Jeremy glanced at the four teammates who had just run for their lives alongside Jeremy over a long distance. Their physical conditions were clearly displayed right now: except for Leon, who maintained a relatively steady breathing rhythm, the other three had pale faces. Especially Lucius—the guy who always had a nonchalant smile on his lips—right now, Lucius’s face was as pale as a ghost gliding across the ground.
Suddenly, Evelyn, who was leading the formation, braked her strides sharply. Evelyn lightly dropped a sentence, her soothing voice flat without a single trace of fluctuation: "It’s a dead end. There’s a cliff ahead."
Jeremy squeezed forward to take a look. Sure enough, a steep, bottomless cliff appeared right in front of them, choking off all escape routes.
Truly pushing people into a corner of death.
Jeremy gritted his teeth, his body stiffening in extreme vigilance. Jeremy was just about to silently curse, his hand stroking the hilt of his natal blade preparing to summon it for a life-or-death battle with the pack of vicious beasts, when Evelyn’s next action made Jeremy freeze.
The cold-faced girl, without saying a word, reached her right hand into mid-air. A stream of light green magic power eroded the air, instantly condensing into an exquisite longbow. The moment Evelyn’s two slender fingertips pinched the bowstring and drew it taut, the runic matrices carved on the bow’s body simultaneously flared up. The cyan light shattered and then tightly compressed, turning into three sharp magical arrows in the blink of an eye.
Swish—!
The sharp sound of wind-tearing rang out as if tearing eardrums apart. In less than half a second, the cluster of arrows plunged into the void, immediately detonating to form a rain of cyan sword-light that pierced straight into the center of the frantically charging magic beast pack’s formation. A few leading beasts took the full brunt of the firepower, their sturdy scale armor crushed to pieces. The beasts roared in agony, staggering and collapsing into a dazzling pool of blood, stopping breathing on the spot.
Jeremy let out a soft cough, swallowing the dry, burning sensation in his throat, a flash of astonishment darting through the depths of Jeremy’s eyes. This girl’s long-range destructive firepower was truly at a level that could not be underestimated.
Right at that moment, Lucius’s steady, completely unhurried tone rang in Jeremy’s ear: "Captain, there is no way back anyway. That pack of magic beasts looks numerous, but ultimately they are only at level one. How about we risk it all? If we are lucky enough to survive, who knows, we might even manage to crawl back to the training ground in time to attend the second class."
A situation where their lives were hanging by a thread, yet Lucius still had the mind to remember the next class... Truly the standard good student of the academy. Jeremy glanced at the streak of magic power that had just formed in Lucius’s palm, saying coldly: "Since you have already decided to make a move, just go ahead, why pretend to ask for my opinion?"
Lucius slightly narrowed his enchanting phoenix eyes, the corner of his lips turning up into that familiar harmless smile: "Well, you are holding the captain position. I have to follow the rules after all, saying a few words of report just for mere formality."
"If the captain has no objections, then I will go first~"
Exactly 0.3 seconds after the final syllable fell, Lucius’s figure instantly disappeared on the spot, turning into a silver-gray afterimage dashing straight into the middle of the bloodthirsty beast pack.
Jeremy’s sharp gaze chased after every lightning-fast trajectory of Lucius’s movements.
Lucius’s natal Holy Artifact possessed a dual-form combat transformation structure. The cold silver longsword split into a long chain in the blink of an eye. The entire body of the chain radiated a freezing silver halo, covered in light blue matrices that constantly circulated, dazzlingly beautiful yet carrying overwhelming murderous intent.
The exact moment a level-one fire panther opened its sharp fangs wide and lunged straight at Lucius’s face, the sword in Lucius’s hand let out a resounding clash of metal, shattering into countless linked chain links. The Soul Devourer chain, as flexible as a fire snake tearing through the wind, wrapped tightly around the vicious beast’s neck at a cunning angle.
The fire panther struggled frantically, its fire-attribute magic power erupting in an attempt to burn the enemy’s weapon to ashes. But Lucius only gave a sneer, the muscle mass beneath his shirt tensing slightly as Lucius’s wrist jerked sharply backward.
Magic power exploded along the chain, the gray metal edges erecting into countless tiny triangular blades, ruthlessly piercing through the thick skin and stabbing deep into the beast’s flesh. The defensive wall was crushed; the magic beast roared in ear-piercing agony, its massive body thrashing wildly, which only made the chain tighten deeper into its throat.
In less than ten seconds, the entire head of the fire panther was severed, rolling on the ground before shooting straight to a position exactly half a meter away from the toe of Jeremy’s shoe, who was standing with crossed arms observing.
The blood-drenched beast head was still rolling its bloodshot eyes back. The emotion on Jeremy’s face was completely calm like stagnant water; Jeremy merely took a nonchalant half-step back to keep his expensive leather shoes from getting stained.
The slaughtering battle continued. The pungent smell of fresh blood and blinding dust engulfed the space.
Lucius, controlling the chain of death with one hand, was busy amidst the encirclement of magic beasts for half a day before realizing: apart from Evelyn, who was continuously drawing her bow for long-range support, the other three teammates were still rooted to the spot like spectators enjoying art. The corner of Lucius’s lips turned up, mocking while simultaneously unleashing strikes: "Oh, my three precious teammates... how long do you plan on standing there acting as scenery to beautify the formation?"
"Annoying to death." Leon clicked his tongue, full of impatience. A pair of semi-circular weapons, Crescent Blades, appeared in Leon’s hands. Leon casually swung his long arms, forcefully throwing the blades into the void.
The pair of ring blades tore through the air, creating an ear-piercing shriek, flashing across the battlefield with the speed of lightning, plunging into the throats of three magic wolves that were stealthily approaching from behind. The elemental magic power condensed on the blades traced dazzling yellowish-white light trajectories, as gorgeously beautiful as a crescent moon in the night sky.
Leon lightly lifted his index fingertip. The pair of ring blades, as if possessing sentience, obediently spun and flew back, landing neatly into Leon’s palms without being tainted by even a single drop of blood.
At the same time, Phoenix, who was huddled in the darkest corner, also began to take action. Phoenix lowered his voice, muttering to summon his natal Holy Artifact—a scepter bearing a deep crimson color as heavy as coagulated blood.
Accompanied by a string of thorny ancient incantations tearing through space, the ground beneath the feet of the magic beasts suddenly cracked open. From within the pitch-black fissures, countless ghostly entities bearing deformed shapes rumbled as they emerged. The moment they condensed into form, they simultaneously let out sharp, screeching howls that sought to tear apart human eardrums.
Under Phoenix’s gloomy, freezing command, the horde of phantoms charged straight into the vicious beast formation like lunatics. They completely ignored physical attacks, phasing through the sturdy scale armor defenses, and used their ghostly claws to stab straight into the enemy’s flesh, tearing open fatal wounds. Fresh blood instantly spewed out in torrents, dyeing an entire clearing a stark red.
"..."
Rooted to the spot, witnessing the entire destructive power of this team that had always been labeled as "trash," Jeremy fell into an absolute silence.
In the morning, when they were just tossed straight into the secret realm by the instructor, these four people were still putting on an act pretending to be weak, sticking close to Jeremy’s heels running for their lives through every grove of trees. Everyone was panting heavily, putting on a pathetic appearance as if they would collapse and stop breathing immediately just by taking three more steps, making Jeremy truly believe that he was carrying a bunch of frail young masters with no power to resist.
Now looking at these sharp, ruthless methods... If Jeremy had known earlier that they were all a bunch of monsters hiding their skills, who knows what the hell he was running for his dear life for this morning!