The building marked on the minimap turned out to be an unfinished construction site.
At this hour the site was deserted, rebar and lumber strewn everywhere. Bleak moonlight spilled down, a wind whimpered through, and the whole place felt eerie and sinister.
Any day before yesterday, Chu Yao would never have dared come to a place like this alone in the dead of night. But she was no longer the girl she used to be. In the span of a single day she had grown so much, and now her name was Chu "Professional Anomaly-Exterminator" Yao.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Like an arrow loosed from the string, Chu Yao bounded up to the thirteenth floor of the building in two or three strides, as if walking on level ground.
The scene that met her eyes made her pupils shrink.
Five Anomalies were huddled together, whispering among themselves. Tied to a load-bearing pillar nearby were nine ordinary humans, their faces full of terror, their mouths gagged, struggling ceaselessly and wailing into their gags.
The nine captives were safe for the moment — none of them injured or unconscious — and Chu Yao breathed a sigh of relief. But the next instant, her expression turned strange.
Among the nine was a seventeen-year-old boy with a buzzcut and a face covered in acne.
"Zhu Xiaojie!"
Chu Yao was stunned. This boy was her classmate — the most enthusiastic of all the boys in class when it came to talking about games.
Running into someone from real life inside a VR game was utterly incredible. Chu Yao rubbed her eyes and strode over to him.
In her stealth state, she drew no one's attention — not even the five Anomalies whispering nearby could detect her.
She studied the boy's face carefully. There was no mistake: it was her classmate, Zhu Xiaojie.
"Why is Zhu Xiaojie in the game?"
Chu Yao was utterly baffled. After a moment's thought, an extremely bold guess took shape in her mind.
"Could it be! This game..."
"Zhu Xiaojie is playing this game too!"
With that thought, Chu Yao reached out and gently touched the boy in front of her to make sure he was real.
What the hell is touching me?!
Zhu Xiaojie was scared half to death, his legs shaking as a rough giant hand stroked his face. And the thing was — there was no one in front of him! Just an empty, unfinished building.
Like every other day, the poor boy had gamed at home into the small hours before going to bed. But when he woke up, he found himself tied up inside an empty building, with eight strangers beside him bound hand and foot just like him. Their mouths were stuffed with cloth, so they couldn't even communicate.
Zhu Xiaojie's first thought was that he'd been kidnapped. Never having seen his kidnappers had already filled him with terror, and now, out of nowhere, an invisible giant hand was stroking his face. He wet himself outright, and the stench of urine spread through the air.
"This—!"
Chu Yao started and hastily backed off two steps. Did my stealth state frighten him?
Feeling guilty, Chu Yao was about to untie her classmate when the five whispering Anomalies behind her suddenly stood up.
"You've all got the Blood Sacrifice Ritual memorized, right?!"
It was an Anomaly even burlier than Chu Yao who spoke.
Chu Yao turned and saw the Mid-Tier Anomaly holding a scroll. It stuffed the whole thing into its mouth, foul-smelling saliva trickling down its cheek.
"We've got it memorized."
The four Low-Tier Anomalies answered respectfully.
The Mid-Tier Anomaly nodded, gazed at the full moon on the horizon, and said in a chilling tone, "Then tonight, let us open the gates of hell and welcome the descent of Lord Anomaly General! This world will become our slaughterhouse!"
Welcome the descent of Lord Anomaly General?
Chu Yao's mind stirred. So this Mid-Tier Anomaly really did know why the Anomalies had descended upon the Demon Capital.
"Zhu Xiaojie and the others are fine for now anyway. I might as well watch how these Anomalies welcome the other Anomalies' descent — maybe I can even complete the main quest."
Chu Yao decided to wait and watch, holding off on alerting the enemy for now. Conveniently, she was in her stealth state, so not even the Anomalies could see her.
Under her watchful gaze, the Anomalies began the so-called Blood Sacrifice Ritual.
Apart from the Mid-Tier Anomaly, the four Low-Tier Anomalies each bit open an index finger. Thick black blood gushed from the wounds, and with fingers for brushes and blood for ink, the four Anomalies crouched and drew strange, bizarre sigils and marks on the ground.
"So Anomaly blood is black — how strange."
This was the first time Chu Yao had seen Anomaly blood, and she found it fascinating. Until now she had always blasted Anomalies to ash with a single strike, never getting a chance to see them bleed.
As she watched them draw, an inexplicable unease crept over Chu Yao. The four Anomalies' blood seemed inexhaustible, streaming out without end. Even an elephant wouldn't bleed that much.
"'Anomaly General' sounds so impressive just from the name. What if they really blood-sacrifice some terrible Anomaly General and I can't beat it?"
Anxiety gripped the high schooler, and her confidence in her own strength wavered.
"I'd better wreck their Blood Sacrifice Ritual. Since the Mid-Tier Anomaly knows why the Anomalies descended on the Demon Capital, I'll just pry it right out of its mouth. Considering it might refuse to talk even to the death, I'll scare it first and see if I can frighten the guts right out of it."
No sooner had the new idea occurred to Chu Yao than she acted on it. She walked up behind the four Anomalies and scuffed away the sigils they'd drawn with her foot. Thanks to the power of the Divine Artifacts, the black blood melted away like snow the instant she touched it, purified spotlessly clean.
The four Anomalies didn't notice anything strange behind them and kept drawing intently. The moment they finished one, Chu Yao erased it right behind them.
The Mid-Tier Anomaly gazed up at the full moon on the horizon for a while, its heart full of emotion.
Once tonight's Blood Sacrifice Ritual was complete, it would be a great meritorious hero among the Anomalies, and Lord Anomaly General would surely never treat it poorly!
At that thought, it couldn't help getting worked up. It turned to see how far along its subordinates were with the Blood Sacrifice Array.
One glance nearly gave it a stroke, and it roared in fury:
"What are you doing?!"
The four Anomalies looked up, utterly confused. We're carving the Blood Sacrifice Array — what else would we be doing?
"Look at what you've drawn!"
The Anomalies looked back. The cement behind them was completely bare — every sigil and mark they'd just carved had vanished.
"Huh?"
"How is this possible?!"
The Anomalies were utterly shocked, wondering if they were seeing things.
"You've drawn only this much in all this time — do you want to die?!"
The Mid-Tier Anomaly flew into a rage, thoroughly displeased with its four subordinates.
"It's not like that, boss — we drew a whole lot just now, we don't know why it all disappeared," the four Anomalies hastily explained.