Chapter 131: Shocking!
Twenty elites waited silently in the darkness of the early morning. Their highly specialized team had a singular mission: execute a surprise assault against one of the largest ancient variant camps within the trial grounds.
The main objective of the raid was to kill the heads of the camp, further weakening the ancient variants’ standing and expanding the human boundary into the deep interior of Australia.
According to intelligence gathered by Mateo’s advanced scouts, a major ancient variant general was confirmed to be stationed inside the camp.
Uhtred had already claimed that target for himself. He would face the general alone, while the rest of the human powerhouses coordinated to tackle the remaining high-level variants within the camp.
Right now, they were simply waiting for the last members of the strike force to arrive before commencing the operation.
Uhtred sat especially patient, staring at the distant camp from their vantage point atop a tall rocky formation.
Despite how high and seemingly open they were, the human strike force was shielded from any prying eyes watching from the camp.
The rocky formations offered plenty of nooks and crannies that hid them completely, working in perfect conjunction with the deep shadows of the early dawn.
They had chosen to station themselves this far back to prevent any enemy who had taken up Uhtred’s bounty from spotting him on their map interface.
According to the plan, Uhtred would be the last person to charge toward the camp, because the moment he stepped close, every ancient variant inside would notice his presence and become alert.
As he sat in his corner, tracking the movement of the ancient men patrolling in the far distance below, various strategic thoughts flickered through his mind.
Uhtred found himself analyzing the strange location of the camp. It was surprising that these ancient variants had chosen to make their camp within the boundary of the human barrier instead of further ahead, where humans could not yet advance and where the edge of their own barrier lay.
But at the same time, the location of the camp also made perfect sense. This was the exact force responsible for terrorizing humans as they migrated across the desert over the last forty-eight hours.
They were the source of the brutal intercept strategies, spearheaded directly by the Homo erectus General rumored to be in command of this camp.
According to their scouts, the Homo erectus General regularly shuttled back and forth between this camp and the others deeper into ancient-variant territory beyond the reach of humans.
Right now, if their intelligence was correct, the Homo erectus General was inside the camp. And Uhtred had zero intention of letting him leave alive.
His eyes turned cold. He tore his gaze away from the distant camp and looked at the surrounding members of the strike force who would be going into battle with him.
As his eyes lazily crossed over the group, several of the high-level ascenders acknowledged his gaze with quiet nods, curious stares, or subtle, unreadable expressions.
For the vast majority of these regional leaders, this was the first time they were seeing the legendary number one human in person. After all, Uhtred had not visited all of the camps during his two-day execution campaign.
Still, every single person here knew his name, and being in the presence of the Level 23 anomaly, they couldn’t help but subtly compare themselves, trying to weigh where they stood compared to him.
Uhtred took the silent scrutiny in stride. He let out a short, quiet sigh inside his mind as he leaned his back against a boulder.
Over the last two days, a small point of personal frustration had lingered in the back of his mind: not a single member of his crew had appeared to join him.
He had calculated that by day three, either Zara, Diya, or Dennis would have managed to navigate the migration paths and find him. But so far, he had received zero direct contact from them.
Zara was the only one whose name he had even heard a whisper of over the past few days.
There were people who claimed to have seen her based on Uhtred’s description. In fact, she had been very close to his location at one point, just several hundred miles away, and he was sure she knew he was that close...
But for some reason she hadn’t come.
Still, based on her rapid climb up the trial rankings, Uhtred knew that wherever she was, she was dealing serious damage to the ancient variants.
Right now, she sat at number 22 on the trial rankings, while Uhtred himself had moved up to number 13. She was indisputably the second-highest ranked human in the entire trial.
Thinking about her position, Uhtred casually swiped his hand through the air, pulling up the ranking interface to check if any changes had occurred while they waited.
He browsed through the list, his eyes tracking down the numbers. He noticed that Zara’s name had shifted down one spot, moving from number 22 to number 23.
He raised a brow slightly at the shift but wasn’t particularly surprised. In a trial with more than a million participants, a minor fluctuation of one rank was standard. It wasn’t nearly enough to startle him.
So instead of closing the panel, he casually scrolled upward, wanting to see exactly which ancient variant powerhouse had managed to insert themselves above her and force the drop.
He scanned past number 21. Then number 20.
His brows slowly knitted together as he realized the names occupying those slots still belonged to the same high-level ancient variants that had held them before.
That meant the ancient variant who had climbed had done so very high up the list, enough to shift several people down.
At that realization, Uhtred’s interest was completely piqued. His lazy demeanor vanished. He sat up straighter in his rocky corner and scanned higher up the rankings, moving past number 19, then 18, all the way to the number 15 slot...
But he still didn’t see a single unfamiliar name.
At this point, Uhtred was thoroughly shocked. His face turned entirely serious.
The name currently sitting at number 15 was the one that had previously been at number 14, right below his. He flicked his gaze up to the next slot and found his own name staring back at him...
He had dropped to rank 14.
What the fuck...? Who the hell is this person?
His fingers rapidly swiped the interface as his eyes tore upward. He looked at number 13 and found the previous number 12 variant sitting there.
He kept moving up with increasing urgency, passing the top 10 and reaching number 7, occupied by Krijn, the Neanderthal general, who had previously gained rank up to number 6.
Then, finally, his eyes stopped on a foreign name among the top five, sitting exactly at number 5.
But as Uhtred stared at the name in that fifth spot, his brain seemed to short-circuit for a moment. His thoughts went completely blank. Then his expression widened in disbelief.
What the hell did she possibly do to climb all the way up there...?!
Floating right there at number 5 on the trial rankings, comfortably among the most monstrous ancient variant generals... was Diya’s name.
