Outside the hunting ground, many Quincy were waiting for the ones inside to come out. They wanted to find out what was going on in there right away.
"Lord Ishida!"
"Lord Ishida is here!"
A group of figures suddenly dropped from the sky, and everyone noticed.
When the crowd looked, they saw it was the Sternritter knight, Sōken Ishida.
Behind Sōken were some other Quincy. One was the Sternritter, Cang Du. The rest were all officers from Silbern.
"The recruitment plan has changed. It's canceled. Everyone, go home."
Sōken's words stunned the Quincy who were there.
After that, Sōken and the officers started to clear the crowd.
"Wait! Lord Ishida! We didn't get this order!" The Quincy in charge of the hunting ground came over to stop him.
"This is an order from the Sternritter," Sōken said in a cold voice.
"This... Please show us proof from Lord Haschwalth..."
The officer in charge was Haschwalth's direct adjutant. He hadn't been told anything about this, so he didn't believe Sōken.
"Then I'm sorry." Sōken waved his hand. The two high-ranking officers behind him immediately moved and took down the adjutant.
"What are you doing?!" The adjutant didn't know about the conflict between Haschwalth and Sōken. He couldn't believe they had just attacked him.
"Bazz-B is helping us by keeping Haschwalth busy. Hurry up and clear out the crowd. Then we'll go in and kill the Menos inside," Sōken said to the others.
However, their actions were quickly blocked. Yhwach's personal guard, Gerard Valkyrie, dropped down from the sky.
"Sōken Ishida, Cang Du, if I'm not wrong, are you two trying to betray us?"
Gerard's outfit looked a bit like a Spartan warrior. His head was covered by a steel helmet, and he wore a cloak, revealing a robust upper body. His arms and legs were also clad in armor.
"No, we have not betrayed the Wandenreich." Sōken raised his spirit bow and aimed it at Gerard.
...
Lightning pierced through the Gillian's head. Its scarred body lost all life, and the massive form crashed to the ground.
"Finally got another point,"
Candice smiled slightly and collected the token.
After the squad changed how they shared points, the Quincy weren't unhappy anymore, for now.
The group worked together to hunt another dozen Hollows. After a full rotation, Candice had finally received new points.
"Those guys are putting in less and less effort," Candice was unhappy. She had just noticed some of them had only fired one arrow.
After they changed the rules to share points, a lot of the Quincy started slacking off.
They knew this point wasn't theirs, so they would just fire an arrow or two for show, unwilling to try hard.
Only when it was their turn, or the turn of a Quincy close to them, were they willing to go all out.
Because of this, the team had faintly split into several small cliques.
The Menos that had just died was killed by the combined efforts of Candice and the two Quincy who had received points from her.
The other member of their three-person clique was Pera, a long-haired woman with glasses.
She had previously been a soldier in Lita's squad.
Like Candice, Lita was always picking on her because she was prettier.
However, before Candice had even enlisted, Pera had already been forced out by Lita and transferred to another squad.
If Lita hadn't been picking on her, no one would have wanted to transfer.
The patrol area Lita's squad was responsible for was right at the foot of Silbern, one of the safest areas in the outer city. The military police here naturally had it the easiest.
The police in the more dangerous areas had countless tasks to deal with every day.
If Candice didn't perform better in the future, her situation would probably be similar to Pera's. It wouldn't be long before she was forced out.
Pera, having used up a lot of energy in the last fight, caught her breath and said helplessly, "They know they won't get this point."
Rona sighed, "It can't be helped. When it's their turn to get points, we'll just put in less effort too."
"I've also used up a lot of energy. I need to save my strength," Candice nodded. She was relatively straightforward. She had put in the effort when it was others' turn, but when it was her turn, those people were slacking off.
"Have you noticed that the time between finding Menos is getting longer?" Pera pushed up her glasses and said thoughtfully, "We've pretty much cleared out the Menos in this area."
"Time to go to another place, right?" Rona said. "This hunting ground was converted from the old city district. It's huge. We've probably explored less than a tenth of it."
At this moment, Sergeant Major Lita shouted:
"This area is pretty much cleared. We should move to the next one!"
The other Quincy also noticed there weren't as many Menos in this area and had no objections.
Without wasting time, the group set off for the next area.
However, when they arrived, they found that someone was already there.
And there were a lot of them—a team of more than twenty Quincy.
"Hand over your points, and you can leave,"
said the leader of the group.
The Quincy in front of them had no intention of talking, but had chosen to directly rob them of their points!
"Instructor Lucas, we're just passing through. We have absolutely no intention of fighting you..."
Sergeant Major Lita forced a smile.
"That's Instructor Lucas of the Second Military Police Corps..."
Rona's face turned pale.
The opposing team was clearly stronger than theirs.
Besides having more people, Instructor Lucas had a great reputation in the outer city, and his team was much more united than theirs.
"If a fight breaks out later, we need to look for a chance to pull back," Pera said, glancing at Candice to remind her hot-headed friend not to get carried away.
"Got it."
Candice nodded calmly.
The gap in strength was clear. Instructor Lucas was an elite Quincy who had originally come from Silbern. He was in this selection aiming for the Sternritter.
And their leader was just a Sergeant Major Lita who could only throw her weight around in front of new recruits.
"Those who hand over their points…" Lucas looked at how weak this team was. "...can join my team instead."
He didn't mind making his team bigger.
As far as he knew, there was one other instructor who had entered this round, and that person was his true competitor.
As an instructor, Lucas knew that this selection actually had some hidden rules.
After the hunt, the Sternritter knights would vote based on the participants' performance.
Only the participant with the most votes would be qualified to enter the next round and be tested by the Sternritter. The others would only get the reward of being promoted and entering Silbern.
He had to be the first to walk out of the hunting ground to get more votes.
"We are willing to give up half..." Lita naturally didn't want her previous efforts to be for nothing, and she didn't want an Instructor Lucas bossing her around.
However, she soon found that some members of her team were actually tempted by his offer, and she became furious.
"Instructor Lucas is very strong. If we follow him, we might be able to get more points."
"Yeah, I've only got one point anyway. It doesn't matter."
Some of them had only gotten one or two points so far and felt it was worth trading one or two points for a ticket to join his team.
Lita knew that if this continued, she would definitely not be able to keep her points, and she decided to go all in.
"Are you all going to just hand over your hard-earned efforts?" Lita's voice cut through the wavering. "Scatter and break through! They can't chase all of us!"
Her idea was simple: Lucas couldn't have his men split up to chase them.
Communication tools couldn't be used in the hunting ground. A team put together this quickly would have a hard time regrouping after scattering.
Lita pointed in the direction of Candice's trio and shouted to the Quincy on the other side:
"Those ones have the most points!"
The bracelet that collected the points had a special design. It started out white, and the more points it collected, the redder it became.
Candice's bracelet had already turned a very bright red. It was obvious she had a lot of points.
In an instant, everyone in Lucas's team focused their gaze on Candice's group.
The faces of the three of them changed.
"Quick, retreat! Split up!"
As Candice drew everyone's attention, Lita immediately signaled the others to scatter.
She didn't flee alone, not because she was kind, but because she felt that running alone would make her too obvious.
The small team, which had little unity, scattered in all directions.
"Stay right there!"
Lita hadn't gotten far when a bolt of lightning struck her.
"Aaargh!!!"
She couldn't dodge in time and was hit squarely.
She had calculated everything, but she hadn't considered that her Hirenkyaku couldn't outrun Candice's lightning.
Candice couldn't stand Lita anymore and had directly struck her down.
However, this also cost her the chance to retreat right away. She was surrounded by Instructor Lucas's people.
"Break through with me!"
Candice called to Pera and Rona, and they began to fight their way out.
On the ground, the charred Sergeant Major Lita climbed up from the sand.
Her body, almost as wide as it was tall, gave her an extremely high resistance to falling. She was fine even after falling from such a height. The injuries on her body were from Candice's lightning.
"Hiss— that bitch hits hard!"
Lita's skin was split open, and blood mixed with dark yellow fat flowed from the cracks of her carbonized skin.
"But she won't escape!"
Her eyes were full of resentment as she looked up. Candice's group was already surrounded.
"My skills are still superior. I have to get out of here quickly!"
Lita took the opportunity, while Candice's group was holding off the enemy, to flee.
"A severed limb?"
After walking a few steps, she saw a severed limb in front of her. At first, she thought it had fallen from the sky, but she soon heard a faint noise.
The next moment, her face changed drastically. She turned her head and saw a spider-like Menos, slightly larger than a human, hanging upside down from a web attached to a rock pillar.
A small Menos!
This was an Adjuchas-class Menos, far stronger than a Gillian!
Lita was scared out of her wits.
"Damn it! My bow, 'Gale', was broken by that bitch!"
Lita tried to activate her spirit bow, but it didn't respond.
Her bow, 'Gale', fired reishi arrows much faster than ordinary ones.
It was thanks to 'Gale' that she had managed to snatch a few points from Candice.
However, it had been broken by Candice's lightning.
With her combat power greatly reduced, Lita turned and fled.
The next moment, the spider Menos pounced on her and pinned her to the ground.
"Aaargh—!!!"
"Crunch, crunch—"
Screams and crunching sounds mixed together in this place where no one was paying attention.
The Quincy fighting in the air had not yet noticed that Sergeant Major Lita had fallen prey to a Menos.
A dense rain of arrows was constantly assaulting Candice's group.
Fortunately, it wasn't just Pera and Rona near her. A few other teammates who hadn't escaped in time were also sharing the firepower.
Candice threw out five 'Gintō'.
High-concentration reishi solution sprayed out from them.
This time, she didn't use the difficult-to-control 'Lightning Javelin', but instead chose to transform the solution into rampaging bolts of lightning, letting them wreak havoc in the air.
Zzzzzzzzt—
A lightning field formed in the air. Most of the reishi arrows that flew into it were detonated by the lightning.
The few arrows that made it through were easily dodged by Candice and the others.
"Well done, Candice!"
"Let's go! It won't last long!"
She warned.
Her professor had designed some moves for her based on her abilities. This lightning field was one of them, and it was having an excellent effect now.
Candice and the others took the opportunity, while the field was still active, to retreat quickly.
The opposing Quincy, seeing that the lightning field could destroy their arrows, didn't dare to test the lightning's strength with their own bodies and could only let them go.
"A bit familiar... seems like the top recruit from a few training cycles ago?"
Instructor Lucas raised an eyebrow. Candice's performance was better than he expected.
As an instructor in the outer city, he was very familiar with the situation there.
He knew most of the stronger Quincy.
"She's just a new recruit... Her performance in the training camp was excellent, but I don't remember her being this strong back then!"
Lucas recalled Candice's performance in the recruit training camp.
Then, he flew directly into the lightning field.
In an instant, the lightning in the field shot towards him.
Crackle, crackle—
The lightning struck his body but caused no damage.
Blue lines flowed slowly under his skin. Blut Vene had completely stopped the damage.
Instructor Lucas calmly passed through the lightning field and arrived in front of Candice.
"Your talent is good, and your strength has improved quickly."
He did not attack immediately. Her talent had gotten his interest, and he had the idea of taking her as a student.
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Note: I haven't been able to upload chapters because I didn't have internet
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