Sin Mal limped her way back to the formation.
Two field medics followed a few steps behind her. One glare over her shoulder was enough to make them stop, knowing better than to push their luck.
Her right wrist was wrapped in white bandages, and the few holes worn into the chest of her camo uniform hadn't been changed yet. The bloody line Cheng Lingshuang had left across her cheek had crusted over with a thin scab.
The sound of her combat boots on the asphalt was much softer than when she'd come, every step carrying a deliberately suppressed stiffness.
She reached the spot where she'd originally been standing and stopped.
She didn't look up.
The elite soldiers around her instinctively shuffled half a step aside, opening up a "social safety distance" for her.
Everyone was wrestling with the same problem inside: they had no idea what expression to wear when facing this "former Queen of Trash Talk," who ten minutes ago had been howling "I'll crush you with one finger," only to get pinned to the ground and ground into paste moments later.
Sin Mal's teeth were clenched tight.
Her eyes were locked on the tips of her own shoes.
In those eyes, the ferocity of "I'm number one in the world" had shattered so completely there wasn't even a speck of it left.
What remained was a kind of ultimate bewilderment, as if someone had punched her brain's CPU into a burnout, and it was currently stuck in a frantic reboot.
Up on the platform, Rita opened the record board in her hands to the first page.
Five hundred names, ranks, service records, physical fitness ratings, psychological profiles—and most crucially, the Honkai energy resistance index flagged in Anti-Entropy's preliminary screening database.
Ai Hyperion had spent forty-eight hours cross-referencing all the data of these five hundred people through seven rounds, ultimately generating a pairing plan that Rita privately called "Hell's Jigsaw Puzzle."
The pairing logic for every single duo led with one theme: "even the King of Hell would shake his head at this."
Complementary personalities? No such thing.
Balanced abilities? In your dreams.
The core idea behind Rita's arrangement was a single principle: take the most incompatible personalities, the mismatched "genius-and-dud" pairs with a combat gap deeper than the Mariana Trench, and forcibly weld them together onto the same bumper car.
After all, on a real Honkai battlefield, the monsters wouldn't care whether the two of you complemented each other.
If you didn't dare entrust your back to the comrade beside you, the only outcome was holding hands and going to the slaughter together.
"Everyone."
Rita's voice drifted down from the platform, as elegant as if she were introducing today's chef's selection menu to guests at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
"For the next thirty days, everyone will be paired in twos, bound by a life-and-death shared-liability system."
The air over the training ground tightened another notch.
"One person makes a mistake, both are punished. One person is eliminated, both leave at the same time.
"Now, I will begin reading out the pairing list."
Rita opened the record board to the first page and began reading names.
She didn't speak quickly. After each pair she finished, she'd pause for a considerate half-second, giving the pair of "poor bastards" enough time to confirm each other with their eyes across the crowd.
A rustling commotion began to spread across the field.
Some stood on tiptoe to peer around, some whispered to size each other up, and some had already turned green as a vegetable.
Clearly, the sheer malicious care put into these pairings was plain to see.
The very back row of the formation.
In the corner.
When Susannah heard the four words "life-and-death shared liability," a whimper escaped her throat.
She stood at the very edge of the formation, surrounded by elite soldiers built like double-door refrigerators.
Stuck in the middle of this crowd, she looked exactly like a trembling husky pup that had wandered into a wolf pack.
A perfect real-life replica of that classic meme.
Her legs were still shaking.
To be precise, from the moment Su Yu used a gravity field to smack Sin Mal into the ground so hard you couldn't pry her out, her legs had switched into high-frequency vibration mode.
Susannah swallowed hard with difficulty.
In this state of extreme tension, her mind involuntarily launched into a life-flashing-before-her-eyes montage.
The scenes rewound frame by frame.
Susannah.
The only daughter of a certain gemstone tycoon—a genuine, real-deal pampered heiress.
Just how far did her father's "money-power" reach?
Three buildings in Dubai, two estates in London, and a vault in Switzerland rumored to be large enough to hold a standard soccer field.
The family's gemstone business had run for four generations. If she so much as nodded, she'd have ten maids waiting on her for the rest of her life without her ever having to lift a finger.
But this young lady just so happened to be allergic to sparkling diamonds, and instead was diagnosed from childhood with a severe case of "chuunibyou."
While other heiresses bought haute couture handbags, she bought the complete set of "X-Ball Z" and limited-edition mangas.
While other heiresses studied socialite etiquette, she wore a Sailor Moon cosplay outfit in her bedroom, practicing "In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!" in front of the mirror.
Her ultimate dream in life hadn't changed since she was five years old—to be a hero. The world-saving kind.
At eighteen, she secretly enlisted in the military behind her family's back.
When her old man found out, he nearly burned her entire manga collection.
But he didn't burn them. He just sat on the living room sofa, smoking a hookah all night long, and the next morning, with red eyes, said to her: "Go. But if you get hurt, you drag yourself right back home."
She didn't get hurt.
Because she never even got the chance to get hurt.
First day of boot camp: a five-kilometer cross-country run.
When others finished, they called it a warm-up; when she finished, she flat-out called an ambulance, coming in slower than the second-to-last person by the entire length of the song "Borrow Another Five Hundred Years from Heaven."
Second day: crossing the single-log obstacle bridge. Others walked it like flat ground; she performed an exceptionally textbook "uprooting the willow tree"—a faceplant on level ground, diving headfirst into a mud pit.
The field medic fell into deep thought holding her physical exam report: did this girl's cerebellum forget to grow while she was still in the womb?
Third day: shooting practice. Fifty rounds, forty-seven of which drew outlines around the target.
Of the remaining three, two precisely hit the bullseye of the comrade in the next lane over, nearly giving him PTSD.
The instructor looked at her scorecard, silent and dying for a cigarette: "Did you mix up your enlistment notice with a registration form for the Paralympics?"
As for combat training, forget about it—her motor neurons were sluggish to an outrageous degree.
When others threw one side-kick, she could dodge three times; when she threw one side-kick, she could trip herself three times.
The unit gave her a resounding code name: "True Lord of the Flat-Ground Faceplant."
After learning of his precious daughter's history of suffering in the barracks, her old man decisively activated his money-power and transferred her from the field company to a relatively safe logistics clerical post.
The old man tearfully pleaded over a video call: "Daughter, Daddy is begging you! With that crispy little body of yours, going to the battlefield just makes you a walking blood bag on wheels! Tapping away at a keyboard in an office, taking inventory of supplies—we're still unsung heroes safeguarding world peace all the same!"
Susannah sat in the swivel chair of the logistics office, staring at the densely packed supply-allocation spreadsheets on her computer screen.
She knew her old man meant well.
But she also knew that the distance between tapping a keyboard and saving the world was probably farther than from Dubai to the moon.
If it weren't for that damned "routine army-wide physical," Susannah might really have tapped keyboards in the logistics department for the rest of her life.
Luck played an enormous international joke on her.
Just because they'd drawn those three vials of blood, she—with her perpetually F-grade fitness—somehow, thanks to that ghost of a thing called "latent high Honkai energy resistance," got forcibly drafted as an SSR and transferred straight into Arc City's "King of Hell Special Training Class"!
When the officer handed her the top-secret transfer order, his expression was as complicated as if he were looking at a giant panda: "The mortality rate for this training is extremely high. You may withdraw at any time."
Susannah stared at the transfer order, her mind a total blank.
"Me?" She pointed at her own nose. "F-grade fitness me? Going to the highest-level special training?"
The officer sighed.
"I find it hard to believe too. But it's an order from above, and I don't have the authority to question it."
He stood up, walked over to Susannah, and his expression turned serious.
"The danger level of this training is the highest there is." The officer's face was grave. "I can't give you an exact number for the mortality rate. You can refuse at any time."
Susannah lowered her head and looked at the transfer order.
The paper trembled faintly in her hands.
She remembered that afternoon when she was five, watching "Seven X Balls" for the first time.
She remembered the image of Goku standing on the ruins of Namek, drenched in blood from head to toe, yet still charging forward with clenched fists.
She remembered the countless afternoons in the logistics office, sitting in that swivel chair and staring blankly at supply spreadsheets.
She remembered what her father had said—"Tapping a keyboard in an office, you're still a hero all the same." It's not the same.
She knew it perfectly well in her heart.
Tapping a keyboard couldn't save the world.
Susannah clenched her back teeth.
She had to consider whether this was the only chance she'd get in her entire life.
"I'll go."
She signed her name on the life-and-death waiver.
However, three days ago, on the military train bound for Arc City, reality gave her a massive slap across the face.
On the military train bound for Arc City.
Susannah curled up in a seat in the corner of the car, hugging her backpack with both arms, shrinking her body into the smallest possible volume.
The car was full of the type of people who looked like trouble at a glance.
Burly men with buzz cuts, female soldiers with knife scars on their faces, and death gods radiating killing intent from every pore.
Susannah felt like a little goldfish that had been tossed into a shark tank.
She was thirsty.
Her water bottle was in the side pocket of her backpack, but she didn't dare drink at her seat, afraid of making a sound and drawing attention.
She decided to go get a cup at the water dispenser in the car connector.
As she went to fetch water, the train jolted, and—entirely true to character—she performed a full "prostrate-flat-on-the-ground" grand salute to a big shot beside her.
She smashed headfirst into Sin Mal's back.
Sin Mal turned around chewing a lollipop, her glare fierce enough to scare a child into wetting themselves on the spot.
With one light shove, Susannah went flying, her knee slamming hard against the iron handrail.
"A combat-worthless nobody who can't even walk straight is qualified to join the highest-level special training?"
Sin Mal sneered down at her, her voice grating.
"Did the higher-ups donate their brains to the zombies? Did they send you here to liven up the mood, or to deliver takeout to the monsters?"
Not a single person in the entire car spoke up for her.
Everyone felt that riding the same train as this kind of "mascot" was simply an insult to their professional standing.
Susannah didn't cry. She just silently climbed back to her feet and returned to the corner.
Her thoughts snapped back to the present.
On the training ground, Rita's voice was still reading out the pairing list.
Susannah's gaze refocused on the platform.
She looked at Su Yu.
That young man in the black T-shirt, standing at the edge of the platform, both hands stuffed into the pockets of his cargo pants.
His posture was utterly casual, but ten minutes ago, it was this very man who, with some power completely beyond human comprehension, had pinned the fiercest mad dog on the field down onto the asphalt.
Then she looked at Rita.
The flax-haired woman with short hair, dressed in a black-and-white maid outfit, was flipping through the record board with her head lowered, that smile at the corner of her mouth impossible to read as either tenderness or danger.
In Susannah's mind, that scene surfaced once again.
The instant the tail-flame of the RPG ignited.
The warhead screaming as it flew toward the platform.
Everyone was screaming.
That woman reached out her hand.
The black hem of her skirt flared open as she spun, like a flower blooming in the firelight.
The warhead was caught in her palm, white smoke rising from between the fingers of her lace gloves.
Susannah's eyes turned completely into starry-eyed adoration!
Holy crap! The Commander is a TRUE hero! The Chief Instructor is a TRUE goddess!
Even manga wouldn't dare draw it like this, right?! Catching a missile bare-handed!
Susannah's inner cosmos burned wildly: even if she had to serve tea and pour water for these two, she was going to shamelessly cling on and stay! I want to get stronger!
Name after name was read out.
Some sneakily turned to look at their partners, some stared expressionlessly ahead, and some moved their lips soundlessly—probably cursing to themselves.
Susannah stood at the tail of the line, listening to those names drift past her ears, her heartbeat growing faster and faster.
The list was getting shorter.
Her name still hadn't been called.
Susannah pressed her palms together, frantically "casting spells" in front of her chest: Please, please! I'll go vegetarian for three days—please assign me a gentle big sister! Absolutely not the kind who can punch a bull to death with one fist, and absolutely, absolutely not...
"The final pair."
Rita's voice paused.
Susannah's heart paused right along with it.
Rita raised her head, her wine-red eyes lifting from the record board and precisely locking onto two directions in the formation.
One in the front row.
One in the corner at the very back.
The corner of her mouth lifted by one millimeter.
"Specially recruited demolitions expert, Sin Mal."
In the front row, Sin Mal's shoulder twitched.
"And, logistics clerical dispatcher, Susannah."
In the back-row corner, Susannah's hands—still mid-spell-casting a moment ago—instantly froze.
With a "clang," her military water bottle crashed to the ground and rolled all the way to the feet of the buzz-cut burly man.
"The two of you will be partners."
The air over the training ground congealed.
The front row.
Sin Mal's head snapped up.
Her pupils contracted to an earthquake-level degree in that single second.
Her bandaged right hand unconsciously clenched, and the wound beneath the bandages, squeezed tight, oozed a trace of blood.
Susannah stood rooted in place, her brain a complete white screen.
The heroic resolve she'd sworn in her heart just moments ago—"I'll stay even if it costs me this life"—
the instant she heard the three syllables "Sin Mal," it went dark with a "pop," like a television whose power cord had been yanked out.
Her mouth fell open too.
The two of them, separated by dozens of meters.
One standing in the very front row of the formation, covered in wounds, eyes screaming "are you fucking kidding me."
One standing at the very back of the formation, empty-handed, eyes screaming "is my hero dream about to end on the very first day."
Two people, separated by a vast sea of over fifty meters of people.
As if crossing the Mariana Trench of life itself.
In the very same second.
With perfect synchronicity, they let out a sky-splitting, world-shatteringly tragic cracked-voice roar:
"HUH?!?!!"
On the platform, Su Yu pinched his own thigh like mad just to keep from bursting out laughing.
Rita, meanwhile, elegantly closed the record board and held it gracefully against her chest, concealing her merit and name.
But if anyone had looked closely at her eyes in that moment, they would have found, deep within those wine-red irises, a trace of the wicked delight that belonged to a scheming, black-bellied maid.
With the pairing list on the training ground announced and the five hundred people still in an uproar below, Su Yu had already walked down from the platform.
He called out to Rita, who was just about to leave.
"Rita, there's something I'd like to ask of you."
Rita stopped in her tracks and turned around.
The hem of her maid outfit swayed gently in the wind.
Su Yu kept his hands in his pockets, his tone about as casual as discussing what to have for dinner: "After my second-stage Genetic Lock opened, my body's recovery speed far surpasses that of ordinary people. Sleeping just three or four hours a day is enough to return me to peak condition, so I want to make full use of all the remaining nighttime hours."
He paused.
"Starting tonight, for a period of one month, you will subject me to unlimited, no-rules midnight assassination training. No time limits, no location limits, no method limits.
"The only rule is that I can't use any active skills, including Tai Xu Sword Qi."
Rita's eyelashes fluttered.
Something flickered across those wine-red eyes, then quickly sank back down.
She lifted the hem of her skirt and performed a curtsy so flawless it couldn't be faulted, her upper body leaning slightly forward, revealing the line of her collarbone.
"Since it is your wish, then as your personal maid, I shall present you with the most exquisite reaper's etiquette."
She straightened up and tilted her head.
"Please do be careful of the dark night, Master Su Yu."
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