Blinding searchlights cast harsh beams through the window. Jiang Ran stood by the glass, looking down at the crowd gathering below.
Led by Jiang Congwen himself, every single power-user in Yulan Base had assembled.
This was, after all, a direct command from the base chief.
In the entire sanctuary, no one possessed abilities strong enough to rival Jiang Congwen—except Jiang Ran.
Up on the villa roof, three figures stood waiting.
Xiao Jingcheng had his arms crossed over his chest, a faint smile playing on his lips as he stood front and center. Su Ya and Nie Fei flanked him on either side.
Taking in the hostile crowd eyeing them from below, Xiao Jingcheng reached up to nudge his black-framed glasses into place. “I’ve been itching to leave this godforsaken place for a while now anyway.”
The three were merely waiting for Jiang Ran to give the word.
Lin Buyu leaned against the window frame and peered down.
The middle-aged man down below—his face twisted in a fury—was, unsurprisingly, Jiang Ran’s father, Jiang Congwen: the base chief.
The look in his eyes as he glared up at Jiang Ran wasn’t that of a father looking at a son; it was the stare of a man confronting a sworn enemy.
For the longest time, Jiang Congwen had put up with Jiang Ran’s volatile temper only because Jiang Ran’s strength surpassed his own.
But he never should have killed Jiang Tao—his prized, golden child.
Glaring up at Jiang Ran, Jiang Congwen’s hatred burned so fiercely it was almost tangible.
“You killed Jiang Tao,” he growled, gritting his teeth so hard they nearly shattered.
Jiang Ran’s expression remained dead calm. He had always believed Jiang Congwen to be an opportunist who cared about nothing but cold self-interest.
It turned out he just treated people differently.
Even though Jiang Congwen knew fighting him meant mutual destruction, he had still come to avenge Jiang Tao.
“I killed him. What of it?”
“What of it?!” Spikes of ice suddenly burst from Jiang Congwen’s hands, and with a violent flick of his wrists, he launched them straight toward the window. “I’m going to make you pay with your life!”
“Get back.”
With effortless composure, Jiang Ran shoved Lin Buyu clear of the window and vaulted out of the third-story glass. Crackling bolts of purplish lightning surged from his palms.
Lightning collided violently with ice in midair, neither force yielding an inch.
The second Jiang Congwen made his move, every power-user below charged into action as well.
Their targets, however, weren’t Jiang Ran—they went straight for Xiao Jingcheng’s trio.
Although Xiao Jingcheng’s power was best suited for coordinated team combat, he was formidable enough not to fear anyone in a head-on duel.
His ability was notoriously bizarre—anyone who faced him in battle was bound to suffer a severe disadvantage.
The moment someone made eye contact and got petrified, even for a single second, they would instantly become a corpse under his blade.
Everyone in the base knew this rule well: just don’t look him in the eyes.
Because of this, the power-users sent after him were all speed-types. They deliberately drove a wedge between Xiao Jingcheng and Su Ya, attempting to isolate and pick them off one by one.
A full ten power-users swarmed Xiao Jingcheng, and Su Ya and Nie Fei fared no better.
That was the price of being in Squad A—the strongest group in the entire base.
Su Ya slammed a iron fist directly into the chest of an incoming power-user, sending him flying dozens of meters back. Yet in the blink of an eye, three or four more lunged into her space.
Nie Fei, a fire-type, was systematically pitted against water- and ice-types.
It was clear they had held a tactical meeting beforehand, planning their match-ups carefully to dismantle them piece by piece.
To make matters worse, those deployed against Nie Fei were all from Squad B.
Squad B and Squad A had been locked in a bitter rivalry for a long time. Now that they had the chief’s explicit blessing to draw blood, none of them held back.
Lin Buyu rested her arms on the windowsill, keeping a sharp eye on the battlefield. She couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that someone was preparing a dirty trick in the shadows.
Xiao Jingcheng and the other two were holding their ground for now. Meanwhile, Jiang Ran and Jiang Congwen had already exchanged dozens of blows.
Jiang Congwen was visibly slipping into a disadvantage. Forced back step by step by Jiang Ran’s relentless lightning, he had been pushed all the way back down to the courtyard ground, the icy spikes he conjured growing shorter and weaker by the second.
Lin Buyu rested her chin in her hands, observing the duel. Was the villain’s strength still this modest simply because she had arrived during the early stages of his awakening?
Jiang Ran was formidable, to be sure, but he wasn’t completely invincible. At the very least, he wouldn’t be able to finish Jiang Congwen off in a split second.
Lin Buyu analyzed the situation in her mind with neat precision, even finding the leisure to critique Jiang Ran’s form mid-combat.
Tilting his head back like that to dodge the icicle attack—tsk, actually pretty handsome.
Jiang Ran had just forced Jiang Congwen right beneath the villa’s exterior wall. The moment he neared the building, her soft murmur drifted down into his ears.
He couldn’t help but glance upward.
Their eyes met in midair. Looking into her gaze, Jiang Ran couldn’t spot a single trace of worry.
She looked as calm as a casual spectator watching a movie. Jiang Ran let out a quiet, bitter chuckle to himself. And this is what she calls loving me like life itself?
Little liar. She won’t even commit to the act.
As Jiang Ran pinned Jiang Congwen by the throat against the stone wall, the older man flashed a subtle gesture to the most unassuming figure hidden among the crowd.
The next second, Jiang Congwen let out a guttural roar, channeling every last drop of his special ability. A torrential blast of sharp ice spikes surged straight toward Jiang Ran at point-blank range.
Jiang Ran was forced to leap backward through the air to evade the incoming assault.
At that exact moment, the man hidden near the rear gently shook a tiny silver bell.
In the blink of an eye, three blue-eyed zombies possessed of terrifying, unnatural speed materialized high above, swooping down with deadly precision toward the exact spot where Jiang Ran was falling back.
The timing was executed with lethal perfection.
Forced into a backward leap to dodge Jiang Congwen’s strike, Jiang Ran had already committed his momentum. The surprise ambush was sprung at the precise second when a normal human would be physically incapable of changing direction mid-air.
As ultra-high-tier variants, the blue-eyed zombies possessed physical strength and speed that were utterly horrifying to behold.
They descended like strikes of lightning.
All three beasts shared a single target: Jiang Ran’s exposed back.
No normal human could possibly dodge an ambush like this—not even Jiang Ran.
A sinister, dark viciousness gleamed in Jiang Congwen’s eyes. Jiang Ran, go straight to hell.
Up on the balcony, Lin Buyu saw the whole trick unfold with complete clarity.
Jiang Ran, too, felt the unnatural, chilling gust of wind rushing toward him from behind, signaling immediate danger.
Speed-types. Three of them. Impossible to dodge in time.
His eyes narrowed to sharp slits as crackling violet electricity surged into both palms, preparing to force a desperate counterattack—only for a blurred shadow to flash right past him.
BANG!
Lin Buyu descended like a ghost from the third floor, dropping directly behind Jiang Ran. With a swift, powerful kick, she smashed the lead zombie back into the dirt, while reaching out her other hand to catch Jiang Ran’s back and steady his retreat.
“Leave these three zombies to me. You handle the rest.”
Jiang Ran’s eyes flickered with genuine shock. Was that… Lin Buyu who just brushed past me?
What terrifying speed.
Lin Buyu couldn’t help but marvel inwardly—a zombie core really is a wonderful thing.
When it came to pure speed, no ordinary zombie could ever hope to rival a Zombie King. Now that her core had begun to form, executing near-teleportation movement was second nature.
Over in the distance, Jiang Congwen stared at the scene, utterly thunderstruck.
How was this possible? How could ultra-high-tier zombies fail to overpower a single girl?
Not only had she kicked one of them away effortlessly, but the creatures were now cowering, not daring to advance another inch!
What on earth was going on?
Having regained his footing, Jiang Ran stood back-to-back with Lin Buyu. Hearing her call them zombies, he immediately connected the dots to what Jiang Tao had brought earlier.
Artificially created, ultra-high-tier zombies.
Jiang Congwen no longer posed a real threat to him. He spun around, stepping up to stand side-by-side with her.
A short distance away, the three blue-eyed zombies crouched low to the ground like beasts preparing to pounce—yet simultaneously hesitant, clearly wary of something dangerous.
Jiang Ran gripped Lin Buyu’s shoulder firmly. “You go handle Jiang Congwen. I’ll deal with these three.”
Fighting zombies was fundamentally different from fighting humans. Against a person, taking a minor injury meant little; against a zombie, a single scratch carried the risk of fatal infection.
From across the courtyard, Jiang Congwen screamed hysterically: “Dr. Yang! Order them to attack Jiang Ran now! I want him dead! Make him turn into one of them!”
Tsk. Words spoken by his own biological father.
Truly repulsive.
Lin Buyu shoved Jiang Ran toward the front. “You better go deal with that disgusting excuse for a dad yourself.”
Without another word, she charged headlong toward the lead zombie.