“You bastard, what have you done?!”
The Rat Gang Leader stared at Aili.
His eyes burned with fury, mixed with an inexplicable fear.
The more evil deeds people do, the more they fear death. He was terrified by his own sworn brother’s gruesome death!
But he also knew.
There was no turning back now—the only thing he could do was fight with everything he had to survive!
Just like countless times before when he’d narrowly escaped death.
A twist of thoughts flashed through the man’s mind, and in an instant he calmed down.
He stared at the masked girl charging at him with blood rings under her feet, then clenched both fists.
The water dragon below let out a silent roar, its tail snapping every drainpipe in the vicinity before surging forward.
Boom!
It happened to be drainage season. The wastewater from the entire city above the Lower Water Area burst out from the broken pipes all at once.
The black, stinking sewage formed a wave dozens of meters high. With a single light slap, everything on the ground was either smashed to pieces or swept into the flood, rushing onward.
A man-made flood… had arrived.
“Holy crap, what’s the difference between this and fighting a water fight with toilet sewer water? What a disgusting attack!”
“A clever new development direction for water-type supernatural powers.”
“A mop dipped in shit—Lu Bu reincarnated!”
“Factory bro, save me!”
Aili casually dodged the water dragon’s attack, then turned to look at the towering wave. For the first time, her expression truly changed.
But she wasn’t worried about herself or Anvil.
If a mere flood could kill second-level star power users like them, then star power users wouldn’t hold such high status.
She was worried about the ordinary people taken captive in the warehouse!
In the face of a disaster like this, ordinary lives were as fragile as candles in the wind—easily snuffed out.
“I heard that!”
A roar came from behind, followed by a sudden explosion.
A massive blue fist shadow blasted straight through the walls and ceiling of the Rat Gang’s warehouse.
“I’ll protect them—you do what you have to do!”
Anvil bellowed, crossing his arms over his chest.
The seven-colored nightlight faintly filtered through the night sky.
His sturdy body stood like a city wall, steadfastly shielding the dozen-plus victims behind him.
This seven-colored nightlight came from the projections of the never-extinguishing colorful neon lights between the skyscrapers onto the curtain walls.
It was a wonder of the Slum World below the city—and also a curse.
These towering buildings were so tall, so massive, so tightly packed together.
They blocked all light from reaching the Slum World below!
People born in the Slums might go their entire lives without ever being touched by true sunlight or moonlight.
But at this moment, the victims raised their heads and looked at Anvil. On the right side of his shoulder, they saw a patch of golden light.
Warm and gentle—exactly like the sunlight in storybooks.
No—that was the very light emitted by the star!
Boom!
The sky-obscuring wave rolled in.
The hard alloy foundations of the buildings were battered and scoured by the flood, groaning and creaking constantly.
These skyscrapers, standing for nearly a thousand years, did have a standard foundation maintenance plan. Every year, robots and engineers were dispatched to maintain them.
But no matter how many patches you applied, things could never be as good as new.
And this time, the foundation wasn’t facing an ordinary flood—it was the attack of a second-level star power user.
So when the first deeply buried alloy foundation accidentally bent and snapped under the flood’s onslaught, the remaining foundations naturally couldn’t hold on. One by one, like dominoes, they broke.
The entire building began to tilt and collapse uncontrollably.
It was like a forest—if all the trees grow too thick and lush, they steal all the sunlight, leaving the plants below unable to photosynthesize, withering and dying.
At times like that, only by cutting down one tree could the plants below have a chance at life.
“What is the production team doing? Don’t make me miss 《Starfall》!”
“Who put this anime on my computer?”
The night sky was torn apart by the slowly collapsing building. Rays of morning light spilled through the gap, bathing everything in golden brilliance, glaringly bright.
“Night is over… it’s daytime already?”
Anvil squinted at the light, then suddenly smiled.
“Thousand Star Martial Arts style—Level Two Arcana—【Rampart】!”
Strands of blue energy seeped from his pores.
He took a deep breath, his muscles swelling. The blue energy flowing from his pores was all drawn back in.
“Isn’t that the iron wall that kills whoever uses it?”
“High EQ: iron wall; Low EQ: grin and bear it while letting the enemy hit you.”
Swish!
The arms Anvil had crossed in front of his chest suddenly blazed with blue light, forming a blue light membrane around him, protecting the ordinary people behind him.
“It really feels like Combatants and ability users aren’t from the same art style, 233.”
***
The next second.
Bam!
The dozens-of-meters-high wave slammed down hard.
The blue light membrane trembled violently, dispersing the terrifying force.
The ground beneath Anvil’s feet cracked inch by inch. His entire body was like a nail being hammered—his ankles sank into the soil.
But he held it!
The first wave’s impact was the most terrifying.
Unless the Rat Gang Leader summoned an even bigger wave, Anvil could block it.
And besides…
This guy had no more chances!
Anvil snapped his head up.
That dazzling red light, in her struggle with the water dragon, had already completed all preparations.
The dense blood rings floating around her hummed, drawing closer to her front, forcibly merging into one.
They became a single giant blood ring nearly a meter thick and over twenty meters in diameter, floating before Aili.
“Game over!”
She gave a cold smile, pushing forward with both hands.
The enormous blood ring, its intricate patterns clearly visible, spun violently, emitting a sound that could shatter an ordinary person’s eardrums.
The Rat Gang Leader still refused to give up. He commanded the water dragon, condensed water walls, and used every trick to try to escape.
But all resistance was futile.
Those methods were effortlessly destroyed one by one by the blood ring.
Finally, under his utterly terrified gaze, the blood ring flew toward him—seemingly slow but actually fast—and silently exploded.
The concentrated impact force of hundreds of blood rings released at once—one could imagine how terrifying that was.
The Rat Gang Leader, caught right in front, was literally smashed into a mist of blood.
Then the remaining shockwave continued to spread in all directions, snapping the foundations of several nearby skyscrapers before finally dissipating.
Several towering buildings tilted and collapsed, tearing the gap in the night sky even wider.
The sunlight spilling through covered almost the entire battlefield.
Aili stepped on a blood ring, bathed in sunlight, slowly floating down to the ground. She raised her right hand, glanced at it, then chuckled softly.
“Mm, one minute left—good thing I didn’t break the contract.”