Hunting Grounds Interference
At night, Liushu walked out of the apartnt alone.
Switching on the flashlight in his hand, he left the building and headed toward the outskirts.
Huamo had said that this terrifying pollen might have drifted over from sowhere.
He needed to investigate.
"Can you sense any unusual magic around us?"
Liushu asked in a low voice.
"Hmm, let see."
The old blade hanging at his waist spoke up.
"To the west, there's an especially dense magical presence,"
Qili said.
"Alright."
Liushu moved toward the west.
Liushu was not an ordinary teacher. Although he could not use magic himself nor teach students magic,
he was highly sensitive to spells. He could see and sense traces of magic.
He was able to track down magic users and the sources of magical power.
After heading west for more than ten kiloters, Liushu halted.
Before him was a small woodland. At his feet, he saw a corpse.
It was the corpse of a woman covered with blooming flowers.
Beautiful blossoms filled her eyes, mouth, hands, and the crown of her head.
At that mont, pollen drifted through the air.
This pollen was composed of extrely strange magical energy.
Pollen landed on Liushu's shoulders, only to be consud by a dark magic force.
No matter how much pollen landed on him, it would all be devoured by this dark magic, leaving Liushu completely unaffected.
Liushu unsheathed Qili and made a light cut across the woman's corpse.
The dark magic devoured her body.
He did this to prevent the corpse from spreading any more pollen.
If soone had been nearby at that mont, they could probably have shouted out the na of Liushu's magic.
Anti-magic.
The anti-magic that can devour all spells—sothing that only cultists can use.
Back then, Shuang Yun had used anti-magic to dispel the trap spells in Dreamscape Academy's forbidden library.
Liushu used anti-magic to swallow this pollen composed of spells, as well as the corpse filled with strange magic.
Liushu continued on, the dim light of his flashlight piercing the midnight darkness.
The deeper he ventured into the forest, the more bizarre the scenery beca.
Corpses of crows and animals covered in flowers, trunks of huge trees blooming with blossoms—
Liushu dealt with them one by one.
He reached the forest's deepest part. Amid all the dazzling flowers, among them blood a strange, red flower.
This flower was spreading its dust all around.
"Hunting grounds plant, huh..."
Liushu stared at the flower, murmuring to himself.
This confird that the hunting grounds had already interfered, to so extent, with the real world.
If this flower was not removed in ti, how many people would have to die?
Without further thought, Liushu raised Qili.
A torrent of anti-magic engulfed the area.
By the ti it faded, all the parasitized plants and animals around, as well as the pollen-spreading flower, had been devoured by anti-magic.
After everything was settled, Liushu made his way back.
"Yayayay, just one plant escaping from the hunting grounds was bad enough—if it had been a monster, the consequences would be unimaginable,"
Qili quipped.
"That hunting grounds in Anzelona is still considered a lower-level one. The more advanced hunting grounds are far more dangerous,"
Liushu replied, lighting a cigarette.
"The truly terrifying part is that hunting grounds can never be thoroughly eradicated. Once the appointed ti cos, everything inside revives and reconstitutes; so just wiping out the hunting grounds isn't a real solution."
Under the moonlight, Liushu smoked alone as he walked through the silent night.
"Even the Sovereign doesn't know where those things ca from, so how could we possibly know how to resolve it?"
Qili laughed.
"Do you really think the Supre God, who controls the destiny of the world, could have things she doesn't know?"
Liushu raised his head to look at the moon, sighing.
"You an—?"
"I didn't say anything,"
Liushu interrupted Qili, and returned to the apartnt.
☆☆☆
The Sky Ladder Tournant was advancing steadily; as wave after wave of students was eliminated, the individual matches approached their finale.
Unsurprisingly, Mo Ying made it to the very end.
Mo Ying once again won the individual championship, defeating all contenders from both the Martial Departnt and the Magic Departnt.
The final was a showdown between two geniuses, Mo Ying and Xiya. Since Xiya's spatial magic had been restricted by the school, Mo Ying was victorious.
Mo Ying claid the individual title.
By then, it was already the tenth day of the Sky Ladder Tournant.
From the eleventh day onward was the team competition.
But Shuang Yun had yet to return—she had even missed her individual matches.
Dreamscape Academy's Sky Ladder Tournant directly determined students' rankings for the next academic year.
Whether teachers or others, high-ranked students would always receive so degree of favoritism, even if it was never publicly acknowledged.
Yet Shuang Yun had not shown up for such an important tournant.
No matter how much Mo Ying asked, Liushu always dodged with the excuse that she had personal matters to attend to, so she couldn't co.
No matter how naive and oblivious Mo Ying was, she could sense sothing was wrong, so she stopped questioning Liushu any further.
"A black dragon flew across the sky of Necrograd—what the—?"
In the breakfast hall, Liushu was astonished as he read the headline.
"Is it really that strange for a dragon to fly by?"
Mo Ying, sitting across from him at the table, asked.
"Necrograd is a lawless land in the north of the world, while the Dragonkind dwell in the southern Dragon Vein Mountains. If you told a dragon flew overhead in the south, I wouldn't be surprised. But a dragon in the north? That doesn't make sense. You have to understand, even for a giant dragon, flying from the Dragon Vein Mountains to Necrograd would take several days and nights."
"Dragons almost never appear in the north. Besides, all dragons nowadays can transform into human form. If one chooses to show itself as a dragon..."
"That ans it's hostile,"
Xiya finished the sentence.
"Exactly."
"How do you know that, Xiya?"
Mo Ying asked.
"It's written in the books, and teachers have talked about it in class. You never paid any attention, did you?"
Xiya replied.
"I sleep through half our classes!"
"And you're not even ashad to say it..."
Ignoring the two's bickering, Liushu continued staring at the newspaper, thinking.
Which hunting grounds was closest to Necrograd, again?
That dragon was likely a monster that had escaped from a hunting grounds.
But, since it had hard no one and the news ntioned no attacks...
Perhaps he was overthinking it.
Since the appearance of ten hunting grounds in this world, peace had been a rarity.
"Don't overthink, let's just do what's within our power,"
Qili said.
"I know, old woman,"
Liushu took a sip of coffee.
"...."
Mo Ying and Xiya both looked over at her.
"Ahem, no no, I wasn't calling you two old won—I said that to myself just now, lost in thought,"
Liushu accidentally let slip the conversation with Qili aloud.
"We sotis hear you talking to yourself, Teacher Liushu. If you're tired, you should take better care of yourself!"
Mo Ying said.
"... I'm not that fragile yet, but thanks for your concern."
Liushu put down the finished coffee cup.
"Ugh, so bitter... I should've known not to pretend to be all deep and serious by drinking coffee."
With one sentence, Liushu completely destroyed his own cool image.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】
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