Return! Death and the Corpse

This was not how the story was supposed to go! You were supposed to chat with me, ask me what I went through in the Reflected Ruin Realm over the past twelve hours, and then your eyes would go wide, your jaw would drop, and you'd look at me like I was a celestial being, saying, "I knew I had an eye for talent! You really are the true Destined one, I knew from the start you had what it takes, hahahaha—" So what on earth was this "You worked hard" nonsense? Why did you immediately greet me with "I came to pick you up from school"? This wasn't the triumphant-return-home script, and this certainly wasn't the demon instructor Crow I knew! For a moment, Bai Zhou stood dazed. He even began to wonder if he had fallen under some devil's glamour right from the beginning, having never escaped the illusion woven by the school demon to this very moment. Just look at Miss Crow's expression right now, overflowing with what looked suspiciously like maternal affection—it was shocking enough to snap Bai Zhou out of his near-faint state into pure disbelief. What kind of face are you making? What is this ridiculous sentimentality, and what are you doing with this feeble gentleness! Are you still that decisive, deadpan Hunter? It was so bizarre, so abrupt, so... profoundly embarrassing. Truth be told, it ought to have been deeply touching. For eighteen years, Bai Zhou had grown accustomed to living in solitude. On school days, he would leave early on an empty stomach; after class, he would buy groceries on his way and return home alone in the evening. The bustle of ordinary life was always rich along the road after school. The bells of bicycles carrying children rang without end, while Bai Zhou walked alone on the edge of the street, watching parents' bikes sweep past and leave him in the dust. Later, Wancheng was gone, and Bai Zhou had no school left to attend. He truly wandered to the ends of the earth just as he had dreamed as a child, only to batter and bruise himself all over. He had never imagined that a day would come in his life when someone would say to him: *I've come to pick you up from school.* Such words held no special weight when merely imagined, and they seemed paper-thin when read on a page. Yet when someone actually said them aloud, tinged with a hint of earnestness while carrying the easy naturalness of second nature— To an orphan like Bai Zhou who had never heard such words, the impact hit like an exploding bomb, leaving him utterly speechless. "Wake up! Bai Zhou, are you lucid right now?" Crow's voice pulled Bai Zhou back to his senses. "Now is not the time to sleep. I need to make sure your physical condition is safe and sound!" With that, Crow naturally patted the dust off Bai Zhou's clothes, preparing to run him through a routine SCE ritual. However— *Hum!* Sensing the ritual's power, the school uniform on Bai Zhou suddenly gave off a faint glimmer, repelling Crow's hand as if in disgust. An invisible force rippled out, canceling out the SCE ritual's energy. Seeing this, Crow froze, an invisible question mark practically hovering above her head. "What happened?" An innocent Bai Zhou was equally baffled. He hurriedly looked down, then suddenly realized. "Can this school uniform now neutralize rituals to a certain extent?" Is this uniform really starting to turn into some kind of mage robe? "The only issue is that it can't tell good rituals from bad ones." Bai Zhou smacked his lips and was just about to weigh his words to explain when he looked up and met Crow's deeply astonished gaze. "You—" Crow looked him up and down carefully, only now discovering that beneath his utter exhaustion and myriad wounds, a hidden, extraordinary vitality pulsed within his body, brimming and ready to surge. Focusing her gaze once more, Crow realized that Bai Zhou was in uncanny harmony with the surrounding spirituality, his entire aura far deeper and more profound than before. This was— "Qi? Internal and external circulation, pre-natal essence?" Crow's eyes snapped wide. Even she couldn't help but lose her composure: "You... you advanced again?!" Why "again"? Because last night, when Bai Zhou returned from the Reflected Ruin Realm, he had clearly just reached Tier 3! And tonight, Bai Zhou had advanced to Tier 4?! Are you the reincarnation of an ancient god? Or was there some extraordinary elder, some sealed, crippled fossil in the Reflected Ruin Realm who imparted power and bestowed their mantle upon you every single day? Rather than believing in pies falling from the sky, Crow was more inclined to suspect that if Bai Zhou had encountered an initiation, the other party had likely poured memories and emotions into him along with it. Such occurrences were hardly rare in the mystic world of the Eastern Federation in the past. —Though usually, people called that "body snatching." Consequently, the look Crow gave Bai Zhou was no longer as gentle as before. A sharp gaze swept over Bai Zhou from head to toe, her eyes dark and carrying scrutiny. "What on earth... did you do in the Reflected Ruin Realm?!" It was finally here. It seemed some things might be delayed, but they were never absent. Bai Zhou blinked. Still, where should he even begin? Though they had only been apart for twelve hours, he had experienced far too much in between. From Chapter One: "Clever Stratagems in Uniform: Senior Zhou Angrily Thrashes Junior Wu," to Chapter Two: "Shattering the Student Council in Three Punches: Senior Is a Good Student." Then through "The Highway Trio," "Furious Slaying of the Exam King," "Havoc in the Academic Building," "Clash with the Iron Thorns," "Forcibly Swallowing Eight Campus Rules," and "Inheriting the Gatekeeper"—all the way to the final installment: "The Knight Smites the Demon, the Spirit Cat Slips through the Ruin Realm by Night." In a mere twelve hours—barely more than turning around and meeting again from Crow's perspective—Bai Zhou had lived through monumental events that many mediocre Extraordinaries would never experience in an entire lifetime. It was precisely because he had experienced so much, cramming years' worth into twelve hours, that Bai Zhou had been able to comprehend the true essence of Qi and advance to Tier 4; to touch the threshold of Intent and make the seed of battle intent blossom. At the same time, he had merged fifteen kinds of wicked desires into himself, inherited the identity of the gatekeeper principal, and triggered successive secondary evolutions in his school uniform that had yet to be fully digested even now. As for obtaining the Educator pathway, picking up the Thunderous Heavenly Bow, shocking a bunch of Titled Extraordinaries along the way, and achieving the feat of vanquishing a demon... well, those were merely incidental side tasks. Eating and taking his fill, Bai Zhou had entered Yuanmeng Middle School with an empty stomach, and departed the Ruin Realm with a brimming basin and a bulging belly. And all of it traced back to that graduation photo in Fang Xiaoxia's home. Thus, because there was too much to tell and he had no idea where to start, Bai Zhou cleared his throat twice and summarized everything in the most concise, minimalist words possible: "Um... I just went to school, and then school ended." Bai Zhou was telling the absolute truth without a word of exaggeration, yet it somehow encompassed everything he had lived through. "And along the way, through everyone's trust and nomination, I became the student council president. And the principal." Miss Crow was struck dumb. She blinked twice, trying to comprehend Bai Zhou's words, but her expression ultimately settled into sheer bewilderment. "What on earth... is a principal?" *** Yuanmeng Middle School, deep in the mist. A shocking, colossal crater stretched across the ground. Along its perimeter, deep fissures branched out in all directions, from which pitch-black corpse fluid oozed outward, foul beyond endurance. Desolation and deathly silence smothered the surroundings. Only the crackling of burning metal could be heard, amidst a messy expanse strewn with severed limbs and remnants charred black by lightning fire, resembling a foul-smelling, oversized garbage dump. Faint shadows seemed to drift through the air, countless blurry silhouettes wheeling above the crater like black cloths floating in midair, reminiscent of scythe-wielding grim reapers circling a throne. Floating black cinders swirled and danced. The soil of the crater glowed with the red gleam of combustion, across a barren landscape of silent death. Amidst the low moaning of the wind, the footsteps of three Titled Extraordinaries broke the silence. Armor clanked as Rusted Silver Knight took in the extraordinary phenomena within the crater, unable to suppress a sigh. "Truly incredible. To think we actually brought down such a being—a legendary demon." "We?" Emerald Flame looked at Rusted Silver Knight with a strange expression, making the old knight flush red beneath his visor. "All right, it was that mysterious 'Senior Zhou' who turned the tide. We... well..." Rusted Silver Knight seemed to struggle for words to summarize their contributions, but ultimately came up empty. "The demon was formidable, 'Senior Zhou' was mysterious, and we..." In the end, Emerald Flame provided the assessment, summarizing the trio's "distinguished service": "We served as remarkably qualified spectators." After a delicate silence, the three glanced at each other and couldn't help but give bitter smiles. Never before had a day left the three of them—revered by thousands as Titled Extraordinaries—feeling so useless, forced to sit obediently in the audience as mere onlookers. At that moment, Rusted Silver Knight seemed to remember something and suddenly spoke up: "I'd wager the chroniclers from the Ashen Relic Archive caught wind of this long ago. They might be lurking nearby right now, having already recorded this 'history.'" "As they should," Emerald Flame agreed, nodding. "That mysterious Destined youth deserves to be written into 'history.'" Standing beside them, Sword of Winter did not join their banter. He was intently surveying the crater beneath their feet. "Time to head down." The crunch of gravel sounded underfoot as the man prepared to descend, his raspy, cold voice following. "Then we should clear out these 'black flies' first." Emerald Flame raised a hand, pointing toward the dense swarm blanketing the air above the crater. It was a dense cloud of black specks of light that possessed vitality, transforming into pitch-black, semi-transparent flies. At times they buzzed, at times they were eerily silent, coiling above the crater like a writhing dark cloud. In many mythologies, the image of flies symbolized death, decay, and the supernatural. Now, the appearance of these blood flies typically signaled one thing: "The demon is probably truly dead. That's why these 'black flies' were born." "That's good news, but..." Emerald Flame knitted her brows. "I've seen records in certain archives. This is a minute extraordinary organism. An individual fly is manageable, but in large numbers, they pose a tremendous threat even to high-tier Extraordinaries—" Before Emerald Flame could finish her sentence— *Crack—!* The sharp sound of fracturing ice rang out. Immediately following, massive cascades of ice burst forth, plunging the ambient temperature by more than twenty degrees in an instant. When Emerald Flame and Rusted Silver Knight looked again, the sky-filling swarm of black flies had been entirely sealed in blocks of ice, crashing down into the bottom of the crater like heavy hail. "Now we can." Sword of Winter's demeanor remained placid, as though he hadn't been the one to act at all, save for the frigid chill radiating from the Ice Soul Greatsword in his hand, which sent shivers down the other two's spines. As Sword of Winter led the way into the crater, Emerald Flame and Rusted Silver Knight exchanged glances and whispered to one another. Emerald Flame murmured, "Looks like he's been holding that in for a while." Rusted Silver Knight nodded deeply in agreement. "I've seen him gripping that sword the whole time, accumulating who knows how much chill, just waiting for a chance to vent it." With that, Rusted Silver Knight added a reminder: "Best not get on his bad side right now!" "You all—" At that moment, Emerald Flame turned around and addressed the numerous agents behind them: "Reinforcements should arrive shortly. Wait for them here." "Set up a perimeter and seal off the vicinity. Until the three of us return, no one below Tier 6 is permitted to enter!" "Furthermore—before we return, none of you are authorized to act independently, including personnel from outside our agency." "Agents, keep close watch over them. Any violators will be severely punished!" A hellish crater, off-limits to outsiders. *Hmm...* The deeper they ventured into the crater, the more hazards lined their path, and the more pungent the stench of decay and sulfur grew. Faint wails and weeping seemed to linger in the air, drifting indistinctly through the blood-tainted atmosphere. Walking across this terrifying crater, even three Titled Extraordinaries had to stay vigilant at every step. The spirituality inside them felt tainted and constrained by some invisible pollution, growing sluggish and hindered in its circulation. Yet they also saw remnants of blood-red lightning crackling in the soil. Approaching these flashes of lightning caused that invisible contamination to recede. Clearly, these were traces left behind by "Senior Zhou." They couldn't help but sigh inwardly, gaining an even more direct impression of the Thunder Knight's sheer might. Ultimately, overcoming obstacles along the way, the three cautious Titled Extraordinaries arrived at the very center of the crater, where they beheld "Its" corpse. A girl with porcelain skin fair enough to gleam closed her eyes, clad in a blood-red gown, lying peacefully atop the tangled ruins of charred ash and crimson. Like a poppy blossoming in a barren, broken wasteland, she was breathtakingly beautiful, yet exceptionally dangerous. Merely observing from a distance, the three Titled Extraordinaries could distinctly sense that this seemingly inert, beautiful shell radiated an erosion and pollution far subtler than during its earlier berserk assaults. The entire massive crater had transformed into an earthly purgatory, possessing contamination potent enough to drive Tier 3 Extraordinaries mad, alongside various living anomalies birthed and remolded by the pollution seeping from this vessel. "The demon's corpse has become a source of contamination," Sword of Winter said in a low voice. "If left here unchecked, the contamination will spread and eventually spawn a catastrophe!" A living demon was a disaster incarnate. A dead demon could just as easily become the source of one—perhaps even more troublesome to deal with than a living one. Much like handling a virus-ridden corpse, the slightest misstep would pry open Pandora's box, triggering unimaginable consequences. *Clang! Clatter—* Armor shifting, Rusted Silver Knight scrutinized the red-gowned demon, his expression beneath the visor fraught with doubt and suspicion. "So... is it truly dead? This isn't how a demon ought to die." Rusted Silver Knight said gravely, "I keep feeling as though it's still alive, merely asleep for the moment..." "What else did you expect?" Hearing this, Emerald Flame let out a light laugh. "Did you expect the heavens to blow the horns of ruin, the earth to chant dreadful laments, and the loom of fate to spin out Its final thread, only for the demon to return to its origin under the gaze of gods amidst a grand funeral?" "Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with that, but this demon hadn't even been 'born' yet. How could it warrant such fanfare?" "Still, speaking of death..." Emerald Flame's voice paused. Her thick eyelashes fluttered, her gaze dropping. "For certain beings, death is never the end of the journey—it is a new beginning." "Even humanity did not fear corpses in distant eras; much like beasts, they would consume their deceased kin." "Humans in those ages did not fear death, but revered it. They viewed death as sacred, as an apotheosis. The kings of Egypt even regarded death as the inception of ascension to godhood." "Studies indicate that such primitive perceptions are intimately tied to certain traits of mythical beings." Emerald Flame's eyes held a trace of reminiscence. In this moment, she seemed less like a vibrant goddess of war and more like an academic university professor. "Although death marks the end of life for humans, it is not so for demons—just as a human disperses into dust beneath moonlight while the atoms of the universe never perish, so it is with demons. Such mystical entities merely wander forever through time." "For a demon, death is like water vanishing into water—is that something to be feared?" "No matter what we do to it, it will inevitably return countless years from now." Emerald Flame shook her head slowly, her voice somber. "Therefore, what the Destined youth killed was merely the vessel carrying its will, merely this embryo. And what we must deal with is also just this embryo that served as the vessel for its descent." Such was the nature of Extraordinaries: the more one knew, the more one realized one's insignificance; the higher one stood, the deeper the despair. If novice Extraordinaries knew their enemies were beings of this caliber, and that all of humanity's efforts across the long ages served only to delay the return of certain entities, would they sink into despair upon first learning the truth? "Not necessarily—those were conclusions from earlier mystics' research." Sword of Winter spoke up at that moment. "Recently, I heard that mystics from Tianjing uncovered new archaeological findings in the Reflected Ruin Realm behind Tianjing." "Those were the ruins of a sect that studied death. In their records, they asserted with absolute certainty that death, like emotion, is immortal. No matter how powerful an Extraordinary may be, or even mythical creatures perched at the pinnacle of the extraordinary, all fear death equally." "It is simply that death itself comes in multiple forms." "Even for a human, truly ceasing to exist requires undergoing three deaths. To genuinely eliminate a demon, the 'death' required is all the more intricate." With that, Sword of Winter shook his head. "In the end, humanity knows nothing of death." "On the scale of civilization's history, the Extraordinaries of our era are merely toddlers just learning to walk." The somber topic left them in silence for a time. In the end, it was Rusted Silver Knight, who possessed the simplest perspective and knew the fewest esoteric secrets, who snapped them out of it: "Let's not ponder death from the perspective of the living." "No matter how much we ponder, our days won't increase or decrease by a single one. Living itself is the meaning. Who knows, perhaps we'll have the chance to witness unimaginable landscapes in the future, and we'll naturally view the same matters differently then." "Right now... I just want to dispose of this corpse as quickly as possible!" As he spoke, Rusted Silver Knight didn't even dare keep his gaze on the embryo corpse left by the demon for too long. "To handle this corpse, we must employ a potent ritual and requisition a Black Box of Grade C or higher from the Special Control Bureau headquarters to carry out an execution—only unimaginable mystery can counter unimaginable mystery." After a moment's consideration, Emerald Flame offered the optimal current plan: "I propose we seal this area first, await reinforcements, and proceed with transporting the corpse with utmost caution." As she spoke, Emerald Flame drew out a Black Box, apparently preparing to lay down a ritual to seal the site. "By the way," Rusted Silver Knight spoke up, "should we call that 'Senior Zhou' over to take a look? After all, this is his 'trophy.' Maybe he has a better method." "Senior Zhou?" Emerald Flame paused, then gave Rusted Silver Knight a meaningful look. "Would you believe that this mysterious Destined one has most likely already left the school?" "What!" Rusted Silver Knight's armor clattered. "How could we let our hero just leave like that?" "Hero? That depends on how higher-ups view the matter." Emerald Flame's answer invited contemplation. "Since 'Senior Zhou' went out of his way to conceal his face, he must have had his reasons." "Whether that's the case, we'll know once we head up to check." Some things were best understood tacitly without needing to be stated bluntly, sparing everyone awkwardness. Her instructing all agents not to act independently, and even to monitor the others, had certainly not been done aimlessly. With her meticulous nature, it was even less possible that she would overlook the presence of that mighty Destined one after the battle and head straight for the crater where the demon had fallen. —Unless it was deliberate! Yet throughout this process, Emerald Flame had also inadvertently realized that someone who preferred to remain unnamed had shared the exact same thought— Then, under Rusted Silver Knight's baffled and uncomprehending gaze— Emerald Flame looked toward Sword of Winter, a knowing smile gracing her lips. Sword of Winter did not smile. He merely turned his head away and gave a cool, subtle nod. Everything was understood without a word. *** Outside the crater, agents were setting up perimeter lines and various instruments, waiting patiently for the three Titled Extraordinaries to return. Just then. *Tap, tap—* A rustling sound arose from deep within the mist, steadily approaching the perimeter. Shadows lengthened as a stiff silhouette slowly emerged from the fog. The figure moved with unnatural awkwardness, looking entirely unaccustomed to its own limbs, its shoulders slumping like a walking corpse. "Who goes there?!" The agents instantly went on high alert, shouting sharply. *Clack! Clack-clack!* Three Queen Bee-200 heavy machine guns, dozens of Phantasm-3 assault rifles, alongside various pistols and submachine guns— Advanced firearms gleaming with faint blue enchanted runes raised their muzzles one after another. All aimed at the mysterious newcomer emerging from the mist! Simultaneously. In the momentary gap while everyone's attention was diverted, the air seemed to warp abnormally— Another faint, transparent outline—a blurry silhouette cloaked in a mantle—flickered past behind the crowd. As the hem of the cloak fluttered in the drifting air, exposing the garment beneath, a blooming bauhinia blossom quietly flourished amidst the mist.