As Gu Zhe and Ming Xuan reached the edge of the mist...
Within the area shrouded in mist...
Ming Xiao Fei was terrified and dejected... with just a tiny flicker of excitement.
Because moments earlier, she had used supernatural power to slay a two-meter-tall Pig Demon.
A pitch-black pig's head, fat-faced, large-eared, and hideously savage, now lay in the second-floor classroom.
Every student in the class stared at her with a complicated mix of fear, awe, and admiration.
Even the teacher, who often mocked her for being a poor student who hated doing homework, was staring in shock.
What had happened was fairly simple.
Everything had been normal today: the teacher lectured, the students competed relentlessly, and Ming Xiao Fei sprawled lazily over her desk, her mind wandering...
But suddenly, the sky darkened. Everyone ran out onto the balcony to look up and found the sun and moon hanging in the sky together, along with multiple phantom suns and moons. The mirages in the sky were equally astonishing.
Some students even joked that spiritual energy was returning and the apocalypse had arrived.
The next moment...
Mist shrouded the sky, something seemed to change in the air, and a tremendous boom erupted from the ground.
Then the buildings shook, the square split open without warning, and hills and huge trees suddenly forced their way out.
Fortunately, they were relatively lucky. Their classroom building merely tilted and shook, without collapsing.
They watched the laboratory building opposite them get ripped apart by a massive rock that suddenly rose beneath it. Its two halves slid away, and no one knew whether anyone had been hurt or killed.
Outside the school, some buildings collapsed outright, others tilted to one side, and some houses were lifted by the earth. Streets suddenly bulged upward, and dense clusters of trees with trunks thick enough to encircle with both arms burst out of the ground...
Countless cries of alarm rang out.
Everyone knew that this sudden transformation must have caused many casualties...
But then they stopped worrying about others.
Instead, they feared for their own lives!
Because along with the forests, hills, boulders, and other inanimate things, moving figures began emerging from crude, primitive wooden huts.
They were monsters with pig heads.
They covered their crotches with hides or leaves, each carrying a wooden club. Their black bristles resembled steel needles, their tusks were like halberds, and they were hideous, filthy, and utterly grotesque.
At first, they panicked too, but then they grew excited and frenzied.
They howled through their protruding, monstrous maws, and then...
"Urrgh!!"
Just recalling the scene made Ming Xiao Fei retch. She was not the only one; her classmates were the same.
That sight had been far beyond anything students who had always lived in peace could imagine.
They had watched a Pig Demon bite the head off a security guard who had been investigating. Blood sprayed from his headless body while blood and brain matter dribbled from the monster's chewing mouth...
Even now, Ming Xiao Fei's body trembled slightly, as though she could still hear the crunch of that monster eating a human head.
They had also seen a group of terrified people run toward the school. The moment they entered, the pig-headed monsters intercepted them, moving swiftly despite their bloated appearance.
Each monster grabbed a person, casually tore off arms or legs, and began eating them on the spot.
They ate with blood smeared all over their mouths, with guts and organs spilling everywhere! They ate as their victims screamed and wailed...
Everyone who witnessed that hellish horror could do nothing but tremble.
Some students with overactive imaginations had been joking about the apocalypse, never expecting it to actually arrive-or to be so cruel and brutal.
Countless people collapsed in terror on the spot, losing control of their bowels and bladders.
No one laughed at them, because everyone felt the same. Faced with those roughly two-meter-tall Pig Demons, thickset and fat, covered in black bristles, barefoot, savage, and vicious, who would not be afraid? Whose heart would not pound as their entire body turned cold...?
Just moments ago...
A Pig Demon had brazenly smashed open the classroom door and barged inside.
Drool streamed from its mouth as it laughed wildly, reaching out with one huge hand to seize a student.
At that critical moment, Ming Xiao Fei used the ritual incantation she had developed before to summon a divine general. Amid her classmates' panic and confusion, she finally opened a Spiritual Passage and connected with the divine general serving Brother Gu.
She received the divine power of swift killing, along with immense strength, ferocity, and the qualities of steel.
Then, at the crucial moment, she became a blur and struck at the completely unsuspecting Pig Demon, using her hand as a blade.
With an icy slash...
She severed the monster's head outright.
And so...
Ming Xiao Fei was now both terrified and afraid, yet proud and excited.
That hideous head lay in the classroom.
Its vicious, bell-sized eyes still held bewilderment and disbelief, unable to believe that a pathetically weak human child had slain it.
Ming Xiao Fei looked at her palm. She had never expected herself to be capable of killing a monster either.
She knew the Pig Demon's carelessness had played a part.
But more importantly, the power that had merged into her body was equally formidable. It seemed even stronger than when she had summoned it last time.
Her frail body now felt as though it had bronze skin and iron bones. When she swung her arm, it seemed capable of producing a piercing whistle and unleashing icy power.
She could race across the ground and along walls, truly scaling walls and crossing rooftops.
Seeing her classmates look at her as though she were an unrivaled martial master eased some of the terror in Ming Xiao Fei's heart.
A certain pride welled up too.
Hmph, do you still look down on this lousy student?
When she had performed the Spirit Rice Divination ritual last time, Ming Xiao Fei had actually hoped to impress her classmates with something mysterious.
But this time, the power was real.
Power-power that belonged to oneself-was the source of courage.
After killing the Pig Demon, even those earlier scenes that had terrified her and made her vomit seemed a little easier to bear.
The classroom fell silent for a moment.
"Oh my god, Xiao Fei wasn't bragging! She really does have immortal arts passed down in her family! She can summon gods and demons!"
"Boohoo, Xiao Fei, I was wrong! I'll never say you're practicing feudal superstition again!"
"Th-this... no wonder Ming Xiao Fei always acted like studying was optional. She was the protagonist all along! I should've realized it from that carefree attitude of hers."
"Xiao Fei, what martial art was that? Was it Windward One-Slash?"
"Boohoo, I'm so scared! I want my mom! Xiao Fei, please, you have to protect me!"
"Xiao Fei, now that the apocalypse is here, I know you'll be decisive and ruthless when you need to be. I promise I'll never fight over power and benefits like people in novels. We humans need to stick together now."
"Xiao Fei, thank you! Thank you for saving me! That Pig Demon's drool was already dripping onto my head. I almost got eaten! Boohoo, thank you, thank you! All the figurines at my house are yours from now on!"
"Xiao Fei, did you awaken some kind of superpower? Do we have a chance too?"
"Stop shouting! There are still monsters outside, especially over there... over there, there's an even bigger monster!"
Through a gap, Ming Xiao Fei also saw that towering monster, over three meters tall, arrogant and vicious. With a casual reach, it plucked someone out of a tilted building, tossed them into its mouth, and chewed in great mouthfuls.
A casual slap of its bristly, clawed hand shattered concrete and tore apart doors and windows. Occasionally, someone brave attacked it with knives or forks, but they could not so much as scratch its limbs. Instead, it laughed heartily, scooped up those humans with amusement, and stuffed them into its mouth, savoring them as screams and wails escaped from within...
A monster was a monster.
It was no ordinary beast, with no ordinary flesh and no ordinary savagery.
Watching that terrifying, horrifying scene...
Even with a "divine general" possessing her, Ming Xiao Fei felt fear in her heart.
Because this clearly boss-like Pig Demon felt even more dangerous than the ghost that had possessed her before.
The teacher finally recovered as well.
Trembling, the teacher glanced at the Pig Demon on the floor.
"Xiao Fei, I misunderstood you before. I never imagined you weren't finishing your homework because you had something truly important to do. I won't interfere with your cultivation anymore."
"Xiao Fei, how strong are you now? Can you save the other students?"
As the teacher spoke...
Everyone could hear students screaming on the floors above and below.
The teacher shuddered, and Ming Xiao Fei's expression tightened.
After all, those were schoolmates they had seen every day, and now monsters were slaughtering them.
"Xiao Fei, I've watched television and movies too. How strong are you? Help others when you can, and protect yourself when you can't... and that even more terrifying demon out on the street, can you deal with it?"
"If you can't..."
There was a brief silence.
Looking at Ming Xiao Fei's expression, the teacher could more or less guess the answer.
"Then we can't take risks. I'm sure the government will find a way... what we need now is time..."
Ming Xiao Fei was about to answer.
Some of her classmates let out startled cries.
A scroll she had placed inside her desk had floated into the air.
Ming Xiao Fei froze for a moment.
Then the divine general possessing her sent her a message.
A moment later, she understood.
Following its instructions, she relinquished control of her body, and a cold, sinister current of energy surged from the possessing divine general into the scroll.
Then...
It was as though the final thin membrane had been pierced.
Some kind of energy finally connected the inside and outside.
A dark, vortex-like thing appeared in the air.
Ming Xiao Fei regained control of her body too.
Her expression relaxed with relief.
"Don't be afraid, everyone. These are Brother Gu's guardian divine generals. Brother Gu has come to save us."
The next moment...
Countless students cried out in shock.
Because strange beings squeezed out of that dark vortex, one after another.
Without Ming Xiao Fei's explanation, everyone would already have fled.
Those beings looked stiff and vacant from the front, and impossibly thin from the side. As they walked, they seemed to twist like ghosts. Compared with the Pig Demons, they looked even more like uncanny aberrations.