Chapter 37
Chapter 37: Sorry, No Entry Allowed
Class 3, Year 3.
1 minute ago.
Yekaterina, who had been resting with her eyes closed in the corner of the classroom, snapped them open.
Revealing those golden vertical pupils.
She stood up and moved silently to the window.
On the other side of the window, Lu Shiyan, who was on night watch duty, was lying face-down on the floor.
He was rummaging through a pile of scattered worn-out backpacks and clothing.
"Damn...why are they all empty...?"
Lu Shiyan cursed under his breath and tossed aside several empty cigarette boxes, his expression agitated.
For a seasoned veteran smoker, running out of supplies in this high-pressure apocalypse was like losing half his life.
"Lu."
Yekaterina's voice rang out.
She reached into the inner pocket of her combat uniform and pulled out a red hard-sided rectangle, extending it toward him:
"I picked this up when I was clearing out some Wandering Corpses earlier. Still sealed."
"Smoke less. Something's happening."
Lu Shiyan took it and looked—his eyes instantly lit up like light bulbs.
"Holy sh*t! Huazi?!"
"Thanks! Now this is the good stuff! Didn't expect these little cherry blossoms to be hiding our homegrown brand!"
He hurriedly tore open the packaging, pulled out 2 cigarettes, tucked one behind his ear, clamped the other between his lips and lit it.
"Hoo~"
He drew in a deep breath. The sharp, pungent smoke filled his lungs, and Lu Shiyan felt his soul snap back into place. The sensation was heavenly.
"Ahh!"
Fully restored, Lu Shiyan reverted to that roguishly cool middle-aged look of his, picked up the night-vision goggles from the floor, and asked:
"What happened?"
"Someone's come again."
Yekaterina stared into the curtain of rain, her vertical pupils contracting slightly.
"It's that guy who fled this afternoon—but he's brought someone extra."
"What? He's back again?"
Lu Shiyan furrowed his brow, incredulous: "Is that kid tired of living? He barely made it out alive and now he's running back to throw his life away?"
He glanced around, then walked over to Hoshino, who was sleeping in the corner.
"Too dark—the binoculars won't cut it. Need to switch."
Lu Shiyan unclipped the night-vision goggles from her helmet and put them on himself.
The view was somewhat blurry, but on a pitch-black rainy night like this, it still beat being completely blind.
In the green-tinted field of vision:
Two silhouettes were making their way up the mountain road.
"2 people..."
Lu Shiyan adjusted the focus. "The one hunching his shoulders in the back—that's definitely the survivor from this afternoon with the Danger Perception ability."
"Looks like he went back to recruit someone."
"As for the one in front..."
Lu Shiyan's gaze landed on the figure walking at the very front, and the corner of his mouth couldn't help but twitch.
"What the...where did this 'cool guy' crawl out from?"
The man was dressed in nothing but a thin black dress shirt.
Amid the torrential downpour and the corpses strewn across the ground, he was walking with the leisurely ease of someone strolling through a courtyard.
No weapon in hand. No tactical evasion movements.
He even had...both hands in his pockets.
That posture instantly called an old saying to mind for Lu Shiyan.
‘Hands in pockets—doesn't know the meaning of having an opponent.’
"Intelligence-wise, there shouldn't be an issue."
Lu Shiyan exhaled a smoke ring, his gaze sharpening:
"Unless...these 2 have a conflict between them."
"Or rather...this 'cool guy' simply isn't afraid of the Starving Wraith."
But the brutal lessons of reality told Lu Shiyan that the second possibility was essentially zero—basically a free kill.
"In this treacherous apocalypse, the first possibility is what most people would choose."
Lu Shiyan let out a cold laugh:
"Using someone else's blade to kill, seizing power, stealing loot, taking revenge..."
"Plenty of things people wouldn't dare do back on Blue Star—out here in the Savage Realm, it's everyday business."
"Looks like that survivor wants to lure this 'cool guy' over here and feed him to that monster—all to rob and murder him."
At that thought, Lu Shiyan abruptly stubbed out the Huazi he'd only taken 2 drags from, fury flashing across his eyes.
"Damn it all!"
"Using the Starving Wraith as a tool to dispose of enemies? Did anyone bother asking for my opinion?!"
Lu Shiyan spun around and was about to charge downstairs.
If that monster devoured another Extraordinary One and evolved its strength again—
Then the group of them trapped inside this school would truly have no hope of surviving.
Even just for self-preservation, he had to intervene and cut off this "feeding."
However.
Just as his hand made contact with the door handle, Yekaterina spoke up from behind him and stopped him:
"No need to go, Lu."
"What's wrong?"
"It...has already come."
"Damn! It's past midnight—does this thing not have a 4am class to prepare for?! That fast!"
Lu Shiyan cursed once, then quickly retraced his steps to the window, raising the night-vision goggles again.
His voice had been somewhat loud, jolting awake all the students who had been sleeping lightly inside the classroom.
"What's going on?"
"What happened?"
The students scrambled up in terror, crowding toward the windows to peer outside.
Just then.
BOOM!!
A bolt of lightning struck down, hitting the already-crumbling school signboard at the entrance yet again.
This time—
The "Wang" radical beside the character "Gui" in "Rose" was completely charred and fell away, leaving behind only a single eerie character: "Ghost."
‘Ghost Middle School...’
Borrowing that instant of ghastly white lightning, everyone caught a clear look at the silhouette that had come to a stop beside the off-road vehicle.
In that moment, time seemed to freeze.
What kind of man was this.
Rain poured like a waterfall. Howling winds screamed.
All around lay scattered bleached-white skeletons, shattered battle vehicles—a tableau straight out of hell.
And he stood at the very center of all of it.
The hem of his black dress shirt snapped and billowed in the gale, yet his tall, lean frame did not move a single inch.
He tilted his head slightly, revealing a side profile—pale beneath the lightning, yet strikingly handsome.
That indifference.
That arrogance that regarded everything in the world as beneath notice.
Made him stand out so jarringly against the backdrop of blood and filth—and yet so brilliantly.
As if he had not come to meet his death, but rather...to be crowned.
‘Putting on airs...he really knows how to put on airs.’
Even Lu Shiyan couldn't help but mutter that internally in this moment.
But that didn't change how dire the situation was becoming.
"It's here!" Yekaterina called out in a low, sharp voice.
Countless raindrops began refracting light unnaturally.
That ravenous Starving Wraith had already concealed itself within the curtain of rain, mere inches from that posturing man!
……
"Boss! Watch out!! It's on the left!! 13 meters!!"
Behind him, Guo Shuai's Danger Perception instantly triggered the highest-level alarm.
He screamed himself hoarse, even lunging forward in an attempt to shove Jiang Nan out of the way.
However.
Jiang Nan looked like a man without a care in the world—he didn't even pull his hands from his pockets, didn't even tilt his head to the side.
‘Done.’
Lu Shiyan's heart sank upstairs.
At this range, not even a god could save him.
That "cool guy" would turn into a skeleton stripped of flesh and blood in the next second.
Everyone instinctively held their breath, breaking out in a cold sweat on behalf of that man who clearly had no idea how high the sky was.
Was he...about to die?
However.
"COME AT ME!"
The very instant that raindrop concealing the Starving Wraith's snarling face came howling into the 10-meter radius around Jiang Nan—
BOOM!!
A thunderous, earth-shaking crash instantly drowned out the thunder overhead!
The next second.
Something unfolded that made everyone question their own eyes.
The rain...stopped.
No.
To be precise:
With that man as the center—within a circular zone of 10 meters in all directions—every last drop of rain, even the splashing mud—
In that instant, all of it vanished!
And on that dry, immaculate ground where not a single drop of rain remained—
Something extra had appeared.
It was a...piece of paper.
A two-dimensional paper figure—frantically contorting!
Screaming!
Yet utterly unable to peel itself off the ground!
Its facial features were crushed out of alignment. Its limbs were flattened and spread out. Like a specimen compressed flat by a hydraulic press!
That was...the Starving Wraith!
It had been squeezed out of the raindrop by the terrifying Abyss Court Heavy Domain—forced out bodily!
And then, like a fly, smacked dead flat against the ground!
Above it.
Jiang Nan slowly lowered his head, looking down at the paper-thin figure frantically struggling at his feet.
He finally withdrew his hands from his pockets, and gave his shoulder a light brush—dusting off nonexistent dirt.
"Sorry."
"No entry allowed here."