Chapter 79: Welcome to Hell (Seeking First Subscription)

Chi Wanning opened the Criminal Code.

In that instant, the whole room turned dim and murky. Countless blood-red threads spread out from her body and shot toward Su Miao like volleys of arrows.

A series of muffled impacts rang out. Even the reinforced concrete walls were pierced through with ease.

It was hard to imagine what, exactly, Chi Wanning had awakened to.

The attack was terrifying.

Without her spatial magic array, Su Miao felt she would have died without question.

Hm?

The attack had landed, yet not with the expected result.

Chi Wanning felt every strike fall into emptiness, as though an invisible fold in space stood between her and Su Miao.

She looked at Su Miao in puzzlement and asked, “What kind of ability is that? Folded space?”

Su Miao said nothing. She merely raised a hand and hurled a fireball the size of a washbasin.

Boom!

The spot where Chi Wanning had been standing was blasted into a crater in the concrete, and the surrounding furniture burst into flames.

The villa, already on the verge of collapse, shuddered ceaselessly, as though it might cave in at any moment.

Without the slightest surprise, Chi Wanning evaded the great fireball with effortless ease.

But a strange smile appeared on her face. “So witches truly can use magic. Su Miao, I’m certain your flavor will leave me reminiscing for a very long time.”

Chi Wanning opened the Criminal Code once more. The dead black-cloaked assassins nearby, along with the corpses of the giant mutant rats lying below, actually rose to their feet again and rushed swiftly toward the third floor.

Su Miao’s expression changed. She hurled out another huge fireball and simply blew apart the staircase leading up to the third floor.

The villa shook again.

In the room across the way, Xia Xiaoan crouched trembling, clutching the crystal bottle.

This was not a battle she could intervene in at all. She could not help Sister Su Miao even by listening for thoughts.

Because at this moment, she could hear no inner voice from Chi Wanning whatsoever.

It was as if Chi Wanning were not a living person at all.

Chi Wanning glanced at Xia Xiaoan.

If not for wanting to preserve the freshness of her ingredients, she would have killed the little girl already.

After all, a delicious dessert was best savored slowly after the main course was finished.

Besides, Su Miao was rather interesting. Several times Chi Wanning had deliberately looked toward Xia Xiaoan, as though meaning to kill her, and yet Su Miao remained unmoved from beginning to end.

No matter.

Chi Wanning focused on Su Miao and manipulated the corpses into launching wave after wave of attacks.

If there were not enough corpses, she released scarlet threads to reap another batch from the giant mutant rats and sent them onward in fresh assaults.

It was only because Su Miao usually threw the bodies of those she killed into the landslide sinkhole area that Chi Wanning had fewer corpses to command than she otherwise might have had, and weaker ones too.

Xu Heng’s ability had been quite useful as well, but the man had fled first.

She would have to make do with this.

Again and again, Su Miao cast great fireballs, blasting the corpses apart as though the magic within her were inexhaustible.

She very much wanted to kill Chi Wanning in a single stroke.

Up to now, Su Miao had only one method.

She could fuse the pile of little blue fireballs accumulated in her magic space into one great blue fireball and bring it crashing down.

In such a situation, never mind whether Chi Wanning could dodge it—Su Miao was confident she could blow the entire villa to pieces.

But if she did that, Xia Xiaoan might die.

The two sides entered a brief stalemate.

Hide in the wardrobe.

Su Miao spoke silently in her heart to Xia Xiaoan.

The rest would depend on luck.

“Su Miao, I’ll give you a chance. Become mine. What do you say?”

Chi Wanning opened the Criminal Code yet again, an unreadable smile on her lips.

The attacks with the corpses had merely been meant to numb Su Miao’s vigilance. What came next was the true killing stroke.

In an instant the space grew dim, and still more blood-red threads erupted from Chi Wanning’s body.

Some pierced the ceiling. Some pierced the floor.

Then they curved, bent back, and struck toward Su Miao with lightning speed.

She refused to believe Su Miao could maintain a full three-hundred-sixty-degree spatial defense.

In truth, Su Miao could not. The moment she had warned Xia Xiaoan through her thoughts, she had already made her decision.

If she kept dragging things out with Chi Wanning here, sooner or later she would exhaust all the magic she possessed.

In that case, she might as well stake everything on a single attempt.

The magic spatial array reversed.

A giant blue fireball, formed by fusing more than sixty little blue fireballs together, smashed directly toward the ground beneath Chi Wanning’s feet.

The scarlet threads shooting outward at high speed touched the blue fireball and were instantly annihilated.

For the first time, gravity appeared on Chi Wanning’s face.

She wanted to dodge.

But the staircase had been blown apart, and a mass of mutant rat corpses jammed the way besides.

As for the living room, the space was only so large.

Run to the balcony?

That would be the same as throwing herself straight into the blue fireball.

Chi Wanning made her decision at once and condensed a gigantic scarlet cocoon around herself.

Boom!

The blue fireball came down and detonated with a thunderous explosion. The villa’s third floor shattered and collapsed under the force of it.

Su Miao felt the ground vanish beneath her feet, and she dropped downward.

At once she gathered a massive sphere of water around her body, while slanting her spatial magic array above herself to block the chunks of concrete crashing down and reclaim the raging energy of the blue fireball surging toward her.

Outside, the mutant rats and other creatures closing in were blasted into blood and flesh, drawing even more mutant animals into a feast on the spot.

But for the moment, none dared come too close.

Had a second passed, or two?

Su Miao could hear only a roaring thunder in her ears, as if everything else had gone silent.

She released the water sphere around her body, gripped her silver umbrella, and rose from the ruins, staring ahead in wary astonishment.

This time she had truly blown away the villa she had lived in for over a month.

As for Xia Xiaoan, she had no idea what had become of her.

Su Miao did not go looking for Xia Xiaoan. Instead, she turned her gaze to the place where Chi Wanning had formed the scarlet cocoon.

As the dust and smoke cleared, the cocoon still stood amid the wreckage.

It swayed. Mottled cracks appeared across its bloody shell, and then it burst apart.

Pale-faced and clad in tatters, Chi Wanning emerged into Su Miao’s sight.

She looked at Su Miao and smiled. “Murderous witch, you really are ruthless. You wouldn’t even spare the little girl living with you.”

Su Miao stared at her coldly. Even after being struck by the blue fireball, Chi Wanning had not died?

How was she supposed to deal with a monster like this?

Chi Wanning said, “Su Miao, I truly envy you. From the very start of the apocalypse, you had power like this and lived such a lovely life. Why? On what grounds?”

“Do you know what kind of life we lived?”

“The torrential rain went on for a week, and then the great flood broke out. Tower after tower where we lived was washed down. Corpses were everywhere.”

“There was no food. We were robbed, beaten, tormented.”

“It was an inhuman hell.”

“As for me, I was rather lucky. Just as I was about to enter hell, someone killed me first.”

“Later, I revived in hell. And yet you, just like those beasts, want to kill me too. Why must you be so cruel?”

Chi Wanning’s eyes were crimson, her expression twisted with savagery. Perhaps because of the blood cocoon she had formed, even her body had begun to warp now, becoming grotesque in the extreme.

A strange scarlet glow enveloped Su Miao, and Chi Wanning said softly, “Su Miao, would you like to see what hell looks like?”

Su Miao simply stood where she was and allowed the eerie red light to cover her.

...

Just after the drone had taken off, Qin Longzhang, Xiong Hui, Lu Xuechuan, and the others saw the explosion at Villa Number Thirty-Six.

The enormous villa suddenly collapsed before their eyes.

The dreadful blast stunned the entire resort into silence.

Four drones launched into the air in emergency response and flew toward the site of the explosion.

Bullets poured from the drones, mowing down the mutant animals encircling the ruins of Villa Thirty-Six.

The mutant giant rats, mutant beetles, and the rest came under fire and fled in all directions, crushing each other in panic, dying horribly, only to be trampled and devoured by their own kind.

Qin Longzhang’s expression was grave. It would be a bitter joke if they had only just found Su Miao, only for Su Miao to be dead already.

What, exactly, had happened in that explosion just now?

From their observations, the villas here had been built to an exceptional standard. They were not something ordinary explosives could destroy.

After a blast like that, could anyone inside still be alive?

Was the mission going to fail?

“Colonel, someone’s there!”

The soldier controlling the drone reported at once.

Qin Longzhang looked at the control screen. There stood Su Miao, completely unharmed amid the blasted ruins.

Facing her was a grotesque blood-soaked figure, twisted beyond human shape.

“That’s the company boss, Chi Wanning.”

A look of extreme terror came over Xiong Hui’s face, only to twist at once into savage hatred. “Kill her! Kill her now! She’s a devil!”

As if afraid Qin Longzhang would ignore him, Xiong Hui even tried to seize the drone controller from the soldier’s hands.

Qin Longzhang pinned him with one hand and said, “Concentrate fire on Chi Wanning!”

The four soldiers immediately directed their drones to lock onto Chi Wanning.

...

Above Villa Thirty-Six came the buzzing roar of drones.

Chi Wanning’s expression changed. Several blood-red threads shot into the air and instantly blew all four drones apart.

At the same time, Su Miao blinked and raised a hand, sending another great fireball crashing toward Chi Wanning.

For some reason, she had just now forgotten to continue attacking Chi Wanning.

This time, Chi Wanning’s movements as she dodged were a little stiff.

She simply pulled several chunks of concrete and stone together in front of her to absorb the fireball’s blast.

“Worthy of a witch indeed. You still have magic left even now.”

Step by step, Chi Wanning walked toward Su Miao. “Then what about this?”

Suddenly, a strange blood-colored ash-gray mist spread from Chi Wanning’s body, and in the blink of an eye it covered the surrounding space completely.

Hm?

Su Miao’s face changed.

As that blood-gray mist spread, the spatial magic array she had deployed dissipated, as though not the slightest trace of magic remained anywhere in that space.

The defense granted by her spatial array was gone.

She could no longer condense fireball magic.

Even worse, she could not take anything from her magic space.

“Su Miao, surprised? Astonished?”

Chi Wanning abruptly spat out a mouthful of blood. She spread her twisted arms and declared with pride, “Welcome to hell. Here, all are equal and all things are fair. There is no magic, no immortal arts, no supernatural powers, no science...”

“But my invincible body still remains!”

Su Miao could not help tightening her grip on the silver umbrella in her hand as she watched Chi Wanning draw nearer, one step at a time.