You Call This Self-Defense?

"S-Su, brother, are you sure we should go up?"

Zhang Lei looked at the pitch-black hole before him, exposed when the stairs had been forcibly ripped away, and swallowed.

Normally, when faced with an Anomaly like this, shouldn't they be trying everything they could to escape?

Why was this kid charging the other way, insisting on diving into the thieves' den?

"Captain Zhang, you don't understand."

Standing at the edge of the hole, Su Bai looked back and said earnestly, "This is called pulling up the weeds by the roots. Think about it: there's a 'contractor' in this building who doesn't follow the rules. He's been putting up illegal structures everywhere, and he trapped you here for three days."

"As a temporary worker for the City Appearance Bureau, since I've taken the hundred thousand, I have both the responsibility and the duty to wipe out this whole illegal construction site in one fell swoop. That's called maintaining the city's appearance."

Su Bai spouted nonsense with a perfectly serious face.

In truth, the abacus in his head was clattering away.

The system had just told him that after devouring a flight of stairs, the fusion progress of the Thirteenth Step had only reached 30%.

To fully bring out this second-tier urban legend with Spatial Labyrinth properties, he would have to devour the core rules of at least half the unfinished building.

This was a once-in-a-thousand-years chance to get something for nothing!

Once he passed this village, where would he find another unclaimed Anomaly's nest this big?

If he didn't fleece this unfinished building until it was leveled to the ground, he'd feel he had let down the black clothes he was wearing!

"But going up is too dangerous," the female agent said worriedly. "Captain Bai said the Anomaly's core must be hidden on the highest floor. That's the center of its Domain, and in our current state..."

"It's fine. With me here, just think of it as a tour of an unfinished development."

Su Bai cut her off, then sprang up without hesitation and leaped straight onto the fourth-floor slab.

Zhang Lei gritted his teeth. As captain, he couldn't possibly stand by and watch a high schooler take the risk alone.

"Follow him! Protect Brother Su's flanks!"

Supporting one another, the three struggled up to the fourth floor.

But as soon as they found their footing, the sight before them made them gasp.

The fourth floor should have been an empty, unfinished space.

Now, it had turned into an utterly eerie maze!

Countless gray-white concrete walls had risen from the floor out of nowhere, interweaving in a complex tangle that completely blocked their view.

The passages were so narrow that only one person could squeeze through sideways at a time.

Most chilling of all, the concrete walls were densely covered with countless blood-red handprints!

It was as if thousands upon thousands of desperate workers had once pounded frantically on the walls here, trying to escape.

"Th-this is Domain Materialization!"

Zhang Lei's expression changed drastically, and his voice trembled. "We're done for. The Anomaly has completely awakened. It's turned the entire fourth floor into its internal organs! Now we really couldn't escape even if we had wings!"

In the body of knowledge concerning gods and Anomalies, "Domain Materialization" meant that an Anomaly had gained complete control over a space.

Here, it was a god!

It could change the terrain at will and even tamper with the laws of physics.

"Heh heh heh..."

A chilling laugh that made their scalps tingle suddenly came from all directions within the maze.

The sound seemed capable of piercing straight through their eardrums and stabbing into their souls.

Agent Xiao Li clutched his head and fell painfully to his knees. "Stop laughing... stop laughing! It hurts!"

The female agent also went deathly pale, and her divine power shield was stripped away in an instant.

"You vermin... you dared tear down my stairs..."

"I'll brick you into the walls... turn you into permanent load-bearing walls..."

The maze walls began to squirm. Those blood-red handprints seemed to come alive as tentacles made from a mixture of concrete and blood reached out of the walls and shot toward Su Bai and the others like venomous snakes!

Faced with such a hopeless predicament, Zhang Lei closed his eyes in despair.

The gap was too great.

Before the absolute power of a Domain, they didn't even have the right to resist.

But just as the hundreds and thousands of flesh-and-blood tentacles were about to wrap around them,

Su Bai moved.

He neither retreated nor summoned Hongdou.

He simply stood where he was, took a deep breath, and abruptly spread his arms!

"On my turf, you want to compete with me in pollution?"

Su Bai gave a cold laugh.

Boom!

The core of the divine kingdom inside him spun frantically and without restraint at that moment!

Wasteland pollution of 99.5% purity roared out of Su Bai like an erupting volcano!

If the unfinished building's Domain was a swamp,

then Su Bai's pollution was a mass of black flames that could burn everything to ashes!

In an instant, this aura of ultimate darkness and corruption formed an absolute vacuum zone with a ten-meter radius around Su Bai!

The aggressive flesh-and-blood tentacles pouncing toward him, the instant they touched the black aura,

let out a horrific sizzle, like ice and snow meeting a scorching branding iron!

The tentacles twisted wildly, shriveled, and then melted into puddles of black water that dripped onto the ground.

"Ah!!!"

A shrill, anguished scream from the Anomaly came from deep within the maze.

It felt a fear unlike anything it had ever known.

This fear didn't come from being suppressed by power, but from being crushed on a fundamental level!

The unfinished building's pollution, which it had always been so proud of, was as pure as a blank sheet of paper before the black mist released by this young man!

"Y-you... what are you?!"

For the first time, terror and trembling entered the Anomaly's voice.

"Me? I'm a helpful citizen."

Su Bai strode through the black water covering the floor, heading deeper into the maze.

A sliver of his divine kingdom passage remained open, continuously releasing the wasteland's oppressive aura. The concrete walls blocking his path crumbled to dust upon contact with it, like stones weathered for a thousand years.

"Not only did you put up illegal structures, you also intimidated City Appearance Bureau enforcement officers."

As Su Bai walked, he loudly pronounced the Anomaly's "charges."

"According to Great Xia Nation law, forcibly demolishing you now counts as self-defense. It's reasonable and legal, right?"

Behind him, Zhang Lei and the other two watched Su Bai charge through the Anomaly's Domain as casually as if he were taking a stroll, walls collapsing and tentacles melting wherever he went.

All three of them stared dumbfounded.

This was fucking self-defense?!

Who the hell had ever defended themselves by tearing someone's lair apart with their bare hands?!

And that black aura the young man gave off...

Though it had only lasted an instant, Zhang Lei, as a veteran agent, had keenly sensed the terror within that aura.

That definitely wasn't a power an orthodox god should possess!

It was a despair purer and darker than an Anomaly!

Just what was this kid's background?

Su Bai had no time to care what the agents behind him were thinking.

His mind was filled with a single thought: Eat! Feast on the rich!

As he ventured deeper into the maze, the system notifications rang nonstop, like a string of firecrackers going off.

[Ding! Absorbed damaged flesh-and-blood wall. The Thirteenth Step fusion progress: 45%...]

[Ding! Absorbed polluted load-bearing pillar. Fusion progress: 60%...]

[Ding! Absorbed a large number of despairing worker souls. Fusion progress: 80%...]

The resentment and building materials in this unfinished building were surprisingly high in quality.

Su Bai even thought that if he devoured the whole building, he might be able to skip straight past the unfinished stage and strengthen the Thirteenth Step directly to the peak of the second tier!

Just then, the maze ahead collapsed with a crash.

Su Bai stopped.

He had finally reached the core area of the unfinished building—the rooftop terrace on the top floor.

There was no ceiling here, only a deathly pale moon hanging in the night sky.

In the very center of the rooftop stood an enormous, revolting mass of flesh.

It was a gigantic monster stitched together from countless broken walls and ruins, steel and concrete, and over a hundred mutilated human corpses!

It had no fixed shape, resembling a squirming mountain of garbage.

Embedded at the very top of the mass of flesh was an enormous bloodshot eyeball.

This was the core Anomaly controlling the Spatial Labyrinth of the unfinished building—a peak second-tier rule entity, the Resentment Real Estate Development!

The moment Su Bai stepped onto the rooftop,

the enormous eyeball fixed its stare on him.

A spatial pressure ten times stronger than before instantly enveloped the entire rooftop.

The space around him began to twist violently, as though it would squeeze Su Bai into a meat patty!

"Human... you destroyed the fruits of my labor..."

Countless overlapping voices came from the mass of flesh, filled with utter malice.

"I'll crush you... and melt you into my foundation!"

Zhang Lei and the other two had run up after Su Bai, but the moment they appeared, the terrifying spatial pressure forced them flat on the ground. Even moving a finger was extremely difficult.

"We're done for..." Zhang Lei closed his eyes in despair.

A peak second-tier rule entity in its core Domain could take the skin off even a third-tier demigod.

No matter how high this kid's pollution resistance was, he couldn't possibly withstand this kind of spatial crushing!

However,

Su Bai, at the center of the pressure, not only remained uncrushed,

he even stretched and loosened his neck.

"Tell me, contractor, haven't you ever seen the wider world?"

Su Bai looked at the gigantic mountain of flesh before him, undisguised greed flashing in his eyes.

"With this little patch of yours, you dare say you'll melt me into your foundation?"

"Today, I'll show you what real 'real estate development' looks like!"

Su Bai took a sudden step forward.

He gave up his defenses and deliberately withdrew the wasteland aura around him.

"System!"

"Divine kingdom passage, open at full power!"

"Target: the entire rooftop!"

"Devour it all!!!"

Rumble!!!

With Su Bai's furious roar, the void behind him split open into a huge black abyss more than ten meters long!

For the first time, the three agents caught a glimpse of the true wasteland with 99.5% pollution—the tip of the iceberg.

It was a vast expanse of ruins, deathly silent and despairing, shrouded in black mist.

At the center of the ruins,

Hongdou, dressed in red, stood atop a dilapidated school building, an utterly terrifying smile spreading across her deathly pale face.

"Clang-"

A bell rang out across the rooftop.