Chapter 85: Today Was a Very Meaningful Day
Joren ignored the murderous look Kaia was giving him.
He walked over to the charred remains, crouched down, and expertly pried out a crystal core with the tip of his blade.
"Not bad. Rank Three. Decent quality too."
[Ding! Rank Three Voidbeast Venom Lizard killed. Bloodstars obtained: 200.]
Now this was the right way to farm points.
The thousands of Antares Command soldiers scattered through the ruins were basically mobile human radar units.
They searched.
He harvested.
Simple.
As for how they felt about it?
Could hurt feelings be exchanged for Bloodstars?
No?
Then they were irrelevant.
"All right, stop standing there."
Joren tossed the crystal core to Kaia and waved toward the far end of the factory.
"There should be a nest of rats nearby."
Kaia glanced over.
"Then we should go take a look?"
"They are gone now."
The blades of [Voidshard Array] returned one after another and slipped into the black case behind him.
Kaia said nothing.
Neither did Jazz.
Alar looked away.
Joren gave them an easy wave.
"No need to thank me."
"We are all on the same side."
Then he vanished again.
...
Two hours passed.
The atmosphere on the Antares Command communication channel had become deeply strange.
On normal missions, it sounded like this.
"Requesting support! Rank Three Voidbeast contact!"
"Hold the line. We are on the way!"
"I am hit!"
Tension.
Blood.
Urgency.
The sort of thing soldiers expected.
Today was different.
"Team One reporting. One Rank Two Ironback Bear spotted... Never mind. Report complete. The Frontier Marshal already killed it."
"Team Seven reporting. We found a pack of Windwolves... Frontier Marshal, slow down! Leave us one! Just one! Even a Rank One cub will do!"
"Team Thirteen requesting support... Cancel that. The Frontier Marshal passed by and cut the target apart. We are currently responsible for portioning the meat."
The entire operation had become Joren’s personal performance.
Anything discovered by Antares Command survived less than three minutes.
He roamed the map like a tireless god of death.
Some soldiers had barely spotted a mutated rat before a transparent flying blade appeared through its forehead.
At this point, even a dog passing through the area would have been slapped twice.
Little by little, the soldiers began to unravel.
A disturbing thought spread through the ranks.
Were they useless?
Near the outskirts of the stadium, Kaia led a squad in surrounding a massive peak Rank Three Voidbeast.
A Vajra Ape.
This one was no easy target.
Its fur was hard as iron, its strength was monstrous, and its aura had already begun edging toward Rank Four.
Jazz braced the enormous tower shield in front of him, veins standing along his forehead.
His eyes shone.
"This one is big!"
"The Frontier Marshal went east. He will not make it back in time."
"This is our chance!"
"We take it down ourselves!"
The others lit up at once.
Finally.
Their turn.
Kill this thing, and they could strut in front of every other squad tonight.
"Roar!"
The Vajra Ape hammered a fist toward Jazz like a falling meteor.
"Come on!"
Jazz roared and released his protective force, ready to take the blow head on.
Then a familiar voice drifted down from above.
"Oh. That one is huge."
Jazz’s face turned dark red.
He looked up.
Joren was already standing atop a nearby high rise.
Moonlight caught along [Heaven’s Sin] as the heavy blade slowly left its sheath.
Even from dozens of meters away, the gravitational pressure rolling from it made Jazz struggle to breathe.
His voice nearly cracked.
"Could you leave this one to us?"
"Do not be ridiculous."
Joren smiled, showing white teeth.
"That thing is peak Rank Three. One more step and it reaches Rank Four."
"You cannot handle it."
"So let me..."
He coughed.
"Let me take care of it."
Then he moved.
No flying blades this time.
Joren jumped from the thirtieth floor.
[Heaven’s Sin] rose above his head, its deep sea silver iron body shining with a cold violet light under the moon.
Rank Four protective force poured into the blade without restraint.
The crushing weight of [Heaven’s Sin].
[Divine Mammoth Might].
Boom!
The air burst beneath him.
Joren fell like a violet meteor, carrying enough force to crush everything below.
"Die!"
The Vajra Ape threw up both arms in terror.
Its defense might as well have been paper.
Crack!
Bone shattered.
The peak Rank Three Voidbeast was split from the crown of its skull straight through the body.
The strike continued into the ground and carved out a fissure more than ten meters long.
Jazz and the soldiers behind him stared.
Again.
They had lost the kill again.
Joren flicked the blood from his blade and looked over at Jazz, who now wore the face of a man abandoned by life.
"Why do you look like that?"
"I saved you."
Jazz inhaled slowly, then dropped the tower shield onto the ground.
"Frontier Marshal."
"What?"
...
Night settled over the ruins.
Campfires burned once more inside the abandoned stadium.
The elite soldiers of Antares Command sat in full gear with food containers in their hands, mechanically shoveling dinner into their mouths.
The food was the same.
The meat was still from Rank Three Voidbeasts.
Somehow, none of it tasted right.
Only a few hours ago, every one of them had charged into the ruins burning with resolve.
They had sworn to share the burden of the Frontier Marshal.
Sworn to tear flesh from the Voidbeasts even if it cost their lives.
What had actually happened?
Their entire tactical process for the day had consisted of one sequence.
Spot a monster.
Run toward it.
Before they covered even two hundred meters, an explosion would thunder behind them, or several silent blades would cut through the air.
Then came the Frontier Marshal’s warm voice.
"Good work. Next."
What were they?
Elite soldiers?
No.
Highly trained tour guides.
"I used to be a hunter."
Alar stared down at the fragrant roasted meat in his hand and sighed.
"Today I was a hunting dog."
"At least hunting dogs get to bite something."
"All we did was report locations."
Meanwhile, the man responsible for their suffering sat atop the same armored vehicle, grinning at the system screen.
[Current Bloodstars: 37910]
Rich.
He was truly rich.
This wide area search had pushed efficiency to the limit.
Thousands of human scouts opened the entire map and dragged out every Voidbeast hiding in drains, sewers, basements, and ceiling spaces.
Joren only had to arrive, kill, and collect.
No searching.
Only harvesting.
He closed the system screen and stretched, completely satisfied.
Then he paused.
Something felt wrong.
Why was everyone so quiet?
Had all that running exhausted them?
"Ahem."
Joren cleared his throat, jumped down from the vehicle, and walked into the middle of the camp.
Every eye turned toward him.
"Everyone."
His voice rose, full of warmth and conviction.
"Today was a very meaningful day!"
No one answered.
Meaningful indeed.
They had all taken a guided tour of the Fallen Zone.
"Today, I saw your courage."
"I saw your judgment."
"More importantly, I saw the iron spirit of Antares Command!"
Joren grew more impassioned as he spoke. He swept one hand toward the silent ruins around them.
"Faced with vicious Voidbeasts, none of you retreated!"
"You remained fearless!"
"You faced death without hesitation!"
"Because of your precise intelligence, we eliminated every threat within ten kilometers in only a few hours!"
"What kind of spirit is that?"
"The spirit of fearless sacrifice!"
Joren delivered the speech with such conviction that even he nearly believed it.
After taking tens of thousands of Bloodstars from their work, surely a few words of praise were not too much.
To the soldiers, every sentence felt like a needle.
Alar lowered his head until it nearly disappeared between his knees.
This was unbearable.
Fearless?
Ready to die?