A glaring light came from a distance. Zhao Xiaokui averted her eyes, pulled her two teammates up from the ground, and looked up.
Wang Junwu was coming down from the car.
Seeing that Zhao Xiaokui and her team were safe and sound, he breathed a sigh of relief and jogged over, ready to take them in his care. “Are you alright?”
“Don’t come over!”
Zhao Xiaokui quickly stopped him, dragging Gou Rixin and Lin Bai out.
Lin Bai’s face was covered in blood, Gou Rixin’s head hung low, his arm swollen, and Zhao Xiaokui herself didn’t look any better—disheveled, covered in dirt, and her clothes torn in various places.
Wang Junwu stopped outside, while part of the Nightwalkers team set up inspection devices nearby, and another part held medical kits and first aid supplies, waiting for Zhao Xiaokui and her team to approach.
Walking out of the unfinished building and reaching what Zhao Xiaokui deemed a safe place, she finally loosened her grip, letting go of her two teammates. She knelt on the ground, blood flowing from every hole in her face.
“Stretcher, stretcher, quickly—”
“Elder God, mysterious domain…”
After uttering these two sentences, Zhao Xiaokui could no longer hold on. Her body leaned forward, falling to the ground.
Wang Junwu caught her just in time.
In a daze, Zhao Xiaokui could feel herself being lifted into the car.
The injuries on her body were not severe, mainly due to excessive energy consumption. However, after leaving the mysterious domain of the Elder God, she gradually absorbs free transcendent energy for recovery.
Yet, her consciousness remained hazy, as if she had fallen into a swamp.
“Mental damage, all three brains have varying degrees of impairment…”
Three stretchers swiftly crossed the corridor, and medical personnel in white coats hurried along.
Such an incident happening within the territory of Huaxia, especially in a place like S City, was like slapping a loud slap on the face of the authorities.
Wang Junwu’s face darkened. He could already foresee the scene of being scolded in every possible way.
While commanding the Nightwalkers to set up disruptors around the building, he reported to his superiors, requesting a thorough investigation of the unfinished building. No one, from construction workers to contractors, from builders to officials who approved the project, should be spared.
The night wind howled, crows perched on the wall, grooming their feathers.
No one spoke, no one made a sound. Everyone silently carried out their tasks, and if gestures could convey what was needed, no one opened their mouths to speak. The atmosphere on-site was so quiet that it felt somewhat oppressive.
Someone sneakily glanced at Wang Junwu, but his stern expression made them tense their shoulders.
Finally, everything was set up.
In the dark night, the dilapidated unfinished building stood like a silently looming black beast.
Wang Junwu stared at this beast, forcefully pressing his hand down, “Break!”
Invisible interference waves spread out, centered on the unfinished building, and one light after another went out.
Soon, the entire East District was plunged into darkness.
Electric company employees called in the middle of the night to fix the circuits grumbled, and no one noticed several SUVs parked not far from the unfinished building, resembling cheetahs.
They lay silently, as if ready to pounce and tear the opponent’s throat apart as soon as a weakness was exposed.
In the interference center of the unfinished building, it suddenly lifted layers of dust as if someone had blown on it. Invisible ripples penetrated through each load-bearing column, each wall.
Faces appeared from the walls and the ground, twisted visages with mouths wide open in pain, as if emitting unheard screams of reluctance.
Nightwalkers near the unfinished building almost simultaneously frowned, feeling a wave of disturbance in their emotions.
Most of them had undergone strict training, and even if they hadn’t personally experienced it, they knew what they were facing—
When the mysterious domain shattered, it would emit sounds imperceptible to human ears, causing intense interference to the minds of living beings.
This kind of interference is not lethal, but evidently, it doesn’t make people feel comfortable at all.
Fortunately, the unfinished building is quite far from residential areas. After the construction of this building was abandoned, some changes occurred in S City’s development, so the nearby population is not too dense.
However, these ordinary people are destined to have an unforgettable nightmare tonight.
In the Nightwalkers’ base, the lights in the emergency room are on.
Lying inside is Gou Rixin.
Under the shadowless light, his wounds have been cut open, and a piece of flesh has been excised, revealing the stark white bones inside.
“Neutralizing Agent No.7 has arrived.”
The speaker is a person who just rushed in from outside the operating room carrying a box.
He stops not far from the operating bed, puts down the box, quickly enters the password, and pops open the lid—
Inside is a bottle of translucent green potion, less than two centimeters tall.
A nurse with a cold expression breathes a sigh of relief, visibly relaxing even through her mask.
She says, “There’s hope.”
…
“Beep, beep, beep…”
These are two adjacent single-patient rooms.
In these rooms, lying separately are Lin Bai and Zhao Xiaokui.
Both of them are covered with monitoring electrodes, have indwelling needles in their hands, and the intravenous bags hanging above are delivering liquid into their veins at an unimaginable speed.
“No, no, no… Don’t… Don’t go… Go…”
Lin Bai’s brows were tightly furrowed, his face pale, and beads of cold sweat constantly seeping out of his forehead. A damp stain quickly spread on the pillow.
His murmuring soon escalated into a roar, and the monitor emitted a piercing scream. Medical personnel rushed in from outside, restraining the struggling individual on the bed.
“Control him, don’t let him harm himself.”
Appearing polite and refined, Lin Bai, at his core, was also an extraordinary individual.
His exceptional constitution allowed him to resist even while severely injured and in a state of unconsciousness. It took considerable effort from several medical staff members to keep him restrained.
Seeing him finally lying calmly on the bed, everyone wiped the sweat off their faces simultaneously, relieved.
As they left, someone glanced at another ward and said with lingering fear, “It’s a good thing it’s not the bed next door, or I’m afraid we wouldn’t have been able to restrain her.”
Others wearily agreed with his words.
Zhao Xiaokui’s reputation in the Nightwalkers’ base in S City was known to almost everyone.
An advanced berserker, a combat maniac…
She had just become an extraordinary individual and torn apart a vampire with her bare hands.
She engaged in a battle with a fugitive and brought down a helicopter.
Now she discovered a mysterious domain and, along with her teammates, tore through it to escape.
Tsk…
When she was brought into the medical department, the entire medical staff was drenched in cold sweat.
Although the medical department of the Nightwalkers’ base is designed to serve the extraordinary individuals among the Nightwalkers, to be honest, when extraordinary individuals are injured, it is the time they are most prone to losing control. While they have various means to restrain them, it is typically effective against extraordinary individuals with less potent offensive capabilities. The most challenging scenario is encountering fighters like Zhao Xiaokui.
There is a good chance that someone like her could demolish the medical department with a dream.
If Zhao Xiaokui weren’t a gentle water-element user, she would probably be lying in a specially prepared metal ward for those with high attack capabilities.
Glancing at Zhao Xiaokui’s ward and seeing stable data, several medical staff closed the door and left the corridor, returning to their respective duty rooms.
After the people left, the medical department, now devoid of footsteps and conversation, instantly became quiet.
Only the sound of ticking clocks remained.
Zhao Xiaokui opened her eyes amidst the ticking sounds.
She raised her head and immediately saw the clock on the wall, approaching five minutes past five.
Is this… her high school classroom?
“Xiaokui, are you awake? Pack up your backpack; class is about to end.”
Zhao Xiaokui couldn’t quite recall the name of the round-faced girl who had sat next to her for three years, but seeing her friendly face, she followed her suggestion. She gathered her pencil case, stuffed it into her backpack along with her water bottle, and then hugged the backpack to her chest.
She subtly surveyed her surroundings with her gaze.
At the podium, the teacher who taught her math for three years was explaining a solid geometry problem, drawing auxiliary lines one after another.
In the classroom, some people were sleeping peacefully bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun, while others, like her desk mate, had already packed their bags and kept glancing at the clock on the blackboard or sneakily checking their phones, their expressions revealing hints of anxiety.
Several classmates sitting near the classroom door had even lifted their bottoms off their seats, ready to dash out as soon as the bell rang.
The scene before her was both familiar and strange.
Familiar because she had seen this scene countless times during her high school days. Almost every day in high school, she witnessed similar situations.
Strange because she vividly remembered breaking through the sinister domain of the evil god just a moment ago, encountering Wang Junwu and the others who came to support.
An illusion?
Zhao Xiaokui, who had just faced off against the evil god, was highly alert to the current scene. Taking advantage of the lack of attention, she lowered her gaze slightly and looked at the palm of her hand.
A droplet of water shimmered and condensed.
Her extraordinary ability was still intact.
She looked at her classmates, attempting to peer into their souls, only to find that each classmate had a face that matched their appearance.
Of course, this excluded a female classmate rumored to have undergone plastic surgery in R country during middle school—her soul’s nose seemed slightly flatter, likely because the change in her appearance had not completely matched her soul yet.
Outside the window, a restless bird hopped around on the tall plane tree, chirping incessantly.
Everything felt so real.
As if time had reversed, she had returned to this day once again.
But why?
Zhao Xiaokui couldn’t understand.
She had been living well, without regrets or pain in life, so why was she reborn?
And why was she reborn at this moment?
Perhaps having seen too much in the extraordinary world, she had no thoughts of overturning fate after rebirth. Instead, her mind was filled with questions about what she had done and why it had led to the current outcome.
Her gaze casually swept over the math problems on the blackboard, suddenly freezing.
“Classmates, don’t panic. I know we’re about to finish the class. Give me an extra ten minutes, and I’ll finish the last question. Zhao Xiaokui, what are you doing?”
Under the astonished gaze of the math teacher, Zhao Xiaokui grabbed her backpack and rushed out of the classroom like a gust of wind.
Behind her, there were amazed praises from classmates who were impressed by her ability to postpone the end of the class.
But she didn’t care about much at this moment.
High school ended at five in the afternoon. The school gate opened on time, and although she was only two or three minutes away from the end of the school day, the gate remained closed.
Two security guards sat in the security room, chatting while enjoying the breeze from a fan.
She ran over, propped herself against the electric sliding door, and like an agile swallow, leaped over it.
“Which class are you from…”
The security guard’s words were left behind.
On the street, Zhao Xiaokui gritted her teeth and sprinted, like a gust of wind passing through pedestrians strolling leisurely.
Faster, even faster—
Seeing that math problem, she finally remembered what day it was today.
June 9th.
The day her grandmother passed away.