Chapter 122

Chapter 123: You all deserve to die

The moment the Magibeast entered the hall, the already broken crowd collapsed further.

Little Jia’s heart hammered as if it would jump out of his chest. He shoved aside the adults in front of him and pulled the other five children toward the west wooden door.

There was a matching wooden door on the east side, but that one had already been smashed apart by a Magibeast.

On tiptoe, Little Jia pushed open the door. A corridor lay behind it, with four rooms around it. One room was a bathroom.

He gave a quick order as he stuffed the kids inside: “Get in and hide. Unless this place is caving in, do not run out. Got it?”

Little An heard what he was really saying and grabbed his arm to ask: “Where are you going?”

Little Jia answered without blinking: “I’m going to find Qian Qi. We changed spots, so she won’t find us here.”

He had to go back to the original place so Qian Qi could find them.

Little Min’s voice wobbled as she begged: “But it’s dangerous outside. What if you can’t find her?”

Little Jia patted her head, wiped her tears, and tried to comfort her: “If I can’t find her, I’ll come right back. Qian Qi is strong. Maybe she already took down the Magibeasts.”

He held out his pinky and reminded her: “Remember what Dean Mother taught us about hiding from Magibeasts? Little Min needs to be brave now. I’m leaving the job of protecting the others to you. Can you do it?”

Little Min sniffed, hooked her pinky to his, and said: “Okay. If this place starts to fall, I’ll get everyone out.”

Little Jia nodded, told the others to guard Little Min, and then gritted his teeth and rushed back out.

The hall had turned into a slaughterhouse. Black Magibeasts were butchering people at will, strings of blood hanging from their mouths. Outside beasts shoved in as well. One smashed its fist through the cashier window, yanked out the clerk, and stuffed him into its mouth.

Some people had stopped fighting. They cradled the children crushed to death in their arms and wept in despair. Two E level Awakener security guards attacked a beast, but it killed them with ease.

D level.

Little Jia guessed the Magibeasts’ rank at once. He didn’t know if Qian Qi could handle D level foes, but finding her mattered most right now.

He swallowed his terror of the beasts and his disgust at the shattered bodies. With more people dead, his field of view opened up. He even spotted Little Min’s dropped doll.

The fragile doll lay there headless. The pretty doll head must have been kicked away by the crowd. Only the body remained, the white joint at the neck exposed and cold.

If the head was still around, maybe they could wash and stitch it back on later. Little Min might not mind.

But he would have to wait until they were safe to search for it.

Little Jia dragged his eyes away and sprinted toward the spot where they had waited before. He figured if Qian Qi came looking, she would stop there.

He didn’t know why, but if it had been the old, awful Qian Qi, he wouldn’t have trusted her to come. The Qian Qi now made him believe she would.

Sure enough, Qian Qi stood in their old spot. She looked frantic, shouting at the air, clumsy and nothing like her usual calm.

What a dummy. What was she doing?

Seeing her talk to nothing, Little Jia almost laughed. He waved hard and called out at the top of his lungs: “Qian Qi, over here!”

Great, she’s alive too. He was going to brag to her that he had protected his younger siblings.

He still remembered that she called him a little rascal, and he held grudges.

Hearing his voice, Qian Qi snapped her head around. Her eyes brightened when she saw him, and she sprinted straight toward him.

Little Jia ran to her too. He forced himself not to look at the broken bodies on the ground. All he wanted was to reach Qian Qi’s arms.

Halfway there, he saw something flash in Qian Qi’s eyes. A look called fear twisted her face.

What was Qian Qi afraid of?

It hurts.

Those were Little Jia’s last three words inside his mind.

Qian Qi screamed, raw and furious: “No!”

Red flooded her disbelieving eyes. She watched as the smaller Magibeast charged Little Jia, dropped its paw, and crushed his head.

His thin body wobbled and fell. Bright blood trickled from the white joint of his neck and ran toward the nearby headless doll, staining its cold white support rod red. For a second, it was hard to tell if the blood came from Little Jia or from the doll without a head.

They lay still, and the noise of the world no longer had anything to do with them.

Qian Qi roared, voice shaking with rage: “You piece of trash!”

Scarlet swelled in her gaze. Endless killing intent surged up like a tide. She threw both fists up and smashed them into the small Magibeast.

They had been only a few steps apart. If only she had run faster. If only she had-

There were no ifs.

Like someone gone mad, Qian Qi poured all her strength into her fists. She even forgot to eat a Defense Fruit. With flesh and bone alone, she faced the D level Copper-scale Beast and, in a frenzy, punched open its belly and ripped out its organs.

“You dare kill him,” Qian Qi snarled as she beat the small Copper-scale Beast again and again. When it dropped in pain, she snatched up a table and rammed a table leg through its eye.

Even that didn’t cool the fire inside her.

She did not dare turn back to look at the body of the boy who always talked like a little old man. Her head throbbed. A collapsing wave of Psychic Power battered her reason, shaking the last of her clear mind and trying to turn her into a savage monster that would destroy everything here.

She lifted her head. Red veins had already drowned her eyes. Her face twisted, her eyelids pulled wide, and for a moment she looked more terrifying than a Magibeast.

She ripped the bloody table leg free and stared at the huge Copper-scale Beasts gathering, drawn by the smaller one’s screams.

An unstoppable hunger to kill burned through her body, howling to smash them all to pieces.

Her grief-struck gaze flickered, and for a heartbeat it turned into a strange smile. With low, broken laughter and a thin, crying edge, her face warped and ugly.

She spoke in a voice as cold as steel: “Magiplants and Magibeasts don’t belong in this world.”

She bared her teeth and promised: “You all deserve to die.”