Chapter 121: Priority Persuit
Her admiration for him had been absolute. And now that he was here, standing not twenty meters away, cleaving through monsters as if they were mere weeds.
The Bee Queen’s carcass lay behind him, its once terrifying body now a grotesque heap. Its multifaceted eyes were shattered, its wings shredded, its stinger broken. He had killed it in a single strike, where she had struggled despite the advantage of her Title.
The envy in her chest burned.
’Why do you always stand so far above?’
Song’s shout pulled her back to reality. "Master! Watch out!"
A third-grade insectile lunged at her from the side, mandibles snapping shut with enough force to crush steel. She twisted instinctively, slashing upward, her blade biting through its underbelly. The monster collapsed, thrashing in its final spasms.
She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to refocus.
This wasn’t the time to drown in her own emotions.
She glanced around. Her whole team, Song, Xian Yu, and the others, were holding their ground, though they were visibly struggling. Xian Yu’s healing light flickered as he worked desperately to keep up with the damage the frontline received. His face was pale, drenched in sweat, but his eyes were burning with determination. The progress bar of his evolution as a healer ticked upward with every pulse of divine light.
For a moment, pride welled in her chest.
’They’ve grown... They really have.’
But then her gaze returned to Ji Xiulan.
And everything else dimmed.
The black robe, the cold eyes, the unshakable aura. He looked like a god of death descending upon the battlefield. Her throat went dry.
She didn’t want this.
Not like this.
Her reunion with him, if one could even call it that, wasn’t supposed to be in the middle of a battlefield, with corpses piling at their feet and her team staring in awe at someone who eclipsed her presence entirely.
Her nails dug into her palm.
’What am I going to do now?’
If he recognized her... if he realized she had been the one who ended the first wave, the one who had silently taken the glory of saving the survivors... would he confront her? Would he scorn her? Or worse, would he look at her with indifference, as if she were nothing at all?
Ling Yu swallowed, her body taut as a bowstring.
And then, as if summoned by her own dread, his gaze shifted.
For the first time, Ji Xiulan’s eyes moved from the battlefield and landed on her.
They were cold, sharp, and penetrating.
The world seemed to still.
The cries of monsters faded. The clashing of blades dulled. In that single moment, it felt as though the battlefield itself had ceased to exist.
Only his gaze mattered.
Ling Yu’s heart thundered against her ribs, so loud she was certain he could hear it.
And in her mind echoed the same frantic thought, over and over:
’Don’t recognize me. Don’t recognize me. Don’t recognize me...’
.
.
.
The battlefield finally fell silent.
The buzzing of insectile wings had vanished, replaced by the eerie stillness that followed a massacre. Hundreds of carcasses littered the ground, broken shells, twitching limbs, pools of acid hissing against the charred soil. The Bee Queen’s body slumped in the center of it all, her regal form reduced to a grotesque husk.
And in the middle of that carnage stood Ji Xiulan.
The man’s robe was unmarred by blood despite the slaughter. His blade gleamed faintly, black as obsidian, as though the countless lives it had claimed had not even left a trace. His aura radiated an unshakable calm, cold and suffocating. The mere sight of him standing there. Tall and composed, utterly unbothered by the rivers of gore around him. He sent shivers crawling down the spines of the survivors.
Ling Yu’s own heartbeat thundered against her chest.
For some reason, she had been certain that he would recognize her the moment his gaze fell upon her. She had braced herself for it, every muscle taut, her lips pressed tightly to mask the storm within. She had steeled herself for the confrontation she had spent so long dreading.
But instead—
His gaze slid off her.
Indifferent and detached, as though she were just another nameless survivor in the crowd.
Ling Yu’s lungs filled with a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
She sighed in relief... and something else she couldn’t name, disappointment? Anger? She crushed the thought before it could grow.
Ji Xiulan’s voice cut through the silence like a blade.
"Who among you ended the first wave?"
The words were sharp, each syllable cold enough to freeze marrow. His eyes swept across the assembly of scavengers, soldiers, and stragglers. Not a flicker of emotion betrayed what he was thinking.
The survivors stiffened. No one dared to speak. They shifted uneasily, their gazes darting to one another as if expecting someone else to step forward. But they all knew, no one here had that kind of strength.
The scavengers looked particularly agitated, their arrogance shriveled under the weight of his aura. A few glanced toward Ling Yu instinctively, but quickly looked away, unwilling to draw attention to themselves. They had suspected her strength before, but now, when the question came from him, they were too terrified to even breathe in her direction.
Ling Yu’s mind spun.
’As expected, he’s searching for me.’
Her heart skipped another beat.
He hadn’t recognized her. He was looking for her without even knowing her face. That realization struck harder than any monster’s blow.
’Why? Why are you so intent on finding me?’
Her last life offered no answers. She had barely brushed past him in that broken world, their paths intersecting only briefly, without words, without acknowledgment. And yet here, in this life, he was pursuing her.
Was it suspicion? Curiosity? Or something else entirely?
Her System chimed softly, as though mocking her.
[System Notification]
[Warning: Target Entity "Ji Xiulan" has designated the "First Wave Ender" as a priority pursuit.]
[Reason: Unknown.
Suggested Course: Concealment advised.]