Chapter 435: Fury Unleashed in the Wasteland

Chila…

In Lu Xin’s mind, there rang a sound as grating as fat sizzling upon a hot pan.

A slight dizziness took over his head, as if something within were mending itself.

Meanwhile, Lu Xin watched in astonishment as the spears, swords, and even that halved guillotine blade—once severing him nearly in two—wiped out from his body at blinding speed.

They gradually turned into dust-like fragments of mental radiation, dissipating into the surroundings.

At the same time, his wounds were vanishing.

It was a cognitive injury—a hurt felt because one perceived harm.

But the human mind has an innate corrective function, one that realigns false perceptions to reveal the truth.

Thus, as his consciousness corrected itself, the injuries faded away.

All that remained were a few gashes where his flesh had been cleaved by mental force.

Not too serious.

However…

How was it that he had successfully blocked the enemy’s attack, yet the Doll behind him had gone silent?

Lu Xin was taken aback.

Just as he was about to turn and remind her of her duty,

he whipped his head around and was stunned by a sight he’d never seen before—a Doll unlike any he had known.

Her porcelain-like face, now flushed red with anger,

sparkled with tears welling in her eyes.

“What are you…”

Lu Xin managed to ask, a mix of confusion and care in his tone.

But the Doll said nothing; her angry gaze fixed intently ahead.

Whoosh!

A fierce gust erupted as a surge of potent mental turbulence burst forth, carrying an impact like ignited gunpowder.

Under the boost of this chaotic mental force, the Doll shot forward like a lightning bolt.

“Ah, geez…”

Even Lu Xin couldn’t help but look up in astonishment.

He saw that an ever-growing mass of mental energy was gathering around the Doll, coalescing into a formidable force field—a power source at her beck and call.

In mere moments, she sped off like a cannonball, already some forty or fifty meters ahead.

Her black skirt billowed gracefully as she appeared before a statue.

This statue, the guardian of the Disaster Museum, still held the pose of having just thrown down its weapon, its movements yet to recover; noticing the Doll now before it, it stiffly raised its head under the force field’s influence.

Smack!

Before the statue could react, the Doll swung her parasol with force, striking its head squarely.

The move was identical in vigor to the way she had once pounded on stones along the mountain road.

Only, while stones remained stubbornly unfazed,

this statue was not nearly so lucky. Empowered by a raging mental force field, every strike from the Doll unleashed a torrent of raw energy, battering the statue solidly.

Whether real or a mere illusion of mental radiation,

the seven or eight-meter tall statue crumbled into ruins in an instant.

It wasn’t a fragile parasol at all—it was like a massive sledgehammer.

In front of the Doll, the statue barely had time to crack before shattering into splinters.

…

The savage scene filled Lu Xin’s view; even from afar, he was shaken.

But it wasn’t over. With breathtaking fluidity, the Doll’s assault continued. After shattering one statue, her body, buoyed by a surrounding mental force field, spun into the air, the hem of her skirt fanning out into a perfect circle.

In a flash, she zipped through another twenty meters, arriving before yet another statue and toppling it as well.

Crash!

That statue too disintegrated into debris.

Even at such speed, the Doll seemed unsatisfied; she soared upward once more, her angry cheeks puffed in frustration.

It was as if an adorable little girl, when mad, resembles a toad—both pouting fiercely.

Puffed up and irate,

the Doll gripped her parasol with both hands, aiming it at the remaining statues.

Boom!

She unfurled the parasol, and the mental energy around her began to swell.

Yet this time, opening the parasol wasn’t meant to unleash a simple mental surge.

Her determined face was set as the parasol spun, flinging out countless minuscule, yet incredibly dense, mental orbs at breakneck speed—each one packed with kinetic force akin to a bullet.

The sheer number was overwhelming, like a barrage that blanketed the wasteland, targeting one statue after another.

Bang, bang, bang, bang…

It seemed as if the Doll wasn’t wielding a parasol at all, but rather a multi-barrel rotary cannon disguised as one.

Endless streams of mental bullets rained out in every direction.

Across the ground, dense, dark-red waves of mental turbulence surged forth, like splatters of red ink exploding in clear water. One statue after another was demolished, debris scattering everywhere—a strangely magnificent spectacle.

Within seconds, all the statues that had encircled Lu Xin and his group in the wasteland were obliterated.

Not only were these statues completely destroyed, but the patterned mental radiation that had woven itself around the Disaster Museum also descended into utter chaos, collapsing outward in rings from the Doll.

It was like the orderly threads of a textile machine being violently tangled and torn apart, reduced to a mess.

At the center of this chaos, the Doll stood red-faced and furious, ready to strike anyone who annoyed her.

…

“Damn it…”

Lu Xin’s mouth gaped open, unable to close for a long moment.

Could mental power really be exploited in such a way?

In theory, it seemed possible to compress mental power into tiny spheres and then release them sequentially.

This method would yield highly effective, lethally potent mental bullets.

But theory is one thing—who in their right mind could manipulate mental energy with such precision and terror?

It appeared that only the Doll had that capability.

Lu Xin couldn’t help but recall his Mom’s words about the Doll: “In her presence, whose mental power it is becomes irrelevant.”

That statement could be rephrased, indeed.

When it came to mental energy, the Doll simply defied all reason.

With a wry sigh, he suddenly thought, “If she’s this formidable, why did they ever make me carry a rusty pole to move stones?”

…

“What on earth are these two monsters?”

Witnessing the Doll’s parasol demolishing the statues with brute force, Qin Ran broke out in a cold sweat.

He knew firsthand the formidable self-defense mechanisms of the museum.

Although he had never underestimated these two for daring to barge into Happy Town,

seeing the Doll’s utterly unreasonable destruction of the world left him terrified.

How could such a little girl wield so much destructive power?

The Technology Church had long been aware that Qinggang harbored an S-level Ability User. They nearly clashed with her four years ago, but based solely on her profile they had assumed dealing with her would be trivial—until they witnessed this savage scene.

One couldn’t help but panic.

There’s a vast difference between reading data and witnessing it in person.

And then there was Lu Xin.

Under the assault of the punitive statue’s cognitive attack, he knew all too well how terrifying it could be.

Inside the museum, such attacks were as real as any physical harm.

That man had seen through the true nature of the Disaster Museum and understood that the punitive statue’s assault was merely a mental effect—though the inflicted damage was slightly mitigated, it was still utterly horrifying.

At the very least, the pain and panic in that moment were indistinguishable from real injury.

Yet, despite being overwhelmed by the statue’s weaponry, he appeared completely unfazed.

…

Creak…

A grating sound echoed around, like a massive building starting to crumble under its own weight.

It was the sound of an entire world on the brink of collapse.

This girl had shattered the museum’s defenses, and the aftermath had inflicted severe damage on the museum itself.

It was nearly to the point of injuring the museum’s very being.

…

“Seems like this lazy act just won’t cut it…”

Qin Ran took a deep breath as he watched the Doll streak back toward Lu Xin; clenching his teeth fiercely,

he could no longer hold back as he strode forward.

As he advanced, he drew a gun and pressed it against his chin.

With a hint of regret, he ran a hand along his face.

Then, he fired.

“Bang!”

In the midst of the surrounding chaos and clamor, the sound of his shot was barely noticeable.

A bloodied hole appeared in his head; his collapsing body was almost inconsequential.

But the moment his body hit the ground, a blood-red tree sprouted at an extraordinary speed.

Its trunk grew thick and gnarled, while long branches shot out rapidly.

“I might be the unluckiest Ability User in this world…”

On the trunk, as if stripped of its skin, dark-red muscle tissue split apart to reveal a face.

Qin Ran’s face wore a bitter smile as he tried to console himself, “But maybe not.”

“After all, the original me might have died a long time ago…”

…

“Hahaha…”

Amused by his own dark humor, he burst into hearty laughter.

Amid his laughter, his body began to grow uncontrollably as vines—almost alive—crept out to explore the surroundings.

Around him, people were everywhere.

The destruction wrought by the Doll had shattered much of the surrounding mental force field, and many bottles lay broken.

Countless individuals, who had emerged from those bottles back into reality, were now cloaked in agony, sitting or kneeling in despair.

Yet in that instant, an intangible power surged outward, straightening their bodies abruptly and lifting their heads high before, in the next moment, drawing them into mid-air, suspended some seven or eight meters above the ground.

It was like a dense cluster of vines festooned with eerie, sinister fruit.

These fruits piled up relentlessly.

At first glance, it resembled an inverted, decaying sea that spread out from the edge of vision—a sight that sent shivers down one’s spine.