Successor, Bai Zhou!

"What is this potent nourishment?" "And which is the final puzzle piece?" An immense consciousness swept across the skies of the entire campus. The pale gray mist roiled like boiling water, and those enigmatic words cast an ominous pall over everyone's hearts. "Nourishment—?" Hearing those words, Commander Han, who had just landed on the ground, turned deathly pale on his already weakened face. Could it be that the rays unleashed by the Blazing Sun Talisman had instead served as nourishment to awaken some mysterious entity? "A coincidence? Or did someone calculate in advance that the item I brought was the Blazing Sun Talisman?" An expression of disbelief washed over his face. "In all of Tinghai City, no more than five people knew the Black Box I carried this time was the Blazing Sun Talisman!" "Even if it was filed with the Special Control Bureau Headquarters and the Statute Hall, reasonably speaking, there is no chance it could have leaked!" "Besides, the one who reassigned me to this battlefield was the Deputy Director-General himself. Surely he couldn't be a mole too... What on earth is going on?!" Commander Han was at a loss. Always proud of his own abilities, he had insisted on bringing everyone along even when fleeing the teaching building, refusing to abandon even the Explorer trio. But the reality before him laid bare a brutal truth: Step by step, he had walked right into the trap of some entity, personally delivering the final puzzle piece into its hands. If the disaster here spread outward, he would become the greatest sinner of all! "H-Help!" Cries of alarm arose from all around in the distance. On the teaching building, a dense crowd of people was packed at the rapidly shrinking breach, reaching outward in despair. Their fingertips were already clutching the free air outside, yet their bodies were held fast by twisting red serpents. Upon closer inspection, how could those be red serpents at all? They were clearly strips of skinless, bright-red flesh! The severed limbs embedded in the walls, which had hung limp and swaying in the wind, seemed to have come to life at this moment—grotesque, powerful, teeming with vitality, and brimming with enthusiasm. Far too enthusiastic—sticky and slick to the touch, these arms accurately coiled around the ankles, waists, abdomens, and necks of the Extraordinaries with astonishing strength. "I... I can't breathe..." An Extraordinary was pinned hard against the wall. A purplish, rotting severed leg stretched across his field of view; just beyond it lay the open sky of the outside world. It was right before his eyes— He struggled desperately, erupting with spirituality, yet more and more severed limbs crawled up from the floor, blanketing his body like a dense thicket of reeds. Countless hands—large, small, whole, mangled—caressed, groped, clawed, and tore at him. Prolonged oxygen deprivation brought hallucinations before his eyes. His eyeballs bulged like those of a dying fish. In the final moments of his life, he remembered taking the oath when joining the FZDC, remembered Commander Han patting his shoulder to commend him, remembered his family, and remembered all that had passed. "Commander..." His hand rose feebly, only to be pressed down, enveloped by countless arms. Innumerable arms covered him completely like a dense web, turning him into a human-shaped cocoon. Finally, he lost consciousness: *Didn't you say... you would take me back?* It was not just him. It was the same for all of them. Many Extraordinaries who had caught sight of hope only to have it cut short—some even having half their bodies crawled out through the breach—were pinned back down by the surging tide of arms. They were squeezed and smothered, ensnared like insects in a spider's web, or frozen like bugs trapped in amber. A scene of purgatorial tragedy thus played out on the fourth floor of the teaching building; even the cruelest poetic tragedy could hardly capture a fraction of this despair. The survivors who had narrowly escaped stood on the ground below, looking up with complex expressions at the burning fourth-floor opening, listening to the agonizing cries and wails of comrades who had once shared life and death with them. In their eyes, there was lingering dread, hatred, and terror— "No..." Commander Han stumbled where he stood. "Not only did I deliver the puzzle piece—I couldn't even bring them out!" "I... I achieved nothing!" With these thoughts churning through him in a tumult of emotion, blood surged violently to his brain. Commander Han's vision went dark, and he collapsed backward toward the ground. Yet he soon opened his eyes again. What entered his vision was a silver-white faceplate marked with rust and bloodstains. "Commander Han, we cannot do without you here." Rusted Silver Knight channeled spirituality into Han's body to stabilize him, speaking in a muffled, concerned voice. "Things are already awful. You must pull yourself together and clean up this mess!" As the disordered spirituality was gradually smoothed out and Commander Han downed a vial of medicine, his body, corrupted by the teaching building, was slowly cleansed. He regained the ability to speak, though his voice came out hoarse and dry: "Save them..." The raspy tone was practically a plea. His gaze was fixed straight on the purgatory of the teaching building's fourth floor. "...All right!" Rusted Silver Knight nodded. He wheeled around and leaped straight into the sky. *Swish, swish!* However, several vines suddenly shot forth, barring his way and forcibly pulling him back down. "Do not act rashly! We cannot let ourselves be picked off one by one!" Emerald Flame's warning was heavy and cold. Her long hair fluttered alongside emerald flames, betraying that her inner emotions were far from as calm as her voice sounded. "But—!" Rusted Silver Knight started to protest, but meeting Emerald Flame's icy gaze, the words died in his throat. He knew Emerald Flame was right, but his professional ethics and personal creed made it impossible for him to turn a blind eye to the cries for help. With this dilemma weighing upon him, Rusted Silver Knight's square-jawed face behind the visor showed signs of struggle. —What choice should he make? "...Thank goodness." "Thank goodness we all made it out." Standing at the back of the crowd, the young girl Number 9 touched her cheeks, chest, and waist, wearing an expression of pure relief after surviving a catastrophe. She suddenly felt that the ground beneath her feet and the surrounding mist were not as terrifying as she had previously thought; they even felt somewhat gentle and welcoming. —Compared to the man-eating teaching building, of course. Fortunately, as Explorers, the first secret technique the three of them had mastered in their lives was closely tied to "escape." For instance, the young girl Number 9's Rank 1 secret technique from the Explorer pathway was called Tomb Escape! —A rapid escape technique akin to advanced parkour, which required occasionally exploring ancient tombs and triggering mechanisms to accumulate experience for the technique. In the end, the three looked at each other and couldn't help but sigh in unison, "...It's so good to be alive!" To be sure, no one could tell what horrifying things would happen next. But at least— They had outlived many others for a little longer. —As long as they were alive, there was hope! "By the way..." The chubby boy Number 32 hesitated, a shudder running through his body. "When I activated the Slip Away technique, I don't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me... but that Senior Zhou seemed to have escaped with us too?" Hearing this, the other two fell dead silent. They hurried to look around, but saw no sign of that figure in the school uniform. On the other side, Emerald Flame was still speaking with Rusted Silver Knight. From the corner of her eye, Emerald Flame suddenly noticed Deputy Director Liu standing nearby, and her gaze shifted slightly. "The folding knife!" *Bzzzz—!* The crimson folding knife in Deputy Director Liu's hand abruptly flared with an alluring red glow, and even its shape began to shift. The peculiar metal, entirely blood-red, seemed to sense the bloody heat waves emanating from the crucible that was the teaching building. It vibrated incessantly in response, appearing to remelt into a flowing liquid. This liquid was like rotten blood, deep red and dark, yet possessing the distinctive viscosity of molten metal, finally congealing into the shape of an archaic key. "The folding knife... turned into a key?" Sword of Winter froze for a moment. Sparks of intuition flashed through his mind, from which he seized upon several chilling insights. *Hum!* In the next instant, the blood key shot out from the dazed Deputy Director Liu's hand, its sharp edges slicing open his palm. As a thin arc of blood trailed through the air, the archaic blood-red key shot directly toward the building. "Stop it!" Rusted Silver Knight and Emerald Flame reached out to seize it, but the key turned ethereal in an instant, vanishing and reappearing out of thin air in the sky far away, causing both of their attempts to miss. "Just as I thought!" Realization dawned upon Sword of Winter, illuminating many previous doubts. This folding knife—or rather, this key—was the very reason the Principal had been able to appear and vanish like a ghost before them! This minor secret realm had a unique structure, much like a labyrinth. From the very beginning, it had only shown its outer surface to outsiders, while beneath that surface lay "secret chambers." Only the key could connect to the deeper "secret chambers" within Yuanmeng Middle School, allowing entry into the second or even third layer of reality below. Thus, to those on the surface, anyone holding the key would seem no different from someone traversing space itself. The Principal had not been traversing space; he had merely been using the key to "open doors" in battle! But— "A minor secret realm divided into three spatial layers?" Sword of Winter muttered under his breath. "Can this even be called a 'minor' secret realm? How many years has it been since Tinghai saw something like this?" "Just what kind of thing is hidden in its depths?!" At this thought, Sword of Winter frowned, the chill around his body billowing outward. He hooked his fingers slightly, and deep blue ice crystals gathered at his fingertips, slowly extending. "Was all of this within the Principal's calculations?" He had heard that a true King of Wicked Desires could even achieve an ultimate form by fusing into one with a minor secret realm, multiplying its power explosively. But that was by no means a realm a mere "quasi-King of Wicked Desires" could touch!— "Looking at it this way, perhaps behind this quasi-King of Wicked Desires lurks yet another King of Wicked Desires!!" "Is it that 'Senior Zhou'? But the voice was clearly female..." With several soft hums, the ambient temperature plummeted abruptly. The deep blue Ice Soul Greatsword congealed once more in Sword of Winter's grasp. His face frosted over with a thin sheen of frost again, Sword of Winter turned to the pale, visibly enfeebled Commander Han beside him. "Commander Han, contact headquarters immediately and report the situation here." "The few of us... will likely not be enough!" As he spoke, he turned to Emerald Flame and the others. "We can't avoid this. It's time to use the Black Boxes." "We must give it everything we have!" Emerald Flame and Rusted Silver Knight exchanged a glance, then nodded solemnly and pulled out Black Boxes from their persons. However, Emerald Flame hesitated for a moment, her eyes flickering with a complicated look toward the Ice Soul Greatsword in Sword of Winter's hand. "If you keep using this, something will happen to you." "You will lose your emotions, or even..." Emerald Flame's voice was very soft, trailing off into silence toward the end. Sword of Winter fell silent for a brief moment before replying coldly, "Do we have any other choice right now?" Hearing this, Emerald Flame and Rusted Silver Knight were struck dumb. Their eyes drifted toward the dazed Deputy Director Liu beside them, a shudder running through their hearts. Just when they needed Deputy Director Liu the most, he had been incapacitated beforehand. Yet the three Titled Extraordinaries knew what this implied. There were things that they, as Rank 6 Titled Extraordinaries, could not perceive, but to existences above Rank 6, those very things were the most lethal poison! This only served to prove just how terrifying the "thing" hiding deep within the teaching building truly was! *Rustle, flutter...* Before Sword of Winter could make a move against the teaching building, amid the vibrations spreading across the entire campus, the sound of fluttering paper suddenly swept in from all directions within the mist. Wave upon wave of sound surged forward, closing in frenziedly on the group. "What is that sound?" The three Titled Extraordinaries turned their heads and looked around. The mist gradually thinned, bringing the scenery of the school into view. School rules, the underachiever wall, banners—every corner of the school that had once borne writing was now undergoing a horrifying transformation. All the school rules and photographs had turned into yellowed sheets of paper. Looking closely, they found various phrases written across these pages, as if carrying deceased wishes: "I want to be a scientist... I want to become a bird and fly away." "Next time, I will definitely place in the top fifty of the grade!" "Don't look at me. Please don't look at me anymore..." "My parents are doing this for my own good. I should obey." "The red bow is so pretty." "I really want to sleep for a little while, just a little while..." "Mom, I'll become the person you want me to be... Love you, Mom, see you tomorrow." Dense clusters of yellowed paper covered wall after wall, fluttering in the wind on every side, yet instilling an overwhelming sense of heaviness. They rustled in the wind, the dense noise setting hearts pounding. The fluttering yellow sheets looked like paper talismans, giving one the sensation of standing at an occult ritual site—or even inside a sacrificial ground. At this moment, Emerald Flame froze, murmuring under her breath, "An altar? A sacrificial ground?" *Tap!* Footsteps suddenly echoed from the depths of the mist, drawing everyone's vigilant gazes. "Perhaps you do not know." "People once died here." "—Many people." A stiff voice rang out, sounding as though it had not yet grown accustomed to its own vocal cords. A student with a youthful yet rigid countenance, clad in a tidy school uniform, slowly emerged before everyone. Even though the school was shuddering violently, and even though the monstrous building of flesh and blood stood not far behind him, this student's expression was remarkably calm. His demeanor was gentlemanly and refined, carrying the unmistakable, terrifying shadow of someone they all recognized. "...The Principal?" Emerald Flame furrowed her brows, inquiring with puzzlement, yet her tone was utterly certain. "You really aren't dead!" The student did not answer directly, continuing instead to utter words that left everyone baffled. "Everything here is intimately tied to them." "And I am them—or rather, a part of them." With that, he slowly turned to look at the teaching building. In his eyes lay cold hatred, yet behind that hatred lurked an indelible terror. The fire of vengeance burned in his indifferent eyes, but soon those flames subsided into calm. "The ritual has begun." "You were all mistaken about one thing—I am not the master of this place, nor was it I who summoned the thing inside!" "Just as there is more than one ritual shrouding this realm... only a part of everything happening now was set in motion by me." It seemed there was more than one mastermind! The Principal spoke without expression. His slight, short student figure stood in the thinning mist, calmly facing the group that was on high alert as if facing a mortal enemy. Indeed, he had constantly "opened doors" using the key, stepping through space to battle several Titled Extraordinaries. However— "The key has always been in my hands." "Yet the seal in the deepest depths, bound by layers of colossal locks, was not unsealed by me." "In fact, quite the opposite—" He whispered softly, his gaze carrying a hint of recollection. "I am the gatekeeper. That is the mission for which I was born, and the shackle that binds me." "The key is the folding knife, yet it is not merely the folding knife." "I myself am also part of the key." "Yet long ago, a thought occurred to me..." He raised his head, looking up into the mist like a prisoner in a cage gazing sorrowfully at a flying bird. "I do not wish to live as a gatekeeper." "I will no longer remain bound to that thing..." As he spoke, he turned his head with a complicated look toward a direction shrouded in mist. Everyone else was baffled. Yet a certain black cat surnamed Bai, lurking there and peeking at the scene, felt an inexplicable shiver run down its spine. *?* *He couldn't be looking at me, could he?* Then, everyone—including Bai Zhou—heard a faint, ethereal whisper: "Therefore, by means of the ritual, I need to select someone." "More precisely, to choose a successor!" The campus continued to shudder, and the teaching building continued to unleash billowing waves of heat. The "Principal's" aura abruptly flared outward, his surging spirituality suffocating many Extraordinaries to the point where they could barely breathe. Pausing for a moment, he added: "—To inherit everything of mine!"