Back at the shrine, Wu Xiaomi lay down, utterly exhausted.
If only she had a bowl of steaming hot sweet soup now, tucked herself under the covers, played on her phone, and scrolled through some dumb videos… Wait. Videos?
She suddenly remembered the intelligence Kang Jie had shared.
Wiggling her little feet, she reached out and tapped lightly on the anklet.
[Summon]
Kang Jie wasn’t lying— sure enough, a menu popped up right in front of her.
Just like the strategy hints, the interface was silver-gray in tone.
She tapped the [Video] button.
A familiar UI appeared before her eyes, strongly resembling a certain pink-colored app that starts with “B.”
Bilibili: Yep, that’s me!
On the recommended page, Wu Xiaomi immediately spotted a familiar face.
[New uploader Bai Xiaozhi: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Admitted to the Spirit Tamer Academy]
She clicked on it.
In the video, Bai Xiaozhi stood in front of an elegant, luxurious building, wearing a pale moon-colored school uniform.
Her long white hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and her sharp, beautiful features gave off a commanding presence that would make anyone’s heart race.
Sure enough, the comments were all variations of: “Step on me, big sis!”
“I was lucky to descend right at the Academy gates. Then, during the entrance examination, I was found to have spirit-source sensitivity in my body—so naturally, I was admitted as a new student.”
“I’m posting this video to share my experience and help fellow survivors apply at academies in their area. But also, I want to publish a missing-person notice—has anyone seen my brother? His name is Wu Xiaomi. If you’ve seen him, please contact me.”
“You’re watching videos?”
Nanalia suddenly burst in, carrying a bowl of steaming medicinal soup.
“Huh? You can see it too?”
Wu Xiaomi pointed at the floating projection, surprised.
“Spirit-source projection. I use it all the time. Why wouldn’t I be able to see it?”
Nanalia snapped, clearly annoyed.
“What, you think I’m some outdated old lady or something?”
So this world had short videos too, apparently.
“She’s a lucky girl. That’s the Academy’s beginner-level uniform—must’ve just been admitted.”
“Is the Academy safe?”
Wu Xiaomi finally voiced her long-held concern.
“Of course. All academies are neutral sanctuaries and the safest places around. As long as students wear their uniforms, no one dares touch them.”
Good. A weight lifted off Wu Xiaomi’s chest.
“Get some rest.”
Nanalia placed the bowl down and turned to leave.
“It’s a secret recipe of the Spirit of Abundance. Drink it. it’s sweet.”
“Ow, hot—”
“Careful, slow down.”
……
By the time Wu Xiaomi woke again, the aching soreness in her lower belly had mostly faded.
Probably the effect of the medicine.
For once, she had some energy.
At least she could walk without her legs going soft.
She glanced at the time, got dressed, and stepped out.
At 10 a.m., Kang Jie’s team assembled outside the tavern.
“Headcount now.”
Including Wu Xiaomi, the team had thirty-seven members.
But there were others too.
They had hardened faces, silent and cold— a group of battle-hardened mercenaries.
“These people are from the ‘Ark’ raid group. Together, we represent the strongest combat force in the Harvest Village area… This is it. Do or die!”
Kang Jie introduced them, then raised his sword with fervor.
Imagining the dream of rebuilding his home step by step through successful raids, he couldn’t hold back his passion:
“Let’s go! Victory is ours!”
“Victory!”
Since he’d sought out Nanalia the night before, she was now part of the group too.
The team set off from Harvest Village, heading for the southern forest.
“You’re all so kind to risk your lives helping others like this. I’m truly lucky,” Nanalia said emotionally.
No, they were only in it for raid points.
But regardless of their motives, help was help.
“Stay alert, we’re almost there.”
Everyone drew their weapons.
Soon, a dark yellow light wall loomed in their path.
“It’s the holy source crystal’s protective barrier. That thing learned to use barriers now?”
Nanalia grit her teeth.
“No matter. I still share a resonance with the crystal… I can open the barrier!”
“But the crystal’s power is strong. I can only hold it for a minute. After that, there’s a 30-minute cooldown. Be ready and go in quickly.”
“Please bless us before we begin, Priestess.”
Nanalia nodded.
With a graceful spin, her fan scattered dew-like light onto everyone.
Then she pressed her palm against the barrier and began to chant.
The wall shimmered.
Ripples spread across it like water.
A narrow opening slowly formed.
“One minute—hurry inside!”
Nanalia, drenched in sweat, urged them anxiously.
“Move! Everyone—”
Kang Jie signaled his team to go first.
Time was tight.
Everyone needed to pass through as quickly as possible.
But in that crucial moment—
Kang Jie felt a chill on his neck.
“That’s enough. The rest of you, stop.”
The Ark team’s leader, a man with a calm and distant expression, lightly pressed a sword to Kang Jie’s throat.
Five of Kang Jie’s teammates had made it through.
The rest were frozen in place.
“Han Nuo?! What the hell are you doing?!”
Kang Jie’s face turned pale.
“We only have one minute! If they don’t go in now—!”
“Not everyone deserves to board the Ark during a great flood,” Han Nuo said, his tone devoid of emotion.
“Han Nuo!”
Kang Jie growled, voice low with fury.
“Whatever your plan is, talk later—we’ll be too late!”
“And once we’re in? Do you even know how this Beast-faced tribe leader fights? Do you know its sequence?”
Han Nuo shot back.
“We need a vanguard. We need to test its combat patterns. Otherwise, we’re all walking to our deaths.”
“We can test it together! More people, more room for error, right?”
“No. When it comes to hunting one target, numbers mean nothing,” Han Nuo said coldly.
“We need a sharp, informed team. To ensure their survival, cannon fodder must be sacrificed. Their deaths won’t be meaningless—they’ll secure the rest of us.”
“You’re doing this for the raid points, aren’t you?”
Kang Jie’s eyes widened in realization.
“The team that completes the objective gets a massive bonus… No wonder you refused to merge teams.”
“Of course. I won’t deny that’s part of it.”
Han Nuo smiled faintly.
“But I stand by my logic. Charging in blind is reckless. If that creature has wide-area attacks, and we don’t know it in time, we’re doomed before we can react. So we test first and your gullible idiots are the perfect test subjects.”
Kang Jie, sword still at his neck, looked toward the teammates already inside the barrier.
“Abort the raid! Come back!”
He didn’t care that his life was in Han Nuo’s hands.
All he wanted now was to call his people back.
Or he’d never forgive himself.
“Too late.”
Ark members raised their swords, blocking the way out.
“Buzz—”
The barrier closed.
……
Nanalia was thrown back by the sealing.
It would take half an hour before she could reopen it.
So everyone could only watch through the semi-transparent barrier—helpless—as the slaughter began.
The beast-faced leader was massive, like an upright bison.
In his hands, he held a spiked iron club as thick as a power pole, rising to meet the intruders.
“Help!”
The first five team members who entered cried out in despair.
They pounded on the barrier walls with frantic fists—
Thump, thump—
But the shimmering wall didn’t budge an inch.
As it happened, these five were all familiar faces.
A scientist, a grad student, a husband, a high school girl, and a broadcast anchor.
“Lin Lao, astrophysicist at the Summer Academy, right?”
Han Nuo looked at the old man inside the barrier with cold contempt.
“The Hubble Space Telescope has a maximum observable range of 27 billion light-years. Don’t tell me that with all of humanity’s technology, you failed to detect that planet’s approach… You hid the truth, didn’t you?”
“……”
The old man sighed deeply and nodded.
In a trembling voice, he said,
“Picture this: a group of people sleeping in a sealed iron room. No windows, no doors. Soon, everyone will suffocate. But you wake up. And the others… stay asleep. If you try to wake them, they’ll hate you—because then they’ll be forced to face the pain of dying, wide awake.”
“Diary of a Madman,”
Han Nuo gave a cold smile.
“So that’s the excuse you used to silence the truth?”
“We tried everything. But with the technology we had, it was impossible to prevent the apocalypse.
So if there was no stopping it… then maybe sleep was the kinder choice.”
“But the tragedy,” Han Nuo said, “is that you woke up.”
“Mhm.”
Lin Lao turned his back.
“You’re right, actually. The best strategy is to sacrifice some in order to succeed. Success comes from repeated failure and trial. Testing one step at a time greatly improves your final odds.”
“Do you agree with my methods?”
Han Nuo was startled.
“I don’t trust you, but I trust science and probability.”
Lin Lao raised his hand, and lightning gathered in his palm.
“I don’t know if things would’ve changed had I woken you all back then… Maybe I was wrong.
But I can’t go back and choose again.
You still can.”
[Spell Sequence No. 98: Thunderclap]
“Thud-thud-thud—”
The ground shook from the monster’s footsteps.
It raised its massive club.
And Lin Lao stepped forward to meet it.
“Crack- Blam—!”
Lightning from his palm struck the monster’s leg with all his might.
But it didn’t even flinch.
With a casual swing, the monster brought its club down.
”Splat—!’
Blood sprayed.
It was like a packet of tomato sauce had exploded—red fluid splattered across the barrier in front of Wu Xiaomi.
No one could survive a blow from that club in one piece.
The ground was littered with corpses smashed into pulp.
Lin Lao was no exception.
The monster turned its gaze to the next victim.
“Don’t… Please don’t kill me!”
The grad student snapped, driven mad by the old man’s gruesome death.
He was a good kid raised in a civilized world.
He had never seen anything like this.
”Splat—”
Another smear of blood hit the barrier wall.
Next, came the man with the pregnant wife.
He gave a bitter laugh.
“I named my child ‘Ark’… and now I’m dying by the Ark’s hand.”
He gripped his longsword.
“Kang Jie! Tell my wife, tell baby Ark… their dad was a hero!”
Kang Jie stood frozen in horror, mouth agape, tears falling silently.
The man’s survival instinct ignited.
He roared, his body erupting with power born of desperation.
[Combat Technique No. 92: Dragon Fang Break!]
He caught the monster’s blow head-on!
Blinding white light surged from his sword, immense strength coursing through him.
He forced the monster back two steps!
The crowd gasped, fists clenched—Could it be? Is there hope?
”Zzzk-Zzzk—!”
In that moment of deadlock, the high school girl leapt, dagger flashing, and plunged it into the monster’s lower back.
“Roar—!”
The monster howled in pain, the sound shaking the forest.
The shockwave alone sent the man flying.
The monster yanked its weapon free and swung it in a wide arc.
“Crunch—!”
The girl’s broken body was impaled on the spiked club—dead in an instant.
“Boom-boom-boom—”
The furious monster swung the club again and again, smashing the girl’s body—still impaled—toward the man.
He raised his sword one last time… but this time, it snapped instantly.
Blood sprayed.
In seconds, only one person was left standing.
—The doomsday broadcaster, the anchorwoman covering the raid: Huang Xiao.
She wasn’t a fighter.
Her job here was merely to serve as a war correspondent.
Now she shrank against the wall, legs too weak to stand.
All she could do was lift her ring, aiming the recording angle at the oncoming monster.
The grotesque boar-like face of the beast loomed larger and larger in the viewfinder.
The crushing despair and terror left her paralyzed—there was no way to run, not in such a confined barrier.
The monster approached slowly, savoring its prey.
It lifted its club with deliberate slowness, as though enjoying her helplessness.
Blood dripped from the spikes of the weapon onto her face. The silver tips glinted coldly in the light.
“Get up, Huang Xiao! Run!!”
Kang Jie’s sudden scream snapped her back to her senses.
She looked over and saw it.
A tear had appeared in the barrier!
But why?
Wasn’t the next opening supposed to take thirty minutes?
No time to think.
Somehow, somewhere, she found the strength to scramble, to crawl, to run for the opening.
Just as the monster’s club came crashing down—missing her by a breath.
The spikes embedded in the ground.
The monster needed two whole seconds to pull it free.
And those two seconds saved her life.
“Get her out, now!”
Before the monster or the Ark could react, the others rushed to drag her out.
Wu Xiaomi wearily removed her hand from the barrier.
—She had been the one to open the gate.
Her power shared the same source as Nainellia’s.
So if Nainellia could open it, she could too.
With that in mind, Wu Xiaomi had tried, just tried, to open the gate.
And against all odds—it worked.
Now that Huang Xiao was safe, the barrier began to close again.
Tears streaming down her face, Huang Xiao sobbed in relief.
Just as she was about to thank the girl who saved her life—
“Watch out!!”
Something hit her from behind.
The gate wasn’t fully closed yet.
In the chaos, someone gave Wu Xiaomi a hard shove.
She stumbled—falling headfirst through the opening.
Huh?
(°Д°≡°Д°)?
She stared blankly as the gate sealed shut behind her.
Oh no… I’m screwed. ╮(￣▽￣)╭
(2/2 This is a bonus update of 2,000 extra characters, unlocked by monthly votes.)