At that shrill scream, Zhao Fei's teeth chattered with terror.
He desperately wanted to drop to his knees and beg the villain boss to stop ravaging and tormenting his heaven-sent beauty — just let her go!
The thought stewed in his mind for a long while, and still Zhao Fei hesitated, not daring to kneel. Then he witnessed a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.
***
When the Anomaly showed signs of severing its own right leg to escape, Chu Yao thought: why bother preaching virtue and mercy to an Anomaly? Might as well see it through to the end. She snatched up the Demon-Subduing Pestle and, with a single Thousand Years of Death, rammed it viciously into the Anomaly's butt!
In that instant, the screaming stopped, and the whole world fell silent.
Never in its wildest dreams had the Anomaly imagined that one day it would die like this.
As for Zhao Fei, he was utterly dumbstruck. Tell me — what anime's plot would ever be this brutal? A beauty descends from the heavens and, in the blink of an eye, gets mercilessly **?!
I don't want this heaven-sent beauty anymore — you owe me a new one!
The next moment, a warm, pure Buddha-light blazed upward. Bathed in that radiance, the Anomaly's body split and dissolved inch by inch, like spring snow melting away.
BOOM!
The whole television blew apart, and the flickering chandelier went back to normal.
【Killed one Mid-Tier Anomaly. Gained 25 Anomaly Coins, 3,000 EXP.】
【Player leveled up to Lv. 4. Gained two skill points.】
Killing a single Mid-Tier Anomaly paid even a bit more than killing ten Low-Tier Anomalies.
Yet to Chu Yao, a Mid-Tier Anomaly was about as hard to kill as a Low-Tier one — if anything, the process was even simpler. Both went down to a single swing of the pestle.
"I've already killed it."
Chu Yao turned back to Zhao Fei, her tone calm and level, like an enlightened monk.
Zhao Fei's face went deathly pale. Fearing she meant to kill him too, he nodded in trembling dread. "I... I saw it."
You didn't just simply kill her! You devil!
"Aren't you happy?" Chu Yao asked him, puzzled.
The way Chu Yao saw it, she had just saved him from the clutches of an Anomaly — shouldn't he be showing the joy of a man who'd cheated death?
The corners of Zhao Fei's mouth twitched as he forced out a smile more wretched than crying.
Just what kind of demon would want me to be happy after killing my heaven-sent beauty?
"I'm ha-happy... happy from the bottom of my heart!" Cowed by her demonic might, Zhao Fei folded like a coward.
Chu Yao looked satisfied, marveling at how realistically this VR game simulated its characters: terror and joy mingled on his face, vividly acted out. If not for the monster-fighting and leveling up, she might even have wondered whether she'd entered a game at all, rather than returned to the real Demon Capital.
"Don't worry — I'll save this world of yours!" Chu Yao told him.
Her confidence in saying so came from wielding a power impossible to hold in reality. She resolved to go on a killing spree tonight and wipe out every last Anomaly in the Demon Capital.
Zhao Fei didn't dare make a sound, feebly convinced she meant the opposite — that she was actually going to destroy the world.
Wee-woo, wee-woo!
Sirens suddenly wailed outside. To Zhao Fei they sounded like music from heaven itself, and his face lit up with delight; he fervently hoped the authorities would haul this savage demon away.
"So there are authorities in the game too."
Chu Yao looked toward the door, deep in thought. She didn't want to get tangled up with the authorities — she'd have to go to great pains explaining herself to the officers, with no guarantee they'd even understand. After all, it had only been one day since the Anomalies descended upon the Demon Capital. Not everyone could see them; the vast majority of people didn't even know Anomalies existed.
"I'm leaving. Don't tell the officers you saw me," Chu Yao said.
"Rest assured — my lips are absolutely sealed!" Zhao Fei vowed solemnly.
Chu Yao felt quite sure of this boy whose life she'd saved. She turned and leaped out the window, following her minimap to hunt down the next Anomaly.
"Hello! I want to report a crime! Someone broke into my home and killed somebody! The culprit is a really tall, really burly bald guy..."
The moment Chu Yao was gone, Zhao Fei whipped out his phone to report her to the authorities.
***
Wee-woo, wee-woo!
Out on the main street, the sirens grew thicker and closer. Chu Yao couldn't help feeling guilty and flustered. Those officers surely weren't coming to arrest her, were they?
She had no way to be sure. After all, when she killed the second Anomaly, one swing of her pestle had shattered an entire street. That was a huge commotion, and with surveillance cameras all over the Demon Capital, it was bound to draw the officers' attention.
When a patrol car came roaring up from the far end of the road in a gust of wind, Chu Yao's instinct was to turn away. But the sharp-eyed officers inside spotted her hulking, burly figure at a glance and shouted:
"Stop! Don't run!"
At that, Chu Yao promptly took to her heels and ran even faster, darting with a whoosh into a narrow alley where the patrol car couldn't follow.
"Target spotted. The target has fled into the alley entrance on Hutai Branch Road."
Pulling over to the curb, the officers reported the target's details to their colleagues.
At once sirens blared everywhere, and dozens of patrol cars came speeding toward Hutai Branch Road.
"I have to go destroy the Anomalies — stop pestering me!"
Chu Yao raced through the alley entrance, burning with anxiety, desperate to shake off her pursuers.
Time meant lives. The sooner she destroyed the Anomalies, the more ordinary people she could save. With the second and third Anomalies, if she had arrived even a single step later, those two people would surely have died.
Head down, Chu Yao charged out of the alley in one furious burst, only to find dozens of officers pouring in from every side, pistols in hand, blocking her path.
"You've got nowhere left to run — I advise you not to put up any more pointless resistance!" one officer barked, glaring fiercely as he leveled the dark, gleaming muzzle of his gun at Chu Yao.
Chu Yao gritted her teeth and turned, only to find dozens more officers closing in slowly behind her with guns leveled. She was surrounded.
"You are suspected of involvement in a murder. Please come with us to the authorities!"
A constable-captain stepped out of the ranks. His name was Chai Jin, and his order brooked no refusal.
He looked unusually stern and grave, but don't be fooled — inwardly he was wound tight, every nerve on alert, ready at any instant for the suspect to lash out and hurt someone.
Before heading out on this call, Chai Jin had reviewed the surveillance footage from the street Zhang Nanmu had reported. The footage hadn't shown the murdered girl in the yellow dress Zhang Nanmu described — but it had shown a horrifying scene that shook him to the core!
It was this very bald, burly man. He had swung the Demon-Subduing Pestle in his hand down hard, and every brick and stone of the entire street had been smashed to bits!
Chai Jin's preliminary conclusion was that the bald man was carrying a dangerous weapon. Otherwise, no ordinary person, however strong, could have shattered an entire street with a single blow. Supermen and the like only existed in movies and TV — they couldn't possibly exist in reality!
And so the Demon Capital authorities had at once flagged the bald man as a major danger, to be brought under control at all costs. He must never be allowed to threaten public safety any further.
"I didn't kill anyone — I killed an Anomaly!" Chu Yao hastily argued in her own defense.