101 The Witch (6100)

Golden Orange Street is located in the DC District of Nilodo. The street is home to over a dozen luxury boutiques, as well as cafes, cinemas, and similar establishments. Most of the people bustling about are dressed in suits and ties.

Carrying briefcases, wearing black silk stockings and office attire, urban white-collar workers sit in cafes during their spare time, enjoying a moment of leisure—it is quite an elegant scene.

The street is crowded with people and a constant flow of traffic. Without warning, a light drizzle begins to fall from the sky.

The hazy, thread-like rain descends like a spider's web, gradually dampening the once-dry pavement.

Through the thin curtain of rain, the neon signs from shop windows on both sides of the street cast red and green ribbons of light onto the wet asphalt, looking like fireworks on a festive night.

One burly and one thin figure move back and forth along the road, showing no intention of seeking shelter despite the rain.

Their eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, scan the passing crowds in circles. Gary and Baker are still searching for the female spy sent by the Golden Spiral organization.

This woman is deeply hidden and has managed to steal an important document from within the Holy Flame Society. Fortunately, the Society realized it in time and dispatched a combat squad to intercept her. Their mission is to ensure that the safe containing the important document is not delivered to the Golden Spiral.

"She’s nearby; she can’t get away."

Gary opens his palm to reveal a transparent glass bead the size of a coin, inside which a rune floats. By channeling the power of a ring into it, one can sense the location of anyone implanted with a tracking aura.

Of course, such tracking is actually quite vague. It only provides a general direction, making it less precise than a metal tracker.

However, a tracking aura is far more covert than a metal tracker. Most people who are tagged rarely notice it.

Thus, the Holy Flame Society generally uses the method of implanting tracking aura circuits. Of course, when necessary, they also move with the times, using both tracking auras and metal trackers to firmly monitor a target's position.

"She’s really good at running. A small fry like her has had us two brothers searching for so long, and we even lost three men for nothing. When I catch her, I’m going to toy with her until she breaks..."

A cold sneer appears on the face of the burly Baker.

He appears calm on the surface, but inwardly, he is more vengeful than anyone. If Qiu Lin were to fall into his hands, she would likely be tortured and ravaged until she withered away before finally being killed.

*Whoosh.* A cold breeze, carrying wisps of rain, brushes past.

The passing crowds have already opened their umbrellas.

At the entrance of a cafe, a middle-aged man in a suit steps out, holding a black umbrella in his right hand.

At the same time, a slender figure suddenly darts over, following the man like a shadow.

Pedestrians are everywhere, and the colorful umbrellas greatly obstruct the line of sight. Combined with the distraction caused by the hazy rain, it is actually very difficult for the two men from the Holy Flame Society to keep track of her.

Just like that, Qiu Lin follows the middle-aged man step by step, her footsteps almost perfectly synchronized with his.

Transparent threads of rain fall from the sky, clinging to Qiu Lin’s long eyelashes. She stares straight ahead, daring only to observe the two men on her left through the corner of her eye.

One step, two steps, three steps...

Everything seems to be going smoothly.

Suddenly, the middle-aged man in front squats down. He tucks the umbrella under his right shoulder and leans down to tie his shoelaces.

In an instant, Qiu Lin’s figure is exposed.

She intends to squat down as well, but in that split second, she notices two gazes cast from the sidewalk—gazes filled with intense killing intent.

Gritting her teeth, Qiu Lin immediately darts into the crowd. She moves with great agility, like a nimble cheetah, weaving easily through the flow of people.

"Roar!" A roar erupts into the sky.

Following it, a massive figure charges into the crowd like an elephant trampling the ground. With an arm thicker than a normal person's thigh, he swats aside anyone in his way, sending them flying like tattered sacks to crash heavily onto the ground.

Some cough up blood, some roll, some groan...

In an instant, the crowd that had been walking on the street falls into a panic, screaming and fleeing in chaos. Even the urban elite women with their exquisite makeup and charming eyes throw their umbrellas aside and run away in a pathetic state.

Washed by the rain, one side of their faces smeared red, the other blue, they look like canvases used for graffiti.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of abandoned umbrellas litter the ground, drifting and moving with the wind.

*Thump! Thump! Thump!*

Baker, his muscles knotted and bulging, stands over two meters twenty tall. Like a small giant, he charges forward, rapidly closing in on the fleeing Qiu Lin.

He raises his powerful hand, inching forward through the air, aiming for the back of Qiu Lin’s neck.

"Damn it!"

Despair rises in Qiu Lin’s heart. In the reflection of a shop window ahead, she can already see the black shadow behind her.

It is getting closer and closer; she cannot escape...

The black hand looms down like a city wall, ready to crush Qiu Lin’s slender frame in the next second.

*BOOM!!!*

An arm strikes out like an iron rod, colliding heavily with the black arm. Raindrops on the sleeves of both arms are shaken off, scattering into a mist in mid-air.

"Hmm?"

*Thump, thump, thump...*

Both figures retreat. Baker, with his face full of flesh, turns his head sharply to look at the man in the trench coat who has appeared so abruptly.

"It’s you?!"

"I told you, I would come looking for you..."

Xiu Nan takes a step forward with his right foot, his black rain boots blocking all the rain falling from the sky.

Pale white raindrops cling to his medium-length hair.

"Heh... interesting. This is truly interesting."

Baker pulls a pendant that is flashing red light from under his neck and exchanges a look with Gary in the distance.

The flashing red light speaks for itself. The person before them possesses a Hunting Spark and has previously killed a member of the Holy Flame Society.

The "member" here refers to a formal member. Every formal member of the Holy Flame Society is far stronger than a stray Secret Ring Master, and with the aid of transcendent items, their combat power is definitely top-tier.

This only goes to show that the opponent’s strength is not to be underestimated.

"Those who block our path only have a dead end!"

Baker lunges forward, his feet stamping round puddles into the ground. He throws a violent punch, and a loud, explosive *bang* echoes through the air.

*Thump!*

Xiu Nan assumes a fighting stance and meets the blow with a punch of his own. Two immense forces collide and cancel each other out.

He possesses a Top-tier Assassin Ability Pack and is proficient in top-level combat techniques. Moreover, the shared effect of his Bone Secret Ring happens to provide two runes that both boost the Strength attribute.

So, even Xiu Nan doesn't know exactly how powerful his body is—it has surpassed that of a normal person by several times. It is the perfect opportunity to test his surging physical strength against the opponent.

Rain threads fall one after another as two blurred figures collide frantically. The two trade punches and kicks, iron elbows clashing, arms striking hard against one another, displaying the art of extreme combat. Muffled thuds echo across the street.

*Thump, thump, thump...*

One figure is knocked back, retreating more than ten steps on the ground before finding his footing. Xiu Nan glances at his hands; his sleeves are shredded, and his skin is covered in dark bruises from the collisions, blood pooling beneath the surface.

He is still a tier behind. Even though his physique has grown through shared strength, there is still a significant gap between him and this Secret Ring Master who specializes in the physical path.

"So you’re a physical-path user too? But your ability clearly isn't up to the mark!" A ferocious smile spreads across Baker’s fleshy face. He roars again, his muscles swelling to an exaggerated size.

He lunges forward, charging like a pickup truck.

In the distance, Qiu Lin stares intently at the scene. Her mood is even more tense than Xiu Nan’s.

Because she has been locked onto by killing intent, her life and death are entirely in Xiu Nan’s hands. If Xiu Nan can repel the two, she survives. If Xiu Nan falls, she has no hope of escaping.

"You must hold on..."

*Whoosh...* His powerful body pushes aside the rain.

Baker’s fist swings down like an iron hammer.

*Screech!*

A slender, powerful iron claw reaches out from behind Xiu Nan, bracing against the hammer-like fist like a jack. The back toe, sharp as a sickle blade, cuts inward heavily.

A long, thin bloody gash is left on the back of Baker’s fist, which is as tough as cowhide. Blood slides down, and washed by the hazy rain, it turns the ground a light red.

Baker lets out a cry of pain and pulls his hand back to retreat.

But a massive force traps him in place. The transcendent ring-beast opposite him has strength equal to his own!

*Splash...* Like a fish leaping out of the water.

The Dead-Eye Vulture suddenly rushes out, its elegant body stretching in the wind and rain. Its two pairs of metallic-lustered wings are spread wide, the edges trimmed with delicate gold thread. Its head is wrapped in a protruding bone crest, and its entire body is covered in white-striped black armor.

"Ah!" Baker roars.

The muscles in his left arm swell once more, pushing across like a city wall, slamming violently toward the Dead-Eye Vulture.

*Ding!*

Bai Mu suddenly rotates its eyeballs. Its large, lake-blue pupils, like sapphires, stare fixedly at Baker.

*Thump! Thump! Thump...*

Baker’s body freezes in place; the punch never lands. A series of tiny explosions sound from every joint in his body, and he spits out a mouthful of blood.

The blood seems to be mixed with fragments of internal organs.

Baker is not dead yet, but he is severely wounded. If he weren't a physical-path Secret Ring Master, his entire body would likely have exploded from that single gaze.

*Screech!*

The Dead-Eye Vulture lets out a sharp cry, its slender head piercing down like a sword, aiming straight for Baker’s eyeball.

It seems intent on pecking right through the enemy's head.

"Get lost!"

Gary, who had been rushing over after seeing the sudden turn of events, bellows. His right hand shakes and twists.

It eerily transforms into a sharp longsword.

The edge of the sword glimmers with a chilling light.

With a single slash through the air, a buzzing vibration sounds—the result of slicing through the airflow at extreme speed.

*AAAHHHHHH!!!!!*

An intensely shrill scream.

Gary’s sword swings through the afterimage, and he stumbles forward. Turning his head to look, he sees his partner frozen like a wooden stake, his right eye replaced by a bloody hole.

A shattered eyeball mixed with blood flows out in a steady stream.

And at the back of his head, there is a matching hole.

*Thump.* Baker falls heavily to the ground. His once-strong physique shrinks back to its original size.

"Baker!!!"

"Damn it!" Gary turns his head like lightning, his eyes filled with fury, staring fixedly at Xiu Nan in the distance, and at Bai Mu, who is elegantly preening its feathers on his shoulder.

"Still have to use runes... I wish I could fight a physical-path master with just my raw physical strength..."

Xiu Nan mutters to himself. It sounds like a humble brag, but it is his most honest thought.

Without relying on his body, without relying on his own flesh, Xiu Nan always feels a bit insecure. He has been a Secret Ring Master for too short a time and still views runes as external objects, not part of himself.

Perhaps this sense of detachment needs time to adapt.

"Are you ignoring me..."

Baker suddenly calms down. He touches his earlobe with his left hand, his entire demeanor like the calm before a storm.

"Go to hell."

He drops his left hand, and with a metallic *clang*, his left arm also transforms into a slender, razor-sharp blade.

He lunges forward, a sharp aura erupting from his entire body, like a sword piercing the clouds.

"Kill my companion, and pay with your life!"

With a tap of his toes, Gary spins like a storm, his silver sword light cutting through the raindrops with a *ding-ding-ding*.

A large vacuum zone forms around him.

"Die!"

*Whoosh.* The blade swings down like a stream of light.

*Clang!* The sword breaks!

It is pinched in two by a large hand extending from behind Xiu Nan; the longsword is as brittle as a biscuit.

"Is this the gap between a Second-Ring and a First-Ring..."

Xiu Nan mumbles calmly.

As he makes the comparison, the Pale Knight’s large hand reaches out like a giant python. On the spot, it devours Gary’s other arm, which was still intact.

*Crunch, crunch, crunch...*

Gary’s arm is snapped inch by inch. The blade emits a teeth-grinding sound as it is slowly twisted and deformed.

A large amount of metal shards burst from the fracture.

In the next second, these metal shards turn into blood plasma in mid-air, mixing with the rain and being quickly washed away.

"Why... my power..."

Gary’s eyes widen in disbelief.

But in the next second, his entire body splits open.

Literally splits open...

A pair of large hands emerges from under Xiu Nan’s ribs, like a ferocious ghost, smashing right through Gary’s chest. Then, they push outward with brutal force.

*Rip.* His entire body, along with his ring-power light film, is torn apart without suspense. A large mass of gore spills out; the scene is quite bloody.

But the increasingly heavy rain washes away much of the filth and blood, leaving only the two halves of the corpse on the ground.

The Pale Knight’s power is almost unstoppable!

Just by extending a pair of hands, it can tear an elite member of the Holy Flame Society, Gary, into pieces.

It would be even stronger if it unleashed its full form!

But unfortunately, it cannot...

Xiu Nan already senses it: the consequence of bringing an ancient rune into the modern era is extreme instability.

Furthermore, the Pale Knight rune itself is incomplete, and every time it is deployed, it consumes a massive amount of ring power. If the Pale Knight were to fight in its true form, Xiu Nan estimates he could only sustain it for a short time. Beyond that limit, not to mention the massive consumption of ring power, the stability of the Pale Knight rune alone is a headache-inducing problem.

The top priority is to find the other half of the Pale Knight combination rune—ideally a Second-Ring mount rune.

Once combined, the rune will be complete. Only then will its stability increase, allowing the Pale Knight to participate in all kinds of intense battles without needing to rely on the Holy Bone Secret Ring.

Xiu Nan glances at the arm that seems to have grown from under his ribs.

He can feel the Pale Knight’s strength. Although it is a quasi-Second-Ring rune, if fully unleashed, it likely wouldn't be weak even at the Second-Ring Secret Ring Master stage. If combined with the Guardian Monster’s light sword, his combat power could soar even higher!

*Whoosh...* The demonic arms retract, and the elegant Dead-Eye Vulture gradually fades from sight.

[You have been marked with a Hunting Spark. Members of the Holy Flame Society can identify the spark and will launch an endless pursuit against you.]

The system prompt appears. Xiu Nan offers a dismissive smile.

As the saying goes, one doesn't worry about too much debt. Having offended them once, he isn't afraid of offending them a second or third time. He isn't panicked in the slightest.

[You have gained 3 Evolution Points.]

[You have gained 4 Evolution Points.]

A total of seven evolution points. Xiu Nan narrows his eyes in confusion; he senses something is slightly off.

Four points should have come from Gary, the elite Holy Flame Society member. The assassin Tie Yang was also an elite member. At the time, Xiu Nan estimated Tie Yang to be worth five evolution points; Gary and Tie Yang were similar, so he expected five points.

Since he had spent a long time on the cruise ship, the evolution points should have been absorbed normally.

But now, one is missing. He doesn't know why.

Perhaps the ancient environment is easier for absorption?

Xiu Nan shakes his head and stops dwelling on the problem.

He stamps his boots, and the blood water on them runs off. Turning his head, he sees a drenched, beautiful girl looking at him, her beautiful eyes hazy and filled with fear.

Xiu Nan scans her with an indifferent gaze.

*Hmm, this woman’s figure seems quite nice.*

*Pfft, wait, is she a transcendent?*

When she was running just now, she was as agile as a female leopard.

As Xiu Nan examines her, Qiu Lin is also examining him. The fight just now was fast and intense; in the blink of an eye, the two from the Holy Flame Society were killed.

One had his head pierced, the other was torn into two halves—the scene was incredibly bloody and violent.

Is the man in the trench coat in front of her a particularly cruel person? At the very least, he was as brutal as a beast during the fight...

The atmosphere becomes heavy without anyone noticing.

Perhaps to break the unsettling silence, Qiu Lin finally speaks, albeit hesitantly.

"Hello, my name is Qiu Lin..."

Ten minutes later, under the eaves of a building on a street.

Xiu Nan’s eyes widen in shock. Opposite him sits the beautiful girl with an awkward smile on her face.

You would never imagine that a young, beautiful woman with an alluring figure, sporting a fair, slender, and pitiful face, would say with a delicate voice:

"32 years old, I'm a middle-aged man!"

*Collapse.* Xiu Nan finds it hard to accept.

Due to certain reasons, he cannot get close to women, but appreciating beautiful things always puts one in a good mood.

And now, someone tells him that what he is looking at is not a beautiful girl, but a rough, middle-aged man.

Xiu Nan’s mood instantly sours.

"So, your superpower is..."

"I'm a Witch, an agility-type Witch. The gender-swap is actually just an incidental effect after the superpower awakens..."

Qiu Lin explains in a crisp voice.

"I didn't want this either, but the ability after awakening is beyond my control, and I don't have a good solution for it..."

She continues, explaining to herself: "Changing from a middle-aged man to a beautiful woman—I wasn't used to it at first. Later, someone told me that the average lifespan of a Witch is two hundred years and that one remains youthful forever. My mood wasn't as bad as it was at the beginning..."

"Witch?" This is the first time Xiu Nan has heard the term.

He isn't very familiar with the modern classifications of transcendents and Secret Ring Masters, so he finds it a bit foreign.

"Witches are actually a group; usually, only men can awaken this kind of superpower. Some are born with it, some are by accident. But the overall expression is a gender-swap. Regardless of whether they were a baby in a cradle, a young man, or an old man with white hair, they all end up becoming a youthful twenty-year-old girl. That is the most external manifestation..."

"Internally, it’s the superpower. After a Witch awakens, it usually comes with a talent, which is the super-ability. It’s divided into Magic-type and Physical-type. Magic-type is the kind that controls wind, rain, thunder, lightning, and fire. Physical-type is like me—a loser. Either more agile, stronger, or having a softer, more alluring body..."

Qiu Lin continues to introduce herself with some embarrassment.

"Witches are all over the transcendent world; they are actually a medium-sized group. There is also an organization called the Witches' Association, but a loser like me in the physical-path can't squeeze into it..."

She sighs softly and lifts the box in her hand.

Xiu Nan nods, gaining a bit of knowledge.

Come to think of it, the person opposite him is quite tragic.

Qiu Lin had just explained her background: she lost both parents at ten and raised her younger brother alone.

The two moved to the big city of Nilodo; Qiu Lin worked odd jobs while her brother studied hard at university.

Then, one weekend, they were sleeping in a rented room, and the next morning they both woke up as beautiful Witches. Panicked, they didn't dare to do anything.

One didn't dare to go out to work, the other didn't dare to go to school. After struggling for two or three days, the hounds of a relic organization suddenly showed up. Her brother, whose ability was deemed valuable, was taken away, while Qiu Lin was saved by members of the Golden Spiral organization who arrived late, and she subsequently joined them.

Qiu Lin swore to save her brother, but her ability was too weak, and she could only be a "vase." Even with all her efforts in the Golden Spiral, she couldn't get any attention.

Later, the Golden Spiral needed a spy to infiltrate the Holy Flame Society. She gritted her teeth and signed up. After training, Qiu Lin successfully snuck into the enemy's ranks.

By chance, she stole important intelligence from the Holy Flame Society. With the credit from this intelligence, she could make a reasonable request in return.

Saving her brother finally seemed possible...

But she didn't expect that the originally quiet return plan would somehow leak, and the Holy Flame Society sent people to intercept her.

That led to the series of events just now.

Xiu Nan shakes his head. In this world where the strong prevail, one must have strong fists to have a say.

The quality of a transcendent’s awakened ability can determine their fate; if the ability is weak, one can only become meat on the chopping block.

But fortunately, he is not just a transcendent.

He is also a Secret Ring Master and an Ancient Rune Master.

And, he has a cheat.

*Tap...* The two come to a sudden stop.

Qiu Lin points to a house in the distance and says:

"We’re here. The people who are meeting us are inside."