Chapter 35

Chapter 35

How Shall We Compete?

Isabella’s gaze swept over the Medici family members before settling back on Eve’s perpetually pleasant yet inscrutable smile. After a moment’s contemplation, she countered with a question rather than an answer: “Do you prefer 1v1 or 5v5?”

“You’re asking me? Then 5v5, of course,” Eve replied, her reasoning seemingly sound. “After all, this is a clan training exercise. If we lose, I can’t bear the consequences.”

Isabella was genuinely surprised this time: “You’ve already spent all your points. What consequences could there be for losing?”

*Half of zero is still zero, isn’t it?*

“Isn’t losing face a loss in itself?”

Despite her words, Eve looked cheerful, showing no sign of the shame one might expect from "losing face." Isabella, too, began to smile, revealing a row of snow-white teeth, like some magnificent, well-groomed beast of prey.

“As you wish.”

It had been over a month since their last encounter, but from the moment they met, Isabella knew Eve had grown stronger—and not just by a little.

*Her progress was truly monstrous.*

From their first skirmish, she had noticed that this girl possessed a nearly innate talent for combat. Every move she made seemed to have been practiced countless times, executed with seasoned precision and finesse.

She didn’t know that Eve’s combat awareness was entirely guided by Maria in the holographic simulation. This legendary commander from centuries past, sharing the same spiritual state, employed a light, precise, and ever-changing style that perfectly suited Eve. Under Maria’s meticulous tutelage, Eve had not only honed her combat skills but also developed a battle awareness far surpassing her peers.

Isabella pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, barely reining in the thrill of facing a formidable opponent. She then unfastened the ceremonial half-cape draped over her left shoulder and tossed it casually behind her, where it was swiftly caught by another team member.

With a snap of her fingers, the four individuals at the front of the line stepped forward. These were her original squad members, all top-tier talents among the current generation of the Cavendish family.

On the opposite side, all members of Eve’s team also advanced several steps, stepping out of their formation. The atmosphere instantly grew tense and confrontational.

But soon, this tension was tinged with a hint of astonishment: all five Cavendish combatants were piloting Mythological Mechas.

Although the Medici family had also provided advanced mechas, they couldn’t compare to the uniquely tailored Mythological Mechas, which perfectly complemented their pilots’ combat styles.

In contrast, the Cavendish family was clearly willing to invest heavily.

As Cecil had mentioned before the match, Isabella, leading the team, was not piloting the violet Valkyrie but another Mythological Mecha, this one a rosy-dawn hue. Behind it floated five feather-like, lightweight armor plates, gracefully draped like a goddess’s flowing mantle.

With a series of whirring clicks, the armor plates gradually unfolded and bloomed, hovering around the mecha, their edges gleaming with a faint, chilling sharpness.

Eve had never seen such a setup before; it was completely different from traditional mechas. Curious, she asked, “What is this?”

“Flying Feathers, a type of weapon,” Isabella replied, with no intention of concealing information, explaining openly. “My original Valkyrie was banned for this practice project. This is another Mythological Mecha, Göndul, the goddess who knows the past and future. The core design feature of this mecha is these five Flying Feathers, controlled by psychic energy.”

Eve nodded sincerely. “Thanks for the intel.”

A flash of silver light appeared on the spot, and the eerily beautiful Hecate replaced her original position. Behind her, the pale golden Jason, pure white Cassandra, and two other meticulously designed titanium mechas gradually took the places of the original team members.

To avoid accidental injuries, both sides tacitly relocated to another dune to serve as the battlefield. Having fought Isabella before, Eve was well aware of her style. The moment they landed, she immediately opened the team channel and warned sharply, “Stay away from Isabella!”

At the same time, she linked her ability with the Luna Butterfly. After a period of training, almost everyone could release their Spiritual State at a moment’s notice. The Burst Wind Chime landed on the ground and exploded, kicking up clouds of sand. Coarse dust filled the air, Spiritual States swarmed like demons, and everyone’s auras mingled. In just an instant, Hecate’s form and presence vanished without a trace.

Isabella’s reaction speed was equally impressive. A crimson Karmic Red Lotus erupted with her at the center, while the other four well-trained Cavendish members fully supported her actions. The first to be injured was Luo Lin. Her Spiritual State, the Mist Cloud Vine, had been lurking underground, scouting and guarding against any sudden Zerg attacks. Unexpectedly, this became the flaw Isabella exploited.

The Karmic Red Lotus’s flames penetrated the sand layer without resistance, burning straight downward. Eve had experienced this agony that seared soul-deep before, so when she heard Luo Lin grunt in the team channel, she knew things were bad.

With just one weakness exposed, the four Cavendish members pounced like hyenas spotting prey, coordinating seamlessly in their assault.

Dick, who was closest to her, instinctively moved to help. But fighting wasn’t his strength, and while he managed to shoulder some of the damage for Luo Lin, his absence disrupted the firepower balance on the other side, suddenly increasing the pressure on Grace and Cecil.

Eve had been using the sandstorm to hide herself while hovering at the edge of the battlefield, as keen and agile as a peregrine falcon. Her psychic energy was razor-sharp as she secretly observed the strategies of both sides. She had to admit that, compared to their still somewhat inexperienced team, the opponent’s coordination was clearly on another level.

She clenched her jaw. As she swept past Luo Lin’s position, her Emei daggers deftly intervened, subtly redirecting two of the Cavendish members toward Isabella. The Karmic Red Lotus’s flames didn’t care who was friend or foe—it attacked everyone equally except its master.

The two hesitated and retreated a few steps. With half of the original four attackers gone, the pressure eased immediately. Luo Lin withdrew the Mist Cloud Vine from underground, and with her psychic energy now coordinated, her combat effectiveness nearly doubled. Sensing something, she asked in the team channel, “Was that you, Eve?”

Eve murmured a faint “Yeah.”

“What are you two being so cryptic about? Hey, is anyone going to help me and Cecil?” Grace’s voice came through, mixed with pain. “What kind of spellblade is this Cavendish heiress? Her fire can burn right through the mecha and onto the person inside. We can’t even get close. This is tough.”

She finally witnessed what those “Flying Feathers” were—they were actually Alchemy weapons controlled by psychic energy. As long as the user’s psychic energy held up, the Flying Feathers could move freely, ignoring distance entirely.

This meant they couldn’t land a hit on Isabella, but she could attack them at will.

In contrast, Cecil’s voice sounded sinister as he directly called Dick out in the team channel: “Why did you suddenly run off just now? You directly caused the balance between the three of us to collapse.”

Knowing he was at fault, Dick frantically apologized in the channel: “Sorry, sorry! I’m coming back now.”

He tried to return to his position, but Isabella seemed determined to take out Eve’s teammates first. Having failed against Luo Lin, she and two other members turned to flank Cecil and Grace.

Since ancient times, the first rule of combat is to take out the healer. The silver moon clematis was in full bloom, spinning in the air like an overworked top, constantly distributing healing equally between the two.

Cecil was fairly decent; even while bearing the brunt of the attacks, his greatsword swinging awkwardly, he didn’t abandon Grace and kept supplementing her healing.

Or perhaps he’d realized that, in this situation, if Grace were taken out, he’d truly be left isolated and helpless.

This also meant that, after watching for a while, Dick still couldn’t break into their small battlefield. The mayfly’s focused fire had range limitations, and separated by a ring of Karmic Red Lotus flames, he could only watch from afar.

Eve had seen enough. She grabbed him mid-air and leaped into the encirclement with him: “Quit dawdling and charge!”

The luck effect of an A-grade Spiritual State was immediately apparent. The moment the mayfly was thrown forward, several of Isabella’s sword strikes inexplicably missed—something that should have been impossible given her skill level. She couldn’t help but sound intrigued: “A luck buff?”

She’d forgotten to turn on her external speaker, so the question landed in the team channel. Her teammates didn’t understand what she meant by this sudden, out-of-nowhere question and asked in confusion, “Milady, what luck effect?”

“Nothing, just talking to myself.”

Isabella wasn’t going all out because Eve hadn’t truly made a move yet, which made her uneasy.

She glanced at Luo Lin, who was now fighting outnumbered two-to-one outside the center of the battlefield, and suddenly ordered the two beside her to leave: “You two, join the fight against Luo Lin. The first person eliminated cannot be from our side.”

They had to secure a numbers advantage first, though it seemed this wouldn’t affect Eve, who had been fighting solo from the start.

“Yes.”

Unconditional obedience to the milady’s commands was etched into these people’s bones. Without further questions, they turned and left.

And it was now that Eve finally found her opportunity to strike.

Not against Isabella, but against the two Cavendish members who were about to leave.

She rushed in from the side, silent and stealthy like a ghost drifting through the night. On another imperceptible conceptual level, the Emei daggers twisted in Hecate’s hands and sharply attacked the two.

One pair of Emei daggers, two Cavendish members—perfectly evenly distributed.

Though still invisible, Isabella’s sharp combat intuition sensed the rapid approach of some danger. She had known for a long time that, given Eve’s tenacity, relying on the searing pain of the Karmic Red Lotus to stop her was impossible. So she turned to intervene personally but was blocked by Cecil’s greatsword.

With his teammate’s assistance, the young lord finally caught a breather from his earlier predicament. Aided by the silver moon clematis, his condition quickly improved.

He stood blocking Isabella's path, a chilling smile spreading across his face:

“—Where are you rushing off to? Your opponent is me. Are you so fixated on Eve that you don’t even want a proper duel between heirs?”

In that brief moment.

Right under her nose, Eve had already eliminated one of the Cavendish family members as effortlessly as a child poking through tissue paper.

Unable to break free quickly and now down a teammate, Isabella completely lost her patience. With a forceful downward slash of her Starfall Sword, still sheathed, she cleanly knocked Cecil’s obstruction aside and simultaneously unleashed a towering bloom of Karmic Red Lotus, coldly snapping, “Get lost. You’re not worthy.”

The usual polite facade maintained between heirs was torn apart in the heat of battle, revealing the arrogance innate to the Cavendish family’s proud daughter. Of course, she had every reason to be arrogant—her noble birth allowed Isabella to disregard all status and power, wholeheartedly pursuing what she recognized as the truth of strength.

In Isabella’s eyes, Cecil’s swordsmanship was skilled, but far from being a match for her.

In this practical project, the only opponent she acknowledged was that girl who moved with the grace of a butterfly yet struck with the deadliness of a God of Death.

Her sword was drawn only for a true rival.

There was still one left—the one who had narrowly escaped Eve’s attack moments earlier thanks to a teammate’s desperate defense, managing to retreat just a few steps. Eve remained calm and composed, smoothly turning her right wrist to press the pursuit, when a broad, dark blade, deep as the night and reflecting no light, thrust in from the side. Even she had to retreat two steps to avoid its sharp edge.

It was Isabella’s Starfall Sword!

“I’ve had enough of these irrelevant interruptions,” Isabella said, her voice tense and irritated as she raised her sword. “You know very well I only want to fight you.”

“Such reckless words are unbecoming of the future Cavendish marshal. The elders on the spacecraft right now might be troubled hearing this.”

Even as they fought intensely, Eve found the mood to crack a less-than-witty joke, though the subject of her teasing wasn’t appreciative.

“Who cares,” Isabella retorted disdainfully.

The Luna Butterfly couldn’t support two abilities simultaneously yet, so the moment they were activated on the same frequency, the silver-white mech finally revealed itself completely for the first first time since the battle began. Isabella tensed entirely, only to find the synchronized frequency wasn’t targeting her at all.

The Cavendish teammate she had just parried had shifted to Luo Lin’s battlefield and suddenly began attacking his own teammate bizarrely.

The teammate, struck unexpectedly, cried out in shock: “What are you doing?”

When this sudden shout echoed through the team channel, Isabella’s heart skipped a beat for no reason.

If she had a chance to look back now, she would see that another Cavendish member, originally surrounding Luo Lin, was now entangled in close combat by Grace and Dick, while Luo Lin stood motionless unexpectedly, with the silver moon clematis pressed close behind her.

“Found it —”

The instant Luo Lin’s cool voice sounded in the team channel, Eve’s voice also rang out in the public channel, clear and decisive.

“I love killing multiple birds with one stone.”

The girl’s voice carried laughter and a hint of wild arrogance: “Since everyone’s fighting so hard, why not add a little more challenge to our competition?”

“Roar—!!”

The once stable sand dune was suddenly upheaved entirely, yellow sand pouring down from the sky like a waterfall. A dark red, massive segmented creature emerged from beneath the earth, its swollen flesh encased in a semi-transparent black shell upon closer inspection.

This indescribable behemoth, when it raised its head and roared, produced a sound vile enough to induce nausea. Four thick fleshy tentacles grew from its head, and its face featured only a deep, dark mouth, inside which rows of sharp, filthy yellow teeth were faintly visible. As its footless body writhed, dark green mucus splattered from the corners of its mouth.

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

The relatively relaxed spectators from both teams erupted into terrified screams at the sudden appearance of this monster, frantically summoning their mechs and scattering in panic.

Even Isabella, who had never been this close to an Advanced Zerg before, was seized by shock and disgust at the sight of the grotesque giant worm. Threads of fear also began creeping into her heart: “A Death Worm... You had Luo Lin dig up a Death Worm! Are you insane? What are you trying to do?”

“What am I trying to do? I want to fight a boss,” Eve replied, puzzled. “Since reinforcements are here, we might as well take advantage.”

Not far away, Luo Lin, exhausted from digging up the Death Worm, remained motionless—right in the closest proximity to the creature.

Cassandra had long since been returned to the Spatial Ring due to depleted mental energy, and everyone watched as Luo Lin stood there isolated and vulnerable, seemingly about to be crushed by the enormous Advanced Zerg.

Just then, a golden rope suddenly appeared, flexible as a snake, quietly looping around Luo Lin’s waist.