Goddess of War

Time seemed to stand still.

Rotten Crab's raised claw froze in midair as he stared at God from a distance.

In the suffocating silence, sound itself seemed to have vanished.

Fear was silent. The invisible pressure felt almost tangible, making it hard to breathe. None of them dared make the slightest sound; only their hearts pounded violently in their chests.

Nothing unusual had happened after "God" awakened.

Yet somehow, they felt a fear rising from deep within their genes, and their bodies trembled uncontrollably.

Seconds later, Rotten Crab suddenly moved. As though confronted by a natural predator, he frantically swung his eight massive claws and fled backward.

His claws moved in rapid succession. He fled so fast that he crushed several Species along the way, not daring to slow down even then.

He Zheng froze. He had imagined that "God" really was special, but he had never expected this "Goddess of War" to possess such terrifying intimidation merely upon awakening.

Bang!!

Inside the hibernation pod, the Goddess of War pushed herself up and leaped out.

She glanced expressionlessly at Hu Jia, who was closest to her. The next second, she bent down into a crouch and charged out with the ferocity of a wild beast!

She moved so fast that she whipped up a blast of air, forcing Hu Jia's eyes shut.

He could not put what he felt into words.

Closest to "God," he also had the clearest view.

Her chest had been hollowed out, leaving her like an empty shell. Yet this "divine corpse" named Morrigan defied every principle of biology, unleashing unimaginable strength.

Almost before anyone could react, "God" reached Rotten Crab in just a few breaths. Her deathly pale arm shot toward a massive claw. With a crack, she tore one of his claws clean off!

Foul green blood, thick as pus, sprayed several meters into the air from the wound.

The giant crab wailed. His densely packed eyes rolled wildly, and his piercing shrieks sounded like a summons, commanding the Species to charge.

But it was all meaningless. Facing the swarm of charging Species, the "Goddess of War" simply lowered her head, opened her enormous mouth, and swallowed the nearest few in a single bite.

The spine-chilling sound of chewing echoed through the air.

As she ate them alive, foul green juices splashed from the Goddess of War's mouth.

Perhaps they were not quite dead yet. Several severed Species legs hung from the corners of her mouth, twitching frantically with reflexive spasms. But as her jaws closed, they instantly turned to pulp.

After finishing them, the Goddess of War reached out again, seized Rotten Crab's rear claw, and savagely tore it off.

Crack!

Rotten Crab shrieked.

Now, with several claws torn off in succession, he looked like a bare, rounded ball.

Driven by excruciating pain, he could only try to bite her with his mouthparts.

But the instant he opened them, she moved with terrifying speed and seized both sides.

Amid a piercing scream, her arms pulled relentlessly, ripping his "face" and mouthparts in two.

Plunging her head into his exposed brain matter, Morrigan gulped down mouthful after mouthful. She clearly intended to eat all his flesh from inside his shell.

"Gulp, gulp..."

"Urgh...!"

Hu Jia could not stop himself from retching.

Watching the bloody scene before him, he no longer knew who was the monster and who was "God."

There was no technique to this battle.

Only the most savage instinct.

This so-called "God" was nothing but a biological weapon of the utmost cruelty.

More and more shrieks rang out. As though awakened by Rotten Crab's screams, large numbers of Species kept pouring out and surrounding her.

Facing the Species charging at her like insects, the six-meter-tall Goddess of War turned her arms into scythes and swept them down in swaths. The instant they made contact, the Species she struck were crushed into pulp. Occasionally, a few leaped over her attacks, only to be snatched up the next second and shoved straight into her mouth.

It was like feeding time.

With the Species drawn to God, they were no longer paying attention to the group.

They seized the chance to help one another to their feet and move as far away as possible.

This was no longer a battle they could take part in.

Watching the Species get stuffed into her mouth like ants, He Zheng could not speak for a long while. He could only lean against the wall and keep swallowing.

"Fuck, that's seriously messed up."

"She's eating them like bugs. One bite each."

The scene was so bloody that even he struggled to stomach it. If this "monster" were not helping them, he would rather kill himself than face her.

"But thank fuck... it's finally over..."

He Zheng let out a long breath.

His tense heart finally relaxed completely.

There were still plenty of Species, but judging by the situation, they were no longer needed.

They had found the "God" mentioned in the system prompt. All they had to do now was wait for the exam to end, then leave this world.

They exchanged looks and forced strained smiles.

Yes, it was finally over.

After narrowly escaping death again and again, they had truly experienced the horror of the Death Exam.

"Ye Lin?"

Noticing that Ye Lin still looked somewhat grim, He Zheng could not help patting his shoulder.

"Hey, what are you thinking about? Relax. You can start planning how to spend your points when we get back. Sure, this is only our second round, but once you've got sixty points, you can 'hand in your paper.'"

"Tsk, you've got at least eighty or ninety points by now, right?"

Each Death Exam had a variable number of rounds. Once someone earned sixty points, they could "hand in their paper" and leave.

They had killed nineteen Species along the way, most of them shot by Ye Lin. Although He Zheng had contributed plenty too, points were awarded by kills, so Ye Lin had earned at least fourteen.

By that calculation, his score for this exam was at least eighty.

At the thought, He Zheng's eyes reddened with envy.

"The results prompt hasn't appeared yet. The second round... doesn't seem to be over..."

Ye Lin shook his head, his gaze falling on the watch on his wrist.

The countdown was still running. Twenty-two minutes remained.

And the system had not informed them that they had completed the second round.

Huh?

He Zheng paused, but quickly pointed at the "Goddess of War" without much concern.

"It's fine. I'm guessing we have to wait for her to finish killing the Species?"

"Shit, wait! The system isn't going to make us clear out the entire base, is it? Fuck, if a few are hiding somewhere, aren't we screwed?!"

He Zheng's expression changed, his heart leaping into his throat.

The others grew nervous too.

They remembered that the Species had poor eyesight. If a few were trapped in rooms and had not come over, twenty-two minutes would never be enough to clear the entire base.

But before He Zheng could hurriedly get up, Ye Lin caught hold of him.

"That's not what I'm worried about. Have you forgotten? The objective was to find ?? and, with ??'s help, evade the Species pursuing us."

"The system didn't ask us to kill every Species."

He Zheng gave an embarrassed smile and sat back down. Hu Jia quietly chimed in to confirm it.

"That's right, He Zheng. The system only asked us to find God. After that, we just have to follow her."

"Actually, we almost picked the wrong one. God is actually..."

Finally finding an opening to speak, Hu Jia wanted some credit.

Apart from Lin Ya, nobody knew how he had picked the right God. Nobody had even realized that identifying the Goddess of War was the hardest part.

But He Zheng had no interest in listening. He waved impatiently, cutting Hu Jia off.

The next second, he turned back to Ye Lin.

"Ye Lin, what are you still worried about, then?"

Ye Lin raised his head. After a brief silence, he spoke in a slightly hoarse voice.

"I'm worried we might have overlooked something."

"I keep feeling like something has vanished into thin air. Maybe the answer isn't that simple."

Ye Lin's gaze was hesitant and uncertain.

Ever since the second round began, their reasoning had been logical, and nothing unexpected had happened after they found God.

He had even guessed what Hu Jia had figured out.

After seeing the angel mural, he had noticed Hu Jia's excitement. Considering the differences in what the images depicted, he had also realized there was a trap in choosing God.

He had kept quiet because, essentially, he wanted Hu Jia to take the initiative and "test" the answer.

And with the information they had found, ordinary logic suggested that they really had completed the exam.

But...

He still felt something was wrong. Many of the clues only fit together on the surface...

Especially...

Ye Lin turned his head and looked into the distance.

The besieged "Goddess of War" was holding a Species in each hand and stuffing them into her mouth.

Ignoring their writhing, she expressionlessly bit one's head off as though eating a silkworm pupa, then greedily sucked the "juice" from its body.

For some reason, watching the Goddess of War feed filled him with an inexplicable unease.

"Not that simple?"

He Zheng's expression stiffened as he looked at him in confusion.

Simple?

He had lost count of how many times they had almost been wiped out along the way. Since the first round began, they had barely had a second to catch their breath.

Fighting, fleeing, getting attacked, then fleeing again.

One person had died right at the start, and they had a whole bunch of deadweight.

If he had not dared risk his life, and if Ye Lin had not had a gun, they would have died the first time they encountered a Species.

If they had chosen the wrong direction afterward, they would have died too.

Later, if they had not found those things in the Armory, they would still have died. And apparently, choosing the wrong God would have killed them too.

If all that counted as simple, he really had no idea what difficult meant.

"Ye Lin, I think you're overthinking this."

"Seriously, even the current difficulty feels wrong to me. It's way higher than I expected!"

"It's a seven-person difficulty, and it's our fucking first exam. Based on my past experience, no matter how twisted the Death Exam gets, it shouldn't throw something like that at us!"

He Zheng gestured for Ye Lin to look at Rotten Crab's hollowed-out remains. By the time he finished speaking, his own expression had darkened.

Just moments ago, he had thought he was certain to die. A few seconds slower, and there probably would not even have been a corpse left.

As soon as he finished, Ye Lin froze. The next second, his expression changed, and he whipped his head around.

"Seven-person difficulty?"

"The exam difficulty is based on the number of people?!"

Ye Lin looked grim. In an instant, an intense unease surged through him.

"Yeah. The difficulty depends on both the number of exams you've taken and the number of people. You didn't know?"

"Oh, right. You're new. Fuck, I forgot."

Hearing something related to the Death Exam's rules, the others turned curiously toward them.

He Zheng slapped his forehead. Come to think of it, without even realizing it, he had forgotten that Ye Lin had only just arrived.

"Five, seven, nine, twelve. Maybe there are higher ones, but that's roughly how the difficulty tiers work."

"The more people, the harder the exam. And the number of exams you've taken determines your chances of getting a 'certain-death' question. Of course, it's not necessarily certain death. It's just that some scenarios are impossible to survive."

At that, fear flickered in He Zheng's eyes, as though he had recalled an agonizing memory.

After one more exam... he might encounter that thing...

Suppressing his fear, He Zheng failed to notice that Ye Lin's expression had turned utterly grim.

"For seven-person difficulty, the death rate is about ten to forty percent.

"For nine people, it's around fifty percent, and for twelve, seventy. It's actually pretty similar to the real world. The more people take the exam, the lower the acceptance rate."

"Come to think of it, only one of us died this time. We've been pretty lucky."

"Of course, that's also because you..."

"Five, seven, nine, twelve? Are you sure the numbers always follow that pattern? If more people enter, could they be divided evenly into two teams?!"

Before He Zheng could finish, Ye Lin suddenly stood up and questioned him urgently.

He Zheng had never seen him like this. His mouth hung open in astonishment.

"What's wrong, Ye Lin?"

"That should be the pattern, right? It's been like that every time for me. As for splitting into two teams..."

Seeing Ye Lin react so strongly, He Zheng's heart lurched. He, too, began to sense something was wrong.

"Yes... they can split us into two teams..."

"Last time, we were split into two teams. Since the two sides had different questions, we made the wrong call. In the end, I was the only survivor..."

As those words fell, Ye Lin's heart jolted.

They were safe now. The exam seemed about to end.

Yet at that moment, he felt a chill crawl up his back, every hair on his body standing on end!

He knew. He knew where the problem lay!

He also knew why he had kept feeling that something was missing!

Huang Liang!

Huang Liang!

If Huang Liang was here too, that meant there were fourteen people between the two groups! And Huang Liang had other clues!

The two groups hadn't shared their information, which meant every deduction they had made was wrong!

"If there are fourteen people...!"

"What's the mortality rate?!"

He Zheng shuddered. Looking at Ye Lin, whose face was covered in blood as he demanded an answer, He Zheng found it hard even to breathe.

Somewhere deep down, he seemed to have realized something too.

"Ninety percent...?"

"I don't know! There were twelve people last time. I don't know how many will die with fourteen!"

"Ye Lin, what exactly are you trying to say...?!"

Beep, beep! Beep, beep!

Suddenly, five urgent communication alerts rang out, piercing their ears.

On their system watches, An Ke was sending messages to everyone.

"Ye Lin!"

"God is a fake!!"

"Don't let He Zheng and the others go looking for God! There is no God here at all! They're the real Species!"