English
Indonesia
Chinese (Simp)
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
French
German
ArabicArknights: Soul Knights of Terra — Chapter 34
Chapter 34: Sweating Buckets
Kazdel. The jagged edge of a nameless, desolate battlefield.
A suffocating weight hung in the night air, thick with the acrid stench of scorched earth, burnt Originium, and fresh blood. A meager campfire crackled in the dirt, its dying embers barely managing to push back the encroaching chill and the oppressive darkness of the wasteland.
“Hoederer… are you entirely sure you want to let her take W’s place?”
The cold, measured female voice belonged to Ines—the little lamb carefully disguised as a demon among wolves.
The burly man known as Hoederer tossed a few splintered pieces of scrap wood into the flames. He lifted his gaze, staring out into the gloom. A short distance away, a white-haired Sarkaz girl was viciously rummaging through a tangled pile of corpses, spitting curses under her breath as she scavenged for usable supplies.
The hope of finding anything of value in such a thoroughly picked-over graveyard was practically nonexistent.
“She obtained W’s weapon. She inherited W’s name.” Hoederer’s voice carried a flat, detached rhythm, sounding as though he had never even known the original W he was speaking of. “Besides, her Originium Arts are quite useful, aren’t they?”
“She is dangerous.” Ines narrowed her eyes, watching the emotionally unstable successor tear through a dead soldier’s pockets.
Seemingly sensing the scrutiny, the white-haired girl snapped her head around. She locked eyes with them and unapologetically flipped them the middle finger.
Hoederer looked away, his gaze drifting over his scattered mercenary companions. They sat slumped against the debris, their faces hollowed out by exhaustion and absolute numbness. He let out a low, weary sigh.
“When is a mercenary not dangerous?”
His lone eye swept across the war-torn, bleeding land, finally settling on the leaping orange flames. He spoke to the fire, as if asking Ines, or perhaps just asking himself. “In the end… all mercenaries are just desperate people struggling to survive on this land.”
“Even desperate people are better company than a lunatic.” Ines studied Hoederer’s silent, hardened profile and gave a quiet sigh of her own. “Fine… you are the Leader.”
Scanning the pitch-black perimeter, Ines raised another concern. “Is it wise to rest here? This sector just saw heavy fighting.”
“It’s fine.” Hoederer swept his gaze over the surrounding bodies; the dead still wore twisted, ferocious expressions frozen in rigor mortis. “The battle is over. The victors have already stripped what they wanted, and this patch of dirt has lost the value to make them turn back. Besides…”
He unclipped his metal canteen and took a slow sip of stale water. “The supplies here were looted long ago. Other than unlucky bastards like us who got caught in the crossfire, who else would possibly—”
“Fuck!”
A terrified, explosive roar shattered the quiet night.
Every mercenary around the campfire flinched, their eyes instantly snapping toward the source of the sound. Hoederer initially assumed the crazy newcomer who had inherited W’s name was just throwing another manic fit over finding nothing. However…
“What the fuck?!”
“Enemy!”
A chorus of panicked curses erupted from the crew. Everyone stared in absolute shock at the pile of corpses they had thoroughly checked and confirmed dead just minutes ago.
A figure had materialized out of thin air right in the center of the carnage.
The stranger held a massive, ornate staff in one hand, while the pitch-black blade of a longsword in her other hand was pressed flush against the new W’s throat.
An enemy?! But why didn’t Ines sense her?!
Alarm bells shrieked in Hoederer’s mind. He knew the terrifying extent of Ines’s perception Arts better than anyone. How could a living, breathing person bypass her shadows and sneak up this close without making a single sound?!
There was no time to analyze it. Hoederer snatched up his heavy blade and surged to his feet. The surrounding Sarkaz mercenaries reacted with veteran instincts, raising their weapons and staring nervously at the uninvited guest.
As for rushing over to save the girl or check the situation?
Not a chance.
Hoederer gripped his hilt until his knuckles turned white. He wasn’t stupid enough to rashly attack an entity capable of completely evading Ines’s shadow perception. Whether this intruder was friend or foe remained entirely unknown, and her strength was an unfathomable abyss. A single reckless move could wipe out his entire squad.
His mind raced, calculating countermeasures—if a bloodbath broke out, how exactly was he going to lead his subordinates in a retreat?
His muscles locked up. Hoederer looked up.
A pair of eyes, shimmering with an eerie, ghostly light in the darkness, stared straight through him.
On the other side of the clearing, Vera, who had just finished her spatial jump, hadn’t even had time to open her eyes when the sudden loss of sensation in her hands made her sigh internally.
The teleportation failed, huh… It seems the plan to rush straight through Kazdel with the Boss isn’t going to work.
Let’s check the surroundings first…
Her train of thought was violently derailed by a harsh curse exploding right next to her ear.
Vera’s internal combat instincts flared. Someone is here! And they’re right on top of me!
Before her vision had even fully adjusted to the dark, she swung the Void Sword in her hand without a second thought.
Swish—!
The blade glided through the air, smooth as a hot knife through butter, and met a soft resistance.
At that exact millisecond, her vision cleared.
She found herself staring at a young face mere inches away. Short white hair, wide golden eyes, and resting on her head… two red antennae?
The razor-sharp edge of the Void Sword was a millimeter away from slicing through the girl’s jugular. Startled, Vera desperately yanked her arm back to arrest the momentum. The black blade stopped just in time against the pale skin of W’s neck, leaving nothing but a thin, superficial line of blood.
[Boss: Teleportation failed. How is the situation on your side, Number Two?]
Gregor’s deep voice echoed in her mental chat. Just as Vera opened her mouth to reply, another loud chorus of aggressive curses erupted from a short distance away.
She turned her head stiffly. Through the gloom, she caught sight of a group of heavily armed, burly men gathered around a campfire, glaring at her with naked hostility. Her gaze met the intensely scrutinizing eyes of the red-haired giant leading them, and the gloomy, ash-haired woman standing rigidly by his side.
[Boss: Number Two?!] Gregor realized something was wrong and demanded a quick update.
Vera wanted to respond and tell him she was fine, but a rapid, high-pitched beeping sound coming from directly in front of her made her pupils shrink to pinpricks.
She looked down abruptly.
Strapped to the chest of the white-haired girl she was holding at swordpoint was a cluster of tubular objects. Several small red lights on the surface were flashing wildly, the beeps accelerating into a solid tone!
[Number Two: Damn it!]
“—The World!!”
Without a fraction of a second’s hesitation, Vera channeled her mana into the Staff of Sorcery, instantly activating the time-stop domain.
A strange, rippling purple light curtain expanded outward with her at the epicenter, instantly washing over the corpses, the dirt, and enveloping Hoederer’s entire mercenary group in the distance. The crackling campfire froze. The ash hanging in the air stopped falling.
Time halted. She had exactly five seconds.
Vera moved with blistering speed, summoning her poor little demon minion for the first time since arriving. Without giving the summoned creature a single moment to process its existence, she grabbed it and ruthlessly “pressed” it directly against the glowing head of the Staff of Sorcery.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Five consecutive, rapid, and brutally precise “face-to-face” impacts echoed in the frozen silence, the system’s critical hit judgments triggering wildly with every strike.
By the time the energy accumulation for a fresh time-stop domain was complete, four seconds of her initial window had already burned away!
The second time-stop triggered immediately.
There was no time to catch her breath. Vera repeated the chaotic process, controlling the dizzy little demon to slam its face into the staff five more times.
A third time-stop domain instantly generated, refreshing the purple curtain over the area. And the previous round still had two seconds left on the clock!
Racing against the frozen seconds, Vera raised her Void Sword and slashed downward in a clean arc. The black blade accurately severed the thick straps holding the dangerous tubular explosives to W’s chest.
She reached out with her left hand, snatched the bundle of bombs out of the air, pivoted on her heel, and hurled them with every ounce of her monstrous strength straight up into the empty night sky.
Having cleared the immediate threat, she let the domain collapse. Time began to flow once more.
“Boom—!!!”
The explosives detonated violently at a high altitude, lighting up the night sky in a blinding flash of orange and yellow. The concussive shockwave, wrapped in a deadly cloud of shrapnel, scattered and splashed across the wasteland, but fortunately, it was far above the lethal blast radius.
The look of pure astonishment on W’s face hadn’t even had time to fully form before a sickening crunch echoed in the air.
In the same fluid motion of throwing the bomb, Vera had backhanded the heavy hilt of the Void Sword, smashing it ruthlessly against W’s jaw.
W let out a muffled, choked cry of pain as the metallic taste of rust instantly flooded her mouth. She stumbled backward, her vision swimming.
The surrounding Sarkaz mercenaries, recovering from their shock, instinctively raised their crossbows and blades to attack. However—
“Don’t move!!!”
Hoederer’s roar tore through the camp, faster and louder than any of them. Cold sweat slid down the side of his face, dripping from his jaw.
He… he hadn’t seen a single thing.
In his field of vision, he had just made eye contact with the mysterious Sarkaz woman who had materialized out of thin air. The very next instant—without a single frame of transition—the explosives strapped to W’s chest were suddenly detonating hundreds of feet in the sky.
There were no traces of Originium Arts being channeled. No incantations. Not even a blur of movement to track her trajectory.
This deeply eerie, impossible phenomenon made Hoederer’s veteran heart skip a beat. He threw his arms out, physically holding back the hot-headed companions who wanted to charge in, absolutely terrified to make a rash move.
This woman… she is a walking catastrophe.
All the Sarkaz mercenaries froze in their ready-to-attack postures, locked in place by their Leader’s desperate command.
After a brief bout of severe dizziness, W regained her footing. She didn’t even look at the terrifying woman who had just assaulted her. Instead, she stared down at the ruined heavy weapon in her hands, which had been cleanly sheared in two by the Void Sword during the initial scuffle.
“Fuck your ancestors! Do you have any idea how much this piece of junk is worth!?”
She licked the blood from her split lip, her voice carrying that unique, unhinged neuroticism that defined her. “So damn unlucky! The weapon I just looted hasn’t even warmed up in my hands yet… Ugh!”
Vera casually shoved the flat of the black blade directly into W’s mouth, violently interrupting her clamoring. She didn’t even look at the girl; her glowing eyes remained firmly locked on Hoederer.
[Number Two: Damn it! I got surrounded the second I landed! A whole bunch of huge guys with weapons!]
[Boss: Are you okay?! Are you injured?!]
[Number Three:!!! Hurry back!]
[Number Four: Number Two, is your luck really that bad? Forget it, it’s time to test the results of your special training!]
[Number Two: Stop talking nonsense! I was almost blown to pieces just now!]
[Number Four: Huh? Can you still take damage during a time stop?]
[Number Two: That crazy cockroach woman pulled a point-blank suicide bombing on me! Are all Sarkaz natives completely insane?! Directly sacrificing their own lives just to take me out!]
Getting angrier the more she thought about the sheer audacity of the suicide vest, Vera looked down. She glared at W, who was still trying to bite the sword and kill her with her eyes, and silently activated the time-stop domain once again.
The purple light washed over the world.
She skillfully summoned the bruised little demon, repeated the rapid-fire staff-bashing operation to reset her cooldowns, and then delivered a brutally heavy blow to the back of W’s head.
Time resumed its flow.
In the eyes of Hoederer, Ines, and the rest of the mercenaries, they merely saw the mysterious woman twitch strangely for a fraction of a second.
Then, without the slightest premonition or visible strike, W simply went limp. She collapsed into the dirt, completely unconscious.
A few mercenaries shakily raised their weapons higher, while others slowly backed away, trying to put their heavily armored comrades between themselves and the monster.
Hoederer’s expression turned ashen.
The opponent had subdued W again, right under his nose, and he still hadn’t seen how she did it. This beyond understanding gap in sheer strength made a cold, creeping sense of despair claw at his throat.
[Number Four: Cockroach woman… explosion… Number Two, send a picture to the chat!]
[Number Two: Image Uploaded (Cockroach sleeping in the dirt). Do you know her?]
[Number Four: Holy shit! Lady W!]
[Number Four: Pfft! Wait, it should just be ‘W’ right now. This is definitely Kazdel, and the group standing opposite you has to be Hoederer’s mercenary squad.]
[Number Two: Are they strong?! Can I take them in a fight?]
[Number Four: Definitely, bro! Just listen to my command. I’ll take you to show off… ahem! I’ll guide you so you can carry this flawlessly!]
[Number Two: Were you just about to say…]
[Number Four: It’s starting! Repeat exactly after me! Look intimidating!]
“It seems that this is indeed Kazdel.”
Vera’s voice rang out across the silent clearing. It was perfectly calm, chillingly flat, acting as if the explosive chaos of the last thirty seconds had been nothing more than a mild breeze.
“So. Are you people from Babel, or… just the Military Commission’s stray lackeys?”
Hearing the opponent casually drop those names with such cold authority, Hoederer instantly broke out in a fresh layer of cold sweat.
The other party clearly held a deep rejection toward the Military Commission. Logically, he should immediately claim to be affiliated with Babel to secure a way to survive this encounter, but…
He subconsciously glanced down at W, who was “sleeping” peacefully in the dirt. The opponent’s methods were far too strange, her Arts too terrifying. He didn’t dare place a bet with his squad’s lives so easily.
His gaze drifted slightly to the side, looking at Ines. Perhaps her eyes, which could peer into the deepest shadows and read a person’s true nature, could see something he couldn’t.
Ines was already staring intently at the shadow stretching out from beneath Vera’s boots. But as she tried to read it, her breath hitched. The shadow was wrapped in a suffocating layer of ominous, absolute deathly silence. It was a void. She couldn’t see through it at all.
Just as she tried to push her Arts further to investigate the anomaly—
“It is rude to stare, little lamb…”
Ines and Hoederer both stiffened.!!!
Ines took a sudden, panicked step backward. Hoederer instinctively tightened his grip on his heavy blade, every muscle in his massive frame coiling with tension.
However, before they could even begin to process how she knew Ines’s true nature, the opponent’s voice dropped an octave, radiating pure menace.
“Don’t move.”
Hoederer’s survival instincts screamed at him. He tried to retreat, to create distance between his squad and the monster. His boots shifted in the dirt—
Time stop sound effect.
Hoederer’s mind spun frantically. He clearly remembered shifting his weight! He had actively taken two steps back! He should have completed the action, but when he darted his eyes downward to check his footing…
I clearly moved! Why the hell am I still standing in the exact same place?!
What kind of twisted Originium Arts is this?! Could it be a curse? Is she a Royal Court Banshee?!
Ines noticed Hoederer’s sudden rigidity and the sheer panic bleeding into his lone eye. She opened her mouth, about to turn her head and ask him what was wrong.
A breath of warm air brushed against her ear.
“I said… don’t move.”
Ines’s pupils contracted to the size of pinheads. Driven by pure terror, her hand subconsciously slid down toward the dagger strapped to her thigh.
However…
Time stop sound effect.
Ines froze.!!!
The exact same encounter. The exact same reality-bending terror. Ines and Hoederer slowly made eye contact, their faces pale, neither of them daring to twitch a single muscle again.
“That’s right…”
Vera ignored their terrified, wide-eyed gazes. She casually reached out and placed her hands heavily on both of their shoulders.
Her voice remained entirely flat, but it carried the crushing, irresistible pressure of an apex predator toying with its food. “My patience is limited. You had better think very carefully before answering…”
Hoederer didn’t dare turn his head to look at the hands resting on his armor. Crushed under the overwhelming pressure, he forced his dry throat to work.
“May I ask… what exactly do you want to know?”
Vera lifted her hands from their shoulders. When she appeared in their vision again, she was already standing ten feet away, back at the unconscious W’s side.
“Two questions.”
Vera looked up, her glowing eyes piercing through the dark.
“How do I get to Babel? And…”
“Where is the Doctor?”