Chapter 256:

On the surface, there seemed to be no difference; both scenarios ended with him colluding with the Black Flash Organization. But the former was a plot created by the author, who could make the nature of this collusion even more malicious. The latter, however, was in Su Bei’s own hands; he was merely accepting a mission as a member of the Destiny organization, allowing him to remain in a relatively neutral position.

As for the readers’ inevitable misunderstanding, Su Bei wasn’t in a hurry to clarify. He had already planned to take a stroll on the villain’s side anyway. Just as he had said before, compared to the heroes, villains have a much stronger perception of crises and opportunities. A trip over there might even yield new information.

As long as he maintained his neutral identity, there would be no shortage of opportunities to clear his name in the future. So, as long as public opinion didn’t get too out of hand, he wouldn’t have to use his ‘Oracle’ account at all.

After confirming he hadn’t missed anything, Su Bei sat peacefully on the high platform to watch the show. Since he was invisible, no one bothered him during this time. Out of boredom, he manipulated his gears to help kill Nightmare Beasts. Although attacking with only gears was not very effective, it was better than nothing.

Soon, he heard a loud bang. The sound came from the place he had just left, where Jiang Tianming’s group of three and Cyril’s group of two were. He didn’t know what had happened over there, but upon hearing the commotion, all the Nightmare Beasts started running in one direction.

Seeing them like this, Su Bei immediately understood. It seemed this plotline was coming to an end, and he probably wouldn’t have to wait long for the manga to update.

However, the plot on their side was ending a bit early. Su Bei had thought they would be the main storyline this time. But thinking back, the previous chapter of the manga had already devoted plenty of space to Moyun City. It seemed this time, the others might be the main focus.

Su Bei was very curious, though. What on earth could have happened with the other groups to make the plot here seem less important? After all, this location had not only the main characters’ group but also three popular characters. Normally, it should have been very important, fully capable of being the main storyline for an update.

With this in mind, he asked, “Are there extensive plotlines in the other cities too?”

The “Manga Consciousness” appeared quickly, answering his question and cutting straight to the heart of his confusion: “That’s right. Because the author is releasing extra chapters, there will be more plot this time.”

Knowing Su Bei was a sharp person, it thought for a moment and proactively revealed another piece of information: “The plots in all three locations are quite extensive.”

This special hint certainly caught Su Bei’s attention. Three locations? Why did the “Manga Consciousness” specifically say that?

It was certain that these three locations were where the three groups were. All three groups were going to run into trouble. What was so special about that?

If he had to point out something special on his end, it was that the author was using the event to target him, trying to brand him as a member of the Black Flash Organization.

Wait… Black Flash Organization?

A flash of insight struck Su Bei. He thought he had figured out the problem. All three of their groups had some connection, big or small, to the Black Flash Organization.

For Su Bei’s group, it was himself. For Mo Xiaotian’s group, it was Mo Xiaotian. As for Si Zhaohua’s group, one couldn’t forget the long-disappeared Zhou Renjie.

At this thought, Su Bei raised an eyebrow. “Is Zhou Renjie about to make an appearance?”

Seeing that he had guessed the real message so quickly, the “Manga Consciousness” sighed at the fact that it had indeed picked the right person, and gave an affirmative reply: “Right now, Zhou Renjie is fighting Si Zhaohua.”

Then the next thing to see was whether Zhou Renjie could find his way back and turn over a new leaf. Based on the foreshadowing the author had left before, Su Bei estimated it wouldn’t be long before he saw Zhou Renjie’s figure back in their class.

But by the same token, Zhou Renjie’s return would likely mean Mo Xiaotian’s exposure. After all, the guy had been with the Black Flash Organization for so long. It was impossible that he had gained nothing and was only there to help the main characters resolve a single crisis.

If he had gained something, it was most likely the knowledge that there was a mole in the S-Class, along with some of the mole’s characteristics.

Regarding this issue, the author had already provided misleading options before. If there were misleading options this time, it would probably be among the same few people. Su Bei himself would likely be ruled out quickly. After all, the author genuinely wanted to make him a villain this time, not just feint an attack. Therefore, the author wouldn’t use him to mislead the readers at a time like this; otherwise, it would be easy for a ‘boy who cried wolf’ scenario to play out later.

Seeing that it had nothing to do with him, Su Bei lost interest and continued his grand undertaking of slacking off. Of course, while it was called slacking off, Su Bei was actually memorizing the contents of the organization’s database.

Before he could fully settle his mind on studying, Wu Mingbai’s voice came from below: “Su Bei, are you here?”

Seeing Wu Mingbai, who should have been engaged in a battle of wits with the Black Flash Organization, appear here, Su Bei raised an eyebrow, jumped down from the bell tower, and deactivated his invisibility. “What is it?”

He wasn’t surprised that the other person knew he was at the bell tower. After all, the last time he went out at night, this was where he went. Now that he wasn’t in the dorm, this was the only place one could think of.

If Wu Mingbai had come specifically to ask how he found the Nightmare Egg, or to ask about its function, Su Bei would answer truthfully. Whether he believed it or not was his business. If he had come to accuse him, Su Bei would just perform a vanishing act on the spot and reappear after the other had calmed down.

But unexpectedly, Wu Mingbai was here neither to ask about the Nightmare Egg nor about his collusion with the Black Flash Organization. Instead, he got straight to the point: “Ah Jiang sent me to see if you and I could figure out a way to let the people outside find us sooner. We thought you might know how.”

This was pure speculation, as Su Bei always acted like he knew everything. Faced with this situation, they would naturally want to seek a solution from him. It wouldn’t matter if Su Bei couldn’t solve it; it was just a try. If it didn’t work, it was expected; if it did, it would be a pleasant surprise.

However, their guess was correct. Su Bei really did know what to do.

In fact, as long as one could determine that the reason the city couldn’t be found by outsiders was due to a Lost Nightmare Beast, the solution was easy to figure out. After all, if they already knew about a creature like the Lost Nightmare Beast, they would naturally know how to deal with it.

For a Lost Nightmare Beast to use its ability on an object, it had to stay near the object. For a small item, it could just hold it. But for a large object like Moyun City, it had to stay within the city to make the entire city impossible for others to find.

In other words, the Lost Nightmare Beast was definitely in Moyun City right now.

The Lost Nightmare Beast’s strongest self-preservation method was to cast its ability on itself, making it impossible for others to find. It could use two ‘lost’ effects simultaneously, meaning that while making Moyun City lost, it could also make itself lost. Therefore, under normal circumstances, even knowing it was in the city and was not small, an ordinary person would never be able to find it.

But Su Bei was obviously no ordinary person. The Destiny organization’s database mentioned how to deal with a Lost Nightmare Beast, and having memorized the information, he naturally knew what to do. “Let’s go. We’re going to the top of the city wall.”

Only a very small number of people knew that this powerful double-hiding ability had a very simple counter: step outside the object it was hiding, and you could find its hidden true body.

That is, as long as you left Moyun City, you could easily see the Lost Nightmare Beast hidden within it.

However, once they left Moyun City, they would also be unable to return due to the Lost Nightmare Beast’s ability. That’s why they had to go to the city wall, where they could stick half their body out while keeping the other half inside. This way, they could find the Lost Nightmare Beast without losing their way back to Moyun City.

There was no need to worry about the Lost Nightmare Beast being inside a building. As mentioned before, this type of Nightmare Beast was large, and not just ordinarily large. Its powerful hiding ability came at the cost of its size. These beasts were commonly four to five meters tall and looked like a slime; almost no building could conceal its form.

If they really couldn’t find it from the city wall, they could narrow down the Lost Nightmare Beast’s location to a few specific places. In Moyun City, only the ground floor of the large shopping mall and the art museum could accommodate such a large Nightmare Beast.

In that case, they could just have Jiang Tianming take a stroll inside with his ability activated.

Hearing that he had a plan, Wu Mingbai’s eyes lit up, and he followed Su Bei towards the city wall. There weren’t many Nightmare Beasts on the streets; most were blocked outside the city gate, and the few that broke through had been lured away by the Nightmare Egg, making other areas quite safe.

The apocalypse those ordinary people had imagined never came to pass; they encountered almost no danger. But Su Bei had to say, once everything was over, the real apocalypse was about to begin for some people.

Moyun City was not a lawless land. Although the criminals who took advantage of the chaos were only being detained for now due to the special circumstances, they would definitely face legal judgment once everything was over.

“Were you really not making a deal with the Black Flash Organization back then?” After walking a short distance, Wu Mingbai finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and voiced the question in his heart.

Su Bei blinked. “Wasn’t I being unilaterally threatened?”

“I didn’t see you looking threatened at all.” Wu Mingbai rolled his eyes. “If this were anyone else, we would have arrested you on the spot.”

That’s why they were hesitant to act against a mysterious guy like Su Bei. On one hand, they felt he was suspicious, but on the other hand, they felt that anything he did was normal.

Hearing this, Su Bei shook his head. “If you saw any one of our classmates doing that, you would never arrest them on the spot.”

Wu Mingbai was stunned for a moment, then realized Su Bei was right. They had been together for so long; there should be some trust among classmates. If anyone else had been in that situation, they would have assumed there was a hidden reason, not immediately judge them as a spy and arrest them, as he had just claimed.

“But only you…” Wu Mingbai pursed his lips, not finishing the sentence.

He wanted to say that only with Su Bei, even if he were really making a deal with the Black Flash Organization, Wu Mingbai felt he could understand. After all, Su Bei was not someone who followed the rules. As long as he wasn’t actually hurting people, he felt he could accept whatever Su Bei did.

Does giving the Nightmare Egg to the Black Flash Organization count as hurting people? Obviously not. Since Su Bei found it himself, he could naturally give it to whomever he wanted, even if the other party in the transaction wasn’t a good person.

Having convinced himself, Wu Mingbai stopped caring about this issue and instead asked about the Nightmare Egg. “So what exactly is that Nightmare Egg?”

Su Bei briefly explained the function of the Nightmare Egg. If a Nightmare Beast got it, it would be a bad thing. But if the Black Flash Organization got it, it would be a neutral-to-positive event, since they would only use it for research.

This was likely one of the reasons Su Bei had acted so unhesitatingly. It wasn’t really a bad thing, was it?

As expected, Wu Mingbai thought so too. He hesitated slightly, “So it sounds like… giving it to the Black Flash Organization is fine?”

After so many confrontations, he had long known that the Black Flash Organization’s research was very advanced. If they could really discover something through the Nightmare Egg, it might be a great boon for humanity.

Su Bei didn’t intend to offer any opinion on this. He shrugged. “Do as you please.”

Anyway, he had already handed the item over. The transaction with the Black Flash Organization was complete. It didn’t matter who ended up with the Nightmare Egg. Besides, this was a manga world; the Nightmare Egg would never fall into the hands of the Nightmare Beasts.

Upon reaching the city wall, they found it crowded with Ability users fighting against the Nightmare Beasts. Trying not to disturb others, Su Bei and Wu Mingbai quietly went up the stairs. Since Su Bei had no interest in dealing with the Lost Nightmare Beast himself, he let Wu Mingbai lean out with half his body to look.

“I see it!” Wu Mingbai, who had already been briefed, spotted the massive black Nightmare Beast in Moyun City at a glance. Clearly, this was the Lost Nightmare Beast.

Seeing the size of this Nightmare Beast with his own eyes, he couldn’t help but find it incredible. Such a huge Nightmare Beast was roaming the city, and yet not a single person had noticed it. This ability was truly formidable.

After confirming the location, the two of them immediately avoided the busy streets and went to where the Lost Nightmare Beast was. However, even though they knew it was on this street, they still couldn’t see anything when they arrived.

Looking at the empty street, Wu Mingbai asked in confusion, “So what do we do now? We still can’t find it.”

This guy is so dense, Su Bei thought, giving him a look as if he were looking at an idiot. “Don’t you have an area-of-effect skill?”

At these words, Wu Mingbai instantly understood. Ignoring Su Bei’s look, he immediately activated his ability. With a stomp of his foot, the ground of the entire street cracked open, and countless stone spikes rose from below, directly piercing the Lost Nightmare Beast and forcing it to reveal itself. Once this type of Nightmare Beast is attacked, its layer of self-protection becomes ineffective.

“Alright, it’s all up to you now.” Having successfully completed his task, Su Bei patted him on the shoulder and decisively turned to leave.

This time, Wu Mingbai didn’t complain. With a serious expression, he unhesitatingly attacked the Lost Nightmare Beast.

Normally, it would be very difficult for Wu Mingbai to deal with an Advanced Nightmare Beast alone. After all, he was just a first-year high school student, and his current strength was indeed a fair bit behind his two overpowered teammates.

But Su Bei knew he could do it, because he was Wu Mingbai, one of the protagonists of ‘King of Abilities’.

Sure enough, when Su Bei saw several purple-black teleportation arrays suddenly appear in mid-air, with dozens of Ability users jumping out of them, he knew that Wu Mingbai had successfully defeated the Lost Nightmare Beast.

If he hadn’t dealt with that Nightmare Beast, the Ability Government’s reinforcements couldn’t have arrived so quickly. And since the government’s support had arrived, it was clear that this incident would soon be over.

Su Bei leisurely returned to his dormitory, calmly awaiting the end of the crisis.

The crisis was resolved quickly. Su Bei didn’t have to wait long before he heard the celebratory sound of gongs and drums outside. The crisis within the city had been solved—not just the issue with the Black Flash Organization, but also the numerous Nightmare Beasts that had broken through.

As for the Nightmare Beasts outside the city, they couldn’t be dealt with in a short time. After all, even if they killed all the existing ones, new Nightmare Beasts would continuously pour out from the interdimensional space. Only by finding and activating the Closing Point could this all be brought to a complete end.

After a long day of work, Jiang Tianming and the other two finally returned to the dorm. It was unclear what Wu Mingbai had told them, but none of them seemed to intend to ask about the earlier incident, and it looked like they wouldn’t speak of it to others either.

Seeing this, Su Bei had no intention of bringing up the topic again and started packing his luggage with them.

Because many powerful Ability users had been sent here, they were no longer needed in Moyun City and could go to other disaster-stricken areas to help eliminate Nightmare Beasts.

If no emergencies occurred, they wouldn’t encounter any more dangerous situations. They just needed to peacefully get through the final moments of this battle.

After packing, Su Bei took a look at the Ability Government’s official website. To calm the residents’ nerves, the website had been continuously updating the latest battle status.

The first three interdimensional spaces that had appeared had all been successfully closed. In addition, Ling You had helped close two, Feng Lan had closed one with her Prophecy, and the government itself had closed two.

The interdimensional spaces in Moyun City, where they were, and in the two cities where the other two groups were located would probably be closed soon as well.

In other words, there were only a few interdimensional spaces left that could still pose a crisis. If there were no surprises, the entire battle would soon be over.

After packing their luggage, everyone helped to eliminate some more Nightmare Beasts for a while, and then the Ability Paper Aircraft that came to pick them up arrived. Now that there was no longer such a severe shortage of combat power, the Ability Government did not intend for the students to continue taking risks. This was why they were being sent back directly, even though they could have stayed to help.

When they got to the pickup point, Mu Yunfan and Zhang Sheng were surprisingly there as well. However, the two of them weren’t returning to the academy to rest; they had just heard that their juniors were heading back and came specially to see them off.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Su Bei’s group of four boarded the Ability Paper Aircraft. Mu Yunfan waved a small handkerchief from the ground, bidding a tearful farewell, “Don’t forget to go back and properly publicize your senior’s glorious deeds to the other juniors, okay?~”

Flying in mid-air, Lan Subing remarked, “The president is such a lively person.”

“Is he as lively as Mo Xiaotian?” Wu Mingbai offered a comparison.

Hearing this question, Lan Subing actually thought about it seriously. “You can’t compare them. It’s a different kind of liveliness.”

One was naturally lively, while the other was more of a narcissistic liveliness. However, relatively speaking, Mu Yunfan was more punchable. Su Bei had to admit, if that guy were in their class, he would probably be ganged up on quite often.

Wu Mingbai managing to hold back from making a single sarcastic comment about Mu Yunfan was entirely out of respect for the student council president’s position.

Finally returning to the long-missed campus, the academy was also in a state of high alert. Although it wasn’t a disaster zone, most of the teachers and powerful students had left, so the remaining people were not very strong and naturally had to be vigilant.

Fortunately, there had been no accidents during this period. Not even the Black Flash Organization had taken the opportunity to launch a sneak attack on the academy. The students who had been sent out were also returning one after another, and things would soon be back on track.

“You’re back!” They happened to run into a first-year F-Class student on patrol at the school gate, who called out in pleasant surprise.

“Long time no see, Wang Peng.” Jiang Tianming had a good memory. Even though they had only been classmates for a month, he still accurately called out the other’s name.

Wang Peng felt incredibly flattered. Although they had indeed been in the same class, a huge divide had separated them since the first monthly exam, and their paths might never cross again in the future. He never expected Jiang Tianming to still remember him.

Jiang Tianming’s gesture gave him a lot of confidence, and he immediately came closer to curiously inquire about the situation outside. “I heard you were sent out to participate in the battle. How is it? Is the situation stable now?”

Although the Ability Government posted the latest battle updates on its official website every day, those were official reports, and they couldn’t help but worry that the government was only reporting the good news and not the bad. In comparison, information from Jiang Tianming’s group, who were from the same academy and had just returned from the battlefield, was much more reliable.

“It should be relatively stable. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have let us come back, right?” Jiang Tianming thought for a moment and replied. Although he didn’t have an extra source of information like Su Bei, he could make a decent guess about the battle situation based on the fact that the Ability Government had sent them back to the academy.

Hearing this, several other students who had gathered around to listen couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Speaking of which, they were the most unfortunate ones. Powerful Ability users could protect themselves, and ordinary people didn’t attract much attention from Nightmare Beasts.

Only weak Ability users like them were incredibly attractive to Nightmare Beasts, like a priceless treasure, yet they lacked sufficient ability to protect themselves. If the Ability Government couldn’t hold on, they would be the first to die.

After reassuring the students, the four of them went back to their respective dorms. None of their other classmates had returned yet, nor had Meng Huai or the other teachers, so there was no need for classes.

Just as they thought they could slack off for a while, a teacher who had remained at the academy found them right after learning they had returned. “Since you’re all idle anyway, why don’t you help take charge of the school’s security?”

The four of them exchanged glances and reluctantly agreed. It was only for a few days, and there was no danger, so helping out was fine.

Of course, Su Bei didn’t agree with that mentality. He was mainly afraid of offending the teacher. This man was the academy’s newly hired [Traditional Chinese Medicine] Ability user. If he accidentally offended him, who could stand it if he added a couple of extra bitter herbs to your medicine at the infirmary?

————————

Sorry, sorry, I took a nap and slept until it was dark. Staying up late is a no-go, comrades!