Death Train: SSS-level talent right from the start!

It was Gu Qinghuan's voice.

Chen Ye suddenly opened his eyes.

The space that came into view was dimly lit.

Above was a gray-white ceiling, with cobwebs hanging from the exposed wooden beams. In the corner stood a wall lamp with a dark red glass shade, the flame inside flickering slightly and casting a dim yellow light.

This is not the rooftop of Yuncheng University.

This is the Victorian villa in the city of ghosts.

The villa's first-floor hall was much larger than he had expected, with high ceilings, dark wood wainscoting, and dark red parquet flooring.

The people who entered the house were still there, but now they all had their eyes closed, like wax figures.

In the center of the hall, there was a strange creature.

The thing was embedded in the ground, only its upper body was visible; its lower body seemed to have grown into the wooden floor. There was no transition between its pale skin and the dark wood, as if it had grown out of the floor.

Its body was disproportionately slender, with ribs protruding one by one, but its head was enormous.

The head was so disproportionate that it caused physical discomfort; it was at least three times larger than a normal person's head, like an inflated balloon attached to that thin body.

His pale skin was covered with fine wrinkles, and his facial features were squeezed in front of his huge head, with his eyes taking up almost half of the area.

Those eyes were completely black, with no whites or pupils, just a bottomless, pitch-black expanse.

A pair of large, dark eyes were fixed on the three rapidly spinning throwing knives in front of him.

The blade spun so fast it was almost invisible to the naked eye, and the sound of the wind generated by the high-speed rotation echoed in the hall, but it just couldn't go any further.

Gu Qinghuan stood about five meters behind the throwing knives, her right hand with its five fingers spread out, her palm facing the direction of the three throwing knives, her fingertips trembling slightly.

Her face was as white as paper, and her forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat; the two seemed to be locked in a tug-of-war.

"Chen Ye, attack this monster."

Gu Qinghuan's voice carried a clear strain.

Upon hearing this, Chen Ye pulled his right fist back, and the pale golden aura of the Thousand-Pound Cannon burned on the surface of his fist.

He charged at the monster embedded in the ground from the side, his fist tearing through the air with a heavy whistling sound, heading straight for the temple of that enormous head.

The fist stopped about half a meter away from the monster's head.

He didn't voluntarily withdraw his fist.

An invisible barrier blocked his fist.

The barrier was invisible, but its tactile sensation was as clear as that of a wall.

The moment his fist slammed down, the recoil traveled back along his arm, making his entire right arm go numb.

The barrier remained completely still.

Gu Qinghuan's voice came from behind: "Keep attacking! Break the barrier!"

Chen Ye didn't waste any words.

He pulled his right fist back again, unleashing another devastating attack. A pale golden halo burned intensely on his fist before he slammed it down.

"boom--!"

The fist slammed into the same spot where the previous punch had landed.

……

A dream world.

Looking down from the rooftop of Building 3, everyone saw Chen Ye's body lying in a pool of blood.

Blood spread from beneath him, staining the gray stone pavement a large patch of dark red, like a flower of death blooming in the morning light.

His body was twisted at an abnormal angle, with his right arm pressed under his body and his left arm outstretched, his five fingers slightly curled.

The area was already surrounded by people.

Some people covered their mouths, some took out their phones to call the police, and some looked up at the rooftop.

Most people just stood far away, craning their necks to look into the center of the crowd.

"Brother Ye...died from the fall?"

Qin Zhaoyang's voice trembled. He leaned on the railing, his hands gripping the cold iron pipe tightly.

His eyes were fixed on the twisted corpse downstairs, his pupils trembling violently in their sockets, and his lips quivering.

Wang Shuo stood beside Qin Zhaoyang, his hands gripping the railing: "Doesn't this prove that this isn't an illusion, that Chen Ye is really dead...?"

His voice was very low, so low it sounded like he was talking to himself.

Zhou Yating stood in the center of the rooftop. She didn't approach the edge to look at Chen Ye's body; she just stood there with her hands hanging at her sides, her fingertips trembling slightly.

Her lips moved, and she uttered a very soft sound: "Not necessarily."

Qin Zhaoyang suddenly turned his head.

Zhou Yating's gaze swept over everyone on the rooftop: "According to Chen Ye, he died, so the illusion that was working on him could no longer be maintained. But we didn't die, and the illusion's effect on us didn't disappear, so when we saw Chen Ye fall to his death, perhaps... he's already gone back."

There was a moment of silence on the rooftop.

"Really?"

Qin Zhaoyang's eyes suddenly lit up, then quickly dimmed, then lit up again. His expression changed several times in those few seconds, and his lips trembled: "So...we're going to jump off the building too?"

No one answered.

Wang Shuo and Li Zheng turned their heads at the same time to look at Zhao Hai.

Zhao Hai stood inside the railing at the edge of the rooftop, his head down and his arms crossed over his chest, his expression unreadable.

Wang Shuo swallowed hard, his voice hoarse: "Brother Hai..."

Zhao Hai lowered his head, his gaze fixed on the ground below the rooftop.

Chen Ye's body was still lying there, and blood was still spreading.

Zhao Hai looked at it for about two seconds, then looked away.

"I believe him."

He stepped over the railing and placed his feet on the narrow concrete edge of the rooftop, exactly where Chen Ye had been standing.

The morning breeze ruffled the hem of his black T-shirt. He looked down at it, just like someone looking down at the three-point line when shooting a three-pointer on a basketball court.

Then he looked up.

"Brother Hai!"

Wang Shuo's voice came from behind, carrying an uncontrollable tone. His hand had already reached out, but stopped in mid-air, not reaching to pull Zhao Hai.

Li Zheng also took a step forward and stopped.

Zhao Hai did not turn around.

His lips curled up slightly, then he leaned forward and jumped off the twelfth floor.

The wind whistled in my ears.

The ground rapidly magnifies in the field of vision.

The stone-paved road, the flowerbeds, and the pool of dark red blood spreading and splattered brain matter next to Chen Ye's body—everything was rapidly approaching.

Then all of this turned into a blinding white light.

……

Inside the villa in Guidu.

Chen Ye was frantically hammering at the barrier.

"boom--!"

The pale golden aura of the cannon exploded on his fist, the recoil traveling back up his arm, making his entire right arm numb. The barrier remained completely still.

He gritted his teeth and pulled his right fist back again.

His stamina was being rapidly depleted, but he couldn't care less.

Gu Qinghuan's three throwing knives spun rapidly against the invisible barrier, like three electric drills. Her face grew paler and paler, and the trembling of her fingertips became more and more obvious.

"Chen Ye".

Zhao Hai's voice rang out behind him.

Chen Ye turned around and saw that Zhao Hai had already woken up and his fists had been metalized.

"Brother Hai, come and shatter this barrier."

"They're here!"

Zhao Hai strode forward and stood beside Chen Ye.

Then, pulling his right fist back and rotating his waist and hips, he slammed his iron fist, with three times the force, into the spot where Chen Ye had just struck.

"boom--!"

The barrier shook.

A hair-thin crack extended from where Zhao Hai's fist landed, meandering for less than ten centimeters across the transparent barrier before stopping.