“Lan Xuanyu, you…” She lifted her head sharply; everything she saw was blurry. In the next instant, there was a strong hand around her neck.
“Lan Xuanyu, what are you doing?” she said a bit incoherently. The tightening grip felt like it was about to drain all of her strength.
Lan Xuanyu said indifferently, “Nobody can insult my brothers—Liu Feng is my brother and so is Qian Lei. That’s right, you have your teammates and want to gain experience to help them, but I have my partners too and I am responsible for them. If not for my decision, we wouldn’t have to save you at all and could have let them kill you, then take all their experience for ourselves. You know as well as we do that with our battle power, we could have definitely done that. Alas, it was also because of this wrong decision of mine that resulted in the loss of what was supposed to be ours, since you snatched it away. Your team’s experience certainly isn’t as much as Li Yaoming’s, so even if we kill you, the total experience will still be lower than what we were supposed to get. This was my mistake and I must take responsibility for it.
“Ye Lingtong, listen well, your decision today made it impossible for us to be friends again, let alone partners. You betrayed our trust, and in the future, we’ll go our separate ways. Goodbye.”
A sudden realization hit Ye Lingtong and her eyes widened as she screamed, “Don’t you dare…”
Lan Xuanyu closed his eyes, a hint of hesitation appearing on his face. Even Liu Feng, who was next to him, was a little worried and whispered, “Xuanyu, you…”
“Kacha!” Lan Xuanyu’s wrist jerked hard, and he broke Ye Lingtong’s neck.
In a flash of white light, Ye Lingtong disappeared and a thick red glow went into Lan Xuanyu’s body.
On the other side, Qian Lei, who had just completed the replication, was taken aback too. He looked at Lan Xuanyu in shock. “Xuanyu, this isn’t a good idea, is it? How are we going to answer the class when we return?”
Lan Xuanyu closed his eyes, his chest undulating. After some time, he slowly calmed down.
“Sorry, it was my fault. It’s my responsibility, so I will bear it,” he said seriously.
Liu Feng’s gaze was somewhat complicated. When Lan Xuanyu called them his brothers, it had moved him deeply. “What nonsense are you talking about? What do you mean your responsibility and you’ll bear it? Aren’t we a team? We are a team, so the decisions were made together. Whatever responsibility there is, we should bear it together.”
“Frenzie is right; there is no you or me, only us.” Qian Lei walked over and patted Lan Xuanyu on the shoulder.
In truth, killing Ye Lingtong, even in the simulated world, was quite a huge blow to Lan Xuanyu.
He took a deep breath and mumbled, “I had to do it, I didn’t have any other choice. She betrayed us and stole the experience. How could someone like that be our temporary teammate? It’s like having a ticking time bomb with us that could be a threat to us during the qualifier moving forward. If it only affected me alone, perhaps I would have still brushed it off, but she affected our entire team. Master Yin mentioned before that in the battlefield, the scariest part will never come from facing our enemies but from the friendly forces behind our backs. I cannot entrust our backs to someone like her or let her continue like that. If I gave in to her this time, then maybe in the future, in the real world, on a real battlefield, she would do the same thing again. Only then, she might really die. I hope she will learn something through this incident. As for the academy, if someone has to be responsible…”
Before Lan Xuanyu could continue, Liu Feng and Qian Lei spoke up at the same time. “We will take responsibility for it together.”
Lan Xuanyu turned and looked at them, the pain from killing Ye Lingtong dissipating quite a bit. He told himself that this was a simulated world, after all.
At the same time, he examined his own conscience and asked himself, if this was the real world, would he be able to do this when faced with the same situation?
He gave a negative answer without hesitation and laughed bitterly because of it too.
At that moment, in the forest a distance away, there came a series of noises all of a sudden, causing the trio to wake up from their current emotions. They didn’t dare to delay further; they immediately jogged to the huge tree nearby and climbed up quickly.
Having consumed some energy from the recent battle, they were no longer at their peak conditions.
The sound travelled very quickly. The moment the trio clambered up the tree, there was a “swish” and then a bulky figure stood in the place where they were before.
The bulky figure landed on the ground, letting out a “bang”.
Seeing it, the trio that was in hiding was stunned. It was the 1,000-year Gold Silk Ape that they protected for a night while it was cultivating.
Compared to before, it looked like it had grown even larger and its gold hair had fully grown again. With the movement of its body, gold light flowed like waves. Its eyes brimmed with life and its pupils turned gold too. These should be the changes brought about by absorbing the Gold-eyed Leopard Skull.
It was also because of this pair of gold eyes that they could be very sure that it was the same 1,000-year Gold Silk Ape from before.
Qian Lei looked at Lan Xuanyu, who nodded at him.
Qian Lei then released his Spiritual Power and tried to communicate with the Gold Silk Ape.
“Roar roar!” The Gold Silk Ape let out a few deep roars and waved towards the three of them, the action very human.
The three people looked at each other before squatting down.
“It said that it is here to fulfil its promise and it is very sorry for making us wait so long,” Qian Lei said.
Lan Xuanyu looked at the 1,000-year Gold Silk Ape in front with a complex gaze and whispered, “It seems like sometimes, soul beasts are better than humans, huh!”
This Gold Silk Ape came back to fulfil its promise while in contrast, Ye Lingtong acted for her personal gains. This was really bad, so how could the trio not be overcome with emotion at this moment?
“Thank you. You’re not late, so you don’t have to be apologetic. Now is the critical moment,” Lan Xuanyu said in a low voice.
The 1,000-year Gold Silk Ape let out a low roar and nodded towards him.
Lan Xuanyu said, “Qian Lei, ask it to keep a close watch of our surroundings. We’ll decide again once we regain our strength.”
“Sure.”
With the Gold Silk Ape looking out, the trio hurriedly meditated and recovered what they had expended just now. This was also Lan Xuanyu’s strategy; no matter where or when, they must be in peak conditions.
It was obvious through their encounter with Ye Lingtong just now that if they were weak, they were likely to be completely annihilated. This had nothing to do with their strength.
After the trio recovered to their peak condition, Lan Xuanyu thought for a while and said, “It seems like we have to start looking for people.’
“Looking for people?” Qian Lei repeated doubtfully.
“En.” Lan Xuanyu nodded silently. “A total of 100 teams entered this place, and although it isn’t a small number, to bump into each other in this vast Star Dou Forest is akin to fishing for a pin in the big sea. Yet, in such a short period of time, we managed to bump into Ye Lingtong and Li Yaoming’s team. What does this mean? It means that once we’ve entered the last three days, Shrek Academy might make us encounter one another. In other words, although we don’t know how they’re going to do it, all the teams may be limited to a certain area and there might be a high chance of meeting.
“If I have to guess, during these seven days, the first four days are to let us accumulate points while the next three days are to let us engage in fights with different teams and compete for points. From there, the final rankings are decided. Through this process, we’ll deal with soul beasts and Soul Masters, and have a better look at each team’s overall strength. Hence, for the next two days, our focus shouldn’t be on soul beasts but being on the watch for other teams.”