A familiar feeling... Arthur gripped the longsword in his hand tightly.
Feeling inspired, he declared, "I don't know who I am, and I don't know where I am. All I know is that I must go on a killing spree!"
"What are you shouting for?!" Long Yuxue gave him a smack on the head.
Arthur raised his longsword. "Tell me, milord, who shall I kill?"
"Mission guaranteed to be accomplished."
"So everything I just said was for nothing, wasn't it?" Long Yuxue couldn't help but cover her face. "Your mission is to protect me."
"Oh. That's simple."
"Simple?" Long Yuxue looked at Arthur's nonchalant attitude, and the veins on her forehead throbbed. She eventually suppressed the urge to complain. "I hope you can still be this confident in a bit."
This guy really was too much of a show-off.
If he weren't so handsome, Long Yuxue would have slapped him long ago.
Over the past few days, she had also taken the time to observe the footage of Arthur climbing the mountain; he hadn't made a fool of himself as she had expected.
His Physical Body was extremely powerful, unfazed by the snow and cold.
Coupled with the fact that one of his recommendation letters came from the Body Sect, Long Yuxue guessed he might possess a Body Martial Soul. This would give him a significant advantage in an assessment simulating the abyssal environment.
She couldn't say how high his evaluation would be, but passing was definitely a sure thing.
Therefore, Long Yuxue decided to increase the difficulty for him. She absolutely had to see Arthur beaten to his knees by Abyssal Creatures with her own eyes, and then laugh at him mercilessly!
She'd take a photo for memory's sake while she was at it. Just thinking about it felt great.
Let's see if he still tries to act cool or brag after that.
Not far away, a deep, dark crack abruptly opened in the mountain wall, spewing out a cold current of air.
Long Yuxue raised her hand and pointed at the crack. "Jump down."
"Do I have to jump down?" Arthur poked his head out to look at the bottomless darkness. "Actually, I'm a little bit afraid of heights."
"It's a virtual World; you won't die from the fall," Long Yuxue said flatly.
After saying that, she took the lead and leaped, her figure in the white military uniform instantly swallowed by the darkness.
Arthur shook his head, hugged his longsword, and followed her down.
The wind whistled in his ears. After landing...
He could see rough natural cave walls all around him, filled with holes of various sizes.
Long Yuxue had already stopped at the edge of a cave entrance not far away and was waving at him.
As soon as Arthur approached, he heard Long Yuxue say quickly, "From now on, you could be attacked at any time. You must protect me and push deep into the cave. The distance you advance and your performance in handling threats will determine your assessment grade. Understood?"
"No problem, milord! I guarantee not a single hair on your head will fall."
"Call me Officer!"
Arthur responded with a grin, performed a standard sword flourish with his longsword, and walked into the dark cave entrance.
The light inside the cave was terrible, almost pitch black, with only a faint, unknown fluorescence visible in the distance.
The air was damp and cold, with a faint fishy smell.
Arthur didn't walk fast, curiously looking around as he went.
He clicked his tongue from time to time.
He didn't show a hint of the nervousness expected for an assessment.
Long Yuxue followed silently about two steps behind him, her brow furrowed at the sight of him.
They hadn't gone far when several sharp sounds of breaking wind suddenly came from the darkness ahead.
Several dark shadows moved so fast they left afterimages, lunging straight for Arthur's face.
They were bat-like creatures with four sharp claws and wide wing membranes, their eyes glowing red and their mouths hissing.
Arthur, who was still sizing up his surroundings, didn't even turn his head as he casually thrust his longsword forward.
The two Four-clawed Bats in the lead seemed to run right into the tip of his sword. With two soft pops, their bodies suddenly stiffened and then dissipated into two clouds of dim black Qi, without even letting out a scream.
"Are these Abyssal Creatures?" Arthur finally turned his head, staring at the dissipating black Qi.
"In reality, do they have this same special effect when you kill them?"
"The simulation is basically identical to reality," Long Yuxue said from behind him, but her brow furrowed after she finished.
Just now, she hadn't been able to see how Arthur had struck with his sword at all. The angle was incredibly tricky, and she thought she saw the tip of Arthur's sword light up slightly?
Was it an illusion, or visual lag from the Simulation Pod?
The attacks did not stop.
More Four-clawed Bats emerged from the dark ceiling of the cave and the rock crevices on both sides.
They pounced in groups of three to five, their shrieks echoing inside the cave.
The longsword in Arthur's hand seemed to have a life of its own.
Always at the most perfect moment.
Whether it was a poke, a lift, a smear, or a slash.
Every time the sword light flashed, one or even several bats were bound to turn into black Qi.
There were no violent collisions, no dazzling light from Spirit Abilities, only a nearly eerie sort of magic.
His footsteps didn't seem very fast either, but he always managed to dodge all the lunges in a way that looked perilous but was actually composed, keeping Long Yuxue protected in an absolutely safe fan-shaped area behind him.
"Sword Momentum? No, Sword Intent?"
Long Yuxue was at a loss; the sense of incongruity in her heart grew stronger and stronger.
This guy's movements were clearly just some basic sword techniques that couldn't be any more fundamental.
Yet in his hands, they turned the mundane into the miraculous, forming an airtight defense.
"How did you do that?" Long Yuxue couldn't help but ask.
Arthur gave her a strange look. "Basic Swordplay. Haven't you seen it before?"
"Of course I know that! I'm asking how you used it to produce this kind of effect!"
"Oh, because I'm awesome."
Long Yuxue was already getting used to it. She sighed and continued walking forward.
At the end was a huge cavern. Hundreds of holes were distributed across the rock walls, and countless Four-clawed Bats flew among them, emitting a tooth-aching buzzing sound.
On the ground in the center, there were several even larger bat leaders with six claws on their bellies, their crimson eyes fixed on the intruders.
The real test was only just beginning here.
According to the normal procedure, one should fight steadily and clear them out step by step.
But Long Yuxue wanted to see just how far Arthur could go.
She gave a low shout, "Arthur, let me see your limit!"
Then she took the initiative to charge toward the center of the cavern.
Arthur: "?"
This was like poking a hornet's nest. The bats in the sky let out furious shrieks, and a black tide dived down from all directions. Several of the Six-Clawed Bats were the fastest, carrying sharp currents of air as they went straight for Long Yuxue!
"Didn't we agree on taking it easy?" Before Arthur could finish his sentence, he had already moved like a shadow to Long Yuxue's side.
Facing this all-encompassing siege, Arthur stood his ground, his right hand holding the sword hanging by his side.
The first wave of the bat flood arrived.
Arthur's wrist flicked.
Long Yuxue only felt a faint silver flash before her eyes, like the extremely faint trail of a meteor occasionally streaking across the night sky.
Immediately following that, an invisible absolute Domain appeared within a five-meter radius centered on her and Arthur.
All the bats that rushed into this range, whether they were ordinary four-clawed ones or the more ferocious six-clawed ones, stiffened in unison.
In the next second, a line as thin as a hair appeared on their bodies, piercing through their vital points. Then, they silently exploded into the purest black mist without even a struggle.
The tide-like offensive hit this invisible barrier and evaporated instantly.
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