The servant soldiers quickly adapted to Lord Ice Storm's killing intent.
Even if the Mithril Ripper let out a sharp whistle that tore through the air and swept over their heads, and the killing intent like icicles pierced straight into their spines, they could still restrain the fear in their hearts and attack together with Lord Ice Storm.
But there was another thing that wasn't so easy to adapt to.
That was the hands of the Reaper.
Until now, Spider still didn't know where this mysterious Reaper with black hair and black eyes came from.
At first, everyone was grateful to him.
It was because Leaf told everyone that it was thanks to the reaper that they managed to luckily escape from the dungeon that had devoured the lives of countless rat people, even though they appeared to be useless and would never be chosen by other gladiators, that the reaper had managed to convince the ice storm.
The Reaper brought food to them with a smile and taught them how to adjust their breathing and fall asleep. He seemed to be harmless, so they gradually relaxed their vigilance.
Although the crisscrossed wounds on his body were frightening to look at.
But with such serious injuries, he couldn't do anything to them, could he?
Such a childish way of thinking was a grave mistake.
In fact, the Reaper didn't force them to undergo too difficult training.
He only said that after eating and sleeping, Lord Ice Storm asked him to massage them to loosen their muscles and bones and adjust their strength.
Some of the experienced and knowledgeable ratfolk servant soldiers had heard that in the rich and powerful families, there would be many ratfolk servants who were proficient in massaging techniques that had been passed down from generation to generation. After the masters completed high-intensity training, they would relax. Not only could they quickly recover their strength, but they could also avoid the accumulation of fatigue and injuries.
Many famous witch doctors had also become guests of honor of the military nobles with similar methods.
They didn't expect that the humble rat people could enjoy the treatment that only the clan warriors could enjoy.
Spider and the others couldn't help but feel flattered.
When the Reaper's palms, which seemed to have ten sharp blades in them, gently pressed on his shoulders, Spider realized what it meant to hide a knife in a smile.
How was this loosen muscles and bones?
It was a torture worse than death!
As soon as the Reaper exerted force, the spider cried out in pain.
He felt as if dozens of boas — no, dozens of bolts of lightning were wandering inside his body, tearing apart his every muscle and tendon and shattering every inch of his bones. Then, a tremendous amount of mucus that was as thick as the sap of the Devil's Snare Tree and as hot as magma was injected into his broken flesh, piecing his body back together.
The spider howled like a pig being slaughtered.
He struggled with all his might, trying to break free from the reaper's control.
However, the reaper seemed to have yet to recover from his heavy injuries and looked extremely weak, yet his hands seemed to be covered in an invisible totem armor that was so firm, stable, and powerful as they firmly pressed down on his shoulders, causing him to be unable to move at all. It was even to the extent that his throat was blocked by the pain that was like tidewater. His howls all turned into tears of humiliation that flowed down his wrinkles and covered his face.
Ever since Spider was weaned, she had never shed a single tear.
In the eyes of the Turanians, tears were a terrible plague.
The first one to be 'tortured' by the reaper, who cried with snot and tears all over his face like a child, was immediately avoided by all the servant soldiers except for Leaf as a god of plague.
However, he did not become a god of plague for long.
Because, along with the Reaper's merciless torture, all of the servant soldiers were tortured by him, and they cried like flowers that had been ravaged by a storm.
Since everyone had shed tears.
Then, there was no longer a problem of who looked down on who.
Moreover, this team of thirty servant soldiers seemed to have become even more united, as if they had a common enemy.
After all, in the Blood Skull Arena, no, in Black Corner City, no, in the entire Turanze Lake, among the tens of millions of ratfolk servant soldiers, they were the one and only, a small team whose members had all shed tears!
The reaper's torture was not over yet.
It was not as simple as just torturing everyone once a day.
Instead, it was three meals a day, often with a midnight snack. Day and night, he ravaged the poor servant soldiers of the rat people.
The spider originally thought that he could endure the pain.
After all, he had once accidentally stepped into the nest of the poisonous' Raging Flame Ants' in the deep forest.
Even though his feet were bitten by dozens of Fire Ants and were swollen to the point that they were larger than his head, he still did not utter a single word and avoided the totem beasts that were patrolling nearby. Relying on his astonishing willpower, he limped down the mountain.
But the power that the reaper injected into his body through her hands was ten times more powerful than the venom of the Raging Flame Ants.
Moreover, every time he thought that he had adapted to the pain brought by the reaper, the reaper would change the method to stimulate his different joints, tendons, and even organs.
It made him feel like his body was full of thorns, and they were like poisonous snakes that kept swimming, tearing and devouring his organs.
The servant soldiers of the rat people who were on the verge of collapse wanted to ask for help from the Ice Storm.
However, the Ice Storm treated her servant soldiers with the attitude of a traditional noble.
That was, she did not care and let the servant soldiers die on their own.
Unless they could survive one or two fierce battles and prove their strength.
Otherwise, the clan warriors would not waste even a blink of an eye on the servant soldiers of the rat people.
The Ice Storm was not good at it to begin with, and she did not even like to train and command these weak rat people.
Since the reaper was doing it for her, she was happy to relax and could focus on refining her totem battle skills.
In the end, what supported the servant soldiers to grit their teeth and endure the torture was that they were shocked to find that their strength had increased!
It was not a person, and it was not just a little bit.
It was all those who had been tortured by the reaper, no, "modified", had their strength increase at a speed visible to the naked eye, or even like a volcanic eruption.
In the past, they had to grit their teeth to carry a stone weight that weighed three to five hundred kilograms.
Now, they could easily carry two stone weights and run as if they were flying.
In the past, they had to punch more than ten times to leave a clear fist mark on a mandala tree stump that was as thick as a person's arm.
Now, they only needed to hit with all their strength to make wood splinters fly and leave a fist-sized deep hole.
In the past, they would be out of breath after running two laps while carrying a sandbag that weighed three to five hundred kilograms.
Now, even the weakest person among them, or a middle-aged man like Spider, could carry a sandbag that weighed three to five hundred kilograms. With two teammates sitting on it, they could run seven to eight laps effortlessly!
After they gradually got used to the pain, they could clearly sense a strong resistance from the depths of their flesh and bones every time the reapers carried out the refinement.
The pain would eventually pass like a tide.
However, this resistance was deeply imprinted in their bodies!
There was not a single Turanite who did not want to become stronger.
The rat people, who lacked inheritance, resources, and cultivation methods, were even more unwilling to give up any hope of becoming stronger.
Even if this hope had to be watered with their sweat, tears, and even blood.
In the first two days, the rat people who were tortured by the reaper cursed the black-haired and black-eyed fellow in their hearts, believing that he was a demon from the Abyss of Evernight.
When everyone discovered the changes in their bodies that felt like they had been reborn, their fear of the Reapers immediately turned into ecstatic worship.
This was especially so when the reaper began to teach them specific moves.
Actually, it was not a peerlessly exquisite move.
It was just swinging a large blade and slashing.
When the rat people were at home, they mostly relied on farming and gathering for a living.
However, if they wanted to harvest the mandala fruits from the thick branches, they still needed a certain amount of strength and skill.
They originally thought that the so-called battle was to use the greatest strength, raise the largest saber or battle-axe, let out the loudest roar, and fiercely hack down. Life or death, it was all decided by the ancestral spirit.
In the past thousands of years, the rat people had always fought like this.
However, the reaper was not in a hurry to let them swing their blades and roar.
Instead, he called everyone out and slowly pointed out how many vital points they had, how the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys were distributed, what would happen when the vital points were attacked, and how to adjust the force exerted and the angle of the blade to maximize the destructive power and destroy as many of the enemy's vital points as possible.
His calm and unhurried manner as he spoke sent chills down one's spine.
It was as if he was a skilled chef.
As for his opponents, their throats were cut and they were food waiting to be cut into pieces.
His gaze was sharper than a blade, and he knew the structure of the human body like the back of his hand. This made the servant soldiers wonder whether the mysterious reaper had really harvested and dissected countless lives.
No matter what, the techniques the reaper taught them were very effective.
This was especially so after he used heavy blows to adjust their muscles and tendons, invigorated their stiff joints, and guided them to find the correct way to exert force.
When the rat people practiced the first style of the One Hundred Saber Techniques, Head-On Wind Slash, they got half the results with twice the effort, and they progressed at lightning speed.
The power of this move also shocked the rat people servant soldiers.
The mandala tree stump was as thick as a person's arm and as hard as iron. If they were to hack at it randomly, they might not be able to break it even if they hacked seven or eight times.
However, if he used the three basic force exertion techniques taught by the harvester to execute Head-On Wind Cleaving, even if he was only swinging a stone axe without a sharpened edge, he would be able to cleave a large tree stump in half with just one swing!
Even though they could not compare to monsters like Leaf, who had been modified by the reaper and could chop a tree stump that was as tall as three arms and as thick as four to five people's arms in one go, they could chop it into pieces the size of fingernails.
But normal servant soldiers like Spider were already very satisfied with their progress.
This was especially so when the reaper told them that as long as they won a group battle, they could get more food and a longer training time. They would also have the chance to learn more powerful killing moves.
Everyone treated the mysterious black-haired and black-eyed rat people as powerful people who were second only to Lord Ice Storm.
They were full of confidence and anticipation towards fighting under their training and command!
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