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Chapter 146 Torrential Rain (Part 1)

The rain began to fall. It wasn't heavy, but it was damp and cold, like the drizzle falling in the late autumn evening, brushing against people's arms and seeping the moisture into their bones.

Olek strolled over, but Ji Huaisu still hadn't received any reinforcements. Knowing there was no point in delaying any longer, she simply swung her sword at the demon in human skin. The Shadow Blade Greatsword cleaved a transparent circle in the rain, its blade aimed at Olek's head.

The tip of the sword grazed Oleksandr's nose.

She missed. At a distance where it was impossible to miss, against an enemy who wasn't reacting, even a rookie in the resurrection unit wouldn't make such a basic mistake. The shadow blade slashed into the ground, shards of stone splashing onto her forearm, but it didn't touch Olek, who was right next to her. Ji Huaisu retracted the shadow blade and threw two ice blades, aiming at the torso where it was impossible to miss. Throwing pebbles from less than a meter away, even a child wouldn't miss.

The ground beneath her feet suddenly softened, and the point of leverage that had been in place just moments before collapsed. Ji Huaisu lost her footing, and her ice skate, which had been thrown, grazed past Oleksandr's ear. The city had experienced an earthquake just two days prior, and its structure remained unstable, with the possibility of a secondary disaster at any moment.

Ji Huaisu abandoned using her weapon and grabbed directly at Olek's collar. At this point, there was no reason for her to miss; Olek had to make a move. She didn't care about having only one hand, but she needed to know what methods the demon would use to stop the attack.

Blood splattered on her arm, and the sudden, sharp pain stiffened her muscles. The basic talisman hadn't completely suppressed the external power, and the wound on her right arm flared up at that moment, causing her grappling technique to miss its mark.

Ji Huaisu immediately pressed her hand tightly against the wound, sealing the writhing black blood with ice. She gradually understood the enemy's methods: insignificant attacks with little impact could fail due to "accidents," and as long as there was still a probability, the power of misfortune would make it inevitable.

The distance between them narrowed to three steps. Ji Huaisu, mimicking the knights, raised her Shadow Blade high. She channeled her power, causing the blade to grow enormous, becoming a black energy beam about ten meters high. The Shadow Greatsword slashed at Olek once more. She was fully prepared, fixing her posture with ice and dust. Now, the external changes would not affect this strike; she would force out the demon's true power!
Olek held up a finger, and a raindrop rolled from the tip of his finger.

“Vortex,” he said.

Raindrops rose and swirled, like soft, translucent jewels. Water droplets floating in the sky were drawn to them, gathering, swirling, and roaring with the movement of each raindrop. Like whirlpools formed in a hurricane, like ocean eyes swallowing life in the deep sea. In an instant, a massive amount of rainwater rose and swirled, forming a colorless vortex with a radius of a hundred meters. Ji Huaisu's strike was easily swallowed by the vortex, its elemental power scattering in all directions with the rotation!

Olek flicked his finger, and the vortex of misfortune drifted forward at a seemingly slow pace. Ji Huaisu turned and ran without hesitation. She couldn't understand the principle behind the move anymore, but she knew the consequences of being caught. The knowledge inherited in her bloodline brought extreme tension; being caught in the vortex of misfortune would surely mean death!
“Run,” Olek followed at a leisurely pace, “run toward the end.”

Ji Huaisu leaped onto the light shield, using it as a skateboard, and raced away alone in the pursuit of destruction. She couldn't help but glance back; the frenzied state behind her was unforgettable. The vortex was like a liquid hurricane, collapsing buildings, freezing the air, grinding trees into dust in the high-speed water flow, and causing the ground to crack and rise into the sky. Everything would be swept up and meet its ultimate destruction.

She felt like she was struggling in a vicious game, the background music of which was the noise of a vortex of misfortune, mournful and desperate, like the wails of wronged souls drowned in a raging torrent. Everything behind her was being shattered into nothingness, as if the game was constantly clearing the "world" behind her view from places she couldn't see. She could only run non-stop, faster than the vortex, or she would suffer the same fate as the "background characters."

But this game has an end, and that end is her life. She can't escape forever; even a moment's pause means death!
Ji Huaisu forced herself not to think so much; she had to focus on escaping, for only by surviving was there a glimmer of hope. She made several turns at intersections, changing direction to slow the vortex's advance. Old buildings blurred past the edge of her vision; she avoided the residential area and plunged into a damp, tree-lined path. Banyan trees, secured by machinery, stood in the fine rain like demons with coiled tentacles.

Ji Huaisu channeled his power, accelerating once more, and an icy path appeared beneath his shield to reduce friction. Just then, a strange gust of wind blew, and a loose screw in the hastily constructed fixing mechanism fell in the wind and rain. The screw was deflected by Ji Huaisu's light shield, striking the rusty fixing frame. The entire mechanism lost its balance, and an ominous groan emanated from within the banyan tree.

The old tree, damaged in the previous earthquake, fell, its trunk smashing towards Ji Huaisu's back! "A twisted ability...!"

Dodging or taking a detour would slow her down, so Ji Huaisu simply drew her sword and severed the tree trunk in one strike. The upper half of the banyan tree flew up, while the lower half slammed into the ground with its momentum, hitting a weak spot on the road surface. The shockwave traveled downwards, causing the buried water pipes to snap. Ji Huaisu turned around to see a torrent of water mixed with mud and sand bursting from the ground, spraying directly into her eyes!

In a moment of quick thinking, she froze the rainwater, forming an emergency ice armor on her face. The mud and sand sprayed onto the ice armor, bringing with them a few streaks of blood. The sand contained magical sand left behind by the mad demon Jin Ye two days ago. Even just brushing past it posed a threat equivalent to a relic of the same level. If Ji Huaisu hadn't reacted quickly enough, she would have died right now from the sand piercing her brain.

Meanwhile, the vortex behind them closed in, and the brief delay allowed Olek to catch up. Ji Huaisu hurriedly wiped her face, removing the blood that obscured her vision. She turned around on the light shield, glaring fearlessly at the demon: "If you have the guts, just come and kill me! Using these petty tricks to hurt people, you call yourself a big shot!"

“You can just call me despicable,” Olek nodded with a smile. “I don’t care.”

He blew a breath onto his fingertip, instantly increasing the vortex's speed by three times, forcing Ji Huaisu to use all her strength to barely maintain distance. This time, Ji Huaisu truly had no other choice; she felt a humiliating sense of powerlessness. The enemy showed no weaknesses, disregarded provocation, refused to reveal intelligence, and was neither arrogant nor careless. He truly lived up to his words of "respecting his opponent," and when he acted, he intended to kill her with lightning speed and all his might.

But Ji Huaisu instinctively felt something was wrong. Olek's attitude was so upright, so why didn't he use his full power, instead resorting to this cat-and-mouse game to kill? Was it simply the nature of misfortune, or was there something she didn't know…?

Then three more large trees fell, and the urgent situation interrupted Ji Huaisu's thoughts. The railway sign not far away was shaped like an arrow, pointing to the icons representing the park and the city center on the left and right, respectively. She rudely turned around, walked across the tree trunks, smashed through the iron fence, and rushed into the city park separated by a wall.

Misfortune will exploit everything around her to cause accidents, so for her temporary safety, she needs as much open space as possible, or at least to reduce the factors that could cause danger. The park only has exercise equipment and grass; no matter what mischief it causes, it can't harm her!
“You seem to have gone the wrong way, little knight,” Olek said.

A burst of greenery greeted her from behind the broken wall, and a cluster of glass-walled buildings stood outside the small green space in the rain. The metal road sign behind her was blown 180 degrees by the wind, pointing in the correct direction again.

She took the wrong turn. In her haste, a cruel twist of fate and malice played a cruel joke on her, leading her headlong into the most dangerous and perilous place!
"Go to hell, bring it on!" Ji Huaisu, in a fit of desperation, flicked the middle finger behind him. "Go play in your garbage dump, I won't be defeated by these despicable tricks!"

The rain intensified, and she plunged into the downpour like a valiant lion battling ghosts. The demon's laughter echoed in the rain, the vortex continuing to swirl, scattering misfortune in all directions. One thing Ji Huaisu didn't know was that the power of the vortex of misfortune would grow stronger with each cycle, for misfortune always accumulates before erupting. Incomparable to anything before, entirely new coincidences were linking together, measured in seconds, forming an unfortunate chain binding fate.

The half-tree that had been cut down initially tumbled down with the wind and struck a water hydrant two blocks away. The high-pressure water jet, damaged, sprayed out and hit the windshield of a car. The driver couldn't brake in time, causing a rear-end collision. The vehicle in front was an overloaded delivery truck; a loosely secured steel plate slipped and smashed through the window of an SUV rushing in the adjacent lane. The unfortunate driver was covered in blood, his hands still gripping the steering wheel due to inertia.

The out-of-control SUV veered off the road in the rain and crashed into the construction site, directly hitting a crane that was transporting goods. The driver rushed to handle the situation, but the long-neglected construction vehicle malfunctioned and became unresponsive. In the wind and rain, the steel bars gradually slipped off, and a series of operational errors caused the hook to become unbalanced, eventually breaking. Dense steel bars rained down from the sky, falling directly on Ji Huaisu's head, creating a deadly downpour!

Ji Huaisu clenched her fists, and dust surged from both sides, merging to form a sandstorm hand that protected her. The steel bars, pushed aside by the sandstorm, plunged into the earth, damaging underground pipelines. The clash between moisture and magical energy caused the magical sand within the pipelines to agitate. The disruption of the earth element caused the ground to tremble again, triggering localized earthquakes limited to small areas. These earthquakes coincidentally shook the foundations of many buildings damaged two days earlier, causing seemingly stable high-rises to sway.

Amidst gasps of alarm and the escalating storm, over twenty buildings collapsed simultaneously. They crashed into the road in the middle of the road, like servants of misfortune bowing and inviting those cursed to hell!
(End of this chapter)