Chapter 48: A Calm Night of Slaughter

With the team of assassins dealt with, the two sisters didn’t linger.

They switched from flying to walking, continuing their reconnaissance under the cover of night.

“Sis, are we not flying anymore?” Selene asked, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

The sensation of soaring through the sky had been simply too amazing to give up.

“Flying consumes too much stamina,” Celeste replied calmly.

“And the night is still long.” Selene understood immediately.

Hoisting her shield to cover their rear, she fell into a perfect tactical formation with her sister, the two of them moving like a single, silent predator.

Walking at night, their senses were magnified to an almost painful degree.

The rustle of wind whispering through the treetops, the low growls of unknown beasts prowling in the distance, even the faint scuttling of insects moving through the soil—every sound reached their ears with crystalline clarity.

Having lost the vast, commanding field of vision the sky offered, every shadow now became a potential hiding place for a fatal ambush.

“Stop.” Celeste suddenly raised a hand, the simple gesture a practiced tactical signal.

Selene froze instantly, lowering her stance behind the bulwark of her shield.

She followed her sister’s gaze.

In a small clearing not far ahead, a bonfire crackled, casting dancing shadows against the trees.

Two figures sat huddled by the flickering light.

One was a burly Berserker, his brow furrowed in concentration as he wiped down a giant axe covered in nicks and notches.

The other was an Elementalist, his mage robes torn in several places.

His face was as pale as paper, a clear sign of complete magical and mental exhaustion.

A crippled team.

As Celeste and Selene approached like ghosts in the night, the two survivors remained completely oblivious.

“Old Zhang, you think… you think we can still hold out until dawn?” the mage asked, his voice listless and hollow.

“Li Ming’s been eliminated, and we’re almost out of potions.

If any full-strength team finds us now, we’re done for.” The Berserker let out a heavy sigh, his voice a low rumble of frustration.

“There are still ten hours or so left.

We just have to hold on as long as we can.

Dammit, who could’ve expected this year’s entrance exam domain to be so twisted?

The monsters are all jacked up on steroids, and the other examinees are fighting like starving wolves.” They spoke in fits and starts, their words laced with a deep anxiety for what the coming hours held.

Selene lowered her voice, her eyes glinting with predatory excitement.

“Sister, should we do it?

Two low-health targets.

That’s free points!” Celeste shook her head.

“No.” “Why?” Selene was confused.

“They look like they have no fight left in them!” “Silly girl, do you think this is just a simple points competition?” Celeste gently tapped her sister on the head.

“This is also an assessment of our mindset, our perspective.

Eliminating those who actively attack us is self-defense.

Taking out that assassin team that was clearly setting up an ambush is active strategy.

But attacking a team like this, one that has already lost any real threat… in the eyes of the examiners, our evaluation will be lowered.” She gazed at the two desperate figures by the fire, her tone as placid as a frozen lake.

“We are hunters, not butchers.

And hunters never waste stamina on carrion.” Understanding dawned on Selene’s face.

“Got it,” she whispered.

“Risking a lower evaluation for these mosquito-leg points isn’t worth it.” “Exactly.

We’re aiming for the top of the leaderboard.” The two retreated as silently as they had come, melting back into the darkness to continue their patrol.

Over the next hour, they discovered several more teams.

The situation was almost identical to the first.

Most squads had lost their edge, their members battered and weary.

They had turned to cowering in defense, their only goal to survive this final, brutal night.

The “night of revelry” that Celeste had been anticipating had failed to materialize.

“Sis, this doesn’t feel right,” Selene murmured, sensing the strange quiet.

“It feels… like everyone’s already been knocked out of the fight.

Did we overthink it?

Is the final melee already over?” “Impossible.” Celeste’s denial was flat and absolute.

She pointed to the holographic leaderboard.

“Look.

The points of the top three teams have barely moved since we started resting.

What does that tell you?” Selene leaned in.

Sure enough, the point totals for the top three contenders were frozen in place.

“It means the real hunters, just like us, have chosen to lie in wait,” Celeste’s voice turned cold, sharp as ice.

“The current calm is just the deepest silence under the sea before the hurricane arrives.” The moment the words left her lips, Celeste’s body went rigid.

A tightness seized her chest.

The Holy Light power surging within her veins suddenly recoiled with violent repulsion, like ice water being poured into boiling oil.

As a Priest, her perception of the auras of life and death was far more acute than that of ordinary people.

And in that instant, she clearly sensed an immense, cold, and death-saturated energy source emanating from a specific direction within the domain.

That energy was the natural, mortal enemy of Holy Light.

“What’s wrong, sister?” Selene asked, noticing her sudden change.

Though a Paladin herself, her focus was on defense, not the pure channeling of Holy Light, so her perceptive abilities were far less refined.

“There’s a very strong fluctuation of necromantic energy,” Celeste said, her expression grim as she stared into the oppressive darkness.

“In that direction.” “Necromantic energy?

How could there be necromantic energy here?” “I’m not sure, but the scale is massive.” Celeste could feel the nauseating waves of energy washing over her.

“Let’s go take a look.” “Now?

Just the two of us?” Selene hesitated.

“Reconnaissance first,” Celeste decided, her voice firm.

“If the situation is bad, we pull back.

But an abnormal energy source this large is very likely the final test.” The two immediately changed course, creeping silently toward the origin of the ominous aura.

The closer they got, the more eerie the environment became.

The vibrant, living jungle gave way to bare, blackened, scorched earth.

A faint, cloying smell of rot began to permeate the air.

The temperature plummeted, a damp chill that seemed to bore straight into their bones.

The chirps of insects and the calls of night birds vanished completely.

The world fell deathly silent.

“Sister, it’s so cold here,” Selene whispered, hugging her arms.

She could feel the Holy Light within her being slightly suppressed by the oppressive atmosphere.

“The corrosive effect of necromantic energy,” Celeste explained in a low voice.

“Be careful.

We’re very close to the source.” Suddenly.

Click… clack… click… A uniform, rhythmic sound of metal scraping against bone drifted from the darkness ahead.

The noise wasn’t loud, but it struck a disturbing cadence, like a heavy hammer tapping in perfect time with their own frantic heartbeats, making it hard to breathe.

Celeste’s pupils contracted.

She grabbed Selene and pulled her behind a massive, jagged rock.

Signaling her sister to stay silent, she cautiously peeked her head around the edge.

The next second, she saw a scene that would be burned into her memory forever.

On the horizon, an army that stretched as far as the eye could see was slowly, inexorably advancing in their direction.

At its forefront was a knight mounted on a colossal skeletal warhorse.

He was clad in hideous, pitch-black plate armor, the greatsword in his gauntlet flickering with a gloomy, blue runic light.

Beneath the T-shaped slit of his helm, two clusters of pale, spectral soulfire burned with cold intensity.

A Death Knight.

And behind him was an endless army of the undead.

There were skeleton soldiers clutching rusted iron swords, lumbering stitched zombies whose slow movements belied their infinite strength, and ghostly wraiths floating in the air, letting out constant, shrill screams that tore at the soul.

This undead army numbered far, far more than a few hundred.

They marched in neat, disciplined queues, their steps mechanical and unnervingly synchronized, a silent, advancing tide of death.

The pale soulfire of their eyes gathered together, forming a cold, desperate sea of white and blue.

Selene, peeking from another crack in the rock, saw the same horrifying spectacle.

A chill shot straight up her spine, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream.

“My god…” Her eyes were wide, her voice trembling with utter shock.

“This is the college entrance exam?

This scale… this is a small-scale war!” “Yes, and no,” Celeste replied, her expression more serious than Selene had ever seen it.

“This is an undead scourge.” Theoretically, the undead were the perfect opponents for Holy Light professionals.

A Paladin’s Judgment and a Priest’s Exorcism both had a devastatingly suppressive effect on them.

However, that was entirely dependent on the quantity.

One undead was an experience pack.

Ten undead were a minor problem.

One hundred undead was a life-or-death battle.

And this undead army, led by a Death Knight and numbering well over five hundred… for an exam team of at most four people, none of whom were even level 25, this wasn’t a battle.

It was a cataclysm.

A scourge.

Even a great knight of level 30 or 40 would have to turn and run at the sight of this formation.

For the two sisters to rush in now would be like a praying mantis trying to stop a chariot; they would be instantly drowned by the sea of white bones.

“We… let’s run, sister?” Selene’s voice was laced with a raw, primal fear.

The scene before her had completely shattered her understanding of what an “exam” could be.

“No.” Celeste shook her head.

There was no fear in her eyes.

Instead, there was a glint of something bordering on madness.

“Don’t move.

Hide well,” she whispered, her voice tight with suppressed, manic energy.

“Let’s see where they’re going.” Her heart was pounding wildly against her ribs.

Not from fear.

But from pure, unadulterated excitement.

‘This is it!’she thought, a grin threatening to split her face.’This is what I was waiting for!’ This was the final revelry.

A large-scale BOSS event like this… if they could successfully clear it, the points and rewards would be an absolutely astronomical figure.

The champion’s throne was right there for the taking.

Of course, that was all premised on one simple condition… Being able to survive.

[Elysian’s Note: Having a good time with the story?

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