Shude Maiyi

Caesar observed the nearly one-sided battle through his sniper scope.

Though the enemy had broken through the critical blood limit and completely transformed into a Dead Servant, the earlier explosion and the searing heat that followed had destroyed his already unstable body.

Now, he faced an opponent who crushed him in every regard—bloodline, battlefield judgment, combat awareness, and more...

Having injected Molotov Cocktails multiple times, an alchemical drug that kept dragon blood burning explosively, he remained extraordinarily active and aggressive.

But anyone could see that the moment the dragon blood inside him went out, this Dead Servant who wielded Word Spirit: Time Zero would collapse on his own.

A countdown to death...

Caesar rested his index finger on the trigger. Though he could not see the target's movements at all, much like Li Lin, he used the sounds relayed by Kamaitachi to successfully interpret the enemy's "instincts."

At first, he thought his Kamaitachi simply could not keep up with the enemy. But after shifting his perspective slightly, he understood that catching prey did not require keeping one's attention on it at every moment. One only needed to watch what each of its movements left behind and what it intended to do.

A bloodthirsty beast did everything for one purpose: "kill the prey."

No matter how fast it was, the sounds it made betrayed its intentions.

Caesar's sniper rifle remained trained on various open areas of the battlefield. Whenever he shifted the crosshairs in his scope away, he would see a black shadow flash past the spot where they had just been aimed.

He knew perfectly well that if he pulled the trigger, he would earn an excellent grade in this semester's War Practice Class for "decisively eliminating the mission target," and be granted an exception to join the Executive Department early as a second-year student.

The Gattuso family would publicize the outcome of this mission, allowing him to rise through the Executive Department at a pace ordinary students could never imagine...

That was what the family wanted, which was why they had deliberately placed Li Lin in Caesar's course group.

But Caesar would never do that.

Glory and victory snatched from a friend's hands would only disgust him.

He watched Li Lin smash the shattered Dead Servant into the ground with another heavy punch. The surrounding earth continuously covered it, coiling around its entire body like chains.

The battle was over.

Caesar expressionlessly lowered his sniper rifle. He could feel that his uncle was surely observing the situation through the camera behind him.

He waved at the surveillance camera overhead, politely informing the watcher to get as far away as possible. The footage was transmitted by Norma in real time to Frost Gattuso's office.

Caesar then returned the sniper rifle to Declan. Now, he would rely on his own strength to earn sufficiently impressive results in this mission.

For example, he could find alchemical drugs that Leonardo might not yet have injected, or gather the intelligence the gang had tortured out of that Japan Branch victim.

Caesar put on a baseball cap that barely concealed his face and left the old apartment building with light steps.

But Kamaitachi suddenly brought back some strange sounds.

He abruptly turned toward the stairwell beside him. It seemed someone had brushed past him just now, yet all he could see was a fading phantom dissolving into the Los Angeles night.

At the same time.

Li Lin, having successfully restrained the Dead Servant, wiped away his sweat. Killing it on the spot would not have been difficult, but Professor Schneider kept insisting through the earpiece that he leave it alive.

In truth, the battle had ended the instant Li Lin landed Mountain-Leaning Strike on the Dead Servant.

He looked at the Dead Servant before him, sealed tightly inside re-hardened cement, with only its scale-covered face exposed.

Li Lin met those dim, lifeless Golden Eyes, then looked toward the two Executive Department agents approaching quickly with blood-drawing tools. He felt rather awkward continuing to stand there like an idiot, so he took out his phone and called Xia Mi while pacing around, enjoying the admiring and awestruck gazes of the hybrids around him.

Li Lin did not actually feel much sense of belonging toward being a hybrid. He had always considered himself an outsider. Even after becoming a hybrid, he was still an outsider. He merely thought that now everyone was a monster, it was not bad to have topics monsters could talk about.

In the end, he casually found a bench by the roadside and sat down, idly watching the Executive Department agents bustle around.

When all was said and done, even after joining Cassel College, he still seemed to be the monster among people.

His call to Xia Mi unexpectedly failed to connect.

Was this place haunted? Wasn't that girl assigned to be a liaison? What did she mean by not answering the phone? Neglecting her duties?

By coincidence, Aki Shigede, who was also serving as a temporary liaison, passed by from up ahead. Li Lin stopped her directly.

"Senior Shigede, have you seen Xia Mi?"

"Hm? She seemed to say the mosquitoes were too annoying, so she went out to swat mosquitoes."

"That excuse is way too ridiculous."

Li Lin no longer cared. The mission here had been over for some time anyway. If they had no intention of continuing with the course, Schneider tacitly allowed the students to wander around nearby and relax.

Los Angeles was indeed chaotic at night, but the Executive Department had already secured the entire neighborhood. There was no need to worry about some unlucky student walking down the street and inexplicably getting a handgun emptied into them.

"Oh, right. Please take this can of Coke. Thank you for saving me today."

Aki Shigede smiled as she handed him an ice-cold can of sugar-free Diet Coke. She had actually gone out onto the street specifically to buy it just now.

Li Lin accepted it without ceremony. "We're comrades, after all. Helping each other is normal. Don't take it too seriously."

At that moment, he suddenly felt as if someone were watching him from the shadows.

But the feeling of being watched vanished instantly.

Li Lin activated his Word Spirit and closed his eyes, carefully sensing the changes in the elements for quite a while. He indeed found nothing unusual, so he dismissed it as an illusion caused by the huge rush of adrenaline after the fight.

At a newsstand some distance away, a tall woman with long legs stared stiffly at the "customer" before her, not daring to move.

"Shh."

Xia Mi held one finger before her lips, signaling the overly beautiful and seductive proprietress to keep quiet.

Just as this delicate little girl, beautiful and adorable as a fairy, should not have come alone at night to such a neighborhood to buy newspapers.

Neither should the exquisitely featured woman inside the newsstand, dressed boldly and fashionably, have been running a newsstand on a street near the slums.

Two people who should not have been here had met.

Shude Maiyi looked at Xia Mi's Golden Eyes, which were gradually igniting. The pure dragon's majesty made her mistake Xia Mi for an awakened Second-Generation Species.

At this point, all she could do was force a fawning smile at Xia Mi.