“Jiu Ge…”

“Brothers and sisters.” Qiao Jiajin looked around at everyone. “I did think of this matter too simply, but there’s no time to admit mistakes now. I have a new plan.”

Everyone now stood with difficulty on the ground, looking at him.

This man before them had once, like the sun, single-handedly crushed three stars. At this point, they could only count on his plan.

After all, this wasn’t a test of strategy. If even this man couldn’t solve it, no matter how good other people’s minds were, they would have no place to use them.

“Jiu Ge… just tell us,” Bai Jiu said, clutching her aching chest.

“I will do my utmost to protect this cart,” Qiao Jiajin said. “But this time I don’t dare say I can ‘protect everyone.’ I can only guarantee that the person riding the cart won’t be eliminated. As for the others…”

“Isn’t that enough?” Bai Jiu interrupted. “As long as we can protect the cart rider from being eliminated, we’ll win this game.”

“But you all might die…” Qiao Jiajin said through gritted teeth. “I really hate this feeling—not being able to protect the people around me. In the past, no matter what moment, as long as someone dared to touch my people, I would definitely repay them double. But this time, the gap between me and those monsters is too great…”

After hearing this, Bai Jiu rubbed her chest, then forced out a sweet smile. “Jiu Ge, are you silly? Haven’t you been protecting us all along?”

After hearing this, Qiao Jiajin paused for a few seconds, then nodded coldly. “I’ll continue to do my utmost from now on.”

Everyone reformed their formation and continued pushing the cart forward.

After just a few steps, Ning Shiba gave everyone a look. “They’re coming…”

Everyone immediately stopped the cart and prepared for battle.

“Whoosh”!!

“Bang”!

Two stone balls collided and shattered in mid-air. Sand and stones exploded and flew chaotically in the air. Everyone felt they could barely keep their eyes open.

Because the stone balls flew so fast, Qiao Jiajin had no time at all to run to everyone’s side to block them.

This time, Qiu Ershi and Yun Shijiu, who had prepared in advance, barely managed to block the stone balls. The others were hit again.

Feng Shiqi was hit directly in the back by a stone ball that came from somewhere. She had never imagined these balls could have such strong force. Her whole body ran forward several steps uncontrollably and was about to fall to the ground. But where she was about to fall was a row of extremely sharp broken glass.

“Ah! Flash girl!!” Qiao Jiajin shouted loudly. “Watch out!”

In an instant, Feng Shiqi had a thought—she was going to die. If she fell face-first into this glass, what were her chances of survival?

In just one second, she almost reviewed her entire life.

She still didn’t have an “Echo.” Was she going to forget everything now?

Would all her accumulated memories about the “Land of Doom” disappear?

Just as she was about to fall, she suddenly remembered what Qiao Jiajin had said before the game started.

“Everyone, when you feel you’re about to fall, try to curl up your body and push off with your legs to make yourself leap forward.”

Feng Shiqi tried everything as a last resort. She immediately adjusted the position of her legs. In a split second, she bent her knees and pushed hard against the ground. She instantly leaped forward several dozen centimeters and lifted both legs as high as possible in the air to avoid the glass.

But Feng Shiqi wasn’t a combat-type team member after all. Her body flew over the broken glass, and one leg was raised high, but when landing, the other leg was uncontrollable and directly landed on the glass.

“Ugh!!” She groaned but immediately suppressed her scream in her throat.

“Shiqi Jie!”

Qiu Ershi and Yun Shijiu hurried forward to check on her condition. The glass on the ground seemed randomly placed, but upon careful observation, they would discover that the glass had been specially ground into beveled edges specifically for piercing into bodies.

Qiao Jiajin looked at her with lingering fear, but at the same moment, he noticed Ning Shiba beside him.

From Qiao Jiajin’s perspective, she clearly wouldn’t be hit by the stone ball, yet she turned her body and used her ribs to catch the stone ball.

At that moment, the stone ball was almost completely embedded in her body, as if it had shattered her ribs. Her entire side abdomen completely caved in, and the stone ball slowly fell to the ground at this moment.

“Ahhhhhhhh!!!”

The instant the stone ball dropped, Ning Shiba let out a heart-wrenching scream. She knelt on the ground, buried her head deeply, and continuously slapped the ice surface with her hand to distract herself from the pain.

“Damn it!!” Qiao Jiajin quickly stepped forward to shield her, in case more stone balls flew at her. “Astrology girl, what are you doing? Are you looking for death?”

“Cough ah!!” Just as Ning Shiba was about to speak, another large mouthful of fresh blood spurted out. It seemed the shattered ribs had already injured her internal organs, causing her to continuously cough up blood. “Cough cough cough!!”

Qiao Jiajin had never seen such a scene before. He wanted to say something more, but suddenly heard a bell sound coming from the distance.

“Clang”!!

Ning Shiba’s “Wild Growth” had arrived.

“Cough cough…” Ning Shiba spat out the blood in her mouth and said with a bitter smile, “Jiu Ge… if you hadn’t trusted me so much, I wouldn’t have resorted to this desperate measure…”

At this moment, Qiao Jiajin suddenly remembered that the trigger for Ning Shiba’s “Echo” was “extreme pain.”

“This time, whether I die or not… you’ve still completed the mission.” Ning Shiba supported her body and slowly moved to the side to lie down. “It’s just that my chances of survival aren’t great… After all, I’ve experienced too much ‘pain’… Now I need even more violent means to trigger my ‘Echo’… This time… cough cough… this time is just right…”

Qiao Jiajin looked at Ning Shiba’s previously frozen right hand and felt she wasn’t lying.

If a person’s entire hand being frostbitten didn’t count as “extreme pain,” then how helpless must she be each time she “Echoes”?

Qiao Jiajin never expected that in just two attacks in the fourth round, everyone would suffer casualties. Two girls were already seriously injured, and their physical condition no longer allowed them to continue pushing the cart.

“What the hell…” Qiao Jiajin’s lips trembled slightly as he looked at the pure white ice surface splattered with the blood of his own people. “Big horse woman, you’ve gone too far… Do you have no humanity?”

Bai Jiu looked at the two fallen people and also felt the situation wasn’t good.

Now there were seven stone balls triggering attacks each time, targeting the seven people on the field respectively.

Once there were casualties, the remaining people would have to face the same number of attacks with fewer people.

“Are we… going to die?”