The Ultimate Evolution

As soon as the summoner died, the two snipers, William and Keith, immediately had a very uncomfortable feeling, like they had suddenly been stripped naked. They felt as insecure as soldiers on the battlefield who had suddenly lost their cover.

Someone once described the sniper profession as a profession of extremes. A sniper could kill ten enemies from a kilometer away, but once a single enemy managed to get within ten meters of the snipers, the enemy could kill ten of them. Although this saying was slightly biased, it did show the awkwardness of the sniper profession.

Strong offensive power, but fragile body.

That was the true portrayal of a sniper.

In the following ten minutes, Keith put his aggressive side on full display. With a decisive pull of the trigger, a bullet was ejected from the muzzle of his rifle. The bullet shattered after flying more than ten meters.

What appeared from the bullet were two revolving balls of electricity that were only as large as green beans. They accelerated swiftly with each revolution, reaching an extremely high speed in no time at all!

Although the trajectory of the balls of electricity was very obvious, the horribly violent sound of the balls tearing the air became so shrill and sharp that it cut into everyone’s spirit and nerves like a red-hot knife, making their minds blank and completely paralysing their bodies!

The sound from this shot was already an attack in itself, before it had even hit the enemy!

More crucially, the shot was aimed at Zi.

Zi, who had yet to land and was still in mid-air!

But Zi completely ignored the shot. Instead, she was fully focused on Keith himself.

The man was wearing a black windbreaker. His expression was calm. The sniper rifle in his hands carried a metallic luster and a heavy, destructive vibe.

His stance was somewhat affected by the recoil of the shot. He had left deep footprints on the rather moist lawn of the airport underneath him. He stepped so deep into the moist ground that when he staggered backwards, his foot pulled up some fresh soil which splattered around him. From this, it could be deduced that he was carrying quite a lot of weight on him, so even if he were to run away, he would not be that quick.

By this time, the electric sniper shot had reached Zi with an unimaginable speed, making her hair billow. Zi was still in mid-air and definitely could not avoid the shot, or so Keith thought. But suddenly, a huge golden palm gently wrapped around Zi’s waist and pulled her away.

It was Reef’s ‘Holy Grasp’!

After Keith’s shot had missed Zi, it landed on a steel beam of the Terminal 2 building that they were in. Plasma burst from the shot and made a hole in the steel beam that was over a meter in diameter. The whole terminal building lost its balance, shook twice, and completely collapsed, stirring up a large cloud of smoke and dust high into the sky. Fortunately, the design of the terminal building took the eventuality of earthquakes into consideration. The collapsed rubble did bury a lot of people underneath it, but there were more injuries than fatalities.

After Zi landed with a roll, she did not waste any time and immediately gave chase. She caught up with Keith a minute later and instantly attacked him with the ‘Shattered Republic’.

There was no doubt at all what fate befell Keith after Zi caught up to him.

And so ended the battle. William had fled from the airport and Mr. Jackson Curtis had survived. Party Ace’s greatest gains came from the spoils of war dropped by the two contestants Zi had killed.

[ Emblem of the Third Reich ]

[ Origin: Germany from any world circa 1940 ]

[ Rarity: Dark Gold ]

[ Type: Accessory ]

[ Property: Defence + 5 ]

[ Material(s): Ferronickel Alloy (Chromium Plating) ]

[ Addon(s): Gem Slot ]

[ A ruby has been socketed into the gem slot, providing 5% additional fire damage to the wearer’s attacks. ]

[ Weight: 18 g ]

[ Equipping Requirement(s): Physique no lower than 30, Intelligence no lower than 80. ]

[ Will never wear out. ]

[ Property: Perception Sense + 5, Intelligence + 5, Spirit + 5 ]

[ Passive Ability: ‘Oath’ — Strong cohesiveness guarantees strong power. When there is an ally within 10 meters of the wearer, the wearer’s attack power will increase by 5%. Every additional ally will increase attack power by an additional 5%, up to a maximum of 30%. ]

[ Passive Ability: ‘Mein Kampf’ — When the wearer’s attack triggers an explosive hit, 50% of the MP consumed by the attack will be returned to the wearer, and the explosive hit rate of the wearer’s magic spells will increase by 10% for 15 seconds. ]

[ When the explosive hit rate of the wearer’s magic spells stacks up to 100%, this bonus will disappear and a 60-second cooldown will begin. During this period, the wearer’s MP recovery rate will increase by 50%. ]

[ In the inner circle of the ring, a small line of words is inscribed: ‘May the glory of Germany shine in my heart forever.’ ]

***

This accessory was no doubt Zi’s accessory now. She was naturally very happy about that. To tell the truth, when Sheyan had killed ten people in a row back then, he did get a lot of good stuff, but none of them could compare to this dark gold accessory. Luck was indeed a very important thing.

After that, they received another piece of unexpected news: Jackson Curtis was refusing to cooperate in any way and was showing signs of going on a hunger strike. His only request was to meet with the person in charge.

Sheyan sighed. What he feared the most had happened, and he could do nothing but face it head on…. After pondering for a while, he pulled open the car door and sat next to the silent and dispirited Jackson Curtis.

“I’m the one you’re looking for. What can I help you with, Mr. Jackson Curtis?” asked Sheyan sincerely.

Jackson Curtis raised his head. He looked terrible. He was covered in dirt, his hair was as messy as a bird’s nest, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“It’s you… You… What are you doing here?

“I came for you, of course.” Sheyan answered seriously.

Jackson Curtis’ jaw dropped. Then, he suddenly got emotional. “There’s no $700,000 annual salary job, is there? That’s just a lie you made up to trick me into going to the factory in New York! The most I’ve ever made in a year is $70,000, and that’s only because my boss is a f*cking philanthropist! Why did you scam me? What’s your purpose?”

“Calm down, Mr. Curtis,” said Sheyan while staring straight at him, “Didn’t you get a $200,000 signing fee? Isn’t this money real? And didn’t you get a decent weekly salary in the factory? If that’s a scam, do you know how many people would like to be scammed by me? In what way did I deceive you?”

That shut Jackson Curtis up. Sheyan instantly continued in a harsh tone, “But you, Mr. Curtis! You betrayed my trust! You repaid my kindness to you by leaving without authorisation during working hours and stealing the company’s assets!!”

After that, Sheyan placed the airship tickets in front of Curtis and said while staring straight at him, “The current market price of a single ticket is $10 million, yet there are plenty of buyers but no sellers. You stole five tickets, causing a loss of more than $50 million in total, and that’s not including the loss from a series of chain reactions caused by your actions. Do you know how severe the criticism we will face from the board of directors because of you?”

Jackson Curtis sneered. “The earth is about to be destroyed. Who cares about the board of directors.”

“That does not excuse your crime!” Sheyan retorted sternly, “You’re in big trouble, and so am I! Right now, the solution favoured by the organisation is to throw you out and completely cut you off from the organisation, including making your tickets obsolete!”

Jackson Curtis suddenly stared at Sheyan with a strong gaze. “I want to hear the truth from you. Why did you recruit me into the organisation? I have no expertise other than driving a car and writing some sh*tty books, and neither of those abilities can help you build airships.”

Sheyan had long thought of an excuse. He replied earnestly, “There’s a reason the organisation has the foresight to build airships to cope with the impending apocalypse. From what I’ve heard, quite a few people had the same dream, a dream of the tragic disaster to come in 2012. Because their dream was so vivid, all of them believed that it’s not just a dream, but something from the future their souls somehow managed to experience.”

“And a group of people, including you, have provided vital help to them in their dreams. They think that you guys may be the key people and nodes to support the future. That’s why they intend to save all of you.”

Jackson Curtis was a writer, so he had a rich imagination. It helped him accept Sheyan’s explanation very quickly. He immediately begged Sheyan, “Then please save my son and daughter! And my ex-wife! Their lives are all much more important than mine!”

Sheyan sighed. “We’ve already tried looking for them, but our intel shows that they’ve made a trip abroad and haven’t returned yet.”

“That…That’s impossible!” Jackson Curtis immediately pulled out his phone and made a call.

“Hello, hello! Is that you? Where are you? What! You just got home? You won a 7-day trip to Hawaii from a lucky draw? Damn, how could that happen? Oh, no, I don’t mean that it’s bad you won a prize from a lucky draw. I mean it’s bad that you won a prize from a lucky draw at such a critical time…Hello? Hello??”

After that, Jackson Curtis gave Sheyan a pleading look. Before he could speak another word, Sheyan already received a series of notifications.

[ You have triggered an emergency mission: ‘Jackson Curtis’ Request’. ]

[ Warning: Accepting this emergency mission means the apocalypse will no longer arrive at the predetermined time. It will happen at a random time instead. ]