Chapter 103-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
Sykes suppressed his emotions, listening with what could be considered patience to the high, heavyset middle-aged man's narration. Yet, after hearing him out, Sykes wished he could kick the man—there was absolutely no useful information, purely a waste of his time!
His gaze circled the surroundings with visible impatience, noting that the Governor-General of the Municipal Council's wife was gone, and Ye Zheng was nowhere to be seen either.
"Where did that woman and the Saintess go?"
The Knight Commander was suddenly questioned. His face froze, and he carefully recalled, "The Saintess seemed to have something to discuss with the Lady just now, and the two went upstairs."
"The situation is still unclear. How could you allow them to move around freely?"
Sykes's golden eyes stared directly at the tall Knight. The Knight Commander subconsciously hunched his shoulders, looking slightly pathetic. He explained, "The situation upstairs has been investigated, and the Lady is also familiar with this area. It's not my place to disturb the ladies' affairs."
The Knight Commander cautiously raised his eyes, finding the Crown Prince's expression still dissatisfied. He racked his brain and thought of one detail, quickly trying to patch up his answer: "The data shows that the Lady is a commoner, without any abilities. Nothing will happen to her with the Saintess by her side."
Sykes finally moved his intimidating gaze away. He looked toward the upper floor and commanded, "Tell them to come down. I have something to ask that woman."
That Governor-General's wife looked like a frail commoner, yet she inexplicably made him feel somewhat concerned.
"You led us here. Why?"
The chaotic space happened to scatter the hundreds-strong team, and the two important figures, the Crown Prince and the Saintess, were coincidentally teleported to the street where their original destination was located.
The team quickly found the Municipal Council Building, and the survivors awaiting rescue were all key figures from the Council.
It was too smooth; Ye Zheng did not believe in so many coincidences.
The water-forged point of a blade rested against the woman's chest. After an initial surprise, Zhou Yun quickly regained her composure, answering the girl's question.
"Why? Of course, it's because we needed to be rescued."
Zhou Yun chuckled.
Ye Zheng held many doubts, but her expression remained calm and unhurried as she continued to ask, "You have a space ability, don't you?"
"I am not an ability user. I believe the file stated that as well."
For the first time, Ye Zheng felt a bit tricky. Zhou Yun did not directly answer any of her questions, and every response was ambiguous. More importantly, her expression looked relaxed, as if she were engaging in normal conversation with a junior. She did not care about the threat.
Zhou Yun was leaning against an office desk. Her hair, tied low, was swept to one side of her neck. A long black dress tightly encased her, and the exposed skin was so pale it lacked all color, even her lips were notably light, like a phantom lingering in a black and white painting.
She lowered her head slightly, yet looked up at the girl who was taller than herself. Her pupils were slender, and the whites of her eyes were prominent.
"Those six men downstairs are all under your control. They are afraid of you."
Ye Zheng affirmed.
Trapped in this building for two full weeks, after the initial panic, those six men should have felt exhaustion and numbness. Upon seeing the Crown Prince's team arrive, they should have been fearful and overjoyed, not stiff-faced and trembling with terror.
Only Zhou Yun's behavior was different. She acted the most normal, which, among a group of abnormal men, made her stand out as exceptionally abnormal.
"What control is there? They are all volunteers. I am just a commoner without any ability."
Ye Zheng's eyes darkened further. She took a step forward, and the water blade pierced the fabric, pressing directly against the woman's skin.
"Ms. Zhou, I am not anyone's enemy. If you truly don't want to answer the above questions, then I will ask one last question—"
"Is your daughter Yuan Yuan still alive?"
Zhou Yun raised the corner of her mouth almost reflexively. Her laughter sounded disjointed, and the fine lines around her eyes deepened, making her gaze particularly sharp, like shattered glass fragments.
"You really... shouldn't have brought her up, Saintess. If you hadn't asked about her, I wouldn't have brought you up here."
"And you wouldn't be—the first to die."
Before the woman's voice could fully drop, a piercing explosion suddenly tore through the congealed atmosphere, shaking even the water blade at the woman's chest.
Ye Zheng's gaze swiftly looked behind Zhou Yun. A tightly shut window had shattered.
White fog rushed in eagerly, beginning to spread throughout the office.
Simultaneously, downstairs, a continuous string of shattering sounds and men's panicked screams could be heard.
Her intuition was correct. Zhou Yun was the manipulator behind this dense fog, and now, Zhou Yun intended to kill her.
Ye Zheng did not hesitate to activate the water blade, her eyes firmly locked on the woman in front of her. She had to subdue Zhou Yun before the white fog attacked her!
The water blade stabbed forward. Ye Zheng looked down in surprise, the blade plunging deep into Zhou Yun's skin, yet not a single drop of blood flowed out.
She looked up again. Zhou Yun was watching her, smiling. The smile grew increasingly blurry, and soon, her entire silhouette became indistinct, like a drop of ink dissolving in water, gradually merging with the white fog that rushed from behind.
Zhou Yun's voice also became hollow, like a distant, high-pitched wail.
"The God's Chosen Saintess who wields the Divine Sword, the Holy Sei Empire's 3S-rank Savior who appears once every five hundred years, the perfect creation truly replicating the God of Hope..."
"Don't be afraid, children. You will all die here, but the entire Empire will be buried with you. This is the most perfect ending."
Zhou Yun's figure completely dispersed, and the surging white fog immediately shrieked as it attacked Ye Zheng!
Ye Zheng rapidly processed every sentence Zhou Yun had spoken, quickly realizing that mentioning Yuan Yuan had completely enraged Zhou Yun, causing the woman to accelerate her plan to kill her.
A helpless smile crossed her lips. Ye Zheng hadn't expected to have a day when she miscalculated while probing the woman's true intentions (failed due to overanalyzing and misjudging someone's inner thoughts).
There was no time to think too much now. She immediately covered her palm with [Stream]. The extremely high-water-content white fog was immediately dissolved into water droplets upon touching the girl's palm. These water droplets then crawled up the girl's body, covering her from ankle to neck, and then her face.
The rushing white fog quickly enveloped the sole figure in the room. The innermost layer of mist transformed into countless near-invisible needle tips. After hearing a woman's faint sigh, the countless sharp blades formed by the mist stabbed toward the girl!
The woman who was no longer in the room sighed again, with an inescapable pity, as if she had foreseen the Saintess's inevitable death and was mourning in advance.
The Knight Commander, having received the Crown Prince's order, went upstairs to find the Saintess and the Governor-General's wife.
He was halfway up the stairs when a string of screams suddenly erupted from below. His scalp immediately tingled as he looked down, seeing the white fog had poured into the downstairs hall, consciously coiling around everyone!
The Knight Commander tentatively walked down a few steps, then instinctively scrambled back up. The sight of his comrade's body severed in two was vivid in his memory. He nervously thought that his mission now was to find the two ladies and prevent them from being in danger.
The Crown Prince was holding the line downstairs. If His Highness couldn't solve it, going down would just be suicide.
The tall Knight ran frantically to the third floor and bumped into someone head-on, startling him so much he nearly drew his sword.
"Don't panic. Is someone chasing you?"
Hearing the girl's soothing voice, the Knight Commander took a breath, turned around in a rush to check behind him, and only felt relieved after confirming there was no fog. He then looked at the person in front of him.
He was startled again.
The girl before him was soaked through. Her loose black hair wrapped around her waist, neck, and face like seaweed. She blinked her dark eyes, and water droplets fell from her lashes, making her look like a water fairy peering out from the deep sea, carrying a sense of damp chill.
"Saintess, what happened? Where is the Lady? Are you both safe?"
It took the Knight Commander a moment to recognize that the person in front of him was the Saintess.
He glanced around but did not see the other woman.
"Let's go downstairs first. Ms. Zhou is safer than any of us."
Ye Zheng shook her wet hand, the corners of her eyes drooping listlessly. This was the first time she had been so disheveled.
Fortunately, the opponent controlled the mist. [Stream] could control the moisture within the fog, neutralizing the lethal move.
But she had not won. In this round, she had lost to Zhou Yun.
Ye Zheng recalled that since learning this world was a manga, she had always manipulated everything from behind the scenes, playing games with everyone. Because of what she'd gained, her recent actions had become increasingly smooth.
This time, she was cold-shouldered and played a trick on, the opponent disappearing after leaving a string of ambiguous words. Ye Zheng felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over her head. She fiddled with her wet hair; judging by the effect, it wasn't just a feeling, but a fact.
Ye Zheng walked straight down the stairs. The Knight Commander followed her closely, anxiously urging her from behind, "Adult, it's very dangerous downstairs!"
She ignored him, jumping off the last two steps.
The hall looked as if it had suffered a great catastrophe. All the tables, chairs, and furnishings were overturned. The chandelier lay smashed on the floor, its fragments mixed with bloodstains. What was once a relatively luxurious hall was no different from a ruin, and the people in the hall were even worse off.
Ye Zheng's gaze swept over the wounded and the corpses lying on the ground. Some were decapitated, some had lost a leg, and some were bleeding all over and wailing.
A wounded Knight spotted the Saintess standing by the stairwell. His eyes burst with light, hopefully looking toward the Saintess, who was known for her healing and kindness.
However, the Saintess quickly walked past him, merely sparing the injured man a glance before moving on.
Sykes took the coat handed to him by a Knight and put it on, covering the torn undershirt and the exposed bloodstains and flesh beneath.
His face was incredibly grim, his jaw subtly trembling with anger. The sudden, aggressive fog had practically mocked him.
"...Ye Zheng?"
A familiar figure walked past him without even a glance in response. Sykes became even more irritated. He quickly followed Ye Zheng.
Ye Zheng's eyes scanned every injured person on the ground, as if searching for something.
Suddenly, she crouched down and lifted a middle-aged man's collar off the floor.
This middle-aged man must have been impeccably dressed originally, even though he was now covered in blood, looking as if he had rolled over a bed of needles, with only a few scraps of high-quality fabric still hanging on him.
Sykes stood behind Ye Zheng, thinking she wanted to save the person.
This man had only one breath left, but if it were Ye Zheng, it might not be impossible to save him. Though ambitious, she had always done her duty as a Saintess well.
Immediately after, Sykes heard Ye Zheng's words, and his golden eyes snapped open.
"Adult, Adult, save me..."
The middle-aged man spoke with a thread of breath.
"Listen, what exactly did Zhou Yun instruct you to do? Is she involved with the Sei Curia's experiment?"
"Answer me! Only by answering these questions can you be saved!"
Ye Zheng's tone was nearly severe.
The other Municipal Council members had been killed by the recent fog, leaving only this man with a final breath.
"She, she asked us to cooperate with her to treat you well. Experiment... are you talking about... the Hope Project?"
When the middle-aged man mentioned the "Hope Project," he opened his eyes wide in excitement. A sob overflowed from his throat. He seemed desperate to say something but was powerless to speak anymore. Before long, his pupils completely dilated, and his body fell still.
Ye Zheng released his collar. The man's corpse lay on the ground, his eyes wide in death.
She turned and silently met the stunned gaze of Sykes.
At that moment, Ye Zheng abruptly recalled the words Zhou Yun spoke before she disappeared.
The God's Chosen Saintess who wields the Divine Sword, the Holy Sei Empire's 3S-rank Savior who appears once every five hundred years, the perfect creation truly replicating the God of Hope...
The Saintess and the 3S-rank were both here. Only one person remained.
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