Chapter 277

Springvale City. Lightwater Residences. Cliff Baxter’s headquarters.

Even after the second red glow came down, Cliff Baxter’s force still hadn’t changed its name to Emberleaf Legion. Why, nobody knew. Maybe it had something to do with Fiona Martin not being there.

That woman had always been wrapped in fog.

Even in this life, Magnus Specter still couldn’t see through her. To him, she looked like nothing more than a fairly pretty, ordinary woman. Yet somehow she could hook men by the throat, make Cliff Baxter and his men fight to the death over her.

So yeah. She had to have something strange about her.

When the second red glow descended, Cliff Baxter’s side got lucky and got lucky big.

Before that second red glow, Oliver Bright had already urged Cliff Baxter to throw an electric grid around the whole of Lightwater Residences.

The original point was simple.

To keep out centipedes and spiders.

Who would’ve thought that same grid would also block the apocalyptic beasts born after the second red glow?

Chickens, ducks, geese, demonized rats—anything that hit the net once got shocked so hard it screamed and fled. The smarter ones didn’t rush in again. They ringed the entire electric barrier layer after layer, just like back when they had surrounded Magnus Specter because of the Nature Crystal, waiting for the power to die so they could swarm together.

Every hour or two, a few rats would crawl up and test the net, slamming into it to probe.

But they never got the chance they were waiting for.

The grid circled the ground well enough, but it didn’t do much against sparrows and bats in the sky. These past days, those things had eaten well. When the soldiers went out, they couldn’t bear to waste bullets. They still used shovels and torches to fend them off, and that only handled most of the flying beasts.

Every time Cliff Baxter’s men sent out a squad of ten, one or two would die.

The soldiers all lived with their hearts hanging by a thread.

...

Emily Ward drove carefully into Springvale City.

Of course she knew this was Cliff Baxter’s turf. But this place held too many memories for her.

She only wanted to come in and look once.

One look, then leave.

Leave Northreach Province forever.

She wanted to go home. Back to Beihe Province, back to the place where she had grown up. Her little brother, her mother, too many memories to count—they were all buried there.

If she had to choose one place to die, she’d rather die in Beihe Province.

Or on the road back there.

The off-road vehicle rolled to a stop in front of the campus clinic. Emily Ward crushed a Super Fire Crystal in her hand and got out.

She had only five Super Fire Crystals left.

But to her, this one was worth spending.

One last look at the place where she had stayed for years.

That was where he had awakened too.

She walked slowly through the clinic door. The room hadn’t changed. It was broken down, battered, a wreck—but the familiar scent in the air still made her chest tighten with a strange warmth.

Her desk.

Her chair.

The plain clothes she had changed out of before the apocalypse.

They were all still there.

She tidied the mess a little, then sat behind her desk. In her right hand, she picked up a pen.

There was still ink in it.

She opened the student medical record book.

On the very first page was the name Magnus Specter.

Emily Ward’s pen tip stopped dead.

Her big eyes blurred at once.

Back then... he had only been her student.

Who could have imagined that in less than a year, she would end up taking the initiative to ask a student for a kiss? That all it took was seeing his name for her to want to cry?

This world was mad.

Completely mad.

If she hadn’t seen Magnus Specter’s name right now, she might have forgotten that part of him entirely—forgotten, at least, that he had once been her student.

He was only my student...

She took the ballpoint pen and drew a huge circle around Magnus Specter’s name.

She didn’t even know what it meant.

She just wanted to do it.

But he said... for Xiaowei, he would trade anything in the Ice Regiment.

That was a lie.

What he really wanted was to kill Xiaowei.

He wanted to kill my brother...

That dream he told me about—I still don’t know if it was true. It sounded too strange, too far off, like mist you couldn’t grab. But he had known every last thing about my family.

He knew the apocalypse was coming.

He knew there were Crystals inside meteorites.

He knew about the second meteor shower, the red glow.

He knew everything that happened in my home.

He had never even met Xiaowei, yet he knew him inside and out—better than I did, and I was his real sister.

He built the whole Ice Regiment.

He saved everyone’s lives.

When he woke up, he held me. I slapped him across the face. I still remember the stunned look he had then.

And later, he told me that impossible dream.

He said that to atone for what Xiaowei had done, I killed Xiaowei with my own hands.

He said I even offered myself to him willingly.

Heh.

Am I really that stupid?

He had to be lying to me.

I wouldn’t be that muddleheaded.

How could I ever kill Xiaowei with my own hands?

How could I ever give myself to him willingly?

The memories ended. She let out a long breath.

By then, tears had already soaked her face.

She stood and walked to the bed where Magnus Specter had once lain. She straightened the iron frame upright. Near her feet was a shriveled plastic IV bag. She bent down, picked it up, and glanced at it.

Cephalosporin.

Anti-inflammatory medicine.

That needle... Magnus Specter had pulled it out himself.

Emily Ward stood there holding the needle, staring at it in a daze.

Then suddenly, from outside, came the rumble of a car engine.

Her expression froze.

Strange thing was, she didn’t feel fear at all.

She only felt tense.

Her woman’s instinct told her the one who had come wasn’t from Cliff Baxter’s force.

It was the owner of the needle in her hand.

...

Magnus Specter saw the off-road vehicle parked in front of the campus clinic from far away.

His heart kicked hard.

He stopped the car fast, shoved the door open, and strode out. With one glance through the unsealed window, he saw Emily Ward.

She was holding a needle in her hand, staring blankly at him.

All the fire in his gut vanished in an instant after he saw that needle.

He too remembered the first time he had awakened in this life.

He had been lying on the very bed in front of her.

And the needle in her hand now was probably the very one that had been stuck in him back then.

The two of them stood still, looking at each other in silence for a long, long time.

Magnus Specter was the first to shift his gaze slightly away. He let out a soft sigh, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and walked slowly into the clinic.

“Sister Emily, come back with me.”

He stepped through the clinic door and stopped three meters in front of her, standing there quietly, looking at her.

There was no guilt in his eyes.

Only a deep, bone-weary helplessness.

He had already told her, in a roundabout way, why he wanted to kill Ke Wei. It was just that the reason was too horrifying. No normal person could believe it.

Still, that counted as an explanation.

At least it was the truest explanation he could give.

Not a bit of falsehood in it.

“Go back...”

Emily Ward sniffed, then lifted her eyes to the ceiling. Two clear lines of tears still slid down despite herself.

“Go back with you? Go where?” Her voice trembled, soft but cutting. “Back to the place where you killed my brother?”