Chapter 47: Different
Judging by the current situation, the outcome of the battle between the contractors of both sides was hard to predict.
Although the contractors of Reincarnation Paradise were exceptionally ruthless, facing the harsh survival environment of Reincarnation Paradise, the contractors either walked alone or formed adventure groups, making it impossible to form ultra-large organizations.
Moreover, most adventure groups didn't have many members. Small adventure groups might only have a few people or a dozen, and even large adventure groups rarely exceeded three hundred members.
This was related to the personality of Reincarnation Paradise's contractors. Here, the strong lived and the weak died. Although powerful contractors emerged in waves, the number of casualties was also high. Under such survival conditions, conflicts between contractors were more likely, making the formation of large groups even less likely.
In Reincarnation Paradise, forced execution penalties were just a daily occurrence, and attribute deduction penalties were even more common. To survive in such an environment, even if one wasn't abnormally strong, their willpower wouldn't be weak. After all, the danger of kicking the bucket was always present. Those with poor psychological fortitude had long been eliminated in the first few derivative worlds.
However, while cultivating the strong, many ordinary contractors with average experience died early.
Just like now, the Reincarnation Paradise side still had 725 contractors alive, while the Apocalypse Paradise side had as many as 985 survivors.
It wasn't that the Reincarnation Paradise contractors were weak, but that they were too scattered. Most of the dead were lone wolves. On the Apocalypse Paradise side, everyone was a member of one organization. That was precisely why their survival numbers were so high.
Of course, having more numbers didn't necessarily mean an advantage. In a 1v1 situation with the same attributes and abilities, Apocalypse Paradise contractors might not be a match for Reincarnation Paradise contractors. This was because Apocalypse Paradise's method of cultivating contractors was relatively gentle, at least not prone to using forced execution penalties.
Among the 725 survivors on the Reincarnation Paradise side, there were 8 adventure groups, including 7 medium-sized ones and 1 large one, with the rest being solo players.
No one on the Reincarnation Paradise side could integrate these contractors. Even that fire-element mage lord couldn't; he could at most play a leading role.
The Apocalypse Paradise side was different. They were a single group, with Xi as their leader.
From this perspective, the Reincarnation Paradise side was no match for the Apocalypse Paradise side. But was that really the case? That could only be known after the battle.
However, among the ten contractors on the Reincarnation Paradise side, at least one had an unstable mind. The other nine weren't much better, just relatively more normal.
This was a team composed of madmen + neurotics + madmen-in-training + ruthless "normal people." What heinous things these people would do, not even Xi could fully predict, let alone the ordinary contractors of Apocalypse Paradise.
...
One of the three major war zones, Odler Fortress.
Clang, clang, clang...
The sound of hammering came from a stone house on the fortress. A Reincarnation Paradise contractor sat at the eastern edge of the fortress, with a cliff hundreds of meters below, but he paid it no mind.
"Potato, is that thing ready yet?"
"Almost."
An impatient voice came from inside the stone house.
"Potato, why not just throw that thing into the tribe's base camp? It'll definitely kill a bunch."
The contractor sitting by the cliff looked up, staring at something unknown.
"You madman... has your brain been corroded by the subhuman cells?"
The contractor named Potato chuckled and swung his hammer even harder.
"What madman? I'm perfectly normal."
The contractor sitting by the cliff shook his head, gazing down at the precipice. Suddenly, a thought struck him.
"Potato, what do you think would happen if I jumped?"
"Huh?"
Potato stopped his movements.
"I'd probably die, I guess."
"Death... how terrifying."
No sooner had he spoken than the contractor leaped off the fortress. Moments later, a muffled boom echoed from below the cliff.
"Is the tribe army attacking again?"
A contractor wearing a cowboy hat rushed over.
"No, Black Blood jumped off the cliff."
"Damn, that guy's getting more and more unstable. I told him not to overdevelop the subhuman bloodline. Now he's acting like a Taliban player."
Slap, slap.
A hand gripped the edge of the fortress wall.
"Sure enough, I can't die... but it hurts like hell."
Black Blood climbed back up. He was a young man with black hair and red eyes, fair-faced, looking like a fresh-faced pretty boy. Don't be fooled by his appearance; his favorite thing was hugging enemies and self-destructing.
"Black Blood, you've come into contact with the Apocalypse Paradise contractors before, right? How strong are they?"
Potato put down his hammer, curious about Apocalypse Paradise.
Black Blood climbed onto the fortress, plugged one nostril with a finger, and forcefully exhaled, sending blood and snot spraying from the other nostril.
"Good equipment, high skill levels, but they feel... strange."
Black Blood flopped onto the ground with a thud.
"Strange?"
Potato clearly didn't understand what Black Blood meant.
"How to describe it... Hmm, this is more accurate: they're like they're doing a high-risk job. Yeah, that's the feeling."
Black Blood lay on the ground and fell asleep within seconds.
...
Hil Grand Canyon, Apocalypse Paradise contractor gathering area, inside a tent.
Slash, a sharp blade cut through flesh.
Drip, drop, blood fell, gradually seeping into the soil. The smell of blood spread through the tent.
"How many of you are there? What's your war mission? Who holds the World Core now?"
A gaunt man in a butcher's uniform stood inside the tent. His uniform was splattered with blood. In the center of the tent, a female contractor was hung upside down, swaying left and right. She was naked, with at least hundreds of wounds all over her body, blood streaming down her pale skin.
"Your... technique... is lousy. I'm... dying."
The hung female contractor spoke, squinting her dead fish eyes at the gaunt man torturing her.
"If... I talk, will you let me go?"
There was some despair in her eyes, as if she could no longer bear the torture.
"Yes."
The torturer nodded.
"We have... the mission is..."
The female contractor was very weak from blood loss, her voice barely a whisper.
"What?"
The torturer leaned his ear close to her mouth.
Bang!
The sound of teeth clashing came, and the torturer barely dodged her bite.
"Hahaha, let me go? Are you kidding a child? When I was captured, I knew I was dead. Just wait, my man will come for you. He will. He'll kill you one by one. I'll be waiting for you in hell."
With that, the female contractor began chewing, blood and shredded flesh dripping from the corner of her mouth.
"..."
The torturer's gaze was icy cold, but he had no good solution. This female contractor was a psychic-type; hypnosis or telepathy were completely ineffective on her.
"Pfft~"
The female contractor spat out her chewed tongue. It wasn't that she didn't want to live, but she was stalling for time. This was her only chance to survive. Confessing would only hasten her death.
"It seems Xi was right. You bastards are all mentally unstable."
The torturer slit the female contractor's throat with a scalpel, and a gush of blood sprayed out.
Blood flowed down her face. She didn't struggle; it was meaningless. She just stared at the torturer, staring intently.