The Big Boss

Tu Ran pressed forward through the dense forest, flashlight in hand. She didn't let her guard down. Since the big boss had already made a move against her, it surely wouldn't stop halfway. Since she couldn't find it, she would wait for it to come to her.

After half an hour of walking, a gust of cold wind swept up the dust between the trees and rushed toward her at breakneck speed. Just as Tu Ran assumed it was an ordinary breeze, the "wind" carrying the dust shifted shape, forming a huge net that enveloped both her and the flashlight. Then Tu Ran felt as though she were being filtered through a sieve from head to toe, her body threatening to scatter into individual cells and drift away with the wind.

The flashlight's beam abruptly died. Tu Ran's sensation of losing control over her body quickly dissipated. The world plunged into darkness once more. Tu Ran let out a long breath, suppressing the pounding of her heart.

The wind that had rushed at her just now—was it the big boss's physical form or an attack it had launched? Tu Ran couldn't be certain. But at least the big boss had made the first move; it was right beside her.

Tu Ran rewound time by a minute, and the flashlight, which had malfunctioned for unknown reasons, was restored to its former glory, light flooding the dense forest again. Tu Ran steeled herself, especially alert to the wild winds darting about.

When the next nearly transparent wind, carrying dust, came swirling in for a sneak attack from behind, Tu Ran spun around quickly. But she was still too late. That giant net covered her once more, passing straight through her body. The helpless feeling of losing control swept over her again, and the flashlight's beam died.

Tu Ran didn't stand there paralyzed like last time, waiting for the palpitations to pass. Instead, she immediately activated the Wheel of Time to restore the flashlight's light, then turned to look in the direction the "wind" had fled.

She saw it—a transparent humanoid figure. Because there was some dust inside its body, Tu Ran could make out that it was shaped like a person. The transparent figure was startled by the sudden light, its body contorting rapidly into a tornado, spinning and vanishing in the blink of an eye.

How could Tu Ran let it get away? She activated Blink and swept after it. In the dense forest, two figures chased one another, moving so fast they were nothing but afterimages.

Tu Ran had once estimated that her speed while using Blink was 150 meters per second, yet even at that speed, she couldn't catch up to the "tornado," which meant its speed far exceeded hers. Within a few blinks, it disappeared from sight.

Tu Ran stopped in her tracks. She would wait—wait for it to attack her on its own.

The dense forest fell completely silent. The wind ceased to flow, and time seemed frozen.

Tu Ran stood in the middle of the forest, flashlight in hand. A purple mushroom grew silently in her palm. Wind rose, and the chanting drew closer. It was the aberration mocking her. It sang, circling around Tu Ran at high speed, layer upon layer of wind wrapping her at the center. It would draw close, then pull away, showing that the hallucinogenic mushroom had no effect on it.

Tu Ran crushed the hallucinogenic mushroom. The creature possessed a mid-to-high-level auxiliary ability, so the mushroom was useless against it.

The wind carried the mushroom's fragments far away. The chanting hidden in the dark abruptly stopped. The "wind" attacked her again.

Tu Ran watched the "wind" charging toward her, a cold smile curling at the corner of her lips. "Annihilation!"

"Ah—!" A piercing shriek rang out from the semi-transparent substance ahead. It was like a living creature being roasted over an open flame—desperate, mournful, and shrill enough to pierce Tu Ran's eardrums.

Tu Ran frowned deeply, staring intently at the "wind" still charging at her. Its speed slowed more and more, its formless body beginning to take shape. Its color shifted from transparent gray to solid gray, then to ink black, like a shadow that twisted and changed shape at will. And as it struggled to press forward, its body gradually dissolved, leaving behind floating black gases in the path it traversed.

Until, with all its might, it reached Tu Ran's front, leaving only a head attached to a half, barely-there neck. Its facial features resembled a human's, twisted grotesquely with fury. It stared at Tu Ran with venomous, greedy eyes, its nose twitching as it breathed in her scent. It wanted to take one more step, just one more step—it craved the energy in Tu Ran's body. But its form was already gone; it couldn't touch her at all.

It was desperate, furious, and it screamed with a shrill, unwilling cry. In the end, it dissolved into a wisp of smoke and vanished without a trace. A silver inner core dropped from midair and rolled to a stop at Tu Ran's feet.

Tu Ran stiffly lowered her head to glance at the inner core, but she could no longer hold on. She dropped to her knees, opened her face mask, and spat out a mouthful of blood. The pain in her lungs was like being torn apart, as if squeezed and crushed by a giant hand.

This was the side effect of Annihilation. Annihilation was the ability she had obtained from Zeng Jing—the power to destroy flying bullets, the sprouts in Pang Xinting's stomach, and hallucinogenic mushrooms from a distance. Annihilation was a high-level ability that could destroy anything moving at "high speed." Flying bullets were high-speed, and sprouts and hallucinogenic mushrooms were products of rapid cell division, which counted as high-speed growth. That was how Zeng Jing could annihilate those three things. And that unknown object just now, flying at a speed comparable to a bullet, also qualified as high-speed, so Tu Ran could tear it apart alive.

After consuming this ability, Tu Ran realized she had dodged a bullet. Her Blink was also quite fast. If Zeng Jing had used Annihilation on her back then, Tu Ran would have died without even knowing how. Luckily, Zeng Jing hadn't. Tu Ran guessed it was because her speed hadn't reached the minimum threshold for Annihilation to take effect, or perhaps Zeng Jing couldn't afford the cost of annihilating her at the time. Either way, she had survived a close call.

An ability as world-shattering as Annihilation naturally came with strict usage restrictions. Its energy consumption far exceeded that of the Wheel of Time, and each use inflicted a certain amount of damage on the body.

Tu Ran lay prostrate on the ground, resting for over ten minutes before she had the strength to open Shadow Storage, take out a bottle of nutrient solution and a recovery agent. She injected the recovery agent into her body, drank the nutrient solution, and, with trembling fingers, picked up the inner core from the ground. She found a nearby tree, climbed onto a branch, and settled into a comfortable position, not moving a muscle. She needed to recover her strength quickly—right now, she was completely defenseless. The flashlight had been turned off, and the world had sunk back into darkness.

Two hours later, dawn broke. Tu Ran didn't wake up. Night fell. Tu Ran still didn't wake up. When daylight came again, Tu Ran finally opened her eyes.

Her stomach was growling with hunger. She didn't bother to survey her surroundings; she pulled out nutrient solutions from her space and chugged four bottles before the gnawing hunger subsided. She rubbed her legs, which had gone numb from sleeping so long, and tossed the empty bottles back into her space. Only then did she notice the scene before her. The white frost that had covered the thick tree trunks had all melted, and the ice crystals on the needles were dripping water drop by drop. The air had grown humid, and the ambient temperature had noticeably risen.

TL Note:

inner core (内丹) is a condensed ball of energy formed by a cultivator or spiritual being, often dropped after death.