In many situations, hiding under a bed during a crisis is not a wise choice.

Lu Yan’s life was monotonous and dull, but he surprisingly enjoyed watching horror movies to relieve stress, and the trope of “cannon fodder dying under the bed” was not uncommon. However, the bed was the only piece of cover in this bedroom. In terms of safety, it was significantly better than hiding in the wardrobe.

He could have been reckless and engaged in a direct shootout with the nanny, but his physical condition didn’t allow for it. The opponent was wielding a large axe, while he only had a spirit power threshold of 500 in this dream—not enough to withstand even two swings from her.

The axe shredded the door panel. The nanny reached her hand through the hole and unlocked the room from the inside. The room was empty, silent as the grave.

The nanny stepped inside, brandishing the axe, her smile widening. “Miss Lu, this time, upon my suggestion, Mr. Lu sealed the windows. There’s no way for you to jump out this time.”

Her son, smelling the scent of a living person, thrust his pitch-black arms out from her belly pouch, dancing in frantic, ecstatic joy.

“Let me guess, where are you hiding?”

After becoming a pollutant, the nanny’s weight had clearly increased; the floorboards trembled with every step. This made Lu Yan doubt the combat plan he had prepared… his body had indeed been strengthened, but he had no idea if this plan was feasible. He could only treat it as a last-ditch effort; otherwise, Lu Yan couldn’t think of any other way to survive.

The nanny walked to the bathroom door with the axe, pushed it open, and the entire space was visible. Lu Yan wasn’t there. Then, she moved to the wardrobe, her grin stretching high. Every time she opened or closed a door, it made a massive noise. When she reached the last wardrobe door, the nanny couldn’t resist and drove her large axe deep into the wooden panel.

“I hate you rich people the most. A girl’s bedroom is bigger than my entire house.”

“Miss Lu, have you ever been poor? Have you ever tried squeezing a family of five into a twenty-square-meter rental? My husband got sick, the grandparents were ill. That’s why my son grew up stealing, trying to reduce the burden on our family.”

The nanny’s tone grew increasingly manic. As if venting her rage, she chopped at the wardrobe several more times. Debris sprayed onto her face, but she didn’t even blink. Though the axe looked rusty, it was unexpectedly sharp.

“In your eyes, he must be a bad person, but who made him this way? Mr. Lu was a good man; he provided legal aid to my husband when we were desperate and even gave me a job. But… why do you deserve to enjoy all of this? Just because you were born lucky?”

The nanny walked slowly toward the princess bed in the corner of the bedroom. Lu Yan could clearly see a pair of bloated feet walking toward him. He gripped the chain in his hand tightly; he had rehearsed the movements in his mind hundreds of times, including how to react to various contingencies…

But, in a dream, he only had one chance.

The nanny’s figure loomed closer; her ankles appeared extraordinarily thick. Lu Yan calculated the distance in his mind and threw a loop made of the chain from under the bed. It perfectly caught one of the nanny’s feet. The anomaly caused her to look down in confusion.

Thanks to the mutation value—which had soared to over 80 in the dream—Lu Yan’s reaction speed was now faster than when he had encountered the Frogman. He shot out from under the bed like an arrow, running to the other side of the room within a few seconds.

Feeling the chain tighten, Lu Yan pulled it toward himself without hesitation. People of heavy tonnage are easily thrown off balance. Caught off guard, the nanny tripped, and the axe fell to the floor with a dull, heavy thud.

The nanny let out a roar from her throat in pain. Lu Yan stepped forward with the dagger; it was the first time he had seen the monster in its entirety. It was a two-meter-tall obese woman, her entire body covered in heavy fat, her belly bulging as if someone were trapped inside.

Lu Yan had no doubt that if he stabbed her, he would only pierce the surface layer of fat. So, he had to change his plan on the fly, choosing to thrust the dagger into the nanny’s eye.

The nanny was heavy and strong, but she didn’t seem to know how to fight. Knowing it was a life-or-death situation, he acted without mercy, not pausing even when the nanny grabbed his throat. The sharp blade plunged into her eyeball, and long-rotted, black blood splattered all over Lu Yan’s hands.

“AHHH!!!”

The nanny covered her eye, screaming in agony. She hadn’t expected Lu Yan to fight back so ferociously. The two arms in her pouch also reached out at this moment, obeying their mother’s will, and grabbed Lu Yan by the waist.

Ice-cold corpse qi invaded his body. In that instant, half of Lu Yan’s body went numb from the cold. The King Fish inside him had never been more active. A terrifying, giant mouth split open in the palm of Lu Yan’s hand, biting off the son’s withered, black arm in one go.

A different kind of male scream echoed in the bedroom. The two arms retracted in pain. The pollutant in the pouch seemed significantly more fragile than its mother—it was still in the gestation process and hadn’t fully developed. The mouth chewed twice, seemingly disgusted by the taste, and spat out the scrawny hand. Lu Yan even thought he heard it gag.

“You damn little bitch!” The nanny grabbed the chain, furious, “You dared to hurt my son! I’m going to kill you!”

Because her son was injured, the nanny appeared significantly weaker. In a flash of brilliance, Lu Yan realized something: she was pregnant. In this state, there was no weakness more prominent than her belly.

Lu Yan pulled out the dagger and backhanded a strike into her stomach. The nanny instinctively tried to protect her child, but quickly realized that only by eliminating Lu Yan could she better protect him. Disregarding the potential harm to her son, she lunged at Lu Yan.

Lu Yan darted out like a slippery fish, but before he could rejoice for three seconds, he was yanked back by the chain held by the nanny.

Damn it… I never expected that being dragged back by my ankle would happen like this, rather than on a bed.

Lu Yan couldn’t undo the chain, so in reality, he and the nanny were “grasshoppers tied to the same rope.” Previously, it had tripped her, but now it was restraining him. Honestly, this wasn’t a great strategy, but Lu Yan couldn’t think of another way to break out of this certain-death situation.

Too weak. Lacking power.

Lu Yan deeply felt the helplessness in those words.

The nanny choked his neck, her blood-red eyes staring at him, filled with madness. If his body hadn’t been reinforced, his neck would have likely snapped by now. She gasped in pain, her expression狰狞 (hideous): “Little slut. Finally caught you. Let’s see where you can run now!”

One hand gripped Lu Yan’s neck, while the other reached for the giant axe. The moment the axe was about to fall, Lu Yan closed his eyes instinctively. It had nothing to do with fear; it was purely a body’s reflex.

Then, he was choked by blood splashing onto his face.

The nanny’s head slammed onto Lu Yan’s face; it hurt. Lu Yan recovered from the suffocation, coughing painfully.

“Little girl, where are your parents?” A lazy question came from above his head.

Lu Yan sat up and looked at the newcomer. He was tall—Lu Yan was already 1.8 meters, and the person in front of him was at least half a head taller. By rights, a man that tall should be bulky, but the man had a slender physique, possessing an elegant, predatory beauty like a shark moving through the deep sea. A pitch-black long knife hung at his waist, and he had eyes of an extraordinarily brilliant gold.

As he looked at Tang Xun’an, the other was looking at him too. Data from the detector report reached Tang Xun’an’s earpiece: “Target pollution level: 81.7.”

It’s not even a pollutant.

Tang Xun’an had called him “little girl.” Lu Yan looked down at himself and felt that with his current height and the slight bulge in his crotch, he didn’t look like a girl from any angle. Combined with his identity in this dream, Lu Yan reasonably inferred that this body looked like a girl to everyone else.

The King Fish, which had been lurking quietly under his skin, suddenly became restless. As the fish and Lu Yan were one, he could clearly sense the fear radiating from it. This fear hadn’t even surfaced when facing Lu Jiahe. Consequently, Lu Yan’s gaze became guardedly alert.

Tang Xun’an waited for a long time without a reply. He scanned the area and saw the detector watch on Lu Yan’s wrist, finding it very familiar. He narrowed his eyes: “Hmm, a colleague? How have I never seen you before?”

Logically, being able to reach this level of the dream, even as a colleague, one shouldn’t be weak. But Tang Xun’an searched his memory for a long time; there were many capable female Awakeners, but none looked like Lu Yan. By Tang Xun’an’s aesthetic standards, the girl in front of him was quite good-looking, much like the “white-clothed school beauty” from his high school class. Even if he had only seen a photo, he shouldn’t have no impression of her.

Lu Yan’s hand quietly grabbed the dagger behind him: “Who are you?”

Tang Xun’an was stunned: “You don’t recognize me? Have I been working for nothing all these years?”

Lu Yan pursed his lips. On the watch, this man’s pollution value was 98. It was extremely dangerous. But then, he thought to himself: he couldn’t even beat the nanny, and this man had killed her with one strike; he likely wouldn’t be able to beat this man even if he became a pollutant. So, he quickly lowered his guard. He began to look down, using the bedsheet to treat his wounds. Mostly his arm, which had been grazed by the axe and kept bleeding. His technique was very professional.

“Doesn’t it hurt? I have military-grade tranquilizers here.” Tang Xun’an offered a cigarette: “No tar or nicotine, lychee-flavored. It’s shaped like a cigarette only because of its small size, making it easy to carry.”

Lu Yan: “No need.”

The little girl is quite vigilant. But Tang Xun’an remembered social news he occasionally saw while surfing the internet and felt it was understandable. After thinking for a moment, he took out his credentials from his chest: “Here, look. Where’s yours?”

It was a standard work ID from the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center. It only had two lines on the front.

Tang Xun’an.

S-rank Awakener.

Below were the employee ID, fingerprint, and DNA encoding.

Lu Yan found his own and handed it over.

“Only F-rank? You must have just started. You probably haven’t even attended the training sessions, so it’s understandable you don’t know me.” Tang Xun’an’s mood lightened instantly: “Who took your ID photo? The quality is terrible; it looks just like a man’s.”

Lu Yan hesitated: “…” He really didn’t want to explain.

Tang Xun’an: “Although the problem seems to have been solved, I did come here because I felt the pollution level was the highest.” He pointed at the nanny lying on the ground: “I didn’t even need to draw my blade to kill this thing. I don’t believe this is the final boss of the last layer of the Wall of Grudge.”

The Wall of Grudge…?

Lu Yan’s heart stirred, and he looked at the blood-stained wall. It was completely covered in blood, drowning out the initial two characters: “Help me.”

“I was executing a mission with Lin Sinan, fell asleep, and woke up here. The highest-level pollutant here is…”

Before Lu Yan could finish his sentence, Tang Xun’an suddenly extended a finger and pressed it gently against Lu Yan’s lips. The temperature around them began to rise. To Lu Yan, the world became tinged with red.

This red light grew ever closer. The pitch-black night was slashed by a meteor—no, not a meteor; perhaps “meteorite” was a more appropriate term. But it wasn’t a meteorite; it was a person burning in flames. It had no facial features, its entire body covered in charred marks, no different from the “coal people” he had seen on the roadside before.

As it approached, everything around it began to carbonize, like scorched plants. Only the white bone spikes growing out of its pitch-black body made Lu Yan realize one thing: this was Lu Jiahe.

His brother.

He had received the message, so he didn’t stop for a single moment. But if it hadn’t been for Tang Xun’an, he would have been one step too late. He would have lost his sister again, just like he had many years ago.

In Lu Jiahe’s chaotic mind, he seemed to recall something, but he couldn’t grasp it. Because at this moment, only one thought remained in his mind.

The flames melted half the wall directly. Even without facial features, Lu Yan could feel the unconcealed killing intent from his brother. Especially when he saw the bloodstains on Lu Yan, the killing intent became almost tangible. Throughout the city, everywhere except where Lu Yan was, flames began to rage.

Lu Jiahe looked at Tang Xun’an, his tone ominous: “You’re the one who hurt her?”

Tang Xun’an narrowed his eyes, a flicker of excitement crossing them—it was a longing for battle. He instinctively blocked Lu Yan behind him, while Huang Chen was held horizontally in front of him: “Not me, but you’re worthy of making me draw my blade.”