Above each little black dot floated a line of small text. Nearly every one read 【Low-Tier Anomaly】; only two of the dots were labeled 【Mid-Tier Anomaly】.
The system ranked the Anomalies so cleanly that Chu Yao could take it all in at a glance. She knew full well that Mid-Tier Anomalies were bound to be a good deal stronger than Low-Tier ones, and far more dangerous to deal with.
After a moment's hesitation, Chu Yao followed the minimap toward the nearest Low-Tier Anomaly, meaning to wipe it out. If she could squeeze the reason for the Anomalies' descent on Demon Capital out of it, so much the better — that would complete the main quest outright.
The moment she broke into a run, Chu Yao noticed something extraordinary. Her body seemed to hold boundless, inexhaustible strength; a single light leap carried her a dozen-plus meters, the wind whistling past behind her. It felt just like tearing down a highway at full throttle with the car windows rolled down.
Startled as she was, Chu Yao quickly accepted her sudden surge in power. After all, this was a VR game — everything in it was virtual, pieced together by computer programs. Things that defied common sense were normal here; if it were exactly like the real world, that would be the strange part.
As for why her strength had surged so dramatically, Chu Yao had a vague idea. She had given her game character such a burly, massive body, and on top of that she had two Divine Artifacts backing her up. With all that going for her, it would be a wonder if she weren't strong.
"Anomalies, this time I won't fear you — I'll fight you to the death!"
In the real world she was a high school girl who couldn't so much as truss a chicken; in the game world she was itching for a fight, her fighting spirit soaring.
It had a rather keyboard-warrior flavor to it.
***
Late at night the streets of Demon Capital were cold and desolate. Zhang Nanmu, a programmer who had just gotten off work, walked the streets alone, only the night wind for company.
In his line of work, overtime was the norm, and Zhang Nanmu had long since gotten used to it. He didn't feel tired, exactly — just heavy with worry.
Work was this busy; where would he ever find the time to get a girlfriend?
He couldn't even remember the last time he'd had a meal alone with a member of the opposite sex. Was it with his mom, or with his little sister?
The painful thought drove Zhang Nanmu to light a lonely cigarette and take a deep drag. He smoked half, and the wind smoked the other half.
"Mister."
Suddenly, a tender voice — one that could only belong to a girl — sounded by his ear.
Zhang Nanmu turned toward the voice. A young girl in a long pale-yellow dress was crouching under the red light at the roadside, her lovely face shy and bashful. "Could you treat me to a meal?" she asked.
Zhang Nanmu's cigarette trembled between his fingers. He had never expected romance to arrive so suddenly. He didn't care why the girl wanted him to buy her a meal, and he didn't care why she was crouching by the roadside in the dead of night. Right now, only one question mattered to him:
"What... what do you want to eat?"
At his answer, the girl lit up with delight. "You can see me!"
She had only asked as a test. Killing someone who could see her yielded far, far more benefit than killing someone who couldn't. It had been a full day since she'd descended on Demon Capital, and she hadn't run into a single person who could see her.
Zhang Nanmu nodded and pushed the glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "Of course I can see you. I'm just a little nearsighted, and it's a low prescription — it won't be passed down to the kids."
The instant the girl started talking to him, he'd already picked out a name for their child.
The girl in the yellow dress licked her lips, her lovely face slowly twisting. She rose and walked toward her target, about to lunge in for the kill—
"Foul creature!"
A furious bellow rang out like a clap of spring thunder.
Zhang Nanmu and the Anomaly both jumped and turned to look at the same instant.
A brawny, muscular bald man had appeared at the end of the street, the Purple-Gold Alms Bowl in his left hand and the Demon-Subduing Pestle in his right. He strode slowly forward, as fierce as a wrathful vajra guardian.
Chu Yao kept her eyes locked on the Anomaly, afraid it would hurt the innocent mister beside it, and spoke coldly, one word at a time:
"Let that mister go — come at me!"
Zhang Nanmu and the Anomaly both froze.
Once it registered, Zhang Nanmu flew into a towering rage!
Tonight, after all this time, I finally run into a once-in-twenty-seven-years romance, and you actually want to snatch my woman? If Auntie could put up with this, Uncle damn well couldn't!
But the bald muscle-man was so burly that the idea of fighting him was out of the question. So he whispered to the Anomaly:
"Miss, don't listen to him — just come at me, that's all."
The Anomaly was nearly beside herself with joy. She had never imagined running into two people who could see her back to back like this. If she devoured them both, wouldn't she rise to Mid-Tier Anomaly then and there?
At the thought, killing intent surged in the Anomaly's eyes. Her five fingers gleamed with a sharp, cold light as she slashed viciously at Zhang Nanmu — better to kill one of them first and worry about the rest later.
Zhang Nanmu's attention was fixed entirely on Chu Yao, not far off — the one out to steal his romance — and he was utterly oblivious to the mortal danger bearing down on him. Chu Yao, however, saw the Anomaly's every move clearly and shouted in alarm and fury:
"Stop!"
Quicker than it takes to tell, Chu Yao launched herself forward, her terrifying explosive power driving her speed to the limit in an instant. All Zhang Nanmu sensed was a black shadow flitting past, too fast for his eyes to follow.
Chu Yao Flashed to a spot right in front of the Anomaly and swung the Pestle down onto it. Against a Divine Artifact-tier Demon-Subduing Pestle, the Anomaly had no power to resist; in an instant it was smashed to ashes and scattered on the wind. The Pestle's momentum didn't let up, either — it carried straight on and came crashing down into the ground.
BOOM!
A violent explosion. That single blow of Chu Yao's shattered the entire street, leaving a huge, deep crater where she had struck, thick smoke billowing out of it.
The blast knocked Zhang Nanmu flat in the crater, his head buzzing, utterly bewildered.
Who is he?
Where did he come from?
Where is he going?
【Killed one Low-Tier Anomaly. Gained 3 Anomaly Coins, 249 EXP.】
The system notified Chu Yao that she'd completed the kill.
Chu Yao had never expected a single strike of hers to be so terrifying — and she hadn't even put much force into it. If she'd gone all out, wouldn't she have flattened the shops and buildings on both sides of the street?
Even though this was a virtual game world, that kind of power was just too absurd!
"You... you killed her?"
The incredulous question came from Zhang Nanmu, who was staring at the bald muscle-man in disbelief.
"Yes, I killed it." Chu Yao fought hard to stay calm.
She knew full well the man was just an NPC, but the game's simulation was so realistic that he felt like a real person. She even suspected that if she slipped up and killed him by accident, he would become a cold, stiff corpse just as people did in reality, rather than scattering to ash on the wind like an Anomaly.
"What did you do to her? Why don't I see her body?"
Zhang Nanmu pressed on, his voice trembling.