After the Shadow Creeper fell, Louis and the others did not continue fighting.

Louis and his men need to conserve their fighting strength and cannot go all out.

While taking a nap in an open space, Louis threw a water bag to Alice and said, "You haven't been like yourself lately."

Alice licked her lips, unscrewed the lid, and drank a few gulps of water before saying, "What's similar or different?"

Louis snorted lightly, "The Alice I know is the kind of top hunter who is willing to challenge strong enemies. Now you have restrained your edge a little."

Alice said dissatisfiedly: "How can you be restrained? I have sparred with you a lot in the academy..."

“Does sparring with me count as sparring with a strong enemy?” Louis said with a smile, “It’s not that I look down on myself, but without Rimuru, there is no chance that I can defeat you.”

Alice laughed and said:

"You can't defeat me even if you use it."

Louis said, "But it won't fail, right?"

Alice spread her hands and said, "So, do you think too little of yourself?"

Louis shook his head:

"It's different. Although you and I are roughly equal in combat power now, Rimuru is an external object, not my own strength."

"For you, relying on external things and being crushed by your peers with hard power are two different concepts."

"Alice, after killing the Sapphire Dragon, you... lost your motivation to move forward, right?"

Alice was silent for a while, then sighed and said, "It is true to some extent. After killing the sapphire dragon, I felt as if I had put down the burden of the past few years."

“But it seems like we’ve lost our way a bit.”

Louis thought for a moment, hesitated and said:

"You didn't realize a problem, did you?"

"What's the problem?"

"Your enemy is not dead yet."

"???"

She laughed out loud. "Are you kidding me? That sapphire dragonlet was eaten clean by your Rimuru."

Louis shook his head and said:

"Do you think I would joke about this?"

Gradually, the smile on Alice's face disappeared.

"So you didn't notice..."

Louis sighed softly.

Alice frowned slightly and said:

"Tell me about it."

Louis patted Rimuru next to him and said, "Have you heard about the incident at the National Waste Treatment Plant?"

“Yes.”

"Rimuru performed brilliantly at the waste treatment plant, digesting a large amount of magical waste and successfully suppressing this matter. Guess what he did it with."

Alice said honestly: "You mentioned to me that it was a miracle created by relying on [Iron Stomach] and [Pica], plus the characteristics of Rimuru's own slime."

"Right, I told you the sources of these two abilities before."

Alice paused.

The next moment, his eyes began to turn red.

In an instant, a thread connected all the clues in her mind.

She reviewed what happened to the original Moonlight Cat Group.

Back then, the Moonlight Cat Group was mainly engaged in missions of capturing monsters.

The original intention of the Cat Group was because the old leader Teach Rausing and other members liked to raise some docile monsters.

Therefore, most of the missions they took on back then were to capture monsters.

In this field, they are considered minor experts.

However, on that day, the nightmare began.

On their way back, they were attacked crazily by unknown monsters from underground.

There were no signs.

Alice watched helplessly as her companions were impaled in mid-air by the spikes that rose from the ground, and watched as the flying rocks directly blew the heads of the people she was familiar with one by one.

The wails of my companions before their death continued.

Even the smoke couldn't stop the spurting blood, which splashed on her cheek.

That day, she saw a slowly crawling shadow amidst the smoke.

It was a creature that looked like a dragon, and the cold breathing sound it emitted had woken her up countless times in the silent night.

This was an extremely painful blow to her.

Indeed, before becoming adventurers, many people have already prepared themselves to die like weeds in the wind without anyone paying attention to them.

It's easy to make money, but easy to spend it.

This is the habit of adventurers. Whenever they accept a high-risk mission, it is very common to die at the hands of the mission target.

But the annihilation of the Moonlit Cat Group was different.

The Moonlight Cat Group is not an adventure group that makes a living by conquering enemies. Most of the time, they accept missions to capture monsters. Group leader Teach will also carefully select the targets to be captured and is never greedy.

Therefore, they will hardly encounter conflicts with other teams and get involved in power struggles.

But on their way back from completing their mission, they were attacked by a dragon.

Being attacked by a dragon and being attacked by a monster are two different concepts.

Although you will be unhappy when being attacked by monsters, you will just think that it is your bad luck to encounter a monster like a mad dog.

But dragons...are not monsters!

They are an intelligent race like humans.

Being killed by a dragon, or being killed for no reason, this is a blood feud.

If I get the chance, I will definitely take revenge.

Coincidentally, she has this talent.

Hone your martial arts, upgrade your levels, and vent your past cowardice and fear in constant battles.

She had been sharpening the knife for three years just for that day.

The moment she killed the sapphire dragonet, she completed three years of tracing back to the source, cut off the nightmare, and saved the helpless self from three years ago.

But why? Why didn't she notice the time difference? There was a huge misunderstanding that made her misunderstand why the Sapphire Dragon attacked the Moonlight Cats.

She originally thought that this guy was simply warlike and bloodthirsty.

Looking back now, it wasn’t quite right.

From a time perspective, their journey from departure to their annihilation can basically be attributed to the following steps.

①Accept the hunting mission

②Go to the Smoky Mountains ③Complete the mission and return

④ Picked up Rimuru from the past ⑤ Passed through the Dragon Bone Grassland ⑥ Suddenly attacked

⑦ Almost wiped out

The key point is, ④ I picked up Rimuru from that year!

Rimuru acquired pica and an iron stomach early on.

This at least shows that Rimuru had already digested the flesh and blood of the sapphire dragonet at that time and accidentally obtained the dragonet's abilities.

If the young dragon was still alive at the time, he would never have allowed Rimuru to devour his flesh and blood.

In other words, there is only one answer: the Sapphire Dragonette was already dead when they picked up Rimuru.

"Why…why didn't I realize that?"

From the fact that the zombie dragons have not appeared again, but are fighting with the zombies in the underground of the Dragon Bone Grassland, at least one thing can be seen -

The Sapphire Dragon has a clear concept of friend and foe.

However, for the young dragon that had just been resurrected as a zombie, judging from various previous classics, the young dragon was either out of control or being controlled.

And either way, the Sapphire Dragonlet could not be considered the culprit for the death of her companion.

It was just a weapon being held, no different from the kukri in her hand.

Louis took off his helmet, patted her on the shoulder and said, "Actually, you've already realized it, but you've been tired over the past few years."

Alice lowered her head: "I don't know."

Louis glanced at her.

Alice was indeed very tired.

What Louis didn't say is that Alice's intensity in recent years might have been too high.

The most straightforward example is the students at St. Louis College who have interacted with Alice. They should all be well aware of her talent.

But they believe that no matter how strong Alice has become in recent years, she can only be between LV7 and LV8 at most.

But in fact, when Louis met Alice, she was already level 9.

After the battle at Dragon Bone Grassland, she let go of her worries and was directly promoted to LV10 with her profound foundation. She even has a tendency to become a model now.

Does this mean that St. Louis students have poor vision? No, quite the opposite.

After Louis's trip to St. Louis, he was indeed enlightened by these new generation of pillars of the empire.

Different from myself.

He had never dealt with those students before, and the students didn't know his situation and had no clear understanding of his talents and strengths.

But they communicated with Alice a lot back then.

But Alice's current achievements have exceeded the students' cognition.

This is not so much her giftedness, but rather——

She worked very hard to achieve growth beyond others' understanding.

But, even if the body is like steel, the heart will get tired.

She is really tired.

When I finally relax after being so tired, I lose motivation.

If possible, he didn't want his somewhat sick friend to continue to be tired, but he knew that being listless was not what she wanted.

Her current condition is even worse than that of the students in the academy.

"The Rudelson Organization is the mastermind behind the Dragon Bone Prairie incident. Remember them, they are your enemy."

Alice nodded, and then said speechlessly:

"You guy, I finally got a break, but you turned up the intensity so quickly?"

But she wasn't angry.

In fact, even if Louis didn't say it, she would realize it herself after a while.

The gap between geniuses and ordinary people may not just be talent.

Some people are born with clear goals and strong self-awareness, and can effectively transform goals into motivation for progress.

But Louis still woke her up in advance.

Because...

The corners of his mouth slightly raised:

"Do you feel the pressure from the enemy? There are legends in their organization."

Alice said calmly: "Indeed, the pressure is very high, but it doesn't matter."

"Well, it doesn't matter."

The two looked at each other and smiled.

Alice said calmly: "In this millennium, I will be a legend."

Louis also said: "Coincidentally, I think I am too."

The two looked at each other, and their gazes seemed to ignite sparks.

Alice gritted her teeth and said, "Then I will become a legend in this hundred years."

Louis spread his hands and said, "Be brave, I think 50 years is about right!"

"Then I'll take 30 years!"

"My 20 years!"

“My 10 years!”

"I……"

At this point, both of them laughed out loud.

As she laughed, Alice felt the depression in her heart disappear.

She looked at Louis: "Thank you."

Louis challenged, "Don't thank me. I just hope I won't feel so lonely on the road ahead."

"You should accept my thanks."

"Okay, okay, I'll bear it, but you don't have to be so stressed."

Louis' eyes flashed with an obscure light, and he said in a deep voice:

"The Rudelson Organization is also an enemy that I want to eliminate. Just follow me and follow my footsteps."

Under normal circumstances, Alice's personality would not allow her to withstand such provocation.

But at this moment, she quietly lowered her head and said "hmm" in a low voice.

Under Louis' suspicious gaze, she licked her lips again and silently changed her words: "I will leave you far behind."

"That's right..."

Louis' expression suddenly froze.

At this moment, his hunting sense, which had been normally activated, frantically warned him.

The sense of crisis that made his heart beat wildly made his heart beat faster.

An indescribable chill came over me.

With a bang.

He didn't even have time to see the enemy clearly before a huge force from the sword slashed at him, knocking his body away.

He stared with wide eyes at the attacker who suddenly appeared.

At this moment, the flow of time in the whole world seemed to slow down.

He saw that Alice's expression of joy was not yet fading but was now filled with surprise.

I saw Olivia's horrified look as she raised her staff.

I saw the confusion in Grace's eyes.

The world became quiet at this moment, and even the sounds made became distorted.

"Steel Soul Style: Time Stop?!"

The ninth-level martial arts of the Sword of Military Path and the Sword of Sage.

One of the ultimate powers of the basic profession.

A supreme martial art that interferes with the main material world with an iron will and partially freezes the movement of space.

The Stars version of the Heaven-Destroying Sword Twenty-Three.

This is the ninth level martial arts time stop.

But the next moment.

A bright green shock wave spread out instantly.

The little swan used some unknown means to instantly cancel the time stop.

"Louis, run!"

The little swan cried out in panic.

At this moment, Louis felt cold all over.

Is this force the madman who attacked the little swan before they ran to the Shadowfall? No, they are really not afraid of the Emperor's attack, right? Another lackey sent by the Abyss Church? Are these people crazy? The Emperor in the form of the Black Sun is still watching from the sky! Louis had no time to think about the details.

He shouted: "Rimuru!"

In an instant, Rimuru, who received Louis’ order, raised his hand at the same time as him.

The scorching rays of transmutation magic were activated simultaneously, instantly focusing on the attacking figure from two different directions.

2 spells, a total of six chain rays, converged on the attacker.

The blood energy in his body, which was as condensed as blood, seemed to be evaporated at this moment, and the blood energy rose like mist.

In this brief pause, a shadow was cast on the attacker, and the sparks from the collision of swords made a harsh echo.

In just this moment, the battle became intense.

"Damn it, at this speed... I can only fight back!"

Olivia raised her hand and threw her original magic [Existence Weakening] at Grace.

Originally, the little swan wanted to call everyone to run together, but looking at the situation, anyone who dared to run would be killed immediately.

She glanced at the attacker's face and shouted, "Louis, that's the living dead!"

"Please, the future Libra Saint!"

"If you were smart, you would know that I'm not shouting at Huoguo, but reminding you to be prepared!"

"The weakening of your existence will make him ignore your existence temporarily. You only have one chance to inflict heavy damage on him!"

They don't have many means to deal with this level of zombies now.

Fortunately, there is a blessed future saint here.

Her power, even at its lowest level, has a considerable degree of restraint on evil creatures.

Suddenly.

Grace raised her head.

She understood.

A hint of joy flashed in the little swan's eyes.

As expected of the future Libra Saint, she is indeed reliable at critical moments.

But she didn't notice that the monster, which was sent flying by Alice's sword because time was forcibly interrupted, raised its face at this moment.

Alice, who was originally preparing to fight back, seemed to be stepping on glue and froze for a moment.

"Teacher Roger?"

This slow movement caused her sword to miss.

Alice looked in that direction with heavy eyes.

Why.

Why him?

【Flop Diary】

There is one more chapter at 1 o'clock, I am rushing 　　 　 (this chapter is finished)