Author: 易修罗 / Yi Xiu Luo

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 29

Ying Feng and Ling Xiao were already wrestling with each other on the ground. From the moment Ling Xiao bared his fangs, Ying Feng instinctively felt something was wrong. When the latter targeted his chest to bite, a wave of strong resistance surged from deep within, accompanied by a sense of danger and fear of the unknown, even more so than when facing the Kui.

Just as Ling Xiao was about to bite, Ying Feng mustered all his strength and landed a punch, pushing him away.

That punch gave Ying Feng a brief moment of respite. However, it was quickly interrupted by Ling Xiao’s relentless assault. In this uncontrolled state, Ling Xiao was numb to pain. Regardless of his own injuries, his sole focus was to overpower the man in front of him.

Ying Feng didn’t understand why Ling Xiao was behaving like this, but every time those sharp fangs approached, his heart’s fear intensified. He was determined to prevent Ling Xiao’s intentions and fought back without hesitation.

Thus, both received and dealt several punches, panting heavily from their intense struggle. Their fighting was crude and primitive, like two barbarians who didn’t know how to fight at all, brutally attacking each other without care for appearances. Their uniforms, already stained with dirt and blood, worsened.

If someone were there, they would never recognize them as the outstanding fledglings from the tenth grade at Bikong. They might mistake them for two mad dogs fighting over territory.

With a swift move, Ying Feng gained the upper hand, pinning Ling Xiao beneath him. Without hesitation, he punched Ling Xiao’s face, trying to snap him out of his chaotic state.

“Have you lost your mind?” To Ying Feng, Ling Xiao seemed like an irrational madman.

Ling Xiao, seemingly numb to pain, took the punch without even attempting to block. Then, using his strength, he reversed their positions and landed a heavy punch on Ying Feng’s cheek.

Ying Feng tasted blood in his mouth, making his anger surge. The Kui failed to kill them, but now they were brutally fighting each other, with Ling Xiao looking like he wanted Ying Feng dead.

It was unclear whether it was the lingering effects of the ember or the fact that Ying Feng had just gone through a series of ordeals, but his physical strength was far from its peak. Ling Xiao, whether in terms of attack power or speed, seemed to be much stronger than usual.

During training or practice, Ying Feng could clearly match Ling Xiao and even take the lead in some moves. However, at this moment, he was clearly at a disadvantage. There were several times when he was almost completely overwhelmed by the other. If not for his heightened instincts, he would have been no match for Ling Xiao.

After dozens of exchanges, Ying Feng realized he wasn’t dealing with a regular human. The ferocity in Ling Xiao’s eyes and the growls emanating from deep within resembled that of the Kui, a beast—devoid of reason, fear, or pain. He was like a wild animal, a machine, or perhaps just a tangible thought.

And that thought was to ruthlessly plunge his fangs into Ying Feng’s chest.

“Have you awakened?” Ying Feng, once again pinned down, finally realized.

With a terrifying growl, Ling Xiao held Ying Feng firmly beneath him, his fangs getting closer, about to pierce into Ying Feng’s chest…

…..

Another violent shake. The rescuers had to steady themselves against the wall to avoid falling.

“Listen!” Fu Yao suddenly exclaimed.

Everyone strained their ears. From an unknown direction, a muffled rumbling sound echoed. As the noise faded, everything went quiet again. Occasionally, restless sand and stones would fall, their impacts creating a stark silence. The scene was like a grand performance suddenly halted, leaving the audience clueless about what had just transpired.

“The fluctuations… seem to have ended?” The instructor murmured softly.

What happened?

Everyone felt an internal alarm. Calm often signaled greater danger. If there really were legendary creatures lurking, with their fledgling abilities, they would stand no chance against them. If the creature’s power had vanished, the most likely scenario was a severe cave-in deep within, burying all living beings.

This would be the worst possible outcome. The loss of even one fledgling would be a severe tragedy for their race. If more than one were lost, it would be a disaster.

The principal’s and the major’s faces changed simultaneously. Without a word, both threw a crystal into their hands. The crystal disappeared, and their palms emitted a white light.

Both placed their palms on a massive stone to the right. Miraculously, the solid rock began to melt like ice. Each carved out a hole on the rock’s surface.

Watching anxiously, the instructor knew that generating such high heat to melt anything would also rebound upon the user, burning them. Not every Tianxiu person could master this kind of self-damaging technique.

Only this slow erosion wouldn’t risk another collapse. The two quickly exhausted their energy, and only a thin layer of rock remained.

The principal’s and the major’s right hands drooped down. The instructor knew that their hands couldn’t be used again until they received adequate treatment.

Others rushed to help, carefully chiseling out an opening in the rock face. A tense fledgling appeared behind the stone wall. He sat on the ground, tightly holding a dagger, warily and fearfully eyeing everyone.

It was the fledgling from Team A, the one who could barely hold a dagger. The instructor’s anxiety eased a bit. Regardless of how fragile the student appeared, he never wanted harm to come to them.

“Don’t be afraid. It’s me,” the principal said, extending his usable left hand to Zhu Yue. “I’m your principal. Give me the weapon.”

Slowly recognizing the voices, Zhu Yue, overwhelmed by fear, let the dagger clang to the ground.

“Are two other students trapped here? Have you seen them?” The principal asked after Zhu Yue was helped up.

“Others?” Zhu Yue’s eyes flickered in confusion, thinking that with their abilities, others could have easily escaped, leaving only him trapped. “Who?”

“One is Ling Xiao from Team B, and the other is Ying Feng from your group. Did you see them?” The instructor interjected quickly.

Zhu Yue’s eyes widened in shock. “Ying Feng is also missing?”

His reaction clearly answered the principal’s question. Seeing that Zhu Yue also didn’t know the whereabouts of the two, everyone present exchanged somber glances, their hopes sinking once again.

……

Ling Xiao’s fangs drew nearer. Realizing his intentions, Ying Feng understood his erratic behavior.

Using all his strength, Ying Feng thrust Ling Xiao aside, desperate to escape the suffocating cave. It seemed Ling Xiao, due to the aftereffects of the Embers, couldn’t control himself. However, Ying Feng didn’t want to be dragged into some bizarre coming-of-age ceremony.

As Ling Xiao attacked again, Ying Feng’s latent power erupted, launching a furious counterattack. He needed to subdue Ling Xiao quickly to prevent this absurd accident.

The two wrestled and rolled on the ground. Seizing an opportunity, Ying Feng choked Ling Xiao with one hand and pummeled him with the other, targeting his weakest spots.

Ling Xiao, already severely injured from the earlier fight with the Kui and only propped up by the Ember’s effects, temporarily lost his ability to fight back after this onslaught.

Knowing Ling Xiao would recover soon and unable to find any substitutes in the cave, Ying Feng bit the bullet. Tearing off Ling Xiao’s already tattered clothes, he firmly bound his wrists together.

After doing all of this, Ying Feng heavily sat by the wall, with his disordered breathing and rapid heartbeat, reminding him of a terrible fact.

The abnormal physical reaction was not only due to the intense physical exertion. Another hidden reason slowly emerged and even began to dominate. The warning from Yao Tai only resonated in his ears now:

—Remember, although this suppressant can suppress your bodily reactions, you still need to be careful not to get too close to those who are awakening. Otherwise, the hormone secretion in their body may also affect you, indirectly causing the drug to lose its effect.

How could Ying Feng know that in the past week he had been interacting too closely with someone who was pre-awakened but unaware of it in the medical building, training hall, and field practice? Frequent physical contact caused the suppressant in his body to fail multiple times, and even the last shot given by Yao Tai had become useless.

After the recent confrontation, Ling Xiao’s out-of-control hormone levels further triggered hormonal chaos in Ying Feng. Heavily influenced by Ling Xiao, Ying Feng could no longer control his physiological reactions.

At the other end of the narrow space, Ling Xiao struggled desperately, madly trying to break free from the shackles on his wrists. It was only a matter of time before he broke free from this rudimentary restraint. At this crucial moment, Ying Feng suddenly remembered the emergency suppressant spray given by Yao Tai.

He immediately checked the spray in his pocket. Even though the terminal screen had been shattered by the Kui’s violent attack, the bottle miraculously remained intact, which was a stroke of good luck.

Without hesitation, Ying Feng pressed the nozzle near his mouth and nose and took a few deep breaths. Numerous tiny liquid particles flowed with the air into his nostrils, trachea, and lungs, rapidly combining with his cells and starting to work.

The psychological comfort temporarily calmed him down. Ying Feng closed his eyes to recover, trying to regain his usual calm during this rare break. But the time was too short—so short that he hadn’t noticed the abnormality of the drug before being drawn into a new round of struggle.

The sudden gust in front alerted Ying Feng, and he swiftly dodged to the side, evading an attack from Ling Xiao.

The punch went deep into the wall, with dozens of stones rolling down. Some, with high speed, splashed out. One hit the medicine bottle in Ying Feng’s hand, shattering its hard shell.

The liquid inside quickly evaporated, filling the space with a colorless and odorless gas. The substance mistakenly placed by Zhu Yue, which could cause a hormonal imbalance in humans, infiltrated the bodies of the two, who were already out of control or close to it.

Ying Feng finally let out a low growl, no longer passively counterattacking but actively launching a fierce assault on Ling Xiao. His strength and speed were both much greater than usual, and the gap between him and Ling Xiao was gradually closing, even reversing. Ling Xiao’s more severe injuries meant that Ying Feng slowly took the upper hand.

In their inevitable contact, their body temperatures kept rising. The boiling blood burned their reason, and their defenseless offense turned this fight into a slaughter.

More terrifying than a Tianxiu person were two out-of-control Tianxiu people. They recklessly tangled and fought in the collapsing mine, with falling stones and dirt showering on them, covering the Kui’s corpse with a thick layer.

Ying Feng’s last memory was of conquering the person in front of him at all costs. He used all his strength to knock him down, pounced, pinned his limbs, and bared his sharp fangs.

The moment the fangs pierced Ling Xiao’s chest, he still struggled hard, but soon, his resistance weakened, and as his blood was drained little by little, his hand hanging in the air weakly fell.

In his unfocused pupils, it was as if someone had extracted the black pigment little by little with a needle, leaving only a shallow gray behind.

The extracted black was then poured back into Ying Feng’s eyes in the same way, deepening until it became bottomless black.

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