The blue-eyed millipede that had launched the attack suddenly froze, as if someone had pressed a pause button. Its leaping body dropped straight to the ground, the thick, sharp blue-black legs curling inward. After a violent twitch, it went completely still.
Everyone exchanged uneasy glances. In the heavy silence, Xiang Sui swallowed hard, then, mustering his courage, prodded one of the millipede’s legs with his knife.
Bai Wang gasped. “No reaction?”
Jiang Sen said, “There’s really no reaction!”
Kuri frowned. “Why did it suddenly stop attacking?”
Xi Boyu lifted his knife and prodded one of the blue-eyed millipede’s antennae. The feeler, covered in bluish markings, drooped limply like a strand of overcooked noodle.
The antennae were the blue-eyed millipede’s most sensitive part. Xi Boyu withdrew his knife and said, “Its brain region has been completely destroyed.”
There were two ways to destroy a Zerg’s brain region: one was physical destruction: smashing its head into pulp; the other was spiritual destruction: turning the blue-eyed millipede into a mindless husk.
The current situation was clearly the latter. But there were only seven of them in the dorm, all first-year students who hadn’t even begun to touch the edges of spiritual power.
Everyone looked bewildered. Jiang Sen spoke in a strange tone, “Did any of you just feel something… really cold?”
Zhou Xi replied, “Yeah. It was just for a moment, but it felt like my blood froze.”
A brief silence fell. Then, one by one, everyone turned to look at Jiang Yue.
Only Jiang Yue’s pheromones carried that kind of chilling cold. She had remained silent the whole time, and her uncharacteristic quietness made those who knew her uneasy.
The female Alpha’s gray eyes were wide open, her lips pressed tightly together, her expression cold and lethal. She still held her thermal blade raised in an attack stance.
No normal person could stay frozen in a single position like that.
The members of Dorm 2708 all came from distinguished backgrounds and had seen plenty of strange things, especially Xiang Sui, who had a genius older brother with 3S-level spiritual power. He was all too familiar with the symptoms of an out-of-body spiritual state.
But here lay the problem, how could Jiang Yue, a first-year student who had never received any spiritual training, have her spirit leave her body?
The human body was like a vessel that carried spiritual power. Ungrounded spiritual energy was like a fledgling bird without wings, no matter how strong or plump it might grow in the future, without wings, it could never take flight.
Most people spent their entire lives unable to help that bird grow wings and leave the nest.
Jiang Yue, a first-year student, an Alpha from the slums who had never received a single day of spiritual training, had somehow grown wings on her spiritual power and let it take flight.
It was utterly absurd.
The last time Xiang Sui had been this shocked was when he’d seen his usually stern, dignified older brother drop his pants and relieve himself in the cat’s litter box.
Zhou Xi stared at Jiang Yue and asked her roommates, “Are we just going to leave her like this?”
Xi Boyu shook his head. “Better lay her flat. When the spirit returns to the body, she’ll lose her sense of balance.”
He carefully supported Jiang Yue and eased her down onto the floor. Lying there, she still glared with wide, furious eyes, her thermal blade raised high in her hand, like a living statue of liberty.
Xi Boyu had to use quite a bit of strength to pry open her fingers and pull the thermal blade from Jiang Yue’s hand.
Jiang Sen rubbed his chin, circling Jiang Yue once. Staring at her wide, furious eyes, he turned to Xi Boyu and asked, “Should we put some eye drops on her or something?”
Xi Boyu reached out and gently closed Jiang Yue’s eyes.
“Why does this feel kind of weird?” Jiang Sen muttered.
Bai Wang looked at Jiang Yue, her eyes now closed, and sighed. “Yeah, the mood just turned all somber. If we covered her face with a white cloth, that’d really complete the scene.”
Kuri raised an eyebrow. “You’re missing a step, maybe toss some flowers while you’re at it.”
Xiang Sui glanced at them. “Should I play a bit of funeral music, then?”
Zhou Xi, the female Alpha, stared at the group, utterly speechless. “You still have the energy to joke around? That thing’s down, sure, but there are plenty more out in the hallway!”
Xi Boyu said, “The brain regions of the other blue-eyed millipedes have been destroyed too.”
Zhou Xi’s pupils contracted sharply. Her ears twitched, and only then did she notice, the commotion in the hallway had quieted down significantly.
She pushed the door open. Though it was the height of summer, the temperature in the corridor had dropped unnaturally low. A chill hung in the air. Zhou Xi sniffed lightly, and as that trace of cold scent entered her body through her nose, it felt as though sharp ice blossoms were blooming inside her veins. The piercing cold made her bend over slightly in pain.
She held her breath and surveyed the scene. The blue-eyed millipedes clinging to the ceiling had already fallen to the floor, their limbs curled inward, their bodies slightly contorted, as if they had gone through a painful struggle before death.
Behind her, Xiang Sui swore loudly. “Damn it, it’s freezing in here! Can you shut the door already?”
Zhou Xi closed the door, shutting out the frigid air beyond.
Xiang Sui kept cursing under his breath. “Damn, damn, damn, Jiang Yue’s pheromones are freezing! I hope she never finds an Omega for the rest of her life!”
Everyone sat on the floor to catch their breath. Before long, the response team arrived at the dorms to handle the blue-eyed millipedes and the students infected with their eggs.
The 27th and 28th floors had taken the worst of it. A total of seventeen students had been completely parasitized by the millipedes, thirty-two were seriously injured, and fifty-eight sustained minor injuries.
It was already classified as a major incident.
Xiang Sui complained, “Everyone says the Federal Military Academy is ironclad, but once you get in you realize this damned place is more like a sieve.”
Bai Wang tugged at a lock of white hair. “This has happened so many times, infections and parasitisms one after another. It never ends.”
Xi Boyu sheathed his thermal blade and said slowly, “Maybe the problem originates from within the school.”
Zhou Xi, the monitor of Class Three, pondered for a moment. “They covered this in Situation and Policy class, internal division and disintegration is the most effective way to defeat an enemy.”
As the chaos gradually subsided, a heavy silence settled over everyone. Zhou Xi’s heart felt unbearably heavy, she was the only one from her dorm who had survived, yet she still had to pull herself together to report the situation to her advisor, Fu Yan.
There had been three male Alphas and three female Alphas in her dorm. The male Alpha in bed five and the female Alpha in bed six had been close. Both came from poor backgrounds, and to earn extra money, they had taken part-time jobs off campus together.
Fu Yan asked, “What kind of work were they doing?”
Zhou Xi shook her head. “I wasn’t very close to them. I only know their part-time job paid really well.”
She thought for a moment before continuing. “Last month, they started buying designer clothes, and both of them even got high-end optical brains. They were pretty close to Song Yang, I often saw them together.”
Fu Yan frowned. “Song Yang?”
“Yes,” Zhou Xi replied. “The very first student who was infected by the Zerg eggs.”
When there are too many coincidences, they stop being coincidences.
Since retiring from active service, Fu Yan had worked at the Federal Military Academy for seven years, and in all that time, this was the first time he had encountered a situation like this.
After Zhou Xi was taken away by the medical team to have her wounds treated, Fu Yan turned his gaze toward Jiang Yue.
Her spirit, which had left her body, still had not returned.
A student capable of manifesting spiritual power without any training at all was nothing short of a genius among geniuses.
This was an era that hungered for heroes.
People needed something to believe in, a symbol of power that burned bright and indelible, like a brand upon the soul.
Fu Yan felt a surge of excitement.
The air around him began to ripple and distort, and a transparent dove appeared, alighting on his shoulder.
When the transparent dove spread its wings, the students of Dorm 2708 finally noticed that one of them was broken.
The hard lines of Fu Yan’s face suddenly softened. His rough, calloused hand gently stroked the dove’s head with care.
He looked at the new cadets of 2708 and said slowly, “Spiritual bodies can resonate with one another. It might be a bit advanced for you right now, but one day, you’ll need to understand it.”
He buttoned his open shirt all the way to the top, his expression turning solemn as he looked at Xi Boyu. In a low, steady voice, he said, “Xi Boyu, you’re coming with me to find Jiang Yue’s spiritual body. The rest of you, head to the medical wing for decontamination, and make sure to get an antibiotic shot.”
Xi Boyu was momentarily stunned. After a brief hesitation, he nodded.
Outside, neon lights gathered into streams of color against the night. The summer air was still stiflingly hot, and even the wind that blew carried waves of scorching heat.
The dove guided their way. After walking some distance, Fu Yan suddenly asked, “Where do you think Jiang Yue’s spiritual body might have stopped?”
Xi Boyu thought for a moment before replying calmly, “I don’t know.”
Jiang Yue was a complicated, contradictory Alpha, and Xi Boyu didn’t really understand her.
Fu Yan said, “When Xiang Sui’s brother first manifested his spiritual body, it ran straight to the armory and hauled off a newly developed mini-nuclear launcher. When Bai Tan manifested, she beat the hell out of her archrival. As for me, the first time mine took form, it snatched a double-S grade mutant crystal core right out of the lab. So… what do you think a dominant spirit like Jiang Yue’s would be drawn to?”
He chuckled softly. “I’m really looking forward to finding out. Let’s just pray she doesn’t cause too much chaos, I’d rather not be the one cleaning up after her.”
A fine drizzle began to fall from the sky. Walking through the rain, Xi Boyu lifted a hand and pressed lightly against the gland patch on his neck.
A faint chill drifted through the rain, and the air in his lungs suddenly turned cold.
That icy breath coursed wildly through his body. Xi Boyu’s earlobes flushed a faint red, and his fingers, hanging loosely at his sides, slowly curled into a fist.
Lowering his long, dark lashes, he recalled Xiang Sui’s complaint, “Her pheromones are so freezing, I hope she never finds an Omega for the rest of her life.”
The two of them stopped in front of the Blue Whale Tower. Fu Yan frowned and asked, “What’s she doing here? Does she have enemies in this place?”
Xi Boyu’s pale blue eyes narrowed slightly. He answered with measured patience, “Probably not.”
They stepped into the building. This time, they didn’t need the dove to guide them, the chill in the air was strong enough to trace on its own. The transparent dove on Fu Yan’s shoulder shivered once, then quickly burrowed into his collar, leaving only its tiny head poking out.
Xi Boyu gently covered his nose, the flush on his earlobes deepening as it spread down the curve of his pale neck.
They stopped in front of a perfume counter.
Inside the pristine glass display case sat rows of exquisitely shaped perfume bottles, gleaming with a dreamlike shimmer under the lights.
A transparent golden eagle was flapping its wings frantically, pecking at the glass as it tried to shove its head inside the display case.
Inside that section of the glass case sat a single perfume bottle shaped like a rose, its pink, petal-like glass was delicate and strikingly beautiful.
Fu Yan’s frown was so deep it could probably crush a fifty-meter blue-eyed millipede.
“What on earth is she doing?” he muttered.
Perhaps the sight of that silly golden eagle was just too absurd, because the corners of Xi Boyu’s lips lifted slightly. In a lazy tone, he drawled, “Obviously, she’s picking out perfume, and she went straight for the most expensive one.”
Fu Yan glanced at the price tag. Even with his decent salary, he couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath when he saw the number.
“Fifty-eight thousand for that tiny bottle?”
The transparent golden eagle, Jiang Yue’s manifested spiritual body, finally managed to squeeze its way into the display case. Excited, it clamped its beak around the perfume bottle and tried to fly out.
But it failed. The eagle was a spiritual entity and could pass through solid barriers, but the perfume was not.
The foolish golden eagle flew back and forth several times in frustration.
Fu Yan’s patience finally snapped. “For god’s sake, it’s a raptor! Can’t she just break the damn glass?”
Clearly, the massive golden eagle was a law-abiding bird of prey.
It paced back and forth in dejection, even stamping its talons in a fit of aggrieved frustration, there was, unbelievably, a hint of grievance in the gesture.
Both Fu Yan and Xi Boyu stiffened, their bodies instinctively tensing.
The clerks behind the counter had retreated to a far corner, huddled together and shivering, sneezing from the cold that filled the air.
Xi Boyu had to bite back a laugh. He stepped up to the glass counter and swiped his terminal in front of it. A line of faint blue text appeared across the transparent surface.
Once the payment was complete, a blue check mark flashed at the center of the glass, and the case slowly slid open. Xi Boyu reached in with his slender, graceful hand and took out the bottle of perfume.
The dejected golden eagle flew onto his shoulder, its talons hooking lightly against the gland on his neck.
A surge of icy energy coursed violently through his body; Xi Boyu suddenly had the overwhelming urge to strangle that bird.
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Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152
Omgg deep inside she still long ofcourse her girly girly side