Killed with a single blast

"Little Wangwang, why did you run so far away?"

He Li raised an eyebrow and glanced at Lu Mingwang, who was hiding far away, amusement in her voice.

"I... I-I... am... n-not scared... need to pee..." Lu Mingwang stammered, his face pale.

He Li rolled her eyes alluringly, hooked a slender but powerful arm around Lu Mingwang's neck, and pulled him against her chest.

"What are you running for? You're a support-oriented Awakened now. Without any training, nobody's going to put you on the front lines. Besides, you're not even part of our Ninth Team. Why would we make you take the risk?"

"Sit here with me and enjoy the show."

"But, Xu Ye..." Lu Mingwang struggled for a moment.

He Li gave an inscrutable smile. "He's different from you. He's the Ninth Team's successor."

"You're the Eighth Team's cannon fodder."

Lu Mingwang: "..."

Xu Ye faced the Aberrant. Her appearance was so grotesque that she looked as though she had stepped out of a horror movie.

In an instant, both moved.

Dagger in hand, Xu Ye shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

After becoming an Awakened, his physical abilities had improved. With [Mayfly] boosting him, his speed was downright absurd.

His eyes were steady, killing intent stirring within them.

But the Aberrant was no slower.

She let out a rasping roar. The surrounding air seemed to warp, and the sunlight spilling down turned fluid, like flowing water.

"Children who don't study deserve to die!"

Die... die... die.

The echoes rippled outward.

Clang!

Their bodies crossed in an instant. Xu Ye's dagger struck her arm, but the Aberrant's limbs had become as hard as steel.

In the blink of an eye, each had struck three times.

Sparks flew in all directions. The blade sliced through the sunlight, and the violent air currents it generated shattered the surrounding classroom windows with a series of bangs.

He planted his foot to halt his momentum and immediately turned. Switching the dagger to his left hand, he hurled it at the Aberrant's face, lightning crackling along its blade.

The Aberrant was about to dodge when the tentacle on Xu Ye's right arm, which had somehow already wrapped around her waist, yanked her forward into the dagger's path.

Just as it was about to hit, the skin on the Aberrant's chest burst open. Black spiders the size of thumbs swarmed madly toward the dagger. After a great many spiders died, the dagger's attack was stopped.

It clattered to the ground.

"Ew, that's disgusting!" Alice said disdainfully.

As she spoke, the spider face broke into a savage, sinister grin. A profound sorrow welled up in Xu Ye's heart.

His vision went black.

Within that darkness, his mother's caring words filled his senses.

"Little Ye, are you feeling any better today?"

"Little Ye, come see what Mom bought you!"

"Little Ye, happy birthday."

This is bad!

Xu Ye's expression sharpened. He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, filling his mouth with the taste of blood. The searing pain snapped him back to his senses.

By then, she was already closing in.

With no time to dodge, Xu Ye took a punch head-on, rolled twice along the ground with its momentum to bleed off some of the force, and got back to his feet.

"She's strong."

Whoosh-

A piercing rush of air sounded overhead.

The Aberrant's nails suddenly lengthened, dripping black, bloody fluid.

Fuck!

That's cheating!

You're a spider-type Aberrant. What are you growing nails for?

Xu Ye's expression jolted, and he growled.

"Alice!"

"Got it!"

"I'll form the prostate!" Alice shouted.

What the fuck do you mean, prostate?

Do you think this is Transformers?

Whoosh...

Alice possessed him.

In an instant, Xu Ye's body became far more agile.

He glanced back, dodged her attack, and landed on the railing on all fours before leaping straight down from the third floor.

This place was utterly unsuited to fighting.

Seeing this, the Aberrant "spat" a strand of spider silk from her chest, stuck it to the wall, and swung down after Xu Ye.

Air whistled behind him. As though he had anticipated it, Xu Ye twisted his body strangely the instant he landed, moving like a water snake. Her sharp claws missed him entirely.

At the same time, Xu Ye braced one hand against the ground.

He flipped over.

He drew [Final Sigh] from his waist.

With less than a meter between them, he fired straight at her forehead.

Bang!

The spider face burst apart.

Yet no blood spilled out. Instead, a mass of tiny spiders scattered toward Xu Ye's face like flowers strewn from the heavens.

Fuck!

Xu Ye shuddered and hurriedly ducked out of the way.

As he ducked and rose, his tentacle lashed viciously at her body like a whip.

Every movement flowed seamlessly, as though it had all been calculated in advance.

Since her head was not a weak point, he would attack somewhere else.

Conventional reasoning did not apply to Aberrants.

The Aberrant shuddered all over. Her limbs grew even thinner and sharper, and her skin hardened. With a sudden spring, her body moved like a nimble spider, evading Xu Ye's strike.

"Children who don't study, die!"

She growled, the sound emerging from her abdomen. A slit opened there-or, more precisely, something resembling a vertical mouth.

As the mouth opened and closed, its sawlike teeth revealed a sharp white arrow formed from bonded spider silk. Without warning, it shot straight at Xu Ye's face.

Xu Ye wrapped his tentacle around the arrow, but her strength was so great that its remaining momentum drove him backward, sending a trash can flying.

After being driven back dozens more steps, Xu Ye slammed into the basketball hoop's support.

Xu Ye coughed. Although he had dispersed much of the force, the remaining impact was still considerable. His back ached. He was not seriously injured, but it was far from comfortable.

Now he understood.

Even Aberrants of the same rank differed in strength.

The Stray Dog Aberrant had not known how to fight.

But this one before him...

She seemed powerful!

Whoosh!

Without giving Xu Ye a chance to catch his breath, she lunged at him again.

Xu Ye dodged repeatedly. Her claws caught the basketball hoop's support, and the steel-like material hissed and emitted black smoke.

If those claws landed properly, they would probably tear off a chunk of flesh.

She attacked relentlessly. Large patches of skin across her body began to harden, becoming as tough as bone while remaining elastic.

Yet Xu Ye's evasions grew even more nimble.

His body seemed boneless. Whenever an attack arrived, he would twist at an uncanny angle and narrowly avoid it.

"Her energy reading is rising rapidly. It's reached 150!"

"The nearby Heavenly Dao is showing signs of distortion."

"Sister Li, you need to step in."

Li Yunyao's voice came through the earpiece, but Xu Ye paused slightly.

"Little Ye Ye, get out of the way!"

Hearing that, Xu Ye breathed a sigh of relief. His tentacle caught a pillar behind him, and his entire body hurtled toward it.

Up on the third floor, He Li stood on the balcony with a rocket launcher resting on her shoulder, though nobody knew when she had taken it out.

She sharply bent her knees.

Her shapely, slender legs were powerfully springy. The next second, her red-clad figure was already soaring through the air.

The muzzle aimed at the Aberrant.

This was an E-Rank Taboo Object that could normally be shrunk down and carried on her person.

At the same time, air seemed to swirl beneath He Li's feet, allowing her to hover briefly in midair.

She leaned slightly forward.

Her long wine-red hair danced, spreading through the air like a fairy's.

"Go!"

A red rocket bore straight down. The instant it struck the Aberrant, it exploded violently, and the powerful blast tore apart the surrounding vegetation.

Every pane of glass in the entire school shattered in that same instant!

Shock waves kept spreading in every direction, whipping up what looked like a sandstorm.

In the blink of an eye, yellow dust filled the sky.

At the very center of the explosion, a crater roughly ten meters across was faintly visible.

Xu Ye stared, dumbfounded.

He knew that E-Rank Taboo Objects were much rarer than F-Rank ones, and exceedingly expensive. Some sold for hundreds of millions. After all, these were the highest-ranked Taboo Objects ordinary people could use.

But he had never expected He Li to have so many on her.

She really is loaded.

He stood dazed for a moment.

Now he understood exactly why He Li had come along. Any Aberrant below the second aberration stage had only one possible fate when facing her.

Killed with a single blast!

While Xu Ye was still reeling from the shock, Alice's figure drifted back from the center of the blast, golden light swirling in her eyes.

She had used [Soul-Seizing].

"Xu Ye, we've got a big problem!"