By now, the squad of Scavengers was either dead or wounded.
The Scavenger known as Fifth struggled, clutching his eyes.
Only to be knocked over by a shockwave mixed with elemental power.
He slammed headfirst into the nearby ice wall and passed out.
Although Sixth’s reaction wasn’t slow, while dodging the explosion, he panicked and stepped right into the second trap Iul had set.
Several large blocks of ice, tied to high points with thin wires, came crashing down like giant pendulums.
Sixth barely managed to avoid a fatal blow, but he couldn’t dodge in time, and one of the ice blocks struck his shoulder.
The sound of shattering bone was clearly audible; he collapsed to the ground, screaming in pain, and lost the ability to move.
Only Gloomy Eyes and Fourth were still barely standing.
But they were both covered in dust and dirt, looking wretched and covered in wounds.
Their eyes were filled with disbelief.
Their squad had dominated the black market for years, having committed countless murders and acts of arson.
Yet this time, they had been outmaneuvered by a few newbie brats to such a pathetic state.
The image of that recruit who had been running away in a panic at the start flashed through the mind of Gloomy Eyes.
He then recalled the tragic scene where First and Third had been dragged into a mutual destruction.
He hadn’t expected it to be so absurd; they had truly fallen for a massive trap this time.
“Kill them!” He was completely blinded by rage.
He no longer cared about capturing them alive or seizing their dog tags; he only wanted to make them pay.
Fourth raised his crossbow again, and arrows shot like a continuous string toward Tatiana on the ice platform.
Tatiana swung her blade to parry, the flaming blade colliding with the arrows and bursting into sparks in the air.
But the Scavenger called Fourth was clearly an expert with a military crossbow.
His reloading speed was incredibly fast, and his accuracy was not weak, with every arrow aimed at a vital point.
Tatiana was drained of quite a bit of elemental power by these continuous crossbow bolts.
For a moment, she was suppressed and forced onto the defensive, able only to constantly parry and dodge.
Gloomy Eyes, on the other hand, was like a ghost, sticking to the shadows of the ice wall.
He lunged silently toward the position where Vera was located.
He judged that the little girl who had thrown the medicinal powder might be the bigger threat.
And she looked like the easiest to deal with…
“Vera, watch out!” Iul, having witnessed the whole thing from the other side, hurriedly shouted a warning while raising his crossbow to shoot again.
But his leg was already injured, and in his haste, his aim was way off, the arrow flying past Gloomy Eyes.
Gloomy Eyes sneered and accelerated, his sharp short blade thrusting straight toward the seemingly stunned Vera.
Just as the blade was about to touch Vera’s neck…
Vera suddenly raised her head, showing not a hint of fear, but instead a sly smile.
She swung the hand she had been keeping behind her back forward, and a handful of green seeds came showering down onto Gloomy Eyes.
Gloomy Eyes instinctively swung his blade to parry, slicing through several of the seeds.
The seeds ruptured, but it wasn’t sap that burst out from inside.
Instead, it was countless white, dandelion-like fluff.
This was a special concoction exclusive to the Little Witch.
Gloomy Eyes held his breath sharply, his breathing hitching.
But a small amount of the fluff was still inhaled into his nasal mucosa when he was caught off guard.
But much more of it landed on his exposed skin.
An indescribable itch instantly erupted…
“Ugh!” Gloomy Eyes’ movements instantly distorted, and the military knife in his hand nearly slipped from his grasp.
He desperately wanted to scratch, but his combat instincts, honed through countless life-and-death encounters, made him force himself to endure.
But his movements were already completely distorted.
Now he was full of openings, and his strength was not even half of what it was in his prime.
Tatiana finally seized the moment when Fourth was distracted by the attack on Gloomy Eyes.
Fourth turned his head, reloading his bolt, intending to shoot at Vera.
“Your opponent is me!” Tatiana leaped down from the ice platform.
Her tightly gripped blade, wreathed in flames and carrying the momentum of her descent like a falling meteorite, slashed fiercely toward Fourth.
Fourth hurriedly blocked with his horizontal crossbow.
“Clang—Click!” The specially made crossbow was actually smashed by the flaming military blade in a single strike.
The remaining momentum of the blade even left a wound deep enough to see bone on his chest.
“Pfft!” Fourth spat out a mouthful of blood, flew backward, and slammed into the ice wall.
On the other side, Vera took the opportunity to leap backward.
She nimbly dodged Gloomy Eyes, who was acting comically due to the intense itching, and simultaneously pressed her hands onto the snow.
A green light lit up.
“Grow!” Seven or eight yellowish-green vines suddenly shot out from the snow beneath Gloomy Eyes.
They instantly wrapped around his ankles and rapidly spread upward!
“Get lost!” Gloomy Eyes roared, slashing his military knife to cut through a few of them.
More vines wrapped around him, and at the places where the vines had been severed— Viscous sap with a numbing effect actually oozed out.
His unprepared hands were stained by it, which made his movements slower and slower.
“Swish!” A crossbow bolt suddenly shot in from the side, striking the wrist of the hand Gloomy Eyes was using to hold his blade.
It was Iul!
Dragging his injured leg, he had somehow managed to laboriously move to a better shooting position.
“Ah!” Gloomy Eyes’ wrist pained, and the military knife fell from his hand.
The vines seized the opportunity to swarm him, tying Gloomy Eyes up like a dumpling.
Leaving only his head exposed, which looked slightly comical and twisted from intense itching and anger.
The battle seemed to stop abruptly at this moment.
The outcome was decided.
All that remained was the howling of the wind and snow and the sounds of painful groaning.
Along with the crackling sound of embers Burning.
Fourth leaned against the ice wall, breathing with difficulty.
The wound on his chest was gushing blood, staining a large patch of snow red.
He looked at the fallen Fifth and Sixth.
And at Second, who was tied up like a dumpling but was still trying to struggle.
He then looked toward the bottomless ice cave, the final light in his eyes rapidly dimming.
Defeated.
A crushing defeat.
The six of them, experienced Scavengers, had been completely wiped out here by four recruits, at such a cost.
Tatiana leaned against the ice wall, sweat on her forehead, panting heavily.
There was a wound on her left arm where an arrow had grazed her, oozing blood, but it was not serious for the moment.
She looked toward the ice cave, a flash of urgency in her eyes.
Vera’s small face was also somewhat pale; the danger just now had left her with lingering fear.
There was a shallow bloodstain on her neck, a mark from where Gloomy Eyes had grazed her with his military knife just moments ago.
Fortunately, it was only—a shallow graze.
She hurried to Iul’s side to check if his leg injury had worsened.
Iul shook his head, signaling he was fine, but his gaze remained fixed on the ice cave.
“Aqina…” Tatiana murmured, just about to rush to the edge of the ice cave.
“Splash…” The sound of churning water came from below the ice cave.
Suddenly, a hand covered in chilblains and turned white reached out from the edge of the ice cave.
Then, the other one.
Aqina laboriously poked her head out of the water in the ice cave.
“Cough, cough…
Lighter.” She was soaked, her face as pale as paper, and her lips were purple from the cold.
Her body was trembling violently from hypothermia and severe pain.
The place on her abdomen that had been pierced was left with only two blurred bloody holes; the dagger had long since been pulled out.
The spot on her left shoulder that had been pierced by an ice cone also looked gruesome and terrifying.
There were several knife wounds on her back deep enough to see bone, and icy water was constantly seeping into the wounds.
Blood seeped out from time to time, staining the ice water red.
But she was indeed still alive, and relying on herself, she had crawled back from that cold abyss.
Tatiana just wanted to run over to save her.
But Aqina gave a sudden push and managed to pull herself out of the ice cave.
“Cough, cough…” Aqina spat out a mouthful of blood foam mixed with ice shards.
She raised her head, her amber eyes still shining startlingly bright on her wretched face.
She looked at Gloomy Eyes, who was tied up by the vines.
At Fourth, who was dying against the ice wall, and the other two Scavengers who were unconscious on the ground.
She couldn’t help but grin, revealing a smile that was stained red with blood but could be described as incredibly radiant.
“Look…” Her voice was hoarse, but carried the mockery and boastfulness of a victor.
“I told you…
the fishing was a success.” As she finished speaking, her body swayed, and she finally couldn’t hold on any longer.
Everything went black before her eyes, and she fell forward.
“Aqina!” Amidst Vera’s exclamation, Tatiana wanted to reach out to catch her.
Iul also subconsciously reached out, forgetting he was still leaning on his crutch.
The next moment, Aqina did not fall onto the cold snow.
But she didn’t fall into Tatiana’s arms either.
A pair of strong, knobby hands firmly grabbed the back of Aqina’s neck as she fell forward.
These hands did not belong to Tatiana, nor to Vera.
And certainly not to Iul.
The owner of these hands was a man wearing a gray-white cloak, with traces of weathering on his face, but eyes as sharp as an eagle’s.
He had appeared in the canyon like a ghost, no one knew when.
Nor did anyone know when he had approached them.
He looked at the heavily injured Damselette dangling from his hand.
Then he raised his eyes, calmly scanning the tragic scene within the canyon.
The surviving but incapacitated Scavengers.
And the three of them, Tatiana and the others, who were facing a formidable enemy.
Finally, his gaze landed on the bulging dog tag bag that Aqina had, at some point, re-tied to her waist.
The corner of the man’s mouth curled up.
“Not bad ‘Bait’.” He spoke, his voice low and steady, revealing not much emotion.
“You?” Tatiana gasped, her military knife instantly pointing at him.
She manipulated her elemental power, flames igniting once again, but clearly lacking strength.
Iul and Vera also instantly tensed their nerves.
This man was none other than the fisherman Vera had encountered before.
The one described as having, by the side of Unfrozen Creek, killed three Scavengers with three arrows in an instant, then calmly gone back to fishing…
The Mysterious Veteran.