The Mighty General Jerome

The Adjutant was completely speechless. “Wait, this is the very first time we've met! I don't even know who you are. Is it really necessary to go all out like this?”

How was this any different from taking a stroll down the street and suddenly running into a psychopathic killer? No, there was still a difference—War Freya wasn't just some ordinary psychopathic killer; she was a Rank Four extraordinary.

War Freya had no intention of responding to the Adjutant. Instead, she slowly walked forward while deepening her wound, eventually severing the artery in her wrist, causing blood to spray out like a fountain.

Since Life Freya had already removed War Freya's pain receptors, she didn't have to worry about pain.

In the next second, War Freya casually tossed aside the dagger in her hand and launched a second charge toward the Adjutant.

This time, however, she didn't throw a punch. Instead, she spread her arms wide to maximize her reach and attack range, lunging at the Adjutant in a flying tackle.

“Damn it!” The very instant War Freya moved, the Adjutant received a warning from his Intuition telling him to dodge the attack. He immediately acted upon receiving the warning, but unfortunately, War Freya's physical attributes were skyrocketing with every passing second due to her blood loss.

The Intuition ability could detect incoming danger and automatically present the simplest defensive or evasive maneuvers in the mind of a War Pathway extraordinary. However, while it provided the method, whether one could actually execute the corresponding defense or dodge was entirely independent of Intuition.

In truth, based on War Freya's initial speed when she started her charge, the Adjutant would have been able to dodge perfectly. However, midway through her dash, her speed suddenly surged, causing an “error” in the evasive movements his Intuition had initially guided him to make.

Ultimately, even though the Adjutant desperately tried to reposition himself, he still failed to escape War Freya's wingspan. War Freya's left wrist slammed into the Adjutant's abdomen, followed immediately by her right arm wrapping around him, leaving her in a posture where her head was buried in the Adjutant's chest.

Normally, this posture was most common in various visual novels or anime, where the female lead happily leaps into the male lead's embrace, delivering a massive dose of romance to the audience.

As for the male lead receiving the embrace, just thinking about it would surely feel amazing. Of course, the Adjutant felt completely otherwise right now.

To him, how was this some soft and sweet beautiful girl? He felt like he had been hit head-on by a speeding locomotive! Soft and sweet? She was as hard as iron!

“Cough—!”

With his eyes bulging and saliva flying, accompanied by several crisp cracking sounds, the Adjutant could clearly feel several of his ribs shattering in an instant, while his internal organs felt like they were throwing a wild party and scrambling all over the place.

In just a few seconds, the two of them crashed through three or four buildings, the massive commotion clearly audible even several blocks away.

Yet, the Adjutant clenched his teeth, forcing himself to endure the excruciating pain. He balled both hands into fists, intentionally protruding his middle knuckles slightly. Channeling his spirituality into those protruding knuckles, he aimed directly at War Freya's temples in his embrace and struck hard!

Under such a blow, even War Freya, with her exceptionally high defense, felt her brain ring. She temporarily lost all perception of the outside world, her vision and hearing failing completely as she became utterly dizzy.

Of course, if her pain receptors were still active, she would probably be feeling an excruciating headache right now.

Seeing War Freya's charging momentum slow down, the Adjutant pressed his advantage, executing a combo of Stance Recovery and Full-Force Strike. But in the very next second, War Freya decisively let go and executed a swift lateral roll, dodging the Adjutant's second strike.

“How is this possible?” Seeing this, the Adjutant's eyes widened in disbelief. Even for a Rank Four Warrior known for their superior physical attributes, it should have been impossible to recover so quickly after taking such a heavy blow to the head!

What the Adjutant didn't know was that even though War Freya had taken a heavy blow and temporarily lost her senses, Life Freya had already arrived nearby. With Heart Perception fully activated, and since all the Fufus were essentially the same person sharing senses, it didn't matter at all whether War Freya could see or not.

As long as her body could still move, she could keep fighting!

After dodging the second blow—which truly would have been fatal had it landed—War Freya closed her eyes and also utilized Stance Recovery, instantly stabilizing her stance and bringing herself back to peak condition. Then, she raised her left hand, treating her arm entirely like a spear, and thrust forward with a hand-blade.

Having already used Stance Recovery and Full-Force Strike, the Adjutant was completely unable to dodge, and War Freya's hand pierced straight through his chest.

In truth, it was only now that War Freya realized something. When her temples were first struck by the Adjutant, her Intuition had also warned her. However, because she was lunging forward with all her might at the time, she had no room to dodge, which was why she got hit.

But she actually possessed the Stance Recovery ability. If she had used it back then, she could have avoided the hit. Thus, it was entirely due to her own lack of combat experience and a mechanical misplay that she took an extra beating.

From another perspective, however, this blow had nearly shattered her skull, further deepening War Freya's injuries. This caused her physical attributes to rise even more, laying the groundwork for her subsequent hand-blade strike.

When War Freya pulled her left hand out of the Adjutant's chest, something was clutched in her grasp—a heart.

After War Freya lost her senses and began using the “god's-eye view” provided by Life Freya, her perception had actually increased by a large margin. It was precisely because of this that she could lock onto the exact location of the Adjutant's heart, achieving a one-hit kill.

War Freya leaped backward, squeezing her left hand slightly. The heart let out a wet, squelching sound as she crushed it barehanded. She mumbled, “Sheemsh... like I'm shtill a bit better...”

Clearly, she had not yet recovered from the concussion, and her speech center was still malfunctioning.

A trickle of blood leaked from the corner of the Adjutant's mouth, and the blood from his chest sprayed out uncontrollably. He didn't speak, merely leaning his body slightly forward. He had now triggered the peak state of Battle Continuation, while War Freya was also in terrible shape due to severing her artery at the start of the battle and taking that heavy blow to the head.

Within the span of a single minute, the Adjutant was confident he could drag War Freya down with him, forcing her to accompany him to the grave!

However, just as the Adjutant was about to charge, War Freya vanished into thin air right before his eyes without warning. His movements froze, and he stood dumbfounded. “Where... where did she go?”

The current situation felt very much like playing a MOBA game where a character just activated their ultimate for five seconds of invincibility, ready to dive into the enemy team and slaughter everyone, only for the opponents to completely run away. Or like playing an RPG where you just popped an invincibility buff, only for the boss to trigger a mandatory cutscene, and by the time the cutscene ended, your buff had expired.

In short, a profound sense of despair and helplessness washed over the Adjutant. Gritting his teeth, he knelt down and wiped up some of the blood War Freya had left behind.

Aside from Full-Force Strike, the other extraordinary ability of a Rank Four Hunter of the War Pathway was called Bloodthirsty Pursuit. As long as they obtained the target's blood, activating this ability would reveal the “prey's” location.

If the distance between them was vast, they would only perceive a vague location, but as they drew closer, the sensation would become increasingly precise.

It was said that once someone was targeted by a Hunter, they could never escape their pursuit.

Yet, when the Adjutant activated the ability now, he found that he couldn't sense War Freya's position at all—there wasn't even a vague direction. “How is this possible?!”

As for the actual reason, there was no need to say much. War Freya had simply been recalled into the system by Freya. She no longer existed in this world, so how could the Adjutant possibly locate her?

Now that the Adjutant's Battle Continuation had been triggered, he would die on his own if left alone. What was there left to do? Naturally, it was time to slip away.

Besides, War Freya's injuries were quite severe. It was best to let her rest in the system save slot for a while, and once this incident was over, Life Freya could heal her.

It was worth mentioning that although this battle appeared to be a duel between War Freya and the Adjutant, it was actually a stealthy three-on-one. Life Freya provided vision from afar, while Freya herself recalled her clone at the very end, preventing the Adjutant's counterattack from succeeding.

On the damaged street amid the ruins of the buildings, the Adjutant roared to the sky, but it was futile. He could only watch helplessly as his life entered its final countdown.

...

Meanwhile, back on the main battlefield, the Special Service reinforcements quickly arrived to assist. Led by Nolan, a total of eight Special Service squad captains and two members from Jessica's squad—ten people in total—charged at the forefront toward Jerome. Every single one of them was a Rank Four, and they unleashed their abilities one after another.

Seeing this, Jerome was forced to give up his advantage and quickly retreat. In his place, shadow soldiers stepped forward to take his position, forming a neat formation to block the oncoming attackers.

The One-Man Army ability had a limit on the number of soldiers that could be summoned. With Jerome's current strength, his limit was one hundred. This meant that for every soldier he summoned now, another soldier located in various corners of the city would vanish into thin air.

But this was a critical moment, and Jerome certainly couldn't care about that. As he continuously activated his ability, the meticulously designed soldiers scattered throughout other parts of the city vanished, and a full hundred of the highly simplified shadow soldiers materialized on this battlefield.

Nolan was the first to clash with the initial wave of shadow soldiers. Carrying his forward momentum, he aimed a shoulder strike directly at the soldier in front of him. But just as the soldier stumbled and Nolan prepared to press his advantage with a combination of punches, two other soldiers immediately stepped in. One blocked Nolan's left fist while the other blocked his right, helping to distribute the impact of the attack.

Logically speaking, if this combo had landed entirely on a single target, it would have easily finished them off. Yet, it was neutralized just like that by the other two soldiers.

At the same time, just as Nolan's attack concluded, another two soldiers closed in from the flanks, launching an assault precisely during the brief window when his old momentum had faded and his new strength had yet to build.

Nolan was forced to use his extraordinary ability to deflect these two attacks, but as the battle progressed, he realized every wave followed the exact same pattern.

Whenever he attacked a particular soldier, two others would step in to share the damage, while another two would seize the opportunity to flank and ambush him.

In animated movies, when one person fought a crowd, the “crowd” actually attacked one by one. It looked like a brawl, but in reality, it was just a series of duels.

But in reality, villains wouldn't be stupid enough to fight you one by one. Even for the most powerful expert, when physical attributes were comparable, fighting four or five opponents at once was already the limit. Nolan could clearly feel the disadvantage of being outnumbered. The coordination among these soldiers was far too perfect, resembling comrades-in-arms who had polished their teamwork on the battlefield for a decade!

Just five of them could unleash combat power far exceeding five individuals!

Nolan frowned deeply. During his next attack, he suddenly pushed his extraordinary ability to its limit, unleashing a surprise maximum-power strike. The soldier hit by the blow instantly exploded into a splash of ink-like substance, scattering everywhere.

“Good hit!”

“Beautiful!”

Seeing this, his teammates couldn't help but cheer for him. However, only Nolan knew that something was very wrong with that strike.

Jerome's Battle Array had the effect of distributing damage. Yet, the moment Nolan attacked, the targeted soldier had actually disconnected from the Battle Array to absorb the full force of the spiritually infused strike alone, resulting in his immediate explosion.

Then, Nolan saw spirituality surge around Jerome in the distance, and he quickly summoned a brand-new one to replace it!

Right in front of Nolan, as soon as he killed one soldier, another immediately stepped up to take its place. There were currently eleven Special Service members on the battlefield, but Jerome had a hundred soldiers. On average, each Special Service member had to fight nine to ten soldiers!

Thus, an incredibly absurd scene unfolded: Jerome alone was practically suppressing one Rank Five and ten Rank Fours from the Special Service!

“How extraordinary,” Life Freya, who was on her way, murmured as she observed the entire battlefield through Heart Perception. She then turned to the members of the Church of the Earth beside her and said, “We need to pick up the pace!”