Chapter 217 - 216: Can’t Let Them Get Away

With their attention drawn elsewhere, the Helmet Insects were no longer fixated on breaking through Sheng Yue’s Soul Beast Cover.

Their mouths opened and closed, their shark-like teeth glinting coldly in the sunlight.

The fangs of several Helmet Insects were still caked with dried blood.

They pounced toward Lu Yi, who had been the first to emerge.

The stench of blood mingled with the cold air, assaulting her senses.

Lu Yi shuddered, her adrenaline-fueled haze clearing slightly. "Mommy!"

She channeled her spiritual power into her arms and threw several punches.

Her punches didn’t inflict any fatal damage, so Lu Yi switched to defense, doing her best to dodge their massive maws and the impact of their pouncing, bulky shells.

Their hard, cumbersome shells didn’t seem to affect their speed; besides boosting their defense, they appeared to pose no disadvantage at all.

As they bounded about, the Helmet Insects slammed down sideways, instantly carving massive craters into the scorched-yellow earth.

After dodging a few times, Lu Yi couldn’t help but quip, "Damn, they’re some agile fatties."

Jiang Fei was in no mood for jokes. After just a few dodges, sweat was already beading on her forehead.

The Yan Xu brothers forcibly pushed back the swarm of insects with a Soul Beast Barrier.

Lu Yi and the others didn’t dare engage in close combat. They broke into groups of two and three, fighting defensively while searching for an opening.

Zhang Qin couldn’t stop worrying about his teammates. He fought intermittently, periodically pulling the person beside him. "Lu Qi, stick close to me."

Lu Qi was terrified of hindering his teammates and dragging them down. After dodging several attacks without being able to land a solid blow himself, he began to grow frustrated.

When he saw Zhang Qin get injured while pulling him to safety, a sliver of resentment toward Sheng Yue surfaced uncontrollably.

’Sheng Yue clearly had the power to handle this, yet he pushed me, the lowest-Level one here, out to fight.’

’To put it nicely, it was for ’experience’.’

But even training should be a gradual process.

If Yan Ying and her people hadn’t already killed the B-level Mutant Worms, he could have fought them. At least he could have won and wouldn’t have been such a burden on his teammates.

But now? Among everyone and everything on the field, both humans and Mutant Worms, he was the weakest.

How was a B-level Awakener like him supposed to face a swarm of A-level and higher Mutant Worms?

Lu Qi pressed his lips together, forcing himself to hold on. The rims of his eyes turned red, his mind went blank, his heart pounded faster and faster, and even breathing became difficult.

The chaotic noise seemed to be muffled, as if through a membrane, and his surroundings began to feel unreal.

A tense atmosphere settled over the battlefield.

More and more people were getting injured.

Unlike them, Jian Yu didn’t need to close the distance; she could deal damage from more than fifty meters away.

She could pose a substantial threat to her enemies from a great distance, and the same was true for her Healing Ability.

So, from the very beginning, she had been acting as the team’s medic, providing long-distance Healing to everyone who was injured.

Shi Zhao had said that besides devouring a Soul Ghost Body, the black mist also had the effect of enhancing Attack Power, but Jian Yu had never tried it on a group.

Seeing the battle reach a fever pitch, Jian Yu quickly mobilized two types of ’Soul Power’ at once.

She glanced at Sheng Yue, then brought two fingers together and drew an arc in the air.

Sheng Yue silently opened up his Soul Beast Cover.

A black and cyan mist materialized from thin air, weaving and twining together.

The black and cyan luminous mist enveloped Zhang Qin and the others.

A gentle, nourishing energy surged into their bodies through their pores, and their wounds healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Teacher Hu’s mouth fell open in shock, forming an ’O’ so wide you could have fit two eggs inside.

"Thanks, Yu," Zhang Qin said, turning his head to thank her. The bloody gash on his arm was already scabbing over and peeling away.

"Yu, tonight I’ll... I’ll share my meat with you," Wang Hu grunted, his swollen shoulder instantly regaining its full range of motion.

The tearing, throbbing pain in Jiang Fei’s mind from overexerting her spiritual power suddenly vanished, replaced by a pleasant clarity.

Fired up, Jiang Fei once again enveloped her right leg with spiritual power, spun, and delivered a side kick.

To her astonishment, she sent a Level 2S Helmet Insect flying.

She stared at her own leg in utter shock, completely losing her cool. "When did I get so strong?!"

Lu Yi’s eyes widened. "Uh, Feifei, did you just evolve or something?"

Similar things were happening to the others as well.

The Zhang Ziyue sisters stared at the Helmet Insect they had just knocked back, their eyes wide with disbelief.

’Were we always this strong?’

Zhang Qin didn’t have time to react. He just felt more and more powerful with every blow and charged forward to keep fighting.

He yelled, "I found it! Their weak spot is their belly! Hit their abdomens!"

Jiang Fei snapped out of her daze.

After killing two more, she was dumbfounded all over again.

Jiang Fei stared blankly. "I didn’t evolve, but it’s like..."

She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

’The power in those last few kicks was probably on par with Lu Yi, and she’s a Level 2S, wasn’t it?’

’I thought it was a fluke, but I kept unleashing the same high Attack Power with every subsequent hit.’

’My spiritual power is still S-level, but my Attack Power has taken a quantum leap.’

Lu Qi cautiously ventured, "I think... I’ve gotten stronger, too."

Before they could recover from their shock, the few remaining Helmet Insects let out a piercing shriek of grief for their fallen comrades.

They charged again, brandishing their hard carapaces.

"Watch out!" Jian Yu couldn’t help but shout.

"BOOM!" Jiang Fei threw a backhand punch.

A streamer of black and cyan Soul Power faintly trailed in the wake of her fist.

This time, everyone saw it clearly.

Stunned, they began to examine the flow of their own spiritual power, finally noticing that every attack they launched was infused with a swirling black and cyan Soul Power.

’It’s from Jian Yu!’

’An Attack Power buff?’

’Is this the Skill of Jian Yu’s Soul Beast?!’

The Helmet Insects were sent tumbling one after another, and cracks actually began to appear on their hard carapaces!

"So strong!" The Yan Xu brothers exchanged a look and took the initiative to attack.

In that moment, the power of the S-level Awakeners was unleashed to its fullest potential.

The brothers moved so fast they were little more than afterimages, their attack frequency and destructive power a whole tier higher than before.

Even Lu Qi’s unremarkable attacks were enhanced; each blow now left a faint mark on the bulky carapaces.

This allowed him, who had been on the verge of a breakdown, to gradually regain his confidence, his fear seemingly suppressed for the moment.

Lu Qi grumbled to himself, ’Sheng Yue is useless after all. Yu is my guiding light.’

With the tide of battle turned, Jian Yu’s expression relaxed.

She pressed her lips together, watching the battle with calm eyes. Her expression was placid as she periodically sent out a dense ball of cyan tendrils, occasionally laced with a few wisps of black mist.

Sheng Yue glanced over, his gaze lingering on Jian Yu’s face for a few seconds as if to check on her condition.

The stench of blood still hung heavy in the air, but the cold look in his eyes gradually softened.

Yan Ying and her group, hiding in the back, wore ugly expressions.

She waved, beckoning over a person in a red mask, and whispered something to him.

"Shout now?" the red-masked man asked, swallowing nervously. "Shouldn’t we wait until after they’ve won...?"

Enduring Yan Ying’s displeased glare, the red-masked man stood up.

He raised his voice. "Jian Yu! Those are your teammates! How can you just sit there and not help? You’re cruel and selfish! Just because you have the Chief’s protection, you get to hide while your teammates take all the risks!"

Jian Yu was too busy to spare them a thought; she’d settle the score with them later.

He shouted several times, but no one paid him any mind.

The red-masked man squatted back down in embarrassment. "We’re being ignored, Miss."

Yan Ying was indignant. "I can’t let them get off so easily."

’After orchestrating this whole-ass show and losing more than a dozen people in the process...’

’I thought I’d get to see something happen to Jian Yu, get some payback for my cousin, but it turns out she’s just a coward who only knows how to hide.’

Yan Ying refused to have come all this way for nothing.

She handed him a bottle of medicine. "Since she’s hiding in Sheng Yue’s Soul Beast Cover and won’t come out, find a way to force her out. No, it doesn’t matter if she stays in. If one of them dies while she’s perfectly safe next to Sheng Yue, what do you think people at the academy will say when they find out? And won’t her own teammates turn on her for it...?"

She waved him off.