Meanwhile, the forest around Horikita and Jhon had grown unnaturally quiet.
They stood back to back, shoulders nearly touching, breathing uneven and shallow.
Both were injured.
Both were exhausted.
Not from fighting each other—
But from fighting everyone else.
Blood stained Jhon's shirt. One cut across his ribs still bled slowly. His fists trembled slightly from overuse. Horikita's arms felt heavy, bruises dark across her torso. The wooden branch in her hand was chipped and splintered from repeated impact.
And now—
They were surrounded.
Ten of them.
Maybe more hiding in the trees.
Horikita kept her voice low.
"How are we going to defeat them? We didn't even rest properly before getting dragged into another fight."
Her tone was calm, but her chest tightened.
Jhon exhaled sharply through his nose.
"Don't know," he muttered. "It's hard to say… but I can't fight much more."
Footsteps crunched softly over leaves.
A girl with a short ponytail stepped forward from the encirclement.
Her posture was relaxed.
Too relaxed.
She walked as if she had already won.
"Well, well," she said lightly, her eyes moving between them. "You two are skilled fighters. We can't let you walk around freely. It'll cause us trouble later."
She tilted her head slightly, smiling.
"So… join us. Or die. Your choice."
Confidence radiated from her.
She wasn't bluffing.
Behind her, a boy stood casually tossing a stone up and down in his palm, smirking. Others tightened their formation.
Jhon turned his head slightly toward the ponytailed girl.
"You slutty bitch," he spat through clenched teeth. "If we weren't exhausted, you and your little group would be fucking dead already."
A sharp crack interrupted him.
A stone slammed into his abdomen.
The impact forced the air from his lungs.
He doubled over slightly.
"Ahhh—! The fuck!" he roared. "You bastard!"
The boy tossing the stone slipped his hand back into his pocket and drew out another, a smug grin stretching wider across his face.
He weighed it lazily in his palm, as if savoring the moment.
The ponytailed girl stopped directly in front of Horikita.
Close enough that Horikita could see the faint scar on her chin.
Close enough to smell sweat and blood.
With a small, cruel smile, the girl asked softly,
"So… what do you choose, miss Japanese?"
Horikita's fingers tightened around the wooden branch.
Her mind raced.
Her body was beyond its limit.
Her muscles screamed for rest.
If she fought now—
She would lose.
And death here was absolute.
Behind her, Jhon remained hunched slightly, clutching his abdomen.
He glanced sideways at her.
I know what she's thinking.
He swallowed.
And she's right. We'll lose for sure.
So what do we do?
The forest seemed to press inward.
Horikita closed her eyes briefly.
Pride meant nothing if she died.
Survival first.
She opened her eyes and grit her teeth.
"I… I'll joi—"
Her sentence never finished.
A voice cut through the clearing.
Calm.
Cold.
Absolute.
"They both will never join you."
The surrounding group stiffened.
"Because they are joining me."
Before anyone could locate the source—
There was a flash.
A clean, horizontal line of red.
The boy standing in front of Jhon—the one casually tossing the stone—froze mid-motion.
The stone slipped from his fingers.
For a brief, impossible second, nothing happened.
Then his body separated.
From shoulder to hip.
Cut perfectly in half.
The upper portion slid sideways.
The lower half remained standing for a fraction longer before collapsing.
Blood poured onto the forest floor.
Silence crashed over the clearing.
Behind the fallen body—
A boy stood, his face concealed beneath a plain mask.
Sword resting casually in his right hand.
Blood dripped slowly from the tip of his sword, each crimson drop striking the ground with a heavy, final echo.
His eyes were calm.
Too calm.
The ponytailed girl's smile vanished instantly.
Jhon stared.
Horikita's pupils narrowed.
Boy tilted his head slightly, gaze sweeping across the group that had surrounded them.
"Anyone else," he asked evenly, "wants to negotiate?"
Meanwhile, Deep inside the forest, far from the earlier clearing soaked in blood, Yang Kai rested with his back against a thick tree trunk.
The canopy above filtered the sunlight into broken green patterns across the ground. The air was quieter here. No screaming. No footsteps. No desperate curses.
For now.
His axe lay beside him within arm's reach.
His breathing was steady.
Cuts across his shoulder and ribs slowly knitted themselves together. Bruises faded from deep purple to faint discoloration. The torn skin along his cheek tightened, sealing almost visibly.
He flexed his fingers and studied his arm.
The healing speed is abnormal.
He leaned his head back against the bark and closed his eyes briefly.
My injuries recover this quickly because I'm not in combat. If people could just sit somewhere and wait to heal completely every time, this test would drag on for three or four fucking months. That would be a pain for the administrator.
A faint smirk tugged at his lips.
So the system accelerates recovery outside direct combat.
Efficient.
He opened his eyes and looked up through the trees.
High above the canopy, the massive blue screen hovered.
The numbers were falling rapidly.
100,002,561
100,002,529
100,001,876
Each second shaved off dozens.
Soon it would drop below one hundred million.
He exhaled slowly.
"Thinking about it…" he muttered to himself, "more people must've gotten their hands on weapons."
His gaze sharpened.
"Which means the fights now are probably between weapon holders."
That was inevitable.
The early chaos had favored numbers and desperation.
Now—
It would favor power.
He pushed himself up from the tree, rolling his shoulder once to test it. No pain. The muscle felt stronger than before.
His body had adapted again.
He picked up the axe.
I don't know how many weapon holders there are now, but—
A slow, predatory smile spread across his face.
His red eyes gleamed faintly under the forest shade.
They are no match for me.
Still—
He wasn't stupid.
Experience and a weapon weren't invincibility.
If forty or fifty coordinated fighters formed a group and targeted him together, even with this axe, he would be in serious trouble.
He remembered the earlier fight near the pond.
Twenty-three had nearly overwhelmed him.
If his stamina had dropped a little more—
He might've died.
He looked down at the axe in his hand.
For a moment, the memory surfaced.
The screams.
The curses.
Monster.
That word.
Am I really a monster?
His steps slowed.
He stared at the dried blood along the edge of the blade.
Then he shook his head once.
Nah. Impossible.
I'm a good man. I never did anything bad to anyone.
The thought sat there comfortably in his mind.
Completely ignoring the fact that he had just chopped through people like firewood hours earlier.
He adjusted his grip and continued walking deeper into the forest.
The environment felt different now.
Quieter.
Sharper.
More calculated.
Earlier, it had taken barely a minute of walking before someone attacked him.
Now—
Nothing.
No ambush.
No reckless rush.
No desperate screams.
He walked for several minutes without encountering anyone.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
So as the numbers decrease… only the thoughtful ones survive.
The impulsive were already dead.
The loud were gone.
What remained—
Were hunters.
The forest had grown too quiet.
Leaves no longer rustled with careless footsteps. Birds no longer cried warning. Even the wind seemed to hesitate as Yang Kai walked deeper beneath the tangled canopy.
Then it slipped out of him.
"Stop hiding. If you're here to fight, then come out."
His voice carried between the trunks, struck bark and branch, and dissolved into nothing.
He waited.
One second.
Two.
A full minute stretched, long and suffocating.
No answer.
A vein throbbed faintly at his temple. He turned slowly, gaze settling on a thick tree several paces behind him.
"Hey," he said, irritation bleeding into his tone. "Just come out. I'm bored now and I can't tolerate this shit behavior."
Silence.
Then—
A figure stepped from behind the tree as if she had always been part of its shadow.
Long purple hair spilled down her back like liquid twilight, catching stray shafts of sunlight and reflecting them in soft glints. Her pink eyes were steady, bright, and unnervingly calm. In each hand, she held a dagger. The blades were narrow and polished, their edges clean enough to split breath itself.
She did not speak.
She simply looked at him.
Yang Kai's expression froze for a fraction of a second.
A weapon holder.
I knew she was following me when I left the pond, he thought, pulse tightening slightly. But I didn't think she managed to get a weapon.
Then another thought struck him harder than any blade.
She doesn't have killing intent… but if she did… I'd be dead already.
His throat went dry.
Still, pride forced his spine straight. He rolled his shoulders and tried to look composed—dangerous.
"So," he said, lowering his axe slightly but not fully relaxing. "What's your name? And why are you following me until now?"
No answer.
Her eyes remained locked on him, unblinking. Not hostile. Not friendly. Just… observing.
He studied her aura carefully. There was no murderous pressure. No bloodlust. Only quiet calculation.
He didn't have to fight her.
That realization made him exhale.
"Whatever," he muttered. "Do what you want."
He turned and continued walking, boots crunching softly over dry leaves.
For several minutes, the only sound was his breathing.
Then—
A faint rhythm.
Soft. Measured. Following.
His jaw clenched.
He spun around sharply. "Stop following meeeee!"
The shout shattered the stillness.
She stood several steps behind him, exactly where she had been—expression unchanged, daggers resting loosely in her hands.
No reply.
Just those pink eyes watching him like he was some strange animal she hadn't decided to kill yet.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath.
And then—
A whistle cut through the air.
Fast.
Sharp.
Lethal.
Yang Kai's senses flared. His body reacted before thought formed. From behind him, a sharpened stick—carved into the crude shape of a spear—shot forward, aimed straight for his spine. It was only meters away.
He could dodge it easily.
His muscles already coiled to shift aside—
But then he saw her move.
The girl vanished from her position.
Not stepped.
Not ran.
Vanished.
In the blink of an eye she appeared behind him, a streak of purple slicing through filtered sunlight. Her daggers crossed in a precise arc.
Clang.
The wooden spear split apart midair, the sharpened tip deflected sideways and embedding into a tree trunk with a heavy thud.
Silence returned.
Yang Kai stared at the broken shaft on the ground, then at the tree where the spear quivered.
Then at her.
She had already returned to her calm stance, daggers lowered but ready.
He couldn't help it.
A grin spread slowly across his face.
Fast.
Not just fast.
Terrifyingly fast.
She hadn't hesitated. Hadn't warned him. Hadn't even spoken.
She simply protected him.
Footsteps echoed from the shadows ahead and behind. Leaves shifted. Branches creaked.
Yang Kai's expression hardened.
So that was it.
They weren't alone.
Figures began emerging between the trees—three from the front, two from the right flank, more silhouettes barely visible further back. Some held crude spears. Others gripped stones.
An ambush.
Yang Kai clicked his tongue.
"So that's why you were tailing me," he muttered. "You sensed them."
The girl did not deny it.
Her pink eyes shifted toward the encroaching figures, pupils narrowing slightly.
Yang Kai lifted his axe slowly, resting it on his shoulder.
A low chuckle escaped him.
"Well," he said, red eyes gleaming with excitement, "this is more like it."
The forest seemed to shrink around them as the attackers tightened their circle.
One of the men shouted, "Kill them!"
They rushed forward.
Yang Kai stepped slightly to the side—
And for the first time, he aligned his back with hers.
He didn't look at her.
But he spoke quietly.
"Don't slow me down."
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then—
In a voice soft and cool as steel sliding from its sheath, the girl finally spoke.
"You first."