Shaya rushed forward, slamming into the immobilized Lu Renjia and sending him flying into the wall. His body was embedded into the concrete, forming a crudely-shaped, horizontal character, stuck so firmly he couldn’t be pried out.
Shaya shifted into her true form, crouching low on the ground and presenting her fluffy back to Xue Ji.
Xue Ji was lifted up by the suddenly enlarged Shaya and found herself seated on Shaya’s back.
Xue Ji paused for a moment, a thought striking her—wasn’t sitting on someone like this practically a reward for them?
‘What the hell? Why would I do something like this?’
But to maintain the imposing aura she had worked so hard to create, Xue Ji kept her expression stern and her face cold.
Mounted on Shaya, she couldn’t help but run her hands through Shaya’s soft fur. Shaya felt a surge of delight. At this moment, she was bearing Xue Ji’s full weight—could Ling Xiaoxiao ever manage something like this?
With a stern face, Xue Ji commanded, “You there, come here. Now.”
The delivery driver had just been knocked unconscious and was only now waking up. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw the horde of dark-circled, reward-obsessed men who had been densely packed around him now lying face-down on the floor, their backsides raised, crammed throughout the stairwell.
Still disoriented, he opened his eyes to find every single one of the reward-obsessed men who could see him staring intently, as if urging him to hurry up.
“Coming, I’m coming!” The driver, after all, was a seasoned delivery pro, nimble and quick. In a flash, he scurried over to stand beside Xue Ji, looking every bit like a little brother following his big sister.
Xue Ji reclined sideways on Shaya’s back, holding a bone knife typically used for dissecting demon beast corpses.
“You, the short one. Talk. What do you know?” Xue Ji pointed the bone knife at the dwarf vampire from earlier.
“And you few,” she ordered, turning to the ones closest to her, “go pry your boss out of the wall.”
While they worked on extracting their leader, Xue Ji began interrogating the dwarf.
“Speak! How did you evade the Vanguard’s detection?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“If you don’t know, you die. Next!” Xue Ji hurled the bone knife, and it struck the dwarf directly in the chest.
The paralyzing poison on the blade took effect immediately, and the dwarf stiffened before collapsing to the ground, motionless.
One after another, each claimed not to know, and Xue Ji incapacitated them one by one.
“Is there no one here capable of speaking?” Xue Ji’s arm grew tired from all the striking, and she tossed the knife aside. “Fine, then there’s no reason to keep any of you alive!”
Xue Ji snapped her fingers, and two fire spirits, each about the size of a palm, answered her call. One wielded a greatsword, the other a longbow. Their flames burned with a golden hue—a permanent sacred attribute bestowed by the priestess’s blessing.
The two little creatures were winged sprites, mischievous and lively in appearance.
“Whoever I point at, you attack. Understood?” Xue Ji adopted a severe expression as she gave the command.
The two little spirits raised their weapons and responded energetically, “Uwa!”
“The first one is him.” Xue Ji’s finger pointed directly at the delivery driver.
“Huh? Wha—me…?” Having witnessed the power Xue Ji had just displayed, the driver nearly had a heart attack from the shock of being singled out.
“Not you. Move aside.” Xue Ji flicked her finger dismissively.
The driver hastily leaped out of the way, revealing a dwarf behind him who had been trying to pick up Xue Ji’s discarded bone knife. Realizing he’d been exposed, the dwarf hurled the knife toward Xue Ji and scrambled to flee.
Xue Ji caught the thrown knife effortlessly, but the ease of it felt wrong. Although her physical condition wasn’t weak, the overwhelming strength of her soul meant most of her body’s power remained untapped.
The thrown knife was merely a feint.
In the next instant, the dwarf was right in front of Xue Ji, throwing a punch laden with terrifying pressure straight down at her.
Shaya leaped backward just in time, carrying Xue Ji out of harm’s way. The dwarf’s fist struck the floor, smashing through it and cleanly breaking the entire building in half. The structure began to tilt and, worse, started disintegrating from the inside out, soon collapsing with a thunderous roar.
‘There’s a trace of dark magic. Where is it?’ Xue Ji realized she couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of the dark magic.
Seizing the opportunity, the dwarf grabbed Song Liangpeng as a hostage, using him to smash through a wall before leaping out.
“He’s reached the level of a Royal. There’s deeply concealed dark magic on him, but it’s unrelated to that terrifying presence inside the building.”
Xue Ji sensed a very hidden dark magic aura emanating from the dwarf—a power that didn’t belong to any known vampire ability.
“Should we chase him? He seems somewhat capable,” Shaya asked.
“Unnecessary. Someone else will deal with him.” Xue gazed out through the shattered wall into the sky, where a streak of heavenly fire tore through the night, heading straight for the fleeing dwarf.
Just moments earlier, Xue Ji had exchanged a glance with Ling Xiaoxiao within the flames, and the two had reached a silent understanding in an instant.
Xue Ji turned her attention to rescuing the building.
“Shaya, protect me!” As soon as she spoke, Xue Ji began chanting a spell, her body shimmering with magical light.
Shaya enlarged her body, enveloping Xue Ji completely and shielding her from the continuously falling concrete and debris.
This residential building had thirty floors, with four units on each level. Nearly every unit still had people inside who hadn’t been turned.
The dwarf was clever—mixing truths with lies ensured they always had hostages on hand, and any investigation by the Vanguard would have to be handled by genuine personnel.
At the same time, keeping these people here also created opportunities for escape if they were exposed.
Just like now, Xue Ji had to use her relatively limited spiritual energy to counteract the building’s collapse while ensuring no ordinary people were harmed.
If not for the considerable commotion she’d caused earlier, which attracted nearby Vanguards and the special powers unit, that Royal vampire would have truly gotten away.
Xue Ji drained every last bit of spiritual energy from her body and, relying on her exceptional control, applied it to every ordinary person inside the building.
The dark magic destroying the building was ingeniously crafted, dispersed evenly throughout. It was nearly impossible to counter the spell itself now.
“Spiritual Body Shield. Total targets: two hundred and twenty-six.” There was no time to draw on the ambient spiritual energy in the air. She had to complete this spell using only the spiritual energy reserves of a mid-level Awakened.
“If there isn’t enough spiritual energy, then I’ll only activate the shields at the moment of impact.” Confident in her skill and daring, Xue Ji relied on her control to simultaneously deploy temporary shields for over two hundred people the instant harm arrived.
“Also, the building can’t collapse.” Xue Ji also had to focus on controlling the crumbling structure.
“This won’t work. I need to change my approach—slow down the rate of collapse to give the people outside enough time to react.”
Xue Ji’s mind was operating at an intense level, managing multiple fine tasks simultaneously. She could no longer afford distraction; her physical safety was now entirely in Shaya’s hands.
Outside, the Vanguards and special powers unit had been fighting the dwarf for a while, but a Royal vampire in the night was more than mid-level Awakened could handle. Fortunately, Ling Xiaoxiao descended like heavenly fire, incapacitating him with a single strike.
Just as Ling Xiaoxiao captured the Royal vampire, the building’s disintegration became unmistakable.
Ling Xiaoxiao noticed immediately and urgently shouted, “The building is going to collapse! Fall back now!”
At that moment, a violent explosion and flames erupted from the crumbling building. The structure had long been transformed by the vampires and an unknown faction into a massive time bomb.
Now, dark magic mixed with explosives ignited simultaneously. If not for Xue Ji’s control, the blast radius would have annihilated everything within a half-kilometer. Black lightning encircled the building, carrying a dark, sinister aura that obliterated all matter within.
“Xiao Ji!” Ling Xiaoxiao cried out, her heart seizing with panic at the sight of the violent explosion. Fear overrode her calm—terrified that Xue Ji couldn’t protect herself, she tore the dwarf’s head from his body and sealed it with Chongming Fire.
She tossed the ugly head to a nearby Vanguard and, ignoring the shouts of those around her, flew without hesitation into the dark magic-engulfed building.