Genshin Impacti: This Priest is Cringe, But She's Also Unbeatable — Chapter 40

Chapter 40: The Plunderers and the Sprint of the Short-Legs

A peculiar lightness spread from the soles of Selene’s feet, suffusing her entire body.

She gave a subconscious hop, and her heavy plate armor clinked with a soft sound that utterly betrayed its immense weight.

“Sister, why do I feel… so much lighter?”

Before the words had even left her lips, she took a few tentative, rushing steps forward, a look of pure astonishment blooming across her face.

Whoosh!

The wind howled past her ears as the scenery blurred and receded at a dizzying speed. This was even faster than when she pushed herself to her absolute limit!

“This isn’t an illusion, is it?” Selene skidded to a halt, her face alight with the joy of someone discovering a whole new world.

Celeste watched her sister’s incredulous expression, knowing full well it was the effect of the Gale Step aura. She maintained her lazy, mysterious facade, however, and spoke in a calm, measured tone. “It’s not an illusion. I just awakened a passive aura that gives us a slight boost to our movement speed.”

“An aura?!”

Selene’s eyes went wide, her mouth unconsciously forming a perfect ‘O’. Her pretty face was a mask of disbelief, practically screaming, ‘This is completely unscientific!’

“Wait a minute! Aren’t auras the exclusive trademark of us Paladins? And a speed-boosting one at that?”

“Our Paladin auras either increase defense or recovery, or at best provide some damage reflection! There’s absolutely nothing in our kit that directly buffs movement speed!”

She circled Celeste twice, her eyes a mixture of burning curiosity and a hint of playful grievance.

“Sister, fess up. Is this another one of your weird ‘Heroic Spirit Summoning’ tricks? Why are you trying to make us Paladins obsolete! You’re stealing our whole gimmick!”

A Priest who was freakishly strong, capable of both tanking and dishing out damage. And now, she’d somehow manifested a speed-boosting aura that even Paladins didn’t possess?

Had the world gone completely mad?

Celeste coughed dryly, then extended a finger and flicked her sister precisely on her smooth forehead.

“Stop spouting nonsense. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

[Ding! The Host has successfully generated Elation by usurping the specialty of the Paladin class. The resulting look of adorable grievance on your sister’s face has been converted into Joy. Elation Coins +88!]

Celeste remained silent.

‘This system really knows how to stir the pot,’ she thought.

After lazing about for more than two hours, Celeste finally sat up, stretching slowly.

“Let’s go.”

“Sister, you’re finally functional?” Selene immediately leaned in, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. “Are we going to go out and crush everyone now? Aim for the top five?”

Celeste felt the abundant stamina and spiritual power coursing through her, then glanced at the quiet pink mark nestled deep within her soul before shaking her head.

“Let’s just follow the riverbank for now. No need to make a scene.”

She had a nagging hunch that the “great cleansing” from before might have consequences far more significant than she had initially imagined.

The two sisters set off once more, continuing their journey along the winding forest stream. The passive aura of Gale Step worked its magic silently, making their steps feel as light as the wind. Even Selene, clad in heavy armor and carrying a massive shield, felt the burden on her body lessen considerably. Their pace was much faster than before.

However, the further they walked, the deeper the furrow in Celeste’s brow became.

It was too quiet.

This wasn’t the inherent, dead silence of a dense, untamed forest. This was a hollow, lifeless emptiness. They saw no monsters, nor did they spot any ordinary birds or beasts. Along both sides of the riverbank, the only sounds were the rustle of wind through the leaves and the gentle murmur of flowing water.

It was as if every living creature was terrified of something and was deliberately avoiding this entire area.

“Sister, something’s not right,” Selene whispered, having also noticed the unnerving abnormality. “We’ve been walking for almost half an hour and haven’t earned a single point. Did all the monsters decide to take a vacation?”

An anomaly like this always spelled trouble.

Celeste stopped, her sharp gaze sweeping over the eerily calm surroundings. This kind of tranquility usually meant one of two things.

Either a far more terrifying danger was gathering its strength nearby.

Or this entire area had already been “cleared” by a much more powerful entity.

Neither possibility was something they should blindly stumble into.

“We can’t go any further,” Celeste decided instantly. “Turn back. We’ll find another route.”

The pair immediately spun around and began retracing their steps, intending to bypass this unnervingly silent stretch of forest.

They had retreated less than five hundred meters and had just stepped into a section where the trees grew slightly denser and the ground began to undulate with scattered boulders, when everything changed in an instant.

Whoosh—thwip-thwip!

Several sharp, whistling sounds erupted from the woods behind them without any warning!

Arrows!

And throwing darts that glinted with a cold, deadly light!

“Enemy attack!” Selene’s reaction was lightning-fast. She executed a sideways step, her Immovable Mountain skill activating as the thick face of her shield swung around to perfectly protect both her and her sister’s backs.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

A series of crisp, metallic impacts rang out as the arrows and darts were all deflected by the heavy shield. Taking advantage of the momentum, the two sisters rolled forward, quickly putting their backs to a giant tree as they stared vigilantly in the direction of the attack.

The shadows between the trees not far away wavered.

Four figures emerged, their eyes cold and predatory, like hunters observing cornered prey. Two were rangers holding shortbows, one was an assassin whose form nearly blended into the shadows, and lagging slightly behind was an archer, his bowstring already drawn taut once more.

It was a team composed entirely of high-mobility, high-burst classes.

The leading assassin tilted his head, his gaze sweeping over the two sisters before finally locking onto Celeste’s priest robes and Selene’s heavy armor. A malicious arc formed on his lips.

“Well, well. Looks like our luck is in. We’ve caught a couple of slow, fat sheep.” His tone was flippant, dripping with mockery. “An iron can and a liability with a pink fire poker. Perfect little point packages.”

The ranger beside him crossed his arms and sneered. “A Paladin and a Priest? With a setup like that, how’d you even survive this long? Did you sell out all your damage-dealing teammates?”

“What a shame,” another ranger chimed in lazily. “You just escaped the claws of the monsters, only to run right into our Shadow Wind Team. I almost feel sorry for you.”

The archer in the back had already steadied his breathing, his tone impatient. “Captain, why are you wasting your breath on two support classes? Let’s just finish this!”

A plunderer team! A squad that specialized in ambushing and robbing other candidates of their points to climb the rankings quickly.

“Sister, what do we do? Fight or run?” Selene asked nervously, her grip tightening on her shield. Faced with a team full of slippery eels, her Paladin class felt like a sledgehammer trying to hit a fly.

“Run!” Celeste whispered without a shred of hesitation.

The enemy’s class composition was tailor-made for guerrilla warfare and pursuit. If they got bogged down in an open area, two “short-legged” classes like them would be kited to death.

The two sisters turned and bolted, pushing their speed to the absolute limit.

“Run?” The assassin captain’s eyebrows shot up as if he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. “You? An iron can and a little priest?”

“You seem to have a slight misunderstanding about your own speed—”

“Chase them!”

The order was given, and the four figures shot forward, instantly fanning out into a semi-enclosing formation to give chase.

However, the easy slaughter they anticipated never materialized.

The grins on the pursuers’ faces quickly froze.

The Paladin, a walking fortress of plate mail and tower shield, was somehow keeping pace, running just a fraction slower than they were—a team of classes built for pure speed! She even had enough spare energy to occasionally use her shield to deflect a particularly nasty arrow.

And that Priest was even more infuriating. Her movements were impossibly light, and she would occasionally glance back to cast a shield or a healing spell on her sister.

“Huh?” The assassin captain’s laughter died in his throat. “How can these two short-legs run faster than rabbits?”

“That Priest is the problem! Did she cast a slow on us?” one of the rangers complained as he ran.

Another ranger panted, shouting, “No way! I clearly saw her buffing the Paladin!”

“They must have some kind of speed-boosting item! Don’t let them reach the complex terrain!” The assassin leader’s expression shifted, and he pushed his speed another thirty percent.

But it was too late.

Relying on the crucial speed bonus from Gale Step, the two sisters plunged into a complicated maze of jagged rocks and ancient trees just moments before the encirclement could close. Here, the boulders were treacherous, the paths were tortuous, and the towering trees completely obstructed any clear line of sight for ranged attacks.

Thunk! Thunk!

A few frustrated arrows embedded themselves deep in the hard rock, their flight rendered useless. The four members of the plunderer team were forced to slow down. Faced with this natural fortress, their ranged advantage was severely crippled; they could no longer fire at will.

Selene braked sharply, slamming her shield, Immovable Mountain, down beside a giant rock. She was panting heavily, but her face was flushed with excitement.

“Sister! That new skill of yours is amazing! If this was before, we would’ve been caught for sure!”

Celeste leaned against another rock, steadying her own breathing. Her eyes, however, remained cold as she scanned the perimeter, observing the four members of the “Shadow Wind Team” as they probed for angles of attack.

“Their ranged advantage is gone,” she analyzed calmly. “Now, we’ll see if they have the guts to come in here and die.”

The assassin captain stood at the edge of the rock field, his face as black as the bottom of a pot as he watched the two sisters take up a defensive formation behind cover. A sure-fire hunt had been ruined by an unexpected group speed buff. In this area, with its countless obstacles, their ability to harass from a distance was neutered. And if it came to close-quarters combat…

“Captain, what’s the plan?” the ranger asked, a hint of frustration in his voice.

The assassin captain stared into the labyrinth of boulders, his eyes flickering with indecision. Finally, he gritted his teeth.

“Are we going to let a prize that’s already in our grasp just fly away? There are only two of them! We can wear them down! Maintain distance, take turns harassing them, and force them out! I refuse to believe their speed-boosting item can last forever!”

The Shadow Wind Team clearly had no intention of giving up on a point package that looked so fat and delicious.

Listening to the deliberately loud footsteps and provocative taunts from outside the rocks, a cold arc formed on Celeste’s lips.

‘Wear us out?’

The roles of hunter and prey, from the very moment they stepped into this rock formation…

…had perhaps already been quietly reversed.

Meanwhile, outside the Domain at the Joint Monitoring Center.

“Alert! PVP behavior detected between candidates!”

In the corner of the main screen, a scene was rapidly enlarged. It was the exact moment the “Qingyue-Xiyue” duo was ambushed.

Professor Zhou Wenhai adjusted his glasses and raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Someone finally couldn’t resist? It’s Qingyue and Xiyue being ambushed… Their opponents are the ‘Shadow Wind Team,’ an all-agility lineup. This could be trouble.”

A young admissions teacher asked uncertainly, “Why is it stipulated this year that candidates can attack each other for points? Isn’t that just encouraging students to reap where they haven’t sown?”

The moment he finished speaking, a military representative in the corner, a man with stars on his epaulets who had been resting with his eyes closed, slowly opened them.

“Reap where they haven’t sown?”

His voice wasn’t loud, but it silenced the entire hall in an instant.

“The ‘Shadow Wind Team,’and more than a dozen other similar’plunderer teams,’are merely the’catfish’ we released into the pond.”

The statement sent a shockwave through the room.

The military representative’s gaze swept across the faces of the academics, his eyes as sharp as knives.

“The martial arts exam is not a game played in a greenhouse.”

“We must force these golden children to understand a certain reality ahead of time.”

“In a real Domain, the greatest threat has never been the mindless beasts that only know how to tear and bite.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the room, each word landing with the weight of a hammer. “It is the human heart. The one that can think, scheme, lay traps… and betray.”

“Rather than letting them learn that truth with their lives at a critical moment in the future, it is far better to have them spend a few points now and receive an unforgettable lesson.”

Zhou Wenhai and Chen Mo exchanged a look, both seeing a newfound understanding—and a deeper interest—in each other’s eyes.

So, that was the other purpose of this exam.

In that case, how would this pair of twins, targeted by the officially sanctioned “catfish,” respond?

Every gaze in the room focused once more on that rugged, rock-strewn battlefield.