Chapter 61: Poor Little Corgi
On the other side of the wall, the ice still hadn’t melted, its bone-chilling cold seeming to seep into Yiming’s bones.
It froze the soul within his body.
The brown-haired boy’s upper body was covered in white frost, his eyelashes and brown hair dusted with white.
His exhaled breath seemed to carry the cold.
He had stood in front of his two companions at the start, taking the brunt of the damage, the closest to death.
“Yiming!”
Tang’s shout.
But he couldn’t move.
His remaining half-ear caught Yue Fu’s voice.
The noble sounded unperturbed, intent on carrying out his clan leader’s orders.
“It won’t take long for the clan leader to come out. Don’t run around in the meantime.”
Vines grew, tightly encircling Tang and An Huyu, who could still move.
Yiming heard An Huyu’s stifled sobs, holding back tears.
“Rao Yue, why don’t I just kill them?”
The A-rank ability user sensed no threat from them, his tone still careless, laced with disdain.
He glanced casually at Rao Yue, still half-kneeling in the corner, unmoving. “Earlier, too—don’t know who it was, but they dared to make a move on the clan leader.”
“For them?” Yue Fu sneered, spinning in place, eyeing the three weak young boys and girls.
“Fine, fine, it’s just a matter of dying sooner or later.”
“In all of Four-Way City, there aren’t many who can survive the clan leader’s hand,” he said.
“The clan leader is an S-rank powerhouse.”
High-ranks, at the top of this ability-driven society, could crush them as easily as squashing an ant.
Would it happen again? Yiming asked himself.
Would he once more watch Li stand in front of him, while he couldn’t even protect himself?!
Would he let that person bear the pain for him again?!
His body trembled, cracks spiderwebbing across the frost binding him, expanding, growing wider.
Shards of ice fell from his no-longer-youthful cheeks, piece by piece, revealing his eyes, his nose, his clenched jaw, his unwilling expression.
He shut his eyes tightly, lunging forward as if to run, to break through the membrane confining him.
“I don’t… want to run anymore,” a hoarse voice rasped from his trembling throat.
Back at the Qing Tong ruins, running through the rain, praying for a miracle only to have reality shatter all his illusions.
He swore he’d never run again, never abandon anyone.
No matter who it was.
And he would stake his life on it!
Metal surfaced on his body, peeling away the frost to reveal heavy silver light, forging an iron-armored shell.
The ice melted, fell away, exposing a human clad in iron armor, his entire body covered in metal, breaking through his limits.
Ability, Metal Heart, unleashed to its fullest!
His rank rose in that moment!
The long blade formed from his arm detached, slicing through the air toward Yue Fu behind him.
“How can he still move?!”
The blue-haired youth was startled by the sudden change, vines rising to weave a shield before him.
Yet the blade arced past his side, severing the two vines suspending Tang and An Huyu in a parabolic sweep.
“Tch, troublesome,” Yue Fu muttered, the woven vines before him unchanged, still protecting him.
At the same time, more vines sprouted from the ground, stabbing toward the iron-armored human!
The vines danced in the air, their emerald leaves casting an ominous black sheen in the dim basement.
Yue Fu’s gaze fixed on the figure encased in iron armor, a surge of anger rising at being challenged by a low-rank ability user.
Metal was heavy.
Clad in such armor, the clanging of metal striking metal rang out crisply with each step, the movements ponderous and clumsy.
But flexible vines could slip through any gap, binding their target tightly.
“You can’t escape,” Yue Fu could almost see the inevitable success.
But.
“What?!”
This iron-armored figure was unbelievably agile!
Like a monkey in the mountains, he deftly shifted positions in the cramped space, easily dodging Yue Fu’s prized vines.
“Too slow,” Yiming’s voice came from beneath the metal.
“Compared to Yan Changxiao, you’re too slow!”
His experience sparring with the battle-mad Yan Changxiao allowed him to keep up with an A-rank ability user’s speed—no, to surpass it!
The long blade, under his control, spun in the air, reattached to his arm, and slashed through the vines before him!
“Fine, fine,” Yue Fu laughed in anger.
He used his status, his strength, to look down on everyone, heedless of their feelings, acting the lofty noble heir.
In the Yue clan, the only one he cared about was his cousin, while everyone else was mere servants, pawns to be toyed with at his whim.
But now, he was being scorned by an ant whose name he didn’t even need to know.
Before him, vines surged in the cramped space, swelling into an impenetrable wall as he spread his arms, leaving no gaps.
The basement’s lights seemed to flicker for an instant, then dimmed.
The emerald green turned even darker.
“I’m A-rank!” he declared, as the vines surged toward Yiming again.
“My vines can’t be cut by you!”
The iron armor leaped nimbly, the long blades formed from both hands glinting coldly.
The reinforced vines grew thicker, harder to cut.
The sharp blade struck, the recoil making the metal hum, echoing in everyone’s ears.
From near to far.
The next instant, a thick vine struck Yiming’s waist squarely.
“Pfft!” Blood seeped from beneath the iron armor.
He was flung backward, crashing into the left wall of the corridor.
“Your resistance is pointless!” Yue Fu’s eyes widened, watching as Yiming slid down, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in the wall from the impact.
The vine raised its tip again, the sturdy plant curving, aiming at Yiming, who propped himself up with one hand, seemingly unable to stand.
The injuries from Yue Qing earlier were too severe.
“Killing you here won’t anger the clan leader,” Yue Fu smirked. “I’m his most valued subordinate, after all.”
The vines charged at Yiming, his gaze fixed on the shrinking distance between them.
In an instant, it seemed poised to pierce the iron-armored figure!
“Pfft!”
The sound of a blade piercing flesh.
Yue Fu let out a sharp nasal sound.
“Hm?”
He looked down.
At his chest, where his heart was, the tip of a silver-white dagger protruded.
“Jerk, at least check behind you.”
Behind him, the red-haired boy he’d called a weakling still had tears in his eyes, but his hand gripping the dagger was steady.
Those golden eyes gleamed with a sharpness unlike his usual demeanor.
He said, “You can’t even handle a weakling like me. Are you qualified to badmouth my brother?”
An Huyu, whom Yue Fu considered utterly harmless, had dealt him a fatal blow!
“You… non-ability user!” Yue Fu coughed twice, trembling as he reached out to grasp the dagger’s tip.
He suddenly looked up, shouting at Rao Yue, who had remained motionless in the corner. “Rao Yue! What are you standing there for?! Kill them! Kill them!!!”
And Rao Yue moved.
Yiming, still slumped against the wall, An Huyu, stepping back after releasing the dagger, and Tang, ever vigilant and ready to use her ability, all warily turned their eyes to her.
They knew she was an enemy.
And then—
“I’ve been holding back.”
The woman with moon-white long hair in a uniform stood up, addressing Yue Fu.
“Huh?” Yue Fu didn’t understand what she meant. “Are you mad I called you hot-tempered? What’s with you? Earlier, too—”
“That’s why I held back until now,” Rao Yue said, raising her hand.
A gun materialized in her palm, coldness glinting in her deep blue pupils.
“To kill you.”
She pulled the trigger.
“Bang!”
A-rank ability, complete penetration.
A single bullet pierced through his head, front to back, in a straight line.
The bullet’s gleam flashed and vanished.
Yue Fu collapsed.
The three young boys and girls froze for a moment but quickly turned their wary gazes back to Rao Yue.
Yet Rao Yue showed no intent to attack them further, instead looking at the suddenly erected wall.
Yiming, propping himself up with one hand against the wall, gritted his teeth and stood.
He, too, was staring at the wall.
“Brother…” he murmured.
And in their gazes, the wall finally moved.
From top to bottom, it dissolved into illusory specks of light.
Revealing the beam of light streaming down from the top of the passage, and within that light, a fallen body.
A long blade stood upright, piercing through Yue Qing’s heart.
The circular beam of light illuminated his face, contorted in extreme terror, as if he’d faced immense fear before death.
“…Yue Qing, that S-rank, is dead?”
An Huyu was the first to voice disbelief, staring ahead, unable to accept the reality. “He was S-rank!”
The same rank as his brother!
One of the few S-ranks in the entire empire!
The head of the noble Yue clan, who had just tried to kill them!
In just a few minutes, what had happened?!
“Who killed him?!”
He didn’t notice that Rao Yue, standing with them and looking at the same illuminated spot, had a glint in her eyes.
It was the look of someone beholding their lifelong faith—fervent, excited, as if witnessing a flag rising.
Yiming, leaning against the wall, deactivated his ability.
He took a step forward, his legs giving out, his hands flailing in a panic.
“It was our leader,” Rao Yue said.
Her voice, no longer cold and indifferent, brimmed with an emotion that seemed to burst from her chest.
“Our leader who guides us!” Her voice rose. “It has to be him, no mistake!”
Amid her words, Yiming, gritting his teeth, chased after the figure.
He stumbled up the staircase toward the outside light.
He lunged toward that light, and in the blinding rays, he saw the person’s back as they turned to leave.
Yiming ran out of the passage, out of the collection room, and in the corridor, he saw the person walking steadily away, their back to him.
“Wait!” He reached out.
His eyes felt hot.
Seeing that person’s unharmed back gave him an overwhelming urge to cry.
“Are you avoiding me?” he asked. “Li.”
Like an abandoned puppy, stubbornly returning to its master’s side, still wagging its tail.
But the black-haired youth ahead kept walking, the blue pendant at his ear swaying with each step.
“I’d rather you scold me. Can you not ignore me?” He felt like he was back in that dark commercial apartment, back to those precarious days when he could still hear that person’s voice.
The window revealed the scenery outside.
Above the nearby main hall, a sudden burst of red lightning erupted, spreading outward.
Twisting, like a writhing snake.
At the same time, it descended from above, piercing the ceiling.
Red blood threads appeared before Yiming, leaving a crack in the floor ahead of his steps.
The red spread, as if the entire sky was dyed in its glow.
The sudden crisis made Yiming’s already exhausted body collapse to the ground.
But he didn’t care, instead instinctively worrying for the black-haired youth ahead.
“Brother, danger!”
Yet amidst the relentless rain of red threads from above, the black-haired youth continued at an unhurried pace, step by step, moving forward.
As if strolling through a crisis, picnicking in the most dangerous place.
As if saying Yiming’s concern was unneeded.
Just when Yiming thought he wouldn’t get a response, the youth finally spoke.
“You’ve got the wrong person.”
Amid the red threads, the youth’s departing steps didn’t falter.
“You’re too weak. These matters…”
The youth turned his head slightly, as if glancing at the main hall shrouded in red light.
“You shouldn’t get involved.”