Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 401 – I Really Want to Slap the Crap Out of Him

As the spatial membrane blocking the passage completely dissipated, a massive, deep rift tore open above the plaza.

Violent spatial storms raged at both ends of the channel.

At the very moment the Rift officially opened, on one side within the otherworldly passage, a small Space Gate opened without any warning. Hundreds upon hundreds of grotesque low-level Mutated Beasts, as if driven by some unseen force, surged eagerly into the main channel of the Rift.

“Found it!” Zhou Ming shouted, his eyes snapping open as a brilliant silver light—the signature of Spatial Ability—surged within them.

Without hesitation, he thrust both hands forward, pushing his Spatial Ability to its absolute limit. Invisible Spatial Ripples extended wildly along the faint traces left by the surging Mutated Beasts, like a massive net, locking tightly onto that fragile thread of coordinate clues.

He began focusing all his power on pinpointing the exact location at the other end of that small Space Gate.

Those around him didn’t even dare to breathe.

Time ticked by, minute after minute.

Ten minutes later, Zhou Ming lowered his hands, gasping for air in heavy breaths.

His face was deathly pale from the extreme overexertion of his ability, and he could barely stand steady, yet his eyes burned with extraordinary brightness.

“Lily, I’ve locked the coordinates.” Zhou Ming pointed at the data just secured on the instrument in his hand. “It’s hidden deep. The location is in a desolate zone roughly thirty thousand kilometers from our Azurewood City.”

“Well done.” Lin Fan nodded but didn’t rush to issue combat orders. “Memorize those coordinates first. For now, don’t do anything—don’t tip them off. Everything waits until I return from Blue Star to deal with them.”

“Understood.” Zhou Ming quickly operated the equipment, encrypting the coordinate point with multiple layers of security.

With business settled, Lin Fan lowered her gaze to her feet, clad in high heels.

The freshly applied cherry-black nail polish gleamed under the somewhat dim otherworldly sunlight, lending her already translucent, fair skin an eerily striking visual edge.

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“This color grows on me the more I look at it.” Lin Fan remarked casually, her tone utterly relaxed—showing no sign of the tension one would expect before a cross-world battle.

Today, she maintained her flawless goddess-like haute couture appearance. The smoky-colored long skirt swayed gently in the breeze, and half of her white hair was pinned up with a jade hairpin.

“I’m off. Azurewood City is in your hands.”

Lin Fan lifted her leg, stepping in those slender white strapped high heels into the Rift brimming with violent energy.

The nauseating, dizzying sensations that once made her want to vomit now didn’t even register as a tickle against her divine body, tempered through countless trials.

Her pristine white figure vanished completely into the depths of the channel.

——————

Two days earlier, at the Blue Star Western Sichuan Plateau Base.

Inside the main command center.

Chu Chen squatted utterly gracelessly on the wide office chair.

His messy short hair looked like a bird’s nest, and two heavy dark circles hung beneath his pale face, making him resemble a severely addicted young gamer.

In his left hand, he held a marker, scribbling and sketching on a map, while his right hand continuously grabbed high-calorie chocolate balls from a jar beside him, shoving them into his mouth without pause.

“Commander Chu, Azurewood City is already Lei Jie’s absolute territory. I get that we’re on the front lines here, but do we really need this insane level of firepower coverage?” Chen Mo stood off to the side, holding a thick stack of defense deployment documents.

Chen Mo had already stepped back to a secondary role. Ever since that incident where the Federation’s scheming caused his mutation and Lin Fan had to force-feed him Holy Water to drag him back from the brink, he’d come to terms with his own limitations.

He’d voluntarily handed over supreme command of the Western Sichuan base and now mainly handled training new recruits.

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“You always have to keep a card up your sleeve.” Chu Chen crunched down on a piece of chocolate. “The Dragon Clan isn’t that easy to deal with. And besides, those old farts in the Federation are only more treacherous than the dragons. Guaranteeing that nothing can go wrong—that’s my bottom line when it comes to doing things.”

Chu Chen tapped the red dot marking the Western Sichuan base on the map hard with his pen.

The two were in the middle of discussing supply allocation when a wave of laughter suddenly erupted from the training grounds outside the door.

It was lunch break.

Lu Yuan sat perched on a stack of stacked supply crates, legs crossed, spittle flying as he shot the breeze with a bunch of veteran roughnecks and new recruits alike.

Lu Yuan was riding high these days—he’d been officially appointed by Chu Chen as the overall captain of the Western Sichuan defense forces.

As a mid-Level 6 Light-attribute Ability User, he could basically walk all over anyone in this base.

“Hey, come on over and listen to this. Back in the other dimension, at that so-called Death Swamp, Lei Jie really ran into a tough nut!” Lu Yuan slapped his thigh, telling the story with vivid flair and not a hint of embarrassment. “That big lizard named Long Jingtian—you heard of him? A Level 7 Pureblood Dragon Clan! Do you have any idea what Level 7 even means? That thing sneezes and it’d turn you greenhorns into a fine paste.”

A group of low-ranking soldiers gathered below, lunchboxes in hand, craning their necks and listening with rapt bewilderment.

“So what happened then? Lei Jie’s so badass, she must’ve wiped the floor with him, right?” A new recruit asked with eager curiosity.

“Wiped the floor, my ass!” Lu Yuan snorted, chin raised high, face dripping with pride. “Lei Jie was getting pushed around by that thing too—it was a dire situation! Black killing aura filled the entire sky. At a moment like that, could I just stand there and watch? Absolutely not!”

Lu Yuan stood up and made an exaggerated explosion gesture with both hands.

“I let out a mighty roar and turned my whole body into a blinding beam of light, crashing down from the sky! One move—Radiant Glory—and I helped Lei Jie drive back that Level 7 Dragon Clan! The sight was so bright it practically blinded those snakes on the other side!”

He paused, smugly rubbing his nose before continuing his tall tale: “Because of that whole affair, Lei Jie has absolute respect for my combat ability.”

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A burly veteran beside him quickly sidled up, fawningly offering a cigarette: “Captain, you’re one hell of a badass! So did Lei Jie give you a proper reward afterward?”

“Reward? She’s more of a headache than anything.” Lu Yuan took the cigarette and lit it, putting on an expression of extreme vexation. “It’s precisely because she respects me so much that whenever she has free time, she drags me into sparring sessions.”

Lu Yuan blew out a smoke ring and sighed. “You all be the judge here. I’m a grown man—how could I possibly get into a life-or-death fight with a woman? If my fist slipped and I didn’t hold back enough, and ended up hurting Lei Jie or leaving a scar on that face of hers, wouldn’t that be just awful? So I had no choice but to keep pulling my punches while sparring with her.”

“So what ended up happening?” the people below asked, growing impatient.

Lu Yuan slapped his thigh, his face full of indignation. “What do you think happened! I was being magnanimous and letting her have her way the whole time, but Lei Jie just took full advantage of it! She spotted an opening I’d left, and kicked me straight in the face—planted her foot right on this handsome mug of mine!”

The moment those words left his mouth, the training ground—which had been noisy just seconds before—fell into a bizarre three seconds of silence.

Then, in perfect unison, the throats of all those grown men around him rolled in a heavy gulp.

Gulp.

The eyes that bulged wide weren’t filled with sympathy for Lu Yuan’s plight at all—they were filled with naked, unconcealed envy and jealousy.

“Stepped on the face…” The old soldier who’d handed him the cigarette stared blankly, almost drooling.

That was Lei Jie—the one whose beauty was simply unbelievable!

Lu Yuan, completely oblivious to the increasingly twisted looks around him, kept right on playing the victim and airing his grievances.

“None of you have ever experienced Lei Jie’s temper—she’s absolutely vicious on a normal day! All I did was run my mouth a little.”

Lu Yuan pointed at his own mouth, his tone as exaggerated as it could possibly be. “She got annoyed having me yapping next to her. Without a word, right in front of me, she peeled off the stocking she was wearing and stuffed it in my mouth to shut me up!”

Another collective gasp rose from the crowd below. Several soldiers with weaker composure had already started rubbing their hands together.

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“You have no idea what that thing smelled like!” Lu Yuan thumped his chest in anguish as he complained. “God, it was so bad I couldn’t even eat for days afterward!”

The crowd erupted.

Two young soldiers hiding at the very back huddled together, whispering to each other while glancing at Lu Yuan.

“I’m honestly jealous of that bastard. I want to taste Lei Jie’s stocking too.”

“Look at him, acting all tough with that pathetic attitude of his. If it were me getting my face stepped on by Lei Jie, I’d lick the bottom of her foot clean on the spot. If he weren’t higher ranked than me and our squad leader, I’d go up there right now and slap the hell out of him.”

Lu Yuan was still up there, rattling on endlessly about how he’d fought tooth and nail and never backed down.

At that very moment, the outermost perimeter of the sensory alert line on the plateau gave a faint tremor.

Just once. Extremely light.

The sentry stationed at that section assumed the wind had picked something up and didn’t even raise an eyelid.

But out in the wasteland at the edge of the plateau, ten dark silhouettes had come to a stop.

The one in the lead raised a hand, and the figures behind him crouched down in silence.

The way they set down their feet was different from ordinary humans—too precise, too quiet. Every step hugged the ground, carrying no excess vibration.

The heartbeat that an ordinary Lifeform should have, the body heat signature that should register—at this moment, they vanished completely from the sensory scan.

Ten people, as if they had never been there at all.