Apocalypse Villainess? Nah, I'm Nice

When others targeted Bloodfall, their goal obviously wasn’t the small base itself, but its food supply.

Paige Summers was well aware of this.

So, when she heard of the attack on the main gate, she first found Sean Raines before heading over. She told him to take some men and reinforce the team guarding the crop fields.

She and Marcus Monroe had once given the same order regarding the experimental fields in Norgate.

"Protect them if you can, but if you’re about to be overrun, destroy everything!"

Sean Raines understood immediately and went on his way.

He was rather arrogant at first, believing that with his skills, there was no way he’d let the enemy get the upper hand.

But he quickly realized things weren’t that simple.

The enemy was clearly the same group that had rendezvoused with Faye Webb before. Most of them had the Earth Element Power and were experts at surprise attacks.

They tunneled through the earth, as agile as moles.

If Levi Young hadn’t responded appropriately by preemptively scattering a superpower-suppressing drug around the perimeter of the fields, they might have actually succeeded this time!

The enemies affected by Levi Young’s drug were truly out of luck.

They had been happily tunneling through the earth, planning to grab enough crop seedlings and make a clean getaway.

Unfortunately for several of them, the drug took effect while their powers were only half-activated, leaving them stuck with the lower halves of their bodies still underground!

Now they were in a real pickle. They couldn’t retreat, nor could they advance. All they could do was wait to be captured alive.

But these men were frighteningly resolute.

The moment they saw they were trapped and couldn’t struggle free, they plunged curved daggers into their own chests and abdomens, killing themselves on the spot!

This made the Bloodfall Base members on site grit their teeth in hatred.

A few others were extremely cunning. Operating under the principle of "if I can’t have it, no one can," they actually managed to burn down a patch of nearly-ripe corn!

That was the fire Paige Summers and the others had seen.

Seeing that Mason Hayes’s front was at a stalemate—though thankfully not at a disadvantage—Paige Summers still couldn’t feel at ease about the crop fields. After telling the team on the watchtower to monitor the situation and be ready to provide support at any moment, she headed over there.

By then, the battle on Sean Raines’s front had been decided.

Two had escaped and the rest had committed suicide, but the enemy hadn’t gotten away with a single plant!

Paige Summers was reasonably satisfied with this outcome.

Sean Raines, however, gave a meaningful smile. "Quick, call over those team members you’ve been training separately. I’m taking them out. I’m sure we can find the nest of those ’moles’ this time!"

Paige’s heart stirred.

"Alright!"

She immediately sent for the eight team members she’d been giving special training to and placed them entirely under Sean Raines’s command.

Sean Raines placed a talisman paper on each of them. Soon after, under his lead, they scaled the wall and vanished without a trace.

Seeing them all leave, Levi Young, who was standing nearby, turned to her and sighed. "Let me take you back so you can rest."

Paige Summers thought for a moment. "I’ll wait in the main hall. The situation at the front gate should be resolved soon."

Levi Young knew she probably wouldn’t listen to any more persuasion, so he just pressed one of his medicine pills into her hand and supported her as they walked toward the front of the base.

After taking the restorative pill, Paige Summers felt much more at ease and couldn’t help but think about Sean Raines’s actions.

’He must have done something to the ones who escaped,’ she thought. ’Otherwise, how could he possibly track them when they’re already so far away?’

’That guy really is cunning.’

’He even knows all the details about the people I’ve been training in private.’

In truth, she had started training them a while before Marcus Monroe had left.

It wasn’t so much training as it was just passing on some of her experience.

Speed Superpower Users were not uncommon in the base.

The eight she had chosen weren’t the most exceptional among them, but they were definitely the ones with the most natural aptitude.

She valued their potential more than their current Superpower Rank.

As she herself had a Speed Superpower, she had distilled a vast amount of experience from countless battles. Every offensive dash and every defensive retreat held its own lessons. Some combat techniques would take a long time to figure out on one’s own, but once someone explained them, they seemed perfectly logical. She understood this well, so whenever she had a spare moment, she gathered them together and taught them everything she knew.

The Speed Superpower might seem common, but when used well, it was in no way inferior to a Natural Ability.

As they often say in martial arts novels, in all the world’s techniques, only speed is unbeatable.

There was a reason for that.

Because of her pregnancy, Paige Summers couldn’t exert herself too much, so she had come up with this method to compensate for the base’s weakness in this area.

Sean Raines’s mission now gave them a chance to test what they had learned.

With this matter settled, Paige Summers could relax a little.

All that remained was the matter of the Zombie that resembled May Joyce.

Aware of her own physical condition, Paige Summers didn’t try to push herself by going up to the watchtower. Instead, she gave Levi Young a few instructions and had him go in her place. She, meanwhile, sat and waited in the base’s front hall, taking the opportunity to rest.

Wendy Lowell received word and hurried over.

A mother’s heart is never at ease. Even though Paige had insisted she remain in her quarters, how could she possibly stay put!

When Wendy sat down beside her, Paige didn’t say much, just offered a small smile.

At that moment, she recalled what Maisie Joyce had said before and finally believed it: this monster had to be the one that caused the commotion in Southreach.

As for how it got here, and why it was so fearless in its attempts to break down the gate... it must have been controlled by someone. They were creating a diversion at the front, trying to lure the tiger from the mountain, to create an opportunity for the others who wanted to raid the crop fields.

They just thought the people of Bloodfall were far too stupid!

’Did they really think we couldn’t see through a trick like that?’

Paige Summers sighed to herself.

’I just wonder if Mason Hayes can capture it,’ she mused. ’And that superpower it has...’

A few strange thoughts flickered through Paige Summers’s mind.

Half an hour passed. A team member came to report that the monster was injured, but it had only seemed to make it go berserk. The base had to send two more squads as reinforcements.

An hour later, before another report could arrive, a wave of cheers erupted from the main gate!

Paige Summers froze for a moment. Finally, the weight in her heart lifted.

She got up and walked outside.

The monster had actually been captured alive. It appeared to be unconscious but was still bound head to toe in chains. Several team members escorted it before Paige Summers and threw it onto the ground. Capturing it had cost the base five members, with another seven seriously injured and over a dozen lightly wounded. Even Mason Hayes had taken a hard blow to his side... the losses were truly significant.

The injured would be alright; with Levi Young around, their lives weren’t in danger. But the five team members who had died could never be brought back.

At this thought, everyone looked at the monster with eyes full of hatred.

The atmosphere within Bloodfall Base had always been close-knit. Many of the members who trained together had developed a brotherly bond.

How could they not hate the thing that had killed their brothers-in-arms?

Paige Summers’s expression was just as solemn. She took a few steps closer to look at the monster on the ground.

Its face was now in full view.

Aside from its skin tone and a slight distortion of its facial structure, the features were unmistakably May Joyce’s!

Paige Summers felt a complex mix of emotions.

May Joyce must have been unwilling to go along with Leo Joyce’s plan. That much was clear from the plot she and Maisie Joyce had hatched; she truly just wanted to die.

But in the end, Leo Joyce had turned her into... this.

She didn’t know what could have possibly possessed Leo Joyce to do such a thing, but she found his intentions utterly disgusting.

’If the real May Joyce had any awareness of this,’ Paige thought, ’she must be in agony!’

"Can it speak?"

"It hasn’t said a word, just keeps roaring. It doesn’t seem to have any intelligence," a team member answered.

Paige Summers nodded. "Find a place to lock her up for now."

Later, once Levi Young had finished his work, she went to find him.

"You should study that monster."

"Is that the one from Southreach?" Levi Young asked thoughtfully. "Then what Maisie Joyce said was true? Leo Joyce really had someone modify May Joyce’s corpse?"

"It seems so. But something about it still doesn’t add up..."

"Leave it to me. I’m also very curious about its mutation process," Levi Young said, his eyes lighting up.

Paige Summers went with Levi Young to the place where it was being held.

It was a cell the base had specially constructed after the incident with Faye Webb, and it was extremely secure.

The monster’s hands and feet were bound in chains and secured separately to an iron pillar.

Seeing the scene, Paige Summers was vaguely reminded of Silas Dudley’s underground laboratory, and she felt a momentary daze.

Just then, the monster, which had been unconscious, suddenly opened its eyes!

Its eyes were extremely murky, the eyeballs bulged partially from their sockets, and they were shot with blood. It looked much uglier now than when it was unconscious, and less like May Joyce.

It stared intently at Paige Summers, as if she were the only person in its line of sight.

Paige’s heart skipped a beat. She called out tentatively, "May Joyce?"

The monster’s eyeballs swiveled as if a switch had been flipped. After a long moment, it suddenly spoke, managing to form a sentence. "You... are Paige Summers... You’re still alive..." Its voice was slurred and indistinct, but both Paige and Levi Young understood. They exchanged a look, a flicker of shock in their eyes.

Paige thought for a moment, then suddenly smiled. "Of course I’m alive. I’m doing just fine. You, on the other hand..." She deliberately looked it up and down, her tone mocking. "You look truly miserable! Being a Zombie can’t be much fun, can it?"

The monster took a few ragged breaths and said haltingly, "I... will kill you... sooner or later... You shouldn’t have appeared. If... not for you... he would be mine. Together, we will lead the army of the undead... and sweep away everything... The place by his side... is mine..."

Paige Summers suddenly froze.

’Army of the undead... May Joyce would never say something like that!’

’But... back in that unforgettable underground tunnel in Norgate, the zombified Nora Lowell had used those exact words to try and sway Marcus Monroe!’

How could she ever forget? Because of that, she had doubted Marcus Monroe and left on her own.

Only later did she find out just how difficult that time had been for him...

She had regretted it countless times, berating herself for being so selfish and reckless!

Without realizing it, a fine layer of sweat had broken out on her back. "You’re... Nora Lowell... You’re not May Joyce. You’re Nora Lowell!!!"

The monster bared its teeth, its lips twisting into a grotesque smile.

"May Joyce... was an idiot... But me... I am eternal..."

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