"It... it's nothing."
Lin An looked away.
He guessed that what had happened in the dream was likely the lingering will within the scale causing trouble.
Still, it left him feeling uneasy.
Gu Yue lay obediently on him.
At an angle he could not see, the corners of her lips secretly curled upward.
What happened in the dream?
She did not remember.
She remembered nothing at all.
Since the Dragon Queen liked females, she would become the Dragon Queen's most loyal little fangirl from now on.
As a dragon, one had to maintain flexible standards for survival.
A dragon who could both attack and defend was a qualified dragon.
Just then, another figure appeared at the door.
Dressed in snow-white robes, his face as frosty as ice.
Wu Zhangkong stood at the doorway, his gaze sweeping over the room as his brows furrowed slightly.
Gu Yue was sprawled atop Lin An, her arms still wrapped around his waist.
The posture was far too intimate.
But Wu Zhangkong was not in the mood to concern himself with that.
He had caught the lingering evil aura in the air.
"Did an Evil Spirit Master come by just now?"
His expression darkened as he strode forward.
"How are you?"
He grabbed Gu Yue off Lin An as though lifting an unruly cat and set her aside.
Then he bent down and placed his palm against Lin An's forehead.
A stream of cold yet gentle Soul Power entered his meridians, making a circuit through his limbs and body.
A moment later, Wu Zhangkong withdrew his hand.
"Your mind took a blow. It's nothing serious. Rest for a day and you'll be fine."
His tone was cold and stiff, but his tense shoulders relaxed for an instant.
Then his expression turned even darker.
Long Hengxu had made it sound so impressive.
Some god-grade mecha, some True God Domain coverage.
And what had happened?
An Evil Spirit Master's curse had practically landed on Lin An's face, yet that mecha had not reacted at all?
Wu Zhangkong sneered inwardly.
External things truly could not be relied upon.
"Shouldn't you be in class?"
He turned toward Gu Yue, his gaze sharp.
Gu Yue stood there, twisting the hem of her clothes between her fingers. Her eyes wandered, her lips pressed tightly together, and she said nothing.
Wu Zhangkong did not press her.
He merely gave her a thoughtful look before heading for the door.
When he reached the frame, his steps paused slightly.
He had not noticed how Gu Yue had entered.
He had been guarding the doorway the entire time.
With the perception of a Soul Emperor, even a mosquito flying down the corridor could not escape his ears.
Yet Gu Yue had simply appeared without a sound.
If he had not sensed that fleeting, inhumanly terrifying aura, he still would not have known someone had entered the room.
Wu Zhangkong stood in the doorway in silence for several seconds.
In the end, he looked back at Lin An and Gu Yue once, then disappeared down the corridor without a word.
Meanwhile.
Eastsea City.
Tens of thousands of meters above the ground.
This place had already broken free of the planet's gravitational pull.
The endless starry sky stretched out before them, stars glimmering in the darkness, cold and eternal.
A mecha slowly emerged from the dark void.
Its streamlined shell was covered in dense arrays.
The mecha was not particularly large, even a size smaller than the Federation's standard-issue mechas.
Yet as it hovered there in silence, the surrounding void began to distort.
Rainbow Light Verdict.
Universal Heavy Industry's third-generation nuclear fusion-powered mecha.
One of the True God-Grade Mechas of which the Federation publicly possessed no more than five.
Within the core cockpit, a translucent silhouette slowly condensed.
It took the form of a woman with her eyes closed.
Her pinkish-purple hair cascaded down like a waterfall. Her features were nearly flawless, and an aura of cool nobility seemed frozen between her brows.
Codename—"Shadow Brake."
Her core was not an ordinary Soul Spirit.
Universal Group had captured the most terrifying and powerful soul fragment in the world from the curses of countless dead souls within the Rakshasa Secret Realm.
That remnant soul had possessed a noble status and monstrous strength in life. Even after death, its resentment had endured for ten thousand years.
Universal Group had paid an unimaginable price to suppress, cleanse, and reshape it into the one and only Artificial Soul Spirit in the world.
She slowly opened her eyes.
They were an extremely pale violet, with an icy light that did not belong to the mortal world circulating in the depths of her pupils.
"Abnormal mental fluctuations detected."
Her voice held no emotional inflection.
"Determined to be an Evil Spirit Master incursion. Preliminary target lock—Holy Spirit Cult."
The instant her words fell, invisible ripples descended from the sky.
Terrifying spiritual power, like a giant invisible hand, swept outward in all directions with Rainbow Light Verdict at its center.
The air trembled.
The clouds were ripped apart, revealing the brightly lit Eastsea City below.
Spiritual scan.
Full-city coverage.
Every corner, every soul, every presence hidden in the darkness.
In that instant, all were locked onto, analyzed, and marked by that cold, merciless perception.
The first to bear the brunt of it was the Spirit Pagoda.
The top floor of the Spirit Pagoda.
Leng Yaozhu stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking up at the sky.
Her reddish-brown hair fell softly down her back. Her moon-white cheongsam was embroidered with crimson feather patterns, its collar fitting snugly around her slender neck.
Her delicate brows and eyes were serene, her bearing ethereal.
But at this moment, the look in her eyes was far from pleasant.
She had sensed it.
That wave of spiritual power had locked onto her like an invisible blade.
Cold.
Precise.
Completely without emotion.
Leng Yaozhu had no doubt that if she revealed even the slightest anomaly, the Spirit Pagoda would face a saturated bombardment of God-Slaying fixed soul cannon shells.
"Universal Heavy Industry..."
She repeated those four words coldly, her voice seeming to squeeze through clenched teeth.
"Is a child barely in their teens worth such a grand display from you?"
Her fingers tightened slightly.
That spiritual scan lingered on her for a full three seconds before receding like the tide and turning toward its next target.
Three seconds—for the lock-on system of a True God-Grade Mecha, that was already remarkably "courteous" treatment.
But Leng Yaozhu did not feel honored.
"Using radar to sweep me."
She took a deep breath, so furious that her chest heaved violently.
But faced with the All-Equalizer Bomb, she behaved herself.
Leng Yaozhu took another deep breath.
She forced herself to calm down.
She began considering another question.
What exactly was Universal Heavy Industry's purpose in coming to Eastsea City?
Her gaze passed through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The city lights flowed beneath her, finally settling on a dark outline in the distance.
That was Eastsea Academy.
"And that girl Gu Yue and the Lin Family boy are getting far too close."
Her brows furrowed slightly.
For the first time, she felt that taking on disciples was truly troublesome.
After all, Rainbow Light Verdict was still hanging above them.
That thing's way of thinking was entirely different from a human's.
If it happened to classify certain actions by Gu Yue as a "threat to Lin An"...
Leng Yaozhu shuddered.
Inside the dormitory.
Lin An leaned against the headboard.
The blanket was pulled up to his chin, exposing only half his face.
Gu Yue sat in the chair beside the bed.
One leg was folded beneath her, while the other swung gently.
She held a piece of pastry in her hand and stuffed it into her mouth.
Her cheeks puffed out like a hamster's.
"Wifey, this is so delicious!"
She spoke indistinctly, then grabbed another piece.
Before you continue