Chapter 86
Chapter 86: They Surrounded Jiang Tea Tea with Clubs to Beat Her to Death
Li Ao didn’t understand why the commander-in-chief suddenly ordered him out. He was obsessed with the never-before-seen mutant devouring ability, desperate to dig deeper.
He asked cautiously, “Commander-in-chief… did you receive new information?”
Chong Ming’s voice turned colder. “That’s not something you’re entitled to ask.”
Li Ao went stiff. “Yes, commander-in-chief.”
Chong Ming cut the call and turned to Adjutant Ai. “Send people to retrieve Li Ao. Remove him from M31_1137 star. Tell him the matter ends here.”
“Yes, commander-in-chief.”
Adjutant Ai moved fast.
Li Ao, unwilling to leave empty-handed, cornered him anyway. “Adjutant Ai—did the commander-in-chief find the person with this mutant devouring ability?”
Adjutant Ai stayed rigid, uniform immaculate. “Director Li. Under military confidentiality protocols, asking me that is a criminal offense.”
Li Ao’s face tightened. “Sorry. You know I specialize in ability research. The commander-in-chief brought me here—”
Adjutant Ai cut him off, expression unchanged. “Director Li, don’t probe me. If you want information, contact the commander-in-chief directly.”
“I have no obligation to disclose anything. Don’t break the law.”
Li Ao’s schemes were exposed so cleanly he had no choice but to bow his head. “Understood. Sorry for the trouble. I’ll leave.”
Adjutant Ai gestured. “This way.”
Li Ao took his subordinates, boarded a flyer, transferred to a ship, and left M31_1137 star.
Chong Ming stored the autopsy report in his storage button, stood, and walked out of the command room. “Minister Lu. I’m going to see Agris. Bring the seven insect clan corpses to me.”
“Yes, commander-in-chief,” Minister Lu replied.
Agris had “freedom.”
Freedom inside a fifteen-square-meter white room.
He had food and drink—always cooked, always bland, nothing like the raw diet he’d eaten in the insect clan. The lights burned bright twenty-four hours a day. No windows. No time markers. No entertainment. His abilities were suppressed to nothing.
In less than a month, Agris went from proud fury—shouting and raging—to silence, spending his days staring at the door.
When it finally opened, Chong Ming walked in.
Agris sat on the bed and leaned back, hands braced behind him, forcing a lazy posture. “Old friend. You haven’t visited me in over twenty days. Did you miss me? Or are you finally going to let me go?”
Chong Ming dragged a chair over and sat in front of him. “Agris, Your Highness. That calm little act is ridiculous.”
Agris jerked upright. His eyes shifted into compound facets, dark and venomous. “What are you smug about? I only got caught by accident. You don’t even dare kill me—you can only imprison me.”
Chong Ming lifted a brow. “Is that so? Then are the insect clan members you planted inside Royal Military Academy as confident as you are?”
Agris’s gaze sharpened. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
Chong Ming laughed softly. “Agris, Your Highness. Should I record this stupid act and show it to your fiancée, Atuya?”
Agris spread his hands. “Go ahead. Film me. Atuya knows exactly what I’m like. I hide nothing from her.”
Chong Ming actually raised his Lightbrain as if to record. Agris instantly lifted a hand to block his face.
“…Fine,” Agris muttered. “You win.”
Chong Ming lowered the device. “Only a dead duck keeps its mouth shut. Who knew a bug could be this stubborn?”
Agris slammed his hands down, furious but powerless. He tried to draw on his abilities and found nothing. “What do you want?”
Chong Ming’s smile vanished. “I brought you a gift.”
Agris frowned. “You? Kind?”
Chong Ming nodded. “Of course.”
The door opened again.
Minister Lu and others dragged in seven insect clan corpses and dumped them onto the floor.
The room was barely fifteen square meters. With seven bodies, it felt clogged.
Agris stared for a long moment before speaking. “How did you find them?”
Chong Ming answered calmly, “I didn’t. Your fiancée, General Atuya, was desperate to save you. She ordered them to act like headless flies—grab any young dragon male they saw, assuming he was the crown prince. She thought she could trade him for you.”
“And now? The Zhen Lin Empire’s crown prince wasn’t captured. Instead, they died—and their deaths showed me exactly what your infiltrators look like.”
“These seven are just an appetizer,” Chong Ming said softly. “Next, at different times, you’ll watch different subordinates served to you.”
Agris’s mouth curled. “Is that so?”
“I’m looking forward to it. Let’s see if you can really dig out every insect clan member I planted in the Zhen Lin Empire.”
Chong Ming didn’t answer.
He stood and walked out, speaking over his shoulder. “Secretary Wen. Minister Lu. Starting now, do not give Agris, Your Highness, any food.”
“Let him eat his own kind.”
Agris lunged, fury exploding. “You bastard—!”
Chong Ming didn’t even turn around.
He lifted his hand and flicked it.
A surge of mental power slammed Agris backward. He flew and crashed onto the corpses, filthy and helpless.
By the time he scrambled up, the door had shut.
The room held only him, seven corpses—and water.
All food stores were gone.
Down on the ground, Jiang Tea Tea’s squad kept hunting cadets from other academies, using their flyers as cover.
They hit targets with paint rounds from the air, then landed and finished with red blades to the throat.
In a single day, they wiped out five squads—thirty-eight people.
Finally, they reached grasslands and landed in knee-high green grass where neither flyer nor body was easy to spot.
Within fifty kilometers, there were no cadets. They rested, built a fire, pulled out their earlier game, skinned it, seasoned it, washed it, threaded it on sticks, and roasted it over the flames.
Rabbit. Antelope. Fat dripping, sizzling.
Jiang Tea Tea stared at the meat, swallowing again and again. She was starving. It smelled so good.
When it was done, Cheng Lin Yue—who usually melted into the background—suddenly stepped forward, lifted the enormous roasted antelope, and set it right in front of Jiang Tea Tea.
“Sister Tea,” she said, firm as stone. “You eat. You eat all of it.”
Jiang Tea Tea shoved up her sleeves, ready to tear into it with her hands, when Sui Xuan Chu reached out. “Sister Tea, sharing is—”
Cheng Lin Yue slapped his hand away and blocked him completely. “You’re a huge male, and you want to steal meat from a female? Do you have any shame?”
Sui Xuan Chu planted his hands on his hips. “How is taking one bite shameless?”
“One bite is one too many,” Cheng Lin Yue shot back. “You take a bite, Sister Tea eats one bite less.”
“If you want meat, hunt it yourself. Don’t steal Sister Tea’s.”
Cheng Xiao Ting reached out and pressed a hand to Cheng Lin Yue’s forehead. “Little Bunny… are you feverish? Did you burn your brain? You’re not socially anxious anymore?”
Cheng Lin Yue slapped his hand away. “Shut up. Go hunt with Sui Xuan Chu. Wild cattle, wild horses, wild donkeys—go.”
“Sister Tea has to eat her fill so she can carry us to the championship. You males can’t fight properly—can’t you at least hunt?”
Cheng Xiao Ting blinked at Sui Xuan Chu. “We’re hunting wild donkeys?”
Sui Xuan Chu pointed at the flyer. “Go.”
From their command ships, legion commanders watched—some hunting donkeys, some squatting by fires chewing meat—and sighed over the shared channel.
“Youth is good. Back when we trained, we played like this too—making fun in hardship.”
“Yeah. They don’t know how bitter it is yet. They’ve got sunlight in their bones. Loose but disciplined. In these eight, I see cohesion. I see unity. I see us.”
“If we weren’t legion commanders, I’d want to go chew meat with them. Meat on a training ground tastes better than anywhere.”
“And it does. I still remember when I got thrown into a crowd with the Twelfth Legion Commander for training. No money. No hunting. No abilities. We cried like beggars on the roadside until someone took pity and gave us nutrition fluid.”
“Now I just want to stand where the commander-in-chief stands and make rookies suffer twice as hard.”
“Hey,” someone said, voice turning sly, “what if we bomb Jiang Tea Tea, steal her roasted antelope, and eat it ourselves?”
“That works. I love stealing food. She teamed up with other cadets and an instructor group and killed me in round one. Now we’ll kill her, steal her stuff, and eat it.”
Thirty legion commanders.
They moved like they always did—brutal, decisive, doing to the rookies exactly what Chong Ming had once done to them.
Jiang Tea Tea was chewing roasted antelope, blissfully focused on the meat.
Cheng Lin Yue nibbled an antelope leg beside her.
Then Jiang Tea Tea jerked.
She flung the antelope aside, grabbed Cheng Lin Yue by the head, and slammed her down into the grass.
A thunderous boom tore through the fire pit. Sparks exploded into the air.
Jiang Tea Tea rolled over Cheng Lin Yue, shielding her as glowing embers rained down.
Cheng Lin Yue scrambled free in panic and forced her water ability into a stream, dousing the sparks on Jiang Tea Tea’s back.
Jiang Tea Tea caught her wrist and started to run.
Overhead, lights blazed on, turning the grassland bright as day.
Twelve legion commanders—the same ones Jiang Tea Tea had eliminated in round one—dropped from a ship and formed a ring around them. Each held a club. They smiled like villains in a cheap play.
“Jiang Tea Tea,” one of them called, cheerful as hell, “your eight-person squad is down to two. So—are you going to slit your own throats and forfeit?”
“Or are we going to beat you until you slit your throats and forfeit?”