The entire lecture hall was stunned, everyone staring at the two people on the stage in dead silence.
“What... what are you doing?!” Bai Feifei was on the verge of fainting. Never in her life had she imagined she would one day hold a sword to the throat of an Inner City lord.
In a section of the seating below, the constables who had come with Qiao Jin were dumbfounded. They stood up in unison.
But before they could move, Bai Feifei—or rather, Xu Mo—turned and looked coldly in their direction, as if he had known exactly where they were all along.
Xu Mo didn't say a word. He simply watched them while tightening his grip on the longsword. A thin, scarlet line of blood immediately appeared on Qiao Jin's neck.
That cold gaze, which didn't treat them as human beings at all, made the Inner City constables freeze in their tracks.
A thought involuntarily rose in their minds—with a gaze like that, this Outer City girl must have a massive body count!
Outer City dwellers really were savages!
Xu Mo didn't speak a second time. He was far too familiar with the plot; he had lived through this scene countless times.
This Qiao Jin was actually a beast in human skin who didn't give a damn about the lives of those at the bottom of the Outer City.
In today's recruitment, anyone intended to face an aberration should have been given an item called a “Cognition Filter.”
When ordinary people first encountered an anomaly, their minds could snap, driving them instantly insane. A Cognition Filter helped people resist that mental shock.
With this equipment, those with strong wills could attempt to attack common aberrations, while those with weaker wills could at least escape with their lives.
But out of some sick sense of amusement, Qiao Jin had suppressed this information and refused to hand out the Cognition Filters!
He wanted a few Outer City dwellers to die first, using their miserable deaths to terrify the other participants and show off his own authority as a veteran.
When Xu Mo first started playing Old Ones' Awakening, he hadn't known about this and had been stuck here for a long time, killed many times by this bastard NPC.
So, once he knew the truth, Qiao Jin went on his must-kill list for every new save file. He’d chop this guy down as soon as he entered the game.
It was only because of the current strange circumstances—not knowing his own situation—that he had decided to show some restraint instead of taking the man's head off right then and there.
However, what Xu Mo saw as extreme restraint appeared incredibly shocking to everyone else.
The entire hall was so quiet that a pin drop could be heard. Bai Feifei herself was holding her breath, even forgetting to communicate with Xu Mo in her mind.
Finally, Qiao Jin, his neck bleeding, spoke with great difficulty.
“...There is no need for this. I hadn't finished explaining the rules yet. When someone is about to attempt an entry, I would have naturally brought this out.”
With a flick of his wrist, a bronze mirror the size of a palm appeared in his hand.
“So...”
Before he could finish, Xu Mo snatched the bronze mirror from Qiao Jin's hand. Without stopping, he turned and stepped directly into one of the black portals.
Qiao Jin didn't even have time to react before Bai Feifei's figure vanished from sight.
The atmosphere remained silent for a moment before the constables below all rushed up, surrounding Qiao Jin.
“Mr. Qiao, are you alright?”
“This is a terrorist attack! We'll arrest her immediately!”
“This might be a conspiracy. We should lock down the scene right away.”
Listening to the voices around him, Qiao Jin's face gradually turned grim. He reached up to touch his neck, feeling the warmth of the red blood.
He didn't want to admit it, but he had been completely terrified! That girl's eyes had made him feel like death was right in front of him.
Realizing this made him fly into a humiliated rage. He was a Rank 2 Scavenger! How could he be scared like that by a little girl with no special abilities!
The hall below also erupted into a cacophony of noise. People discussed the event in terror; no one expected such a maniac to appear during a serious Scavenger selection.
“Silence!” Qiao Jin mobilized his vital energy, his voice booming like a great bell, cutting through all the noise in the hall.
“Becoming a Scavenger doesn't require a perfect personality. While her actions just now were excessive, that's not what matters.”
“What matters is her performance against the anomaly.”
Needing to maintain his image as a senior, Qiao Jin spoke with gritted teeth, feigning composure. He then waved a hand toward his subordinates.
“You lot, bring up the internal footage from the Lotus Seed.”
Several constables nodded and walked toward the portal Xu Mo had entered.
Beneath each of the nine void portals sat a Lotus Seed, which could project a virtual water screen so people could see the footage inside the portal space.
This way, they could see how the examinees handled the monsters.
Qiao Jin clenched his jaw, his eyes full of resentment. He imagined the scene of that woman being torn to shreds by the aberration inside the gate.
It would be best if the brat didn't die inside. Once she came out, he’d tell her she passed the test first, then he’d definitely get his revenge...
Just as his eyes were turning red with fantasies of Bai Feifei's miserable fate, the water screen flickered. Before it could even display the footage from the portal space, it shattered with a loud bang.
Crack!
In the next second, the portal Bai Feifei had entered collapsed, and a bloody object fell onto the floor.
It was a two-headed aberrant dog, its body covered in jagged sword wounds and a horrific puncture wound in its neck. The diamond-shaped wound was still spraying dark red blood.
Beside it, the sword-wielding girl reappeared. Half of her body was stained red with blood, and she was currently wiping a bloodstain from her face.
Her entire being radiated a soaring killing intent, causing the people nearby to involuntarily take two steps back.
Looking at the bloody hellhound on the ground, everyone froze for several seconds before focusing their eyes on the girl in disbelief!
—She had only been inside for a few dozen seconds. The Inner City constables hadn't even had time to open the water screen before the aberration was killed?
No one had even seen how she killed it!
The entire hall instantly exploded into a frenzy of incredulous cries.
“She has the ability to one-shot an aberration?!”
“Since when did the Outer City have someone like this?!”
“What ruthless methods... This is definitely the strength of a Scavenger.”
No one cared about her beauty anymore. Everyone felt a sense of dread toward this blood-soaked girl.
The constables who had been planning to seize her the moment she came out to please Qiao Jin now stood frozen, none of them daring to step forward.
Pleasing the boss wasn't worth throwing away their lives...
At this moment, the most shocked person was none other than Bai Feifei herself.
She couldn't control her body. Watching herself walk into the portal and face that terrifying aberrant dog, she had thought she was going to die.
But then, she watched in shock as her body flickered with incredible speed, dodging the dog's lunge at an impossibly subtle angle.
Then, with a few simple and rapid thrusts, the dog collapsed with a scream, drenching her in blood.
My body... can do things like that?!
Who exactly is this being controlling my body? Is it really some kind of evil god?!
“You... your Excellency... what exactly are you?” Bai Feifei asked Xu Mo tentatively, her voice filled with fear.
“Starting to use honorifics already?” Xu Mo replied with a hint of amusement.
“That was just entry-level stuff. It's only because your body is too weak; otherwise, I wouldn't have let the blood splash on us.”
“It's fine. We'll become a Scavenger first, then when we have time, we'll kill more monsters to level up.”
What did he mean by ‘level up’? Did he mean increasing her strength?
Bai Feifei was completely confused. She didn't understand what Xu Mo was talking about.
However, when that aberrant dog died, she had indeed felt an invisible current flow into her body, making her feel as if her strength had increased slightly!
Killing aberrations could make her stronger?! To her, this was completely unheard of.
Xu Mo didn't bother explaining further to Bai Feifei. Shouldn't killing monsters to level up be the most basic setting of a game? It was nothing to be surprised about.
He performed a flourish with the longsword, flicking off the tainted blood, and then looked toward Qiao Jin.
Qiao Jin's resentful gaze instantly cleared up the moment it met Bai Feifei's eyes, which were brimming with killing intent. He spoke with forced bravado:
“You... you killed this thing?”
“Who else? You think you did it?” Xu Mo frowned, his gaze toward Qiao Jin turning cold.
He wasn't sure how the plot would proceed if he didn't kill Qiao Jin. Would this guy still try to make things difficult for him? What a pain. Maybe he should just kill him later after all.
Meeting Bai Feifei's gaze, Qiao Jin felt a sudden shiver run through his entire body. He immediately threw any thoughts of revenge out the window and said hurriedly:
“Oh, no, no... I mean, do you... need medical attention?”
Rate on N.U.
