Life and Death

The viewpoint shifted to Yu Jing's current Testing Area—the slaughterhouse.

"How could this be? His head was pierced through, yet he's still not dead? The only option left is to throw the Butcher into the meat grinder."

Yu Jing leaped backward with all his strength to evade the Butcher's attack, but his unsteady body crashed to the ground, making it difficult to move for the moment.

Having broken free of his restraints, the Butcher was now completely enraged and berserk. He held a butcher's knife in one hand and a hatchet in the other, intending to hack Yu Jing before him into pieces.

"Rumble!"

At this critical moment, another violent tremor struck. The intense shaking inside the slaughterhouse made it difficult for the Butcher to keep his balance.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Yu Jing controlled his balance and tried to widen the distance between them.

All of Yu Jing's attention was focused on the Butcher to guard against him throwing the butcher's knife, so he failed to notice what was right in front of him.

Unbeknownst to him, a certain green plant was seeping into the floor of the slaughterhouse and the high-density-material testing room.

Yu Jing crawled and rolled away, accidentally bracing his palm against a spot where the green plant had emerged. A sharp pain shot through his palm.

"It hurts!"

With the Butcher chasing him down, Yu Jing merely assumed that he had accidentally pressed his hand against something sharp on the floor and been pricked. He did not pay much attention to it.

Unbeknownst to him, the green plant's roots were moving through his flesh, rapidly spreading throughout his entire arm. Yet for some unknown reason, the plant did not drain away all the life energy in Yu Jing's body as it had with others. It simply lurked quietly in his arm, and no more plants emerged from the cracks in the floor.

Yu Jing felt no changes in his body. At the same time, the sudden earthquake had bought him some time. Before the Butcher could regain his footing, Yu Jing immediately circled toward the meat grinder.

"Running away like this will only lead to death. The meat grinder is the only chance I have..."

Yu Jing circled around to the meat grinder and looked toward Jiang Tian, who was hiding inside the central ventilation duct. That woman had already done enough. If Jiang Tian had not risked her life to save him earlier, Yu Jing would have died from blood loss long ago.

"Come on!"

The Butcher seemed able to hear his prey's shout. The earthquake had stopped, and the Butcher advanced toward Yu Jing on his enormous feet. A hand stretched from his split-open abdomen and waved wildly, as if it wanted to drag Yu Jing inside and make him part of it.

"Stay calm!" Yu Jing stood motionless before the meat grinder's opening.

The Butcher's increasing speed was, in Yu Jing's eyes, an opportunity. The key to this test was exploiting the Butcher's weakness. Victory also required absolute calm and a certain level of physical ability.

As the charging Butcher swung his butcher's knife down toward Yu Jing—

In that instant, whether because adrenaline had surged through his body or for some other reason, Yu Jing could actually see the Butcher's blade clearly. His body reacted immediately, dodging.

His half-crouched body happened to evade the butcher's knife as it swept diagonally downward.

Because the Butcher had been running quickly and had missed with his forward swing, inertia caused his body to pitch forward.

"Use his momentum against him."

Taking advantage of this, Yu Jing pushed the Butcher's body toward the meat grinder.

The enormous body, weighing more than five hundred pounds, had both legs yanked out from under it in that instant. Its huge form toppled toward the meat grinder's opening.

"Success..."

Yu Jing watched as half the Butcher's body sank inside. Just as he was about to retreat, a bloody hand writhing at the very bottom of the Butcher's abdomen suddenly seized Yu Jing's arm. Its strength was shockingly great, dragging Yu Jing into the meat grinder along with it.

Yu Jing wanted to break free, but he was powerless to do so.

Jiang Tian struggled out of the ventilation duct and sprinted toward the meat grinder with all her strength, trying to pull Yu Jing back. But when she reached out, her five fingers merely brushed against Yu Jing's five fingers in midair, failing to grasp him.

Yu Jing's gaze froze. The machine's roar grew louder and louder beside his ears, while his eyes suddenly became peaceful at that moment...

After that, all that remained in his ears was the machine's roar and the sound of things being crushed.

The incident involving the plants in the desert had been completely resolved. A small branch of the plant had extended into the hidden underground Testing Area outside the outskirts of the A-Class City in District 19. The supervisor in charge of the project had dealt with it and cleaned it up. Not one section of the defensive line around the desert had reported a breach. The alien life forms had been eliminated.

Under the state's total cover-up, the incident involving the invading plants had vanished as though it had never happened. People living ordinary lives merely believed that the military was testing explosive weapons in the desert region, unaware that failure to eliminate them would have caused incalculable human casualties.

Some plant samples collected by ability users had been sent back to the national central laboratory for research. However, they died during transport. It seemed that the plant's core had been destroyed or severed, leaving the cut-off branches unable to survive independently for long.

"How were the test results? The little girl who was guaranteed admission goes without saying, but did anyone else score above eighty?"

When the supervisor returned to the research institute, the four-hour test had come to an end. In truth, the supervisor had been most optimistic about Yu Jing, but Yu Jing's current surveillance feed was pointed straight at a rotating meat grinder.

"What a pity. The berserk Butcher was dangerous enough to threaten ordinary combat personnel. This person remained calm at the end and sent the Butcher into the meat grinder, but was just slightly careless and got himself killed. His final score before death reached 92.3..."

The staff member responsible for monitoring Yu Jing did his best to explain the situation, but the supervisor immediately waved his hand, indicating that there was no need to continue with such a pointless subject.

"A true strong person can't afford any mistakes. Just one mistake is enough to cause death. We don't give unnecessary evaluations to test takers who died here... How are the other test takers?"

"There were no test takers with a comprehensive score above ninety," the staff member replied.

"The start of the school term is approaching. If District 19 can't submit enough 'disciples,' the slots will be taken by the other districts. Eliminate everyone who failed. Spend one week reorganizing the Testing Areas, then recruit another batch of test takers."

There was no mercy in the supervisor's eyes. Apart from Yu Xiaoxiao, who had passed with a score of 97.8, all test takers in the Testing Areas who had failed to reach ninety would be eliminated.