Chapter 024: Seventh Squad - Part 4

The Jiang University Cosplay Interest Club had earned a modest reputation within the country’s cosplay community. On campus, it was one of the most popular clubs, well-known for its vibrant activities—some of which Bai Yuxi had even attended as a spectator.

“You’re members of the Cosplay Club?” Bai Yuxi’s expression was oddly skeptical as he glanced over the group’s bizarre and eclectic gear, his lips twitching with restrained amusement. It suited them, he had to admit. What better way for a motley crew of eccentric, constantly costumed individuals to hide in plain sight than by blending into a club that was itself a sanctuary for the unconventional?

No wonder, from the very beginning, Bai Yuxi had sensed something otherworldly about the blonde girl Maya and the foreign boy Jason—their gear exuded an obvious anime aesthetic. They were clearly cosplaying as the Night Goddess and a Shield Warrior, quite unlike the later-appearing Axe Man, whose attire leaned heavily into military and modern styles.

“But… I killed someone from the ‘Jiang Pit Vipers’ before,” Bai Yuxi hesitated, concern flickering across his face. “Now I’m back on campus—won’t that bring trouble?”

“Jiang Pit Vipers?” The Seventh Squad members exchanged puzzled glances, genuinely unfamiliar with the organization.

“Who cares!” said Xia Youyou, the petite one, with a dismissive wave. “There are at least eighty or a hundred underground extraordinary groups in Jiang City’s ‘Black Supernatural World.’ If even we haven’t heard of them, they must be some second- or third-rate gang.”

Bai Yuxi glanced at Xia Youyou and found agreement mirrored in the expressions of the other members of the Seventh Squad. He frowned. Was the ‘Jiang Pit Vipers,’ the group Axe Man belonged to, just another minor gang? If so, why did their members seem more formidable than these semi-official ones?

Moreover, was this so-called ‘supernatural world’ truly above the laws of the mundane world? After all, he had killed a living person—yet these people treated it as casually as having fish or chicken for lunch.

What troubled Bai Yuxi most, however, was that he barely understood the ‘supernatural world’ before hearing, from the squad’s chatter, about an even more intimidating ‘Black Supernatural World’—a name that sounded anything but benign.

Luo Fei was about to speak when suddenly, the silver wristwatches on the squad members’ wrists erupted with a chorus of rapid radar beeps.

Startled, everyone instinctively glanced at their wrist devices.

Bai Yuxi’s arm-mounted computer also blared a warning. He didn’t need to look down; his digital visor projected the alert directly before his eyes. A flickering, nearly invisible dot flashed and vanished on the radar map, leaving behind a faint, dim afterimage.

“What’s that?” Bai Yuxi took a cautious half-step back, widening the distance between himself and the squad, his short sword drawn once more.

He only knew that ‘grey’ meant no threat, ‘white’ meant safe, ‘yellow’ meant warning, and ‘orange’ meant alert. But such a colorless afterimage? Even his visor offered no explanation.

“False alarm?”

“No! That’s not it!” Luo Fei, momentarily stunned, suddenly cried out, her face paling. “Someone is ‘stealthing’ toward us!”

The squad members hastily drew their weapons and assumed defensive positions—only then realizing Bai Yuxi had distanced himself.

“That’s not one of us!” Luo Fei quickly explained, as if sensing Bai Yuxi’s suspicion. To reassure him, she even displayed the interface of her personal information terminal on her wrist, which also showed the residual afterimage—proof that the intruder was not marked as an ‘ally.’

“Everyone, be careful! Approaching us in stealth without warning—it must be someone from a black supernatural group!” Luo Fei unsheathed her own weapon, her voice taut with warning. “Prepare for battle!”

As the leader of a special ops squad, Luo Fei’s experience far exceeded that of her teammates; she immediately grasped the intruder’s intent.

“Could it be an underground extraordinary group investigating the spatial anomaly at the ‘manifest dimensional convergence point’?” Drumstick, retrieving a rectangular shield from his back and hefting a heavy wooden mallet, frowned at Willy, the squad’s designated scout. “Are you sure you cleaned up all traces left by Maya and Jason in the alley?”

“When I got there, the force field explosion caused by Maya and Jason had already drawn a lot of attention!” Willy admitted, somewhat sheepishly. “I only had time to erase their pheromones—the physical evidence was impossible to scrub entirely…”

“Idiot!” Xia Youyou, gripping two short iron spikes, her chest crisscrossed with a bandolier slot packed with dozens of dart-like spikes, snapped at Willy. “What good is erasing Maya and Willy’s pheromones? Bai’s are way stronger! If you don’t clear his, it’s as obvious as leaving a neon sign behind!”

“How is that my fault?” Willy protested. “I already used ‘pheromone disruptors’ on the scene! But Bai’s superactive energy level is over five hundred thousand—his ‘multidimensional energy-matter pheromones’ are way off the charts! Even if I wanted to erase it all, I couldn’t! Am I supposed to sprinkle disruptor everywhere? You know how expensive that stuff is?”

Though Bai Yuxi didn’t fully understand their conversation, he gathered that the intruder was most likely after him.

“Enough! Stop arguing!” Luo Fei cut in. “Only one person has revealed themselves, but there are likely at least three to five combatants, each with an average combat rating of level four!”

Bai Yuxi had just learned from Willy how to suppress his biological field, so he grasped her meaning instantly. The so-called ‘multidimensional zero-point energy particles’ carried by supernatural beings could, to some extent, be restrained—like holding one’s breath.

But these extraordinary energies, bonded to the human body, were as impossible to halt completely as the heat generated by cellular activity. Unless one could become a corpse—no breath, no movement—it was impossible to stop entirely.

Thus, any inadvertent leak of energy could easily be detected by keenly attuned supernatural individuals.