Chapter 2

"Waiting for your sister again?"

"What do you want to say? I'm warning you! Don't mess with my business, or even as a relative, I won't show you any mercy."

I glanced at him warily, and Cousin Ningyue chuckled and said, "I won't care about your early romance. I have another matter to discuss with you! Do you remember the incident where you used my phone to send mass messages?"

"What do you want to do?"

A few days ago, I took Cousin Ningyue's phone and sent a confession message to all the girls in his class, including the most beautiful English teacher. Cousin Ningyue didn't bother me for several days, but I believed he wouldn't let it go. With his nasty character, the longer he waited, the more severe his retaliation would be.

I looked at this cousin warily, but I didn't see any signs of him grinding his teeth. Instead, he looked quite elated.

This meant that he had probably come up with some unimaginably cruel idea to make me suffer, regretting for the rest of my life the foolish act of using his phone to send those messages.

While I was confronting Cousin Ningyue, a loud rumble suddenly shook the ground, and the entire school building trembled.

"It seems something big has happened!"

"That was so loud, did something explode?"

"It seems to be from the direction of the central mall..."

"Could it be an earthquake?"

Cousin Ningyue and I both froze for a moment. I reacted faster and immediately shouted, "It seems to be in the direction of my house. I'll go first. Cousin Ningyue, tell Xu Liang that I'm not waiting for her anymore..."

Before I finished speaking, I had already run several meters. I would rather stand Xu Liang up than stay with this devilish cousin any longer. Cousin Ningyue called out to me several times, but I didn't dare turn back.

The school building was now filled with screams and cries. All the students and teachers ran out of the classrooms as fast as they could.

Earthquake! Explosion! Save me... Various cries for help echoed through the air.

"It seems to be in the direction of my house!"

For some reason, I suddenly felt very anxious.

My home was very close to the school, usually a ten-minute walk. Running at full speed, it took me only two or three minutes to see the five-story old building where I lived.

Our home wasn't even in a residential complex; it was just a 25-year-old old building. The land was too small and surrounded by high-end properties, not on the street, so it had no commercial value and no developer was interested.

"Where's the building?"

When I saw the old building where I lived, my eyes immediately turned bloodshot, and my whole body trembled. The high-end properties around my home were unscathed, but half of our old building was gone, and my home was in that half.

Even though the old building wasn't completely gone, what difference did it make to me? Even if I was enraged, what I saw wouldn't change. My old building had collapsed!

Today... it's Saturday, and my parents should be at home.

I was almost like a madman, not even looking at the red light on the road, and in a few steps, I was already at the foot of my building. I held my knees and panted heavily. Even running ten thousand meters wouldn't have left me this breathless, but my emotions were too intense to calm down. Half of my old building was gone, as if someone had punched from the sky to the ground, destroying half of the building.

"Damn! What the hell is going on? I've never heard of this building being demolished, and even if it were, we wouldn't be the ones holding out; we would be happy to move!"

I couldn't believe my eyes and rushed to the... site of the old building! When I reached the place that had become a large pit, I saw someone lying on their back at the bottom of the pit. I didn't care about the half of the old building that was still standing and about to collapse, and I quickly rushed down. Although this person wasn't my parents, I wanted to know what had happened, and he was at least a witness.

When I desperately carried the person out of the pit, the half of the old building swayed and collapsed with a loud noise, leaving no hope. I almost forgot I was carrying someone and was about to rush down again to look for more people when the person behind me weakly said, "There's no need to go down. No life can survive the Great Disintegration Spell. Even I had my virtual form shattered, and at least half of my soul was destroyed, reducing my strength to less than thirty percent."

"Great Disintegration Spell? Do you think this is a game or a web novel? I have to save my parents!"

I couldn't control my frustration and fear and roared loudly, but then everything went black, and I lost consciousness.

...

"You're awake? You're really brave, daring to rush down to save people like that."

I opened my eyes, still feeling a bit dizzy. When the memory of fainting flooded my mind, I suddenly jumped up and shouted, "I have to save my parents!" Before I could take a step, he smiled slightly, pointed a finger, and I couldn't move.

I finally noticed there was another person in the room, the one I had saved.

I struggled angrily a few times but was helpless. In my extreme anger, I didn't notice that the method he used to immobilize me was almost magical, incredibly hard to imagine.

I only cared about saving my parents and shouted, "Let me go!"

He looked terrible, his face pale and frightening, coughing continuously, and his chest was covered in blood, clearly from several bouts of coughing. Immobilizing me had also cost him a lot of energy, making him cough again. Despite his obvious weakness, he still had a very "imposing" presence, as if he was naturally different from everyone else, high above, with a very special aura.

"You don't need to go, because your parents..."

He suddenly smiled, pointed at the TV, and without using a remote, the news started playing. The news was about the collapse of our old building.

In the news, the cause of the collapse was reported as a gas leak, and the number of casualties was only nine. The anchor said in the usual indifferent tone, "Since it was Saturday, most people were working overtime, and there weren't many people at home when the explosion happened." I had just relaxed a bit, still holding out some hope, when he hooked his finger and gestured to me.

The screen switched to another scene, showing a morgue with countless bodies lying in horrific conditions, the number definitely exceeding one hundred, making my scalp tingle.