among them.
"I am now standing at the highest point in An City."
Jiangnan opened her eyes.
"But they're no different from headless flies."
There was no precise location information, no accurate coordinates, only a vague general direction.
In this situation, he could only use a thorough, door-to-door search to investigate one by one.
This should have been the dumbest way.
But Jiangnan's gaze swept back and forth across the eight place names twice before finally settling on one of them.
Nursing home.
The area closest to his current location.
According to conventional thinking, the optimal choice would be to break through one by one, starting with the nearest and moving to the furthest.
Anyone would have made the same choice.
"... Yeah, right."
Jiangnan's lips twitched slightly, the curve so subtle it was almost imperceptible.
But for someone who is usually expressionless, it was already a clear expression of emotion.
He chose the park.
The reason is simple.
Just as dawn broke, he witnessed the reaction of those Flesh Demons.
Those monstrous things weren't retreating, they were fleeing.
They rushed ahead, frantically searching for the right path, as if a second's delay would mean being torn apart by their natural enemy.
They are hiding from the light; they are afraid of the light.
This indicates that the open-air environment during the day is a no-go zone for them.
The park, on the other hand, is open and unobstructed, with ample sunlight throughout the day.
It is the safest area in the entire An City.
If there are still people in this city, or at the very least, participants in the trial.
They will most likely try to get closer to that place.
Find them, and you'll get the intelligence.
Having intelligence allows us to narrow down the search area.
This is much more efficient than blindly stumbling around on your own.
Jiangnan cleared his mind and then looked down at his right arm.
That arm was noticeably a shade lighter than his left hand; the skin tone was off, and the thickness was also off.
He borrowed it temporarily from a town resident of similar build, and then forcibly connected it with Ye Desheng's Fusion Supernatural Ability.
[The Hand of the Sun] is currently dormant due to a rejection reaction and cannot be used for a while, which means he has lost one of his strongest trump cards.
Jiangnan merely glanced at it indifferently, without any further expression.
Pale as it may be, it's usable, that's all that matters.
"It's time to go."
Jiangnan didn't linger any longer. She lightly touched the ground with her feet and darted straight down the mountain.
Each time he landed, he stepped on the safest point of contact, the wind was cleaved by him, and his robes stretched into a straight line behind him.
Even with the loss of an arm to boost his fighting prowess, even with the Hand of the Sun temporarily unusable...
But a god who descends from the mountain is still a god.
At the same time, in the shopping mall.
In the basement supermarket, two Shadow were sweeping across the shelves with overwhelming force.
"Yahoo!"
Mo Wan pushed the shopping cart, pushed off with her foot, and drifted around the corner with the cart.
"Lin Zhu! We're so lucky! We teleported right to the shopping mall, it's like we were chosen by heaven! It's amazing!"
"So similar! So similar!"
Lin Zhu squatted in the shopping cart, her hands moving so fast they were blurry, sweeping the shelves clean of Potato Chips, cookies, and chocolates!
Too lazy to even tear open the packaging, they just stuffed the whole bag into their mouths, chewed it up, and swallowed it.
With this kind of demeanor, even an environmental activist would have to kneel down and kowtow three times to her.
The shelves were emptying at a visible rate.
"Awesome! I never imagined that getting something for free could be this amazing!"
With a quick flick of her wrist, Mo Wan's shopping cart drifted to the next shelf.
However, just as the two were getting into the swing of things...
A figure suddenly appeared in their path.
Mo Wan didn't have time to brake, and she, the car, and everything else crashed into it.
The shock caused the snacks on the shelf to fall down with a clatter, burying the three of them into a colorful little mountain.
"Who is it! Which blind fool dares to bump into this big boob!"
Mo Wan struggled to peek out from the pile of snacks and roared.
"It's just like it..."
Lin Zhu emerged from the side, her face still covered in half a piece of seaweed, and she was still chewing.
Just then, two beams of flashlight light suddenly shone on the face of the person in front of them, the light so intense it was blinding.
Mo Wan subconsciously raised her hand to shield her eyes, squinting as she peered through her fingers.
A cowboy hat.
A white face.
And that ridiculously affected pose.
With his left hand on his forehead and his right hand pointing directly at the two of them, he tilted his chin slightly up, revealing what he considered to be a captivating smile.
"Hello, you two beautiful ladies~"
The young white man spoke up.
My name is Wang Jiahao.
Yes, you heard me right, don't be confused by my skin color~
"Actually, I'm a China student studying in Lion Country. That was my Chinese name~"
"Currently, I'm a prospective member of the Red Tiger Squad at the Seventh Base of the Lion Country. Of course, you can also call me by my title..."
He clicked his tongue and winked at the two of them.
"King Jiahao ~"