Chapter 77: Clearing Out the Rift Fierce Beasts

The battle at Mishoushan had entered its final stage.

Without those Divine Image Realm Realm martial artists, the remaining Ge Family members were nothing but a rabble.

The Zhenling Bureau's investigators and the Military Department's martial artists coordinated seamlessly, moving in groups of three, combing upward from the foot of the mountain toward the peak.

Whenever a Spirit Sea Realm cultivator tried to break out, snipers waiting on the outer perimeter would immediately pick them off with precise Poling Bullets.

In less than the time it takes an incense stick to burn, not a single member of the Ge Family—young or old—was left alive.

A figure slowly descended from the sea of clouds.

Cangling's landing was very light, her boot soles touching the gravel.

She surveyed her surroundings—the estate had been reduced to ruins, the valley carpeted with the unseeing corpses of the Ge Family, sprawled every which way.

Her gaze swept calmly over those corpses, then she began to search.

She did not find Jiang Qin's figure.

In those eyes, always as still as dead water, a faint, almost imperceptible trace of loneliness gradually surfaced.

"Is he dead…"

That makes ninety-eight now.

Just then, a pile of rubble not far away shifted slightly.

A hand reached out from the ruins, clawed at the debris a few times, and then a dust-covered head popped out.

Jiang Qin sneezed several times in a row, spat out a mouthful of dust, looking utterly disheveled, yet grinning from ear to ear.

He had just crawled out of the ruins and hadn't even had time to dust himself off.

When he sensed a gaze fixed upon him.

Jiang Qin looked up and met Cangling's eyes.

The loneliness in those eyes had vanished, replaced by an emotion he couldn't read.

Stared at until his hair stood on end, Jiang Qin instinctively shielded the Space Ring on his finger and put on a serious expression.

"Let me say this first—I really pulled my weight in this fight. Those were over twenty Divine Image Realm Realm cultivators, and I took them all out alone. You have no idea the pressure I was under; I nearly died just now, so…the Ge Family's stuff, I want thirty percent."

He paused, then added, "Not a single bit less."

The Ge Family had been entrenched on the Frontier for a hundred years; their treasures were beyond counting.

He had no reason to let them go.

Cangling stared at him for two seconds.

Then she turned and walked out of the mountain.

"If you want it, then take all of it. I don't need any of it anyway."

"Really?!"

Jiang Qin froze for a beat, then hurriedly scrambled out of the ruins, dusted himself off, and chased after her.

Behind them, a group of Spirit Sea Realm martial artists exchanged bewildered glances.

What do you mean you nearly died?

You were clearly the one pinning them down and beating them senseless, and after it all you only got a little dust on the hem of your clothes!

Cangling and Jiang Qin left first.

The aircraft lifted off, streaking away as a flash of light across the horizon.

The cleanup was naturally left to the people from the Zhenling Bureau and the Military Department.

In the ruins, a young Zhenling Bureau investigator was moving corpses when he suddenly froze.

He looked down at a gap in the rubble at his feet, where a corner of a swaddling cloth was exposed.

"Wah—"

The baby's cry was as faint as a kitten's mewl.

It drifted out intermittently from deep within the ruins.

He instinctively bent down, about to dig through the rubble, when a hand pressed down on his shoulder.

It was the team's senior—a veteran investigator with greying temples, who spoke with calm eyes:

"Don't move."

The young investigator turned his head, opened his mouth: "But…"

Before he could finish.

The senior had already drawn his blade; a flash of steel, and the crying stopped abruptly.

Clean and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.

The young investigator stood rooted to the spot, eyes wide as he stared at the bloodstained swaddling cloth, his lips trembling, unable to speak.

The veteran investigator sheathed his blade and said in a flat tone.

"A child of the Ge Family—today you soften your heart and spare his life, and twenty years from now, if he learns his origins, who knows what hatred he might harbor. And besides…once we open this door, more factions will only rebel in the future."

"Remember, we're on a battlefield right now. The one thing a battlefield cannot have is mercy."

He turned and walked toward another stretch of ruins, without looking back.

"Get back to work."

…

On the aircraft, speeding along.

Jiang Qin tore into Fierce Beast meat, watching the scenery flash past outside.

The sea lay in the distance.

"Didn't expect the benefits at our East China Headquarters to be pretty decent—after finishing a mission we even get a vacation. I've never even been to the seaside."

"Vacation? When did I ever say we were going on vacation?"

Cangling tilted her head and said in an offhand tone:

"Right now we're obviously going to carry out the next task. We have to complete five tasks in total today; clearing out the Ge Family was only the first one, so you'd better take the chance to rest now. A new extermination mission starts in an hour."

Jiang Qin's movements froze, and the meat in his hand instantly lost all its flavor.

"It can't be… another SS-level Task, can it?"

"Of course not."

Hearing that, Jiang Qin breathed a slight sigh of relief. As long as it isn't a task like the Ge Family one, it's fine. Although he could fight those at the same realm as easily as beating a dog, he still couldn't handle fighting nonstop all day long.

He didn't even have time to cultivate.

Who would have thought that the very next second—

Cangling's addendum made his scalp tingle.

"A Fourth-order Otherworld Rift has appeared outside a coastal city. According to the investigation, at least several hundred thousand Fierce Beasts are entrenched inside. Headquarters plans to designate this Rift as a training ground, so they've arranged for us to clear out all the Fourth-tier Fierce Beasts within the Rift, leaving only the second-tier and third-tier Fierce Beasts."

"…A Fourth-order Rift? Then how are you getting in?"

It was common knowledge that if a Martial Artist's realm exceeded the Rift's level, they couldn't enter the Rift.

"When did I say I was going in? The clearing inside the Rift will be handled by you. Meanwhile, I'll go carry out the next task. We split up."

Cangling answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

Looking at Jiang Qin, his face had gone dark. What kind of lousy task was this?

Several hundred thousand Fierce Beasts inside a Fourth-order Rift—even if only a thousand of them were Fourth-tier Fierce Beasts, how long would he have to keep killing? Damn it, not only would he get no rest, they weren't even leaving him time to take a sip of water.

On the way back for his debriefing, he'd heard more than once that the East Huaguo Headquarters was short on people.

But nobody said it was this short!

But actually, thinking it over carefully, it was understandable. The vast Huaguo had to face Otherworld Rifts that could appear at any moment, the Frontier still had beast tides assaulting the cities, and at the same time they had to guard against attacks from hostile nations and evil cults.

Martial Artists were already scarce, and high-level Martial Artists were even scarcer.

No wonder normally, apart from at the Academy,

even in Modu, where the martial path flourished, one rarely saw many Divine Image Realm Martial Artists. They were usually busy running all over the country—where would they find the time to show their faces in public?