MCL CH74

Chapter 74: This world, it’s alive in itself…

Such words were inevitably too arrogant. Su Qiuyin’s already grim face sank to a new low. However, before he could say anything, he heard Lin Xi already speaking slowly beside him. “This brother, you seem to be taking yourself a bit too seriously. Look at the status of those present. Do we need to team up to deal with just you? Our Director Su alone is more than enough to handle it.”

Su Qiuyin silently turned to glance at him. “…”

As if completely oblivious to this extremely threatening gaze, Lin Xi instead smiled at Yan Xingzhou. “Boss Yan, am I right?”

“…”

After a brief silence, Yan Xingzhou, as if he hadn’t heard the question, asked back, “Why did you come here?”

“Of course, I came to find you.” Lin Xi winked with a smile from a distance, his gaze calmly sweeping over Yan Xingzhou’s instantly furrowed brow. “Executive Gu himself promised me that as long as I can successfully complete this mission and persuade you to come back with us, he’ll let me get a promotion and a raise, skipping several ranks.”

Samuel, who had also been surprised to see Lin Xi, was originally immersed in the feeling of facing danger together. Hearing these words, he suddenly choked a few times.

Looking at Lin Xi and then at Yan Xingzhou, he remarked, “Yan, how do you say it in your old Hua nation’s sayings? Are you being used as a stepping stone for his success?”

Yan Xingzhou was already in a bad mood from seeing Lin Xi appear. He grabbed Samuel’s collar and pulled him directly behind him, his gaze never leaving Lin Xi. “…You shouldn’t have come here.”

Lin Xi raised an eyebrow noncommittally. In front of so many spectators, he played his part thoroughly. “Don’t say that, Boss Yan. Although we did have a little unpleasantness between us, we’ve had some beautiful memories too. If I’m being honest, I really do care about you.”

Shouldn’t have? Of course, he knew that.

No matter who here found out his identity, it would undoubtedly be a huge problem for him. But there was no helping it, not when Yan Xingzhou was here, along with the unlucky and miserable Samuel.

Joseph had not paid much attention to Lin Xi’s unfamiliar face at first. Sensing an unusual atmosphere in their conversation, a cold glint flashed in his eyes. The air around Lin Xi seemed to stir as if it had a mind of its own. Just as he was about to make the first move, his whole body suddenly froze. An unexpected ringing instantly pierced his eardrums!

His vision went black, and his body swayed slightly as his hand dropped. As the sharp, long ringing finally faded, the scene before him gradually came back into focus.

The moment he regained his senses, Joseph knew what had happened. He abruptly looked towards the man with a grim face on the side, his voice squeezed through his teeth, “Su… Qiu… Yin.”

Under this murderous glare, Su Qiuyin’s expression remained unchanged. “My position has been very clear from the very beginning. Our mission this time is to bring the Hua nation’s X-coded evolver back. As long as you don’t make a move on our people from the Hua nation, I have no interest in interfering in the internal affairs of Country A’s Evolver Management Bureau.”

Joseph asked with a smile, “And what if I insist on making a move?”

“That’s fine too. After all, I’ve wanted to spar with an X-coded evolver for a long time.” As Su Qiuyin spoke, something began to surge invisibly around Joseph.

But unlike Joseph’s ability, this coiled flow did not originate from a change in gravity, but from the suppression and distortion of countless sound waves under control.

Su Qiuyin, Director of the Third Department of the Hua Nation United Administration, ability—[Ability: Sound Wave].

“Do you think I’ll fall for such a paltry trick a second time?” Joseph clenched his lowered hand, and all the surrounding air seemed to solidify as if it had a physical form. The surging sound waves were stripped away by the sudden change in gravity before they could pierce his eardrums. “No matter how strong your ability is, there’s a ceiling for ordinary abilities. To dare to challenge an X-coded ability is truly overestimating yourself.”

Under the constant change in gravity, the sound waves, guided by the airflow, instead rushed towards Su Qiuyin the moment the words were spoken.

Su Qiuyin’s brow furrowed. He took a neat step back, his sideways evasion wasting no movement.

Beyond that, his face showed no emotional fluctuation. Without answering Joseph, countless sound waves erupted from all around him, attacking Joseph like an overwhelming storm of sharp blades.

A torrent of air exploded, as if it were the most spectacular, concrete static in this invisible confrontation.

All the sound waves were completely crushed into pieces by the immense gravity. Countless mournful cries, both magnificent and piercing, stimulated the eardrums.

It was as if countless violin strings were being scraped together, producing an unbearable grating sound that made even Lin Xi, a bystander, cover his ears in discomfort.

This was also the reason why Lin Xi had always been annoyed with Su Qiuyin.

He was usually the most taciturn person in the United Administration, but his awakened ability was so noisy it could drive a person mad at any moment.

Joseph stood in his original spot without moving a single step. However, besides the patch of ground where he stood, even the previously barren and desolate sandy surface was left with dense and shocking slash marks.

He glanced over them and raised an eyebrow with a smile. “I told you, there won’t be a second time.”

Su Qiuyin: “Oh, is that so?”

Joseph caught the direction of Su Qiuyin’s gaze and vaguely sensed something. He reached up and wiped his face with his fingertips. The bloodstain on his finger came into view, and his eyes finally flickered. “…”

Impossible, when did that happen?

However, before he could think back, Su Qiuyin had already launched another attack.

In a flash, the stirred-up yellow sand, accompanied by constant sharp, cutting sounds, created a snowstorm of sand around them.

“Using X-code as the sole measure of strength is truly the height of foolishness, don’t you think?”

Lin Xi had, at some point, walked over to Yan Xingzhou’s side. He was about to casually put an arm around Yan Xingzhou’s shoulder but was calmly avoided. This made him look at Yan Xingzhou with slightly widened eyes. “I came here specifically to find you. Is this how you treat your savior?”

“…”

Yan Xingzhou paid him no heed. “It’s not too late to go back now.”

“Since I’m already here, how can I go back empty-handed?” Lin Xi looked up and met Yan Xingzhou’s deep gaze, clearing his throat with a rare hint of guilt. “What I mean is, I came to find you, and you came to find Samuel. Now that we’ve found everyone, why don’t we go back together?”

As he spoke, he looked at the two figures locked in combat. Before Yan Xingzhou could answer again, he anticipated his response, “Of course, I don’t want to go back empty-handed, and you surely don’t either. After all, once this S-rank rift is fully opened and the things inside get out, we’ll be the ones in trouble in the end. So before we leave, we should probably finish the cleanup work for this rift, right?”

Yan Xingzhou didn’t answer. He stepped aside, revealing Samuel. “You take him out for treatment first. After we deal with the trouble at hand, I can handle the remaining cleanup work.”

“That sounds like a good suggestion.”

Lin Xi smiled on the surface, his eyes, as usual, showing no emotion. He looked at Samuel with a grin. “But I have a feeling that it might not be very realistic to carry out, right?”

From the beginning, Samuel had vaguely felt that the way these two were interacting was somewhat familiar. At this moment, Lin Xi suddenly leaned in close. Looking up at that half-smiling expression, something from his memory seemed to emerge, gradually overlapping with the scene before him.

After waiting for a while without an answer, Lin Xi asked again, “What are you spacing out for?”

Samuel finally came back to his senses. He took another couple of looks at this face and cleared his dry throat. “It’s indeed not realistic.”

Under Yan Xingzhou’s abrupt gaze, to prove that he wasn’t just unwilling to help persuade Lin Xi to leave, he made his expression look as sincere as possible. “Really, this is the first time I’ve encountered such a bizarre inner world. Yan, you know what my ability is. On the third day after I came in here, I sensed something was wrong and was already planning to go back to headquarters to discuss a new strategy with Primo. But until I ran into Joseph, I was never able to get back successfully…”

It was also the first time Samuel had gotten himself into such a pathetic state. It was one thing with Yan Xingzhou, but now there was Lin Xi as well. Normally, he would be very unwilling to be seen in such a sorry state in front of outsiders, but right now, for some reason, he didn’t feel any pressure about his image. He patted the sand from his golden hair and gave a bitter smile. “Haven’t you guys noticed yet? The inner world of this rift—it’s alive.”

As his words fell, they were perfectly timed with another burst of mournful cries from not far away.

It was as if some jagged saw was slowly cutting through one’s heart, a chill seeping up from the depths of the bones.

Yan Xingzhou silently looked up into the distance.

The countless, jarring world fragments that seemed to have been hastily stitched together appeared even more fragmented in this instant. In the chaotic distant view, pieced together from torn pieces of different scrolls, silent lights and shadows flowed continuously in the skies of various colors.

It was bizarre and motley, as if something was hidden behind it all, about to burst forth.

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