Rules-related weird stories: 4016

At the entrance of Class 13 in Block B, Lin Yi lightly waved his hand, dispersing the sky-blue aura. He carefully sensed the movements outside the door, and when he heard the terrified howling of the Grinning Angels, he couldn't help but reveal a look of confusion.

“That’s not right…”

“What’s not right?” Li Huiyuan asked.

Lin Yi said in a deep voice, “I remember, the Grinning Angels should be chasing the 'Ashen Apostle,' so why are they panicking instead?”

Li Huiyuan asked in confusion, “When did you encounter it?”

“Uh… that’s not the point… I originally wanted to use the Grinning Angels’ characteristic of chasing light to lure them away with that 'Ashen Apostle,' but now…” Lin Yi narrowed his eyes.

Li Huiyuan pursed her lips, both curious and a little afraid: “That’s the so-called 'Ashen Apostle'?”

“Yeah… but not the one I discussed with the teacher,” Lin Yi explained. “It should be ‘made’ by Mountain Man.”

“Mountain Man… who is that again?” Li Huiyuan was a little confused. How could there be so many things she didn't know?

Lin Yi briefly explained the existence of Mountain Man, then continued: “According to my and the teacher’s deduction, Mountain Man should be using this 'Ashen Apostle' to do something… so even though I have the ability to kill it, I chose not to touch it.”

Currently, within the school district, besides the official forces, there are also infiltrating forces present, and coincidentally, some of the pawns within the infiltrating forces are in this layer.

In addition to this, Lin Yi felt that Mountain Man likely had his own selfish motives. In this case, the forces he knew of alone were very complex.

In such a turbulent undercurrent, the situation is very unclear. As an “errand boy” in the perception of unknown existences, before the situation begins to become clear—at least, before he returns to the dormitory at night and learns everything from Tian Bufan—it's better not to show the ability to change the situation…

The water is already murky, and if he stirs it up further, he might instead seize the opportunity to capture some extra information.

Moreover, the performance of this 'Ashen Apostle · Fireman' is far from what he knows about the 'Ashen Apostle.' Could it be because it has just been transformed, or is it because it doesn't even count as an 'Ashen Apostle'?

After all… this seems to be a man-made carrier.

“Wait… a man-made carrier?!”

Lin Yi suddenly froze.

“That’s not right!” he exclaimed. “I thought of it!”

“What?”

“It shouldn’t even be considered an 'Ashen Apostle'!” Lin Yi blurted out, “Huiyuan, I just realized that my thinking might have been limited. It is indeed difficult for living things to carry 'Ashes,' and the risk is extremely high. Could Mountain Man have assembled something like a 'robot vacuum cleaner' to collect Ashes?”

Li Huiyuan suddenly woke up: “Are you saying that the thing just now wasn’t actually an 'Ashen Apostle,' but rather a 'humanoid self-propelled Ash collector'?”

Lin Yi quickly said, “I’m just guessing… In short, I feel that it’s very different from the 'Ashen Apostle' in my impression.”

“And the Grinning Angels are afraid of it, most likely because the Ashes within it are still burning…”

“In any case, one of my purposes is to use it to lure away the Grinning Angels,” Lin Yi said. “Whether it lured away the Grinning Angels or scared them away, at least the result is similar…”

“Shall we go back to the teaching building?” Lin Yi asked, looking down at his watch.

10:12.

The time is actually not early.

The cafeteria opens at 10:40 at noon. It takes 15-20 minutes to go from the teaching building to the cafeteria. With his current pace, 15 minutes might be enough, and after he returns to the teaching building, he also plans to take a look at the corridor bridge leading to the library, and briefly tell the homeroom teacher -040 about what he just discovered.

Time is tight, and the schedule is full. If it's too tight, he might have to put the arrangement to take a look at the library layer on hold until the afternoon.

“Okay, I’ll listen to you,” Li Huiyuan nodded obediently.

Lin Yi then patiently sensed the movements outside. When there was no movement at all, he carefully opened the door.

As soon as the door opened, a Grinning Angel statue appeared at the entrance.

“Ah—” Li Huiyuan screamed in fright, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she quickly covered it.

Lin Yi was also startled, but Li Huiyuan screamed away his scream, so he had no chance to be scared.

“It’s already petrified.”

Lin Yi said with a solemn expression. He summoned the baseball bat and gently tapped the Grinning Angel statue. The Grinning Angel statue shattered into pieces with a “bang.”

“As expected, it has become a dead-body statue…”

“It seems that the firelight emitted from that thing has the properties of an old kerosene lamp…”

Looking at the shattered statue pieces on the ground, Lin Yi frowned slightly. He thought of the scene of the physical education teacher using an old kerosene lamp to pull the Grinning Angel out of the layer. The situation of the Grinning Angel in front of him was somewhat similar to that time, but it was not the new type of Grinning Angel with an hourglass, so it was completely beyond saving. After petrification, it shattered into pieces as soon as it was touched.

Walking out of the classroom, Lin Yi found that there were still many Grinning Angels on the corridor that had completely turned into dead-body statues. These were undoubtedly the work of the 'Ashen Apostle · Fireman,' but it was clear that some had still escaped.

But overall, this road is currently safe beyond belief.

Lin Yi then led Li Huiyuan towards the stairwell near Class 15 in Block B.

Although there was a stairwell next to Class 13 in Block B, Lin Yi did not intend to take that route.

Firstly, although the method of returning the same way was very clumsy, it was the safest route.

Secondly, when the fruit is ripe, everyone gets a share.

Before leaving, he thought about it briefly, and then chose to close the door of Class 13 in Block B.

Because the classroom window over there was broken, there might be some things crawling in from there. Closing the door would at least allow the “door” attribute to intercept some dirty things.

Walking along the corridor for a while, Lin Yi and Li Huiyuan found that scorched black stones appeared in the corridor ahead. The appearance of those stones was like the Taihu stones commonly seen in gardens, but they were much smaller in size, and the whole was also presented in a scorched black color, like small pieces of charcoal left after the wood was burned.

On the surface of the small charcoal, there were also many cracked marks. In those cracks, some scarlet, lava-like substances that seemed to be flowing could be faintly seen.

Those lava-like substances, coupled with the rugged mini Taihu stones, looked like a stone wall with Blood Bodhi growing on it in Wind and Cloud.

Those lava substances exuded an intoxicating fragrance. As soon as Lin Yi saw them, he subconsciously developed a strong desire to possess them.

“Gulp!”

He swallowed hard, but the look of desire in his eyes seemed to overflow.

“These… are these the 'Ashes' that have been collected?” he exclaimed.

Li Huiyuan asked, puzzled, "Linlinzi, where did all this stuff come from?"

It wasn't here a moment ago, but now there's so much more.

"Could it be related to that 'Ashen Apostle'?" she guessed.

Lin Yi shook his head. "No, these people... are what the fanatical believers and Giggling Angels look like after being burned!"

"What?!" Li Huiyuan's face showed shock. "Are you saying they're the ones the fanatical believer teachers ordered to stay behind to attract the Giggling Angels' firepower?"

Lin Yi walked quickly towards the "Blood Bodhi Stone Pillar," explaining as he went, "They absorbed the falling ashes and then self-immolated. The flames from their burning were transferred to the Giggling Angels, burning them to ashes as well."

"And these materialized things should be what the 'ashes' were refined into."

He slowly approached the stone pillar. Before he could even react, the "ashes" within him suddenly became active. Then, before he could do anything, the lava-like substance in the Blood Bodhi Stone Pillar seemed to be attracted, turning into a stream of pure crimson-gold energy and floating out.

"Careful!" Li Huiyuan exclaimed, instinctively wanting to pull Lin Yi away.

But Lin Yi waved his hand to stop her: "Don't be afraid, let me handle this."

When this aura appeared, Lin Yi also felt a strange sensation in his heart. Looking at this ash, it was as if he were looking at a fruit within reach. He reached out and plucked it, and the aura merged into his body…

"This...?!!" Li Huiyuan was stunned, her mouth wide open, unable to speak.

In just a few breaths, Lin Yi had absorbed all the ashes extracted from the Blood Bodhi Stone Pillar in front of him.

Unfortunately, the amount of ash was too small.

He scanned the surroundings, a wicked grin spreading across his face.

First, he released his perception, extending it to the corner of the stairwell to sense the fluctuations in the layers.

Then, he began to plunder these Blood Bodhi Stone Pillars.

When he sensed the Giggling Angels being burned by the ashes, he vaguely guessed the purpose of the bizarre art teacher. Now, seeing these Blood Bodhi Stone Pillars, he was naturally convinced of his conjecture.

He didn't know how the infiltration forces collected the ashes, but the fanatical believers' method of collecting ashes was to use themselves and the Giggling Angels to carry the ashes, treating them as carriers for refining the ashes, ultimately forming such stone pillars.

When the time came, they only needed to find a way to move the entire stone pillar away. As for how many fanatical believers would be re-infected by the ashes in the stone pillar during the transportation process and then burned to ashes, that was unknown.

In short, the fanatical believers' method of collecting ashes was to fill it with their lives…

No wonder they constantly preached about companions with high quality being called "Glorious Evolution," while those with poor quality could only be regarded as consumables necessary for "collecting ashes."

And now, Lin Yi was actually feeling compassionate, unable to bear to see the fanatical believers consume so many of their companions to refine the ashes, and then consume some more companions to transport the ashes. So, with the mentality of "If I don't go to hell, who will?", he tearfully helped them reduce some of the ash inventory…

In a corner of the teaching building, the "Ashen Apostle · Fireman," who was strangling a Giggling Angel's neck, seemed to smell the pure scent of ashes. It suddenly turned its head and looked in a certain direction.

【"Ashes"... the scent of...】

Its body swayed, and it rushed towards Lin Yi's location, carrying the Giggling Angel, its speed so fast that it left a blazing tail of flames behind it.

On the other side, Lin Yi felt a prickling sensation on his scalp, and a strong sense of crisis arose in his subconscious.

Before he could even sense it in reverse, his perception, which had extended into the stairwell, captured the fluctuations in the layers.

So he decisively gave up absorbing the ashes, grabbed Li Huiyuan's hand, and rushed into the stairwell.

But just as he took a few steps, he suddenly thought of something, so he casually broke off a Blood Bodhi Stone Pillar and held it in his hand like a mace.

"Go, go, go! Return to the campus!"

He led Li Huiyuan into the stairwell, and then, not forgetting to go down the stairs along the right-hand side. But as soon as he walked down a few steps, a swarm of Night Walkers gathered over with a "rustling" sound.

Lin Yi didn't even bother using the Commandments. He directly raised the Blood Bodhi Stone Pillar.

"Boom…"

The Night Walkers closest to him were directly ignited, and with a "boom," they were burned to ashes.

The remaining Night Walkers, sensing the aura of ashes in the stone pillar, also retreated in terror, as if they had seen sunlight.

For these low-level things, the lethality of ashes and sunlight was actually not much different.

With the stone pillar clearing the way, going downstairs was much easier.

He led Li Huiyuan around a corner in a turn, and the scene on the 4th floor of the teaching building was quickly only one step away.

Lin Yi crushed the stone pillar in one hand, absorbed all the ashes, and then, before the Night Walkers could react, led Li Huiyuan across the final layer.

Just as the figures of the two disappeared into the layers between the fourth and fifth floors of the teaching building, the Ashen Apostle · Fireman arrived at the corridor.

Looking at the Blood Bodhi Stone Pillar forest that Lin Yi had harvested the first wave of leeks from, there wasn't much human-like disappointment on its face. Instead, it looked around somewhat blankly, seemingly not finding the existence of ashes…

Clearly, the ashes were in the stone pillars next to him, but it just couldn't sense them.

In its world, this was just a rugged miniature stone forest, nothing else.

Following its vague memory, it came to the location where Lin Yi had been. It touched the stone pillar, and a trace of doubt appeared in its eyes.

Just as it was about to turn around and leave, empty-handed, it accidentally touched a Blood Bodhi Stone Pillar that Lin Yi hadn't picked yet, and then, by chance, came into contact with the lava-like substance.

A flash of essence burst out in its eyes, and then it suddenly crushed the stone pillar.

When the stone pillar shattered, the refined ashes were about to turn into powder, but it was only at this moment that the ashes were sensed by it.

It was immediately interested, and then began to destroy all the stone pillars it could "see". It destroyed one and absorbed the ashes contained in one stone pillar. When it encountered a stone pillar that Lin Yi had harvested, there was nothing after it was broken, but it didn't feel disappointed, just destroying and absorbing little by little.

As it continued to absorb the ashes, the veins in its body, which seemed to be cast in red-hot iron, became even more dazzling…