I had imagined countless scenarios of my reunion with Ma Zao.

  Perhaps she would finally come to her senses, realizing that my strength was enough to counter the camity she brought while also recognizing her inability to navigate modern society.

  Hungry and helpless, she’d come seeking my aid.

  Or maybe I would piece together the clues I’d gathered and track her down as she wandered in the night.

  There was also the more dramatic possibility where I’d find her in a moment of peril and descend like a hero to save her from danger.

  Encountering her during an investigation, as we both pursued the same Oddities, was naturally among the scenarios I had envisioned.

  But imagination was one thing—when her figure actually burst into my sight, it felt as though my heart had been struck by a bullet, catching me off guard, while my brain short-circuited in the surge of joy.

  Ma Zao had appeared!

  The moment she arrived, she swiftly decapitated the Oddities, but the battle didn’t end there.

  As soon as the head hit the ground, the creature’s entire body disintegrated, colpsing into a pool of inky-bck liquid that spttered across the ground.

  That wasn’t the real body of the Oddities—it was a clone, shaped by the power of shadows.

  The bck liquid pooled and transformed back into shadow.

  At the same time Ma Zao nded, the massive figure of the Oddities erupted from that shadow, reappearing in its original form.

  Seizing the brief moment when Ma Zao was still absorbing the impact of her nding and unable to transition smoothly into her next move, the Oddities transformed both its arms into mantis-like scythes and unched a rapid, intersecting ssh at her throat, like closing scissors.

  Though it might sound slower when described in words, all of this unfolded within a split second—faster than the blink of an eye.

  Even with my dynamic vision, I couldn’t cim to have seen everything clearly.

  In that fleeting moment, countless exchanges may have occurred, but what I could see and articute amounted only to what I’ve described.

  Compared to me, Zhu Shi was undoubtedly more capable of comprehending the situation and reacting appropriately.

  While I was still processing the shock of “Ma Zao is here”, Zhu Shi had already disappeared from my side like an arrow loosed from a bow, rushing to provide assistance.

  However, Ma Zao didn’t seem to need anyone’s help.

  The stiffness from nding didn’t seem to hinder her at all.

  Whether it was due to her incredible speed or some form of spatial dispcement, her figure vanished instantly from in front of the Oddities and reappeared mid-air behind it—the same position she had first struck from.

  Without hesitation, she swung her recurve bde once again, aiming another fatal strike at the Oddities neck.

  It was unbelievable.

  The once frail Ma Zao now dispyed speed and strength that surpassed even this terrifying Oddities.

  Perhaps the Oddities realized Ma Zao was behind it, or perhaps it didn’t.

  In this critical moment, it at least didn’t freeze in pce.

  Instead, it instinctively protected its vital points and rolled forward, narrowly avoiding the fatal strike.

  Here, the term "narrowly" only means that the Oddities managed to pull his life back from the edge of the bde—avoiding death, but not injury.

  With a fsh of Ma Zao’s bde, she severed the Oddities left wrist.

  The creature let out an involuntary scream of agony as its massive body rolled several times across the ground.

  Ma Zao, however, didn’t immediately pursue.

  Instead, she quickly assumed a defensive stance toward the suddenly appearing Zhu Shi, her voice sharp with vigince:

  “Who’s there!?”

  “I…” Zhu Shi seemed about to expin something.

  But the injured Oddities clearly had no patience to listen to their exchange.

  Seeing that Ma zao had paused her pursuit, the Oddities—though in a miserable state—moved with surprising decisiveness, scrambling to its feet and attempting to flee into the distance.

  When he first arrived, his escape had likely been a ruse, a feint to set up a counterattack against Ma Zao.

  But now, his retreat seemed entirely genuine.

  Unfortunately for him, while he was aware of Ma Zao and Zhu Shi out in the open, he failed to notice me, hidden in the shadows.

  As much as I wanted to speak with Ma Zao first, I wasn’t generous enough to let the Oddities escape go unchecked.

  Focusing my gaze on his body, I ignited him in an instant.

  Under normal circumstances, I would have vaporized everything below his head, while Zhu Shi would have intercepted and severed his connection with his power source—the Heart Seed.

  Only by doing so could we extract information from his severed head and bring it back to Patrol Lu.

  But given the suddenness of the situation, Zhu Shi and I hadn’t coordinated beforehand.

  My attack would have to be slightly restrained, allowing her time to follow up.

  The Oddities, engulfed in searing fmes, screamed in unbearable pain.

  Without a doubt, he was the st remaining Oddities in Xianshui City and the main culprit behind the recent series of murders.

  I was fully aware that the burning creature before me was still, at his core, a human being.

  But no shred of pity stirred in my heart for this wounded fellow man.

  It was likely him who had sent shadow clones to attack Chang’an.

  I didn’t care about his reasons for killing local elites, but I needed to extract his motive for assaulting Chang’an from his mind.

  The Oddities appeared intent on fleeing despite being wreathed in fire.

  I brought my hands together in a clenching gesture.

  Instantly, the roaring fmes on his body surged and bloomed into the shape of an enormous hand.

  Just as I had grabbed an enemy with my elementalized arm the previous night, this massive fiery hand now clenched around the Oddities entire body and smmed him violently into the ground.

  Zhu Shi had already arrived in sync with my attack.

  Her eyes had turned a piercing, icy blue, her expression cold and unmoved, like frozen snow.

  It was clear she had locked onto the connection between the Oddities and his power source, ready to sever it at a moment’s notice.

  Seeing her readiness, I didn’t hold back any further.

  To prevent this Oddities from pulling any inexplicable tricks—or worse, trapping us in some bizarre alternate dimension like the previous one—I vaporized everything below his head in one decisive move.

  And at that exact moment, I felt a strange, inexplicable sensation.

  It felt as if something was trying to slip out of my palm—or more precisely, out of the massive fiery hand I had formed.

  The sensation caught me completely off guard, giving me no time to prepare.

  It was like raising your arms in a stretch and accidentally brushing against a passing fly.

  Even though I instinctively wanted to clench my fingers and trap it, the sheer unexpectedness of the encounter left me at a disadvantage.

  In the end, this “fly” managed to slip through the gaps between my fiery fingers and vanished without a trace.

  Zhu Shi, too, seemed to have sensed something unusual through her special ability, “Buzhou Mountain.” Her expression flickered with surprise:

  “—What?”

  From a purely visual perspective, nothing seemed to have escaped from my enormous fiery hand.

  The Oddities body below the head had been completely vaporized by my fmes, and the severed head had rolled out from between my thumb and index finger.

  But the sensation in my palm was unmistakably abnormal.

  That feeling wasn’t the sensation of incinerating flesh and blood—it was far more like destroying an ordinary shadow clone.

  Sure enough, once the head stopped rolling, it transformed into an inky bck substance, spreading across the ground like a pool of spilled ink before fading away into nothingness.

  “That was a clone?” Ma Zao froze for a brief moment before her gaze swiftly shifted to the severed hand nearby.

  It was the left hand she had cut off from the Oddities earlier, still maintaining its mantis-like bde shape.

  If the Oddities we had just fought was merely a shadow clone, then that severed left hand must also have been a construct formed from shadow energy.

  The reality was that the severed left hand remained vividly intact on the ground.

  Vivid? It was more than that.

  Perhaps because it was severed from the Oddities body, the power contained within it had run amok, causing the flesh to swell and distort as if it were about to explode in the very next second.

  But ultimately, it didn’t manage to detonate.

  Ma Zao swiftly stepped forward and forcefully stomped on the severed hand.

  Who knows what logic was at py, but the moment her foot came down, the hand immediately went limp.

  The mantis-like bde shape retreated, reverting to an ordinary human hand.

  Ma Zao bent down and picked up the bloodied severed hand, giving it a cursory gnce before cautiously turning her gaze toward where I was standing.

  Zhu Shi had already exited her “Buzhou Mountain” state.

  Her eyes had returned to their normal color, and the cold indifference had faded from her expression.

  Seeing Ma Zao's wariness, Zhu Shi seemed to hesitate, likely considering how to introduce herself to ease Ma Zao's guard.

  As for me, I stepped directly out of the shadows, revealing myself in front of Ma Zao, carefully observing her current condition.

  She was still wearing the outfit I had given her long ago—a bck hoodie with printed designs, short pleated skirt, cotton leggings, and bck ankle-length Martin boots.

  Although she must have been wearing them for days, the outfit somehow still looked as fresh and clean as if it were brand new.

  She was also still wearing the bck cat-whisker face mask, though it was pulled down around her neck, presumably for easier breathing.

  The red GPS wristband remained fastened on her left wrist, while in her right hand, she gripped a rge recurve bde.

  Earlier, her movements had been too fast for me to clearly see it, but now that I could examine it closely, I noticed that the bde shimmered with an ethereal, shifting glow.

  Anyone would immediately realize—it was no ordinary weapon.

  The moment Ma Zao realized it was me stepping out of the shadows, her eyes widened in shock.

  She even forgot to hold on to the severed hand, letting it slip from her grasp and drop to the ground.

  “Zhuang Cheng—?” She uttered my name in astonishment.

  Zhu Shi seemed about to introduce herself, but when she heard Ma Zao suddenly call out my name, she froze, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. “Huh?”

  Her gaze flickered back and forth between me and Ma Zao, and after a few seconds, it finally seemed to click in her mind what Ma Zao’s reaction implied.

  With hesitant uncertainty, Zhu Shi asked, “You two… know each other?”

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