The monsters that fell from the spatial rift landed on the frozen lake on all fours, then immediately came skimming across the ice toward the two of them.
Lu Shiyan did not even turn his head.
He aimed his right hand in the monsters’ direction, palm facing outward. “Gravity—tenfold!”
The air within a twenty-meter radius instantly became unbearably heavy.
The first seven or eight monsters looked as though an enormous hand had slammed them into the ground. Their limbs held out for less than a second before collapsing. Their carapaces crumpled beneath their own weight, and bodily fluids burst from the shattered shells, splattering across the ice and freezing in an instant.
Jiang Nuan: “…”
Fine. She admitted it—“Lu Zhaoming said I fought well” was indeed a highly effective way to shut someone up.
Although, judging by the way Lu Shiyan killed without even blinking, he had probably just happened to bring along an audience.
But there were far more monsters than she had expected.
As the first wave was crushed, even more four-legged creatures poured out of the rift near the arched bridge.
They seemed to have learned to avoid the area covered by the gravity field. Spreading out, they circled around both sides to surround them.
Three came around the right.
She took a few steps forward, and a crescent blade flew from her hand.
The silver arc swept through the air. Its edge cut across the first monster’s neck joint, tearing open a gash at the weakest point in its carapace. At the same time, she condensed another blade in her left hand and drove it straight into the foreleg of the second monster as it climbed forward.
The two crescent blades crossed one after the other, twin moons intersecting.
The third monster pounced from the side.
Space suddenly split open in a black line.
The monster was cleaved in two and dropped onto the ice without a sound.
Jiang Nuan turned around.
Lu Shiyan stood less than three paces away. His right hand hung at his side, his fingers still carrying traces of residual energy.
He looked at her calmly. “Three paces.”
…Yes, yes. She understood.
Then she noticed that something was strange about the space around her.
It was as though an invisible barrier surrounded her. She cautiously took one step outward.
The unseen barrier restricted her movement, sending her back as if she had bumped into a soft wall.
But when she moved toward Lu Shiyan, the barrier shifted along with her.
It simply could not move beyond three paces from Lu Shiyan.
…Lu Shiyan had directly created a mobile spatial barrier around her.
It was a little like the circle Sun Wukong drew on the ground.
She condensed a crescent blade and hurled it outward. The blade passed through without resistance and sliced through the foreleg of a distant monster.
Her abilities could pass through the barrier to attack, but no attack from outside could enter—and she could not leave the three-pace radius.
…What was this, some kind of personal-bodyguard mode?
Still, at least it was safe.
Inside her very own “Sun Wukong circle,” Jiang Nuan got to work.
Lu Shiyan’s gravity field covered the area ahead. Her crescent blades harvested the monsters attacking from the sides, while his spatial slashes never once touched the range of her attacks.
She did not even need to keep track of the rhythm of his attacks.
It was as if he had been watching the direction of every strike she made and simply avoiding it by instinct.
Or perhaps he had already arranged the entire battlefield, leaving her only the targets he wanted her to deal with.
Either possibility made her grind her teeth.
“Your combat instincts are better than your ballroom-dancing fundamentals.” His voice came from ahead, carrying the tone of someone critiquing a student he was coaching.
Jiang Nuan clenched her back teeth.
“…Thank you for the guidance, Captain.”
Her crescent blade cut down another monster circling around from the side, silver light spraying through the air.
His voice reached her again. “Lu Shiyan.”
Jiang Nuan froze for a moment. “What?”
“Just call me by my name,” he said.
The crescent blade in Jiang Nuan’s hand nearly dispersed.
…Had this man come to the battlefield to flirt?
There were still monsters charging toward them all around, yet he killed them as casually as he breathed and still had the energy to quibble over how she addressed him.
She viciously flung out another crescent blade to vent her frustration. After slicing into the first four-jointed monster, the silver arc retained enough momentum to sever the limbs of a second.
But the rift was still expanding.
The gray-black mist churned more and more thickly. The opening above the arched bridge had expanded from the original crack into a bottomless black hole.
Monsters continued to crawl out in an endless stream, their numbers exceeding the rate at which the two of them could cut them down.
Lu Shiyan’s gravity field grew visibly stronger.
In the distance, fine cracks began to spread across the ice, while the field’s range continued to expand outward.
His breathing had also grown heavier.
The crescent blades in Jiang Nuan’s hands kept striking one monster after another. With the battle raging at such intensity, her energy was being depleted faster and faster.
She gritted her teeth and forced down the hollow feeling of her reserves running dry. Crescent blades shot from her hands one after another. If she stopped, it was over.
Just then—
The air suddenly fell still.
Every monster that had been falling, every splattering piece of flesh, every fragment of shattered ice—all of them froze in midair.
Within the range of her perception, the flow of time across the entire frozen lake came to a halt.
Only she and Lu Shiyan could still move.
The next second, she saw him.
Directly above the arched bridge, beneath the moonlight, a figure appeared out of nowhere.
He was tall and straight-backed. Raising one hand, palm facing downward, he looked as though he were soothing some restless creature.
The monsters suspended in midair began to retreat, as if someone had pressed the rewind button.
One after another, they shrank back into the rift, as though they had never appeared at all.
Time was reversing.
Within two seconds, all the monsters had returned to the other side of the rift.
Then he abruptly closed his other hand.
The edges of the rift began to contract. The gray-black mist was forced back inside, and space smoothly sealed itself shut. The sky above the frozen lake returned to an unbroken moonlit night.
Clean and decisive. As effortless as crushing ants.
Jiang Nuan felt her scalp prickle.
This was Lu Zhaoming.
Captain of the Lighthouse Squad, the man once regarded by the entire world as its savior.
She understood now why people believed he could end all disasters. Standing behind him, one truly felt that there was nothing in this world he could not handle.
Then she suddenly understood where the aura surrounding Lu Shiyan—the aura that said, “If I say it’s safe, then it’s safe”—came from.
It was in his blood.
She lowered her hand. Her fingers trembled faintly as the price of overextending her ability finally caught up with her.
Lu Zhaoming leaped down from the top of the arched bridge and landed without a sound.
“Sorry I’m late.”
His voice was gentle, carrying sincere apology as he walked toward them.
The moonlight illuminated his face.
His features were so similar to Lu Shiyan’s that they might have been carved from the same mold, but the air between their brows and eyes was entirely different.
Lu Zhaoming was more relaxed, more at ease, more composed.
Jiang Nuan instinctively turned her head to look at Lu Shiyan.
The five fingers of his right hand, hanging at his side, tightened, then loosened.
It lasted only an instant.
When she looked again, there was no trace of it. There was even the faintest smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Captain Lu.” Lu Shiyan spoke and gave a slight nod in greeting.
Lu Zhaoming came a few steps closer and first swept his gaze over Jiang Nuan. “Are you hurt?”
Jiang Nuan had just opened her mouth to say she was fine.
“She’s fine,” Lu Shiyan cut in.
Jiang Nuan closed her mouth.
Fine. She would be mute, then.
Lu Zhaoming smiled warmly before turning to Lu Shiyan. “Governor Lu, the last time we met was at the Investigation Department. This is quite a different setting.”
“It just so happened that I was passing by.” Lu Shiyan paused, then added, “I brought some people out for a walk and ran into the abnormal energy here.”
Jiang Nuan glanced at him.
His expression was as calm as ever, and his answer was composed and appropriate.
…How should she put it?
The way he stood in front of his own father and obediently answered his questions—
there was something indescribably subtle about it.
She kind of wanted to laugh, but did her best to keep a straight face.
