[I lay on the low slope and peered ahead through the faint light. The Heartless Mother Tree swayed in the darkness, glowing green, while the Shenchuan Family's Middle-Aged Woman prepared to set down the Taboo Object that would break the seal.]
[I charged forward and fought her.]
[More than ten minutes passed, and her companions arrived.]
[I was about to shout "Help!" to alert the instructors, but soon discovered that this place was screened off too. My signal received no response.]
[I desperately begged them for mercy, but to my surprise, they refused. We were all human. How could such cold words come from mouths that were thirty-seven degrees warm?]
[To the life I spent struggling. RIP.]
Following the faint traces, Xu Ye made his way to the Back Mountain.
A faint smell of blood drifted through the air.
To move more easily, he had taken off the Broadsword beforehand and traveled light.
His footsteps stopped abruptly.
Then slowed.
He slipped past weeds, shrubs, hills, and streams, Black Blade in hand, making swiftly for the foot of the mountain.
Scattered rocks.
Blood.
Bodies.
There were no sounds of fighting.
Xu Ye carefully turned over a body lying ahead of him.
The young soldier wore Crimson's training uniform. Her short hair reached her ears. She was a woman.
By the Red Moonlight, Xu Ye recognized her as the soldier who had run with them earlier-the one who had waved her fist at him with a playful, radiant smile.
She had died here.
Xu Ye's heart sank.
He felt as though something was spreading through his entire body.
That aching, uneasy, agitated feeling coursed through him before flooding his mind, where reason and emotion collided like ice and fire.
Xu Ye gave a faint smile.
He closed her eyes with his hand.