Principal, he cheated!

As soon as Bai Lan finished speaking, the air in the entire Divine Battle Hall seemed to freeze.

Red Star Middle School? The missing low-level Anomaly case?

The combination of those two phrases made many of the teachers and students present gasp.

In this world, Anomalies were more terrifying than exotic beasts. They were born in contaminated zones where dark matter was exceptionally dense. They had no physical bodies, defied the laws of physics, and were extremely difficult to destroy.

And now, the City Appearance Bureau's "Living King of Hell" was saying that the aura of Su Bai's divine kingdom was connected to an Anomaly?

"Holy crap... Bai bro, you didn't go pick up an Anomaly in the ruins and make it your follower, did you?" Lin Que hid behind Su Bai, his teeth chattering.

Gu Chengfeng's lackeys seemed to have found a life-saving straw and immediately began shouting wildly.

"Did you hear that? Even the officer said it! He definitely used some shady evil art!"

"Hiding an Anomaly in his divine kingdom is a crime against humanity! Shoot him! He has to be shot immediately!"

The dean of academic affairs wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and cautiously said to Bai Lan, "Captain Bai, could there be some misunderstanding? Su Bai is just a student who awakened less than seven days ago. How could he possibly control an Anomaly?"

"Whether it's a misunderstanding or not, we'll know once we investigate."

Bai Lan waved a hand, and several officers behind her immediately stepped forward, taking out several exceptionally sophisticated portable divine kingdom detectors.

These instruments were expensive and designed specifically to detect the stability of a divine kingdom's core and whether it contained any contraband.

"Su Bai, open a passage to your divine kingdom and submit to a mandatory inspection." Bai Lan stared at Su Bai, her hand already resting on the gun at her waist.

If Su Bai dared resist or made any suspicious move, she would shoot him dead without hesitation.

Faced with such a drawn-sword, strung-crossbow situation, an ordinary student would have wet themselves in terror long ago.

But Su Bai was unusually calm.

Not only did he remain unflustered, he even raised both hands in full cooperation.

"Officer, I'm a good, law-abiding citizen. Check all you want."

With a thought, Su Bai opened an extremely tiny rift in his divine kingdom before him.

He knew perfectly well that the urban legends created by the system were products of rules that had completely fused with the core of his divine kingdom.

To outsiders, it was merely an extremely contaminated wasteland. There was no way to detect any so-called "prohibited weapons" or "outside Anomalies."

Because Hongdou was now part of his divine kingdom!

Several officers immediately inserted the detector probes into the rift.

Beep, beep, beep-

The instruments began flashing wildly, their red warning lights glaring.

"Reporting, Captain! An extremely high concentration of dark matter contamination detected! Contamination index... 99.5%!"

An officer stared at the data on the screen, his voice trembling.

"Divine kingdom area: ten square kilometers. No weapons bestowed by higher-level gods detected, and no traces of prohibited scrolls found!"

"No independently surviving Anomaly life-forms detected!"

"Conclusion: this divine kingdom is a purely abandoned, heavily contaminated divine kingdom. No cheating suspected!"

An uproar swept through the hall.

"No cheating? Then how did he kill ten thousand berserkers?!" one of Gu Chengfeng's lackeys shouted in despair.

Bai Lan knitted her brows and snatched the instrument to take a look herself.

The data was crystal clear. There was no possibility it had been falsified.

"No contraband, and no outside Anomalies..." Bai Lan looked at Su Bai, her gaze growing extremely complicated.

"Then what was that instant-kill ability you used in the divine battle just now?"

Su Bai sighed and put on an utterly innocent expression.

"Officer, you saw it yourself. My divine kingdom's contamination index is as high as 99.5%."

"In such an extremely harsh environment, isn't it perfectly reasonable for a little 'ecological mutation' to occur?"

"I don't know what it was either. Maybe the dark matter concentration was so high that some kind of special magnetic field formed in the wasteland. As soon as the berserkers went in, the magnetic field disrupted their cranial nerves, and they broke their own necks."

Su Bai spouted nonsense with a perfectly straight face.

"As for this Red Star Middle School you mentioned... I was at home reviewing my lessons all last night, preparing for today's mock battle. I don't even know where the eastern suburbs are."

Bai Lan stared fixedly into Su Bai's eyes, trying to find a single flaw on his face.

But Su Bai's eyes were clear to their depths, with even a hint of "clear-eyed stupidity" in them.

"Ecological mutation? Magnetic field interference?"

Bai Lan gave a cold laugh.

In all her years handling cases, what bizarre excuses hadn't she heard? But Su Bai's excuse was simply an insult to her intelligence.

However, since the instruments couldn't detect a problem, there was nothing she could do to Su Bai. The Great Xia Nation's laws were strict, and without conclusive evidence, even the City Appearance Bureau couldn't arrest a newly awakened student on a whim.

"Fine. Very good." Bai Lan put away the instrument, her tone icy. "Su Bai, you're very clever."

"But I'm warning you, no matter what method you used to control that kind of rule power, your divine kingdom is now a time bomb that could explode at any moment."

"With a contamination index of 99.5%, once it gets out of control and leaks, all of Linhai No. 3 Middle School will become a land of death!"

Bai Lan turned to the dean and Qin Wan.

"From this moment on, Su Bai is classified as a 'first-level observation subject' by the City Appearance Bureau's Abnormality Division."

"He may not leave Linhai City or open a passage to his divine kingdom at will outside officially approved circumstances. He must report to the City Appearance Bureau every week for a contamination index test."

"If I find any sign of his contamination leaking out, I'll personally erase his divine kingdom!"

The dean nodded repeatedly. "Yes, yes, yes. We'll fully cooperate with the City Appearance Bureau."

Qin Wan looked at Su Bai, a flicker of worry passing through her eyes. Being watched by the City Appearance Bureau was no good thing.

"All right, pack up."

Bai Lan acted swiftly and decisively, turning to leave at once.

When she reached the door, she suddenly stopped and looked back at Su Bai.

"Su Bai, you'd better pray your 'ecological mutation' stays under your control forever. Those who play with fire will burn themselves."

With that, Bai Lan swept out with her people.

Silence returned to the Divine Battle Hall.

Su Bai rubbed his nose, laughing inwardly.

Playing with fire?

I'm a man who's going to build an urban legend amusement park in the wasteland. What's this little bit of fire?

Just then, an old man in a tailcoat, his hair grizzled, walked into the Divine Battle Hall with several bodyguards, his face dark.

At the sight of the old man, the dean's heart, which had only just settled, leaped straight back into his throat.

"Butler Gu? What brings you here in person?"

The newcomer was none other than Gu Dehai, the Gu Family's head butler.

Without so much as glancing at the dean, Gu Dehai walked straight to the stretcher. When he saw Gu Chengfeng lying unconscious, the origin of his divine kingdom severely damaged, his aged face instantly twisted into a walnut.

"Young master! Young master, what happened to you?!"

Gu Dehai examined Gu Chengfeng's body, trembling all over with rage.

"The divine kingdom core is severely damaged, and more than sixty percent of its origin has been lost... Ruined! The young master's talent is ruined!"

Gu Dehai whipped his head around, his cloudy eyes fixed on Su Bai as a fierce killing intent erupted from him.

"You little beast! You did this?!"

"How dare you destroy the Gu Family's hope for the future! I'll make you pay with your life!"

Boom!

A terrifying pressure belonging to a Demigod Stage expert erupted from Gu Dehai, bearing down directly on Su Bai.

The bodyguards behind him also summoned projections of their followers, preparing to attack.

"Butler Gu! This is a school!"

Qin Wan's expression changed drastically. She immediately stepped in front of Su Bai, unleashing Demigod Stage spiritual power of her own and forcibly holding back Gu Dehai's pressure.

"Gu Chengfeng was the one who initiated the mock divine battle. Life and death were left to fate! You dare take punishment into your own hands at school?"

Gu Dehai laughed in his extreme fury. "Qin Wan! Who do you think you are, daring to stand in the Gu Family's way?"

"This little beast used some shameful sorcery to destroy the young master's divine kingdom. He must die today!"

Just as the two sides stood with swords drawn and crossbows strung, on the verge of a clash,

An extremely aged voice, yet one filled with boundless majesty, suddenly rang out like thunder above the Divine Battle Hall.

"Stop."

The voice was not loud, yet it seemed to carry some irresistible power of rules, instantly suppressing all the fluctuations of Gu Dehai's and Qin Wan's spiritual power.

Everyone looked up.

There, in a VIP box on the second floor of the Divine Battle Hall, an old man in a washed-out Zhongshan suit had appeared at some unknown point.

The old man had a thin, gaunt face and leaned on an ordinary wooden cane. He looked just like a grandfather from next door.

But at the sight of him, Gu Dehai's face instantly turned deathly pale, and his arrogant bearing vanished without a trace.

"P-Principal? You've come out of seclusion?"

Chen Tianxing, principal of Linhai No. 3 Middle School.

One of the few remaining True God Level experts in Linhai City!

Leaning on his cane, Chen Tianxing slowly walked to the railing and gave Su Bai a deep look.

"Gu Dehai, take your young master and get out of my school."

"I watched the entire divine battle. If your skills were inferior, you should accept defeat."

"If the Gu Family wants revenge, go ahead and do it outside school. But on No. 3 Middle School's grounds, I'll break the legs of anyone who dares touch my students."

Chen Tianxing's voice was calm, but the weight of his words was as heavy as Mount Tai.

Gu Dehai clenched his teeth. Though he hated Su Bai bitterly, he would never dare act wantonly before a True God.

"Yes... Principal."

Gu Dehai glared viciously at Su Bai, as though he meant to carve his face into his bones.

"You little beast, just you wait! The Gu Family will never let you off!"

With that, Gu Dehai and the bodyguards carried Gu Chengfeng away with their tails between their legs.

A momentous mock divine battle finally drew to a close in this dramatic fashion.

Su Bai, the trash once mocked by the entire school, had trodden on Gu Chengfeng's bones and become a god in a single battle!