“Bomb!!”

Xia Yuan lit the bomb and shouted at the same time.

“Got it!”

Jiang Cha cut down a monster that had lost its right foreleg in the previous bombing. The two of them moved in perfect sync, darting aside to clear enough space.

After getting some experience, Xia Yuan showed off a top student’s incredible ability to learn and a medical student’s nerves. Her hands didn’t shake this time, and she threw the bomb right on target.

But the damage it dealt still fell short.

The Mental Beasts had kept enough distance between them, so the bomb only killed a little over twenty monsters.

But fewer than a hundred Mental Beasts remained. They’d already wiped out most of the enemy, and victory was in sight. Neither girl lost heart; instead, tense smiles tugged at their lips.

“Just hang on a little longer.”

Jiang Cha smiled encouragingly. Then she let out another soft laugh. “So, do you still want to die?”

“Not anymore.”

Xia Yuan immediately shook her head.

If dying meant being devoured by those monsters and trapped forever in The Rift, then she’d rather live and face the pain.

Besides...

The girl in pajamas stole a glance at Jiang Cha’s handsome silhouette, standing with her blade in hand, and a sweet little bubble fluttered up in her heart.

She had a reason to keep living now, didn’t she?

“Then let’s keep fighting to stay alive—together!”

Jiang Cha was still full of energy, but Xia Yuan frowned as she brushed the dust off her. In a quiet voice, she said, “Don’t say things like that... It sounds like you’re raising a death flag.”

“Hahahahaha, I’m not raising any flags!”

“This little scrap doesn’t worry me. Yuan-yuan, you have no idea—the Rift I ran into back then was way scarier than yours. There were tens of thousands of those F-rank ‘imps’ alone, and even a B-rank Mental Beast that could breathe fire showed up. Now that was a close call.”

“Sure, keep bragging. How could anyone survive if there were that many monsters?”

Xia Yuan shot her an exasperated look and fired back without holding anything back.

“Well... A big mission like that obviously wasn’t just me going in alone. I can’t explain it properly right now—we have confidentiality rules.”

Jiang Cha awkwardly scratched her cheek, looking every bit like a man caught bragging: guilty, but still stubbornly making excuses.

“Okay. Then I’ll wait for you to tell me when we get out.”

Xia Yuan carefully straightened Jiang Cha’s clothes, then untied the hair tie from her own head and slipped it around Jiang Cha’s wrist.

“Hold this for me. There’s too much dust, and having my hair tied up is uncomfortable.”

The girl’s cheeks reddened. She turned her face away, unable to meet Jiang Cha’s eyes, but her tone was firm and left no room for argument—with just a hint of coolness.

“Huh? Having this around my wrist will mess with how it feels to swing my blade...” Jiang Cha stopped halfway through her sentence when she saw Xia Yuan’s angry look, and quickly changed her tune. “Yuan-yuan, I’m so honored you’d entrust me with your hair tie! Don’t worry—even if I die, I won’t lose it!”

“Pfft.”

Xia Yuan laughed at her and gave her an exasperated glare.

“It’s just a hair tie. It’s fine if you lose it.”

“The Mental Beasts are charging again. I’ll go hold them off. Yuan-yuan, wait a bit before throwing your bomb. Throw it when I say so.”

That familiar, eerie cry rang out again. Jiang Cha quickly pulled her right hand free from Xia Yuan’s grasp, picked up her blade, and returned to her post.

“Okay, I understand.”

Xia Yuan obediently nodded and took up a position not far behind Jiang Cha, focusing and waiting for her command.

The Mental Beasts had gotten smarter this time. Instead of charging in groups, they hid together behind a wall where the bombs couldn’t reach. Every ten or fifteen minutes, one would dash out with blinding speed—not for any other reason than to wear down the two girls’ Mentalism.

And, of course, to buy time.

They clearly knew that once the already sinking sun went down and night fell, even more terrifying monsters would appear—and the two girls would have no chance of escaping The Rift.

“Damn it, this isn’t working.”

Furious at the monsters’ infuriating stalling tactics, Jiang Cha cursed, spat hard, and started thinking of a way out.

The two of them were on the rooftop, but the stairs leading downstairs had been blown apart. There was nowhere else nearby to escape, so they were effectively trapped.

What had been a perfect spot to defend, easy to hold and hard to attack, had turned into a death trap—with them as the prey in the Mental Beasts’ trap.

Still, it wasn’t completely hopeless. The drop from the rooftop to the fifth floor was only one story. An ordinary person could jump down and at worst twist an ankle; there was hardly any real danger. But that would mean facing dozens of Mental Beasts whose hiding places they didn’t know.

With how smart the monsters had become, they probably wouldn’t leave them any room to escape. They’d be cornered in the hallway for sure.

“Looks like these monsters are dead set on wearing us down.” After cutting down another Mental Beast, Jiang Cha went a full ten minutes without seeing a new one charge. She sighed and continued, “So our only way out now is to charge in and fight them.”

“I’ll jump down first and check things out by that door. If the monsters are packed together outside, throw me the bomb. I’ll blow a bunch of them up, then you jump down and we fight our way out.”

“If they’re gathered farther away, bring the bomb down with you and we’ll charge out together.”

“Got it.”

Xia Yuan didn’t waste time talking. She knew the situation was grim, so she simply nodded to show she understood, then watched anxiously as Jiang Cha backed up a couple of steps and dashed forward!

With an agile roll to kill her momentum, Jiang Cha spun and cut down a Mental Beast. Shards of glass on the ground left a bunch of tiny bloody scratches across her body, but she moved as if she couldn’t feel the pain at all.

She peered out, took one look around, and immediately shouted back to Xia Yuan:

“The Mental Beasts are at both ends of the hallway! Yuan-yuan, jump! I’ll catch you!”

“Okay!”

The pajama-clad girl was barefoot, but she didn’t hesitate for even a moment before leaping. Jiang Cha caught her neatly in her arms.

There was too much broken glass on the ground. The windows on the entire fifth floor had shattered from the force of the two bombs, and Xia Yuan couldn’t move barefoot. Jiang Cha simply didn’t put her down. She carried Xia Yuan on her back, with Xia Yuan’s arms wrapped around her neck, her left hand supporting Xia Yuan’s bottom and her right hand dragging her blade.

Then she charged straight at the Mental Beasts!

“Yuan-yuan, the bomb! Throw it forward—throw it as far as you can!!”

With only ten meters left before they collided with the Mental Beasts, Jiang Cha shouted.

Xia Yuan was ready. The lighter had been burning the whole time; even though it was scorching her fingers, she hadn’t let go. She lit the bomb one-handed and threw it with all her strength!

“BOOM!!!”

The Mental Beasts were blasted in every direction.

Jiang Cha didn’t slow down for a second. She charged forward, straight into the bomb’s shockwave!

Mental Beasts pursued them from behind, while monsters crowded the way ahead. In a situation like this, stopping meant certain death.

Xia Yuan slipped off Jiang Cha’s back and followed close behind as they ran downstairs.

There was only one thing they could do: keep pushing forward.

They’d have to fight their way through death to live!