Xie An's Unwarranted Calamity

The two Mythic Walkers almost instinctively assumed defensive stances, yet they still could not withstand the howling gale.

The gale, laced with Baleful Chill, tore apart the two Mythic Walkers' black robes in an instant, revealing the bodies beneath.

Yellow Wind Little Sage's expression shifted slightly. Beneath those black robes, neither Mythic Walker had a human body.

One had a withered body, as though formed from deadwood. The other was covered in fur and spots, like a bizarre, ferocious hyena.

Far away on campus, Zhou Yao frowned slightly. Flipping through his copy of Mythology General Knowledge, he found a particular page.

The illustration on that page showed a humanoid creature whose entire body had turned to wood, nearly identical to the black-robed figure facing Yellow Wind Little Sage.

Beneath the image, the three words "Aberrant" were clearly marked.

Strictly speaking, Aberrants are a degraded form of Mythic Walker.

When someone uses an incorrect ritual and forcibly accommodates inferior Mythic Material without a Mythic Trait, there is a very small chance that they will survive and become an Aberrant.

Aberrants possess no Mythic Traits. Instead, they fuse themselves with the Mythic Material itself, allowing them to manipulate Mythic Factors. Their strength and physical resilience far surpass those of ordinary people, and they can even accommodate multiple Mythic Materials to enhance themselves.

However, Aberrants are themselves an erroneous path. They are easily assimilated by Lost Mythology and cannot venture deep into the Celestial Circuit Realm.

Since Aberrants have a certain chance of losing control, coupled with their extremely low survival rate, creating Aberrants has been listed as a prohibited matter by the Federation. Any organization attempting to create Aberrants will be monitored by the Mythology Investigation Bureau.

Zhou Yao's gaze swept across the information in his Mythology General Knowledge textbook. He raised a brow slightly, a meaningful smile appearing at the corner of his lips.

"Monitored by the Mythology Investigation Bureau?"

Meanwhile, in that dead-end alley far away, the two exposed Aberrants endured the baleful, freezing gale with their powerful bodies and charged toward the yellow-furred little mouse carrying a steel trident.

"Dare ruin the Night Banquet Gang's business? You're courting death!"

The Deadwood Aberrant wove its body into a massive hand that pressed down from above, while the Hyena Aberrant's foul saliva dripped from its mouth as it pounced like a savage beast.

Yellow Wind Little Sage looked at the two Aberrants before him with a sigh, then shook his head lightly and said,

"I only used Sha Qi because I wanted to capture you and ask a few questions. Did you really think these battered fleshly bodies of yours could withstand my Wind Arts?"

As his words fell, the gale filled with icy chill transformed in an instant into wind and sand that blanketed the sky, descending like a giant hand suppressing everything below.

Wind Arts: Flying Sand and Rolling Stones!

Bang!

The two bodies slammed violently into the ground. The fine sand erupted with terrifying force, smashing two enormous pits into the earth.

In Yellow Wind Little Sage's perception, the two Aberrants were merely equivalent to Scavenger Second Rank. They did not even qualify to enter a New Realm for exploration, and he could suppress them with a casual backhand.

Then the Baleful Chill spread out, freezing most of their bodies and cutting off their ability to resist.

Only then did Yellow Wind Little Sage disperse most of his Wind Arts. He walked over to the pits, looked down at the two of them, and slowly said,

"Tell me everything about Fortune Shop and the Night Banquet Gang, down to the last detail. Then I may consider sparing your lives."

The Hyena Aberrant widened its eyes and glared furiously at Yellow Wind Little Sage.

"We are acting under the orders of a great figure from the Yinshan Investigation Branch. Touch us, and you will become an enemy of the Night Banquet Gang and the Yinshan Investigation Branch!"

Faced with that threat, Yellow Wind Little Sage could not even be bothered to lift his eyelids. With a light wave of his little paw, a stream of wind and sand slipped into the Hyena Aberrant's gaping mouth.

In an instant, the wind and sand containing magical power shredded the Hyena Aberrant's internal organs completely. Wind and sand stained with blood and fragments of viscera burst out through its body, dyeing the gale in the dead-end alley with a streak of crimson.

Although Yellow Wind Little Sage tended to follow his heart, he had no softhearted mercy in him. Since these hyenas from the Night Banquet Gang had chosen to ambush and kill him, they had to bear the Cost themselves.

After dealing with the Hyena Aberrant, Yellow Wind Little Sage turned his shadowed gaze upon the Deadwood Aberrant.

Having witnessed Yellow Wind Little Sage's clean and decisive actions, the Deadwood Aberrant had long since been terrified out of its wits. It hurriedly begged for mercy.

"My lord, I'll talk! I'll talk!!!"

Only through the Deadwood Aberrant's stumbling account did Yellow Wind Little Sage learn the cause and course of the matter.

The Night Banquet Gang had originally been a major gang in Yin Mountain City. Although it had several Mythic Walkers, there were quite a few organizations comparable to the Night Banquet Gang in scale.

Rumors in the underworld claimed that the Night Banquet Gang had ties to the Yinshan Investigation Branch, but everyone had merely treated it as gossip. After all, the Yinshan Investigation Branch could not possibly lower itself to meddle in the civilian underworld.

Yet just over a month ago, a great figure from the Yinshan Investigation Branch openly expressed support for the Night Banquet Gang and helped it swiftly unify Yin Mountain City's underworld forces.

Moreover, the upper ranks of the Night Banquet Gang obtained rituals from the Yinshan Investigation Branch, allowing them to use inferior Mythic Materials to mass-produce Aberrants. As a result, the Night Banquet Gang's strength soared, and it expanded its territory into the Yinshan Black Market.

The Investigation Bureau had paid such a great Cost because it wanted the Night Banquet Gang to monitor civilian Mythic Walkers, especially the forces connected to the Yinshan Black Market.

As a Mythic Walker with connections in the Five Great Academies, Xie An, the owner of Fortune Shop, was naturally among the targets being watched.

Two days earlier, Xie An, the owner of Fortune Shop, had sent a message to the provincial capital, seemingly seeking to purchase special Mythic Material.

However, with natural disasters spreading throughout the outside world recently, communication and logistics channels had been affected. Xie An therefore prepared to travel to the provincial capital himself to purchase Mythic Material.

This should have been perfectly ordinary, but once that piece of news was reported to the Yinshan Investigation Branch, it immediately caught the attention of a great figure there.

That great figure issued an order overnight to capture Xie An, the owner of Fortune Shop, along with the Mythic Walkers connected to him, plunging the black market into turmoil for a time.

But during the arrest, Xie An had advanced to Scavenger Second Rank. Combined with the extraordinary foundation of a genius student from the Five Great Academies, this ultimately caused the Night Banquet Gang's vice leader to misjudge Xie An's strength, allowing Xie An to escape successfully.

The Night Banquet Gang's upper ranks flew into a rage and ordered that Xie An's whereabouts be found at all costs.

Since Yellow Wind Little Sage had lingered outside Fortune Shop today, he was naturally regarded as Xie An's accomplice and targeted by the Night Banquet Gang's watchers.

After hearing the Deadwood Aberrant's account, Yellow Wind Little Sage's expression remained unchanged, but he immediately realized why Xie An had been targeted.

"The Yinshan Investigation Branch has sealed off all of Yin Mountain City, and there are very few people capable of leaving it.

As a former prodigy of the Five Great Academies, Xie An is also connected to the Ten Great Yin Marshals of the Ancient Underworld. One could say that he possesses potential on the level of a deity.

Even though Xie An took the wrong path and his advancement was obstructed, he still has connections beyond the reach of ordinary people. One can see as much from the fact that a seer from the Five Great Academies guided him to Yin Mountain City.

If Xie An successfully sends out a message and opens a route in and out, the Yinshan Investigation Branch will be completely unable to stop him.

To prevent the Yinshan Investigation Branch's scheme from being exposed, they can only move against Xie An."

At that thought, the corner of Yellow Wind Little Sage's mouth twitched slightly.

"Boss Xie An had only just escaped his advancement predicament, and now he had turned around and fallen into the Yinshan Investigation Branch's conspiracy. There has to be something strange about that luck of his."