Chapter 33

The A-level black snake’s crystal core, snake skin, snake gallbladder, fangs, and venom were all highly sought-after materials that the Mercenary Association purchased at high prices!

The five students worked tirelessly for half an hour and finally gathered all the materials, stuffing them into the team leader’s space crystal.

This team leader was a white crane spirit body, with dual A-level abilities in wind and water, hailing from an ordinary family. Back in the day, the Second Military Academy offered a twenty-square space crystal and an A-level weapon as rewards to lure this promising student away from the First Military Academy. The First Military Academy, not lacking in A-level students, disdainfully let him go when he didn’t want to enroll.

While the teammates were immersed in the joy of their harvest, the leader suddenly heard the rustling sounds of grass being pushed down and crushed, and the sound was approaching them at a terrifying speed.

An unprecedented sense of crisis surged in his heart, and he immediately released his spirit body.

The five-meter-long white crane lowered its long neck. Once the leader and his teammates jumped onto its back, the crane flapped its wings and swiftly flew toward the gathering point.

As the white crane soared above the treetops, the five students turned back to see the true culprit behind the noise.

A gigantic black snake, taller than a human when lying on the ground, had its triangular, flattened head just over thirty meters from where they had landed. Its massive body extended toward a cave entrance, with part of it still hidden inside, yet to fully emerge!

“Damn, it’s an S-level!” one teammate exclaimed, shivering. “Captain, hurry and fly! Go as fast as you can!”

No need for reminders or special orders; the white crane spirit body, sensing the threat of death, was already exerting its full strength.

The prey was trying to escape. The S-level black snake suddenly retracted its head and, with a springing motion, soared into the air, chasing after them at a speed far surpassing that of the white crane.

The distance that had just been created was closed in an instant as the black snake opened its massive mouth.

The five teammates simultaneously unleashed their strongest abilities to attack the black snake but couldn’t even breach the interior walls of its open mouth.

A nauseating stench rushed toward them, and just before the five of them, along with the white crane spirit body, were about to be swallowed, a gust of wind blew in from the side, instantly whisking the five who had closed their eyes to welcome death a hundred meters away.

While the teammates were still in shock, the leader steadied the white crane spirit body and looked ahead.

The humans who were about to be swallowed had inexplicably vanished. The black snake’s tail coiled around a large tree as it landed firmly on the ground, its crimson beastly eyes fixating on the opposite side.

There, an ability user hovered in the air, fully clad in black combat armor from head to toe.

The black snake didn’t understand the levels of human armor, but it sensed a hint of threat from this ability user.

The students on the white crane spirit body erupted in excitement. “Is that our instructor?”

The team leader frowned tightly. “Instructors are all A-level. Even with S-level armor and weapons, it would be very difficult for them to kill an S-level beast alone.”

He immediately contacted the head instructor of the Second Military Academy to report that an S-level black snake had appeared.

The head instructor controlled an A-level combat suit to fly into the air, and upon seeing the giant black snake in the distance, he was about to contact the base when he noticed the black snake attacking the unidentified ability user.

In battles, ability users primarily relied on their powers, while beasts relied on their extraordinary physical strength post-mutation for physical attacks.

The black snake lunged at Qin Chi with a speed that exceeded that of energy bullets.

Both A-level and S-level combat suits had flight systems, but their flight speeds were inferior to those of ordinary birds; in combat, flying primarily served to create distance from land-based beasts rather than enabling evasive maneuvers through armor.

Qin Chi directly abandoned the flight function of the S-level armor and used the wind to evade the black snake’s lunge.

The military students and instructors witnessing this scene were astonished: it was actually an S-level powerhouse!

At this moment, the head instructor’s communication with Wei Jian, the principal of the Second Military Academy, was also connected.

The head instructor spoke succinctly: “Principal, an S-level black snake has appeared in the danger zone, and an unidentified S-level powerhouse is currently engaged in battle with it.”

A light chuckle came from the other end. “That should be one of my friends. He just came from the Southwest Base, and today he should be passing through Jing City. Don’t worry; he’s very strong. Leave the black snake to him, and you all need to quickly organize the students to form a defense line on the east, south, and north sides of Jing City. Do everything possible to prevent A-level beasts from spilling into the adjacent lower safety zones.”

“Understood!” said the head instructor.
—-
Leaving the black snake to the principal’s friend, the head instructor personally led the students to establish a defense line while also increasing the distance between the students and the S-level battlefield to avoid collateral damage from the clashes between powerhouses and beasts.

Noticing that the white crane spirit body was carrying five students away, Qin Chi began his counterattack.

The black snake lunged at him again, and a powerful gust of wind pressed down, forcing the black snake to fall to the ground, where it could only raise its body to try to break through the wind barrier.

The S-level black snake stretched over a hundred meters long, and its weight of several dozen tons rendered Qin Chi’s wind abilities ineffective in moving its massive body, at most adding some resistance.

As the black snake pushed through the swirling wind, its head emerged from the wind curtain, instinctively opening its beastly eyes, which had been forced to squint for too long, and let out an angry roar.

At that moment, the surrounding wind suddenly coalesced into a rapidly rotating mini hurricane that shot into the snake’s open mouth. The top of the hurricane pressed against the upper jaw of the snake’s mouth, while the bottom pressed against the lower jaw, resembling a spiraling screw made of wind, firmly propping the snake’s mouth open and attempting to create two openings.

Although it wasn’t a real screw, the friction from the high-speed rotation caused significant discomfort to the black snake, making its jaws ache. The black snake violently shook its body, trying to spit or shake off the wind trapped in its mouth. No matter how hard it tried, it couldn’t escape, so it forced its head to face Qin Chi and suddenly spat out a jet of black venom.

The venom darkened the swirling hurricane in its mouth, with some splattering back inside while some was hurled into the air by the wind’s force.

Another gust of wind appeared just in time, sweeping away all the venom that was about to fall to the ground.

The black snake continued to shake its head and tail in pain, its massive body toppling towering trees as smaller beasts fled in panic.

Qin Chi glanced at the line of defense formed by the military students, and as the black snake’s head once again swayed into the air, he suddenly withdrew his wind abilities.

The black snake’s massive head, which had been thrashing wildly, paused in mid-air for a second before it attempted to close its mouth to prevent further torment from the cunning ability user.

However, at the same time Qin Chi withdrew his wind abilities, he tossed a fist-sized condensed fireball into the snake’s mouth. It was so small that the black snake, relieved that its torture was over, didn’t even notice it. Thus, the tiny fireball almost grazed the closing jaws as it flew inside.

The black snake finally sensed something was wrong.

With a loud bang, the black snake was forced to open its mouth in an explosion comparable to an S-level energy bomb, spewing out residual flames and thick black smoke.

The inside of the black snake’s mouth had been completely shredded, held together only by the outer layer of its snake skin.

As it fell back to the ground, barely hanging on to life, the black snake chose to flee.

Invisible wind blades slashed in from all directions, forcing the black snake to coil its body and rely on its impenetrable skin and scales for defense.

The wind blades formed a swirling wind cage, with the snake’s head hidden deep within its coiled body, a hint of disdain flashing in its half-open eyes.

Qin Chi raised his hand and infused S-level flames into the wind cage.

With each rotation of the wind cage, it felt as if countless wind blades were slicing into the black snake’s body. Initially cool, the moment the flames entered, the wind blades turned scorching hot.

The black snake violently flung its head, trying to escape the sea of fire, but the swirling firestorm wouldn’t let it break through; the black snake could only extend its body upward.

The firestorm followed suit, climbing higher, ultimately forming a swirling vortex of blazing fire.

Not far away, Qin Chi stood in mid-air, his dark eyes reflecting the fierce blaze through the transparent visor.
—-
In An County, shortly after one o’clock in the afternoon, Xu Qiao and Sun Fushan, with the assistance of Meng Li’s wind abilities, had just managed to kill a nest of twelve C-level monkeys. Not only were their mental energies nearly depleted, but they were also left with barely any strength.

As the last monkey fell to the ground, Sun Fushan collapsed beside it, gasping for breath.

Xu Qiao, conscious of her image, sat next to him but was utterly exhausted. Seeing how comfortable Sun Fushan looked lying there, she simply used his armored chest as a pillow and lay down, weakly watching Meng Li clean up the battlefield.

Sun Fushan took a moment to recover, then tapped the helmet of his teammate with his hand, thinking that if he was going to use his chest as a pillow, at least she could take off her helmet to lighten the load a bit.

Xu Qiao didn’t remove her helmet and sat up straight again.

Meng Li gathered the bodies of the twelve monkeys using her wind abilities and stood beside the two of them, using wind blades to extract the crystal cores while saying, “Once I finish collecting these crystal cores, I’ll be almost done too. We should head back soon.”

Though she hadn’t killed any beasts, her earlier flying practice and constant use of her wind abilities throughout the journey had also drained her mental energy.

Sun Fushan took off his helmet and took a deep breath, about to speak when suddenly three red signal flares shot up into the sky above the urban area.

This was an official notification indicating that beasts exceeding the level of this danger zone had entered, warning mercenaries to return to their flying vehicles immediately.

Stuttering, Sun Fushan blurted out an expletive and instinctively summoned the off-road vehicle.

Meng Li said, “Let’s fly; we should go as far as we can.”

As soon as she finished speaking, a three-meter-long fire scorpion landed beside the squad. Meng Li grabbed the twelve crystal cores sent over by the wind and pulled Xu Qiao up onto the back of the fire scorpion. Despite being overweight and tired, Sun Fushan moved quickly, sitting behind Xu Qiao to protect the team’s healer in the middle alongside Meng Li.

The fire scorpion flapped its deep red armored wings and swiftly flew low between the trees.

The three teammates kept watch in different directions when suddenly, Sun Fushan pointed west and shouted, “Birds!”

Three A-level flying beasts, each with a wingspan of five meters, were followed closely by a swarm of smaller flying beasts, densely packed and overwhelming.

Xu Qiao’s heart raced. Were they coming from Jing City?

More than two hundred kilometers away, while A-level terrestrial beasts might tire from such a long run, flying beasts could make the journey in just a matter of minutes.

The three A-level beasts that had originally been flying east suddenly veered toward their direction.

For some bird species, scorpions are considered a delicious snack, and the larger the scorpion, the more they are favored.

Although the fire scorpion spirit was cautiously hidden among the trees, how could it escape the keen eyes of the flying beasts?

Realizing it had been exposed, the fire scorpion spirit quickly landed. The three teammates coordinated and retreated about ten meters behind the fire scorpion, with Meng Li taking the A-level energy gun thrown by Sun Fushan and standing at the forefront, while Sun Fushan and Xu Qiao each took an energy gun to guard the rear.

Since they couldn’t avoid the encounter, they had no choice but to fight!