From the end of the world

Chapter 517 Mysterious Woman

We moved to the courtyard of the abandoned Gospel House. Half of it was flooded, and the other half was full of potholes, as if it had been through a hail of bullets. When I looked up, I couldn't see the ceiling, only the dark sky.

Because the area ahead was flooded and collapsed, it was a dead end, so Youhun and Tanxiang planned to take a detour. But I stopped where I was. The two looked at me with puzzled eyes. I turned around and looked behind me.

Now I am sure that the person who has been following and observing us is hiding behind the ruins over there.

"Is it time to come out and show your face?" I said, "You've been following us for twenty minutes. I don't know what you're waiting to see, but if you have any opinions about us, you can come out and make your own opinions.

"And if there is something you want us to help you with, depending on the specifics, we may consider it."

The reason why I didn't attack immediately, but started with communication, was because there was no intention of attack in the other party's eyes. To be precise, I could vaguely capture the hostility and disgust from them, but it did not reach the level of escalating into a hostile attitude.

If I had to describe it, it's like encountering a stranger with unclear motives in your own territory. Although you want to drive them out with force, you don't really intend to cause harm with malicious intent - that's about it.

Youhun and Tanxiang showed alert reactions and looked in that direction with me. However, the opponent hiding in the dark still did not give any response, as if wondering if I was bluffing and trying to bluff him out.

"You are not the only one who cannot understand the other party's background. We will not leave unknown objects alone and allow them to follow us in the dark for a long time." I said, "If you don't plan to respond, we can only treat you as an enemy."

Two seconds later, there was finally a response from the other side.

"——Who are you?"

That was the voice of a young woman, probably about the same age as Zhu Shi, or maybe two or three years older than Zhu Shi, which reminded people of a fledgling working woman.

This is not to say that her voice revealed a sense of immaturity, it just meant that her voice was very young. In fact, her tone was quite calm and stable. Although her stealth was discovered by the target, she did not show any panic or surprise. Instead, it made people feel that she had countless contingency plans and fallbacks, and was an experienced veteran.

The ghost's ears twitched slightly, and his eyes swam around. It was impossible to determine her exact location based on the sound, as the sound source seemed to be everywhere. However, I had already completely locked down the location where the mysterious woman was hiding, so this level of tricks was useless.

The mysterious woman then asked: "What is the purpose of your invasion here?"

"We came here to look for the San Sheng Shi Powder," I said.

"There is no such thing here, you can go back." The mysterious woman said stiffly.

"Do you know the Three Lives Stone Powder?" the wandering soul asked.

According to what he said not long ago, the doomsday survivors who knew about the Three Lives Stone Powder should be very rare, so rare that even he himself sometimes doubted whether it was a real object or whether he mistakenly took the concepts fabricated unconsciously in his mind as real and credible knowledge.

The mysterious woman replied coldly: "I've never heard of such a thing."

"We are very sure that the Sansheng Stone Powder is here. We will not go back until we achieve our goal." I said, "But why are you so sure that there is no Sansheng Stone Powder here? Do you know this abandoned Gospel Temple very well?"

“Don’t make me repeat myself.” The mysterious woman’s voice seemed to be filled with murderous intent. “Go back, and don’t come back. Otherwise, you will lose your lives.”

She seemed to be threatening us, but contrary to her murderous tone, I could not sense any real killing intent from her. However, I did not think she was bluffing. Regardless of whether she could really endanger a person like me, if we continued to stay here, we might really be exposed to some unknown risks.

It seems that the mysterious woman is not the source of danger, but is trying to remind us in a roundabout way to stay away from danger.

But if there is such a danger in the abandoned Gospel House, why would she linger here? She gave me the impression of a hermit who silently guarded the dangerous forbidden place, intending to drive away travelers who rashly set foot here. "I used to be a member of Tai Sui Gospel House, and this is also where I lived in the past, so I am not a complete outsider."

The wandering soul seemed to have sensed something and continued, "I don't know if you are a survivor who lives here, or someone else, but if there is any dangerous monster lurking here, you might as well explain it to us. Maybe we can provide some help."

"I don't need any help from you, and you are of no use to me." The mysterious woman said, "But it seems that you really don't plan to leave here. That's okay. Since you don't have that plan, don't blame me for being rude."

As soon as he finished speaking, the broken walls and ruins in the distance exploded as if they were filled with explosives. The mana fluctuations far exceeded those of ordinary demon hunters and spread out. A black shadow shot out from there at a speed more than ten times the speed of sound like a high-speed cannonball and reached high altitude.

This is at least the fluctuation of the mana of the Great Perfection level. Youhun immediately showed an extremely surprised expression. Although in my opinion, the time when the Great Perfection level could be an enemy of me has long passed, but whether in the modern world or in the doomsday era, the Great Perfection level is enough to be called a demigod. Youhun certainly can't imagine that such a strong man will appear casually.

I had expected this. If a character who could follow behind the team and make it difficult for me to figure out his exact location for a while didn't even have the Great Perfection level, then I could only look for him among the outsiders.

The explosion that shattered the ruins was not an attack from the mysterious woman, but merely the impact of her high-speed movement on the ground. Before she could make a move, her magical power wave came from the sky. The wandering soul half-knelt on the ground involuntarily as if it was under great pressure, while I, as the Great Impermanence, and Tan Xiang, as an ordinary person, were not affected at all.

Immediately, like a bolt of lightning falling from the sky, the mysterious woman fell from the sky at a speed that the wandering soul could absolutely not react to.

I just concentrated a little, and in my subjective time, her lightning-fast movements quickly slowed down to the pace of a snail.

Thanks to this, I was able to clearly see the features and dress of this mysterious woman during this long moment.

She has long wine-red hair, and wears a black, tight tactical outfit like a special forces soldier, with a rough black mask covering her face. She holds a scabbard in her left hand and a sharp kukri in her right hand.

I recognize the style of this kukri. The phantom kukri used by Mazao is the same weapon as the one held by the other party. Mazao mentioned it to me in a casual chat in the past. It seems to be one of the standard equipment of the Gospel Institute.

The blade was about to touch the body of the wandering soul. I stretched out my palm, and the air exploded as if it had turned into gas. The sudden burst of flames illuminated the courtyard of the abandoned Gospel Temple as bright as day, and turned into a huge palm, grabbing the mysterious woman as if it were a rag doll.

Suddenly, in the subjective time that seemed to be still, the mysterious woman's head seemed to "recover" its normal movement speed and looked towards me suddenly.

It was simply unbelievable. The fact that she could look back like this meant that in objective reality, she had burst out at a speed that was at least a hundred times faster than before.

In the past, the fastest person I have ever seen was a time ability user under Mingzhuo. Even without using time stop, that Great Perfection Level Wuchang could easily burst out at a speed of hundreds of Mach. Compared with the look back of this mysterious woman in front of me, that Great Perfection Level Wuchang seems to be nothing. I can conclude that this is not a normal speed, but the result of some special ability.

What's even more bizarre is that at the moment when my flaming palm was about to grasp her body, she suddenly disappeared from my sight.

Space transfer? Or something else? This seems to be some kind of skill that can adapt to the chaotic flow of time and space. Perhaps it is not only the doomsday monsters who know how to adapt and use the environment. The blessed monks of the doomsday era are also learning how to adapt to this chaotic environment. Although I really want to say this, to be honest, I don’t think this is something that humans can do.

Even I, the Great Impermanence, can only use the order left in the chaotic space-time to move through space, and using the chaos to move through space is the realm of doomsday weirdness. Perhaps in that chaos there is also order that is difficult for human spirit to distinguish, and because of this, the mysterious woman as a human should not be able to achieve it.

Could it be that she is not actually a human, but a demon like Yin Yue?
I put down my hand and looked at another place. The mysterious woman reappeared at the edge of the atrium. She looked at this side tensely. After meeting my eyes, she looked at my face carefully and suddenly froze.

After looking at it for a while, she said, "I give up."

"Your attitude changed so quickly. Didn't you just say you wanted to expel us?" I asked.

She was silent for a while, as if she was thinking intensively, and then said: "...I don't mean to fight with you, can you let me go, Zhuang Cheng?"

(End of this chapter)