Chapter 86: Alice’s Terrifying Gift

On the front line, Abel panted as he led the six soldiers who had already earned their Rank One Archer certification northward to rendezvous with the others. Because the roots were spreading ever farther, their operations in recent days had grown increasingly scattered. Even so, once the soldiers had awakened their bloodline talent, their individual combat strength was excellent. Even if surrounded by three or five corpses, they could still break free with hand-to-hand combat. Add to that the geometric increase in firearm accuracy, and the speed at which the corpses were being cleared was higher than expected.

But even so, things were becoming harder by the day. If the expansion continued at this pace, there would truly not be enough hands to go around. For the first time, Abel felt grateful that someone like Ailis was in the team. At the start, the girl’s role had been limited to sniping Rank Three corpses, while everything else was cleared by him and his men. But now that manpower was short, Ailis often joined in clearing ordinary corpses as well. It was all thanks to her.

“Sir, there’s no sound over there. Could the princess be in trouble?” A soldier beside him asked cautiously. By now, everyone at the base basically addressed Ailis this way, expressing both affection and respect.

“In trouble?” Abel did not even bother turning his head. From the sound alone, he knew this was one of the newly trained soldiers who had just been certified as an archer from the rear. In the early stages, all soldiers had specific duties. The thirty best performers would go to the far rear to receive Thomas’s archer training. To the soldiers, that training was an honor. At first they had not understood it, but once they learned that training in melee weapons could also continue to evolve, each and every one of them threw themselves into it with all their might.

The desire to evolve is the most primitive instinct of any living being. Because of that, these soldiers were sent to the front lines a little later. So when they came over after finishing training, Abel personally led them to familiarize themselves with the terrain. The ones following him were archers; the other five had arrived three days earlier, while this one had just come.

Hearing this, the man beside him joked, “Tell me, under what circumstances would it be a problem?”

“For example... if they ran into more than ten Rank Three corpses?”

“Damn it, can you stop jinxing everything?” The companion beside him rolled his eyes and could not help complaining. “How could that be?”

But Abel still looked relaxed. He spat out the blade of grass he had been chewing and smiled. “You haven’t reached Rank Two yet, so your idea of how formidable the princess is is still fuzzy. Let me tell you seriously: even if it were exactly as you just said, it would still be fine. Those rankings are for us. To her, there’s no real difference between Rank One and Rank Three. Would you bother distinguishing between soldier ants and worker ants? Most people wouldn’t. Because to kill them, the effort required is the same.”

“Hey, hey... isn’t that a bit exaggerated, sir? It feels like listening to a fantasy tale.”

“Heh.” Abel did not continue explaining. After walking a little farther, he raised a hand to stop the others behind him. After more than ten seconds of observation, he nodded. “Mm, we’re here.”

The others looked ahead as well. In the woods before them stood a crowd of corpses, but no one was tense. With their broadened vision, they could see that those corpses were standing stiffly in place. They had seen scenes like this many times before.

“Tsk tsk, this is getting more and more outrageous. How many are there? At least a hundred, right? Not a single one reacted?” Except for the newly arrived soldier, the rest strode forward with bold steps, and the corpses still did not move.

They were already used to the sight. They had long since noticed the wounds on the corpses’ necks where the vocal cords had been cut, and they also knew that behind each corpse’s central nervous system there would be a tiny puncture wound no larger than a needle hole. In other words, these corpses were already dead.

What was eerie was that none of them showed any sign of struggle, and they were standing quite close to one another. Not a single one had reacted, including the Rank Three corpse at the very center.

Seeing this, the soldier who had asked earlier went slightly blank. His companion patted his shoulder and teased, “Still riding high because you just got certified as an archer, and now you’re getting smacked down? First time seeing this, huh? It’s fine. After a few more days, you’ll get used to it.”

“Uh...” The soldier being mocked recalled what his commander had said earlier: “To her, Rank One and Rank Three are basically the same, because the effort required isn’t much.”

So... this wasn’t some fantasy story after all.

“Hmm? David?” Abel called out to a soldier in the distance who was measuring the spread of the roots. That man was one of the few Rank Two archers in the team, the former marksman David.

Among those who had achieved Rank Two in just ten days, there were only five in the base including him, of course also thanks to their having taken higher-grade gene potions at the earliest opportunity.

“Sir!” David stood and saluted. At first, the soldiers had actually been divided into factions; he had originally belonged to Thomas’s side. But after having more and more contact with Abel lately, he had come to respect him more deeply. This guy might have a sharp tongue in daily life, but in command he was a truly formidable officer.

“Where is our princess?” Abel asked with a smile.

“She sent word just now that the leader has returned, and our princess hurried back in a rush!”

“The leader is back?” Abel’s face lit up with delight as well. Although the base had been developing well during these days without the leader, there was always a sense of unease in his heart. Hearing this news now, he finally felt his heart settle back into his belly. He slapped David’s shoulder and laughed. “That’s truly wonderful news. Then let’s finish recording this quickly and head back sooner. Maybe there’ll even be a celebration feast tonight!”

“Yes, sir!” David laughed too.

“Tsk tsk...” Abel looked around and sighed. “Our princess is becoming more and more incredible. Tell me, if there were a thousand here, would the result still be the same?”

“It would still be the same. It would only take a little more time!” David nodded with certainty.

“You’re that sure?”

“Sigh...” David let out a breath. “Sir, you know, every day the princess gives me a new surprise that refreshes my understanding of her from yesterday. Like just now, after hearing the news about the leader, she suddenly appeared right in front of me. Can you imagine that? From the front, almost right up against my face, I only realized she’d come over afterward.”

Abel was also somewhat shocked. It sounded a bit exaggerated. They were all at Rank Two now, with vision twice as broad as before. If they focused, they could even see the needle-hole wounds behind those corpses from a hundred meters away. Yet David was telling him that when a living person approached him from the front, he could not see her...

A trace of longing appeared on David’s face. “Do you think... one day we can reach that level?”

“Well...” Abel scratched his forehead. “Keeping up with the princess is out of the question, but I think the leader will still give us opportunities to grow stronger.”

“Yes!” David nodded in strong agreement. “I believe that too!”

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Two days?

Guo Lang and the others he had brought with him all looked a little dazed. Even Sister Cang, who always kept a cold face, unconsciously bit a finger in surprise. This speed was rather astonishing. Was the profession trial too easy? Or was this person simply too monstrous?

No matter the race, anyone who wished to change professions had to undergo the trial of the Ancient Soul. The figures that appeared differed according to the profession, but one thing was universal: the difficulty was extremely harsh. For ordinary melee professions, it generally took more than twenty days. In his previous life, Guo Lang’s own knight trial took twenty-seven days. In addition to basic examinations of swordsmanship, etiquette, and spiritual faith, there were also simulated scenarios and tasks tailored to the knight’s traits. Magic-using professions were even more troublesome: they had to be tested on foundational theory, complete the engraving of more than three alchemical arrays, and from what he had heard, even write a thesis, as well as finish specific tasks in a virtual setting.

Every step of the trial was extremely strict, because only after becoming a profession holder did one truly count as a transcendent.

But two days? Guo Lang swallowed. He had spent three days just passing the etiquette standard. Ailis possessed royal blood, so the profession she would change into must be one of the four royal professions of the Night Walker family. Compared with ordinary profession trials, its difficulty was no less than several times greater. Yet she had completed it in two days?

He had known the little monster was somewhat abnormal, but wasn’t this a bit too abnormal?

Just as the group stood in shock, Cang Mingyue’s pupils suddenly contracted. She jerked her head toward the rear. The others were startled by her movement and looked over as well. In their line of sight stood a girl in gray sportswear, her hair tied back in a ponytail.

The newcomer had been about to sneak up and cover Guo Lang’s eyes playfully, but as she approached she was interrupted by Cang Mingyue’s reaction. Narrowing her eyes, she looked at Cang Mingyue with some surprise. Since changing professions, this was the first time she had seen anyone react within three meters of her approach.

Meanwhile, a bead of cold sweat slid down everyone’s forehead. Even Ye Zhiqiu looked strangely unsettled. When had this little girl arrived?

Even Cang Mingyue’s expression turned grave. It was not as though she had never dealt with highly agile assassins. The plane she came from was itself a medium- to low-level world, and some great nations there had master assassins of superb skill. But none of them had ever given her the feeling she had now. Three meters—what did that mean? Someone had actually come within three meters of her without a sound. If the other party had meant harm, that distance would already count as the golden range for an assassin’s infiltration.

“You’re truly excellent!” Cang Mingyue rose slowly, her face flushing with fanatic fervor, her whole body trembling ever so slightly.

This is bad! Guo Lang’s expression darkened. Based on his understanding of this woman from his previous life, he naturally knew what that gesture meant. He hurriedly barked, “Sister Cang, the agreement—”

“The agreement refers to teammates!” Sister Cang pointed coldly at Ailis. “She isn’t one, is she? Her fingerprint isn’t on the contract, right?”

Guo Lang’s face instantly turned frightfully grim, and Ailis’s expression also grew cold. With a flip of her hand, a silver dagger appeared soundlessly in her palm. Ever since Guo Lang taught her to kill her first corpse, she had never feared battle, even if this woman felt unusually formidable.

“Second Brother Xie!” Guo Lang knew he could not persuade her, so he could only try that recently acquired boyfriend of less than two days.

“Don’t mess around, Xiaoyue!” Xie Lin finally reacted, reaching out at once to seize Cang Mingyue’s hand and pull her back. “No more of this. She’s a friend!”

Guo Lang and Jiang Liuying were instantly dumbstruck. They discovered that the notoriously cold-blooded Sister Cang, upon hearing those words, first showed a look of struggle, then pouted with obvious reluctance and said, “Oh.”

The two of them immediately looked at Second Brother Xie in a new light. How long had it been? Who would have thought Second Brother Xie possessed such authority. So masculine too—he’d managed to discipline her so well.

“Ailis, come sit here!” Guo Lang beckoned. Though he found it a little astonishing, it was still better to keep the two of them apart for the moment.

“Okay!” Ailis replied obediently, then slowly moved toward Guo Lang. As she moved, she never once exposed her back to Cang Mingyue, remaining extremely calm and composed. That caused another flash of excitement in Cang Mingyue’s eyes, but Xie Lin was gripping her tightly, and at once her face filled again with unwilling frustration.

“Phew...” Only when Ailis came to stand beside him did Guo Lang finally let out a long breath. Laura then ran over and hugged Ailis. Around them, including Thomas, everyone’s gaze toward Cang Mingyue had gained a trace of hostility.

Guo Lang stroked Ailis’s hair as she told him about some trivial matters from the past few days, his face full of a smile. He was not as tense as the others. In truth, even when Sister Cang had just looked ready to strike, he had felt startled but not panicked. Setting aside the fact that he and Ye Zhiqiu were not ornaments, he also had a vague feeling that even if Ailis faced Cang Mingyue alone, she might not necessarily lose.

That feeling made Guo Lang feel almost dreamlike. In his previous life, Cang Mingyue had been one of the Federation’s top figures, gifted beyond measure and surpassed by few. How long had Ailis even been growing? And yet she was already able to stand shoulder to shoulder with such a person?