Furnace Rupture! The Burning Mansion!

Eleven thirty. Dark clouds surged, the moon obscured behind a high, howling wind. An invisible, chilling pressure descended quietly around Starlight Mansion. At first, it was the shadow cast beside a street-corner trash can, writhing and stretching unnaturally. Then, one pitch-black silhouette after another leapt down from the neighboring building. Like weightless ghosts, they slid silently down the sheer glass curtain wall like dumplings tossed into boiling water. From the sky, beneath the earth, inside the sewers... Figure after figure darted swiftly through the shadows, gone in the blink of an eye. Mysterious visitors walking through the depths of darkness opened their crimson eyes one after another, flooding around Starlight Mansion like a rising tide, encircling the area in absolute silence. —The Black Warriors. They had arrived. A security guard in the adjacent building seemed to sense something amiss and peered outside in confusion. The empty street reflected the moonlight like a placid pond, occasionally rippled by a slow-passing car whose headlights swept across its surface. All around was quiet, everything as usual. Shivering for no apparent reason, the guard shook his head and muttered as he looked away: "It only rained yesterday, and today the weather's already turned cold. I should switch out the bamboo sleeping mat once I get home..." Yet— Right above his head. A Black Warrior suspended upside down from the ceiling like a spider silently recorded and analyzed his every movement with cold red eyes. In the Black Warrior's vision, all of the guard's vital signs were documented, while it evaluated the guard's threat level like a machine. —Naturally, the guard's threat level was merely 0.01. And that 0.01 came solely from the stun baton clipped to his belt. "Woof! Woof woof!" A few sharp barks echoed from a stray dog in an alley, only to be cut short abruptly, followed by dead silence. The Black Warriors, creatures that had emerged straight from hell, were impeccably trained and suffocatingly coordinated. Yet not a single trace of noise leaked out. Without anyone realizing it, the perimeter contracted with unimaginable efficiency. Every potential escape route had been sealed in advance; every nearby strategic vantage point had already been seized. The inescapable dragnet was cast. A chilling murderous intent quietly permeated the late-autumn midnight air, bone-chilling and hair-raising. "—A visual feast!" Through the feeds transmitted by the Black Warriors' mounted cameras, the Major sat in his office, admiring the display on his computer screen. Cradling a champagne flute in one hand, he gently swirled it. A handsome male secretary stood attentively at his side, topping up his champagne. "Come." The Major adjusted his sunglasses, his cold demeanor unchanged, but tapped his thigh lightly. "Enjoy the end of this farce with me." "..." The newly appointed male secretary swallowed hard, taking a moment to mentally prepare himself. "Hm?" The Major's sunglasses tilted toward him. Chuckling awkwardly, the male secretary slowly lifted his leg and perched himself onto the Major's lap, looking well-behaved and cautious. The Major took a satisfied sip of champagne. "Once this matter is concluded, take over the work Adjutant Han left behind, including the position of Director of the Black Box Maintenance Department." The male secretary's eyes instantly lit up. "Thank you, Officer Luo!" "Officer Luo?" The Major's brow arched slightly. "Outside this door, you call me Officer Luo, and I won't fault you for it." "—But in here, what should you call me?" This question caught the inexperienced secretary off guard. He thought hard for a good while, recalling bits of gossip from when Adjutant Han was still alive, and ventured hesitantly: "L-Luo-ge..." "Hm?" Seeing the Major's stern expression soften, the secretary felt reassured. Taking a deep breath, he called out softly and delicately: "Brother Luo~" "Not so foolish after all." With a low chuckle, Major Luo rested his hand over the secretary's slender fingers, caressing them. At the same time, his deep, magnetic voice slowly resonated: "From now on, you are the new adjutant." "I will announce it to everyone tomorrow." The male secretary wore a woody cologne—the scent designated by the Major. At this moment, the Major felt a long-absent exhilaration. —Delightful, truly delightful! With a glass of wine in hand, beauty in his arms, and a lovely companion at his side, he could savor the scene of his enemy's head rolling on this quiet night. No doubt Bai Zhou was still fast asleep right now, completely oblivious that a hunt aimed at his life was about to commence. On the computer screen, accompanying the trembling camera feeds, his proudest secret weapon—the Black Warriors—had already successfully infiltrated Starlight Mansion, executing a flawless and highly efficient coordinated operation. Without a doubt, their upcoming performance— Would serve as a modest demonstration of military force to their ally, the Fine Arts Society! The Major looked forward to seeing it unfold. ... The black tide seeped into the building. As they tiptoed down an ordinary corridor— *Click.* A grating sound of mechanical friction ground against their ears, sounding starkly prominent on the silent ground floor. *Crash!* The ceiling ahead suddenly gave way. A spinning contraption composed of several sharply ground steel rebars, resembling a massive spinning top, dropped with a rushing whistle of displaced air, hurtling toward the Black Warriors at blinding speed. "Look out!" The lead Black Warriors reacted with extraordinary agility, instantly executing several backflips to retreat behind their ranks. Simultaneously, two Black Warriors from the rear stepped forward. Their crimson eyes flared with laser beams that shot straight toward the massive spinning top. *Hum—* The rebars rapidly melted into molten iron under the lasers. The edge Bai Zhou had meticulously sharpened appeared feeble before the Black Warriors. Watching this on his computer, the Major burst into hearty laughter. "A ridiculous trap!" "It might work on ordinary humans, but Bai Zhou knows nothing about Extraordinaries and Black Warriors!" The Major remarked softly: "Through our experiments, each Black Warrior has integrated a portion of the Black Box's abilities, their flesh constantly reshaped by its corruption, granting them physical capabilities far beyond ordinary mortals." "They are the lucky ones who survived from a pool of one in a hundred. Though they have lost most of their sanity, every single one possesses the power to battle Extraordinaries, and when cooperating in teams, they are even more terrifying." "—Moreover, they obey my commands unconditionally!" Looking down at the male secretary gazing up at him in full admiration, the corners of the Major's mouth curled slightly. "Facing killing machines like this, tell me, what chance does that Bai Zhou..." Before the Major could finish his sentence. A deafening roar erupted from the computer. The ritual arranged at the core of the destroyed "spinning top" was triggered. An explosive ritual. Then came a thunderous *boom*— The screen was swallowed by a surging wave of fire. "Bastard!" The champagne flute shattered on cue. Furious, the Major sprang up from his office chair with a start, cursing violently: "What a dirty, insidious mongrel!" ...In truth, a single explosion was hardly enough to inflict heavy losses upon the Black Warriors. Only the nearest Black Warrior, the one firing the laser, had its eyes blasted out on the spot, flesh flayed open and stripped of combat capacity. The other Black Warriors were largely unharmed. This was an acceptable loss. Yet the key was that Bai Zhou's trick had thoroughly disgusted everyone. The covert infiltration was declared a failure. The Black Warriors began their frontal assault. Yet even while mounting a frontal assault, their previous brimming confidence gave way to extreme caution, wary of fresh traps springing up without warning. Sure enough, before long, they encountered another trap along the only path leading upstairs— An entire wall was densely hung with sharp steel rebars, blocking their way forward. "What is this...?" Under the Major's command, the Black Warriors inspected closely and indeed spotted minute detonation runes carved into each rebar. "Recycling old tricks—at his wit's end!" What else did this fugitive on the run know how to do besides setting off explosions? Once he got serious, the Major had long anticipated Bai Zhou's habits. Thus, he issued a command brimming with tactical wisdom to the Black Warriors: "Do not destroy those rebars. Go around them—vault over!" The Black Warriors strictly carried out the order. *Swish, swish.* Black silhouettes vaulted past the staircase, leaping straight toward the floor above and catching the edge of the upper platform with their hands. With no need to take the stairs, their jumping ability was more than sufficient to reach the next level. Then, the fingers gripping the edge of the platform clearly felt the tiles sink abruptly under their weight. Every Black Warrior distinctly heard a continuous series of *clack-clack-clack* sounds. It was as though... every tile along the edge of the platform had turned into a raised anti-personnel landmine. Black Warriors: "?" Major: "?" *He was waiting for this right here?* *Bai Zhou anticipated their anticipation?* The mechanism was triggered. The side wall snapped open. *Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh—!* A rapid volley of sharp, piercing whistles rang out. More steel rebars! A dozen or so sharp, hefty rebars measuring one to two meters shot forward like ballista bolts. They flew directly toward the Black Warriors suspended midair and unable to maneuver, radiating lethal intent! Watching this scene from his distant base, the Major was reminded of a video game he had played in his childhood, where a pink pig rode an elevator and shot javelins at balloons carrying the big bad wolf. ...Fortunately, the Black Warriors were not as simple as the big bad wolf. Figures flipped and contorted. Rebars were smashed to pieces by the Black Warriors on the ground. Even if the rebars exploded, they had prepared themselves in advance. Yet there was no explosion like they imagined. The airborne rebars were far more fragile than anticipated. —Because they were completely hollow! *Poof—!* The rebars burst open. White powder erupted like a smoke grenade, instantly blanketing the entire area. It was quicklime! —With lime dust billowing through the air, even though the Black Warriors felt no pain, their vision was temporarily blinded. Right then, from an ordinary-looking fire safety glass cabinet nearby, a fire axe was violently ejected by some high-powered spring mechanism! *Squelch, squelch.* Two heads tumbled to the floor. The spinning fire axe struck the ground, throwing sparks. The Black Warriors could not see the spark for the moment. Yet through the computer screen, the Major instantly caught sight of that tiny reddish flame amidst the murky, ash-filled feed. "Damn it!" The Major cried out inwardly. As everyone knew, when dust concentration reached 63–86 g/m³, encountering an open flame would trigger a dust explosion. The very next instant— *Boom!* A massive explosion and a roaring surge of flames thoroughly swallowed the first floor of Starlight Mansion. Before the sparks entirely consumed the Major's screen. The last blurry image he caught in the gray feed— Was that sprung-open fire safety cabinet, bearing the slogan: *Detect fires early, extinguish small flames easily...* ... Similar traps appeared one after another. Without even catching a glimpse of Bai Zhou, the supposedly invincible Black Warriors suffered continuous non-combat casualties. Even facing a Rank 3 Extraordinary, a Black Warrior could hold its own in a one-on-one duel, entangling them for a long time with eerie capabilities. Once they joined forces, even the two ace Painters of the Fine Arts Society standing at the peak of Rank 4 felt a shudder of dread the moment they saw them. Yet such killing machines were made to suffer bitterly before this endless barrage of traps, entirely stripped of their initial cold, mysterious aura. —Out of fifty Black Warriors, only thirty-seven survived in the end. Among them, fifteen had remained stationed outside to maintain the perimeter. Only twenty-two Black Warriors made it to the top floor. ...Behind every Black Warrior lay piles of human lives and the Major's lifelong painstaking efforts. By a rough estimate, in just this brief span of time, the Major had lost at least fifty million federal coins, if not more. Meanwhile, an ordinary civil servant in the Eastern Federation earned a monthly salary of two thousand. *Thud! Thud, thud...* Heavy footsteps sounded. When the Black Warriors—their garments shredded by blasts, covered in dust or scorched black, trailing billowing smoke and glowing with crimson eyes—finally reached the top floor, Bai Zhou nearly broke his taut, icy expression. Clearing his throat, the window open behind him, his back to the moonlight outside... Bai Zhou stood in the shadows, forcing his face back into an emotionless mask, and spoke in a deep, heavy whisper: "To think you actually found my hiding place..." "It seems you are far more capable than I thought!" The Black Warriors said nothing. The voice answering Bai Zhou came from far behind the assembled Black Warriors. "—You are quite impressive yourself." "Setting up so many contrivances in your own stronghold, weren't you afraid of triggering one by mistake?" "It's hard to imagine how insecure a person must be to sleep soundly on top of so many traps." As the Black Warriors parted to either side. Two cloaked figures walked forward slowly, radiating a suffocating pressure so dense it was nearly tangible. Then the other cloaked figure, speaking in a mature woman's voice, slowly added: "However, this is where it ends!" "And who might you be...?" Bai Zhou narrowed his eyes slightly. "Our identities are immaterial." The woman shook her head, revealing a painted mask beneath the hood, faintly adorned with three sets of crowns. "Because we have no need to introduce ourselves to a dead man," the man took over once more. "It took these Black Warriors half an hour to climb from the first floor to the twentieth." The man looked up at Bai Zhou, a painted mask similarly visible beneath his hood. "You are clever. Knowing someone might be ambushing outside, you didn't take that chance to slip out and run into the two of us." "—Yet that only bought you half an hour more to live." With that, the man snapped his fingers. A faint ripple stirred in the air, encircling the entire building. Nothing seemed to happen, yet something clearly had. "I know you are skilled with explosions." "—Extremely skilled, in fact." "However, a person does not fall into the same pit twice... well, thrice." The man studied Bai Zhou, seemingly hoping to glimpse a trace of nervous tension on his face. "I presume you set up plenty of explosive rituals here too?" "Just like last time, when dealing with that fool Van Gogh!" Saying so, the man glanced around the surroundings. Unsurprisingly, densely clustered ritual patterns could be seen everywhere. And those were merely the ones visible here. There might be even more concealed rituals planted in unseen corners throughout the building. "—However, this time, Officer Luo specifically hired a ritual master who fully deciphered the structure of your detonation rituals and developed the corresponding counter-curse!" "Now, the counter-curse has taken effect, blanketing the entire building." "No matter how many 'bombs' you planted in this mansion, they are nothing more than useless scribbles now." The man paused here. He delivered the greeting the Major had instructed him to pass on to Bai Zhou: "—You have nowhere left to run!" "..." Just as the man wished, and just as the Major wished. Before everyone's eyes, Bai Zhou's expression indeed registered panic and astonishment. Yet the panic was so exaggerated that even Bai Zhou felt it was overacted. So, coughing twice, he quickly tucked that panic away, regaining his placid composure. "Indeed, a person doesn't fall into the same pit twice." "Unless—" "There is more than one pit here." "...?" After a beat of silence, the Major behind the computer screen and the two Painters furrowed their brows in unison. Bai Zhou's reaction had wildly exceeded their expectations. The man's tone grew guarded: "...What are you trying to say?" "Don't worry, there really aren't any explosive rituals left here." Bai Zhou waved his hand dismissively, motioning for everyone to relax. "Actually, I kept thinking you'd produce counter-measures against explosive rituals much sooner." "Still, a friendly tip: there's something else here." "—Because recently, I've developed quite an interest in a traditional craft of the Eastern Federation: alchemy rituals." "...Alchemy?" Everyone was bewildered, uncertain of his meaning. "Mm." Bai Zhou scratched his head, suddenly looking a bit embarrassed. "Though I'm terribly unpracticed with those alchemy rituals. After all, I don't possess any reliable lineage." "All I have on hand are some very outdated, crude rituals." "So mistakes are routine—or rather, I've never succeeded once." "But this time, on a sudden whim, I combined the concept of an 'alchemy cauldron' with certain structures of this building." "An interesting experiment." "—Naturally, it failed too." Speaking sheepishly, Bai Zhou casually leaned closer to the windowsill. The watery moonlight streamed inside, illuminating the wary, shifting expressions on their faces. Bai Zhou's voice rang in their ears, laying bare his true design: "As you know, a failed batch of alchemy can lead to all sorts of bizarre consequences... for instance, concocting strange oddities, candies that turn people into frogs, or pills that poison the consumer." "Yet the most common, most frequent outcome..." His words came to an abrupt halt. Just as everyone listened with bated breath, *Whoosh—* Catching them off guard, Bai Zhou threw his head back, flipped backward, and tumbled straight out of the twentieth-floor window. Leaving behind only a lingering cry: "Ladies and gentlemen—" "Until we meet again!" The expressions of the two Painters warped instantly, and they darted forward, vanishing from where they stood. "Has he lost his mind?!" Bai Zhou's sudden move wildly defied everyone's expectations. From the height of the twentieth floor, for Rank 3 or Rank 4 Extraordinaries who could not fly, leaping down would only reduce a person to a pile of minced meat! Yet if he tried to climb down? During the descent, Bai Zhou would be an open target for everyone! —How dared he?! *Clatter! Clatter!* Amidst a flurry of chaotic footsteps, the Painters and the Black Warriors rushed toward the window. Yet with a sudden *flack*— A massive dark shadow caught the wind right before their eyes, sweeping past the window. "What is that...?!" A trench coat spread wide like bat wings. It was Bai Zhou, gliding beneath the moon. "Quick! Shoot him down!" the male Painter roared. "...Wait, no!" The female Painter's face drained of color as realization struck, and she hurled herself out the window in a desperate dive. Before anyone else could react. The next instant— *Rumble—!!!* A colossal roar unlike any chemical or runic blast abruptly detonated! Sulfur mingled with dense smoke, mercury gleamed faintly within, and surging waves of fire swallowed everything. *BOOM!!!* —Another explosion! Yet this time, it was not in some neglected, unfinished villa out in the suburbs. It was in a bustling economic district. What exploded was an entire skyscraper. The burning mansion shook the entire North District of Tinghai City. The moment the fiery waves surged upward, the building's roof was blown clean off, like the lid of an alchemy furnace violently kicked into the sky. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought a certain stone monkey was bursting forth into the world. In the final instant before the fire consumed their sight, the unfinished words Bai Zhou had left behind echoed faintly in everyone's ears. A failed alchemy attempt— The most common, most frequent outcome... ...Was, of course, a ruptured furnace!