It was soft, yet it seemed to carry tremendous weight, along with a trace of... indescribable weariness.
Real weariness.
"You seem to have gotten one thing wrong."
Yuejian slowly closed the thick romance novel in his hand.
The simple action made Kamishiro Seian's pupils contract sharply, his muscles tensing in an instant as if he were facing a formidable enemy!
Yuejian raised his eyes. His gray eyes calmly reflected the other man's face and the moon behind him.
"I'm not the one forcing your hand. You...
have been forcing mine, again and again.
I already told you I hate working overtime, and that I had something important to do at nine thirty.
So why can't you show just a little consideration for-
someone working overtime?!"
The instant his words fell, rings of moon-white ripples suddenly spread through the space around Yuejian, with him at their center!
The moonlight all around surged toward him, as if summoned by its sovereign!
It was not a gathering of energy. It was more like...
words flowing back to their source!
Like flowing silver ink, they traced lines and wove together in the air, forming a translucent book.
The book opened, its pages fluttering as they turned, and gently enveloped Yuejian, who seemed a little unfamiliar at that moment.
Lineage Investiture!
Armament Manifestation!
-[God of the Moon Scroll]!
The view returned to the narrow valley.
Void Beast corpses were piled like a small mountain beside Qiji.
As he leisurely displayed his art of slaughter, he even had time to savor the livestream comments one by one out of the corner of his eye.
Reading the constant stream of glowing praise, Qiji could barely keep the corners of his mouth down.
Fortunately, his mask hid it.
But the next moment-
Several anxious comments flashed past in succession.
They made Qiji's expression shift slightly.
What did they mean, Huomu and the others were done for without him?!
Chapter 33: Between Life and Death
On Class Eight's battlefield, the fierce battle was in full swing.
But as the fighting went on, everyone belatedly realized that Teacher Tsukimi had vanished at some point.
"That guy... did he actually run off on his own?!"
"You've got to be kidding! He abandoned his students and ran away?!"
"Isn't that normal? It's time for him to get off work, isn't it? Were you still counting on that bastard of a teacher? Wake up! The only people we can rely on now are ourselves!"
Setsuna quickly bandaged her wounds and charged back into the swarm of flies.
"Mm..." The two children behind Bai Lili bit down hard on their sleeves.
The two little ones were shaking like leaves, but they forced their sobs back down.
They were afraid their crying would distract everyone, afraid of becoming a burden, afraid of dying here without even getting to see their father on the front lines one last time...
After a long battle, Class Eight finally held off the first and densest wave of flying flies, at the cost of several people wounded and more than half their ammunition spent.
Seeing that the "black cloud" in the sky had thinned considerably, everyone was just about to catch their breath.
But in the next second-
"Scree-!!!"
"Awooo-!!!"
Two vicious shrieks suddenly came from higher up in the sky.
Everyone's hearts tightened. They looked up in horror, their hands and feet turning ice-cold!
Against the dark sky, two giant eagles with wingspans of over five meters, bodies covered in dark golden scales, and eyes sharp as blades folded their wings and dove like bolts of golden lightning!
Upper second-tier Void Beasts-Metal-Rending Battle Eagles!
The apex predators of D-rank rifts!
Their speed, strength, and defense were all at the peak of the second tier!
Class Eight had already been pushed to its limits by the swarm of flies, and Yuejian's moonlight was no longer there to protect them.
And now, with the addition of these two battle eagles that had descended as suddenly as death itself...
They could be said to have fallen into a desperate situation with no chance of survival!
Setsuna's pupils contracted sharply. With almost no hesitation, she gritted her teeth and pushed her speed to the limit, becoming a blurred afterimage as she charged to meet one of the diving giant eagles!
"Setsuna! Are you crazy?! That's an upper second-tier beast!" a student cried.
"Shut up!" Setsuna did not look back. "Someone has to stop it! You figure out a way to deal with the other one!"
After two weeks of intensive training, Setsuna had become proficient in the use of [Flash Shadow].
If she faced a lower second-tier Void Beast, she would never be as hard-pressed as she had been during the entrance assessment, and might even have a chance of winning.
But what she faced now was an upper second-tier beast!
It overwhelmed her in speed, strength, and defense!
A single touch from its talons or beak would leave her dead or injured!
Worse still, even if she managed to unleash a burst of power and hold this one off, what about the other?
At that moment, the other Metal-Rending Battle Eagle circled overhead, and its red eyes suddenly blazed a brighter crimson.
Battle eagles loved to eat children!
It locked onto the two trembling morsels behind Bai Lili, let out a piercing cry, and dived.
Seeing this, Huomu acted at once!
He abandoned the poison fly he was confronting and, without dodging the attack stabbing toward him from behind, swung his gun around and emptied the magazine at the diving Metal-Rending Battle Eagle as fast as he could!
"Bang, bang, bang, bang-!"
The bullets whistled out, only to be deflected by the Metal-Rending Battle Eagle's hard scales.
A trail of sparks flew.
Apparently feeling provoked, the battle eagle abruptly wheeled around, its screech seemingly filled with rage.
"Huomu!" Bai Lili cried.
She watched Huomu, who had put himself in danger to save them.
The girl's heart felt as though an invisible hand had clenched it hard.
She gritted her teeth, fierce conflict flashing in her eyes before it was finally replaced by a resolve bordering on tragic.
"Hide under the cart! No matter what happens, don't come out! Cover your ears!"
She quickly gave the two children their instructions and pushed them into the most concealed corner beneath the mule cart.
Then she stood up and took a deep breath. Heart Essence shone from her fingertips once more, weaving into several threads, and she gritted her teeth and charged out!
She had to help!
At the very least, she had to take some of the pressure off!
Even though her legs were shaking and she was scared to death.
That was why she had never wanted to become an Echoer in the first place.
If she absolutely had to become one, she only wanted a support role far away from the battlefield!
Because she knew her own shortcomings better than anyone-
She was weak-willed and indecisive, afraid of getting hurt, and even more afraid of seeing people she knew die right in front of her.
She knew she lacked the sense of responsibility and courage of a "warrior" deep down, and felt from the bottom of her heart that she was not suited to being a combatant who had to face life and death and fight constantly.
She had entered Echo Academy simply to follow her family's wishes-
The Bai Family needed its young miss to gain a little prestige and build an impressive record as an Echoer, so that she could marry into the Thousand Faces Family with greater legitimacy in the future.
As one of the City of Kindling's three great Echo families, the Thousand Faces Family only permitted unions between Echoers, in order to preserve the purity of their descendants' aptitude.
Without enrolling in Echo Academy, she would not be qualified to marry into the Thousand Faces Family.
And the reason Bai Lili had been so eager that morning, constantly urging Huomu and Setsuna to ask Qiji to join the mission...
Deep down, she had perhaps been harboring a cowardly thought-
If Qiji, who's as strong as a monster, comes along, can I hide safely behind him without having to face these terrible battles?
I'm so... useless.
As she charged forward, Bai Lili complained to herself.
In three places, three battles reached their fiercest points at the same time.
Qiji held the narrow pass alone with his sword.
Yuejian and Kamishiro Seian were locked in a clash of peak strength at the cliff's edge.
Class Eight, meanwhile, was struggling desperately at death's door.
The barrage comments could barely keep up:
"Guys! Who gets it?! I've got three livestreams open at once!"
"I can't keep up! I really can't keep up!"
But Qiji and Yuejian clearly had the absolute upper hand in their respective battles.
Class Eight, on the other hand, was hanging by a thread.
Anxious for Huomu and the others, viewers flocked to Qiji's livestream to post comments asking for help.
Even though they knew Qiji could not see the comments.
And even setting everything else aside, what could he do if he could see them?
The pressure Qiji faced was no less than what Huomu and the others faced.
He was fighting a raging beast tide alone, its numbers beyond counting and seemingly endless.
He held an invincible sword, but an invincible sword could not be in two places at once.
And as Yuejian had said, placing all their hopes and pressure on Qiji alone-
How was that fair to Qiji?