"Change the local climate directly?"
Gu Yuan's eyes widened, and he suddenly felt a chill creep up his back.
If that janitor really was a Warlock at least at the Alchemist Realm, then if Gu Yuan had taken even one more look at him at school, he'd probably be lying in the morgue by now.
On-screen, the burly man clenched his right fist. The dark golden armor of astral energy covering his body receded like a tide, and all the energy rushed toward his right fist.
When astral energy formed armor, it multiplied one's defenses.
When it formed a blade, it could cut through iron like mud.
The dark golden energy on the man's arm suddenly gathered around his fist. His right hand shone as brightly as if it had been cast from gold.
Then he slammed his fist into the ice spreading up toward him.
"Boom—!"
The ice encasing his legs shattered into countless fragments. The golden fist energy surged forward, spanning dozens of meters before crashing into the ground.
First, it blasted a crater ten meters across in the factory floor. Then the fist energy exploded, unleashing a circular shock wave.
The shock wave swept over the abandoned equipment around them, shattering it and sending pieces flying.
Iron frames twisted, brick walls collapsed, and dust billowed into the air.
The instant his legs were free, the burly man planted both feet against a support strut of the water tower and kicked off hard.
The steel frame beneath him twisted under his weight. He shot upward again, his body becoming a dark golden arrow as he lunged straight for the Warlock atop the tower.
Was this the limit of a Martial Artist at the Astral Manifestation Realm? His speed in that instant was so great that Gu Yuan couldn't even see him, let alone dodge.
But the Alchemist Realm Warlock reacted even faster.
The gray-robed Warlock quickly formed a hand seal with his right hand, and the divine core between his brows suddenly blazed brighter.
A sea of flames poured out from in front of him.
The fire cascaded down from the top of the water tower like a waterfall. The iron frame softened into molten metal, which dripped onto the ice below.
Half of the abandoned factory was frozen, while the other half was engulfed in flames.
Ice and fire collided furiously along the boundary between them, sending steam billowing into the sky.
The person filming had clearly been terrified by the sight. The camera shook violently,
but the savage attacks still couldn't stop the burly man's advance.
His dark golden astral energy ripped a path through the flames. Braving temperatures of several thousand degrees, he forced his way upward.
The distance between them closed rapidly.
Ten meters.
Five meters.
Three meters.
The Warlock's expression finally shifted. He furrowed his brow slightly, stopped forming hand seals, and thrust his right hand forward.
The Martial Artist suspended in midair suddenly went rigid.
It was as if an invisible giant hand had clamped around his throat. The muscles in his face twisted instantly.
He came to a dead stop in midair, his forward momentum completely erased. Then, like a marionette with its strings cut, he dropped straight down.
"A mental attack?"
Gu Yuan swallowed.
The Warlock looked down at the falling Martial Artist and began forming hand seals again. Blinding lightning crackled at his fingertips.
Just then,
everything changed!
The Martial Artist, plummeting at high speed, suddenly opened his eyes.
In the last instant before he hit the ground, the burly man pressed the fingers of his right hand together and abruptly flicked it upward.
A concentrated stream of dark golden astral energy burst from his palm.
The energy left his body and became a massive fist, tearing through the air from several yards away and striking straight at the Warlock's face!
Then—
The screen suddenly went black.
The video cut off.
A cold notification appeared in the center of the screen: "This video violated our rules and has been ordered to be deleted. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation."
Gu Yuan froze.
He stared at the notification for a full three seconds.
"Damn it! I took my pants off and this is what you show me?"
Gu Yuan was so furious he nearly smashed his phone. That awful feeling of being left hanging was almost worse than death.
He lay on the bed.
What a string of bad luck, all at once!
He hoped the disappearance case would be resolved soon and that nothing else would go wrong.
First the school competition, then a disappearance at school—one thing after another.
There was definitely something wrong with the feng shui at First High School.
"There's no way I'm going back to that school. Even if the Heavenly King himself shows up, I'm not going."
He'd have to buy a protective talisman tomorrow.
No, ten of them. He'd hang them all around his neck.
Deep beneath Sea City, in the depths of an abandoned civil-defense bunker.
Sunlight never reached this place. The air was heavy with the stench of mold and the foul odor of sewage fermenting.
A dim yellow bulb hung from the concrete ceiling.
A few rats scurried through the drain in the corner, splashing water as they passed.
An old folding table stood in the center of the empty space.
Three men in loose black robes stood around it.
"Smack!"
A sharp slap rang through the empty underground passage.
The echo bounced off the concrete walls, instantly silencing the rats in the drain.
The black-robed man on the far right was struck so hard that his head snapped to the side. He stumbled backward two steps.
His hood slipped off, revealing the unremarkable face of a middle-aged man.
He was the janitor who had pushed a cleaning cart around First High School that day.
The black-robed man standing in the middle lowered his right hand. It was covered in black fur, clearly not a normal human arm.
"Yu Xiaozheng! I've told you to get rid of your bad habits! You've barely arrived, and you've already caused trouble!"
The man in the middle's chest heaved as he pointed at Yu Xiaozheng's nose and cursed him out.
"We came to Sea City on a mission! The higher-ups gave us strict orders. There can't be any mistakes!"
He suddenly raised his leg and kicked over the folding table in front of him.
The metal table crashed onto the concrete floor.
Several maps of Sea City and a few formation stones covered in intricate patterns scattered across the ground.
"Now look what you've done! We've only just arrived in Sea City!"
"People from the Destiny Bureau headquarters are already involved!"
"All seven teleportation formations we set up around Sea City in advance have stopped working!"
The man in the middle pointed at the formation stones on the floor.
"We've lost every escape route! This is all your damn fault!"
Yu Xiaozheng straightened up and covered his swollen, reddened left cheek with his hand.
"Big Brother, I didn't expect this either!"
He took a step forward and spoke urgently.
"I had no idea that a regular high school student going missing would bring people from the Destiny Bureau straight to the scene to investigate!"
"Let alone how they figured out that a Warlock at the Alchemist Realm was involved!"
The man in the middle stepped over the overturned table and grabbed Yu Xiaozheng by the collar.
"If you hadn't gone out of your way to wipe away every trace of energy at the crime scene, how would they have noticed anything was wrong?"
Yu Xiaozheng's feet lifted off the ground as the man held him by the collar.
"Big Brother, if I hadn't wiped them away, what if they'd tracked us by our energy?"
"If you could've just kicked that bad habit, no one would've gone missing, and the Destiny Bureau wouldn't have come investigating!" the man in the middle shouted at him as he continued to make excuses.
Yu Xiaozheng protested loudly, spittle flying.
"Big Brother, I never expected a backwater city like Sea City to have someone in its Destiny Bureau branch who could investigate and figure out my realm!"
"And she's only a second-tier Warlock. I really didn't expect that!"
Before you continue