Chapter 38: Ice-Breaking Smile

Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Ice-Breaking Smile

The rust-like, metallic taste of fresh blood continuously surged back up his throat. Jeremy clamped his jaw shut tightly, letting out a muffled groan, and decisively swallowed the mouthful of blood back into his stomach. He frantically squeezed out the last drops of magic power in his meridians, pushing his circulation to the maximum...

The usual refreshing fragrance of cedar and cold metal radiating from the youth’s body was now completely swallowed by the overwhelming stench of blood.

Fresh blood followed the angular contours of his sharp cheeks, dripping pit-a-pat onto Evelyn’s face.

Pinned tightly against Jeremy’s firm chest, Evelyn laboriously lifted her fingers, which had begun to stiffen due to the toxin, and lightly wiped away the wet streak on her cheek.

Instantly, a glaring smear of red struck her vision directly.

"..."

Evelyn stared fixedly at the blood that was not hers on her fingertips, a flash of incomprehension darting through the depths of her emerald eyes. Clearly, with his speed and reflexes earlier, escaping alone would have been more than easy. Why turn back, risking his own life to drag her along? What benefit did doing so bring to someone who always put pragmatism first like him?

Suppressing the confusion to the bottom of her heart, Evelyn spoke up hoarsely: "Captain, put me down. I will find a way to hold that beast off, you take the opportunity to find reinforcements."

Jeremy, who was taking long strides treading water, slightly lowered his eyelashes, coldly glancing at her: "With your currently dying condition, before I even manage to surface, you would already be chewed into a puddle of bloody pulp by it."

The truth was too naked and brutal, plunging Evelyn into silence.

"Why did you stand rooted to the spot waiting for death just now? You even proactively dismissed your Holy Artifact." Jeremy frowned, his breathing heavy, but his tone still carried strict interrogation. He truly could not comprehend it: "Are you tired of living?"

Completely lacking any sarcastic intention, Jeremy was genuinely curious.

In that life-and-death moment, the aura Evelyn emitted was exactly like someone who had long anticipated release, calm to a bizarre extent. In this dog-eat-dog world, would any normal person face the reaper’s scythe so indifferently? No matter how cold and emotionless one’s personality was, it shouldn’t reach the point of completely extinguishing survival instincts and decisively abandoning resistance.

Evelyn did not expect this captain, who always appeared nonchalant, to pay attention to that minor detail. She lightly lowered her eyes, her emotions concealed behind long eyelashes: "I don’t want to die. But compared to struggling in meaningless resistance and still being crushed, calmly accepting the end looks less ridiculous."

An absurdly extreme answer, but ironically, the girl’s expression right now was incredibly serious.

That surrender was like a needle pricking into Jeremy’s dark memory zone. His mind flashed with shattered images of this physical body. He had once had to grit his teeth, trampling over that ostracization and grievance just to snatch every single breath. Therefore, he extremely despised this ideology of "calmly accepting death."

Evelyn paused for a beat, then coldly said: "At least, put me down so I can walk myself."

Jeremy also didn’t have the free time to debate life philosophies right now. He let go of her, decisively grabbing her wrist, exerting force to pull her along.

Under the erosion of the venom, Evelyn’s movement speed dropped severely; her footsteps were as heavy as lead. Even so, having gone out on a mission under the name of the same team, Jeremy absolutely did not allow himself to pull the cowardly trick of throwing a teammate behind as bait and running away alone. The charge of abandoning a comrade-in-arms on the battlefield would bring about dozens of troublesome legal and disciplinary issues from the academy; even thinking with his knees, he knew it wasn’t worth it.

Jeremy accelerated, bringing Evelyn swimming straight into the giant staghorn coral reef area, intending to borrow this complex terrain to shake off the frenzied Phantom Shark.

But the intelligence of a tier-five magic beast was not just for display. Realizing the prey’s intention, it immediately roared, releasing magic power to seal off the entire water layer above the coral reef area, eliminating all paths to surface.

The escape route blocked, Jeremy was forced to dart his eyes around searching for another combat plan. Excessive blood loss caused his temples to throb continuously; waves of dizziness struck one after another. In the seawater environment, this spreading smell of fresh blood was a natural tracking device; even if they downed a dozen invisibility potions, the Phantom Shark still had more than enough capability to follow their scent and stick close to their heels.

The youth’s dagger-sharp gaze swept quickly across the dark terrain in all four directions...

"Hide in that crevice ahead." Evelyn suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence. She raised a finger, pointing toward a narrow trench slicing along the seabed, located exactly at the intersecting boundary between a fossilized coral reef and a boiling underground magma vein.

Jeremy hesitated for less than half a second, decisively placing his trust in his teammate’s observation skills. He quickly took out an antidote potion, a coagulant potion, and a fishy-smell-concealing solution from his storage ring, shoving them straight into Evelyn’s hands. Simultaneously, he gathered magic power, splitting off a Maboroshi afterimage, directing it to thrash the water and swim darting off in another direction to distract the beast.

The exact moment the Phantom Shark had its attention drawn by the afterimage, Jeremy grabbed Evelyn tightly, slipping into the narrow crevice that possessed a perfect blind spot deep beneath the coral reef.

"ROAR—!"

Just having managed to stuff themselves into the rock crevice and drain the potion vials, a furious roar tearing through the water membrane echoed straight down. The Phantom Shark discovered the deception, frantically chasing right up to the spot.

Losing its target, the monster went mad. The force of its thrashing tail created violent whirlpools, sharp as thousands of invisible saw blades slashing straight into the coral reef. The water pressure squeezing into the crevice caused Jeremy’s entire body to ache intensely. He clenched his jaw tightly, holding his breath to focus, his heartbeat hanging suspended on the blade edge of life and death, his nerves tense to the absolute limit.

To avoid being swept away by the swirling water current, Jeremy instinctively twisted his body, pressing close and tightly hugging Evelyn against his chest, using his broad back as a shield to protect her. In the dark, cramped space, the distance was erased; Evelyn could even clearly hear every single thump-thump heartbeat, strong and rapid, echoing from the youth’s chest.

Evelyn inherently suffered from an extremely severe physical contact aversion syndrome, but strangely enough, right in this moment, enveloped by that steadfast masculine aura, she actually didn’t develop even a hint of repulsion or disgust...

Jeremy naturally didn’t have the spare energy to care about her psychological fluctuations. All his senses were locked onto the movements outside the crevice. It took an endlessly long time, until the whirlpool currents completely settled down, and the foul breath and murderous intent of the Phantom Shark dissipated cleanly from this space, before he secretly exhaled a breath of relief.

But understanding clearly the cunning nature of high-tier magic beasts, Jeremy absolutely did not act carelessly and crawl out immediately. He patiently maintained the knee-hugging posture in the rock crevice, waiting for nearly two hours, to the point where his two legs went numb and lost feeling. Only then did he carefully release another afterimage, directing it to surface and scout the situation.

The afterimage swam hovering outside for a full half-hour without encountering any attacks. The magic power blockade barrier that the Phantom Shark had previously set up had also thoroughly dissipated.

Confirming the risk was eliminated, and the vicious beast had truly left, Jeremy finally began to move, grasping the rock wall to crawl out of the crevice.

Standing on the edge of the underwater trench, his gaze swept around once. The battlefield was a chaotic mess, with shattered coral littering the area, but at least safety was guaranteed.

Jeremy recalled the afterimage, then slightly bent his back, extending his firm hand toward Evelyn, who was still standing down in the crevice: "It’s safe now, come up."

Evelyn paused slightly for a beat, then reached out to grasp his hand.

A powerful pulling force hoisted her up onto the flat surface: "The effects of the toxin must have been neutralized quite a bit by now, right?" Jeremy asked in a deep voice.

"Mhm." Evelyn nodded slightly.

Jeremy immediately turned around, leading her swimming back toward the coordinate of the Nightmare Beast pack’s lair from earlier: "The Nightmare Beasts by the coral reef were definitely also casually slaughtered by that Phantom Shark along the way; the casualties must be at least over half. Now we just have to go back and pick up the ready-made results to meet the quota."

Evelyn remained silent and did not reply. Jeremy thought she still had psychological trauma regarding the Phantom Shark, and was just about to speak up to reassure her that he had checked thoroughly, when he realized Evelyn’s gaze had always been pinned tightly on their interlaced hands.

Realizing that they had now escaped danger and there was no longer any reason to pull each other along, Jeremy paused slightly, decisively letting go of his hand. The corner of his lips pressed together slightly, dropping a cold but apologetic explanation:

"...Sorry. Habitual reflex, didn’t let go in time."

Was this even considered a matter needing a serious apology...

The depths of Evelyn’s emerald eyes wavered slightly. For the first time, on her face, which was always as emotionless as an ice sculpture, a faint smile slowly bloomed:

"It’s okay."

"..."

Having stuck together through a whole month of being tortured, this was the first time Jeremy saw this girl smile.

Normally, Evelyn Vael always wrapped herself in a nonchalant shell, showing no joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, as silent and gloomy as a withered tree sealed beneath eternal ice.

However, right in this moment, that smile was like shattering all freezing barriers, making her radiant and brimming with vitality exactly like a spring spirit having just torn through winter’s chains. A smile so pure and gentle that it made the person opposite her momentarily dazed.

Perhaps due to the excessively strong contrast in aura, for the first time since arriving in this world, Jeremy truly felt moved by someone’s beauty. Completely unmixed with any lustful desires or sappy romantic feelings between men and women, it was simply an absolute appreciation for aesthetic beauty.

Jeremy decisively suppressed that superfluous wavering down. He withdrew his gaze, his face unchanging as he swam along the old route heading straight for the Nightmare Beasts’ nest.

Exactly as his sharp prediction foresaw, the Nightmare Beast pack had taken the full brunt of the collateral fury from the Phantom Shark.

Outside the underwater rock cave, dead beast corpses littered the area, mottled with green blood. Jeremy summoned magical threads, proficiently wrapping up the entire pile of corpses to collect into his spatial ring. He was standing with his arms crossed, narrowing his eyes to assess whether he should risk advancing deep into the dark cave to scavenge further...

When hitting his eyes was Evelyn’s figure, who had already coldly stepped forward to swim straight inside.

Jeremy frowned, intending to follow close on her heels, but a wall of cyan-green magical vines immediately crisscrossed, blocking the entrance right away.

Her flat voice rang out from inside: "I will go in and handle it. Captain, just stand guard outside."

Jeremy disagreed with this reckless division of labor: "What if there is still an ambush nest of tier-two or tier-three magic beasts inside?"

"I will know my own limits."

As soon as the words ended, her slender figure immediately melted into the darkness, completely evaporating from her original spot.

Jeremy stood with his arms crossed, staring fixedly at the thorny vine wall in front of him. Weighing things back and forth, respecting his teammate’s combat space, he ultimately chose to take a step back, sitting cross-legged to stand guard.

Standing guard at the cave entrance for about half an hour, the surrounding sea surface remained silent. But waiting forever without seeing Evelyn appear, an uneasy premonition about unexpected incidents flared up. Jeremy could not be patient any longer. He swung his hand; a blazing red magic fire shot out, burning away the obstructing vines, his murderous intent brimming as he took long strides straight into the heart of the cave.

Contrary to its dark exterior, inside the cave was an incredibly bright space.

Clinging tightly along the rock walls was a network of Lightmoon vines naturally emitting a brilliant pale blue light. Bizarre spiritual plant grass species sprouted and bloomed everywhere, creating a rare magnificent scenery beneath the ocean.

The cave’s structure twisted and turned, and was very deep. Jeremy maintained a fast swimming speed for a grueling ten minutes before beginning to feel Evelyn’s familiar magic power fluctuation.

Breaking through the final vine curtain, he successfully entered the central lair area.

The scene before his eyes made Jeremy’s footsteps halt slightly.

Evelyn right now was gripping tightly in her hands a pair of scimitars condensed from cyan-green magic power. Her figure was nimble, as sharp as a killing machine, weaving back and forth amidst the encirclement of high-tier Nightmare Beasts.

Her melee combat skills and physical reflexes, compared to the test a month ago, had reached a terrifyingly transformative stride.

The blade tip pivoted with ruthless precision, piercing straight into the beasts’ spines. Explosive arm strength sliced the frantically struggling Nightmare Beasts into two shattered halves. Internal organs and green blood gushed out, flowing profusely to mingle into the water current.

Around her, countless severed monster corpses piled up into small mountains scattered everywhere. The foul-smelling puddles of blood gathered, thickly dyeing an entire patch of the underwater rock ground.

Beast blood splattered and stuck tightly onto her refined face, but Evelyn didn’t even bother to blink an eye. Her emerald eyes still, she decisively used the blade tip to flick the corpse she had just pierced to the side, searching for the next target.

Jeremy crossed his arms, leaning his back against the rock wall, silently observing this artistic, cold-blooded slaughter. A flash of realization darted through the depths of his eyes. He had almost forgotten an obvious truth: From the first day being thrown into this crazy class until now, the stoic-faced girl Evelyn Vael... had always been the person holding the highest magic power realm in the entire team.

And her power, clearly, was not just for display.