Outside the window.
The night grew deeper, the moonlight hazy.
Inside the private room, all was silent.
Only the soft breathing of two people could be heard.
After a long while, as the stifling atmosphere in the room gradually faded... Xu Qi sat up straight as well, lingering fear still gripping her heart.
As a secretary of the Human Base, Xu Qi had cultivated fairly strong willpower, but she still felt some panic when facing a terrifying virus like RT.
Only the dampness of her clothes reminded her that everything Lin Ye had said was true.
"Mr. Lin Ye, I lost my composure just now. Please continue." Xu Qi looked at the man across from her and smiled apologetically.
"It's fine!"
"When my sister contracted the RT Virus over a year ago, her body mutated. Fortunately, unlike the aggressive RR Virus, this virus has special medicine that can suppress it and slow its onset.
"But the RT Virus gradually devours human vitality to strengthen itself. Even with special medicine, its effects grow weaker the further things progress... That's why I'm so desperate to eradicate this virus completely. I'm worried..."
"Mr. Lin Ye, may I interrupt?"
Hearing this, Xu Qi's brows rose slightly. "Have you been giving your sister special antiviral medicine all this time?"
"Yes!" Lin Ye nodded without hesitation.
"So that's how it is. That medicine isn't cheap."
Lin Ye: "..."
At that moment, Xu Qi's tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed.
She finally understood why Lin Ye had been so meticulous over the sale price of monster materials.
At the same time, she recalled that there had been extensive domestic research into the RT Virus.
It had proven that once the RT Virus erupted, it was far more destructive than the RR Virus... Ordinary people could last no more than three minutes!
Unless they had expensive medicine constantly extending their lives, or a designated special treatment, infected people would soon exhaust their vitality.
"Mr. Lin Ye, I understand the conditions you proposed. However, completely eradicating the RT Virus exceeds my current authority. I'll need to report it to my superiors."
Xu Qi gave Lin Ye an apologetic smile, then left the private room to make a call.
Watching Secretary Xu leave, Lin Ye immediately felt his heartbeat quicken.
It has to work!
Ten minutes later.
The private room door was pushed open, and Xu Qi walked in with a smile on her face.
"How did it go?" Lin Ye rose to his feet.
"I didn't let you down. It worked!"
Xu Qi gave Lin Ye a victorious gesture. "My superiors agreed to your conditions. They've already begun arranging for experts and specially prepared medicine to come from Capital City. They should arrive in Mountain City within the next couple of days."
"Your sister's illness will be no problem!"
"Phew... phew..."
When Xu Qi told him this, Lin Ye dropped back into his chair and took a deep breath.
He closed his eyes slightly and tried hard to calm the turmoil in his chest.
It took quite some time before Lin Ye recovered.
He looked at Xu Qi, gratitude filling his clear, water-like eyes. "Secretary Xu, thank you so much!"
The virus in his sister Lin Xiyue's body had always weighed heavily on him.
Now that this huge burden had finally been lifted, he could finally breathe easy.
"Mr. Lin Ye, there's no need to thank me. This is simply an equal exchange. You'll join the military and serve us, so naturally we'll agree to your conditions."
"However, you'll only learn what you need to provide in exchange for the RT Virus treatment after signing a contract with us. Perhaps some benefits can be used to offset the treatment costs."
Xu Qi smiled, genuinely delighted.
"Alright, then it's settled." Lin Ye nodded.
Suddenly,
His brows furrowed slightly as he asked, "Secretary Xu, did you tell the higher-ups about my test results?"
"Of course I did. Otherwise, they wouldn't have agreed to your conditions so easily. This concerns the RT Virus..."
Xu Qi immediately smiled. "Because I reported your test results from the martial arts hall this afternoon to my superiors,
Including some of the results from your Psychic Power test... That was why they readily agreed."
"So that's how it is." Lin Ye nodded, immediately understanding.
"Don't think I was monitoring you!
I just happened to be on duty at the martial arts hall and saw it." Xu Qi shrugged and smiled helplessly.
"In that case, can we sign the agreement directly?"
"No rush. Before we draw up the agreement, we'll need to conduct another detailed test of your strength so we can offer you the most suitable contract."
"The most suitable contract?"
Xu Qi said, "Of course. There are many different tiers of contracts between the military and Martial Artists."
"The lowest range from E-class and D-class... all the way up to the highest S-class contracts, each tailored to Martial Artists with different potential."
"At the same time, we'll assign every Martial Artist to a suitable squad to help them grow quickly!"
Hearing that, Lin Ye frowned slightly. "Assign me to a squad?"
"Yes. Is there a problem?" Xu Qi asked in confusion.
"Can I choose not to join a squad and enter the Wilderness Area alone?"
After hearing Lin Ye's words, Xu Qi raised her brows, a thoughtful expression appearing on her face.
After thinking for a while, she looked at Lin Ye and nodded. "Of course, but it's far too dangerous. The military has its own considerations, and generally won't allow Mid-tier War Generals or weaker Martial Artists to venture out alone...
"You know as well as I do that there are too many monsters in the surrounding Wilderness Areas. You could be surrounded and attacked at any moment."
"You must remember that every War General Martial Artist is the hope and future of both the military and humanity!!"
"Since we've settled everything, let's eat!" Xu Qi suggested, little stars sparkling in her eyes.
"After you eat and drink your fill, get a good rest tonight. The formal test will be tomorrow morning!"
"Alright!" Lin Ye nodded happily as well, then called for a waiter to serve the dishes.
Night blanketed the city.
The sky was gloomy and pitch-black, seemingly obscured by mist, without even a trace of starlight.
It was already late at night, yet people continued to stream in and out of the restaurant.
Lin Ye and Xu Qi walked out of the restaurant, chatting and laughing.
With his sister's problem resolved, he felt as though the dark clouds above his head had dispersed, leaving him utterly relaxed.
Vroom! Vroom! Vroom!!
The deep roar of engines sounded.
"Hm?"
Lin Ye could not help looking up, only to see rows of entirely black armored vehicles slowly coming to a stop.
The heavy steel doors reflected little light beneath the lamps, merely gleaming with a faint, cold sheen.
The vehicle doors opened, and tall figures clad in black Combat Suits stepped out one after another. There were a full fifty or sixty of them, forming a dense black circle.
They simply stood there quietly. Yet in Lin Ye's eyes, they were not individual people.
They were a pack of vicious beasts baring their fangs, ready to pounce and kill at any moment... or Death Gods of the night wielding grim reaper scythes, prepared to harvest lives at any time.
Every one of them exuded an incomparably dense killing intent!
Lin Ye felt that with absolute clarity.
Because he frequently roamed the wilderness and fought monsters in life-and-death battles, he was intimately familiar with killing intent.
Yet the killing intent surrounding these people was dozens of times denser than his own. They felt like blood-soaked Asuras who had fought their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
At that moment, Lin Ye also noticed the badges on these Martial Artists' right arms, and his heart suddenly jolted.
Among the dozens gathered here, the weakest were Mid-tier War Generals. There were even quite a few High-tier War Generals.
Especially the burly Black-clad Man at the front, who gave Lin Ye an immense sense of danger—
A War God!
While Lin Ye was shocked, he also noticed that the black-clad Martial Artists each wore a nameplate embroidered with dark golden patterns on the chest of their Combat Suits.
At the center of the nameplate were two characters: Dark Night. The words Dark Night were red, the same color as blood.
"Dark Night? Dark Night!"
Lin Ye rapidly searched through the name in his mind.
Suddenly, his brows furrowed slightly as realization dawned on him.
"It's the Night Mercenary Group!"
"..."
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