Chapter 8.3 - Drunken Slaughter
Peperus struggled to raise her head. She looked at the man, and then with a pah sound, she spat a clump of spittle mixed with blood towards him. Her hoarse throat coldly said, “So it’s you. Don’t you and your owner only know how to hide? When did you all become so brave? You all will pay the price for everything you have done today!”
The man laughed. He softly stroked Peperus’ face and said, “Pay the price? Who will make us pay? Are you talking about that owner of yours who we haven’t heard any news about, or the Spider Empress who won’t know about anything? Of course, perhaps we will pay the price, but, beautiful young miss, that is not a day you will get to see.”
Peperus carried a smile that contained a hint of mockery. “Whether I see if that comes is not important at all. It’ll be enough as long as I can drag you down into hell with me. Haha, all of you who think of weakness as patience are worth even less than old reckless thing Piccolo!”
When the name Piccolo was brought up, the man’s expression immediately changed. He revealed a somewhat cold smile and said, “Piccolo’s luck was just bad, but we are different. You have to understand that whoever laughs last has the best laugh. Young miss Peperus, this is the era of men. When we return in a bit, we will let you deeply understand this point.”
“Men” Peperus sneered and said, “When had there ever been men in the Trials Division?!”
The male’s face immediately distorted. Even though it was dark, Lynch’s goggles could still make out this slight change in expression. The male brought out a coin and slowly swayed it a bit in front of Peperus before slowly pressing it between her legs.
Even Peperus who had undergone extremely strict training suddenly felt her body spring up from the instinctive reaction of her nerves! This intense movement caused the steel needles that were pierced into her crucial joints to scrape against her bone. Blood began to trickle out from the various needle injuries.
The struggle just now seemed to have exhausted all of Peperus’ remaining stamina. She breathed heavily, and only then did she slowly catch her breath. Then, she raised her face and revealed a smile with difficulty. With a stammering voice, she laughed and said, “The Trials Division… had… men?! Ha… haha……”
“Truly a pile of dog shit.” Lynch cursed inwardly.
He was a lip reading specialist, so he could more or less make out the contents of what both sides were saying. He even knew what kind of toy that coin that was stuck to Peperus’ body was. Once that kind of stuff was activated, over ten irregular metal threads would seep out and pierce into the human body. Due to it being easy to deform, after piercing a centimeter into the human body, these metal threads would change their path and ultimately form an intricate and messy sphere. If one forcefully pulled it out, it would bring with it a clump of flesh. There were drugs applied to these threads that could prevent coagulation, stimulate, numb the muscles, and heighten one’s sensitivity. In addition, it could also release minute streams of electricity to further excite one’s sensation of pain. Not only could they be used to carry out punishment, they could also effectively restrict movement.
These little things were called demon coins, one of the Trials Division’s well known toys.
“Boss, why don’t I wipe out all of these fellas too?” Lynch asked in a low voice. He was already used to calling Helen ‘boss’. Lynch didn’t really feel sympathy for Peperus, but instead felt a pure hatred towards everyone related to the Trials Division.
After waiting an entire minute, Helen’s trademark electronic voice sounded from his earpiece. “I understand.”
Lynch shrugged his shoulders, somewhat regretfully watching as these people slowly disappeared into the night together with Peperus.
“Fuck, I’m done for the day!” Lynch silently said. He slowly moved from his sniping position and disappeared into the boundless darkness as well.
The night was still long. Many people were already immersed within warm dreams, while even more fell unconscious from cold and hunger. During nights like these, there would always be people who died while struggling. There was also a small portion of people who didn’t need to worry about the basic necessities of life, but they were still awake, experiencing another type of struggling for survival.
Not far from dragonrider general headquarters was an enormous square shaped construct. It was three floors above the ground and four floors underneath. This was the Black Dragonriders’ comprehensive training building. One could even try out various types of infantry firearms here. Most people who used this training building were low level dragonriders and a few subordinates. Even though the fee this place charged was extremely pricey, the expenses to construct one’s own training location was still far greater than that of using public facilities.
The close combat training area was divided into a large region and ten smaller compartments. In the dead of the night, there were still monotonous bang bang sounds ringing through this place. The two middle-aged men that were in charge of this area were already so sleepy their eyes were already starting to close, but they still had to persist with this job. In this era, being about to obtain this type of stable and relaxed job that didn’t require one to risk their life was already not easy. Every individual that had the qualifications to work here wasn’t worth provoking. As such, no matter how long their training went, they still had to accompany them.
Su’s breathing was well-distributed and long. His upper body was bare with some cloth strips tightly wrapped around him. He brandished his fists, monotonously and mechanically striking the rubber dummy in front of him. Whenever a fist descended, the rubber dummy similarly swayed backwards before bouncing back. As soon as it returned to its original position, a new fist would greet it, causing it to once again sway backwards.
Next to the dummy was a bright screen that continuously displayed the strength the dummy received. All types of data could be seen, but the most striking one was the fist power number. Every time Su’s fist landed, a tremendous 1200 kilograms of force would be displayed, with the difference in weight only detectable three digits behind the decimal point. The fist strength wasn’t the only data that remained constant; even the point of contact and swaying width remained the same.
Under Su’s bright, clean, and exquisite skin, one could vaguely see muscles wriggling about. A faint steam surrounded his body and slowly rose upwards. Su continued to maintain a pace of two punches per second, as if he was a robot that only knew how to punch.
Su had already been here for three hours, and he had similarly punched this dummy like a robot for three hours as if he would never tire. 1200 kilograms of fist force was already equivalent to four levels of power strengthening, and in the olden era, it could easily cause even the most robust men’s chest to cave in. For Su who had only strengthened power twice, he owed this four levels of fist power to his robust fundamental constitution as well his precise control over various parts of his body.
The two middle-aged men that were in charge of this area already closed their eyes. Four levels of physical strength in the Black Dragonriders was too common. What they were shocked at was Su’s patience. However, there was a chance of any dragonrider being a monster. Forget about hitting a dummy for three hours, even if they did something else, these two still wouldn’t feel like it was strange. They didn’t know know that Su only had two levels of power strengthening, and they even more so didn’t understand how hard it was to display four levels of power with only two levels of power or what this level of strength control implied.
Su could clearly sense the bones in his arms changing. More and more cracks appeared, and they were becoming more and more fine. Each time his fist landed on the dummy, the recoil would similarly shake up the cracks in his bones. In addition, when he exhausted the powerful momentum, the cracks would become more fine, and the bones’ constitution would slowly readjust. These cracks could not only conduct the force that was transmitted back, they could even disperse part of it into his muscle tissue, using the muscle tissues’ flexibility to neutralize quite a bit of the impact.
1200 kilograms of fist power was already quite close to Su’s current limit. Even if he harmed his own body as the price, he would still only be able to add a bit more power. Su struck at the dummy in front of him with constant speed and exhausted his stamina at the same pace as well, all while maintaining his fists’ speed and strength as close to the limit as possible. This was one of the most common methods of training one’s power. However, if one was going to reach Su’s level of stability and maintain it for three hours, this would be a hard feat to accomplish even for higher level dragonriders.
In reality, when the first hour had just passed, Su already felt like his body’s consumption of stamina was already at its limit, so he only wanted to continue at it a bit further. Just like that, this bit of continuation strangely continued for three hours. Along with the exhaustion of his stamina, bits of energy continuously flowed out from the tiniest of tissues to maintain these robotic and steady strikes.
Su already noticed the slight changes that were happening to the bones in his arms a long time ago and simply treated it as a natural transformation his body underwent when his degree of evolution reached a certain point without paying too much attention to it. It was written clearly on the Black Dragonriders’ abilities guidebook that even if the ability was injected from an ability formulation, there would still always be slight differences in every person’s genes and constitution. When one developed a high level ability, this difference would leave an even greater impact on the body’s organs. That was why strictly speaking, everyone’s abilities would be different to some extent.
Su wasn’t training with single-hearted devotion. In the depths of his consciousness, Peperus’ somewhat hysterical shouting continuously rang. “Su! Do you not care about those of the past anymore?”
Those of the past...
Who exactly was she referring to? Why did this woman recognize him? Why would she appear at the birthday evening banquet and ask him this in front of everyone’s faces? Couldn’t she contact him in secret? You have to understand that even though Su hadn’t been in Dragon City for that long, his whereabouts were quite fixed, so it wasn’t hard to find him.
Who was she? Did she not want to contact him privately, or did she have no other choice? Once he began to think about it, countless questions began to pour into his mind one after another.
Bang!
Su sent out the heaviest fist he had released since he entered this training building! The fist strength on the screen immediately jumped up close to 1500 kilograms, and then it froze.