The Final Puzzle Piece... Revived!

The tremor originating from the teaching building sent the school's enveloping mist churning in wild surges, stirring the winds and clouds. Yet to the people trapped inside the teaching building, the scene within was far more terrifying. "What is this?!" Cries of alarm erupted on all sides. Everything on the walls was undergoing a metamorphosis. As notebooks on the desks fluttered open with rustling clatters, crimson flesh and blood gradually sprouted from the smooth walls, spreading to blanket both the surfaces and the floor. Everything in sight was changing—a shift Bai Zhou had experienced not long ago. That was when the Principal appeared, the "sweet and cozy" teaching building was superseded by a deeper layer of space, and the abandoned teaching building "surfaced" in its place. And now, it seemed something had overflowed from an even deeper, concealed space, superseding and replacing this layer's abandoned teaching building— This structure was slowly morphing into a completely different form. The walls seemed to snap awake all at once, turning into living, breathing flesh and blood. These stacked lumps of pink meat squirmed and breathed, coated in a thin sheen of blood-like slime. Through the gore, faint fragments of exam papers, desks, and chairs could be seen embedded within. Even the floor underfoot gradually softened into something sticky, like treading upon rotting meat. Crimson fascia spread across it like spiderwebs, while the cloying stench of rot grew ever thicker. —This grotesque tableau, something one could scarcely envision even in dreams, was quietly aligning with an image etched deep in Bai Zhou's memory. It was the building of the mountain of flesh he had witnessed in his divination! "So—" Bai Zhou gave a sudden shudder. So he hadn't gone to the wrong place after all? Bai Zhou had assumed he picked the wrong teaching building, since from beginning to end he hadn't encountered that mountain of flesh strewn with severed limbs, let alone the mysterious Inverted Maiden. When the Principal showed up, Bai Zhou had even briefly wondered whether the Inverted Maiden was merely a symbolic image in the divination—one whose true counterpart was none other than the Principal, the master of the campus. Now, however, all such doubts collapsed of their own accord. The very thing Bai Zhou had ventured deep into the school to investigate had finally surfaced right beneath his feet. At that moment, Bai Zhou suddenly realized something. His eyes flickered. Silently reciting an incantation in his heart, he flicked a coin into the air and caught it mid-drop. *Is the building before me the destination of my trip?* Heads. "Yes." The exact same question! The exact same answer! Immediately following that, Bai Zhou silently asked another question in his heart. *Is the neighboring building the destination of my trip?* With a soft *clack*, the coin flipped up. Heads once more. "Yes"! "As I thought—" Bai Zhou drew a deep breath. He hadn't misremembered the location revealed in the divination from the start! The identical exterior and the identical interior of the teaching buildings had long hinted to Bai Zhou that there was a hidden truth behind it all. Hidden beneath the first layer—the "cozy teaching building"—was the second layer: the abandoned teaching building where the Principal resided. Hidden beneath the second layer was the third layer: the flesh-and-blood teaching building Bai Zhou was looking at right now. —Yet which building served as the first-layer "cozy teaching building" perhaps made no difference whatsoever! Just like the word games mystic rituals loved to play, as long as it qualified as a "teaching building of Yuanmeng Middle School," that was enough! This teaching building could be the one beneath his feet right now, the one next door—or any teaching building in all of Yuanmeng Middle School! The neighboring building he had passed by without daring to enter was actually no different from this one. No matter which one Bai Zhou entered, as long as certain conditions were met inside, he could reach the second layer or even the third. Because everything concealed in the second and third layers could move around continuously in the first place! *Is something off here—?* This revelation left Bai Zhou faintly unsettled. He had indeed come in search of this flesh-and-blood teaching building, but looking back now, hadn't the Principal's appearance been a bit too "eager"? The Principal of the second layer and the mountain of flesh of the third layer—were they also waiting for someone to appear? That person didn't necessarily have to be Bai Zhou; perhaps anyone would do. But someone had definitely been led by the nose by an unseen hand. Perhaps it even included everyone, FZDC included! Bai Zhou now had ample reason to believe— The Major might very well be hiding somewhere in the school right now, watching them! After all, the mastermind pulling the strings behind all of this hadn't shown his face once up to this point! The only ones who had arrived were an uninvited bunch: the Zijing Group! Yet now that official authorities had their eyes fixed on this place, with four prominent figures glaring down from outside—did the Major still have another card up his sleeve? —All of this took long to explain, but for a Destined like Bai Zhou, the flurry of thoughts transpired in the blink of an eye. "Ah—what are these things?!" A cry of alarm nearby made Bai Zhou snap his head up. Three figures rushed into the classroom. The Explorer trio looked back and forth between the two confronting sides, completely at a loss as to where they should stand. On one side was the dependable senior who had saved them from peril multiple times. On the other was Tinghai's official agency, the FZDC. Coupled with the sudden, terrifying upheaval that frightened them out of their wits, making a choice in that moment was practically impossible. "It's you three? Why haven't you escaped!" Recognizing the trio, Commander Han furrowed his brows and barked sharply, "Staying here, you'll only get in our way!" Hearing this, Number 9 turned pale, her expression tinged with despair. "Commander, the stairs—the stairs have come alive!" "Every flight of stairs has turned into a giant serpent of flesh and blood! There are no stairs or exits in this building anymore!" At those words, Commander Han's attention was instantly drawn away, his eyes narrowing sharply. "All the exits are sealed?" Standing at the classroom doorway, he instinctively glanced toward the hallway windows outside. Yet what windows were left? The flesh of the walls left not a single crack, squirming with wet, squelching noises that grated on the senses. Even the air was veiled in a layer of bloody mist, so that every breath carried the coppery sweetness of iron rust and cloying rot. Across the writhing fleshy walls, countless severed arms and broken limbs sprouted out like flowers swaying in the wind, waving at them in feverish welcome. Whenever a mechanical dog or drone bumped into them, the severed limbs immediately seized it in an eager embrace— Hugging and dragging it straight into the fleshy wall, where it sank bit by bit until it vanished completely! The entire scene was profaned to the utmost extreme! Everyone's sanity suffered a violent assault. The feeling of despair wound around their hearts like creeping vines, nearly suffocating them! "Commander Han, what do we do?" "Commander Han, massive spiritual reactions detected—and they're still climbing!" "Commander Han—" Everyone chimed in, asking questions or making reports. It looked like diligent adherence to duty, but in truth, they were merely grasping for psychological solace. Even seasoned Extraordinaries who had weathered countless trials couldn't help losing their composure when confronted with such a mad, grotesque, and blasphemous spectacle. "Don't panic!" Commander Han barked sharply, then turned to the Explorer trio, gesturing for them to come over and sheltering them behind his back. "From this moment on, ask nothing and shout nothing!" "Obey orders and stay with the squad—I'll bring you out alive. Understood?" His voice was harsh and severe, yet the content of his words made the Explorer trio nod frantically with wide, helpless eyes. Then, his gaze heavy with wariness, Commander Han turned back toward Bai Zhou. Just as he was about to demand what Bai Zhou had done, he saw that Bai Zhou, taking advantage of everyone's distraction, had suddenly leaped up. Many of the mechanical dogs and drones had been swept away by the sudden embrace of the severed limbs, leaving a brief gap in the perimeter surrounding Bai Zhou. Seizing the opening, Bai Zhou dragged his heavily injured body and vanished from the spot in a blur. *Boom, boom, boom!* His short club swung in a wild dance. Breaching past several mechanical dogs that blocked his way, Bai Zhou swept them into the embrace of the severed limbs at the corner of the wall and charged straight for the classroom's back door! Yet Bai Zhou bled as he fought; a mottled trail of blood bore witness to his current frailty. "Causing a mess and trying to run?" "Don't let him leave!" "Make him die with us!" Several Extraordinaries moved to intercept him immediately. Unexpectedly, Commander Han held them back. "—Let him go!" Though his expression was steeped in reluctance, Commander Han had no choice but to suppress the churning turmoil in his chest, grinding his teeth as he issued the order. Watching Bai Zhou's figure vanish past the back door, Commander Han's eyes were chillingly calm, yet weighed down by profound caution. "He summoned all of these things." "We don't know what kind of control he has over them, nor what other cards he might hold in this new environment." "By all logic, this flesh and blood is his backing. He has no reason to act this weak, and even less reason to flee at a time like this!" "—Unless he's feigning weakness to lure us into a trap!" Hearing this, the subordinates clustered around Commander Han all paled, seized by lingering dread. "Indeed. Commander Han is brilliant after all, seeing right through the anomalous individual's plot!" "If we had chased after him just now—" They glanced at the horrifying environment of squirming flesh on both sides, an involuntary shiver running down their spines. From top to bottom, this entire building was now broadcasting one crystal-clear message: —It hungered to devour humans! At this, Commander Han let out a cold snort. Staring in the direction where Bai Zhou had disappeared, he said in a heavy tone, "Cunning anomalous individual!" As it turned out, he hadn't misjudged this anomaly, yet his vigilance had still fallen short! Perhaps the Principal wasn't the master of this minor secret realm— This anomalous individual, this Senior Zhou, was the true master! Or at the very least, he was intimately connected to it! "Damn it! We've probably been dancing in his palm all along!" Commander Han couldn't help cursing as he watched Bai Zhou slip away. *Tap, tap!* Footsteps skimmed across the slowly squirming corridor. *Those three were right after all—* A giant serpent of flesh and blood, formed from the staircase, blocked the path ahead. Bai Zhou carefully steered clear of it, avoiding eye contact with the crimson serpent. At this moment, Bai Zhou had no idea what elaborate misconceptions Commander Han had concocted about his escape, but the truth was that he hadn't gone far at all. Dragging his battered body out was solely to prevent Commander Han and the others from acting out of rage and forcefully taking him down. His primary purpose in venturing deep into Yuanmeng Middle School within the Reflected Ruin Realm had been to expose the existence of this flesh-and-blood building to the authorities, thereby bringing whatever the Major was scheming to nourish out into the open. Achieving that was enough. Bai Zhou had never expected to handle that mountain of flesh or the Inverted Maiden trapped within it on his own. Wasn't that the old saying? When the sky collapses, the tall ones will hold it up! As long as enough people knew about this, as long as the authorities stepped in— Someone would naturally come to take care of everything here! —Thus, Bai Zhou's most important objective was already complete. What he had to do next was very simple— Escape! Break out of this mad, twisted building of flesh and blood, and ensure his own survival! So he had merely fled to the corner of the corridor outside. While carefully avoiding the waving severed limbs around him, he peeked toward Class 4, Grade 4, his eyes carrying faint anticipation. *If you've got any trump cards, you'd better use them fast!* Bai Zhou refused to believe that a Level 5 official higher-up, the supreme commander of this entire battlefield, wouldn't carry some lethal trump card for extreme emergencies! Sure enough— The temperature inside the classroom was skyrocketing. This teaching building forged of flesh and blood seemed to have turned into a smelting furnace, poised to refine the kindling trapped inside. Even as a Level 5 Extraordinary, Commander Han felt his spirituality tainted by a faint wash of crimson. He was being polluted, being eroded! At this moment, everyone realized with absolute clarity that if they didn't find a way out while their minds were still intact— Not a single one of them would leave alive! "Things have come to this; there's nothing left but to use that," Commander Han said in a grave voice, pulling out a small black box from his person. He opened the box, revealing a metallic talisman inside. "E-rank Black Box, [E-2933, Blazing Sun Talisman]!" As if knowing the talisman's terrifying power, his subordinates shrank back one after another, not even daring to look directly at it. With an expression so solemn it bordered on pious, Commander Han began muttering incantations under his breath. Cradling the black box in his hands, he aimed the resting talisman straight at the squirming wall of flesh outside. As the chant rolled from his lips, a peculiar blend of white and red light manifested over the talisman, gathering in greater and greater density. Then, release! *Buzz!* *Boom—* Words could scarcely describe that light. It was as though the sun had been forcibly crushed, then compressed into a single focused beam that erupted from that unassuming black box. In that instant, all sound in the surroundings seemed stripped away. The world was left with nothing but pure white, followed immediately by an overwhelming rush of sensations— Scalding! Blistering! Blinding! Impossible to look upon! *Rumble—!!!* Every obstacle before the black box—those writhing walls woven from skinned flesh and severed limbs—instantly vaporized and annihilated before that torrent of extreme, scorching energy. The remaining force of the beam didn't dissipate, shooting outward and piercing straight into the sky. The next second, a massive hole with dripping, bloody edges appeared before everyone's eyes. Outside this gaping crater lay the warped yet familiar campus mist. In the distance, the figures of the Sword of Winter and the other three could even be seen from afar. "It worked!" Cheers erupted. "Now!" Commander Han's gaze sharpened, and everyone moved at once. *Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!* The crowd surged outward. In this life-or-death juncture, no one had the spare attention to notice that from the edge of the hole, someone else shot out right behind them. —Bai Zhou, of course. The hazy mist entered his sight. His nostrils were no longer choked by the pungent stench of blood, and the howling gale in midair cleared his polluted, clouded mind. Leaping into the empty air above the campus, Bai Zhou's eyes slowly widened. He kept his lips tightly pressed together without a word, but the heart in his chest was pounding wildly. *Made it out!* Behind him, people were still scrambling to jump out of that massive, dripping hole, tumbling through like dumplings into boiling water— Right at that moment. The entire flesh-and-blood building abruptly came alive. It was no longer the slow, sticky squirming from before, but a violent, almost frenzied muscular spasm. The ground heaved violently, throwing several caught-off-guard Extraordinaries near the opening hard back inside. *Creak, crunch—* Countless mechanical dogs and drones seemed to lose signal all at once, collapsing to the ground before being gathered up by pairs of arms and pulled deep into the fleshy walls and floor. Walls, ceilings, underfoot—all the skinned, severed limbs constituting this terrifying structure began multiplying and swelling at an unprecedented rate! Along the edges of the freshly blasted hole, tender pink flesh buds shot out like serpents, tangling together. Thicker walls of meat proliferated at a pace visible to the naked eye, gradually sealing the exit shut! "Damn it! Hurry!" The Extraordinaries who hadn't escaped cried out in panic. Yet very soon, those voices were cut short by agonizing screams. Pairs of arms burst from the flesh near the opening with wet squelches, pulling the half-escaped Extraordinaries into tight embraces! Layers of overlapping arms dragged the Extraordinaries back inside. At the same time, as Bai Zhou hung suspended in midair, he faintly heard a whisper beside his ear that sounded almost like an auditory hallucination, distinct beneath the howling wind. —It was a maiden's whisper, echoing faintly from the deepest depths of the flesh-mountain building. Her voice was cold, her tone languid, like one just awakening from a dream, tinged with a hint of uncertain wonder: "Thank you..." The walls of flesh hummed, and the ground beneath trembled, resonating with the mysterious maiden's whisper. "...For the pure... potent... nourishment..." The Extraordinaries smothered in severed limbs writhed in vain, letting out muffled groans. "Who is speaking?" "The building is talking?" In the distance, sensing the spirituality in the air warping toward madness beyond any hope of communion, the Sword of Winter and the other two Titled Extraordinaries wore expressions of horror and shock. —Yet Deputy Director Liu, the man with the highest strength and the most unfathomable life order among them, reacted the most violently! "Director Liu, you—" Emerald Flame turned to look, letting out an involuntary cry. Two streams of bloody tears suddenly flowed from Deputy Director Liu's eyes as he stared unblinkingly at the teaching building. His entire body shook like a sieve, yet he showed no sign of looking away, as if entirely lost to the world. "Spirituality—his spirituality is collapsing!" The Sword of Winter's gaze hardened. With swift hands, he pressed down on Deputy Director Liu's shoulders to block his line of sight, forcefully turning his head away to stop him from looking at that mysterious building of flesh! "How could this be? None of us had a reaction like that—" The Rusted Silver Knight's words cut off abruptly. Because he realized with horror what that implied. "...The final... puzzle piece..." Deep within the teaching building. That near-monumental, terrifying feminine consciousness sighed one last time, tinged with a chilling sort of delight. "...Is in place!" A sudden upheaval burst forth!