Tomie's Strength

With Shen Hui's confirmation, the spatial rift opened again.

The Fourth Stage began.

The group that emerged this time was also a squad of knights.

But compared with the previous squad, their numbers had reached fifty.

Among them was also a Knight Captain riding a white horse.

His strength was even greater.

As soon as they entered Shen Hui's world, they all immediately went on alert.

The Knight Captain said, "The knights we sent out in the previous squad have all perished here. Everyone, stay on your toes!"

Under the Knight Captain's lead, this squad of knights also began entering the Deadwood Forest.

But just as they were about to enter, they happened to see a young girl walking toward them from not far away.

Seeing someone appear, the knight who spotted her immediately shouted, "Someone's over there!"

All the knights stopped and stood on guard.

As the young girl gradually approached and entered their field of vision,

all the knights' eyes widened.

They couldn't help marveling inwardly. This girl was as beautiful as a celestial maiden-so beautiful!

They felt a surge of affection and couldn't help wanting to make her theirs.

The girl walking toward the forest was Tomie.

At Shen Hui's command, she had also come to gather in the Deadwood Forest.

But she had happened to run into the knights of this fourth wave of attackers.

Tomie's appearance was like a bright flame in the Eternal Night.

For a moment, all the knights forgot why they had come here, completely captivated by Tomie.

They couldn't bear to look away for even a second, afraid she would disappear from their sight.

Tomie walked toward the squad of knights with a sweet smile.

She covered her mouth and giggled. "What are you doing here?"

Her light, lilting voice drifted out, and to the knights,

it sounded like music from heaven.

The Knight Captain hurriedly said, "We're here to investigate monsters. There are monsters around here."

"Miss, why are you here alone? Let me protect you. Come with me."

"You're so beautiful. If you're willing, after we finish investigating this place, I'd like to invite you back to my hometown to marry me."

The Knight Captain's eyes, visible beneath his helmet, were glazed over. Tomie had completely bewitched him.

He reached out with both hands, apparently wanting to pull Tomie onto his horse to protect her.

But by now, the Knight Captain wasn't the only one bewitched.

The nearby knights had all fallen under her spell.

As soon as they heard the Knight Captain say that, they immediately grew agitated.

They began arguing back:

"Captain, why should you be the one to protect her? I'm strong enough to protect her too! I want to marry her as well!"

"You're strong, but so am I. This young lady should let me protect her!"

More and more knights began quarreling.

They all wanted to protect Tomie and make her their own. They couldn't stand anyone else laying a finger on her.

Tomie, standing among them, wore an exceedingly pleased, delighted smile.

As their argument grew more and more heated, they began to look ready to fight.

Soon, all the knights were beating one another.

They were fighting over Tomie.

Tomie's smile grew ever brighter. Her giggles rang out all around them, making the knights even more frenzied.

The fighting gradually escalated, turning from punching and kicking to blades and swords.

The knights began killing one another to fight over Tomie.

Several knights were soon killed and lay on the ground.

At that moment, one of the knights suddenly charged at Tomie.

His eyes were wild, and he gripped his long sword as he screamed madly,

"Die! As long as you're dead-as long as I'm dead-we can be together forever!"

His love for Tomie had transformed into frenzied jealousy and hatred.

As soon as he finished speaking, he swung his long sword straight at her.

With a single stroke, he killed her.

Tomie's sweet, eerie smile froze on her face, dotted with blood.

The knight, already mad, didn't stop.

Instead, he kept hacking at her, cutting her body apart.

Tomie's body was chopped into pieces.

Blood and bits of flesh fell to the ground.

It looked utterly gruesome and cruel.

Another knight also killed the man with a single stroke.

Only then did they stop.

But just then, the pieces of Tomie's body

began to writhe, multiply, and grow.

They started changing into human shapes.

There were forty-two knights still alive, and Tomie's dismembered fragments

turned into forty-two corresponding lumps of human-shaped flesh.

In the next instant, they all turned into Tomie's likeness.

They were all exactly the same, without the slightest difference.

The Tomies all came to life and let out giggles.

Each one beckoned to a knight, and the beckoned knights stopped fighting and immediately rushed over.

Some knights wrapped their arms around Tomie, holding her close...

They looked blissfully happy.

At that moment, all the Tomies spoke at once:

"You like me so much. Would you do something for me?"

All the knights nodded in agreement.

All the Tomies spoke again.

"Then kill yourselves!"

The knights showed no hesitation or confusion at Tomie's words.

Instead, their faces were filled with joy, as though doing something for Tomie was an immense honor.

They raised their weapons, wearing fanatical smiles, and pointed them at their own throats.

"Crack!"

Amid the sounds of blades piercing flesh,

one knight after another fell to the ground.

Tomie had easily overcome the Fourth Stage.

At that moment, back at the Combat Training Base,

because the difficulty of the Third Stage had suddenly increased, many of the students taking part in the trial had been eliminated at this stage.

The eliminated students were all filled with regret.

"The Third Stage is way too hard. There's no way to get through it."

"Yeah, this stage eliminated at least sixty or seventy percent of the people. The ones left are all pretty talented and strong."

"The later stages must be even harder. I wonder how far they'll get."

"Let's check the Leaderboard and see who's reached the furthest stage so far."

The students who had come out early also hurried over to the big screen to check the current rankings.

They had expected it to be people trained by the major families, or someone with exceptional talent like Qingxue.

But when they looked, they were all stunned.

Just as they had expected, the people trained by the major families and Qingxue had indeed reached the Fourth Stage.

Compared with them, who had stopped at the Third Stage, those people had already done incredibly well.

But above them, someone was actually challenging the Fifth Stage!

And when they saw the name of the person challenging the Fifth Stage, they were all shocked.

"Holy crap, isn't this Shen Hui the guy from Qingshui Middle School who awakened a Death World?"

"Am I seeing things? He's already alone at the front, challenging the Fifth Stage!"