Chapter 169 Uncommon Circumstances

Hao Ren, who had been momentarily bewildered by Bai Huo's "inner art style," suddenly snapped to attention: "Uncommon circumstances? What's going on?"

"Let's start with my recent work," Bai Huo said, stepping aside to motion for everyone not to wait outside. "Come on in. Uh... the room's a bit messy, hope you don't mind."

The group followed Bai Huo into the room, and Hao Ren's biggest thought upon entering was this: from the outside, it looked pretty messy, but after actually stepping inside, he realized… holy crap, it's even messier than it looked! Bai Huo's room looked like it hadn't been cleaned in centuries. Almost nothing in the room was in its proper place, but rather strewn about haphazardly. Manga magazines and cheap periodicals of all sorts were scattered across the floor, the bed, and the table, almost evenly covering the entire room. Hao Ren was surprised to find that these items came from publications in various countries and languages. This was the only thing that reflected Bai Huo's excellence; she knew a ridiculous number of foreign languages...

The tidiest things in the room were probably the figurines on the shelf against the wall. It was the only place that had been cleaned and was obviously regularly dusted. Hao Ren didn't really understand these things, but he knew in his heart that they were definitely high-end goods that were hard to find on the market. Don't underestimate the fighting power of a demon hunter obsessed with anime when it comes to collecting figurines. With a long lifespan and endless stamina, what couldn't she accomplish?

After all, Vivian had said that to obtain a royal talisman from a small European kingdom, she had lurked on the edge of their royal city for over 140 years, simply outlasting them until the kingdom fell, then digging up the talisman from their royal tomb. To satisfy their personal hobbies, these immortal supernatural beings would really do anything.

Bai Huo rummaged through a pile of magazines for a long time before finally finding a few chairs. After everyone was seated, she sat directly on the bed. "Sorry, I don't usually tidy up my room. I'm a warrior, and probably not as meticulous as ordinary girls in my personal life."

Hao Ren's first thought was that the girl was being disingenuous. Her room was this messy, what did it have to do with her being a warrior!

"Let's talk about Corpus," Vivian said, also feeling like she would suffocate if she paid any more attention to the state of the room. She steered the conversation back to the main topic. "Hassou told me you've been busy in Corpus lately."

Bai Huo nodded slightly. "That's right. We're short on manpower right now, so even a Master-level hunter like me, with insufficient experience, has become a backbone of the Council of Elders. I've been leading a team to clean up the upper realms of Corpus. The floating palaces of the Corpus space can be roughly divided into three areas: the lower realms, near the Star Cluster Pagoda, the middle realms, with a large number of ordinary palaces floating around, and the upper realms, composed of the buildings surrounding the Spirit World Clock Tower. The upper realms have the most energy nodes and were heavily bombarded by evil energy cannons, so the residual energy pollution after the war is the most serious. So far, it's the slowest area to rebuild. While inspecting those polluted areas, I discovered some strange phenomena... it's hard to describe, they look like spatial rifts, but we can't detect the internal structure of those rifts with any existing method, and we can't determine where they lead. Demon hunters are originally very good at controlling spatial forces, but we are helpless in the face of these things."

"Just spatial rifts?" Hao Ren couldn't help but look a little disappointed after hearing Bai Huo's description. He was here for the residual divine thought of the Creation Goddess, and some spatial rifts seemed insignificant compared to the traces of a true god.

Bai Huo immediately shook her head and emphasized the unusual nature of these things again. "Not simple spatial rifts, I just said they 'look like' spatial rifts. These things appear near the energy pipelines of large facilities, completely out of nowhere. I suspect that the collective offline status of the Corpus energy nodes triggered something... maybe it's the 'Ancient Power' you're looking for?"

"Uh, 'divinity' is not quite the same as the 'Ancient Power' you understand... but what you said makes sense," Hao Ren said, scratching his head. "Okay, then take us to see what's going on with those rifts."

Bai Huo nodded. "Of course, the investigators at the temples near the Spirit World Clock Tower shouldn't have finished yet, we can set off now."

As she spoke, she got up to turn off the game console and the TV. Hao Ren curiously leaned over to take a look, and was stunned to see Bai Huo taking out a game disc from the console with the words "xx Hunter" written on it. He was immediately dumbfounded. "You're already fighting monsters in the real world, and you're still experiencing life in a game?"

Bai Huo stumbled. "Immersion, it's all about immersion..."

Vivian and Lily glared at Hao Ren together. "Who are you calling a little monster!"

Hao Ren almost forgot in his haste that the "little monsters" the demon hunters fought were the aliens.

Soon, led by Bai Huo, the group returned to the endless dark space of Corpus.

"Didn't expect to be back so soon, it's still a mess."

Hao Ren looked at the majestic floating temples in front of him and sighed softly. They were now in front of a temple closest to the Spirit World Clock Tower. This temple had been the battlefield of the final battle, where the demon army and the Elder Council had fought fiercely for two days and two nights. Although the fires of mortals could not damage this temple built by the gods, traces of the battle still remained everywhere. The air was filled with almost visible arcane energy, the greenish-black marks left by the evil energy cannons covered the outer walls of the buildings, and broken obsidian and broken weapons were everywhere. Some of them had been pushed too far by the explosions and had even broken away from the gravity zone of the temple, becoming a layer of "debris belt" floating around the temple.

All of this would take a long time to clean up.

Hao Ren saw some demon hunters deploying sparking force fields in the zero-gravity area around the temple, using electromagnetic forces to capture the floating debris. Others were setting up huge, stone obelisk-like things in the square in front of the temple. The obelisks were engraved with mysterious Lyetan runes, and when activated, they immediately resonated with the arcane energy and demonic evil energy permeating the square, slowly becoming bright and crystal clear.

All of these "workers" were surrounded by a thin layer of protective aura. Obviously, the environment here was not suitable for them to operate in directly.

"This is the most heavily polluted area by magic energy," Bai Huo reminded them. At the same time, a layer of silver-white holy flame instantly ignited around her. After the holy flame faded, her whole body was enveloped in a similar protective aura. "Put on your protection before going in."

Hao Ren had the cat, dog, and bat around him put on life-sustaining collars. Although Vivian had her own protective spells, the life-sustaining collars were obviously more reliable than ordinary magic. But after everyone put on their collars, he looked at Dou Dou with worry: what about this little one?

Dou Dou popped out of "Roll's" collar, looking excitedly at this wonderful place, somersaulting in the air while waving her hands and shouting, "Big house!"

Bai Huo was immediately stunned. "You brought her... she can't go in without protection."

Dou Dou flipped a couple of times, and after hearing Bai Huo's words, she immediately stopped somersaulting and stood still. The little one looked around at the others with bright eyes, and immediately understood what to do. She reached out and rubbed her hands together, and a small silver-white holy flame popped out of her hands, burning around her whole body like Bai Huo's, and finally leaving a layer of magical barrier on herself.

This magical barrier was even more solid than Bai Huo's.

The talented young demon hunter was dumbfounded. She stammered, "Th-th-this... this fish can actually use holy flame?!"

Hao Ren was also quite surprised that the little mermaid was so smart, having learned the advanced usage of the holy flame after seeing it only once. This wasn't taught by Nangong Sanba, that mediocre guy, because he singed his hair even just trying to light a cigarette with holy flame. Dou Dou's was completely a gift!

After being surprised, he proudly pushed the little mermaid forward. "This is a demon hunting fish. Let me tell you, her demon hunter bloodline is purer than yours. She was directly blessed by the origin artifact..."

Bai Huo's expression changed. "You guys wouldn't be secretly doing human experiments with demon hunters, would you... is this a new species you synthesized?"

Hao Ren: "...Read less manga, I'll explain it to you later."

After saying that, he turned and flew towards the temple. Bai Huo paused for a moment, and when Vivian passed by, she couldn't help but ask, "It's really not human experimentation?"

Vivian: "...You really need to read less manga."