Bai Ye was instantly surrounded from all sides as countless blades slashed toward where he stood.
Without the slightest panic, Bai Ye's eyes glowed faintly silver in the darkness.
Thought Acceleration activated.
What had originally been an impenetrable net formed by several blades was now riddled with openings in Bai Ye's eyes. He shifted and dodged within an extremely narrow space, evading wave after wave of enemy attacks.
Neither impatient nor roaring, the enemies wore black masks and were covered from head to toe in finely crafted armor that Reunion could never have obtained. They merely coordinated their weapon swings flawlessly, covering one another as they forced Bai Ye into a dead end.
"It's about time to end this."
A glint flashed through Bai Ye's eyes.
There were seven opponents in total: their sword techniques, accompanying tactics, attack and defense ranges, tactical algorithms, offensive and defensive skills, habitual stances, move combinations, and the probabilities of various combinations.
Strength, speed, breathing, muscles, habits, blind-spot compensation—all types of data had been collected.
Psychological tendencies, personality traits, ability to judge people, thinking speed, stress resistance, emotional suppression, and other strategically influential factors...
The required intelligence had been gathered. The data accumulation was complete...
After several rounds of probing, Bai Ye's Thought Acceleration had obtained every piece of information it required.
The battlefield environment was reconstructed in his mind.
"Neural pathways switched."
The circuits formed from mental power processed the information Bai Ye had collected at an unimaginable speed.
Enemy pre-action pattern predictions—fourteen types.
Effective counterattack methods—thirteen types.
Second step: 156 action nodes.
Third step: 1,728.
Fourth step, fifth step...
A tree diagram predicting the future formed in Bai Ye's mind. Drawing on the experience accumulated through countless battles in his previous life, he derived the optimal solution from the vast array of predicted futures.
"Pathfinding complete."
Bai Ye tightened his grip on Arc Light, and predictions of the battle began to take shape in his mind.
First step: two people attacked from the front simultaneously, slashing diagonally from above. Synchronization rate: 93.482%—one centimeter to the right of prediction. Data corrected.
Second step: evade the axe strikes of the three behind him and avoid the arrows.
Third step: Sword Sheath deflected the Arts. The opponent thrust from the front. Synchronization rate: 94.842%—blade angle 4.5 degrees too high. Data corrected.
As if he could foresee the future, Bai Ye evaded their attacks. He always moved before they struck, and at the same time, he thrust Arc Light for the first time.
The sword gleamed with crystalline cold light. To his enemies, it was as if a third moon had appeared in the night sky.
The attack enhanced by Originium Arts effortlessly pierced through an enemy's abdomen.
He kicked straight out, then smoothly pulled out the bloodied blade.
Fourth step: evade.
Fifth step: evade.
Slash, sever the hand holding the weapon.
Sixth step, seventh step...
Skadi, who had already finished her own battle, stood to one side and watched Bai Ye dance among the enemies.
Rather than martial arts, it was more like a dance.
He dodged in advance and attacked from exquisite angles. Everything the enemies did was under his control, as though they were cooperating with Bai Ye in a performance.
Skadi was somewhat surprised. She had not expected Bai Ye to possess such martial skill.
Her intuition told Skadi that if their strength and speed were equal, she would be no match for Bai Ye.
This was not merely swordsmanship, but a martial philosophy: a technique that found an opponent's limits, then surpassed them.
What Skadi did not know was that Bai Ye used the intelligence he had gathered to predict future action nodes, achieving an effect close to precognition.
Everything proceeded according to Bai Ye's plan. Through careful guidance, he successfully created openings, then cut down all seven of them one by one.
There's a Traitor Among You
"Hah—"
Pulling Arc Light from the last man's chest, Bai Ye flicked the blood from the blade and sheathed it.
Blood drew a cruel yet tragic line across the pristine snow.
He slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the silver light had faded from his pupils, and Bai Ye exited the Thought Acceleration state.
Every enemy lay on the ground, barely clinging to life. Three had their lungs pierced, two were suffering massive internal bleeding from wounds to their abdomens, while the remaining two had their limbs cut off and lay scattered across the ground.
Without realizing it, Bai Ye's cold weapon—swordsmanship skill had risen to Expert level.
He had found the philosophy behind his own swordsmanship: overwhelm others with incomparably precise pre-reading.
As long as enough data was collected, Thought Acceleration could form a predictive tree diagram of actions in his mind, similar to precognition. Every possible situation in battle would be included within it.
Under such circumstances, battle became as clear as the lines on Bai Ye's palm. He could read every movement of his enemies in advance.
This style of combat was practically cheating. He could easily toy with his enemies in the palm of his hand.
Unless his opponent's attributes completely crushed his own, or the data they displayed surpassed the limits Bai Ye had collected, they would be unable to break his predictions.
"As expected, if you want to fight, you still need a strategy guide."
Bai Ye fought with the identity of a Player. He was not the intuitive type and would never choose to fight based solely on feelings and instincts. He trusted the judgments made by his mind more.
"My mental strength is still a little low... I'm getting tired."
Bai Ye rubbed between his brows. This method of fighting consumed a great deal of mental energy. His mental attribute was not especially high yet, so he could not maintain this state for long.
"Bai Ye, you worked hard."
Skadi walked to Bai Ye's side and looked at the enemies lying on the ground, groaning continuously.
Since Bai Ye had controlled the entire battlefield, he naturally knew Skadi had finished her battle before him.
He took out a bottle of water and drank from it, then looked down at the ground. "These people are not ordinary."
Even if he had merely been testing the swordsmanship he had newly developed, anyone who could force Bai Ye to use this move was naturally no ordinary opponent.
Ordinary infected members of Reunion would not possess such strength.
Their physical abilities were formidable. Whether it was strength, speed, battlefield mobility, or endurance, they all exceeded Bai Ye's expectations. Their equipment and weapons were also exceptionally refined. The armor in particular even had jet devices installed, allowing explosive short-distance dashes.
Using Sword Sheath to lift a visor, Bai Ye saw an unfamiliar face.
Of course it was unfamiliar. After all, he did not know anyone.
"Who are they?"
"I don't know. But the small fry all went to hold you back, so these remaining ones should have been after me." Bai Ye snapped his fingers and dispelled the vacuum soundproof barrier surrounding the battlefield.
The reason no one had come to investigate despite the huge commotion earlier was because he had sealed off the sound.
As he spoke, Skadi suddenly reached out and caught a crossbow bolt flying toward Bai Ye as though she were catching a small bird. Then she threw it back toward where the ballista bolt had come from.
Boom—
The sound of the explosion finally traveled out. It blasted the enemy away and also woke Reunion's camp.
One light after another lit up. Reunion's soldiers were roused from sleep. The first to prepare were naturally the infected guerrillas, followed by the Snow Crab Squad. As for the ordinary infected, they were in disarray, but they too made preparations for battle.
"What happened?"
The Shield Guards and FrostNova were the first to arrive.
"We were attacked." Bai Ye stood on the snow, looking up at the twin moons in the sky.
"Where are the enemies?" A Shield Guard frowned as he looked at the enemies sprawled across the ground, all barely alive.
"They're all on the ground. There was one more, but he was probably blown to death."
FrostNova looked at Bai Ye and Skadi in surprise. She had not expected the two of them to be so capable in a fight.
After all, the girl had not personally witnessed how Skadi had intimidated the infected upon first arriving at Reunion's camp.
Patriot stood silently, looking at the infected lying on the ground. His gaze lingered especially on the seven-man squad defeated by Bai Ye.
"These people... are our people... Reunion's people." After inspecting them, FrostNova's expression turned rather unpleasant.
She had originally been wary of Bai Ye and Skadi.
Yet it was their own people who had made the first move.
"Not all of them."
A deep, hoarse voice suddenly sounded.
Bai Ye raised his head. The speaker was Patriot.
This was the first time Bai Ye had heard Patriot speak since arriving at Reunion's camp.
"The ones who attacked you... are Ursus soldiers."
"Third Army... elite soldiers."
Patriot's words were stiff, but everyone present heard them clearly.
"How is that possible?!" The infected guerrillas were the first to question it.
They had originally been regular Ursus soldiers, following Patriot through countless campaigns from the very beginning.
"Why are there Ursus soldiers in Squad Five?!" A guerrilla fighter's voice was filled with rage and terror. "The Third Army... not even the nearby Fourth Army. When did they infiltrate us? Were we discovered long ago?"
The enemies lying on the ground remained silent.
"Damn it!"
A Shield Guard grabbed a severely wounded enemy by the collar and roared at him, "Talk! What exactly are you planning?!"
"Talking to them... is useless." Patriot shook his head. "Kill them."
"Wait! Sir, spare us! We aren't military personnel—we're innocent!"
The infected who had been knocked down by Skadi panicked. They were not soldiers.
"Hmph. Traitors." FrostNova looked at the infected with contempt, then said, "Kill the ones in black. Take the others away for interrogation."
Watching the farce unfolding before him, Bai Ye shook his head.
No wonder Players in his previous life had discovered a large number of strange enemies in Reunion during story missions. They clearly wore Reunion uniforms and armbands, yet their strength far surpassed that of ordinary thugs.
Ursus soldiers had put on Reunion's clothes.
Everything had been planned from the start.
Reunion had been a pawn from the very beginning.
Now it seemed the infiltration had begun long ago.
When they broadly accepted refugees and infected people, Reunion had been like a sieve, riddled with holes everywhere.
Who knew how many people had infiltrated this young organization?
If Bai Ye had not deliberately leaked that he possessed infected suppressants, those people would likely have stayed hidden.
"There's a traitor among you."
As Bai Ye remarked on it, he also considered why those people had been willing to expose themselves just to kill him.
FrostNova
(Some adorable readers have already found the source of Bai Ye's swordsmanship.)
The Ursus army stationed on the ice plains was the Fourth Army.
Before you continue