The Storm

The goal had been achieved, and there was no point in saying more. Chen Guan threw down an illusion and strode away.

As they were both Tier Five, it wouldn't be so easy for An Changqing to break his illusion.

Carrying the coffin on his back, his figure moved through the night, and he soon returned to the bottom of his dormitory building.

Long Ao's masochistic training should have ended; the room next door had returned to silence.

Chen Guan pushed open the door to his dorm.

The curtains were not drawn, just as they were before he left.

The cold moonlight spilled in without any obstruction.

But this light failed to bring the slightest warmth; instead, it dyed everything in the room with a layer of frost-white deadliness.

Under the moonlight, a gaze immediately pinned onto him at the door, sending a chill up his spine.

A young girl was leaning against the window frame with her arms crossed.

Her silver-white long hair flowed with a mercury-like luster in the moonlight.

She just stood there quietly.

A pair of pitch-black pupils were silently watching him.

Within that profound darkness was a chill that made one's heart clench.

She stood still together with the full moon.

It was unknown how long she had been waiting.

The dorm door silently closed behind Chen Guan.

Even the soft click of the lock falling into place was swallowed up.

Even the moonlight outside the window was tainted with a sickly dim yellow.

That pressure made his chest feel stuffy, even more uncomfortable than facing a mutated monster.

By the window, the silver-haired girl stood with her arms crossed, her figure motionless.

Standing there, she looked less like a living creature and more like a statue carved out of moonlight.

After not seeing her for a while, she was the same as always, and the chill around her was even stronger than before.

He and the Children of the World were not the only ones who could improve; even Guan Jinyue was making progress.

Chen Guan's gaze met those pitch-black eyes in midair.

That gaze fell on him without any emotion.

It was Chen Guan who broke the silence first: "Did Baal send you?"

She nodded slightly, then reached out her hand without another word.

"My payment."

Chen Guan's reply was concise, showing a non-negotiable attitude.

He didn't ask too much; since Baal didn't jump out to stop it, this matter naturally had His authorization behind it.

The girl raised her hand, and a palm-sized iron piece appeared out of thin air in her palm.

The iron piece was pitch-black all over and covered in rust, like debris just dug out of some industrial ruin.

She flicked her finger, and the iron piece stopped silently in front of Chen Guan.

Chen Guan took it. As the iron piece entered his hand, a numb sensation drilled straight into his bones through his palm.

[Recordable reverberation detected.]

[Mythical Series Reverberation (Storm), do you wish to record?]

Chen Guan reached into his jacket and took out the Abyssal Worm Core, temporarily ignoring the system interface.

He tossed it forward casually without the slightest attachment. The core traced an arc in the air, and then an invisible force field formed, gently holding it suspended in front of the girl.

The girl reached out, and the core obediently fell into her palm.

The moment she grasped the core, she glanced at it, put it away, and a spatial portal emerged behind her. She turned to leave, but her step paused in midair as she lifted her foot.

"The demon race has been acting strangely recently. Huaqing is the first stop." With her back to Chen Guan, she added, "Don't die there."

Chen Guan's fingers gripping the iron piece tightened for a moment.

Was this her personal warning, or Baal's intention?

"Why are you telling me this?"

The girl did not turn her head, only tilting her face slightly to the side.

The moonlight outlined the clear bone structure of her jaw.

"Baal doesn't have many toys. If one breaks, the rest will have to do extra work."

She turned back, her gaze falling on Chen Guan once again.

In those pitch-black eyes, there was a sense of mutual sympathy.

"We are nothing but His tools."

Before her voice faded, she had already stepped into the spatial portal.

Leaving only a faint sentence echoing in the empty room.

"Also, don't trust Him too much."

The room returned to dead silence.

Chen Guan stood in place, rubbing the iron piece in his hand.

He and Guan Jinyue hadn't interacted much; they had only met a few times.

However, it wasn't hard to see that she was a contractor with little loyalty to Baal. Chen Guan still couldn't understand why Guan Jinyue worked for Baal. In terms of talent, she was inferior to no one. Why bother?

In the room, the spatial fluctuations left behind after Guan Jinyue's departure slowly calmed down. That sickly dim yellow halo dissipated, and the cold moonlight once again covered the floor.

Chen Guan stood in place, his fingertips rubbing the rusty iron piece.

"The demon race is acting strangely. Huaqing is the first stop."

"Don't trust Him too much."

Guan Jinyue's two sentences circled in his mind.

The first sentence was intelligence, and the second was a warning, but why did she tell him this?

As for Baal, from the moment the contract was established, Chen Guan had never fully trusted this demon god.

The foundation of their cooperation was mutual value. Once his value was exhausted, or if Baal found a more interesting toy, this contract could turn into a death warrant at any time.

Looking at the empty room, he suppressed his distracting thoughts and returned his attention to the iron piece in his hand.

The cold touch was like holding a piece of stubborn iron just taken out of an ice cellar.

[Mythical Series Reverberation (Storm), do you wish to record?]

"Record," he confirmed in his heart.

The moment Chen Guan confirmed the recording, an irresistible torrent of will, carrying imagery that seemed to have existed since the beginning of the world, brutally crashed into his spiritual world.

Boom!

It felt as if billions of tons of explosives were detonated in his mind at the same time. Chen Guan's vision went black, and without even being able to let out a muffled groan, his consciousness was violently torn from his body.

This time, he was no longer a bystander watching an image, but was thrown directly into an unfamiliar place of undivided chaos.

There was no sky or earth here, only the endless wind intertwined with destruction and creation.

His soul seemed to become a small boat, pulled recklessly in this ocean of concepts. The wind was an invisible giant hand, kneading primitive dust and shaping the prototypes of nebulas, while also acting as the sharpest razor, ruthlessly shattering all formed structures.

Following closely was thunder.

That wasn't lightning; it was the loud noise of stillness being broken, the blazing declaration of barriers being forcefully pierced. Thunder exploded under the envelopment of the fierce wind. Every burst was like the very first heartbeat at the birth of the universe. The lightning pierced through his consciousness, bringing unspeakable agony.

Wind and thunder were not two separate things, but two sides of the same great power. The ceaseless wind was eternal change, the process itself; while the thunder was the most intense and decisive result in this process.

Together, they formed the essence of the storm: endless movement, and the world-tearing eruptions inevitably produced during that movement.

If the Raging Flame was the domineering fire that burned everything, then this storm was the primordial mighty force that drove the changes of all phenomena and nurtured infinite possibilities within destruction.

Its status and complexity far exceeded Chen Guan's current bearing limit!

Just as he was about to be completely assimilated by this mighty force, the mark in his spiritual world that represented his contract with Baal suddenly lit up with a scorching heat.

Immediately, Chen Guan's spiritual power constructed a dam to contain this tyrannical experience. The entire process took but an instant, and the scene before his eyes returned to the familiar sight of his dorm room.

The system panel popped up automatically.

[Recording Successful]

[Recorded Echoes: Raging Flames, Storm (Remaining recording slots: 1. Additional slots can be unlocked via Popularity Points.)]

[Echo (Storm): Consumes spiritual power to reproduce the Storm Echo, launching an indiscriminate slashing attack on a designated area. Note: This skill also places a burden on the user. Use with caution.]