Chapter 41: The Great Battle of the Anomaly Kings; Yun Zhou: “I serve the Supreme…”

“Ying Huo! Stop blocking Y006 from absorbing energy! Help it!”

Liu Ming shouted at the top of his lungs, “The Exile alone can’t stop the two of them! If Hela can resurrect an Anomaly King, so can we!”

The Exile: … I appreciate you finding me backup, but I feel like I’m being looked down on…

A silver-blue thread whipped him hard across the back of the head. “Stop overthinking! Get to work, or you’re finished too!”

The Exile took the hit, his expression turning murderous. But when he looked up and saw the thread, his temper vanished. “Please, you’re the one asking me for a favor. Can’t you be a little more polite? Show some gratitude!”

The thread whipped him again, carrying Liu Ming’s distant voice: “This is my gratitude!”

“Fine, fine.”

The Exile rolled up his sleeves, flashing a “bright and healthy” smile that signaled he was about to get serious. “Then let’s see which is faster: your shadows, Hela, or my black mist!”

Ying Huo was already used to Liu Ming’s sudden commands. He subconsciously injected his mental energy, which was wrapped around Y006’s Anomaly Core, into the core itself. Mute was still dazed, but seeing Ying Huo act, he figured there must be a reason and began injecting his own mental energy as well.

Y006’s activity surged. The Anomaly Core emitted a blinding light. Hela instantly realized what The Exile was trying to do. She and Liu Luo moved to intercept, the crimson ground-shadows conspiring with ribbons of wind and snow, but they still couldn’t catch the black mist.

The black mist didn’t spread like natural fog. The Exile snapped his fingers, and he instantly dissolved into a cloud of vapor. A second later, the black mist of fragments appeared beside Ying Huo like a tear in space.

The Exile violently tore a fragment of solidified space from the air and pressed it against Y006’s Anomaly Core.

The awakening of an Anomaly King required an Anomaly Core and a suitable environment. The latter was usually mental energy related to the Anomaly King or a specific natural setting. However, there was a special environment that could also trigger a core’s activity and wake an Anomaly King.

That was a sense of crisis and killing intent.

An Anomaly King that sensed danger would rapidly emerge from its dormant core state, reviving as a monster at the peak of mental power.

And what could stimulate an Anomaly King’s activity more than the killing intent of another Anomaly King?

That was a survival instinct etched into their very DNA.

“I never thought I’d be the one to say this, but… wake the hell up!”

With his free hand, The Exile picked out another fragment of authority condensed from his own mental energy and stabbed it into Y006’s Anomaly Core.

“Eat up! Surtr!”

Watching this, Ying Huo and Mute couldn’t help but feel a phantom pain in their own bodies.

The Exile’s method was dirty, but effective. As Ying Huo intensified his mental energy injection, the last bit of power needed for the awakening was finally gathered. The external sense of lethal crisis caused the Anomaly Core to prioritize its awakening function. No matter how fast Hela and Liu Luo were, they couldn’t outpace black mist that could travel directly through space.

“Drop the Anomaly Core!”

Du Shui sensed the aura of an Anomaly King ahead of time and shouted a warning. Out of absolute trust in his comrade, Ying Huo threw the core the instant he heard her.

But it was still a bit late.

Violently burning magma erupted from the Anomaly Core. Fortunately, The Exile was right there; he immediately used his black mist to block the core’s instinctive attack. The magma merely splashed against the mist around him, melting several holes in the Tibetan robe Yun Zhou was wearing.

The Exile adjusted the robe with a look of disgust. “If you’re going to burn it, at least burn a nice pattern.”

Ying Huo, who also used fire, felt a strange sense of kinship with Surtr. …Is that thing even controllable?!

The Anomaly Core fell from the sky, vanishing into the churning magma at the bottom of the cliff that had been torn open by Hela and Liu Luo’s power.

“It won’t be burned to death by the magma, will it?”

Hela muttered from the other side of the cliff, only to be slapped on the shoulder by Liu Luo. “Be serious! Have those brats infected you too?!”

Hela went silent, her expression confused. Why had she asked such a stupid question?

Fortunately, the core they were focused on didn’t keep them waiting long.

The magma began to swirl, then erupted without restraint. It surged from the deep underground, straight up the cliffside and into the clouds, before rapidly cooling and falling back down. A terrifying rain of fire began to pour over everyone.

The Exile clicked his tongue. With a headache, he covered everyone’s heads with a layer of black mist to divert the falling chunks of magma.

The falling magma fragments melted and flowed quickly, sinking into the soil, and then… familiar yellow flames ignited.

This time, the fire wasn’t limited to the brass ore. Everything was consumed by yellow flames. More and more pillars of magma erupted from deep underground. The entire Fifth Brass Mine had been completely torn apart, turning into a rickety boat tossed about in a pool of lava.

But no one had time to notice that anymore.

A tall figure was being outlined by the pillars of magma.

It was a massive, bright yellow humanoid flame that seemed to be burning eternally. Beneath the surface flames, its layered structure was composed of sheets of magma. It stood up, bathed in lava, its head a massive floating sphere like a rising sun in the sky.

Several layers of humming echoed from the magma as more and more anomaly monsters made of fire began to wake. This was the companion anomaly tide that followed the awakening of Anomaly Kings, just like the overwhelming sea anomalies Kraken had brought to the Third District.

“It brought so many helpers! Liu Luo, where are yours?”

Hela seemed to have thrown her brain away ever since Liu Luo arrived, adopting a carefree attitude of “whatever, someone else is the brain now.” She looked down curiously; those fire creatures were all shiny and bright, much cuter than Kraken’s twisted marine-style anomalies.

I’m getting a bit hungry, Hela suddenly thought.

“Do you see any room left here for our companion tide? Calm down and deal with them quickly. Black Swan will be here soon. Our plan can’t afford to clash with her yet. If she knows, it means… he knows too.”

Liu Luo looked like Liu Ming watching Yun Zhou go off the rails again. She locked eyes with her brother across the cliff, and an ill-timed thought surfaced: Ah, our family is cursed.

Nobody told them the Liu Family had to be babysitters for everyone.

“Tsk, tsk. Let’s get out of here before that Surtr fellow notices us. There aren’t many anomalies like us who can control their own companion tides.”

Hela puffed out her chest proudly and tried to pull Liu Luo away, but they were a step too late.

Fragments like shards of spatial glass shimmered within the black mist. The Exile had blocked their path at some unknown point. “Don’t run, dear colleagues. Surtr and I aren’t going to let you off today.”

The moment he spoke, Surtr’s massive fist smashed down toward The Exile and the nearby Hela and Liu Luo.

The force was immense, clearly fueled by a personal grudge.

Hela couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Hahaha! It looks like your ally really wants to kill you!”

The Exile gritted his teeth, trying to save face. “He wants to kill us, okay?”

The three Anomaly Kings each used their own powers, barely managing to break free from the cascading magma and move to a temporarily safe spot.

Surtr’s flames could incinerate all things. Although they did less damage to Anomaly Kings than to Correctors, that was only relative. Even a small spark was something they wanted no part of.

They were already awakened Anomaly Kings; there was no need to go head-to-head with a colleague who had just woken up and couldn’t control himself, acting only on instinct.

“Whatever. You can’t run anyway.”

The Exile wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with fingers wrapped in silver-blue threads. He flashed a brilliant, sunny smile at his two colleagues, making Liu Ming, who was providing mental support, feel for a moment like he was looking at the real Yun Zhou.

“Backlash?! What did you do?! Your body shouldn’t be injured this easily… Are you crazy? Are you really following a human’s orders?”

Hela’s eyes widened. She saw The Exile raise a hand high. A swirling blackness began to spread above him. The black mist covered Liu Luo’s dark clouds, gathering into a bottomless sky. Deep within that sky, space began to shatter inch by inch, and massive chains began to descend.

Those chains weren’t physical objects but the condensation of mental energy. They hung down from the high heavens, bringing with them a heavy pressure that even an Anomaly King would find stifling.

Even Surtr’s movements ground to a halt. The towering giant looked up toward the blackened sky as all the companion Anomalies began to wail. The burning flames flickered and dimmed, everyone sensing an overwhelming aura of suppression.

“Welcome to my domain, my colleagues. I have destroyed my own homeland once again in this cycle, and I haven’t had the chance to invite you all for a seat among the ruins.”

Beneath the black sky, The Exile spread his arms. He wore a twisted expression that was neither a cry nor a smile, looking like a skeleton struggling to drag its own husk forward.

That vibrant vitality belonging to Yun Zhou—or rather, the life force that had uncontrollably influenced The Exile through Yun Zhou—faded away completely. At last, the rotting, decayed core of that noble King of Anomalies was revealed from deep beneath the skin.

Liu Ming suddenly realized that this man was a King of Anomalies, and one whose sequence was higher than any other King of Anomalies present.

Liu Luo’s Skadi was already Y005. Above Y005… there were only the three attendants who served in close proximity to the Progenitor of Anomalies.

“I am one of the three servants who attend the supreme Nidhogg, the Dragon Attendant who traverses space and symbolizes the future… Y004—the Giant Wolf of Destruction, Fenrir.”

The Exile introduced himself with such solemnity.

“Now, please allow me to show you all…”

“My long-lost homeland.”