“The Reward for This Competition Is—Recognition and…”
【You have chosen to connect the ocean pathways between the Royal City and fifteen clan cities. This connection is estimated to consume a total of 1,500 Action Points.】
【Confirm connection?】
Within her consciousness space, Wendy looked down at the planet rotating on its own and gently nodded.
Across the planet covered in deep blue, countless tiny glowing blue points were scattered here and there.
The instant she confirmed the command, those points rapidly expanded. Their light transformed into threadlike strands, extending toward and connecting with the brightest point at the center of the boundless ocean.
The threads of light spread and intertwined beneath the deep sea, emitting an intermittent glow that resembled the pulse of the ocean.
【The fifteen Sea Hunter clan cities have been successfully connected to the Royal City. The citizens of these cities can now travel across the wasteland sea through the ocean pathways and reach the Royal City directly.】
【Your territory has expanded. An additional 68,588 square kilometers have been added. Your current territory covers 84,998 square kilometers. Prosperity has increased to 5.】
【Your people have discovered a teleportation tunnel leading to the Royal City.】
Listening to the continuous notifications in her mind, Wendy opened 【Observation】.
In an instant, her field of vision shifted, plunging into the deep sea.
Tuolie City
Built along a mountain ridge, the city spread majestically according to the contours of the mountains.
On the enormous stone altar where the Magnetic Obsidian was worshipped, the Sea Hunter clan’s crimson emblem was boldly carved into its surface.
Throughout the city, groups of red-haired little merfolk—both male and female—were moving about in an orderly fashion, rapidly rebuilding the city that had been devastated by the catastrophe.
Suddenly, the Magnetic Obsidian at the highest point burst into dazzling light.
The commotion immediately attracted the attention of all the busy Sea Hunters. One after another, they stopped what they were doing and looked toward the Magnetic Obsidian.
The increasingly bright fluorescence gradually transformed into luminous veins, rapidly extending into the distance as though being drawn toward something.
The sudden change left all the Sea Hunters frozen in place.
Only after the luminous pathway completely stabilized did several Sea Hunters closest to the Magnetic Obsidian exchange glances before slowly swimming forward.
Wendy watched them.
The instant they touched the luminous pathway, they disappeared from where they stood.
At the same time, in the Royal City tens of thousands of kilometers away, several red-haired Sea Hunters suddenly appeared, staring around them in astonishment.
One Sea Hunter after another emerged from the Magnetic Obsidian.
Their distinctly different appearances and hair colors clearly indicated that they came from different clans.
The Sea Hunters from various clans who had been transported to the Royal City through the teleportation tunnel looked at one another in confusion.
Looking down at the little merfolk being teleported into the center of the Royal City one after another, Wendy’s lips curled upward.
When she had awakened the Sea Hunter clan cities, she had observed the locations of the various Sea Folk cities.
The brightest point represented the Royal City, Apali. It was located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, roughly along the Tropic of Cancer.
Sea Hunters were naturally fond of cold environments. They had originally lived in frigid waters and only gradually adapted to warmer waters after tens of thousands of years of evolution and intermingling with the Sea Spirits.
Even so, most Sea Hunter clan cities were still located in temperate or subarctic/subantarctic waters in the northern or southern regions, far away from the Royal City.
Tuolie City, for example, was located along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge near Antarctica, nearly halfway around the planet from the Royal City.
The Sea Folk were different from humans.
During the Age of Splendor, when the gods had not yet fallen, the Sea Folk were a race favored by the gods and the masters of the boundless ocean.
A race ruled by gods had no civil wars and no external enemies, so there had never been such a thing as an army.
Sea Hunters were Sea Hunters.
Sea Spirits were Sea Spirits.
Sea Demons were Sea Demons.
After the gods fell and the Sea Folk lost their divine protection, sea beasts began to stir.
Only then did the strongest fighters among the Sea Hunters voluntarily take on the responsibility of protecting their people.
But in Wendy’s eyes, this was far from enough.
Although she was the sole queen of this absolute-monarchy race and possessed the power to issue commands that could compel the entire race, throwing Sea Hunters from different clans together without proper training or coordination was like assembling mismatched pieces into a single body—it simply could not function as one.
The main branches of the clans would reside in the Royal City to protect the royal family, while their other branches would manage the clan cities and provide reinforcements and troops during times of crisis.
It was essentially a feudal military system resembling medieval Europe.
Not unified. Not timely. Not coordinated.
What she needed was an elite army that was invincible and unstoppable.
Therefore, they had to be retrained.
The clan cities were scattered across enormous distances, and the wasteland seas were filled with alien species.
This had originally been a major obstacle, but the newly established ocean pathways easily solved the problem.
The appearance of their fellow Sea Hunters emerging from the Magnetic Obsidian had obviously attracted the attention of the Sea Folk in the Royal City.
They cautiously approached and began communicating.
The murmurs of their confused conversations gathered together, becoming indistinct, fragmented sounds that reached Wendy’s ears.
At the same time, beneath her field of vision, an elderly mermaid dressed in priestly robes hurried out of the temple surrounded by her attendants.
It was already getting late, so Wendy didn’t waste any more time.
She clicked 【Proxy】.
She conveyed her decree to Hegaloin, then opened the 【Civilization】 section of the panel.
【Civilization—Military Strength: Train Army (Current Progress: 1)】
She intended to select the strongest and most fearless young warriors from all the Sea Hunter clans and forge them into an army capable of sweeping through thousands of enemies.
She planned to entrust this task to Tuolie Sola.
This red-haired female Sea Hunter was currently at the peak of her life, when a Sea Hunter possessed the greatest energy and combat strength.
More importantly, she was sufficiently loyal to Wendy.
After her mother and elder sister died in the catastrophe, Tuolie Sola naturally became the clan leader of the Tuolie Clan.
However, since she had only taken over temporarily, she still lacked some experience.
Although Qimu She was not as capable in combat as Tuolie Sola, she had far more experience leading a clan.
Wendy therefore assigned her to assist Tuolie Sola.
The two would be jointly responsible for selecting and training the soldiers.
“At exactly six o’clock in the morning, Guard Corps member Jiang Qiao, please get up and proceed to the training grounds. You have two training sessions scheduled today.”
After finishing everything, the electronic notification from the 028 Escape Boat’s artificial intelligence system happened to sound.
Wendy opened her eyes.
The dim lighting inside the dormitory had already been automatically adjusted to a soft white light suitable for waking up.
Across from her, Mingmei rubbed her eyes as she sat up and stretched.
“Morning, Qiaoqiao.”
Both she and Mingmei belonged to C Team, so their training schedules were the same.
After having breakfast in the cafeteria, the two hurried toward the training grounds.
Waiting for them that morning were shooting training and combat boat piloting training, conducted in partnership with B Team.
The shooting range was equipped with moving targets.
They traveled at high speeds, moving along irregular curved trajectories within a certain range.
This meant that shooters not only needed to master basic shooting techniques but also had to accurately predict the target’s trajectory.
Wendy was number 16.
However, because C Team had suffered heavy casualties during the previous battle, its fifty members had been reduced to just thirty-one.
As a result, her position had moved forward.
She was now twelfth in line.
That was relatively early, making her already limited time for on-site learning even more urgent.
Standing in line, Wendy watched every Guard Corps member who stepped forward to shoot without blinking.
She mentally imitated their movements down to the centimeter.
“Next group: B Team Huang Jieshu, C Team Jiang Qiao.”
Soon, the 028 AI’s announcement sounded.
Wendy took a deep breath and stepped forward to receive the gun.
A rustling sound came from B Team as a middle-aged man with narrow, upturned eyes stepped forward.
He glanced at Wendy, the corners of his mouth pulling unnaturally into an ugly smile.
What rotten luck. Why did I have to get paired with her?
To increase the Guard Corps’ motivation, Liao Chengyu had implemented a points system.
The winning side in training competitions would receive additional points.
These points could be exchanged for supplies and additional rest time—something that held an irresistible appeal to everyone in the apocalypse.
Huang Jieshu wanted points.
During previous shooting exercises, the other three teams had paired him with people of roughly the same skill level, so he could usually earn at least some points.
But damn it, why did he have to be paired with Jiang Qiao?
He glanced sideways at the girl in front of him.
The short-haired girl had already put on her earplugs and protective goggles and was silently loading her ammunition.
She looked exceptionally calm and composed.
He had seen it many times before.
This girl was a shooting prodigy.
She also seemed to be a student of that old woman, Liao Chengyu.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to calm down before walking into the designated area.
“Preparation time. Training will begin in five seconds.”
“Five.”
Wendy recalled the movements of the Guard Corps members she had just observed.
She positioned her feet shoulder-width apart, with one foot slightly forward to maintain balance.
“Four.”
She combined the movements of the previous eleven shooters in her mind, generating the optimal stance.
Wendy evenly distributed her body weight across both feet and leaned forward slightly, shifting her center of gravity toward the front.
“Three.”
The arm holding the gun hung naturally downward, with the elbow slightly bent and the firearm kept a certain distance away from her body.
“Two.”
The top of the front sight, the notch of the rear sight, and the center of the target aligned in a straight line.
“One.”
Wendy gently exhaled.
“Bang!”
Two gunshots rang out simultaneously, and the bullets shot forward with a sharp whistling sound.
Everyone watched closely, only to see one of the bullets veer off course, narrowly scraping past the outer edge of the moving target. It was about to shoot into the outer wall of the training ground when the 028 AI-generated barrier urgently intercepted it.
And the person corresponding to that bullet seemed to be… Jiang Qiao!?
“B Team Huang Jieshu, 8 rings.”
“C Team Jiang Qiao, miss.”
A miss. 0 rings. 0 points.
For a moment, the entire training ground fell completely silent.
Wendy felt countless gazes falling upon her. She took a deep breath.
She knew exactly where she had gone wrong.
Unlike the stationary target in the dormitory, the targets at the training ground were moving. Therefore, she had to calculate the lead—the point where the target would be at the moment the bullet reached it—rather than aim at the target’s current position.
Calculating the lead required extensive practice and accumulated experience. Since she had barely ever handled a firearm before, her judgment had been off in that split second.
The announcement sounded again, and the second round entered its countdown.
Wendy blocked out the various expressions around her and concentrated completely on the target ahead.
The moving target’s speed was approximately 2 meters per second.
The bullet’s speed was around 330 meters per second, while the shooting zone was 50 meters from the target.
Therefore, the required lead was approximately 0.30 meters.
“Bang!”
When the countdown ended, two gunshots rang out simultaneously once again.
“B Team Huang Jieshu, 8.6 rings.”
“C Team Jiang Qiao, 8 rings.”
As the bullets struck the targets, the results were announced once more.
On the second floor of the training ground, inside the control room, a figure stood with her hands behind her back, staring through the window at the girl who had performed poorly twice.
Her brows were tightly furrowed.
The moment they heard the results, the soldiers from both teams could no longer hold back. A burst of whispered discussion erupted like a bomb.
Huang Jieshu, who had been tense the entire time, finally relaxed completely.
He grinned and mockingly looked at the girl beside him. She was staring down at her hands as though thinking about something.
“Oh my, what happened to our little sharpshooter?”
“Did going out to fight some monsters scare you so badly that you can’t even hold a gun properly anymore?”
“If you ask me, you might as well hurry home and cry to your mommy. Don’t you agree?”
The entire B Team burst into laughter in response.
“Can you watch your mouth?”
Mingmei pulled Jiang Qiao behind her and confronted the laughing Huang Jieshu.
“Jiang Qiao just barely survived and is still recovering. Isn’t it normal for her to be in poor condition for the time being? She’s still better than an eight-ring loser like you who hides inside the escape boat.”
For Jiang Qiao, surviving as a member of the Guard Corps and saving countless people while being powerless to prevent her parents from dying had always been her greatest nightmare.
Seeing her friend’s expression suddenly change, Mingmei assumed that the word “mommy” had struck a nerve.
She hurriedly stepped in front of her, but the words she had blurted out had clearly gone too far as well.
At the words “eight-ring loser,” Huang Jieshu’s previously mocking expression also darkened.
Yes.
An eight-ring loser.
His shooting score had always remained around eight rings.
Even if he got lucky and managed to graze his way into the nine-ring zone with a few shots, his final score could never break ninety.
His score wasn’t actually bad. There were plenty of people worse than him.
But those people were all younger recruits. With years of training ahead of them, they could continue improving.
Only he had already reached the maximum age for the Guard Corps.
Now that he was middle-aged, he was permanently stuck at eight rings.
Put bluntly, he was simply mediocre, without the talent to go any further.
He glared fiercely at Mingmei.
After a long moment, he suddenly gave a contemptuous laugh.
“So what? I’m an eight-ring loser, but I still managed to easily kill those monsters.”
“Now look at you.”
He swept his disdainful gaze across C Team, curled his lips, and sneered.
“A few stupid bugs left you with casualties like this. I’ll say it right here: women simply aren’t suited to being soldiers. You’re all useless!”
B Team fell silent.
They apparently hadn’t expected Huang Jieshu to say it so bluntly.
Some frowned, but a few mocking chuckles soon followed.
C Team had just experienced the deaths of their comrades.
Those words were like salt poured directly into their wounds, completely enraging everyone.
“Say that again if you dare!”
Several female soldiers clenched their fists, their eyes bloodshot as they stared at their supposed comrade in disbelief and fury.
The Guard Corps aboard the 028 Escape Boat was divided into four teams: A, B, C, and D.
Teams A, C, and D had originally been trained by Liao Chengyu herself. Only B Team had been transferred over from elsewhere.
Under the existing unequal standards, the female soldiers who managed to distinguish themselves were all exceptionally capable.
Liao Chengyu herself had risen through the ranks this way and understood this perfectly, which was why she had always favored female soldiers.
Teams A, C, and D were predominantly female and were also more highly regarded by Liao Chengyu.
But this had long been a source of resentment for the transferred B Team.
“Those few dead beasts scared you so badly that you can’t even hold your guns properly. If that’s not useless, then what is?”
The first batch of alien species encountered by 028 had been the E-rank alien species, Water Lice, which B Team had been responsible for eliminating.
Humanity had predicted that the apocalypse would be brought about by the great tsunami, but they had failed to predict the appearance of the alien species that followed.
Therefore, to this day, people still simply referred to them as monsters.
Because they lacked a clear and comprehensive understanding of these creatures, Huang Jieshu—having only encountered the Water Lice—had jumped to the conclusion that all alien species were merely ugly bugs of various shapes that could be suppressed with ordinary firepower.
The Water Lice had been dealt with far too easily, leaving him unable to understand why C Team had suffered such heavy casualties fighting the Abyssal Giant Spider.
Huang Jieshu sneered at them.
His gaze swept over Wendy as though he wanted to vent all the negative emotions he had been suppressing for a long time.
“Third-round countdown. Please prepare.”
Seeing that the conflict was about to escalate, the AI, which had remained silent for several minutes, suddenly issued another warning.
Wendy frowned and looked up toward the control room on the second floor of the training ground.
Her university major had been AI development.
After entering the 028 Escape Boat and realizing that an AI existed aboard, she had secretly tested it using her Guard Corps authority.
The 028 submarine’s AI was a weak artificial intelligence.
A weak AI could only rely on preset data and specific algorithms to process designated tasks.
It was impossible for it to react this flexibly to such an unexpected situation.
Unless…
Someone was inside the control room, controlling 028 and watching everything happening in the training ground.
Who that person was went without saying.
As the AI’s mechanical countdown continued, Wendy withdrew her gaze and raised her gun.
C Team watched her nervously in silence.
Behind them, B Team was laughing and cheering loudly for Huang Jieshu.
The nature of this individual competition had completely changed.
At this moment, Wendy’s presence here represented the entire C Team.
Wendy shut out everything around her and concentrated all her attention on the target 50 meters away.
Ten bullets.
One miss.
One 8-ring shot.
She was already 8.6 points behind Huang Jieshu.
Although Huang Jieshu basically stopped at eight rings, he had also reached that level through years of training and was extraordinarily consistent at hitting eight rings.
In other words, his next eight shots were very likely to be steady 8-ring shots.
Having already missed one shot, if Wendy wanted to guarantee a victory, every remaining shot had to hit within the 10-ring zone.
This tested not only shooting ability but also stress resistance and concentration.
Even for a genuine shooting prodigy like Jiang Qiao, it was an extremely difficult challenge.
If she used “Domination,” she could easily obtain a perfect score.
But that would be incredibly boring.
Everything before the apocalypse, everything aboard the escape boat—it was all merely a game to her.
A game was only worth playing if it presented a challenge.
Cheating would make the game dull.
Her first two mistakes had different causes.
The first had been an error in calculating the lead.
The second had been caused by pulling the trigger too hard, resulting in a slight loss of accuracy from the resulting movement.
Since the original competition hadn’t mattered much, she hadn’t cared.
She had simply treated it like a game, experimenting while using the opportunity to understand her own weaknesses.
But now, Liao Chengyu was secretly watching her.
C Team had also chosen her as their representative.
If she won this competition and helped C Team vent their anger, what she would gain wouldn’t merely be the attention of her superior.
She would also gain the loyalty and morale of the entire C Team.
C Team’s squad leader had died in the battle against the Giant Spider.
With the apocalypse growing increasingly urgent, Liao Chengyu would certainly select a replacement as soon as possible.
Since that was the case…
Why couldn’t she take the position and have a little fun with it?
The countdown ended.
The target began moving rapidly and unpredictably.
For a moment, the entire training ground was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
The girl’s black eyes, sharp as blades, locked onto the target ten meters away.
The light in her eyes burned like flames.
“Bang!”
Author’s Note
A 5,000-word chonky chapter has dropped from the sky~
Tomorrow the novel enters VIP status!
There’ll be a 10,000-word mega chapter and a shower of red-envelope rewards. Thank you, my darlings, for supporting me during this time! (Bows, then runs off to write.)
(Runs over excitedly and sets up a stall.) My darlings, please take a look at my upcoming novels. More details can be found in my author profile:
Help vote for which one gets released! My darlings, add whichever interests you to your collection. Whichever one has more collections will be the next novel I publish.