Chapter 32: Omen of Victory

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“Meow…” Another soft cry, but this one carried a trace of icy killing intent.

The next instant, a petite yet swift black shadow sprang down from a crevice high above like a specter, landing soundlessly on the slick rock beside the clear pool.

It was a completely black cat.

Only its pair of glassy eyes gleamed in the darkness with a chilling, unsettling light.

“It’s you! So it really was you, you beast!”

Scarface’s eyes bulged with fury. The great axe in his hands instantly burst into lingering flames. Though the fire was far dimmer than it had been when he fought the worms, it still radiated scorching heat, casting an even more twisted light across his savage features.

After the battle just moments ago, he still could not freely circulate his supernatural power. He could only rely on the mutation device to keep himself going. Even so, he refused to believe he would lose to a tiny mutated black cat.

They were elite members of the wilderness exploration team, specially trained by the base!

Amo had merely been careless before. This time… he would never repeat the same mistake.

Xiao Ling stared at Summer Pupil with an equally frigid expression, gripping her gun tightly. She never would have imagined that the cat had followed them all the way here. More importantly, she had not detected its presence even once.

Ke Ji’s dying screams still rang in her ears. This cat… was far from ordinary!

Summer Pupil calmly swept her gaze over the two humans standing warily before her, as though she were looking at two corpses whose warmth was about to fade.

“I’ll butcher you first, you beast!”

Unable to bear Summer Pupil’s gaze, Scarface roared and launched the first attack.

His burly body charged like an out-of-control war machine. The flaming great axe came crashing down from above, accompanied by a howling wind, intent on smashing the uncanny black cat into pulp.

Xiao Ling’s assault followed close behind. Her pistol thundered, sparks flashed, and a bullet suddenly tore through the air.

Bang!

In an instant, Summer Pupil twisted her body into a spinning splash of water. The bullet passed straight through her, while orange sparks burst against the wall behind her.

Then she opened her mouth. Countless wisps of vapor gathered around her body, and a massive column of water erupted forward with a thunderous roar.

The water column moved with unimaginable speed, leaving a long blue trail through the darkness of the cavern. Carrying a bone-chilling cold, it blasted Scarface—and the flaming axe in his hands—backward in one blow.

“Damn it.”

Scarface cursed and spat out a mouthful of blood. Without even trying to retrieve his great axe, he rolled clumsily to the side.

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He could feel the terrifying force contained within the water column. It had shaken his organs until they throbbed painfully, as though they had been knocked out of place.

The instant Scarface fell injured to the ground, Summer Pupil attacked again—this time targeting Xiao Ling, who had been thrown toward the rear.

She transformed into a droplet of water and shot toward Xiao Ling with a sharp hiss. Then she changed back into a black cat, thin streams of water curling around her slender tail as it traced an elegant arc through the air.

Just as Xiao Ling prepared to turn her gun and lock onto that streak of black, an intense sense of danger surged into her heart.

“Not good!”

The alarm bells in her mind rang violently. Years of fighting for survival made her instinctively twist and roll aside. An invisible mental force surged forth, forming an unseen wall before her.

The next moment, a sharp blade of water shrieked through the air and lashed viciously at the spot where Xiao Ling had been standing.

Slash!

The hard stone floor was carved with several deep marks, sending fragments of rock flying in every direction.

Although Xiao Ling had avoided a fatal blow, the combat uniform on her left arm was still torn open. Blood immediately seeped through, and the searing pain forced a muffled groan from her lips.

She could even feel the sinister, icy energy clinging to the water blade, trying to invade her body.

“This beast… What incredible speed, and what bizarre attacks!”

Xiao Ling clenched her teeth, her astonishment beyond words. The cat’s method of attack had completely surpassed her understanding. Its control over water was not only more refined but also more lethal than that of some water-aspected ability users she had encountered.

It was as though it were a veteran who had spent many years mastering the art.

And of course it was. In her previous life, Summer Pupil had been the youngest and most dependable water-aspected healer at Ink City Base. She had spent many years immersed in the fourth-tier realm, honing those techniques until they had become second nature. How could some low-level runt like you possibly deal with her? Otherwise, would she not become a laughingstock?

The tone of this battle had been set from the very beginning. A cat carrying the soul of a fourth-tier ability user would never permit itself to lose to these two low-level whelps. Her identity as a former fourth-tier ability user would never allow defeat.

This was the wasteland’s peculiar “nobility” and “pride,” born solely of the law of the strong devouring the weak.

The strong never bowed their heads to the weak, and they never lost!

…

“Xiao Ling! Watch out!”

In the distance, Scarface, who had been blasted away by the water column, struggled to rise. His chest throbbed violently, and another mouthful of bloody saliva surged into his throat, but he forcibly swallowed it down.

He watched the black cat attack Xiao Ling like a phantom, his eyes bulging with rage.

“A cat… and you dare… run wild! I’ll… butcher you!”

He tried to activate the mutation device again, but the weakness spreading through his body and the sluggish circulation of his supernatural power made him realize that he could not unleash anything close to his previous strength in the short term.

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The side effects of the mutation device were more violent than he had imagined.

Summer Pupil ignored Scarface’s roar completely. Her glassy eyes held nothing but cold killing intent and absolute focus on her target. Her objective was clear: eliminate the woman with keen mental perception and a firearm first, then calmly deal with Scarface, who was already half-crippled and on the verge of death.

As for the Moonlight Orchid… it would soon be hers.

“You monster! Die!”

Enduring the agony in her arm, Xiao Ling fired her specially made pistol again. Several custom rounds shimmering with a faint blue light fanned out, sealing off every possible route Summer Pupil could take to evade them.

These bullets had clearly been specially designed for mutated creatures. They might even carry a unique energy-suppressing effect.

Xiao Ling had learned about them in her previous life as well.

Yet faced with the dense rain of bullets, Summer Pupil merely gave a contemptuous “meow.”

Her body once again transformed into an intangible stream of water. The custom rounds passed straight through it and struck the rock wall behind her, raising a chain of sparks and flying fragments, but they failed to inflict even the slightest injury.

“How is that possible?!”

Xiao Ling’s pupils contracted sharply. For the first time, despair appeared on her face.

Physical attacks were useless?

Or had this cat’s control over the water element reached the point where it could become completely elementalized?

Either possibility meant that they were probably going to die here today.

At the instant Xiao Ling’s mind reeled, the stream of water had already circled behind her at even greater speed. A lethal sense of danger rose behind her, making every hair on her body stand on end.

Without thinking, she threw herself forward.

Puff!

Another blade of water flew past, grazing her scalp. A few severed strands of hair drifted down. Had she been even a fraction of a second slower, her entire head might have been split open.

Before Xiao Ling could rise, the stream of water that was Summer Pupil had already wrapped around her like a curse clinging to bone. Cold vapor instantly enveloped all four of her limbs, making her movements feel sluggish and rigid.

The world before her eyes gradually blurred…

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