Overwhelming force! The reaper in the gale!

On the sports field, a girl stood beneath the dormitory building, looking up at the shattered second-floor windows. Wind circled around her, gently lifting her smooth, long hair.

Her ears twitched gently, as though someone had flicked her earlobes.

"The Netherworld... has been destroyed."

He Siying was not surprised. With Liu Yiyi taking action, a mere level 3 Netherworld would only be destroyed in an instant. That was the inevitable outcome.

But she had not forgotten what Shen Bai had said.

"But as luck would have it, its ability seems a little similar to mine, and its rank is about the same."

Shen Bai held the "tailor" inheritance, the seventh art, "Mending the Broken," which should have corresponded to a level 4 Evil Sin.

In other words... that level 3 one was not the main threat.

"What happened?!!"

Far away, a man came running toward the dormitory building.

Had Shi Yu and the others been there, they would have recognized him at a glance.

Yang Desheng.

The person Han He feared most. The intense stench of Evil Sin on him had once frightened Shi Yu into trembling, and he had tampered with the roommates around Hu Zihao. He was the most deeply influential figure in the collusion between the Evil Sins and the school administration.

Yang Desheng ran over in terror, his eyes wide. As though he could not see He Siying standing there, he was about to charge straight past her.

"Students! There are still students in the dorm!"

Yang Desheng looked anxious, as though he cared immensely about the students inside.

He Siying showed little reaction and merely watched him quietly.

Yang Desheng quickly passed He Siying, opened the dormitory building's main door, and rushed inside. He Siying looked at the door and tilted her head slightly.

But the instant Yang Desheng disappeared from He Siying's sight, a terrifying current of air erupted around her! It surged upward from the ground, and the paving stones split instantly under the tremendous wind pressure. Tiny stones and grains of sand shot out like miniature bullets!

At that same instant, Yang Desheng's figure appeared beside He Siying. His expression twisted viciously as he reached out with his right arm to grab her.

But in a mere instant, Yang Desheng's entire right arm was pulverized by the violent wind and flying grit!

He Siying turned toward Yang Desheng, whose expression had darkened, then raised her right hand and swept it swiftly in his direction. An enormous column of wind roared along the direction of her fingers. Dust and withered leaf fragments outlined the wind's shape, like a dragon or serpent!

Yang Desheng clearly could not dodge. He could only curl up and bury his head between his knees, hoping to withstand this assault head-on.

But that was clearly impossible.

The storm blasted toward him. Shifting air pressure and currents produced a piercing whine through friction, and the wind sliced through Yang Desheng's skin layer by layer like countless fine blades.

The wind pinned Yang Desheng against a lamppost. His body seemed to be stripped away in shreds by a grater, all his flesh sliced off and blown away by the column of wind. The wind gouged his eyeballs from their sockets, and two leaves quickly severed the optic nerves connecting them. His lips had been the first things torn apart.

Soon, the gale had flayed Yang Desheng into an incomplete skeleton. Only then did He Siying slowly lower her hand, and the surrounding wind and air currents gradually subsided.

"..."

He Siying looked at Yang Desheng's ruined skeleton, fell silent for a moment, then closed her eyes.

Wind swirled up once more around this seemingly gentle girl.

"Impossible!! How could you see through my cognitive interference?!! Your power is clearly on par with mine!"

A venomous voice rang out nearby. Where was Yang Desheng now? There was only a bizarre, twisted shadow hiding beneath a young pine tree, its entire body covered in strange pupils and markings, disgusting black slime rolling over it.

Still unwilling to give up, it projected its voice elsewhere, hoping to misdirect He Siying's thinking.

He did not want to give up! If he could just survive this, within three days! Within three days, he could complete his advancement ritual! Once it reached level 5, it would have a place of its own, and its ability would undergo a qualitative change. He could not accept this! Its child was already dead! If it fled now, all its efforts over so long, this perfectly suitable identity, would all go to waste! And once its ability reached level 5, ordinary people would no longer be able to do anything to him! Was it all going to come to nothing?!

A swift, shrieking wind blade answered in He Siying's place.

It had been found again!

Why did cognitive interference not work on her? Aaaah!!

"Bastard!!! Bastard!!! You filthy bitch!"

There was no choice. No matter how unwilling it was, it had to run! The Netherworld had already been destroyed, and for some unknown reason, it could not fool the girl before it. Its ability was not suited to direct combat. If it did not leave now, it would be too late.

It hastily dodged the sharp wind blade, imposed a memory-blocking effect on He Siying, and rapidly faded from view as it crawled swiftly toward the classroom building!

"As long as I get inside the classroom building and cause some chaos, I can easily escape with my ability!"

As it watched the classroom building draw closer, that was what it was thinking when it suddenly felt its whole body grow light.

A powerful storm abruptly rose beneath it, tossing it high into the air.

It looked behind itself in disbelief. He Siying's arms were raised slightly, and the wind was slowly lifting her entire body. She was already floating in the air. Whirling currents circled her in orderly patterns without even mussing her long hair.

She seemed completely unaffected. She simply looked at the Evil Sin she had lifted into the air, tilting her head slightly as she regarded it with a trace of confusion.

"Impossible! I used my full strength just now. Even a human one level above me would lose at least three hours or so of memories under that influence! Someone at my level would lose at least a full day's worth. How could she have reacted immediately?!"

The Evil Sin struggled violently, but it could clearly feel the wind pressure around it increasing.

He Siying had little expression; she merely looked a little puzzled. Pale-blue vortices seemed to be forming in her pupils, and power flowed around her with the wind, stirring up spirals. Billowing in the wind, her pink sweater resembled a cloud of dusky mist, and her black hair swayed like a waterfall.

She resembled a fairy who governed the wind, gentle breezes showing her mercy, fierce gales showing her might.

Watching the Evil Sin caught in ropes of wind before her, she slowly extended both hands and twisted them in front of herself, as though wringing out a towel.

"Wait! Don't! Wait! Don't kill me! I can give you what you want! I can create realistic illusions. Whatever your needs are, I can satisfy them! Don't kill me! Don-"

"Crrrk-crrk-crack-crack----screee!!!"

Within that confined space, the wind instantly twisted into tremendous pressure. The Evil Sin's body popped and cracked under the terrifying pressure and currents. The wind was a blade, an axe, a whip, a club that penetrated every gap, battering it into a mangled wreck in an instant.

The wind did not last long. More precisely, the Evil Sin did not hold out for long. The storm quickly dispersed.

And at the instant it dispersed, a terrifying whistle-like howl replaced the Evil Sin's agonized screams.

Its pleas for mercy had accomplished nothing. Before it could finish speaking, the twisting wind pressure had wrung it alive into a heap of shattered filth. It had not even had time to curse.

He Siying slowly descended, her toes touching down lightly as she landed with a soft movement.

Her movements gentle and unhurried, she walked step by step toward the place where the Evil Sin had been twisted apart.

Disgusting chunks of its corpse lay scattered there, and in their midst lay a hollow black crystal shaped like a date pit.

He Siying blinked and extended her right hand.

A gust of wind swept up the crystal and delivered it into He Siying's hand.

He Siying looked it over, then raised it toward the afternoon sun to examine it carefully.

The sun was hidden behind the clouds just then and was not particularly dazzling. The clouds drifted slowly, and there was no telling when they would release that lone luminous celestial body from their embrace.

Once He Siying had looked her fill, she carefully placed the crystal in her pocket.

The surrounding air seemed to be suddenly tugged by someone, slowly letting out a soothing hiss of escaping air.

But neither the people in the classroom building nor those in the dormitory building, who had awakened because of the Evil Sins' deaths, heard anything.

He Siying looked at her dissipating "Wind-Speech Domain," but could not remember when she had set it up.

Then she murmured to herself:

"Where is this? Why am I here? How strange."

"Sister Ying!!"

Just as He Siying was puzzling over it, she suddenly heard a familiar voice calling her name from behind.

It was far away, and the voice was not especially loud, but He Siying's ladder, "Wind Language," easily carried it to her ears.

"...Xiao Liang?"

He Siying turned and looked at the boy running toward her from far away, waving as he came.

The boy was young, looking about the same age as Shi Yu and the others. He wore a loose light-gray jacket over a white shirt, while his black track pants made him look even thinner.

As he ran, his skinny frame shifted a little independently of his jacket. He had a face that looked clever at first glance, and his eyes, which usually held a hint of slyness, now looked somewhat worried.

"Sister Ying, are you all right? I just sensed a powerful fluctuation from that Evil Sin. Shen Bai said it could alter memories and interfere with cognition. How do you feel now?"

Huo Qiuliang ran to He Siying as fast as he could and looked her up and down.

He Siying's "Wind-Speech Domain" could completely isolate all sound within its area while creating swirling currents around the perimeter. It looked like a heavy sandstorm, making it difficult to see what was happening inside from outside.

"...My memories were probably erased. I'm missing roughly... a day's worth? Don't worry."

He Siying thought briefly before answering. Although she said her memories had been erased, her expression showed that she did not care about it at all. She looked as calm as ever.

"Huh?! You could still catch it right away after losing a day of memories?"

Huo Qiuliang was astonished. As a newcomer who had only recently joined, he had rarely seen the others on the team in actual combat.

"If a day of memories gets erased, at that instant there should at least be confusion about your location, a mismatch in your surroundings, and a dazed effect on your actions. Sister Ying, you..."

Huo Qiuliang was a little worried. He looked at the usually gentle girl, who was slightly shorter than he was. After looking her over, he discovered that there was not even a damaged spot on her.

He Siying's expression remained unruffled. The look in her eyes returned to its usual gentleness, and she tilted her head, her long hair swaying softly with the movement.

"Effects? What about them? When you see an Evil Sin, you should kill it."

Huo Qiuliang paused slightly, as though a memory had flashed before his eyes.

Then he grinned too.

"Yeah, that's right."

A trace of hatred entered Huo Qiuliang's voice. His whole demeanor grew gloomy.

But soon, Huo Qiuliang perked up again and said:

"Then I'll go over the broad outline of our operation again~ We can talk while we meet up with Yiyi, and leave the cleanup to Shen Bai."

As he spoke, Huo Qiuliang pointed toward the blasted-open second-floor bathroom of the boys' dormitory.

"First, we came to the school. If we found anything wrong with the school gate guards, I would control them, then you and Yiyi would head straight for the Netherworld..."

Meanwhile, at the school gate.

Two security guards drank tea and chatted, occasionally glancing at the entrance's surveillance feed.

In their eyes, everything was normal.

No one had suddenly entered, no gale had suddenly risen, and no flames had erupted with a thunderous explosion.

Everything was exactly the same as always.

Dull, simple, and utterly uninteresting.

Liu Yiyi had already finished all her work.

Behind her, the level 3 Evil Sin was long since thoroughly dead, leaving not even bones or any sign of resistance. In an instant, fire and heat had reshaped it, but that high-temperature forging had exceeded the limits of what it could endure, so it had turned to ash.

But it had not left behind the kind of crystal that the one He Siying killed had left.

"Broke bastard. Couldn't even drop a single piece of 'filth.'"

Those were Liu Yiyi's exact words.

And the "Netherworld" before her, a pallid fissure hidden in the drainpipe beneath a squat toilet, had also been burned completely away by Liu Yiyi.

The flames scorched the pipes, and the crackling and pungent smell of burning rubber made even Hu Zihao, out in the corridor, cough.

That pallid Netherworld fissure was also exposed to the air.

It looked as though a raw gash had been cut into the air, waves of heart-clenching malice and bitterness emanating from within.

Liu Yiyi looked at the Netherworld fissure and flicked her hand lightly.

The air beside the Netherworld expanded violently as its temperature abruptly rose. Sparks burst out, flames igniting from every spark and blazing like a roar!

"Crrrack--"

A distorted sound instantly came from the Netherworld, like nails scraping shrilly across a blackboard.

Then a strange spider-like creature crawled out. It was about the size of a palm, but the instant it touched the flames outside, it was burned to nothing.

That Evil Sin was only the beginning. After it came two, then eight, then more than a dozen. Countless little Evil Sins surged out, struggling to escape the death the flames brought.

But against absolute suppression, numbers meant nothing.

A charred stench drifted over. Before dying, the Evil Sins let out one agonized scream after another, as piercing as crying infants.

Every Evil Sin's death strengthened the flames Liu Yiyi controlled. Their light gradually outshone the cloud-veiled daylight, casting flickering red halos over her face. Expressionless, Liu Yiyi watched the Evil Sins die and the Netherworld be destroyed.

As those little Evil Sins died, more and more people throughout the school began to wake. Then, feeling endlessly exhausted, they rolled over and fell deeply asleep again.

Throughout the boys' dormitory, everyone shifted in unison, frowning as they squirmed a couple of times before letting out a relaxed breath.

Bodies rustled against bedding, like reassuring music.

"Hiss---hiss-"

"Hsss..."

As the last Evil Sin vanished into the flames, the entrance to the Netherworld could finally no longer sustain itself. It warped twice and disappeared into the air.

Hu Zihao lay on the floor by the bathroom door. The shallow wounds on his body had stopped bleeding, and Han He had carefully bandaged his chest. Han He had used up all the remaining materials, and a simple ritual radiated faint vitality beside Hu Zihao.

Beside him, Shi Yu rested a hand on Hu Zihao's forehead. His eyes were tightly closed and his head lowered, his lips moving in murmured chants like the most devout worshipper.

Under the all-out care of a Ninth Art Heir and a first-tier ability user, Hu Zihao's life had finally been saved.

"Cough, cough..."

See, he even had the strength to cough now.

"..."

Shi Yu opened his eyes slightly and looked at the smoke filling the area. He diverted some Thought to make a little wind flow around them, attempting to blow away some of the choking smoke from the fire.

But it clearly did very little.

Just as Shi Yu began to worry, a strong current of air blew in from the corridor stairs and out through the bathroom's blasted-open window, creating a perfect exhaust vent. Soon, all the smoke had been channeled outside.

Han He turned his head and grew slightly wary. Although it was most likely a friend rather than a foe, there was nothing wrong with being cautious. What if something had slipped through the net?

"Two sets of footsteps... both light in weight, but one is trained. Their center of gravity and footfalls are unbelievably light."

Han He quickly made his assessment.

Liu Yiyi happened to emerge from the bathroom as well. Ignoring the footsteps, she crouched first, examining Hu Zihao's injuries while also looking Shi Yu and Han He over.

Soon, two people came up the stairs, a boy and a girl.

They were He Siying and Huo Qiuliang.

"Yiyi!"

Huo Qiuliang hastily greeted Liu Yiyi when he saw her.

Liu Yiyi turned and asked:

"Has Shen Bai arrived?"

"He's almost here. It shouldn't take much longer."

As Huo Qiuliang spoke, he glanced at his phone and nodded in confirmation.

Liu Yiyi's expression softened, and she said, "Good."

Then she looked at Shi Yu and the other two again, a hint of amusement on her face. She said to He Siying and Huo Qiuliang:

"Come here. Let me show you three treasures."

Shi Yu: "?"

Han He: "..."

Hu Zihao... Hu Zihao had no reaction for the moment.

*Note:

The tiers of "Wind Language": Fourth tier: "Clamor"

"Sing! Dance! Winds! Let's blow all the way up to the sky!"

"Wind, tell me, has that vision been blown aloft yet?"

*Note:

Pseudo-grand ritual: "Wind-Speech Domain"

Source: "Wind Language": "Clamor" He Siying

"Shh... There's no room for another voice here. You might as well save your strength."