A Bountiful Harvest

Ma Li'ao piloted the airship at full speed. He knew the examinees behind him probably wouldn't hold the pursuers back for long.

But that didn't matter. Soon, he would find the next batch of scapegoats.

As long as those ordinary people bought him thirty seconds, he was confident he could activate the airship's spatial jump and leave the secret realm space directly.

"Yang Liuliu, the next target."

"Ten kilometers straight ahead."

"Crack!"

A vast shadow descended from high above and sliced the speeding airship clean in two!

The airship's power core was completely destroyed, and the wreckage plunged uncontrollably into the dark forest.

"Boom!"

The compressed energy stored aboard the airship exploded on impact.

A fierce blaze rose into the air, heralding the opening of a bloody spectacle.

Ma Li'ao and Yang Liuliu scrambled out of the blast zone, battered and burned over large areas of their bodies.

If they hadn't possessed the strength of the peak second realm, they probably would have perished in the flames like the others.

Terror appeared on their twisted, disfigured faces, and their damaged vocal cords vibrated with broken, rasping cries.

"Mon...ster..." "No, don't...kill..."

Shisui wasn't about to let the prey right in front of him escape.

"Psh! Psh!"

Slender bikaku shot out of the flames and pierced both their hearts in an instant.

Then the bikaku swayed and began rapidly absorbing psychic energy.

With two casual strikes, Lou Shisui had brought the lives of the offspring of Zi City's two great top families to an end. They hadn't even lived as long as the scapegoats facing the beast tide.

Shisui stepped out of the roaring flames, the exoskeleton formed from kagune utterly unafraid of such heat.

He hopped excitedly on the spot. His warm-up was officially over.

A beast's roar came from the distance. Beneath the half-mask of Shisui's exoskeleton, the corners of his mouth rose, and light began to stream through his kagune as it operated at high frequency.

Shisui had fully adapted to psychic energy and his new body. Even when he needed to activate his predatory organs at high load, he no longer used the extremely wasteful method of igniting psychic energy.

He hadn't spent nearly three months in the underground arena for nothing.

Talent [Predator], activate!

Both pairs of ukaku suddenly surged with power!

"Whoosh!"

His supersonic flight cut through the air with a piercing shriek.

The hardened ukaku merely passed by, and every tree nearby was instantly severed. The kakuja armor, three people tall, passed through the forest as though crossing level ground.

The Ghoul charged head-on into the beast tide, bringing a gale and murderous intent with him!

Lou Shisui couldn't be bothered with the examinees being hunted by the Beastfolk.

Come on, there were barely even a few second realm fighters among these humans, all right?

Who cares?

He'd rather look at the piles of third and fourth realm fighters in the distance!

Besides, the "witnesses" he'd let go earlier needed to get out alive and muddy the waters. How could they die here?

Lou Shisui flapped his ukaku, retracted the bikaku behind his waist, and flew high into the sky in an instant. His Owl Wings gave off a faint crimson-purple glow beneath the night sky.

The next moment, a dense barrage of feather projectiles poured down!

The crystalline Rc Cell feathers of the Owl Wings were sharp and spindle-shaped to begin with. Enhanced by his talent, they had even greater penetrating power, making it easy to pierce his enemies' flesh.

Shisui opened with an indiscriminate barrage. Countless beasts on the ground and in the sky were pierced through, and their piled-up corpses forced the beast tide to a halt.

Seeing that his prey had stopped running around, Shisui drew his wings in slightly, then abruptly plunged downward!

The fall gave him tremendous momentum. Riding it, he suddenly spread his Steel Feathers kagune near the ground, using that force to glide forward at high speed just above the earth.

His razor-sharp ukaku swept over the ground like steel blades, carving a line of death through the beast pack as if cutting grass.

Moments later, the momentum of his dive ran out. Shisui gave his wings a light flap, rose in an instant, and hovered above the beast tide.

Having just shown the clumsy flying Beastfolk what top-tier flying skills looked like, Shisui had finally had his fill of flying.

He released the bikaku and rinkaku from his lower back and swung them fiercely at the beasts gathering nearby once more.

"Boom!"

A brush dipped in red pigment swept a circle around him, then drew a horizontal stroke on the ground, biting three-tenths of an inch deep into the wood.

The bikaku rolled across the ground, attacking while drawing in psychic energy.

This kind of absorption didn't convert energy as efficiently as eating, but it covered a wide area and was fast. It was like playing on a phone while charging it with a fast-charging cable.

Shisui could feel the psychic energy accumulating inside him.

Before long, he felt full. The psychic energy stored in his body had reached its limit.

Shisui didn't retract his ukaku. He maintained his flight while the kagune behind him kept attacking and recharging at the same time, allowing him to shed his skin and evolve in midair.

Two seconds later, Shisui emerged fresh from the factory, one step closer to the fourth realm.

The psychic energy in his body had been emptied, and he was hungry once again. But it didn't matter this time. An endless supply of Beastfolk below were waiting to provide him with nourishment.

Ah, may the great families outside make good progress, and may they delay things for as long as they can!

Shisui sincerely prayed for his former employers.

At the same moment, at three in the morning on October 6, Zi City time, in the office of the unit under All-School Alliance headquarters responsible for administering the unified examination.

"Elder Fan, it's not that I don't want to hurry. Our people have been working overtime without sleep or rest. It's just...you know."

"What do I know? If this old man really knew what you meant, would I be making this call? If you have something to say, say it clearly!"

The refined middle-aged man in black-framed glasses sighed helplessly.

In just those few hours that night, worry had given him quite a few white hairs, and he looked as though he'd aged ten years.

He gave in. "I can't leave right now. Please come to my office. It wouldn't be good to talk about this over the phone."

"Wait there. I'm coming right over!"

The call was disconnected.

I hope I'll get to see the sun tomorrow.

The refined middle-aged man murmured to himself and casually flipped the switch to boil some water.

The next moment, a long blade pierced through his chest.

"No hope of that. Good night."

The black-clad assassin responsible for silencing him took the refined middle-aged man's corpse away.

Another assassin nearby, this one with lake-blue eyes, quickly eliminated every trace left at the scene.

In less than a minute, a mid-level member of the All-School Alliance had vanished from his own office.

By the time Fan Rongchang arrived, all that remained was an empty room and freshly boiled water on the desk.

"Damn it! I was one step too late!"

One glance was all it took for Fan Rongchang to realize something had happened to the man.

This was a favorite method of certain people: silencing someone physically, leaving the dead unable to testify. Assassination units trained to decapitate enemy races and factions often ended up pointing their blades at the Human Race instead.

It was utterly ridiculous!

"Spatial jumping, tracking and location, and leaving no trace. You really do act without the slightest restraint!"

A fury surpassing the Yellow Realm swept out, alarming the busy All-School Alliance headquarters.

"Elder Fan, please calm your anger."

A gentle voice came with a breeze that brushed against him, and a white skirt swayed in the wind like a magnolia.

The newcomer wore a broad-brimmed lotus-leaf hat that hid her eyes and brows but couldn't conceal her beautiful face.

As she spoke in soft, gentle tones, her strength at the peak second realm of the Profound Realm subtly seeped out, just managing to contain Elder Fan's Sunfire.

The woman spoke softly to soothe him. "If you continue like this, I'm afraid you'll interfere with the All-School Alliance's emergency repairs."

Fan Rongchang took a deep breath, suppressed his anger, and turned to give her a polite nod.

"Good evening, Ms. Fang Yulan. I must apologize for my earlier conduct."

"It's no trouble. Everyone in the All-School Alliance is run off their feet right now, though, so please don't take offense if our hospitality falls short, Elder Fan."

"I was rude to visit in the middle of the night, so I can't blame you for any lack of hospitality. It's late, so this old man will head home and rest."

"Take care on your way out, Elder Fan."

With that, Fang Yulan dissolved into the wind.

She left so promptly that she didn't even have anyone see him out.

Fan Rongchang couldn't wait for her to get lost. The Fang family of Zi City was likewise one of the great upper-tier families. Was there any need to guess what Fang Yulan was?

It seemed looking for an opportunity within the All-School Alliance wouldn't work. He would have to pressure them through the decision-makers to make them reconnect to the secret realm space sooner.

Fan Rongchang thought of his newly accepted young disciple and the examinees innocently caught up in the political struggle, and sighed deeply.

He quickly left All-School Alliance headquarters and strode toward the very center of Zi City.