Masked Squad

Everyone looked up. High overhead, the thick clouds suddenly burst apart, and several shafts of dazzling sunlight shone straight through them, spilling onto the ground.

Seven figures had smashed through the clouds. They wore gray cloaks, carried black cases on their backs, and each wore a different mask.

"Holy crap? No parachutes? They're not here to play nice, are they?" Lin Qiye raised an eyebrow.

Falling from that height without a parachute was something even he couldn't survive, not even at night with Starry Night Dancer active. He would be smashed to pieces. With the Bronze Head and Iron Arms entry, though, he might be able to try it.

"Qiye, don't get it wrong. You're the one coming here. Take care of yourself. If you need me, it's not like I can't come out and give you a little help." Zhou Meng's voice faded away.

He had only stopped talking so he wouldn't distract Lin Qiye, though. He still intended to watch the fun later.

The Masked Squad was one of the Nightwatchers' four special squads: the Heroic Spirit Squad, the Medium Squad, the Phoenix Squad, and the Masked Squad.

A special squad required every member to be at the Sea Realm. Its captain, Wang Mian, was another of Daxia's God's Agents. The god he represented was Chronos, the god of time.

The other members of the Masked Squad were no pushovers either.

A member named Whirlpool had a Forbidden Ruins ability that let him unleash whirlpools to attack. Rose could control the size of the weapons she used. Tianping could control gravity and force fields within a certain area. Moon Ghost could break his body down into moonlight.

Zhou Meng wasn't particularly interested in their entries, though. They looked impressive now, but the real monsters were hidden among the 239 recruits. No matter how many entries they had, could they have more than the gods in the Mental Hospital?

"Ahem. Since you're not convinced, I'll give you a chance: a chance to recognize your own abilities, and a chance to encounter top-tier geniuses!" Yuan Gang composed himself and called out to the recruits.

The sight of Whirlpool falling from the sky and landing sprawled face-down in a grand salute to the recruits still lingered in his mind, refusing to go away. It had nearly made him lose his composure.

He could only dredge up the saddest memories of his life and distract himself to force down the corners of his mouth, which kept turning up.

"What did Instructor Yuan Gang say? No matter what methods we use, as long as we take the masks off the five Masked Squad members taking the field before nine tonight, we win? And then we won't have to do any of this year's training?" The recruits' eyes widened.

"Really? Wouldn't that be way too easy?"

"Two hundred and thirty-nine against five? We've got the advantage!"

"If they were all at the River or Sea Realm, we'd have some reason to fear them. But now their realms have all been suppressed to the Zhan Realm, so why the hell should I be afraid? Brothers, let's go beat them up!"

The recruits were already growing excited and itching for a fight, as though the five Masked Squad members before them were lambs waiting for slaughter.

With a muffled thud, one recruit was sent flying by Tianping's attack. The training session meant to put the recruits in their place had officially begun!

"Hmph, a bunch of clueless fools. Do they really think they're something special? Two hundred and thirty-nine rabble against five elite squad members who've worked together who knows how many times, and we don't even know what their abilities are. They're just going to charge in like that? Dream on." Lin Qiye's assessment of the situation was nowhere near as optimistic as most people's.

It was still daytime, and he didn't have Starry Night Dancer to bolster him. Even if he did, and had the two new entries Brother Meng had given him as well, he still wouldn't dare confront the Masked Squad head-on.

Fighting required strategy too.

So instead of shouting and charging forward like the others, Lin Qiye grabbed Baili Pangpang and ran back.

He wanted to learn as much as he could and make preparations before waiting for an opportunity to act. He had learned all of that from the 136th Squad.

Lin Qiye had only one goal now: find somewhere to hide, draw a summoning array, and see if he could summon anything useful.

Behind them, purple whirlpools rose and churned, mingled with flames, lightning, frost, and the recruits' screams.

Lin Qiye dragged Baili Pangpang along, and they ran in a flash to the warehouse entrance.

"Didn't they tell us to come to the warehouse for weapons? How the hell are we supposed to get any if the door's locked?" Baili Pangpang had just used every ounce of strength he had to keep up with Lin Qiye. Now drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, he leaned against the warehouse door and complained.

"They only told us to come get them. Looks like we'll have to find a way to open the door ourselves!" Lin Qiye looked around, but the barracks were bare, without so much as a tree in sight. That left him somewhat stumped.

"Fatty, do you have anything shaped like a stick? Lend it to me! Quick!"

"Huh? Stick-shaped? Don't you have one yourself?"

Lin Qiye looked at Baili Pangpang as if he were an idiot and rapped him hard on the head. "Why the hell is your imagination so active? That's not what I'm fucking talking about. I mean a stick! Any kind of stick! A twig, a chopstick, a Magic Wand, anything!"

"Oh, you should've said so. My mind went somewhere else." Baili Pangpang reached into his pocket and actually pulled out a Magic Wand.

"This is a Forbidden Artifact. It's called the Magic Wand, but I don't know how to use it, so I usually use it as a chopstick. I'll lend it to you for now. But what do you want it for?"

"My Forbidden Ruins isn't the destructive type, so I can't open the door. I'll do something useful first instead!" Lin Qiye snatched the Magic Wand and began drawing a summoning array on the ground.

"Huh? You want to open the door? You should've said so. Actually, I—" Before Baili Pangpang could finish, Lin Qiye had already completed the summoning array. He jabbed the Magic Wand down hard on it.

A dazzling light burst from the tip of the Magic Wand. Immediately afterward, a figure walked out of the summoning array.

Lin Qiye and Baili Pangpang's gazes were drawn to the thing at once.

What the heck was this?

At that moment, a tall female figure was rapidly approaching the armory.

Her long hair was as red as flames and floated gently in the breeze. Even her loose military uniform could hardly conceal the alluring figure beneath.

She was Mo Li, one of the recruits and the wielder of the Forbidden Ruins [Myriad Phenomena Frequency Shift].

Her destination happened to be the same as Lin Qiye and Baili Pangpang's: the armory, where she intended to pick a weapon that suited her rather than fight the Masked Squad barehanded.

"What are you two standing around here for? Don't block the door. Move!" she asked Lin Qiye and Baili Pangpang, who were standing in front of the warehouse door, in a cool voice.

But neither of them reacted at all, as though they hadn't heard her.

"I said, are you deaf? Move—" Mo Li was about to push the two aside when her gaze was involuntarily drawn to a thing beside them.

What the heck was this?

Was it a big, clean white mushroom with arms and legs?

At the sight of the white mushroom person, Zhou Meng abruptly sat up in bed.

That kid Lin Qiye sure was lucky!