# 79
Chapter 79 – Suffocation
“Dormitory building? Why go there first?” Whirlpool froze, rubbing his stomach. “I want to hit the canteen first…”
“Canteen’s not serving food right now.” Tianping rolled his eyes. “I’ve said it clearly: numbers are our weakness. With our realms suppressed to River Realm we can’t handle a war of attrition, so we eliminate the biggest threat at the start!”
“Oh… after we clear the dorm, can we go eat?”
“……”
“Follow Tianping’s plan—dormitory first.” Wang Mian spoke slowly. “But be careful; that place is their home ground now. Don’t capsize in the gutter.”
“Yes, sir!”
……
Underground command post.
“This Lin Qiye’s impressive—broke through like that and nearly blew Whirlpool’s mask off,” an instructor marveled.
“Without real skill, how could he be an agent?”
“His close-quarters combat is strong, but he still hasn’t shown any Seraph traits. That’s sequence 003, Mortal Divine Realm. If he’d used it just now, he could’ve escaped without setting off explosives, right?”
“Intel says his God’s Ruins isn’t complete.”
“But with that terrifying deduction and melee level, he’s already top-tier potential in the whole recruit camp.”
“I’m dying to see what happens when he faces Wang Mian…”
Yuan Gang stared at the screen, knuckles drumming the desk in thought.
“Chief, what are you watching?”
Yuan Gang pointed to a boy hugging a blade in a corner, eyes closed.
“Him.”
“Him?” The instructor scratched his head. “He’s been sitting there since the start. What’s special?”
Yuan Gang tossed a file on the table. “Look.”
The nearby instructors picked it up; their eyes widened until they gasped.
“He’s…!”
……
“Cao Yuan, why keep sitting here? Come talk tactics!”
A young man pushed open the dorm door, sighing at the lone boy in the corner.
Cao Yuan opened his eyes calmly. “You chat. Count me out.”
“Come on, don’t you want to beat Mask Squad and end training? Sitting here is just giving up!” The young man looked exasperated. “When Mask Squad storms up, you’ll just sit and wait to be eliminated?”
“Yes.”
“……”
Seeing no way to communicate, the young man shut the door and walked off.
“Brother Shen, he still won’t come.”
In the corridor, a dozen recruits clustered around the one wearing his cap backward, chewing gum—another ultra-high-risk Forbidden Ruins wielder.
Shen Qingzhu waved dismissively. “Forget the coward. Even if he came he’d be useless.”
“Brother Shen, what’s the plan?”
“Ambush right here. When Mask Squad arrives, let the guys in the opposite building soften them up first, then we crush them by surprise!”
“Yeah!”
“Good idea!”
“Genius!”
“Idiot.”
“Brilliant!”
Amid the chorus, something odd slipped in.
They froze, turning to see a man with a crescent-moon mask holding a Short Sword already behind them.
Moon Ghost’s lips curved beneath the mask.
“You—”
Thud-thud!
Moon Ghost struck like lightning, knocking out two recruits with the pommel—eliminated. The rest finally reacted, blades flashing!
Before steel touched him, his figure blurred and vanished.
“He can cloak!”
“Watch out!”
Recruits shouted.
Shen Qingzhu’s face darkened. He snapped his fingers.
—Clap!
In an instant every gas molecule within ten meters was sucked away—absolute vacuum.
The surrounding recruits’ eyes bulged; they clawed their throats, faces twisting in agony. They crumpled, crawling, but an invisible wall at the vacuum’s edge blocked any escape.
Shen Qingzhu regarded their suffering with cold indifference, scanning the area.
“I know you can’t hear me, but you can read lips.
In vacuum, humans don’t die instantly. When external pressure disappears, internal gases expand—venting from mouth, nose, anus—slowly draining you. Bubbles in blood expand, forming foam that clogs vessels, causing internal bleeding…
Maximum survival: sixteen seconds. Seven gone.
Show yourself and surrender, or I kill you with them.”
Murder flared in Shen Qingzhu’s eyes. A sword flash licked his throat!
He jerked back, blade up to block, but Moon Ghost materialized and kicked him square in the chest, hurling him from the vacuum zone.
Air rushed back; the collapsed recruits gasped, coughing violently.
“Cough… you maniac!” Moon Ghost gripped his Short Sword, glare icy. “It’s just a drill and you go this far?”
Shen Qingzhu climbed up, grinning. “How else to flush you out? Now it’s simple.”
Psssh—!
He clawed the air; gases compressed into a high-pressure cage around Moon Ghost, crushing inward.
Moon Ghost’s body half-dissolved into moonlight, slipping through the cage, Short Sword stabbing at Shen Qingzhu!
Shen Qingzhu clapped—an air wall blocked the blade while he retreated, yanking several recruits by their collars and hurling them into the stairwell.
As Moon Ghost’s Short Sword sliced the wall, Shen Qingzhu inhaled…
Blew a bubble with his gum,
Spat it at Moon Ghost—
A violent explosion erupted!