On the edge of the formation shrouded in darkness, over a dozen red-robed cultists who were repairing rune nodes received their orders and began methodically reclaiming their bone staves and crystals.
Clearly, this wasn't their first time executing an evacuation order; their movements were swift and efficient, without a single wasted motion.
The evacuation order they received was to withdraw through a secret passage left by the Blood Eye Cult in thirty minutes, leading them outside Hangzhou.
However, not all cultists had received the order. A few continued their repairs, unaware of the change.
If the Blood Eye Cult were to evacuate all at once, it would easily arouse the suspicion of the Shadow Abyss Wolf race.
The Cardinal had simply left some cultists behind, choosing not to relay the evacuation order to them.
Those left behind had essentially been sentenced to death.
The Cardinal looked at the cultists before him, his eyes vacant as he muttered to himself, “Troublesome people are coming...”
...
The corpses of monsters lay scattered across the street.
Lin Yuan stood amidst the remains of over twenty monsters, the blood on the tip of his Purple Lightning spear not yet dry.
He had 4,150 ability points. He was still 850 away from the 5,000 mark. Killing a few more Tier 2 Shadow Abyss Wolves would be enough.
Just as he was about to leave the street and continue toward the Hexagon Building, his left index finger suddenly twitched violently.
It wasn't a muscle spasm; the silver-white plain band ring had moved on its own.
The Space-Time Covenant, which had shown no reaction for a long time, was now vibrating with a hum. The surface of the ring was burning hot, as if it were resonating with something.
At the same time, the usually quiet space-time system energy within his body grew restless, as if responding to a silent call.
Lin Yuan came to a halt.
“What the hell is going on?” He looked down at the ring on his left index finger.
Since he had obtained this ring, it had always looked like a cheap, plain silver band. If it were dropped at a street stall, no one would give it a second look.
It had only “come alive” twice: once when the Tier 2, Level 5 Blood Eye Cultist in Donghai City opened the gray mist space, and now.
He held his left hand up to his eyes and turned his wrist. The ring's vibration was noticeably stronger in a specific direction.
It wasn't random; it was directional.
It felt as if an invisible thread were tied to the ring, pulling him toward a certain location.
The ring was showing him the way. Lin Yuan followed the direction where the vibration was strongest.
It didn't lead toward the Hexagon Building, but rather at a thirty-degree angle toward a row of street-side shops with shattered windows on the other side of the street.
Stepping over a fallen power pole, Lin Yuan pushed aside the half-hanging rolling shutter door of a breakfast shop and ducked inside.
The shop was a mess. Tables and chairs were overturned, the QR code payment sign on the counter had been trampled into the floor, and steamer baskets from the kitchen were scattered everywhere.
The vibration reached its peak as he approached a table in the corner. The temperature of the Space-Time Covenant rose so high that even with his Nine Rounds of Bone Tempering, Lin Yuan felt a slight sting of heat.
There was something under the table.
Lin Yuan crouched down and tilted his head to look beneath the table leg.
He saw a pitch-black stone slab, about the size of a palm and perfectly square, propped under the leg to level it.
It was covered in years of grease and dust, looking as if the shop owner had used it to prop up the table for a very long time.
Lin Yuan reached out and pulled the stone slab from under the table leg.
The slab felt heavy in his hand, significantly weightier than a normal stone of the same size. Its surface was rough, and its edges were uneven.
The moment he picked up the stone slab, the ring's vibration ceased, and the restlessness of his space-time system energy subsided.
As if it had found what it was looking for and breathed a sigh of relief, everything returned to tranquility.
Lin Yuan held the stone slab before his eyes, turning it over several times.
The front was pitch black, and so was the back. There were no runes, no carvings, and no energy fluctuations.
He brought the Space-Time Covenant close to the slab, but the ring showed no reaction.
He tried injecting space-time system energy into the slab, but the energy disappeared like a stone sinking into the ocean, eliciting no response.
He tried with lightning ability, but still nothing.
He placed the slab on the table and tapped it with his finger. It made a dull sound, no different from an ordinary rock.
“The ring doesn't react when close, and it doesn't react to energy. Do you want this thing or not?” Lin Yuan grumbled.
The ring, of course, did not answer him. It sat quietly on his finger, back to its appearance as a worthless plain silver band.
Lin Yuan flipped the slab over and tapped it twice more, but there was still no movement.
Then, it occurred to him that he could spend ability points to have the system identify it.
【Identifying this item will consume 300 ability points. Confirm consumption?】
Lin Yuan was startled when he heard the system's price.
“How... how many? 300 ability points?”
After thinking it over for a moment, Lin Yuan ultimately decided not to identify it yet.
Spending 300 points would only tell him what the slab was, and he didn't know if it could help him right now anyway.
“My primary goal is to save up 5,000 ability points to upgrade my E-rank lightning ability to D-rank!”
“That's the safer bet. I'll spend the points to identify it once I've left Hangzhou.”
Just as he was debating whether to put the slab away and study it later in a safe place, four presences suddenly entered his sensing range.
They were to the southeast, moving rapidly toward his position.
Lin Yuan was certain these four presences weren't monsters, as their fluctuation frequencies matched those of ability users.
Four of them, all at Tier 2 or higher.
Without a word, Lin Yuan stuffed the stone slab into the inner pocket of his jacket.
He patted his chest to make sure the slab wouldn't fall out, then bent down to pick up Purple Lightning, which was leaning against the table.
Before he could even straighten his back, four figures stopped at the entrance of the breakfast shop.
Two men and two women.
The four exchanged a glance before looking at Lin Yuan inside the shop. One of them spoke while pointing to her companions, “We're from Zhejiang Ability User University.”
“I'm Lu Qing. This is Da Liu, he's Glasses, and she's Xiao He. We've been assigned by the Ability User Association to clear out monsters in the streets and escort some stranded citizens to a safe point.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Lu Qing stared at the monster corpses littering the street for a long time.
Over twenty of them lay scattered across the cracked asphalt.
Green-maned Wolves, Thorny Boars, Iron-spined Boars, as well as two Rock-armored Great Lizards and a Shadow Leopard.
The shell of a Rock-armored Great Lizard had been pierced clean through, and the Shadow Leopard had a charred spear wound on its throat.
Every single one had been killed in a single blow.
She had sensed only one person's presence from the corner of the street and had assumed a Tier 3 or higher expert was clearing the area.
But when they arrived...
A youth wearing a dark gray casual jacket and carrying a purple spear stood amidst the pile of corpses. His cultivation was only at Tier 1, Level 9.
“Did you... kill all of these?”
Glasses pushed his silver-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose, his tone carrying unconcealed suspicion.
A Tier 1, Level 9 soloing a Tier 2, Level 4 Rock-armored Great Lizard? And killing over twenty other monsters at the same time?
He had been at Zhejiang Ability User University for two years and had never seen anyone like that.
Before Lin Yuan could answer, Xiao He, standing at the back, suddenly let out a small gasp.
She covered her mouth with one hand and pointed at Lin Yuan with the other, her round face looking as if she had suddenly recognized someone she'd seen on television.
“You're... you're that guy! The first-place winner of this year's Hangzhou college entrance exam field combat! The one who went one-vs-three in the video! The one with the score of 1,756!”
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