Peering through the dense shrubs, Zhang Yuanqing saw two groups facing off some twenty-odd meters ahead.
One group was a young man and woman, plus a humanoid monster.
The young man wore a tank top, tall and powerfully built, a keen dagger in his hand; the woman was seductively pretty, pinching a small, exquisite brass mirror between her fingertips.
And the monster was covered all over in interwoven black, its knees bent backward, two antennae on its forehead, and the elytra unique to insects on its back.
It resembled an upright-walking cockroach man.
Just now it was staring at the girl facing it, leering, and saying:
"The gu I fused with has a powerful urge to breed. This island-nation girl is a real looker—I'm sure the next little while will be a supreme pleasure."
The young man holding the dagger, his pupils dark red, said coldly:
"I think cutting off that pretty head of hers would be the supreme pleasure."
The girl pinned by those two gazes—one lustful, one bloodthirsty—wore a JK uniform: a white sailor-collar blouse, a black plaid skirt, a black plaid bow, square-toed leather shoes, and black over-the-knee socks.
Behind her were two young men with their backs against a tree trunk, faces sallow and lips pale.
What kind of high-school-girl uniform seduction is this... Zhang Yuanqing looked the island-nation girl up and down again and again, caring little for her delicate, innocent face.
Asano Ryo gripped the island-nation blade with both hands, lips pressed tight. Her hands were steady as Mount Tai, like a seasoned swordsman's, but her taut expression betrayed her inner tension.
The sword in Asano Ryo's hands was the work of the island nation's foremost contemporary bladesmith, Fujiwara Shinichi.
The blade was named Ice Soul. Its edge measured 71 cm, and natural ice-crystal patterns ran along the steel. Its properties were Armor Break and Frost: anyone cut by this blade took the cold into their body and their blood congealed—at best they slowed, at worst they froze to death.
Legend had it that when the blade first came into the world, everything within tens of meters of it froze solid.
Its maker, Fujiwara Shinichi, a Saint-stage Scholar, said with feeling that Ice Soul was one of the works he had been most satisfied with in recent years, of peak Transcendent-stage quality.
Then he turned around and sold it to Asano Ryo's father for five hundred million in island-nation currency.
For the island nation, where Spirit Realm walkers were few, a treasure blade at the peak of the Transcendent stage was indeed an invincible divine weapon.
But at this moment, such a divine weapon could not give Asano Ryo the slightest sense of safety.
Her two companions behind her had carelessly stepped into a trap laid by the Witch Doctor opposite them and were poisoned by gu, unable to fight for the time being. Asano Ryo, one of the heirs of a financial conglomerate, had suppressed the poison in her own body thanks to an item.
But because of that, she had no choice but to face the three of them alone.
Before Asano Ryo entered the killing trial, her elders had warned her again and again: the mainland had countless Spirit Realm walkers—officials, independents, evil organizations, all mixed together—and the killing trial's difficulty was hell mode.
Asano Ryo, among the best of her generation, had entered the killing trial cautious and on guard, never careless, but she had never imagined that barely an hour into the trial she would run into a crisis of life and death.
Worse still, the island nation had so few Spirit Realm walkers that help would be hard to come by.
Six people, thirteen and a half points in total... Zhang Yuanqing held his position and kept watching, while silently summoning Blood Rose and having her close in on this side.
After a dozen seconds of standoff, the woman with the brass mirror seemed to seize an opening. She suddenly raised the mirror upright and aimed it at Asano Ryo.
At the same moment, the cockroach man and the dark-red-eyed young man closed in from left and right on the girl far from her homeland.
Asano Ryo's pupils went blank at once; she stood dumbly in place, caught in an illusion.
From the pocket of her skirt drifted two finely cut paper dogs.
With a hiss, the two paper dogs ignited themselves; the billowing blue smoke swelled and became two great hounds two meters long, which lunged with bared fangs and claws at the enemies attacking from either side.
Shikigami!
A method of commanding spirit bodies handed down in the island nation since ancient times, lost in the modern era—until Spirit Realm walkers appeared, until Night Walkers appeared in the island nation, and the art was developed anew.
The two canine spirit bodies were too low in level; even so, they blocked the enemy for a moment before dissolving into cold wind.
But that brief, fierce clash was exactly the condition needed to break the illusion. Light returned to Asano Ryo's blank eyes; without hesitation she turned and fled in the opposite direction, abandoning her two companions.
Seeing this, the cockroach man's elytra opened, and from within unfolded thin wings as tall as two men. With a buzz they whipped up a gale, and he shot into the air in pursuit of the island-nation girl.
The seductive woman and the young man seemed to cede that prey to him. They walked to the two young men slumped against the base of the tree, each picked one, and finished them off, gaining three points.
The dense trees were like a fence, bad for flying, but the cockroach man, relying on his agile speed, wove and flitted between trunk after trunk, and after a dozen breaths he caught up with his prey.
Asano Ryo, sprinting flat out, suddenly braked hard; her little skirt swung violently with inertia, like a pretty lotus leaf.
She pulled a back-thrust, stabbing Ice Soul behind her.
Her timing was exquisite—at the very instant the enemy was almost on top of her, she gave him a vicious back-thrust.
The Witch Doctor was like a motorcycle at full speed; facing a sudden obstacle, dodging was simply impossible.
The blade covered in ice-crystal patterns struck the enemy cleanly.
But the next instant, the cockroach man shattered like a phantom.
It was only a false image made by illusion.
"Buzz, buzz!"
The sound of beating wings came from overhead, with a wind as strong as a helicopter's rotors.
A black shadow plummeted from the sky, and pitch-black bone claws stabbed at the girl's back.
Fierce, savage light flickered in the cockroach man's eyes.
To him, half-dead or dead but not yet cold were both fine for venting his desires; he would not hold back just because he craved the girl's body.
Splash!
The claws sank into the girl's back—but churned up clear water. Half of Asano Ryo's body had turned to water, immune to physical damage.
She was a Water Ghost.
Having taken the lethal blow on her passive ability, Asano Ryo shifted her step and ran several paces to the left to open the distance. Then a look of resolve flashed through her eyes, and she swung her blade at a small tree beside her.
Crash! The small tree, thick as a bucket, snapped at once and toppled slowly, making a considerable racket.
Asano Ryo's willow brows shot up, and she cried out shrilly:
"If we die, we all die together!"
As the words fell, a gale swept through the impenetrable virgin forest.
Countless branches danced in the gale like tree demons with bared fangs and claws; the surrounding trees seemed to come alive.
No—they truly had come alive.
On a large tree behind Asano Ryo, a human face slowly bulged from the trunk. The face opened its eyes, its eyeballs rolling with a gurgle, and fixed Asano Ryo with a ghastly stare, muttering:
"Eat you... eat you..."
At the same time, face after face surfaced from the surrounding trunks—twelve in all. They stared at the four living people present and murmured in unison:
"Eat you all... eat you all..."
Whap!
A vine sprouting green leaves lashed down at Asano Ryo's head; she cut it off with one stroke.
The pale web of Asano Ryo's thumb split open at once, blood streaming.
More vines, like whips, like tentacles, lashed down from every direction, while thick roots burst through the soft, rotten soil and coiled toward the four living people.
In an instant, the lush green virgin forest became a forbidden zone where every step was deadly.
The four Spirit Realm walkers rolled to dodge the lashes, leaped to avoid the coils, frantic and beset by danger at every turn; and whenever they showed signs of breaking through the encirclement, the tree demons counterattacked madly.
Asano Ryo was the most at ease; the Water Ghost's passive skill took part of the pressure off her.
Unfortunately, a Transcendent-stage Water Ghost could only turn part of her body to water, so it only relieved some of the pressure—it could not let her break out of the tree demons' encirclement that way.
Using the warnings to drag the enemy down with her? Clever. But how could she be sure the tree demons would attack everyone present indiscriminately? She must have tested it before, or had a similar encounter.
Zhang Yuanqing, watching from a distance, still did not act, waiting silently.
"Whap!"
The seductive woman, weakest in physical constitution, was careless for a moment; a vine struck her shoulder, splitting her clothes instantly and tearing her flesh open.
Unable to keep her footing, she staggered forward.
An opening!
Zhang Yuanqing finally seized the moment. Invisible, he dashed out, came up close to the seductive woman, summoned the Explosive Pistol, and pulled the trigger.
The roots bursting from the soil and the vines lashing from all sides covered the sounds he could not hide—the shaking of shrubs as he moved.
Bang, bang, bang.
The woman looked as if she had been struck on the head with a club; her head snapped back slightly, her hair flying up.
The bullets blew off her skullcap, carrying red and white fluid that splattered in every direction.
[Ding! You have killed an Illusionist. You gain 6 points.]
Elsewhere, a vast surge of yin energy rushed before the cockroach man's eyes. The two antennae on his forehead quivered, as if receiving some kind of signal.
Then he saw a female ghost in a splendid bridal robe, her head covered by an embroidered bridal veil bearing the character for "joy," walking slowly toward him out of yin energy thick as black fog.
The instant the bridal ghost was reflected in his eyes, a chill rose along the cockroach man's spine—not a chill of the mind but a physical cold. Right after, he found he had lost control of his body; his limbs went stiff and no longer belonged to him.
His right hand slowly rose, fingers together, up to his temple, like a military salute.
Only a Night Walker could see the bridal ghost pressed against his back, her pale, delicate hand gripping his wrist.
The next second, five fingers tipped with sharp claws drove savagely into his temple.
The cockroach man's amber, slit-pupiled eyes widened, then went unfocused, and his body crashed to the ground.
[Ding! You have killed a Witch Doctor. You gain 3 points.]
Having finished off the Illusionist with the weakest constitution, Zhang Yuanqing summoned the Red Dancing Shoes and activated their second form; dark red gleams wove and danced, wrapping his feet.
Tap, tap, tap. Through the sky-filling lashes he dodged, twisted, and leaped as if passing through an empty land, racing toward the young man with the dagger.
Seeing two companions die without the chance to fight back, the young man clicked his tongue. He knew this was the snipe and the clam locked in combat while the fisherman profited, and the thought of retreat sprouted in his mind at once.
Scarlet light kindled in his eyes, and two twisted, grotesque runes surfaced there.
The enemy pursuing him went blank-faced in an instant.
Idiot. Wait to be lashed to death by the vines. The young man sprang up, dodged a coiling root, twisted aside from a vine's lash, and fled toward the edge of the encirclement.
Tap, tap, tap.
The footsteps behind him did not stop.
The young man faltered, and could not resist turning his head. His eyes went perfectly round, as if he had seen a ghost.
The despicable ambusher had clearly been caught by the bewitchment, his face blank—yet his agility was undiminished, and he avoided the vines and roots with graceful poise.
What the... Seeing that the gap between them had closed, the young man could only swallow his bewilderment and his "what the hell" fury, speed up, and reach the edge of the danger zone.
Suddenly a chill ran down his spine, and then his body slipped from his control; his limbs would not obey, and he simply stood there stiff and upright.
I've been possessed... The young man realized his situation at once.
He gathered his spirit and concentrated his will, trying to drive out the possessing spirit body and take back his body—Whap! A vine lashed over and struck the back of his head, splitting his scalp so blood dripped down through his hair.
Whap! Whap! Whap!
More and more vines lashed the young man's chest, back, waist and belly, and head, until he was a man of blood.
Zhang Yuanqing's spirit body returned to its place. He raised the muzzle and, before the young man could be lashed to death, put a bullet through the back of his head and ended his life.
[Ding! You have killed a Bewitching Demon. You gain 6 points.]
Not far away, Asano Ryo saw this and gaped, nearly forgetting to dodge the vines.
Three evil professions, dead just like that? In less than a minute? Who is he—Zhao Chenghuang of the Taiyi Sect, or Yuanshi Tianzun, the one who had recently risen in the Five Elements Alliance?
Or some other young expert of the Taiyi Sect?
Asano Ryo's heart hammered wildly; she was shocked and afraid.
Not bad—fifteen points added all at once. It seemed the proper way for an orthodox profession to farm points was to let the evil professions kill walkers of their own camp first, then jump out to "uproot evil and uphold good." Zhang Yuanqing swung the muzzle around, aimed at a nearby tree demon, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet blasted a deep crater in the trunk and blew apart that hideous face.
Dark red blood flowed from the trunk; the face's expression froze and lost its spirit, like an ordinary wooden carving—but soon an identical face bulged out from the other side of the trunk, roaring in fury:
"Eat you... eat you..."
Vines and tree trunks shot toward Zhang Yuanqing.
So the Wood Demon could only be dealt with by cutting the tree down or burning it... Seeing this, Zhang Yuanqing gave up the idea of shooting more, but he did not summon the Yinyang Robe to burn the tree demons either.
He did not intend to kill these tree demons for points.
This trial was very strange; it gave contradictory information. The noticeboard warned against using fire and blades, while the mountaineer had hinted that he should set the mountain ablaze.
From his experience, this should be a choice of camps.
Burn the mountain, and he would be choosing the mountaineer's camp.
Follow the warnings, and he would be choosing this great mountain.
According to the Spirit Realm briefing, choosing the Lost City—that is, the mountaineer's camp—should be the wise move, but Zhang Yuanqing felt he should not choose a camp so early.
So he would rather give up the points.
With his strength, there was no need to risk himself for points; let the evil professions do it, and he would harvest them later.
Having thought it through, Zhang Yuanqing sent his spirit body out again and gave the Red Dancing Shoes the order to carry his physical body out of the tree demons' encirclement, while his spirit body went to the corpses, peeled out the souls lingering in the flesh, wrapped them in lunar energy, and carried them out of the danger zone.
"Save me, save me, please don't go, save me..."
Asano Ryo's pure, delicate face was full of desperation, her eyes brimming with pleading.
As a girl from the island nation, shouldn't your proper way of begging for help be to bow and say, "Arigatou gozaimashita"? Zhang Yuanqing's spirit body glanced at her and drifted away unhurried.
Once the girl was dead, he would come back to collect her remnant soul.
He soon found his physical body in the distance, returned his spirit to it, and after dancing a round with the Red Dancing Shoes, Zhang Yuanqing opened the leaderboard.
[1: A'yi, Witch Doctor, level 3, 89 points]
[2: Zhao Chenghuang, Night Walker, level 3, 80 points]
[3: I Alone Am Supreme, Water Ghost, level 3, 75 points]
[4: Sun Miaomiao, Night Walker, level 3, 73 points]
[5: Dropout Fish, Scout, level 3, 68 points]
[6: Jiang Jingwei, Fire Master, level 3, 60 points]
[7: My Fate Is Mine, Not Heaven's, Illusionist, level 3, 55 points]
[8: Yuan Ting, Night Walker, level 3, 50 points]
[9: All Under Heaven Is White, Bewitching Demon, level 3, 44 points]
[10: Long Live the White Tiger, Scout, level 3, 40 points]
"These bastards—if there really is a camp choice, then every damn one of them has picked the Lost City camp. If you don't kill tree demons and only kill people, there's no way to rack up points this high."
Zhang Yuanqing scanned the rest of the list and found his own ranking.
[22: Yuanshi Tianzun, Night Walker, level 3, 20 points]
Out of habit he checked Guan Ya's ranking:
[70: Guan Ya, Scout, level 3, 6 points]
As long as she's alive, that's what matters. No idea where she is. Ah, I hope I can find her soon... As Zhang Yuanqing thought this, he suddenly noticed the entry below Guan Ya's:
[71: World Returns to Fire, Fire Master, level 3, 5 points]
"This guy..."
There was no doubt World Returns to Fire had noticed something off; otherwise, with his strength, he could not possibly be ranked only 71st.
"I only discovered the contradiction through my conversation with the mountaineer. Who knows what method World Returns to Fire used. Zhao Chenghuang is intensely competitive; if his goal is to overtake A'yi, he won't worry about such things. Same for Sun Miaomiao and Yuan Ting... As for Jingwei, she probably hasn't thought that far. Mm, I need to find her soon too."
"As for the evil professions, most of them don't care about camp choice. Even if they notice the contradiction, they won't care—just get points and be done with it. Points matter most."
Thinking this, Zhang Yuanqing closed his eyes and silently devoured the five spirit bodies inside him.
He wanted to see what information these people had gathered in the trial, especially the warnings.
By his guess, collecting all the warnings should let him deduce something from them—perhaps figure out the main quest of the outer layer, and determine whether there really were two different camps.
The five remnant souls turned into pure soul power and poured into his sea of consciousness like a mountain flood, scouring Zhang Yuanqing's sense of self.
Fragments of memory flashed past like a revolving lantern.
Zhang Yuanqing's face went pale as he felt the pain of a soul being torn apart; his self-awareness as "Zhang Yuanqing" wavered under the wash of memories that were not his own.
ps: Typos will be fixed after posting, first update then edit.
Chapter 247