Chapter 51 Part 2

Panic, fear, despair—all negative emotions swirled. The impacts came one after another. At this rate, his hiding spot wouldn’t hold much longer.

What should he do?

There was more than one monster outside. Like sharks that had smelled blood, new monsters continuously gathered toward this side.

Lin Juan searched around but encountered no monsters and received no response.

Just then, he saw a group of figures surrounding something. He changed direction without hesitation and headed that way.

No wonder he hadn’t run into any monsters—they had all come here.

Lin Juan had searched for so long without finding anyone, and his frustration hadn’t eased. Since the monsters had come to him, they had no one to blame but themselves.

Lin Juan dashed forward. With fists and feet flying, he sent a swath of monsters smashing away.

Finding it too much of a hassle to beat them directly, Lin Juan simply grabbed a massive monster and used it as a weapon to smash the others.

The monsters let out earth-shattering screams.

Zhou Ping, mired in despair, jerked his head up. He crawled to his feet from the ground and peered outside cautiously.

The long-haired young man stood amid a pile of downed monsters, like a god descending from heaven.

Zhou Ping nearly burst into tears. “Lin, classmate!”

Eh? Someone was there?

Lin Juan turned his wrist and tossed the monster in his hand aside.

The half-dead monster let out a muffled grunt. Terrified of being spotted by Lin Juan, it cautiously lifted its head. Seeing that Lin Juan wasn’t paying attention, it smashed its face back into the ground.

Damn it! Where had this freak come from? He was way too strong!

Lin Juan walked up to the edge of the nearly ruined equipment room. “Zhou Ping?”

“It’s me.” Zhou Ping shoved the massive boulder blocking him from above. He wept with joy. “Lin, classmate, I finally waited for you.”

Lin Juan pulled him out. “How did you end up here? Where are the others?”

“I was with Shi Haochen when we ran into a shadow monster chasing people down. Shi Haochen lured it upstairs. Lin, classmate, let’s go save him!” Ignoring his own state, Zhou Ping bolted toward the teaching building.

“I’ve already been upstairs. No one was there.” Lin Juan called him back.

“How could that be?” Zhou Ping froze. He didn’t dare imagine the worst. “Then where do we look for people?”

Shi Haochen had to be okay.

The adolescent boy who had held back tears amid the monster ambush instantly reddened his eyes. Panicked and flustered, he said, “Lin, classmate, we have to save him! He only ran upstairs so I could escape. I can’t just abandon him…”

“I won’t abandon him. Calm down first.” With Zhou Ping starting to babble incoherently, Lin Juan had to soothe him. “Before I found you, I searched a ton of places around the school. I didn’t run into many monsters, so he should be safe.”

“He’s definitely safe,” Zhou Ping murmured.

He was convincing himself as much as steeling his resolve.

Shi Haochen had to be fine!

Lin Juan led the dazed and lost Zhou Ping as they continued searching for people.

The school felt too vast and empty, shrouded in fog everywhere. They couldn’t see far, which made finding anyone much harder.

“There—looks like someone.” Lin Juan halted and squinted upward.

The teaching building was only six stories at most. Without the heavy fog, the rooftop would have been easy to make out.

Unfortunately, the fog blocked their view. Lin Juan couldn’t be sure if the silhouette upstairs was Shi Haochen.

Or something else entirely.

Zhou Ping looked up. “The fog’s too thick. Should we go check it out?”

“Let’s go.” They weren’t finding anyone down here anyway. The person might be up top. And even if it wasn’t a person but some monster, Lin Juan wasn’t afraid.

As they drew near, they realized this was the same teaching building where they had taken the exam.

He had gone up and down it earlier without seeing a soul. So why was someone on the roof now?

Lin Juan and Zhou Ping climbed the stairs.

Twenty minutes later, they were still looping around inside the stairwell.

“Wait.” Lin Juan stopped. “This is taking too long to climb.”

It hadn’t taken him this much time before.

Zhou Ping leaned against the railing, panting. “We’ve gone up more than six floors.”

Lin Juan looked up. Two or three floors above, there was a patch of bright light.

Zhou Ping started to say something, but then—boom!—Lin Juan kicked the wall next to the stairs.

The wall caved in, revealing the rooftop just beyond.

The stairs revealed their true nature too.

They hadn’t been climbing upward at all. They had just been going in circles in the same spot.

Lin Juan and Zhou Ping climbed through the hole.

At some point, the moon overhead had turned into two. They shared the same brightness and sat on the same horizontal line—more like a pair of eyes now.

Zhou Ping felt intensely watched.

It was malicious, like the gaze of someone observing lab rats. His scalp prickled.

He forgot why he had come and shuffled forward unconsciously.

Seconds later, he reached the rooftop’s edge.

“Zhou Ping!”

Zhou Ping snapped awake. Half his foot hung over empty air. Cold sweat drenched him.

If Lin Juan hadn’t called out, he might have plummeted without realizing it.

The thought filled Zhou Ping with dread. He collapsed backward onto the ground and scrambled away, not stopping until he reached Lin Juan’s legs.

This time, he didn’t dare look up at the moons again. Those two moons had some kind of bewitching power—far too creepy.

Lin Juan stepped forward. Zhou Ping climbed to his feet, kept his head down, and followed closely in Lin Juan’s footsteps.

Recalling the close call, Zhou Ping fretted. “Lin, classmate, you think the figure we saw earlier got caught in the same thing I just did?”

If so and no one stopped them, would that person fall?

Was it Shi Haochen?

Zhou Ping’s heart lurched. His urge to find people intensified.

“Should be this way.” Lin Juan gauged the direction.

A few steps later, they spotted someone dangling off the rooftop edge.

Zhou Ping charged over without thinking. He grabbed the person’s arm and yanked.

“Zhou Ping, how did you get here?”

The familiar voice.

It was Shi Haochen!

Zhou Ping’s heart soared. “Lin, classmate! Shi Haochen’s over here!”

Lin Juan strode up, seized Zhou Ping’s wrist, and hauled upward. He effortlessly lifted the six-foot adolescent boy to safety.

“Is the shadow monster still after you?” Zhou Ping stepped back and spotted the dark shadow creeping along the rooftop edge. He cried out.

“No, it’s not.” For once, Shi Haochen’s voice caught.

Zhou Ping watched, dumbstruck, as the shadow crawled leisurely to Shi Haochen’s feet and became a normal shadow. It went still.

“It… it’s your shadow?!”

“Yeah.” Shi Haochen saw no point in hiding it from his friend. “I don’t even know what happened. Have I turned into a monster?”

Shi Haochen had spent ages on edge. Seeing Lin Juan and Zhou Ping relaxed him, and words tumbled out.

He recounted first how the shadow monster had chased him, then how his own shadow had suddenly mutated.

“If it hadn’t stepped in, I might already be dead.” Shi Haochen gave a wry smile.

The thought of his friend nearly dying choked Zhou Ping up. “I shouldn’t have let you go upstairs alone.”

“I’m fine, see?” Shi Haochen tried to play it cool. “And I got a pretty useful shadow out of it.”

“Zhou Ping headed downstairs. After you dealt with the shadow monster, why’d you go up?”

“I was going down, but this huge fog rolled in. I couldn’t see a thing except for those two green moons in the sky—they got clearer and clearer.

“I figured it was flat ground, didn’t pay attention, and stepped into nothing. That’s when I realized I was on the roof.”

Good thing his shadow had acted fast. Otherwise, he might not have lasted until Lin Juan and the others arrived.

Shi Haochen downplayed it, but he alone knew the terror involved.

“Have you noticed? Those two eyes are getting closer.” Lin Juan had first assumed the moons looked bigger because they were on a tall building. Now he saw that wasn’t it—the moons were actively drawing nearer.

Their size stayed constant. Only the distance was changing.

Perfect. Lin Juan had been fretting about not being able to reach them.

Zhou Ping helped Shi Haochen to his feet. “Lin, classmate, should we hide?”

The moons resembled giant beast pupils, glowing with an eerie green light. They looked unnatural.

Lin Juan had planned to send them downstairs first. But then he realized that whatever had lured them here probably wouldn’t let them leave easily.

Sure enough, fog blanketed everything. Heaven and earth seemed to hold nothing but those two ever-larger green moons. All paths vanished. They could only watch as the green moons drew nearer.

Closer up, they resembled a pair of massive eyes even more.

An overwhelming aura of weird phenomena swept over them. Lin Juan stood frozen, as if terrified.

A flash of smugness gleamed in the green eyes.

It was sick of this school disruptor. Students who broke the rules deserved punishment!

Punishment!

Countless buzzing noises filled the air. Zhou Ping and Shi Haochen clapped their hands over their ears as throbbing pain pulsed deep in their skulls.

They seemed to see a colossal, invisible beast stalking toward them, step by inexorable step. No escape.

Their eyes glazed over. Their thoughts scattered.

A sudden voice snapped them back to their senses.

“Have you ever tried beating the moon to a pulp?”

“What?” The pair stared blankly.

Lin Juan pointed ahead. “Watch. I’ll show you.”

Lin Juan charged forward. It hadn’t expected Lin Juan to shrug off its mental control so easily. Astonishment flickered in the massive green eye.

Lin Juan had no intention of passing up an opponent delivering itself to his door. He lunged right up to the green eye.

A single green eye stood nearly ten feet tall. Lin Juan looked tiny before it. Yet the one who seemed weak and harmless landed punch after meaty punch, exploding one green eye outright.

“Awooooo!!!!!”

The invisible entity clutched its eyeball and writhed on the ground in agony.

At the same moment, the ground heaved and shuddered. The entire school began to quake.

Earth churned upward. Buildings sank into the soil or flipped upside down. The monster’s true form lay revealed.

This weird phenomenon was none other than the school itself!

Hope I don’t have to pay for damages.

Lin Juan pondered as he pummeled it.

Eh, whatever. Deal with it first.

Zhou Ping and Shi Haochen watched the whole thing, slack-jawed.

They had known Lin Juan was strong. Still, the sheer terror of the power he displayed left them reeling.

Too strong!

Could a human even possess that kind of strength?

Outside.

Two days had passed with no word. Lu Yanzhou finished work each day and came to stand guard. Unaware of the truth but bored on break, Lu Mingxuan figured Lin Juan was really just attending school. He insisted on tagging along to check it out.

The quake struck without warning, leaving no time to react. The ability users stationed outside watched in shock as the entire school collapsed out of nowhere.

Everyone rushed forward to assess the situation.

“Mr. Lin?!”

A shocked voice rang out. Lu Yanzhou ignored everything else and hurried over.

Lin Juan had just clambered from the rubble, covered head to toe in grime, when Lu Yanzhou swept him into an embrace.

“Dirty.” Lin Juan shoved at him but couldn’t budge the man.

The ability users deployed their supernatural abilities to dig out Shi Haochen and Zhou Ping from beneath the debris.

Director Liu arrived to get a report. Lu Yanzhou finally released his hold. Lin Juan gave a quick summary of events.

Lu Mingxuan slogged through the uneven footing in pursuit, utterly stunned.

Something occurred to him. He leaned close to Lin Juan and whispered, “Little Uncle, you just did what every student has dreamed of.”

Lin Juan blinked. “What?”

Lu Mingxuan struck a solemn pose. “Blew up the school.”

Lin Juan: “…”