Chapter 42: Venom Fang & Flame Demon

“Nothing much. Praising your opponent is praising yourself. You might be quite powerful, but it’s unfortunate for you that you met me today.”

“Oh? Is that so?” Reimu casually asked with a smile, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Hehe! I know you’re a formidable warrior above the Saint level. In a direct confrontation, I’d probably be killed within a few moves. But I’m not that stupid to fight someone like you head-on. Hehe.” The cloaked man continued with an unpleasant laugh. “See the people around you? They’re all still alive. However, their consciousness has been controlled by me through a certain method. What will you do if they attack you? Hehehe!”

“Despicable bastard!… Captain!” Isaya gritted her teeth in fury at the cloaked man. After realizing the people surrounding them, she anxiously turned to Reimu.

“I see. So you plan to use them to attack me?” Reimu nodded slightly.

“Exactly. Among these people are not only adventurers who entered Sandral Forest, but also many representatives from the survival competition academies, and even some local nobles from Casares. Hehe! In this way, you won’t be able to fight back, right? Well then, before you die, remember my name! My name is…”

However, before he could finish introducing himself, his voice abruptly stopped. If someone could see his expression at that moment, they would find his pupils suddenly constricted, and his entire body turned into a state of utter horror.

Because just now, Reimu had casually swung his right hand, not only neutralizing the attacks launched by the dozen or so manipulated individuals into nothingness, but also slicing their bodies into pieces in an instant!

Plop! Blood sprayed into the sky from the shattered bodies.

“You… you…” The brutal scene beyond limits pushed the cloaked man, who hadn’t managed to announce his name, to the brink of mental collapse. He stared at Reimu with wide eyes, tongue-tied, unable to utter anything but “you.”

“Hehe, what a pity. I really have no interest in the names of trash,” Reimu coldly chuckled, slowly walking toward the cloaked man.

“Attack! All of you, attack!” The immense pressure brought by Reimu finally made the cloaked man completely lose it. He screamed hysterically, sending the nearly hundred-strong group around him charging at Reimu while he scrambled to escape on all fours.

However, the cloaked man only heard a series of sounds behind him, similar to tearing cloth. Then, he collided with a solid object. The cloaked man nervously looked up, and his terrified expression froze instantly on his face again. What appeared before him was none other than Reimu, wearing a sinister smile!

After all, these are just low-quality fakes controlled by drugs. The enjoyment of the game is still far from that of real Hunji.

“You… you…” The cloaked man turned his head robotically, and what appeared in his eyes was only a horrifying landscape of blood and corpses. All 117 puppets he controlled had been completely slaughtered by this man in the blink of an eye.

“Devil! You’re a dev…” The cloaked man’s voice was abruptly cut off again. This time, it wasn’t because he was scared, but because he was neatly sliced from head to toe into two halves.

“Hehe, yes, I am a devil. But it’s still annoying to be seen as a monster even by my own kind. Don’t you think so, Isaya?” Reimu, unmoved, wore a sinister smile as he looked at his female aide.

“Ugh!” Isaya, horrified by Reimu’s incredible carnage, quickly turned around, but immediately couldn’t help feeling nauseated and rushed to the side to vomit violently.

“Hmm? Did I go a bit too far this time?”

“Captain! Those people were innocent,” Isaya, barely lifting her head, argued loudly with Reimu.

“Perhaps.” Reimu approached Isaya, gently shaking his finger. “Isaya, you’re not up to the task. As a member of the Falcon Guards, if you can’t even handle this level of slaughter, you should consider quitting early.”

“What… what?” Isaya looked at Reimu in shock.

“Hehe… Do you know why the Falcon Guards exist? What kind of things have they been doing all along? And why did I join such an organization?” Reimu looked at Isaya with a half-smile, his tone somewhat eerie. “If you still hold the naive belief that this is a pure organization, then escape while you still can. This isn’t a world where a child can survive.”

“Yes, Captain.” Isaya clenched her teeth hard, forcing herself to stand straight while suppressing her nausea, unflinchingly meeting Reimu’s gaze. “Although I don’t agree with all of your actions, as your subordinate, I will mentally prepare myself to endure everything and will never let such an embarrassing incident happen again.”

“Is that so? Good then.” Reimu smiled happily.

“Captain, the enemy you just killed doesn’t seem to be a subordinate of the Syndicate,” Isaya, having made up her mind, immediately assumed her role and dutifully fulfilled her duties as an aide.

“Hehe. That’s normal. No matter how grand a banquet is, there will always be some appetizers. They won’t cause us much trouble; instead, they add to the fun of the banquet. Well then, let’s go. We need to make up for the time wasted by these trash.” Reimu smiled as he looked toward a deeper part of the jungle.

Meanwhile, having returned to a location less than a few kilometers away from Reimu and his group, Zhang Wen’s party also accelerated their pace, running deeper into the jungle.

Although a sense of unease lingered in Zhang Wen’s heart, nothing unusual happened during the rest of their journey. They didn’t even encounter one of the troublesome beasts rumored to be active at night.

“Attention, we’re less than a thousand meters from the target,” Linoa finally stopped after a long period of darkness, whispering to the others in the group.

Unlike Zhang Wen and his group, who were preparing to launch a night ambush, the group from Moore Academy, who had just defeated a team from Almexius Academy, clearly had no desire to rush their journey. After nightfall, they immediately stopped moving and set up camp.

In the pitch-black environment, the distance of a thousand meters couldn’t prevent Zhang Wen from seeing the light of the campfire in the distance through layers of trees. “Everyone, be careful,” Zhang Wen quietly instructed, stepping to the front of the group and leading everyone forward cautiously.

Soon, the group had approached to within a hundred meters of the target. Zhang Wen raised his hand and made two gestures. By the light of the campfire, the others immediately understood and nodded, quickly scattering to both sides of the camp as previously discussed.

“Zhang… Zhang teacher, you… you can put me down now,” while everyone else was moving away from the camp, a hushed and flustered voice came from behind Zhang Wen—Jaliet.

“Eh?” Zhang Wen was momentarily stunned, then realized that his attention had been too focused on the camp opposite him, and his hands had unconsciously slid onto the young beauty’s buttocks. Embarrassingly, upon realizing this, he instinctively pressed gently on her soft rear again. This caused the young girl to emit a soft, sensual moan: “Mmm…”

“Are your feet alright now?” Zhang Wen hurriedly put the young girl down from his back and whispered.

“They’re fine now.” Jaliet’s face flushed again at Zhang Wen’s question. Fortunately, she had already turned red from the intimate contact with Zhang Wen’s hands on her bottom, so her face turning even redder wouldn’t raise suspicion from Zhang Wen.

“Good then. You wait here first. Once everything is over, you can follow us,” seeing that the battle was imminent, Zhang Wen had no mood for flirting with the young girl.

He waved at the girl and then quietly approached a giant tree no more than fifty meters from the camp. According to the plan he had made with Linoa and others beforehand, what he needed to do now was to wait for Linoa and the others to create some strange noises to attract the attention of the people in the camp, and then take advantage of his speed to launch a sudden attack.

In this way, the people in the camp wouldn’t sense the presence of any badges nearby and would certainly think they were being attacked by a large number of beasts. As long as they panicked and became chaotic, the victory of Almexius Academy would be within reach.

“It’s about to begin,” Zhang Wen narrowed his eyes, staring at the roaring fire not far away, every cell in his body already adjusted to the most excited state.

Swish, swish! From the direction directly opposite Zhang Wen, separated by the entire camp, a sudden rustling of trees broke the silence—it was the signal that Linoa had reached her designated position and the beginning of their operation tonight.

Rustle…

Then, from all directions around the camp, the sound of trees swaying continuously began to arise one after another. Under the illumination of the bright campfire, countless strange shadows were reflected on the ground, yet, apart from the eerie swaying of the trees, there was not a single other sound.

Faced with such a bizarre scene, even if Zhang Wen put himself in the position of the opponent, he felt he wouldn’t be able to remain seated with patience. However, in the range of Zhang Wen’s vision, he surprisingly found that the opponent’s camp remained eerily silent without the slightest movement.

“Could it be that Went revealed our plan? Have these guys figured out we’re coming and set up a trap?” A trace of confusion involuntarily arose in Zhang Wen’s mind, but this thought barely flickered in his mind. Linoa and the others were still making noise, and with the arrow already on the string, Zhang Wen quickly launched into action without hesitation.

Based on his prior observation of the surrounding environment, Zhang Wen almost instantly moved to a position close enough to the opponent’s camp but also difficult to be noticed.

However, just as Zhang Wen made his final observation of the camp’s condition and was about to choose a suitable target for attack, he suddenly stopped his movement.

“Don’t come over!” Seeing Linoa and a few other girls preparing to rush over as previously planned, Zhang Wen immediately shouted out.

Hearing the seriousness in Zhang Wen’s voice, Linoa hesitated and stopped her steps. However, the other few girls, who were in their rebellious teenage years, weren’t as obedient.

“What’s wrong? Did we walk into an ambush? Zhang teacher, I’ll help you! Hya!” Amylis, who had long been dissatisfied with Zhang Wen, shouted loudly as she rushed out from behind the bush where she had been hiding.

With Amylis setting the example, the other girls naturally followed suit, rushing out from their hiding places without wanting to be left behind.

However, before the girls could reach Zhang Wen, they all stopped in their tracks, mouths agape, their voices abruptly cut off like a tape with its power suddenly snapped. What appeared before their eyes was not a group of menacing enemies, but a field of disarrayed corpses—corpses torn apart as if by beasts.

“Ugh!!” It only took a brief moment before the stench of blood in the air caused the three girls to vomit violently.

“What exactly is going on?… Hmm!” Full of doubts, Linoa stepped out from the jungle and, upon seeing the horrifying scene before her, instinctively covered her nose and mouth.

After Linoa asked her question, the group of six fell silent. No one knew what had happened.

“They should have died not long ago,” Zhang Wen finally said softly, looking at the still-burning campfire.

“Mm.” Linoa nodded slightly, slightly furrowing her delicate brows, and suddenly waved urgently at the others, “Quick! Check their badges!” Saying this, Linoa herself rushed to a corpse without hesitation, forcing herself to suppress her nausea, and began anxiously searching the body with a wrinkled nose.

“Linoa teacher, with all that’s happened, do we still need to worry about the badges? The most important thing now is to report this incident to the competition supervisors!” Liana, the martial arts student, angrily shouted out.

Whether out of respect for the dead or a girl’s natural aversion to filth, Liana had no desire to interact with those disgusting corpses.

“Follow Linoa teacher’s instructions,” when Liana sought help with her eyes among the others, Zhang Wen clearly took Linoa’s side.

“Tch! Fine.” With both instructors in agreement, the students like Liana had no choice but to reluctantly pinch their noses and start searching the still-bleeding corpses.

Though somewhat reluctant, Liana and the others completed their task impeccably. Before long, the group had searched all fifteen corpses at the scene and handed all the found badges over to Zhang Wen.

“How many badges are there in total?” Linoa couldn’t help but ask eagerly before Zhang Wen had even finished holding onto the badges.

“Sixteen… no, seventeen badges.” Zhang Wen quickly scanned the badges in his hand and reported the exact number.

“Seventeen? So it really is him…” Linoa softly murmured, her face suddenly turning somewhat pale.

“Who really is him?” Linoa’s last few words were spoken too quickly for even Zhang Wen’s sharp hearing to catch clearly. From Linoa’s expression, Zhang Wen could already tell she definitely knew something. However, just as Zhang Wen was asking this question, he suddenly heard a faint unusual sound in the air.

If the forest hadn’t been deathly silent all along, or if Zhang Wen’s hearing hadn’t been enhanced by the Spring Water Technique, he absolutely wouldn’t have detected that barely perceptible anomaly amidst the slight crackling of the campfire.

The target was Linoa!

In the instant he identified the direction from which the sound came, Zhang Wen had already determined the attacker’s target.

“Watch out! Scatter! Hide in the tents!” In that moment, Zhang Wen’s heightened alertness kicked in. His actions even preceded his shout. Before Linoa could hear Zhang Wen’s warning, she had already been lifted into the air by him as if soaring through clouds.

“Ahh!” Linoa’s startled and angry scream immediately echoed through the forest, yet Zhang Wen’s movements didn’t cease for a moment.

With his hands gripping Linoa’s waist, he moved like a ghost through the camp, his direction changing drastically with every step he took. His speed was so fast that the wind generated by their movement made it impossible for Linoa to even open her eyes. In her ears, she could only hear the howling of the wind rushing past.

However, Linoa was ultimately a talent chosen by Mithril. Although she didn’t understand what Zhang Wen was trying to do, she believed that in the current situation, everything Zhang Wen did must have a reason. Thus, Linoa almost gritted her teeth and forcibly suppressed her urge to struggle, instead clinging tightly to Zhang Wen’s body like an octopus, allowing him to focus more on moving without having to excessively worry about her.

Nonetheless, the time Linoa spent being carried by Zhang Wen through the camp was only a brief moment. Almost as soon as Linoa clung onto Zhang Wen, she was suddenly thrown forward with great force by him.

Before Linoa could even blame Zhang Wen for his lack of chivalry, she had already crashed heavily into a tent. The small tree supporting the tent couldn’t withstand the force of Linoa’s impact and snapped into two pieces.

The furious beauty angrily threw off the now unsupported tent and was about to question Zhang Wen about his intentions when she suddenly saw Zhang Wen rushing toward her at full speed again. Before Linoa could let out another startled cry, she saw Zhang Wen suddenly throw a punch toward her. On his fist, deep blue battle energy crackled like lightning.

“Boom!” A loud explosion occurred less than half a meter from Linoa’s head. The resulting shockwave stung her face painfully, but she could clearly see in the center of Zhang Wen’s punch was a steel needle several inches long. The loud boom was the result of the steel needle colliding with the battle energy from Zhang Wen’s punch.

Realizing the situation at a glance, Linoa quickly looked down and indeed saw a steel needle embedded nearly halfway into the ground right next to where she had just been standing. Near the spot where the steel needle pierced the ground, a large patch of previously lush green grass had been turned to charcoal by the battle energy attached to the needle.

Linoa was instantly drenched in cold sweat, her expression becoming extremely complex. She looked at Zhang Wen, but the brief glance contained not gratitude, but rather a sense of humiliation and anger, as if a scar in her heart had been torn open.

“Tsk! You actually managed to catch my needle. You’re not bad either… Huh? Almexius Academy? Strange! You’re not quite like the rumors,” as Zhang Wen slowly lowered his right hand that had caught the steel needle, a girl wearing a white mask slowly emerged from the darkness.

From the girl’s height and voice, it was easy to tell she was about the same age as Jaliet. In fact, their body shapes were quite similar. However, this masked girl had a unique red hair, and her neat short hairstyle was completely different from Jaliet’s.

“Who are you? Why are you attacking us?” Liana, the martial arts student, warily drew her weapon. As battle energy was infused, the short handle in her hand transformed into a crescent-shaped dagger wrapped in crimson battle energy.

“Haha, who am I? You’re not qualified to know that yet,” the red-haired girl smirked proudly, then suddenly turned her suspicious gaze toward Linoa behind Zhang Wen. “Hey! That rascal girl over there! Yes, I’m talking to you! Rascal girl, from your expression just now, it seems like you know something, right? You and the guy next to you aren’t just ordinary teachers, are you?”

Being first attacked by a girl several years younger with a flying needle, nearly costing her life, and then being called a “hooligan girl” with such an arrogant attitude, even a stone man would likely be angry by now.

However, a woman like Linoa, even when furious to the extreme, behaves completely differently from most people.

After hearing the red-haired girl’s infuriating remarks, Linoa’s face showed no trace of anger at all. She smiled slightly, lightly glancing at the red-haired girl’s underdeveloped chest before speaking, “Want to know our identities? You’re not qualified for that either, little girl. If your brother, Flame Demon Agate, were here, maybe I’d tell him if I were in a good mood.”

“Hmph! You actually know my brother’s name! So you’re definitely not just an ordinary teacher!” the red-haired girl clenched her fists in anger upon receiving Linoa’s glance, and two several-inch-long steel needles appeared in her hands.

Of course, while preparing for battle, the girl instinctively covered her chest with her arms. As for her face, it was hidden behind the mask, making it impossible to see her expression.

“Hehe! You can’t talk like that. Flame Demon Agate, No. 3 Executor of the Syndicate. Even in the remote Casares, he’s a well-known big shot. What’s so strange about knowing his name? As for Flame Demon Agate’s younger sister… Hmm? Why don’t I remember? What was her name again?” Linoa smiled lightly, deliberately extending her finger to elegantly tap her cheek.

“Die! Damn you,流氓 girl!” Linoa’s sharp words acted like a fuse, pushing the already nearly out-of-control red-haired girl over the edge.

The red-haired girl roared and leaped high from the tree, her hands moving at an almost imperceptible speed. Two steel needles, seemingly wrapped in flames, immediately shot toward Linoa like lightning.

“I’ll handle it myself!” As the red-haired girl leaped from the branch, Linoa had already shouted to Zhang Wen. Then, she turned to face the red-haired girl, her demeanor changing instantly.

Seeing Linoa at this moment, Zhang Wen finally understood a bit why this alluring woman had earned the nickname “Ice Beauty” at Almexius Academy! When angry, Linoa was completely devoid of the seductive charm she usually displayed toward Zhang Wen. Instead, there was an unmistakable chill.

“Hmph! Don’t underestimate adults, you little girl who hasn’t even grown up yet!” Facing the steel needles shot by the red-haired girl, Linoa didn’t even show the slightest intention of dodging. With a cold smile, she suddenly let out a shout of anger. Then, in front of Linoa, a massive energy instantly gathered, forming an invisible giant shield.

“Manifestation of Mind Energy?” Zhang Wen immediately thought of the thrilling confrontation between Selene and Luther at the Governor’s Mansion upon keenly sensing the change in front of Linoa.

However, after Linoa’s mind energy left her body, it didn’t immediately form a forward-rushing mind wave, but was instead controlled by her to condense. Although Zhang Wen didn’t know much about the Empire’s mind techniques, from this single move alone, it was clear that in terms of the precision of mind energy control, Linoa was obviously far beyond the inexperienced Luther and Selene! Moreover, the energy contained in the mind wave created by Linoa was also far beyond Zhang Wen’s expectations!

The steel needles shot by the red-haired girl in a rage slowed down rapidly when they hit the giant wall of mind energy created by Linoa, as if sinking into a swamp. At the same time, the battle energy on the steel needles was quickly and silently consumed. Finally, the steel needles, having lost their battle energy, floated eerily in front of Linoa.

“Tsk!” Looking at the steel needles stuck in Linoa’s “Mind Wall,” the red-haired girl spat angrily, two more steel needles glowing with red light growing in her hands again. “You managed to display the ability of a 10th-tier warrior with a 9th-tier strength? Fighting high-level mind users in the original stone mine is really troublesome!”

“Hmph!” As the red-haired girl muttered complaints, Linoa also coldly smiled, stretched out her right arm, and suddenly swung it hard to the right.

The mind shield, which had been condensed in front of Linoa, shot out like a cannonball, roaring toward the red-haired girl. The steel needles caught in the mind shield were also wrapped in the impact wave of mind force and shot back. The powerful force even created a gust of wind around it, making the campfire several meters behind Linoa flicker violently.

Linoa’s attack almost instantly covered the short distance of a dozen meters or so between her and the red-haired girl. However, the red-haired girl was no slouch either. As soon as Linoa swung her arm, she sensed the danger of this attack. She spat angrily again, quickly jumped down from the tree, and used a giant tree, thick enough for several people to encircle, to hide her body.

However, the seemingly sturdy tree was as fragile as a sandcastle in front of Linoa’s mind shield. The moment the mind wall hit it, the tree’s trunk was pierced by countless small holes from the steel needles embedded in the shockwave. Then, within a short time, the massive force followed those holes through the tree, tearing it completely apart.

The red-haired girl hiding behind the tree obviously didn’t expect Linoa’s attack to be so terrifyingly powerful. The giant tree behind her couldn’t even withstand for less than a second under Linoa’s mind wave before completely collapsing.

“Ahh!” The red-haired girl, caught off guard, lost the chance to dodge. As she let out a scream, countless steel needles also shot toward her at lightning speed.

However, just as Linoa’s mind wave was about to tear the red-haired girl apart like the previous tree, a flame, carrying a terrifying aura like a dragon, suddenly roared down from the sky.

Boom! The dragon-like flame swept through the air in front of everyone’s eyes, roaring as it passed between the red-haired girl and Zhang Wen’s group. Everything in the dragon’s path—whether it was the forest, the ground, or Linoa’s violent mind wave—was instantly reduced to complete nothingness. Before the flame dragon exhausted all its energy and disappeared from everyone’s sight, it had already melted a trench in the ground several meters wide and over a hundred meters long.

On both sides of the trench, raging fires erupted. In the firelight, a red-haired young man wielding a greatsword had appeared in front of the red-haired girl, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Flame Demon… Agate…” Linoa gritted her teeth and said a name, her voice trembling slightly despite herself.