The night of the 13th Street was torn apart.

  The dozens of massive black speaker pylons stood like a pack of tireless metal beasts, continuously vomiting industrial noise into the slums. The low-frequency hum penetrated the walls, causing ripples in the water cups on the tables.

  Bone walked over, carrying a massive, bizarrely shaped contraption on his shoulder. It was a "Super Loudspeaker" cobbled together from twenty scrapped car stereos, three giant cinema subwoofers, and a tangle of wires.

  John stood on the rooftop, clutching a makeshift microphone.

  "Grace, is the power connected?"

  "Connected! Hardwired directly to the residual power of the Tesla Tower! Power output 100%!" Grace's holographic projection blurred from the noise interference.

  John took a deep breath. Even with cotton stuffed in his ears, he could still feel the nauseating resonance in his heart.

  "Since they want to listen, let's let them listen to this."

  Bone slammed down the switch.

  John's Super Loudspeaker roared to life. But it wasn't playing music, nor was it shouting curses.

  He played a recording.

  It was a low-frequency roar Bone had recorded in the sewers—the mating call of Big Croc (the crocodile). After Grace's tuning, the frequency was extremely low and the penetration power was maximized. It didn't sound like a roar; it sounded like a drill. It felt like an invisible bit boring directly into the marrow of one's bones.

  Two massive sound waves collided in mid-air.

  There was no explosion. Instead, a more terrifying phenomenon occurred—Sonic Interference.

  The air began to visibly distort. The smoke that should have risen straight up was pressed flat against the ground by the sound waves.

  The Guild's speaker pylons began to shake violently.

  "It's working!" Bone shouted excitedly. "That pylon is wobbling!"

  John clenched his fist. As long as they could use the resonance principle to topple a few pylons, the defense line would break.

  Just as the pylon was about to fall.

  A pale blue light curtain suddenly lit up around the pylon. It was a Phase Shield, and one specifically optimized for sonic attacks.

  Immediately after, the indicator lights atop the pylons turned red.

  [Warning: High-intensity sonic counterattack detected. Initiating Adaptive Noise Cancellation Mode.]

  The mechanical electronic voice rang out.

  In the next second, the sound from the pylons changed.

  They no longer emitted simple noise. Instead... they emitted a sound wave exactly identical to the roar from John's side, but with a completely inverted phase.

  Active Noise Cancellation.

  It was like putting on a pair of expensive noise-canceling headphones. The two sound waves met in the air—peak met trough—and instantly... canceled each other out.

  The world went silent for a second.

  Then, the Guild's speakers ramped up the power.

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  This time, they didn't emit low frequency. They unleashed a piercing high-frequency screech.

  It sounded like fingernails scratching a blackboard, amplified ten thousand times.

  John screamed, covering his ears and falling to his knees. All the speakers on his Super Loudspeaker exploded in that instant, billowing black smoke.

  "We lost..." Grace cried out in despair. "Their algorithm is too fast! Our equipment can't keep up with their frequency shifting!"

  They were arrogant, but never stupid. After suffering a loss once (the Tesla Tower), they had made foolproof preparations. Faced with absolute technological and resource superiority, John's makeshift methods were like children's toys.

  The noise swept back in, more violent than before.

  From the clinic came Margaret's painful groans. Bone rolled on the ground, clutching his skull. The entire neighborhood was on the verge of collapse under the sonic torture.

  John lay on the ground, looking at the pile of smoking scrap metal.

  He had lost thoroughly.

  "No... it can't end like this..."

  With trembling hands, John pulled out the Yin-Yang iPad.

  On the screen, his Merit Points were still a blinding 0. New Currency was also 0.

  He couldn't afford to call for backup.

  But, he still had one card left to play.

  It was an [Emergency Contact List] that Daoist Singularity had secretly stuffed into the iPad's system backend before leaving. It was a list of "Special Category Heroic Spirits." These spirits were rarely summoned by proper necromancers due to their eccentric personalities or niche abilities, so... their appearance fees were dirt cheap.

  Sometimes, as long as you could satisfy their strange quirks, they would even work for free.

  John's fingers swiped frantically across the screen.

  He needed someone who could counter sound.

  Someone with a voice louder than these industrial machines.

  Someone... who could scream the sky down.

  His gaze stopped on a name.

  It was a fictional Heroic Spirit from the concept of Eastern Kung Fu cinema—a woman who lived in the marketplace, possessing the most robust vitality and explosive power.

  [Responder: The Landlady (The Lion's Roar Inheritor)]

  [Cost: Extremely Low (As long as you let her curse to her heart's content).]

  [Note: Extremely bad temper. Summon with caution.]

  John gritted his teeth. He was gambling. Gambling that this woman's voice was harder than the Guild's speakers.

  "Come out! Curse them to death for me!"

  He pressed the summon button.

  [Responder: The Landlady.]

  [Summon Tag: Rent Arrears.]

  A red light, filled with the scent of fireworks and even a hint of cooking oil, exploded on the rooftop.

  There was no holy BGM. There was only a full-throated roar that came out before the person even appeared:

  "WHICH BASTARD ISN'T SLEEPING AT THIS HOUR?! WHAT ARE YOU SCREAMING ABOUT?!"

  The light dissipated.

  A middle-aged, overweight woman wearing white silk pajamas, her hair full of curlers, and a cigarette dangling from her mouth, stood before John with her hands on her hips.

  As soon as she appeared, the suffocating industrial noise around them seemed to stall for a second.

  She looked around, saw the smoking speakers, saw John and Bone rolling in pain on the ground, and finally, her gaze locked onto the row of black metal pylons roaring in the distance.

  The Landlady spat out the cigarette butt. In her eyes, heavily shadowed with makeup, a fury ignited that was more terrifying than any warrior's.

  It was the Bed Rage of someone whose sleep had been disturbed.

  "I haven't heard such an ugly racket even down below (in Hell)!"

  She strode to the edge of the rooftop.

  Facing the dozens of sonic weapons capable of shattering glass, she didn't use any spells, nor did she form any hand seals.

  She simply did one thing.

  In that instant, John felt as if all the air in the vicinity was being sucked into her not-so-large body. Her chest expanded like bellows, and her seemingly bloated figure suddenly radiated a terrifying pressure.

  "Bone... cover your ears..." John used his last bit of strength to warn.

  The Landlady opened her mouth.

  "SHUT——UP————————!!!"

  A visible, fan-shaped wave of white sound erupted from the Landlady's mouth.

  It was like a tsunami, instantly submerging the row of black metal pylons.

  Phase Shields? Sound-absorbing armor? Adaptive Noise Cancellation?

  In the face of this unreasonable [Lion's Roar], composed purely of human lung capacity and rage, they were all as fragile as paper.

  CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

  In the roar, the glass on the expensive sonic speakers shattered, the metal twisted, and the precision components inside were vibrated into powder.

  Even the metal pylons anchored into the ground were uprooted by the immense force and sent flying backward.

  The world went quiet.

  Only the echo of metal crashing in the distance remained.

  John stared blankly at the back of the figure standing at the edge of the roof, still panting heavily.

  For the first time, he felt that... cursing in the street could be so cool.

  The Landlady turned around, glanced at John, and with a look of disdain, pulled a bill out of her pocket.

  "Alright, don't just stand there stupidly. That scream just now cost you 500. Also, is the water pipe in this house leaking again? Don't forget to pay rent next month!"

  With that, she yawned and turned into a red light, disappearing.

  Leaving only John and Bone, messy in the wind.

  "Boss..." Bone climbed up from the ground, reattaching his jaw. "Does... does that count?"

  John looked at the mess of the Guild's construction site, the corner of his mouth twitching.

  "As long as we win... anything counts."

  [Message from Singularity]

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