Chapter 853: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 6)

"Forget about that, how the hell was she not noticed by those two, when she is wearing heavy equipment!", cursed one of the three scarred guys.

The previous made the enemies raise their guards, because though they could only see Alice, what was used to attack the refugees were clearly throwable weapons, and the wild dragon princess was clearly a close combat fighter, given the large shield mounted on her back and the swords hanging from her waist.

Seeing the previous, the one in charge of the group directly said.

"Calm down, they must have someone quick on their feet and those two fools were probably half lazing around because they had little sleep, so that one slipped in and killed them before they could alert us".

"Also, the distance between the walls and the residential area surpasses a hundred meters, there is no way an enemy alone made a projectile cross that distance and with enough strength to make the refuges crumble apart like that", said the scarred guy who was acting as the one in charge of this five-person group, to then add.

"They most likely are using some sort of device to propel projectiles through large distances and with force enough to cause strong impacts, like a catapult or something like that, which would require more than one person to operate, that’s how they blasted a hole on the wall and since it needs time to recharge and prepare such a thing, they sent someone to slow us down".

That didn’t mean he was looking down on Alice, if the enemy side supposedly sent her alone that meant that they had confidence in her close combat abilities, in this case, experience played against that mercenary.

Because his theory made sense, the way mortals made up for what they lacked was through tools, and a "tool" to blast a hole on their defensive wall, that could also be used to cross long distances and attack their refuges like that, had to be something like a catapult.

Which it’s actually not that hard to build, the problem is that the materials have to be tough enough to endure the tension and backslash of its usage, but seeing that Alice had a leather jacket, a shield and steel weapons, then having a catapult didn’t sound like a stretch.

"If they have such superior armament, why didn’t they just outright destroy us, what’s more, where the hell did other participants came, we patrolled the vicinity not too long ago", said one of the two young guys who weren’t covered in burnt marks.

Then as if "answering" his question a "clip-clop" sound drew the enemy’s attention as a tall and sturdy looking black horse came into the camp through the hole blasted on the wall by Alice’s tail.

"Finally, you were really taking your sweet time", said Alice with a "calm" voice which made the black horse feel a shiver running down his spine, that was of course Mule.

The black horse really had bad luck, he was sent to act as a signal for Alice twice, first, his appearance was the sign for her to blast the wall and take out the ones in watch duty.

And then, he was also the sign for her to directly confront the enemies, the problem is that Mule took "too long" to cross the trench and rush towards the enemy’s camp, which in reality wasn’t the case, he did so in just a couple of minutes which is the time that had elapsed since the calamity known as Alice was unleashed upon the enemy camp, but that was considered too long by the wild dragon princess.

So, the black horse was afraid that the terrifying red-eyed human would casually start beating him up due to the previous, that being said, Mule is not dumb, he has learned that whenever Alice is in a good mood, she doesn’t let alone beat them up, but doesn’t even notice their existence.

And while the black horse can’t completely understand human language, he has caught up a few words which are important for his survival, one of them being "Aster", which appears to be the name of the human king, who is the only one to whom the red eyed scary human seems to listen to.

Thus, with a bit of context from the situation, Mule devised a plan to make it so that his "faults" don’t result in a beating, which is to assist the red eyed human to the best of his capacities so that she can "appeal" to the human king, and that way she wouldn’t pay them any extra attention.

"Thud!", under the eyes of disbelief of the enemies, that abnormally tall and sturdy black horse started... looking through the debris, pushing large pieces of broken wood and rocks aside, until it discovered a pair of corpses.

"Those are Ben and Charlie!", exclaimed one of the two young guys, since in this camp you either belonged to the original mercenary group, or to the five men group that joined later, the "factions" were pretty clear.

It’s not that the young guy really cared about them, but with two people less, their treatment in the camp will of course worsen, but his initial worry changed into something else as he saw the black horse using his teeth to grab onto the legs of the corpses to drag them away and toss them to the side, at a distance enough so that they won’t get trashed during the fight.

Which sounds good right, the problem is that first, this action was taken by an animal and second, as a black horse that maybe didn’t become as strange as the king of fangs, Mule still developed the teeth to eat meat and he counts as an omnivore rather than an herbivore now, the same applies to all the other black horses, they might not have eaten other horses alive, which was a condition for them to be spared, but they have eaten meat before indeed.

"That fucking horse bastard, did it take their corpses to eat them later!", exclaimed the other young guy, which was met by a glare from Mule, who understood the words "eat them".

’Is he hinting that I plan to eat the trophies of that red-eyed female human, are you crazy, do I look stupid enough to try to kill myself like that!’, inwardly cursed the black horse as he gave the enemies a look of "disdain", as if he was saying "You are the fools for even thinking on such a thing".

"Neigh", of course Mule didn’t forget to properly express his intentions to Alice, in case those stupid human’s ideas created the wrong image, with a "respectful" neighing sound the black horse stood close but not directly next to the corpses, he was stating that he would keep Alice’s "trophies" safe from any harm.

And he had a chance to directly demonstrate it the next second, when the two young guys who were angered by Mule’s actions and gaze from earlier, took the bows that were mounted on their backs to then say.

"Let’s shoot down that damn horse!", as they shot an arrow each towards Mule, who simply remained standing there.

Now, arrows and especially ones with bone arrowheads instead of metal ones can’t produce metallic sounds when they land on something, unless that something has metal covering it, but the black horse in question doesn’t have armor on him, which is to be expected, people would of course use such a "precious" material as metal to protect themselves rather than an animal, as they could see that the woman attacking them was wearing light metallic protective armor and had metal weapons as well.

"Thud", however, they expected to hear a flesh piercing sound, accompanied by pained neighs coming form the black horse that was too "slow" to react to their arrows, instead of the dull impact sounds that were produced.

"No way!", now imagine their expressions when they saw said arrows barely leaving a reddish mark on the horse’s skin, as they fell to the ground the next second.

’We are only a couple of dozens of meters away from that damn horse and he is not wearing armor, how come the arrows didn’t pierce his body!’, inwardly screamed those two.

"Fools, that horse is abnormally big, it has to be one of those weirdly overdeveloped mortal animals we have seen before, don’t aim at areas where the muscles act as protection", said the one in charge of the group.

Naturally, despite the short distance between themselves and Mule, the two young guys aimed their arrows at a large hitting area to ensure that they would land, which is why they landed on Mule’s loin, around the shoulder area to be accurate.

It’s worth mentioning that they didn’t expect to directly kill him with just two arrows, in fact they aren’t archers to begin with, but trained to use bows in this place, still they were confident in killing Mule with arrows because they were poisoned, even if they didn’t hit a vital point, so long as the arrow pierced the enemy, that was good enough.

"Yes!", those two shot another pair of arrows, this time aiming them at Mule’s neck and face, only for the black horse to softly blow air as if to snort.

"Crack!", one of the two arrows landed on Mule’s neck and like before didn’t even break his skin, but the other one was caught by Mule with his mouth and then was crushed to pieces.

"Are you kidding me, no mortal horse can do that!", exclaimed the young guy whose arrow was bitten to pieces by Mule.

And yeah, they kind of are right in that, not only in the part about the arrows not even breaking Mule’s skin, but also on the fact that the black horse’s reflects were fast enough for him to catch an arrow with his mouth, but that is only if we are talking about normal mortal horses.

To begin with, the animals in this place are not normal mortal ones, that being said, tanking arrows shot at close range without any care like that is definitely not normal even in this place, but then while still taking damage, Mule could block the attacks of the king of fangs not to mention that he didn’t die when being beat up by Alice, so yeah, if anything he was confident in his toughness.

Also, don’t forget that Mule is actually an official member of the camp, and while he wasn’t allowed to learn attack power focused manuals, he does have a movement, a profession type and an attack type manual as well.

"Oh, not bad, it would be harder to exchange those guys for rewards if they were a pile of broken bone and flesh, you keep them in a single piece", said Alice to which the one in charge of the group of enemies frowned.

’She might be a damn spirit tamer, I heard that the sole true spirit tamer from the Beast Island sect entered through another gate alongside some fakes, so she might be a spirit tamer from another firmament, I don’t know what type of horse is that, but it could even be a divine beast limited to mortal form by this place, which means that if even not her group at least se comes from a divine firmament with a long story, maybe a divine empire damn it!’, he cursed to his insides.

James’s former mercenary group came from the Flame Meridian heavenly quadrant, which was next to the now Frost Despair heavenly quadrant, however as you can see, they have knowledge that surpasses the mortal realm, like terms as divine firmaments and divine empires, and the reason for that is simple, their heavenly quadrants as well as another two, had become connected to a divine firmament.

So, they are now considered a part of it and were lucky enough so that a few families and forces that originated in their heavenly quadrants generations ago, had gained some decent footing in the divine firmament to which they ended up connected, so unlike back then they weren’t invaded to be conquered, but instead joined hands with those families and forces that were founded by fellow natives of their respective heavenly quadrants to prevent a war, and turn the situation in one that while on the lower side given that they are weaker, still benefitted the natives of the heavenly quadrants.

Talents are always sought after all and the competence between divine firmaments is fiercer than that between heavenly quadrants, to the point that wars are not as uncommon as they are within mortal realms, so new sources of fresh blood and talents are more than welcomed.

Of course, it wasn’t good for everyone, since the requirements to be taken in by a decently ranked force from a divine firmament were higher for outsiders, but still, knowledge, items, materials, manuals and the like flowed to the heavenly quadrants as well, so there was growth on their side too.

These guys were decently high ranked mercenaries in the Flame Meridian heavenly quadrant, but for the ones who hired them which were from a divine firmament, they were a cheap expendable bottom of the barrel group.

So, the one in charge of this five people group was worried that Alice was from a proper divine firmament which has a long story unlike theirs, and that Mule was a divine beast in mortal form.

"Don’t bother with the damn horse, focus on her!", ultimately shouted the one in charge, spirit tamers are really hard to come by, as far as he knew, there were only two or three of them known in his heavenly quadrant of origin, two were taken in by forces of their divine firmament and the other who was judged to be "inferior" as he only had one spot for a contract, stayed behind in their heavenly quadrant, which is why he had some intel on them.

The thing with spirit tamers is that regardless of their own realm, they can obtain power from their contracted beast, which results in them exerting quite high battle prowess in relation to their actual realm, it’s amusingly enough quite the opposite of the average for dual cultivators.

There is also a proper reason for it and that is the fact that advancing in their profession capacities, makes it harder for them to advance in their cultivation paths, like it has been shown, spirit tamers are not a profession which can be learned with just effort, very select people can become one and as such, they have some particularities in comparison with others.

They focus more in training their profession and in fact their main path manuals involve their profession one way or another, that doesn’t mean they are weak without their profession, but without their spirit beasts, their strength goes from "abnormally high" to "normal" for those whose talent exclusively lie in their profession, or "high" for those that are also talented in normal cultivation, among their peers.

And here you might wonder, why have we not seen anything of the like coming from Aster if he is a spirit tamer, and the answer is simple, the previous mostly applies to those that don’t care about the spirit beast in question.

Free meals don’t exist in this world, certainly a spirit tamer can gain power far exceeding one’s realm from the spirit beast they are in a contract with, which is amazing, but only for the spirit tamer, those that follow this path gain instant power but they harm the spirit beast, and they don’t care because they are not raising the other party, but to increase the instant benefit purposedly chose a spirit beast with a higher realm than theirs, then once said beast doesn’t cut it anymore, they change it.

If it was as simple as just breaking a temporary contract then it wouldn’t be that bad, the problem is that after being just taken from for long periods of time, the spirit beast suffers damage and the process of dispelling the contract carries a backslash, which can’t be endured by the beast in that state, in other words, they die.

That method was invented by those who have only one or a small number of contract spots, but honestly even those with multiple of them, willingly choose to have one or two of such beasts, but Aster disdained such a thing.

The book that Natasha and Charlotte handed him focuses in the ancient method of spirit taming, where the tamer and their contracted beast grow together from zero and don’t increase their strength directly from the beginning, but their potential instead.

But enough of that for now, the point is that the guy in charge was relieved that they were in this place, since without spirit energy, a spirit tamer can’t gain power from their contracted beast, they could still be used to fight if it had been trained properly, like that black horse seemed to have been, but the situation wasn’t the worse it could be.

’That black horse is a defense focused spirit beast, so even if it joins during the fight, it will be to block our attacks...’, the inner thoughts of the guy in charge froze on the spot as a couple of different shattering sounds reached his ears.

"Crack!", the first one came from the ground where Alice was standing cracking as she tensed her legs to then charge towards the enemies, while the second shattering sound was produced by one of the scarred mercenaries being smacked against the ground by a large black object which appeared out of nowhere, which broke his arms, legs and made him faint on the spot.

"Boooom", the strike wasn’t that loud, but a ninety-kilogram adult being smacked with strength enough to crush his bones, still produced a sound of impact.

"A-A tail, what the hell is she!", exclaimed one of the two young guys as he shot a poisoned arrow at Alice, who casually used said tail to slap away the arrow.

They were surprised because Alice was hiding her tail by wrapping it around her waist and upper body which was covered by the brigandine, she couldn’t make her tail easily unnoticeable with light clothes like Sarina with her wings, but with thick large clothes and the seemingly lack of bones considering how flexible and maneuverable Alice’s tail is, it was possible for her to hide it like that, she simply didn’t bother to do so, normally.

It’s worth mentioning that the seemingly lack of bones is the result of the tail’s capacity to become "cuddly", since it is indeed connected to the wild dragon princess’s spine.

As to why those guys were surprised, it’s not that they have never seen a beast race descendant, in fact they had a couple among their group, but they lost the capacity to manifest and use their beast traits after they lost access to spirit energy.

They were unfortunate, their lineage owner teammates had low ranked lineages that became completely unusable just by losing access to spirit energy, so they supposed that was the case for everyone, which is wrong as you saw during yesterday’s match.

"Steel weapons and the ability of using lineage traits, who the hell are you!", shouted the remaining scarred mercenary, aside from the leader of this group, as he smacked his rock head hammer at Alice’s back.

"Clang!", now there was a loud metallic sound as Alice stood there completely unaffected by the strong impact, the rock hammer head landed on the shield which she had mounted on her back, but judging by how she didn’t even flinch by the impact, nothing would have happened even if that wasn’t the case.

And that’s true, Alice’s lineage might not focus in toughness and endurance like Aster’s one, but her body is not that of a human at the end of the day, even taking punches to delicate areas like her ears, from Kana whose hand strength is no joke, can’t really affect her, and she is wearing the brigandine now, so yeah.

"Crack!", with a lash of her tail, Alice destroyed both the enemy’s hammer starting from the solid rock head which shattered on the spot, to then follow by breaking its owner’s bones, while sending him flying a couple of dozens of meters into the distance.

"Mmm, there is something I have been wondering since earlier, it normally isn’t the case with me, because they would die if they did, but since I’m fully covered and I’m making sure to "contain" myself, I would expect pieces of trash to be interested in a new woman appearing in front of them, but rather than that, you seem angered, well, at least before, now I can only feel fear from you all, wait a second...", said Alice to then stop midway before she actually removed the helmet to then laugh out loud.

"Pffft, that blue flaming board normally is annoying, but this time it surely did something funny, you guys were "crippled" in more than one way right~", said the wild dragon princess, which caused a reaction from the sole remaining scarred member of the group, the one in charge, whose legs slightly closed due to the previous words.

Alice was right, like previously stated Blue Sky couldn’t outright kill nor apply punishments hard enough so that participants would be unable to continue with the events, if they hadn’t caused the death of another participant while breaking the rules.

But, aside from that, it was up to the blue flaming board to decide how to punish those who broke the rules, and in this case the punishment was quite fit for the situation, given what they had done to those girls, besides the burn scars which marked them as rule-breakers, they also lost had their cultivation and their genitals, yup, all those of this camp who had burnt scars were eunuchs as of current.

"Damn bitch!", having salt rubbed onto the wound, the one in charge cursed as he took out his bone knives and slashed them at Alice’s face which would have been impossible to not look at for them a few weeks ago.