Chapter 607 - 380: A Method to Restore Power

Chapter 607: Chapter 380: A Method to Restore Power

The beautiful woman was about to speak.

Suddenly, her expression changed drastically.

Three rapidly spinning, eerie blue fireballs had appeared out of thin air, hovering silently just four inches from her face.

SIZZLE~

A tiny tongue of flame leaped out, just barely grazing the woman’s eyebrow.

Cold sweat instantly beaded on her temples and slid down her cheeks.

"W-Wait!"

The woman opened her mouth, her voice coming out hoarse.

ARF!

Frost Jade darted in front of the woman, its pink eyes glaring fiercely at her. Beside it, three more spinning fireballs materialized.

Behind them, Han Ning slowly closed the distance. His expression was cold, one hand held out with fingers splayed. "Who are you?" he asked.

The fireballs hovering before the woman hadn’t been cast by Frost Jade. Han Ning had used his Tier Two Beastmaster ability to "borrow" its power.

Having been a Soul Beast for less than a day, Frost Jade lacked the precise control to use its Soul Techniques effectively.

The woman had easily evaded its earlier fireballs with her agile movements.

The woman bit her lip. She could feel that the fireballs before her face weren’t scorching hot; in fact, they felt somewhat cold. She spoke quickly.

"I’m with the official Foreign Affairs Team. You... you’re not with the Black God Association?"

"The Black God Association?" Han Ning frowned. "What’s that?"

"An evil organization from abroad. They specialize in tricking innocent civilians and using bloody sacrifices to increase their power."

"Sir, could you please call off the fireballs?" The woman tried to retreat.

"Don’t move! I ask, you answer!"

Han Ning’s gaze hardened, and the fireballs drifted a few inches closer.

"Alright then..."

"What’s the origin of that fighting style?"

He noted her nimble movements and the absence of a Soul Beast. ’She’s more like a martial arts master from a story than a traditional Beast Master,’ he thought, confused.

"I am a Shadow Warrior from the Assassin sequence."

The woman answered cautiously, her mind reeling with astonishment. ’How did this young man, who seems to know nothing, acquire so much power?’

’And that formless, crushing pressure he exuded... it was just like the aura of one of those higher-level monsters.’

’Could he be some ancient being, awakened from a ruin?’ ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

’Assassin? Shadow Warrior?’

Han Ning quietly filed the terms away in his mind and continued his questioning.

"Why are you here? Is it about the Li Lu incident?"

"Sorry, I can’t tell you that."

As she spoke, her voice grew faint and her form began to blur.

WHOOSH~

Her body instantly burst into a black mist and vanished into thin air.

"A cheap trick."

Han Ning’s eyes narrowed. His Spiritual Power shot out, instantly locking onto a distortion in the air some distance away.

He flicked a finger.

BOOM!

With a piercing shriek, the eerie blue fireball slammed into a seemingly empty patch of air.

"Ngh—"

The blue flames erupted, turning the grass below to cinder.

The black mist coalesced, and a slender figure materialized, her right hand engulfed in ghastly blue flames. She stumbled and fell to the ground.

She gritted her teeth, her face growing paler by the second. All the black mist from her body converged on her right hand, struggling against the flames that clung to her like an incurable plague.

’I can’t hold it back anymore...’

With a look of grim resolve, the woman drew a jet-black dagger from her waist. She raised it, about to hack off her own flame-wreathed right hand.

A pebble shot through the air, knocking the dagger from her left hand.

Han Ning had appeared at her side without her noticing.

He leaned down and gently took hold of her right hand.

The surging blue flames vanished without a trace.

He then used a "Tendons and Bones Separating Hand" technique, grabbing her arm and pinning her beneath him to prevent her escape. Then he continued, "Let’s try another way. I’ll ask, and you can choose which questions you’re able to answer."

"You should be able to tell I’m not some villain. If I were, you’d be gravely injured by now, if not dead."

"Go on," the woman said. The tension on her sweat-drenched face eased slightly.

"The Foreign Affairs Team... is it a government organization?"

"Yes. It’s a subdivision of the Foreign Affairs Department. We have offices in every province, specializing in matters related to ruins and the Extraordinary."

"Ruins?"

"Yes. About a hundred years ago, countless ruins suddenly appeared all over the world. Each one hides infinite treasures, but also terrifying dangers."

"Whenever a new ruin appears, creatures from within leak out through rifts, causing immense harm to life in the real world."

"A hundred years ago, humanity first managed to enter some of the smaller ruins by killing off the weaker monsters inside. That’s how we learned the secrets of the sequences."

"Based on the information we’ve uncovered, the sequences are the path to becoming Extraordinary. As one advances in a sequence, their Extraordinary Traits improve, until they eventually transform into something comparable to a Divine Spirit."

"But... our century of research has shown that this advancement isn’t entirely safe. It often comes with severe side effects. The higher a person advances in a sequence, the more their humanity is stripped away. Eventually, they become monsters that know only slaughter, destruction, or even self-destruction."

"However, when we face high-level, extremely dangerous ruins, we have no choice but to delve into the mysteries of the sequences to maintain social stability. It’s like drinking poison to quench a thirst. In order to study the ruins, mitigate the side effects, regulate Extraordinary Beings, and protect national security, countries all over the world have formed similar organizations."