This time, Edwood didn't let Chu Ran use any spiritual power. Instead, they engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
"Your reaction speed is decent," Edwood said, sidestepping a punch from Chu Ran and casually blocking it. "But you're not ruthless enough."
As he spoke, he swept his leg toward Chu Ran's lower body. She quickly dodged, but Edwood's hand followed immediately, targeting her unbalanced center of gravity. Chu Ran's expression hardened. She tensed her lower back, bent backward nearly 90 degrees, and rapidly shifted her feet, hoping to use momentum to evade. But Edwood's attack was faster than her dodge.
Before she could straighten up, she felt her neck tightly gripped, and a suffocating sensation surged.
Edwood released her quickly. "You lack experience in life-or-death combat."
Chu Ran clutched her neck and coughed dryly. "Most students lack that kind of experience, don't they?"
Mid- and high-level Zerg possessed humanoid mimicry, but in actual combat, they preferred their original forms. After two counter-invasions, Chu Ran had plenty of experience killing Zerg, but her experience killing humans was limited to the Garbage Dump incident.
Man Er and the others were decent fighters in the Garbage Dump, but they were far from the veterans and Spiritists who had truly experienced the flames of war, let alone someone of Edwood's level.
"In the coming year, you're far more likely to face human enemies than Zerg," Edwood said slowly. "Humans are no less brutal than Zerg when slaughtering their own kind. The Federation has launched multiple full-scale crackdowns on the God Summoning Society but still failed to severely wound their core members. You can't afford to let your guard down."
"Let's return to the Spiritist Tournament," Edwood continued. "Your current combat experience is barely sufficient. You can compensate for the gaps with your divine power advantage. But if you want to win the championship in the finals, you'll need to invest a lot of energy and time into training your combat skills."
"Powerful divine power is an advantage, not combat strength itself."
"The numbers of the sub-stars represent resource rankings. Every year, the top 50 in the Spiritist Tournament finals come almost entirely from Central Star, with at most three or four exceptions from the First or Second Sub-Star."
"Your potential surpasses any genius that has emerged from the Seventh Sub-Star in recent years. But every year, the top 10 from the Seventh Sub-Star in the preliminaries are usually eliminated before reaching the top 100 in the finals."
"Your real opponents aren't on the Seventh Sub-Star."
"If one day I can beat you, does that mean I can win the Spiritist Tournament championship?" Chu Ran looked at Edwood and asked calmly.
"You're the first person to ask me that," Edwood said, lowering his head to think. "I've never participated in the Spiritist Tournament, but... yes."
"However, if you ever defeat me, then the Spiritist Tournament will no longer be your primary goal."
"It will be the Divine Tomb, which has never been fully explored by anyone."
Edwood's tone was calm, carrying an unassailable pride.
This was the confidence of a true expert.
Chu Ran stared at Edwood for a moment, then suddenly asked, "So back when you were at work, you were actually exploring the Divine Tomb?"
...
Edwood fell into a long silence.
Wasn't the focus wrong?
Although slacking off at work was an accepted practice, being asked about it now made him inexplicably uneasy.
"Was the former vice president really that good at hiding? None of you noticed anything unusual about him all these years?" Chu Ran continued.
Edwood fell silent again. This was the first time Chu Ran had brought up the mastermind behind the Zerg invasion.
He hadn't paid much attention to the former vice president of the Spiritist Association. Before coming to the Seventh Sub-Star, he had known his role: to be a powerful, imposing figurehead.
He didn't need to make any decisions—just use his strength to help the vice president establish a foothold on the Seventh Sub-Star.
The former vice president fit all of Edwood's assumptions about someone from a prominent family. Not strong enough, overly proud and confident, but adept at handling affairs and navigating relationships between various forces.
Edwood knew the former vice president was building his own power base, but that was exactly why Central Star had sent him there, so he didn't suspect a thing.
Someone like that would only be discovered when they had to choose between the Zerg and humanity.
Edwood had plausible reasons for not discovering the vice president was a Zerg spy, but he ultimately chose to apologize: "As the president, it was my failure."
"So why did he betray humanity?" Chu Ran finally asked the question she had pondered for a long time without finding an answer.
"Most who betray humanity do so because they lack sufficient strength, leading to hopelessness when they fall into trouble. In the end, they choose to side with the Zerg for personal gain, climbing over the corpses of their own kind."
Chu Ran smiled, a faint weariness in her eyes. "So what exactly did the Zerg promise him to make him betray humanity?"
Edwood paused for a moment, then finally decided to reveal something he shouldn't: "Central Star hasn't figured out when he became a Zerg spy."
"He had S-level spiritual power, an excellent family background, and smooth career progress. He had no obvious difficulties."
Chu Ran chuckled sarcastically. "So he's crazy?".
"And you sent a madman to be the vice president of the Seventh Sub-Star Spiritist Association?"
"No," Edwood said after a moment of silence, speaking slowly. "I watched the surveillance footage of him destroying the energy tower. It seemed less like his own decision and more like someone was controlling him."
"But for an S-level Spiritist to become an incubator for the Zerg, it must be voluntary. Otherwise, when they invoke the gods, the divine power would directly kill the eggs." Chu Ran countered.
Edwood nodded. "You're right, but I encountered a special incubator in the Divine Tomb who was unaware of becoming an incubator."
Chu Ran frowned slightly.
"If the eggs on him were from the Zerg Queen, it could defy the patterns humans have established." Edwood looked into Chu Ran's eyes.
This time, it was Chu Ran's turn to fall silent. After a long while, she spoke with a hint of disbelief, "You mean the Zerg Queen has infiltrated the Seventh Sub-Star?"
If the death scythe hanging over humanity had truly fallen on the Seventh Sub-Star, it would be a miracle that the sub-star hadn't been completely annihilated.
A miracle unprecedented since the dawn of time.
"I don't know," Edwood said, pressing down on his hat brim. "I've never seen the Zerg Queen, but the entity that sparked the Dark Age—no one in the Human Federation can withstand it."
"I'll send you the advanced combat technique instructional videos now. Train two hours every day. Now, let's practice with your divine power."