Ediv still remembered burning through that girl’s heart with his own hands, carving out her gland, and sending her plummeting straight from the university rooftop so it would look as though she had killed herself after her reputation was destroyed.
The rumors about her having improper relations with others had naturally been his doing as well.
Not only that, Ediv had personally pulled the deformed spine from her mother’s body and watched the hunched woman who lived on coarse cornbread convulse and die in agony.
To thank mother and daughter for their contributions, he had fitted the woman with a winding mechanism and stuffed her into a mascot suit so she could “cry for justice” on campus every day.
Ediv laughed deeply. The sound ricocheted through the icy caverns, overlapping with itself until it seemed like countless voices laughing one after another.
“The Black Lantern Society really went to a lot of trouble to kill me.”
Lance smiled, though his tone carried a note of complaint. “To get close to you, I spent an entire week grinding practice exams. If Xingzhou University’s security network weren’t so tight, it wouldn’t have been this troublesome.”
The reason the assignment to kill Ediv had fallen to him was simple: after everyone in the Black Lantern Society stayed up studying for an entire week, they discovered none of the others could pass Xingzhou University’s entrance exam.
Ediv sneered. “Have you forgotten you’re only an F-rank Awakener? What makes you think you can kill me? This useless pack of zombies in the dungeon?”
The hand he kept hidden behind his back slowly closed. The little black insects rustled up the mammoth skeleton, nearly reaching the tip of Lance’s shoe.
Lance looked bored. He stretched lazily and yawned. “You’re already about to die, and you’re still looking down on people.”
Ediv’s hidden fingers clenched. A vicious light burst from his eyes. “We’ll see who dies!”
The insects received his command and went berserk, surging toward Lance like a black tide, their mouthparts hissing strangely.
The instant they touched Lance’s skin, they could suck him into a shriveled corpse.
Yet Lance only smiled and did not move.
The vicious insects rushed forward—then, with startling politeness, split around Lance’s body and scrambled behind him instead.
They soon found a skeleton lying on the ground and happily settled all over it, as if returning to a warm womb. At once they became docile and still.
No matter how Ediv summoned them afterward, the insects refused to move.
Shock flickered in Ediv’s eyes.
The skeleton slowly climbed to its feet. Empty sockets stared in Ediv’s direction. Even though only two shrunken, dried eyeballs remained inside them, Ediv could still feel the overwhelming hatred and resentment.
The skeleton opened its teeth. With no throat left, it could not make a voice; only its jaw clicked harshly.
“Allow me to introduce her. Former second-year student of Xingzhou University, insect-type S-rank Awakener Deng Zhi.” Lance savored the way Ediv’s face instantly turned ugly.
“Nonsense. Deng Zhi died long ago!” He had cremated her himself. Even the bones had been charred.
Lance smiled. “Funny thing. One second before you burned away her body, she mastered her second-stage ability—[Limb Regeneration].”
So even with her flesh burned away and nothing left but bone, Deng Zhi had survived in this form, relying on the tiny remnant of pheromones left in her body to repair herself slowly.
Fortunately, when Ediv had removed her gland she had not yet possessed a second-stage ability, so even though Ediv carried her gland, he could not regenerate.
With Deng Zhi present, the stolen S-rank ability [Bone-Eroding Marrow Drain] could not function for Ediv. Unfortunately, Deng Zhi herself likewise could not attack him.
The clown removed his top hat, swept it elegantly through the air, and bowed like a gentleman. “Next, it’s my turn to perform.”
He gave Ediv a bizarre smile. Immediately, Ediv’s huge body flew out of his control and slammed into the ice wall. One impact was enough to split open his scalp.
Before he could recover, he flew up again and crashed through an ice tunnel.
Ediv staggered out from the shattered ice, blood covering his face. His scalp had been scraped away in places, almost exposing the skull beneath.
He wiped the blood from his face. His brain felt pulverized into paste, nausea surging through him.
No matter how he resisted, he could not control that force. It was just like… just like……
Suddenly, Ediv remembered the strange behavior of his shadow when he had been brought here.
Through the haze of blood, he looked behind himself. The light from the burning human fat stretched his shadow long across the black iron door.
He immediately noticed something wrong: his shadow pulled an enormous grotesque face at him—and a moment later, his own face uncontrollably did the same.
Ediv’s expression turned iron-dark.
He understood at once. This was Mad Clown’s ability.
Acting decisively, Ediv concealed his physical form and transformed himself into a mass of magma, hoping to withstand the endless collisions. But in his panic, he forgot one thing: magma cast a shadow too.
Excitement flashed through the clown’s eyes. He spun the ring necklace faster and faster. The mass of magma smashed through an ice wall without looking back and plunged headfirst into the underground river.
Hissss!
A huge burst of steam filled the entire cavern. Ice naturally countered fire. The magma shrank rapidly in the dark river until Ediv was forced back into human form and crawled from the water barely alive.
“Wait! Wait!” Ediv gasped. “I’ll pay several times the reward! I have no grudge against the Black Lantern Society!”
That request had been absurd. That ugly, lowly woman had been able to offer only one pink butterfly hair tie.
So he had never imagined the Black Lantern Society would truly come to kill him over a hair tie.
“Oh dear, I’m so tempted.” The clown said it sweetly, but his hands showed no mercy. The moment Ediv returned to human form, he smashed him bloody. The moment he turned into magma, he tossed him back into the underground river for a soak.
Ediv’s abilities were all close-range attacks, while the clown’s long-distance control kept him perfectly out of reach. Both were A-rank, and for the moment Ediv could gain no advantage at all.
Lance grew bored watching. “Stop playing. Kill him.”
“Fine, fine.” The clown put away his playful mood and prepared to make the shadow simply snap Ediv’s neck.
But at that exact instant, all the magma in the fissure went out at once and the surroundings plunged into darkness.
Without light, shadows naturally disappeared as well.
“Fuck!” the clown cursed.
The greatest weakness of this ability was that it could only be used while a shadow existed. Once the shadow disappeared, the anchor became useless.
Given the distance between them and Ediv, a flashlight would have difficulty casting his shadow precisely, while approaching rashly carried too much danger.
The clown immediately activated his first-stage ability, [Night Crow Assault]. Countless black crows rushed toward Ediv. Each carried hundreds of pathogens; if they touched human mucous membranes, illness would strike instantly.
He did not fear Ediv burning the crows with magma. The moment light appeared, [Shadow Control] would become effective again.
Yet the crows never reached Ediv. Halfway across the cavern, they suddenly dropped to the ground and flattened into bloody patties.
Ediv’s deep, hoarse laughter came from the darkness, echoing harshly through the icy caves.
Gone was his earlier wretchedness. He strode forward over the crow corpses, the crackle of breaking bones following every step.
“Did you really think I’ve only killed one S-rank student?”
The moment he finished speaking, Lance and the clown felt a pressure so great it stole their breath, as though a mountain had dropped onto their backs. The taste of blood flooded their chests.
Natural elemental S-rank first-stage ability—[High-Gravity Field]!
The mammoth skeleton could no longer withstand such weight. Its spine snapped with a sharp crack, and the entire frame collapsed. Deng Zhi was crushed flat beside it, unable to move.
The earth shook. The ice trembled, and the dungeon began showing signs of collapse.
If the ice walls came down, the underground river would flood the cavern in an instant. None of them had water-related abilities. Aside from the skeletal Deng Zhi, who did not need to breathe, Lance and the clown would likely die.
“That bastard had another trump card. We’re leaving!”
Cursing, the clown switched on a flashlight, casting both his and Lance’s shadows so he could use his ability.
He had torn his soul into multiple fragments and left anchors around the world. He could transport Lance to safety in an instant.
Unfortunately, this mission had failed on the brink of success.
But the clown was not stubborn. Nothing was more important than his own life. He had no intention of drowning in an underground river for a hair tie.
Deng Zhi’s hollow eye sockets looked helplessly toward Lance.
Since the Black Lantern Society had found her in a trash bin and hidden her in the dungeon, she had endured humiliation and clung to life, waiting only for a chance to avenge herself.
Unfortunately, she was still too weak.
Cracks spread across her skull under the gravity. The insects frantically packed themselves into the fissures, but Deng Zhi could no longer summon even the slightest will to survive.
She would not die, yet there was little difference between this and death. The tiny trace of pheromone in her bones would eventually run out, leaving her a terrifying skeleton moving through life like a walking corpse.
Mom, I’m sorry.
Deng Zhi’s skull caved in completely. Her ribs shattered one after another. Hope slowly vanished from her eye sockets.
Lance tilted his head and watched every change in her.
For one moment, the despairing Deng Zhi overlapped in his mind with the woman trapped inside the mascot suit.
Some lives in this world were as insignificant as mayflies, but Lance had always loved a scene where the heavens themselves were defied.
A cruel smile appeared on his face. Against all expectation, he reached out and stopped the clown’s hand.
Under the crushing gravity, Lance dropped to one knee. His eyes filled with burst red capillaries, his sternum compressed his organs, and blood flowed from his nose and mouth. The young master of High Tower Guild, White Pharaoh of the Black Lantern Society, had never looked so wretched.
His gaze remained fixed on the darkness. He wiped the blood from the corner of his lips with his ring finger and chuckled. “Ediv has to die.”
“Delusional. A dying struggle!” Ediv sneered and increased the force again. At last the ice could no longer endure it. It shattered into countless slabs that came crashing down from every direction.
The two innocent university workers quickly became meat paste mixed into the muddy water.
Lance shifted Deng Zhi’s broken skull toward Ediv and looked at him with mocking pity. “When you face me, you are as a mayfly before the heavens.”
The clown suddenly realized what Lance intended. His scalp prickled, and he shrieked, “Don’t forget you nearly had a mental collapse last time!”
Too late. Lance’s eyes gradually changed. Light plated his amber pupils. His auburn hair turned silver and spilled loose over his shoulders. His skin became an inhuman snow-white. Two sharp, hard wings of bone pierced from his shoulder blades and beat as though alive.
The S-rank gravity field seemed insignificant before him. He stood with effortless ease and walked toward Ediv.
A ring of strange, solemn totems slowly emerged around his neck, binding his throat like a curse. The markings came from some unknown place—indescribable and beyond dispute.
Wherever he passed, all sound ceased, the underground river froze in motion, and evil spirits retreated.
He looked down upon Ediv and all creation alike, as if gazing at the smallest ant.
Divine-class Awakening, unrankable ability—[Eye of the Desolate God].
“What are you—” Ediv stared into his eyes for a single second. The blood drained from his face, and he dropped to his knees.
The pressure was impossible to describe: chaotic, disordered, terrifying, as if it would tear apart all five senses and drag the mind into an endless abyss.
By the time Ediv regained awareness, his head had already flown from his shoulders. He watched helplessly as his own tall body crashed to the ground.
He did not even know how he had died. His eyes turned gray and dead.
With the final scrap of consciousness, he forced out several slurred words in terror. “You… Pacification War… survivor……”
Then blood poured from all seven orifices and he fell completely still.
Lance’s expression remained strange. He kicked Ediv’s corpse aside, turned, and walked straight toward the clown.
The clown’s scalp went numb. “Fuck your ancestors! Wake the hell up! I’m not ready to die!”
The shout seemed to restore a thread of Lance’s awareness. He stopped. With tremendous force of will, he raised a hand and clawed at the totems on his neck until the skin was torn bloody. He threatened the other presence inside “himself”: “Go back, or we die together!”
Cold sweat soaked Lance’s clothes. Bloody foam kept spilling from his mouth. His pheromones were completely out of control, filling the fissure with the scent of star magnolia.
For an instant, the light in his eyes intensified. The totems around his neck became scorching hot, as if silently venting anger.
Lance braced himself against the wall and coughed as though trying to expel all five organs at once. His body temperature shot to fifty degrees Celsius, and his gland stabbed with pain like needles.
Deng Zhi did not know what this terrifying existence was, but she still knelt gratefully, pressed her hands together, and silently offered reverence and thanks.
Perhaps it sensed the faith and submission of an S-rank powerhouse. It seemed satisfied. The light and the totems faded.
Lance was dizzy with pain, yet still desperately wanted to complain: even gods were this vain?