Chapter 24: Joyful

Warm liquid splashed onto Yao Xing’s cheek, carrying a heavy, rusty scent.

It was the blood of the comrade who had been fighting beside her just moments ago.

It was Xin Ge’er’s blood, after her chest had been pierced.

Time seemed to freeze in that instant.

Xin Ge’er looked down at the purple blade protruding from her chest—a short dagger condensed from pure demonic energy.

The hand gripping her spear trembled violently.

The silver shaft fell onto the charred soil, producing a dull echo.

“Jia… Sha?”

“I knew it… how could you possibly wield a dagger…”

Xin Ge’er’s voice fragmented as she turned her head with difficulty.

What her pupils reflected was a face so cold it chilled the soul.

Standing behind her, Jia Sha’s aura—originally the purple symbol of a Brave’s power—had completely transformed into an abyssal black.

It was a disguise.

“You are not Jia Sha!”

Yao Xing cried out, her voice shrill with rage.

She finally understood why, in her previous life, Xin Ge’er had died suddenly without any warning.

There was no infiltrating demon general.

The real assassin had been hiding right under everyone’s noses all along!

“Get down!”

Xu reacted swiftly.

He shoved Yao Xing hard, and dragon scales instantly covered his right arm up to the shoulder, delivering a heavy punch straight at “Jia Sha’s” face.

Boom—!

“Jia Sha” raised his pitch-black right hand, casually catching Xu’s full-force blow.

The corner of his mouth curled into an eerie grin, his voice layered with an inhuman resonance: “Ah, ah… looks like the little trick of shifting blame didn’t work after all~”

As he spoke, his nails peeled the disguise off his face, one scratch at a time.

Revealing the sneering face of a demon.

Pfft—

The demon pulled the dagger out and kicked the severely wounded Xin Ge’er away with force.

“That swordsman Jia Sha you all know? He’s still resting at the camp~”

“……”

Xin Ge’er felt her body growing weaker.

The helplessness of blood loss overwhelmed her, darkness sweeping across her vision: ‘It’s over…’

Suddenly, a hole burst open beside her.

Anuo crawled out and quickly carried the unconscious Xin Ge’er away from the battlefield.

…..

On the battlefield.

Yao Xing watched Xin Ge’er’s retreat.

Though deeply worried, the demon before them was not to be underestimated.

“That demon has an illusion magic, and a small frame. In close combat, he might not be our equal.”

Listening to Xu’s analysis, Yao Xing suddenly recalled something.

‘Illusion magic… which means…’

‘This demon—in my previous life—was the one who assassinated the council, tried to poison Jia Sha, and even helped hide the demon general!’

This guy’s weight was enormous.

‘No more thinking! I must eliminate this threat first!’

Without further deliberation, Yao Xing immediately joined Xu’s fight.

Though the demon was small, he wielded his twin daggers like venomous snakes, slipping past any block and threatening to strike a wound with every move.

“Go find Xike~!”

With a laugh from the demon Xike, dust and sand from the ground surged upward. In an instant, every grain of sand was imbued with illusion magic, transforming into countless “Xikes.”

“Brave, don’t be fooled by its fakes!”

Xu roared, his dragonized right arm sweeping horizontally, stirring up a violent gust of wind.

Clang—!

Xike’s figure twisted weirdly the moment the heavy fist descended, dissolving into a purple afterimage.

The next second, he appeared like a ghost in Xu’s blind spot.

“Over here~”

Xike sneered, his short dagger flashing with the cold gleam of a snake’s strike, aimed directly at the gap in Xu’s neck not covered by dragon scales.

“Get out!”

Ignoring the sharp pain in her knee, Yao Xing slid sideways and angled her longsword up, barely blocking the fatal dagger.

Clang…..

The metallic screech was ear-piercing.

Yao Xing felt a chilling demonic energy creep into her palm along the blade.

It wasn’t violent, but extremely sticky, like countless tiny needles irritating her nerves.

‘Damn it!’

She had to retreat immediately.

….

The battle dragged into a long, grueling stalemate.

After a brief but intense exchange, though Xike was inferior to Xu in strength and to Yao Xing, the Brave, in stamina, his martial skills and magic were bizarre to the extreme.

Whenever Yao Xing and Xu formed a pincer, he would use illusion magic to create several identical clones.

“Damn it, can’t hit the real one!”

Yao Xing panted heavily, sweat blurring her vision.

The battlefield was scarred with gashes from her greatsword and deep craters left by his daggers.

A bloody gash had opened on Yao Xing’s shoulder.

Though it missed the vitals, the numbness spreading from the wound told her the daggers were coated with a nerve-paralyzing poison.

Xu’s condition was even worse.

To block a sudden backstab aimed at Yao Xing, his back was now crisscrossed with bloody wounds.

Dark red dragon blood dripped onto the ground, sizzling as it corroded the earth into white smoke.

“Hehe… Brave of Lin Qi, why aren’t you attacking? Exhausted?”

Xike’s figure overlapped and split in midair, dozens of him speaking at once, voices coming from all directions: “Since you wanted to save that spearman, you’ll have to fill that gap yourself!”

He suddenly accelerated, his body turning into a purple whirlwind, unleashing a flurry of rapid thrusts at Yao Xing.

Ding!

Ding!

Ding!

Ding!

Yao Xing could only swing her sword wildly on instinct.

Every clash numbed her arms.

‘Calm down… since it’s illusion magic, there must be a flaw…’

‘Illusion magic isn’t transformation magic… then… could it be a hallucination!’

“Xu! Close your eyes!”

Yao Xing suddenly realized that Xike was using their visual feedback to deceive them.

“Hah?”

Though confused, Xu trusted the bond they had built.

He immediately shut his crimson, vertical pupils.

“Use your hearing—the thing you’re best at… listen for the heartbeat that’s the heaviest!”

Xike’s expression changed in an instant.

His illusions could fool the eyes, could fabricate magical afterimages, but he could not completely hide the heartbeat of a high-ranking demon—a pulse that pounded like a war drum, drenched in blood.

“There—thirty degrees to the right front!”

Yao Xing kept her eyes open to guide them, and in the moment of Xike’s panic, she poured every ounce of remaining strength into her longsword.

“Die… now!”

Xike laughed excitedly: “I’ve finally been waiting for you!!”

The atmosphere went silent.

All sound vanished.

Time seemed to stop.

Yao Xing hung in midair, still holding her sword downward.

Xu was also frozen mid-step, rushing to support.

But Xike’s expression was a wide, gleeful grin.

The sound returned.

A tall figure appeared under Yao Xing’s descending blade.

It raised its hand, about to strike her down.

“Hold on to me!”

The real Jia Sha, who had finally arrived after a delay, snatched Yao Xing from the brink of death midair.

‘Such a heavy pressure… this guy… could it be…’

[Goodwill ++++++++++]

The same notification.

Everything that had happened in her previous life—the sudden deaths—was all because of this thing’s appearance!

[Goodwill ++++++++++]

The goodwill system kept prompting.

Yao Xing trembled, using the flat of her sword to support herself.

Jia Sha and Xu stood shoulder to shoulder, both wearing wary expressions.

“Hehe…”

Xike hopped up and down in glee: “Ants! Feel honored!”

“Before you stands one of the Demon King’s Seven Commanders—Lord Zi Luan!”

(The town in the image is a demonstration background; the actual battlefield is a border grassland.)