Chapter 61: Abnormality of the Black Blood

The maid was about thirty years old and maintained some of the beauty of her youth. Her figure was full and well-developed.

When she heard Qianye’s simple and direct words, she immediately put on the smile she thought was most charming and began pushing her way into her room. Her ample breasts were almost touching Qianye’s arms as she said sweetly, “Handsome, I can give you a fifty percent discount this time. You’ll only need to pay fifty copper coins!”

Qianye froze and hastily stopped the maid who was just as stalwart as he was, “No, what I meant is to get me something to eat! I want a portion enough for three men! I haven’t eaten for an entire day!”

Finished, Qianye passed over a silver coin and said, “The remaining change is yours.”

The maid’s smile froze as she looked at the silver coin, and then at Qianye. Her expression turned a little grudgeful, “I will bring your meal immediately, but what about after the meal? With this silver coin, you can do anything!”

“Sorry, I just need the food, that is all!” Qianye had a feeling that he was no match for the sturdy, seductive and grudgeful maid.

The maid grabbed Qianye’s hand and stuffed both the silver coin and his hand into her chest. Only then did she sway her butt and walk away.

A moment later, she delivered him a whole tray of food and tried to force her way into the room once more. Qianye had to expend quite a lot of effort before finally being able to shut the aggrieved maid outside the door.

This hotel’s dinner was pretty tasty. After sweeping through the food, Qianye began cultivating the Combatant Formula. With the vampire’s blood as his support, the bottleneck and damage created by the excessively powerful origin tides of the Combatant Formula no longer existed. Qianye was even looking forward to seeing what kind of scenery awaited him when he broke through to the ninth level.

As the Combatant Formula ran through his body, origin power began to pour out of his three nodes to form a tide. Until the third node was completely nurtured, the origin tide would continuously pour into this completely new node.

When looking into his own body, he could see that this newly formed origin node was extremely dim, with a barely formed contour. Meanwhile, the two nodes at his chest and abdominal areas were shining brightly, and the one at Aura Sea point on his chest in particular looked like a tiny sun. It was brimming with threads of origin power amidst light and darkness.

Suddenly, Qianye found that the impact of the origin tide was a lot weaker than usual. The original power of the ninth wave of a tide had been decreased by about one third.

Did something wrong happen to his cultivation formula?

He concentrated on inspecting the entire process of the formation, eruption and flow of the origin tide, and finally discovered that not all of the new tides that gushed out of the three nodes were able to merge with the main origin tide. A portion of them seemed to have been trapped and entangled by the tricolored blood aura inside his body before merging into one.

This discovery shocked Qianye. Could the black blood devour origin power?

It had been a long time since his black blood had given him any trouble. Even after running through the wasteland at his top speed for three days and three nights straight, and entering a large city filled with blood energy, the blood thirst hadn’t plague him, which caused Qianye to feel more and more assured over time. But what’s with this all of a sudden?

Qianye fell silent for a moment, and in the end, he decided to finish today’s drills.

Twenty rounds of origin tides passed, and Qianye stood up to move his body around a little. He then practiced the military’s combat art for a full hour, right where he had been standing. These basic movements could effectively train his strength, balance and flexibility. The whole cultivation process could only be considered complete after he finished practicing the combat arts. If this was the Red Scorpion Corps’ base, he would have to drench himself in muscle restoration liquid or go to the doctor for a superficial examination in case there were any injuries incurred during the cultivation.

Just like that, Qianye allowed his train of thoughts to wander as much as possible until the end of the cultivation session. Only then did he he withdraw himself and began pondering the problem he had discovered.

The black blood was still flowing quietly inside his arteries, and although it was dormant on the surface, every time an origin tide ran through, a trace of the energy would be absorbed by the black blood. Moreover, this process was completely out of Qianye’s control. After origin power was intercepted by the black blood, the impact Qianye suffered from an origin tide would be greatly reduced to the point where it was just a little stronger than a normal cultivator’s.

This process wasn’t obvious during the first tide, but when all twenty tides were done, Qianye discovered that the blood energy had grown a little more abundant. As of now, one could say that all it affected was his cultivation speed, and he could not detect any other abnormalities besides this. However, Qianye was worried that he would truly turn into a vampire as the black blood grew stronger.

Qianye wasn’t able to come to a conclusion even when the day broke.

This unpleasant episode did not affect Qianye’s new life too much. He carried on with his usual pragmatic style and increased the intensity of his cultivation to resist the decrease in his cultivation speed.

For the next few days, Qianye would bury himself in his room and cultivate all day. Every day, he would inform the maid to bring his three meals into the room. This was also the simplest and most effective way of throwing off his pursuers after arriving at a new place.

Seven days passed in the blink of an eye, and during this time, Qianye finally learned how to control his blood energy while filling an origin bullet. Surprisingly, the three empty origin bullets the old man from A1 Firearms had gifted him were the real deal, but the bullet case matched the old man’s style alright. A buyer would only notice the case’s weight discrepancy when they held it in their hands. It was still a fake.

Qianye took out a blank origin bullet and began pouring origin power into it. A dozen or so minutes later, the bullethead was filled with a dense, vapor-like origin power. A wisp of blood energy could also be seen floating inside. Now, he could skillfully choose whether to inject blood energy into an origin bullet or not.

Qianye opened a box and placed the origin bullet inside it. However, without a sealing effect, the origin bullet would lose most of its effects in around three days. He suddenly recalled the crystalline box that the old man called Uncle Wang had left behind. It seemed that it was gone after Red Spider Lily had been destroyed. However, this thought stayed in Qianye’s mind for only a fraction of a second before it sank back into the depths of his mind like many of his other memories.

After tidying up all his stuff, Qianye was finally ready to go out for a walk and inquire about his surroundings. Since he was planning to stay inside this city for a long term, he would have to think of a way to earn money. The prices in Darkblood City made not just a little town, but even a place like Blackflow City seem like a completely different country. If Blackflow City used copper coins as their standard unit of measure, then Darkblood City used silver coins.

Before heading out, Qianye disguised his appearance as usual. After many frustrating failures, he had finally figured out a bit of the knack of disguising oneself, and that was to dye his skin as dim and dark as possible. This way, it wouldn’t be too obvious that he was in disguise, but he would still appear different on the surface.

What Qianye didn’t know was that Yu Renyan had passed through the inn’s doorsteps twice while he was cultivating hard on the inside. Seven days had passed, and Yu Renyan had combed through the entirety of Darkblood City by his own plans. However, he could not find a trace of his target at all.

This failure caused Yu Renyan to return to his lodging to ponder the matter.

A moment later, he called over a Dark Blade subordinate and ordered him to deliver a letter to Wu Zhengnan as soon as possible. The letter stated that Yu Renyan had found some clues regarding the killer, but that the killer was unusually crafty. He would require more time.

As for how much time he needed, Yu Renyan used a single word to convey his meaning: indefinite. At the end of the letter, Yu Renyan questioned if the mission should be continued.

A day later, Wu Zhengnan’s reply came, and there was only a single statement written down: “Continue until it’s done.”

Yu Renyan immediately understood Wu Zhengnan’s determination. However, he had his own working style and method, and after leisurely taking a spin on the outside, he returned to his lodging with a huge amount of items.

An hour later, Yu Renyan had turned himself into a tall and thin blond. He even changed his eye color. This great leader of the Dark Blade then bought a small house with a separate courtyard within the city before registering himself as a mercenary at the Mercenary Guild under a fake name. After that, he went to Home of Hunters and registered himself for a Hunter’s qualification and actually went out of the city to hunt just like that.

Yu Renyan obviously treated this mission as a convenient holiday.

When Yu Renyan left Darkblood City, Qianye just happened to walk out of the inn.

First, he found a random armor shop and bought himself a set of leather hunting armor. This type of leather armor was extremely suitable for hunting at the countryside and was both light and flexible. Its defensive properties were measurable as well. After Qianye put on the leather armor, he finally showed a little bit of the wildness and strength that belonged to a man.

During the afternoon, Qianye randomly chose a restaurant and went up the second floor. He chose a seat near the window and sat down.

Using the rare moment of daylight, he ate as he observed the people who walked back and forth the street in order to familiarize himself with some of the city’s habits. When he was done eating, Qianye took out a few advertisement materials and began reading.

These were all advertising pamphlets of the Mercenary Association, Adventurers Alliance and Home of Hunters. Finally, Qianye’s eyes fell onto Home of Hunters.

Being a hunter who preys on dark races was the only job that was suited for him. As for Mercenary Association and Adventurers Alliance, their mercenerial qualities caused Qianye to give them up.

The former was discarded because Qianye did not wish to work under any noble as a hired thug. Trouble would come to him constantly if his standpoint was too well defined. The latter was discarded because an adventurer usually needed to possess some professional skills such as machinery maintenance. Qianye’s scores in machinery classes had always been quite good, but he had no interest in polishing gears everyday in front of a work bench. Let someone else do this kind of meticulous work, Qianye was more interested in exploding heads of the dark races.

After leaving the restaurant, Qianye looked at his map and searched accordingly, going through many twists and turns before finally entering a dark alley and arriving at a three story building.

There was a board on the building with the words ‘Home of Hunters’ written on it. Qianye read it a couple of times before finally confirming that this was the place he was looking for.

The building was just too decrepit, and looked like it could collapse any time. Looking at the huge crack at the front wall, it would appear that the building’s supervisor had no intentions of maintaining it. With one glance through the crack, one could even see the metallic frame, which components were obviously of questionable quality.

The door was open. After a moment of hesitation, Qianye ultimately decided to walk inside. His experience at A1 Firearms had seriously left a shadow in his mind. Home of Hunters should be a famous hunting organization with branches littered everywhere on the Evernight Continent, and yet, this particular building looked like some other hunter organization that had stolen their name.

After entering through the door, there was a small living hall with two tables and a couple of chairs decorating its interior. There were three big men sitting lazily around a table with huge glasses of alcohol placed at its center.

At the end of the hall was a counter with a wizened old man who was reading something intently with a pair of presbyopic glasses. His half-bald head was unusually bright beneath the light of the gas lamp.

The second Qianye saw this baldy, his heart immediately jumped. He did not need too good a memory to recall it. This shape, this luster, this definition, there was absolutely no mistake! It was the bald old man from A1 Firearms!

Chapter 62: Home of Hunters   

Qianye immediately felt as if a parade of mammoths had just trampled over his heart. He didn’t know what to say. Wasn’t that old man a gun seller? Why had he suddenly come to Home of Hunters?

Qianye decided to leave then and there. As for claiming justice, it was something that never even crossed his mind. The idea of claiming justice from a local boss who opened a weapons store at a place like Darkblood City was as stupid as it gets. Plus, he hadn’t been fooled too badly overall. If that Ambusher was fixed, it would still be worth around fifty gold coins.

However, Qianye had only just turned around when the old man at the counter suddenly lifted his head and stared at him.

Qianye shuddered and immediately became frozen in place. One of his feet stayed suspended in the air and could land on the ground no longer!

Of course, Qianye’s movements weren’t restricted in anyway, but at this moment, forget his weapons, he didn’t dare to move even a toe. The blade-like aura behind him had completely locked him down, and any movement might invite a fatal attack that was akin to a thunderstorm.

If he focused his mind, calmed his breathing, waited for his opponent to act and sought out an opening on his opponent’s aura, then he might just yet have a slight chance of survival. This was the combat instinct he had honed through countless life-and-death battles since he was seven years old.

The deadlock lasted for a few second before the sharp aura suddenly disappeared. It was only then that Qianye put his foot on the ground and slowly turned around.

All three big men within the hall looked towards Qianye with praise in their eyes.

Meanwhile, the old man stood up and said, “Little guy, judging from your expression just now, you must have gone to A1 Firearms before.”

Staring at the old man, Qianye finally noticed some slight differences.

The old man at the gun shop looked like a enigmatic expert, but he had slightly more wrinkles than the old man before him. Moreover, now that he thought back, there were glimpses of cunning flashing though the other old man’s eyes, whereas this old man only had a small scar on his face. Although it was incredibly unremarkable, this little difference was very eye-catching to someone like Qianye, who was trained to recognize people’s faces.

The old man then said, “The boss at A1 Firearms is my twin brother. He’s called A1, and I’m called A2. Everyone here calls me Old 2.”

Qianye thought that his face must look very colorful right now. He wasn’t sure what to say.

“Do you want to become a hunter?” Old 2 asked.

“... Yes.” Qianye answered. He thought that this Old 2 didn’t look like a cheat, but his experience at A1 Firearms kept rewinding itself in his head.

There were no swindlers who looked like a swindler.

Old 2 lowered his head and fiddled inside the counter for a moment. He then took out a hexagonal bronze token and tossed it to him, “You’ve passed the test. You are now a hunter, a one star hunter.”

Qianye subconsciously accepted the bronze token and asked a little blankly, “Test?”

“Yep. I looked at you once just now, didn’t I? That was the test. Your performance was pretty good, so you are now a member of Home of Hunters. Keep that thing well. It is your token and your Hunter’s qualification ID.” Old 2 continued to speak indifferently.

Qianye looked at the bronze token in his hand. The item was polished until it was shining, but it was obvious that it had been around for some time, and even time could not conceal its rough craftsmanship. Forget that the star at the center was of uneven height, even the shape itself was crooked and distorted. It looked like a mold done by a child.

“Alright. As a… one star hunter, what exactly can I do?” Qianye finally accepted reality. If he did not need to submit an entry fee later on, then he would not mind participating in this Home of Hunters.

While he was thinking this, Old 2 said, “Please submit a full season’s fee first. It costs a gold coin every month.”

Old 2 had said it indifferently, but Qianye’s heartbeat suddenly spiked.

“What will be my rights then?”

Old 2 pointed at a worn out book hung on the wall and said, “It’s all written down there.”

Qianye opened the book and saw that there were many rules written inside. The book might be worn out, but the writing was clean and elegant. Every word seemed to emanate an unspeakable energy that shook Qianye’s mind, and he had to channel the origin power in his body before being able to stand firmly again.

The rules were actually pretty simple. The amount of fee a hunter submitted was the main determinant of their star rank, whereas star ranks determined what kind of rights a hunter possessed.

A hunter’s main rights included the right to sell the proof of having killed a dark race warrior in exchange for a bounty. Moreover, they could also buy some special armors and weapons from Home of Hunters as well as some special ingredients. If the items provided by Home of Hunters were not up to satisfaction, the Home of Hunters could represent the hunter and contact certain craftsmen to tailor make them.

The bounty alone was worth the member fee. Of course, this was assuming that the hunter could hunt a sufficient amount of dark race warriors in the first place. Star ranks determined the upper limit of the bounties as well. For example, a one star hunter could acquire a total bounty of 10 gold coins per month, whereas a two star hunter could acquire 20 gold coins. Every increase in star rank would double the upper limit.

However, right now, Qianye’s eyes were filled with the amazing power hidden inside those words!

It took him quite a bit of effort to calm down and ask, “Can I see what kind of weapons and armor can be exchanged?”

“Of course. Little Mi, take him to the one star warehouse to have a look.”

A quick-witted young man came out of nowhere and snapped a finger at Qianye, saying, “Come with me.”

Qianye followed the youth to a underground room and entered a storeroom.

Although this was just the warehouse for one star hunters, it contained an extremely rich amount of equipment. Qianye even saw the standard issue weapon of the imperial main corps on the upper continent, the Hellfire Origin Power Machine Gun! This was a grade three gun, and every single one that was there, was new!

However, this gun was stamped with a four-star mark, indicating that it was available for purchase only to a four star hunter. He wasn’t sure how it made its way to this storeroom. Besides that, there were all sorts of full sets of tactical armor, multifunction military knives, all-terrain sight and so on. This was literally a small scale arsenal.

After having seen this warehouse, Qianye finally dispelled all of his doubts and followed the youth back to the hall. He obediently paid the membership fee.

After the procedure was complete, Qianye couldn’t help but ask, “If there are hunters who plan to join but cannot pay the fee, what do you do?”

“They can hold payment. However, every month, a gold coin of interest will be charged.” Old 2 said lightly.

Qianye was surprised yet again. The season membership fee cost three gold coins in total, and a hunter who owed them would have to pay an extra gold coin of interest every month. This interest rate sure was scary.

As if noticing Qianye’s thoughts, a big guy interrupted, “If they could not earn enough money to pay the membership fee, then they might as well not be a hunter and just raise their kids back home!”

The big guy’s words did make sense.

That being said, Qianye did not wish to pay the fee so easily. He took out a small bag and dumped six vampire fangs from it. He had gotten these vampire fangs from the bloodsuckers that had traded with Qi Yue.

Qianye pushed the vampire fangs in front of Old 2 and asked, “These things can be used to exchange for bounty, right?”

According to the Home of Hunter’s exchange formula, a normal vampire warrior’s fang could be exchanged for one gold coin. This also meant that a hunter must kill at least one vampire of the lowest ranking per month to be able to qualify as a hunter in Home of Hunters.

After seeing this rule, Qianye understood why the Home of Hunters appeared so deserted. At the very least, one must be a rank two Fighter. This threshold was actually pretty high, almost as high as the Red Scorpion’s requirements for new recruits. Obviously, it wasn’t as if a rank one Fighter could not become a hunter, but it was just a lot more difficult for them.

These six fangs should be worth more than the membership fee, Qianye thought.

Old 2 suddenly let out a surprised ‘eh’ and picked up a fang. After examining it thoroughly, he said, “If I am not mistaken, this fang was probably taken from an official member of the Niederhill Family. This vampire family has raised a Count before, and it would be a problem if they developed a sufficient amount of descendants. Therefore, they are even more threatening than the usual rank four vampire, so this pair of fangs alone is worth ten gold coins.”

Qianye did not think that the old vampire he killed had such a prominent background. Originally, he had thought that a rank four vampire would be worth four gold coins at best. However, judging from his words, the bounty for this pair of fangs was now more than double his expectations.

Old 2 fiddled through his counter once more and took out ten gold coins and a handaxe. He pushed them to Qianye and said, “You’ve reached the upper limit of your bounty for this month, and I cannot give you more than that. However, I feel that this axe is rather suited for you. Just accept it as my personal gift.”

Qianye took the handaxe and weighted it in his hand. He then examined it closely.

The axe was incredibly small. It was only half a meter long, and the axehead itself was only about the size of a palm. It was heavy. Qianye wasn’t sure what it was made of, but it most definitely wasn’t metallic. He then tried a few ways of probing and detection, but was unable to draw any reaction from it. It would definitely be useful to have an axe that could not be detected by instruments or abilities during a field battle.

Qianye lightly swung it once, and it felt as smooth as an extension of his own hand. Then, he suddenly slashed the air with it several times, and when the axe’s blade cut through the air, it actually let out a faint and shrill howl!

Delight appeared on Qianye’s face. This handaxe was a lot more handy than his dagger. This was a weapon that truly suited him. As usual, it would appear that his combat style leaned towards the simple and direct.

He put the handaxe into his leather bag and hung it around his waist. Qianye then said, “This axe is great, I like it a lot. I shall be going out to hunt now, then.”

Old 2 narrowed his eyes and looked like he would doze off right away. He nodded slightly to indicate that he had heard Qianye, and bid him goodbye. It was as if the sharp glint that had flashed through his eyes when he saw the handaxe’s orbit never existed at all.

After Qianye had left, a big guy said, “That little fellow’s pretty good. He has potential.”

But the other person said coldly, “I dislike him. He has the stench of an imperial dog on him.”

The third person shrugged and said, “There is a difference between dogs as well. This little guy obviously came from a group of top class dogs.”

“A top class dog is still a dog!” The second person said again.

Old 2 pulled out an old-style pocket watch from somewhere and checked the time. He then said slowly, “This little guy is pretty suited for that mission though.”

“Which one?”

“Miss Qiqi’s.”

The three big men suddenly shivered. When they looked at Qianye’s back again, their eyes were filled with a little bit of pity.

Chapter 63: An Unpleasant Episode   

When he left the Home of Hunters, the sky was already turning dark.

After entering a random bar and drinking two glasses of alcohol, Qianye learned from a maid which houses were on sale.

An hour later, Qianye had finished signing his first accommodation in Darkblood City.

The house had a courtyard and a second floor, but its price was only five gold coins. The reason it was so cheap was because it was one wall away from the slum. The slum was the concentration camp of all evil, filth, and chaos, so one might figure that that house would be visited by several thieves almost every night.

No one would want to stay at such a place. They would move away as soon as possible.

Qianye wasn’t afraid of trouble, however. He had gone out to buy plenty of parts, and set up many traps outside the corners of the courtyard, the building’s doors and the windows. These seemingly simple gadgets were actually pretty useful in that they would not easily kill someone, but still were more than capable of dealing pain. After he was finished setting up the traps, Qianye painted these words on the outer wall: Beware! Traps inside.

Once he was finished, Qianye locked the front door and set out to hunt in the wastelands.

The fastest path to the front gate of the city was to go right through the slums. Qianye ignored the idling men and women’s hostile gazes and walked directly into an alley that was so narrow that one almost had to turn sideways to go through.

The alley was crooked and filled with all sorts of rubbish, causing the already narrow alley to be even more jam-packed and uncomfortable to walk through. Some places were so packed that it was almost impossible to find a spot to step on. The ground was filled with trash and dirty water.

Kids whose faces were so dirty that it was impossible to see their features were playing and chasing each other from alley to alley.

The sides of the alleyway were formed by shacks so short that even a middle-sized man had to bow their heads to enter. There were women standing at the entrance, beckoning incessantly at any passersby. As long as one paid ten copper coins, they would sleep with them for the night.

Not only did these sceneries not disgust Qianye, it made him reminiscent about the past. The place he had lived and grown up in was even worse than this place. There were no streets in the airship graveyard, and every step on the ground either landed on metallic parts or lumps. People would squeeze themselves into all sizes of abandoned cabins and even tubes to live in.

The kids there never thought of playing. Due to the lack of food, they would normally move less and preserve their strength. The only reason they would fight was for food.

In Qianye’s eyes, these narrow and dark alleys had at least the very basics of law to govern them. The kids running around represented the energy of this place.

At the end of the narrow and dark alley was an empty square. There were seven or eight roads that all converged to this place. After taking a little bit of time to identify his direction, he headed towards the tallest and widest road of them all. At almost every alley entrance, there were two or three original inhabitants of the place gathered together. When they saw a stranger passing by, they gazed at him while harboring malicious intentions.

Qianye did not look sideways nor did he intentionally avoid their gazes. His full leather armor, the assault rifle at his back and the short axe at his waist all showed clearly that he was not one to be provoked.

However, when he was passing through an alley entrance, a thin and small boy suddenly charged out and ran right at him like a cannon. Of course, Qianye wouldn’t let him run into him, so with an easy sidestep, he dodged out of the way.

The boy missed and fell face first onto the ground. When he struggled to get up, he suddenly sniffed extra hard with his unusually large nose and abruptly screamed, “A vampire’s origin gun! I smell it! I smell it!”

The entire slum boiled up when they heard his cry!

A vampire’s origin gun was worth an unimaginable fortune. Anyone who obtained it would be able to change their fates!

Qianye was a little surprised by this. The little boy’s nose was incredibly keen, to be able to smell the Flowing Gold Rose wrapped deep inside his backpack. Moreover, the fact that he didn’t point out the more common wealth such as gold coins and the like meant that he wasn’t just spouting nonsense. It would seem that there were plenty of talented people even in the slums, although most of their talents were fated to be buried forever.

Many shabbily dressed people gradually surrounded Qianye. They were all holding primitive weapons such as wooden sticks and kitchen knives.

Qianye was helpless. A situation like this usually ended with blood being shed. He unslung the assault rifle from his shoulder and pulled the gun bolt lightly, pointing the black muzzle at the crowd.

“Anyone who comes forward will die! Now, get out of the way!” Qianye yelled.

However, his words were unable to intimidate these people at all. Not only did the mob not back down, after looking each other in the eyes, they even tightened the encirclement further. Their breathings were heavy, and their eyes were slowly turning red. They stared at Qianye’s backpack with lust and greed in their eyes.

A man that was as thin as bones suddenly acted as to leap toward Qianye. However, as if Qianye could see behind him, he abruptly pointed the muzzle directly at the man’s forehead the very moment he moved.

The man froze, but when he saw that Qianye hadn’t opened fire, he began lowering his body like a wild dog and even let out a provocative, low growl.

Qianye knew that he had screwed things up.

But perhaps it was because the reminiscent feelings hadn’t completely faded away, or because the metallic tang of rot in the air was too familiar to him, but Qianye’s curling finger never pulled past the point of no return.

Ambusher’s power was not only enough to blow this mad man’s head apart, the shockwave was also enough to knock the people at the side away and blow off the shack at the front of the alley.

Seeing that Qianye did not open fire all this time, the man’s courage abruptly grew tenfold as he leaped into the air without any hesitation and bit towards Qianye’s throat!

After hesitating for a moment, Qianye ultimately let out a sigh on the inside, and let go of the trigger. Instead, he grabbed the gun vertically and was ready to knock the guy out with the handle. With his abilities as a rank three Fighter, he could even forcefully push his way out of this place if he wanted to.

It was at this moment that a gunshot suddenly rang from the side. The head of the man in front of Qianye suddenly exploded and covered Qianye in blood and brain matter!

It was a scene only possible when someone was shot with a large caliber bullet!

Qianye abruptly turned his head and saw that a woman wearing tight suit had appeared on the rooftop beside him out of nowhere. She held what was obviously a modified rifle, and right now, the unusually large muzzle was still fuming with white smoke.

She slightly turned her muzzle and pointed at the boy with the unusually large nose, smiling coldly, “Go to hell, little bastard!”

“Wait!” Qianye’s voice rang together with the gunshot.

The powerful recoil caused the woman’s full body to fall backwards by a bit as the boy’s head and upper body were shot to pieces.

The mob immediately fell into panic as some of them began to turn around and run away. However, there were even more of them who turned vicious and charged towards Qianye while yelling. There were countless hands aiming for Qianye’s backpack, and short knives made from scrap metal stabbing towards his lower back.

These mobs were as fragile as paper, and yet, their attacks were vicious and cruel. Moreover, they did not care about their own lives at all.

Qianye sighed, and with a backhand motion, he caught two knives perfectly within his hands. The two mobsters did everything they could to pull their weapons back or pushed them towards Qianye, but the blades did not move an inch, as if they were melded into Qianye’s hand.

However, it was during this moment that a metallic lump emitting green smoke was suddenly thrown in his direction. It was a grenade!

Qianye swore loudly in his heart, but left without a choice. He leaped over a two story tall shack, landed on the other side of the street and lay himself on the ground immediately.

When the explosion happened, the two mobsters were the first to be blown up into the sky along with a few broken limbs. The shockwave destroyed the surrounding shacks and caused countless wooden bits and random objects to sweep past Qianye’s back, drawing pain on his skin.

This was an high-power, offensive hand grenade! Qianye immediately came to the conclusion from the unexpected shockwave. This was a powerful gadget often used to deal with low level dark races, and even official vampire warriors would be hurt by the blast!

If Qianye had thought that it was a normal grenade and had not dodged to the best of his abilities, then he would’ve been hurt rather badly by this indiscriminate attack.

He cursed at the woman’s ruthlessness on the inside. She actually used a weapon that was only allowed on battlefields directly in the city!

More than a dozen mobsters were instantly killed by the explosion. The rest of the people were finally frightened by the firepower and escaped frantically.

The commotion occurred at a faraway street, and a few fully-armed expeditionary soldiers rushed to the blast site.

When they saw the woman standing on top of the roof, they immediately froze and turned respectful. They asked, “Miss Yingnan, may we know what’s going on? You seemed to have used a weapon that’s disallowed inside the city.”

The young woman laughed coldly and said, “It’s nothing. There were some fellows here who were planning to rob one of our Home of Hunter member, so I took a couple of them out so they’d grow a memory. As for that offensive hand grenade, it fell to the ground by accident and has nothing to do with me.”

The leader of the expeditionary soldiers, wearing a corporal badge on his shoulder, actually nodded and told his companions, “The situation has been clarified. Someone hid a grenade in this place, and the grenade accidentally exploded. Alright, we will leave now!”

The few expeditionary soldiers actually turned tail and left. It was as if they hadn’t seen the dozen or so corpses on the floor at all.

Qianye only kept quiet when he saw this scene. He had encountered the death toll a couple of times when he was at Red Scorpion, but that was only used for the local nobles. He had often heard about the scene before him from a few veteran soldiers who served in regular army, but this was the first time he had experienced it himself.

It was at this moment that the young girl jumped off the roof and landed in front of Qianye, examining him from head to toe before showing him something on her palm, “Come with me! We’ll find a place a get a drink.”

A while later, Qianye and the woman sat down inside a bar.

The reason Qianye had followed her was because she had shown him a four star hunter badge. The status of a four star hunter could only be obtained by accumulating a certain amount of merit and a rank four strength.

It was only now that Qianye had the chance to examine her closely.

She was a young girl, about twenty years old. She was clad in an armor with matching tones of dark brown and dark gray. The armor’s base material was probably some kind of vicious beast’s skin, and the vital spots of the armor were forged from steel. The armor was of course several times stronger than the one Qianye was wearing, and it fit the girl unusually well. It was obviously either tailor made or modified.

She had a soldierly and wild face that was extremely beautiful. She had a tiny scar on her forehead that not only didn’t damage her looks, but even gave her a wild charm when she turned her head and lifted the corner of her eyes.

The girl was extremely tall, being only slightly shorter than Qianye. Her figure was extraordinarily sexy, and it was as if they contained energy and strength that would overflow at any moment. She had dark brown hair, which she had tied back into a ponytail.

She leaned forward, seemingly not noticing at all that her chest was pressing against the table.

The girl then knocked the table in a bold manner that only an experienced and knowledgeable veteran would have, and said to Qianye, “I am Yu Yingnan. You can call me Yingnan, or better, Sister Nan… But kid, are you seriously going to drink this swill that’s so thin that it may as well be plain water?”

Chapter 64: Hunters  

What Qianye wanted was a large pint of light beer, yet in front of Yu Yingnan was two whole large porcelains of self-distilled cereal liquor. Like its name, this kind of liquor was brewed using cereal grains. The flavor was ordinary, but the alcohol was extremely strong.

Without allowing Qianye to explain a thing, Yu Yingnan directly poured a large cup of grain-distilled liquor to the brim and pushed it in front of him.

“I don’t drink strong liquor.” Qianye said guilelessly.

“What kind of man can’t drink!” She was not pleased.

“I can’t find a reason to drink with you.”

Yu Yingnan stared blankly for a moment, “Why…?” She looked at Qianye’s face that almost had no expression, then said with realization, “Don’t tell me you think that those human scum shouldn’t be killed?”

“Assault grenades are weapons to be used when facing real enemies.” Qianye said unfeelingly.

Yu Yingnan snorted as she sneered, “To those scums of the earth, is there a difference? You probably felt like you have what it takes to walk out that place, but what if it was someone else? Have you thought about the result of that? Just yesterday, two foreign women accidentally entered there. Do you know how their corpses were like when they were found?! Those kind of scum, f*cking killing them ten times over isn’t even too much! It’s killing in any case, what’s the difference in weapons?”

“But there were children among them…”

“That little vermin was the most important character! He would be responsible to find things of value, then decide whether or not to take the risk and kill the owner!”

Qianye opened his mouth, and discovered he could not rebute.

“Come! Down a glass first, little man! I really can’t understand what weird thoughts are in your head, it isn’t like a hunter at all! A rookie like you, if you really went up on the battlefield, you wouldn’t even how you died. Empty the glass first! Don’t be sheepish like a girl!”

“I… grew up in a place like this.” Qianye suddenly wanted to explain a little.

Somewhat astonished, Yu Yingnan gave him a look, then immediately said, “Then I understand. Looks like you aren’t a wimp. Come, empty this glass, consider it my apologies!”

The two shot glasses heavily touched, then Qianye stared blankly at the glass in his hand.

What kind of shot glass is this, this was clearly a glass for water!

But with a lift of the head, Yu Yingnan drank the large glass of strong liquor down to the last drop.

Qianye’s expression was a little bitter. Frowning, he took quite a while before slowly drinking the entire glass by small mouthfuls. After drinking, he breathed out a mouthful of strong alcoholic smell as a layer of redness instantly emerged from his face.

Another glass filled to the brim slid over on the table, steadily stopping before Qianye.

This time, Qianye almost couldn’t find it in him to speak anymore. Just as he raised the glass, Yu Yingnan already heavily bumped it, “Cheers!”

She raised her head, and another glass went down her stomach.

Qianye still divided it into several mouthfuls before finishing the liquor. His face was already totally flushed.

Just after these two rounds, a bottle of cereal liquor was already emptied. Yu Yingnan’s attitude in pouring alcohol was like drinking water. In the blink of an eye, two rounds were done again. The second bottle of liquor also met the bottom.

Yu Yingnan’s gaze toward Qianye finally softened a little, as she said, “Though a little timid, the amount you can drink can still be considered a man. Shopkeeper! Two more bottles for mouth rinsing!”

“Mouth rinsing?!” Qianye heard a terrifying phrase, and instantly began to cough.

Yu Yingnan waved her right hand, “Only two bottles, what else could it be other than rinsing the mouth? Oh, moistening the throat?”

Whether it be mouth rinsing or throat moistening, there wasn’t much of a difference.

The keeper of the bar carried two bottles of cereal liquor as he jogged over to deliver them.

Qianye and Yu Yingnan’s table had already attracted the gazes of the entire bar. However, this girl seemed to be very familiar to the people here. Amongst a crowd of half-drunk people, there were clappers, cheerers and hecklers, but there was just no challengers.

After mouth rinsing it was throat moistening, and after moistening the throat it was time for mouth rinsing again.

Just like that, the bottles piled up beside the two’s feet increasingly grew in number.

The more Yu Yingnan looked at Qianye, the more likable she found him to be, as she was already getting all brotherly with him. She also felt other than his disguising skills being a little bad, his skin being too fair, his frame not robust enough, his rank not high enough, his way of doing things not ruthless enough, and his imposing aura not very much imposing… he could be very much considered a man, as there weren’t any other faults.

Qianye naturally didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that. He didn’t know what else left of him could still be considered good points after excluding all those things she had said.

Since he couldn’t even butt in with words, Qianye could only cup his hands around the shot glass that was as big as a water glass and slowly drink the strong liquor in gulps.

Every time he finished a cup, Yu Yingnan would immediately fill one up for him, then heavily bump his glass again. She would finish the cup in one go, then watch as Qianye sluggishly deal with his cup of liquor.

Qianye looked as though he could collapse at any time starting from the first cup. Drinking past half the night, over ten bottles of liquor gone, he still seemed as though he could faceplant at any moment.

Qianye slowly finished this cup of liquor, then heavily set the cup onto the table. He waited for Yu Yingnan to fill it to the brim for him again, but after a while, the cup was still empty. Qianye finally raised his head, and only then did he find that Yu Yingnan had already fell under the table.

After staring blankly for a long time, he finally realized that this outspoken huntress was already drunk to the point of having passed out.

The barkeeper jogged over again, looked at Yu Yingnan first, then gave Qianye a thumbs up as he spoke in a quiet voice: “Amazing! You are actually the first one who could put her out one on one. Ah, anyway, sorry to bother you, this humble bar is closing now, so could you pay the bill?”

Qianye looked at the humongous number on the tab, only then did he find out just how much they had drank.

For the lack of a better option, he took out three gold and paid the bill, then walked over and supported Yu Yingnan up. Her posture when leaning on Qianye was still so gallant, while also being extraordinarily heavy. Just that set of armor was probably more than fifty kilograms in weight.

The barkeeper eagerly and attentively gave directions to where Yu Yingnan lived, then smiled as he made eyes at him. The expression on his face was so excessively obscene. In the end, he even wanted to market a strong drug that will “definitely make her unable to get out of the bed the next morning” to Qianye.

Qianye didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he hastily refused the barkeeper’s “goodwill.” If he really were to have done something to this four star huntress, she would definitely break Qianye’s legs after waking up. Then, the one who wouldn’t be able to get out of bed would be Qianye.

Qianye carried the huntress on his shoulder, and made his way to a small building according to the address given by the barkeeper.

The door to the building wasn’t locked at all, and the few simple traps inside was no problems for Qianye either. He cautiously avoided the alarm traps from the door to the hallway, went up to the bedroom on the third floor, and threw Yu Yingnan onto the bed. Only then did he finally let out a breath of relief.

Qianye took a look of the room; the arrangement here gave ample evidence that this girl was simply a violent savage. One side of the wall hung full of guns, while the other was full of various kinds of knives and blades. Within the cupboard that seemed like a bookcase, there were a lot of various odd body parts of the dark races. These were all the proof of her battle records. Ordinary men would probably immediately retreat to a respectful distance after seeing these.

At this time, Qianye finally begun to feel the after effects of drinking an entire night of strong liquor. His mouth was dry and his tongue was burning. Finding some cold water on the table, and not minding whether or not the water was fresh or not, he drank several cups full before finally feeling a little better.

He threw himself into the sofa, slowly relaxed as he felt more and more tipsy, then also fell asleep.

While in a muddle-headed state, Qianye suddenly felt an obscure danger coming. He once again appeared in that empty street block devoid of people. However, this time it was not blood thralls, but rather Yu Yingnan who had walked out from the dark alley! Her expression was ice cold, as she raised the pistol, aiming at Qianye’s forehead.

Qianye was immensely shocked and wanted to tell her to stop, but he couldn’t make any sound no matter what!

Yu Yingnan pressed down her finger, pulling the trigger while wearing a callous expression.

The instant before she pulled the trigger, Qianye suddenly sprung up from the ground and tackled into her torso, grabbing her arm and then tossed her out with a shoulder throw!

However, right when Yu Yingnan’s feet was about to leave the ground, she suddenly twisted her body and tossed Qianye with overwhelming power instead!

Amidst the world turning around him, Qianye instantly woke up, and realized that he was currently speeding toward the wall. The battle instincts built upon many years of experience did its job here, as he extended all four of his limbs and pressed against the wall at the same time, nimbly shredding the momentum. Then, his entire person shrunk down and hung onto the corner between the ceiling and the wall, as he looked at the situation from the wall.

Yu Yingnan was standing in the room, still keeping the posture of throwing as she looked at him with a dumbfounded face.

This time, it was reality and not a dream.

Yu Yingnan retracted her posture as she said in a somewhat awkward manner, “Um… I really didn’t mean to do that, I just wanted to put a blanket on you. I didn’t expect that you would suddenly… then I… Thankfully you were quite amazing, it’s good that you aren’t hurt.”

Qianye slid down along the wall, as he spoke with a bitter smile, “Not your fault. It’s because I often have nightmares. I just had another one just now, so that’s why I reacted instinctively.”

Yu Yingnan nodded, “In any case, your perception is really amazing, to actually be able to feel me coming close when asleep. Looks like you are qualified to move about alone in the wilderness.”

Qianye looked at the time. It was already five in the morning. This time was also when the hunters begin moving out.

Yu Yingnan suddenly felt a little embarrassed as she scratched her head, “Um, I became a little out of it yesterday night. I really didn’t expect your capacity for alcohol to be so great! What did you used to do?”

“Bar owner.” Qianye’s reply instantly made Yu Yingnan’s smile stiffen.

Momentarily after, the two ate breakfast as they talked about actual business.

Yu Yingnan heard that a newbie had joined the Home of Hunters, moreover, with high praises from Old 2. It just happened that she had a very problematic mission on hand and didn’t have enough people. Thus, she came to look for Qianye and coincidentally saw that scene at the slums. Qianye’s soft attitude caused her to unable to hold back and watch, so she dealt with those violent mobs with her usual rough style.

After that, she proposed to go drink. She originally planned to ruthlessly knock Qianye out with alcohol to give this little one star hunter a lesson to be learned. She didn’t expect to suffer such an unexpected defeat, to actually meet a bar owner as an opponent!

Yu Yingnan who rarely met a match in drinking was finally put down, and got carried home by Qianye.

But this also made Yu Yingnan have a whole new level of respect for Qianye. According to her, people with a good capacity for alcohol wouldn’t have too bad of a moral standing either.

Though Qianye really can’t bring himself to agree to this theory of hers, he wisely chose not to debate with this alcoholic, and instead begun to ask about the mission this time.

It turned out that Yu Yingnan received information about a werewolf’s secret lair in a valley about three hundred kilometers away from Darkblood City. An ancient totem existed in that place, and rumor said that the totem had the terrifying power to raise the cultivation speed of werewolves. Such a thing always had a very high priority on the purchase order of the Empire’s research facility, as it could be used to research the origin power of darkness.

Yu Yingnan planned to get this thing, but felt that her current force alone was still not enough.

She had already preliminarily formed a team, including a four star hunter and two three star hunters. After that, she could no longer find any suitable personnel. Anyone who could enter her eyes were all doing missions and she didn’t feel any of the free ones worthy. In the end, she really had no choice but to look for a newbie like Qianye, all because of those praising words from Old 2.

Qianye didn’t expect Old 2’s praise to be viewed so importantly by others. After all, four star hunters weren’t just any lackey on the street. At the very least, thirty or forty members of the dark races had lost their lives on Yu Yingnan’s hands, and possibly including many rank four heavy weights. Ever her putting that much faith in Old 2 meant that Old 2 was definitely no simple man.

“You sit here and wait, I’ll go take a shower.”

Yu Yingnan stripped down to her underwear right in front of Qianye, revealing her sensual body that was as graceful as a cheetah, and walked into the bathroom.

Chapter 65: Mission

Qianye had gotten a little grasp on the huntress’ personality now. Clearly, she possessed abundant hunting experience, and was used to battlefield life with no qualms between genders, which was why she was so unreserved. On the wastelands, when walking between the fine line of life and death, the distance between hunters were much closer than that of common folk.

Qianye’s gaze passed by a few scars on her body and could almost right away tell what lifeforms had caused them just by looking at the scar’s shape.

The two continued chatting through the bathroom’s door, and Qianye largely learnt the basic situation of this mission.

A complete werewolf tribe included the three rankings of alpha wolf, elders, and ordinary warriors. Some tribes would even have special kinds such as shadow wolves, needle wolves, battle wolves, or mad wolves.

The strengths of werewolves near the Boulderstone Region were relatively average. An alpha wolf was normally around rank five or six, and elders were only slightly weaker than that. As to the special kinds like shadow wolves, they would need to be judged based on some circumstances. However, situations where a powerful being existed that could shake the ecological homeostasis was very rare; because if that was the case, the dark races would undergo a turmoil within themselves first in order to re-allocate the sphere of power for the passing of their legacy to future generations. An traditional werewolf tribe would have around one hundred adult warriors, since their predatory region wouldn’t keep up with more than that.

With the power of Yu Yingnan’s small squad, it was simply impossible to frontally rattle the werewolf tribe. However, the goal of her mission this time wasn’t to entirely annihilate the werewolf tribe in the first place. It was to launch a surprise attack and snatch treasures. Yu Yingnan had acquired a type of origin power drug through some means by spending quite a bit of money. It could heavily damage werewolf’s sense of smell and cause their combat power to substantially drop in a short time.

In the huntress’s plans, this kind of drug was perfect for the sealed off environment like the wolf’s nest. It was estimated that the effect could last around half an hour or so. The hunters would have to launch a surprise attack at the wolf nest in less than half an hour of time, snatch over the totem, and escape at full speed. After avoiding being hunted down by the werewolves when returning, it would be considered a success.

However, the entire battle plan from the start to end gave Qianye a very unsettled feeling. From how he saw it, every chain of the plan were full of variables, especially the last one. To escape a few dozen werewolves who recovered their power, who were chasing them down with full force was way more difficult than one could ever imagine.

Qianye spoke his concerns, but Yu Yingnan answered taking no mind at all, “Alright already! Which operation doesn’t have accidents? It’ll be fine as long as we prepare adequately. Relax, I’ve roped Yang Tian in this time, he’s a professional at dealing with those large gray dogs. We are going to meet this afternoon, and make the final decision on preparatory work as well as division of labor. Come with me, and meet the other compatriots, so you’d have an idea of them.”

Qianye was stumped. From the start to end, he seemed to have never said he agreed to join, but Yu Yingnan considered him agreed to join as a matter of course. To put it flatly, the two’s relationship merely consisted of drinking together yesterday, moreover, she was the one who got put down by Qianye.

After eating lunch, Yu Yingnan took Qianye to a weapons shop on Black Copper Street, pushed open the door and walked in.

The shopkeeper was a middle aged man whose face was covered with sideburns. After seeing Yu Yingnan and Qianye, he pointed at the backroom, “All waiting inside.”

After walking into the door, it actually was a stairway instead of a backroom. A helix staircase lead all the way down into the basement. The space inside was unexpectedly spacious and the gas lamps were very bright. There were many partitioned rooms as well as various kinds of steel rails and machinery; it was actually a small sized workshop.

Yu Yingnan took Qianye to a room closest to the stairway, and from the appliances, it was a weaponry processing workshop.

Four workbenches were place in a row along the wall of the workshops, and on top of them were full of components as well as some semi-finished articles. One of the workbench even had a basin of crystal kernels. After those kernels were polished, they would become the important bullet head of a blank origin bullet.

In the room’s corner, shelves were stacked all the way to the ceiling and unprocessed steel strips were piled up on top of them.

Various models of firearms hung all over the walls that had large stretches of loose plaster and there were even two design diagrams nailed onto the wall.

Qianye took a look at the design diagram, and a few parameters that were intentionally circled out in black jumped into his view. To his surprise, he found out that they were actually standards of rank two origin guns.

He could not help but fix his faze onto it and looked over the entirety of the design plans. As expected, it was a self-designed origin gun that had barely reached rank two standards. To go as far as to surpassing the expeditionary army’s standard weapons shocked Qianye a bit. However, workshop-made guns were usually unreliable in terms of quality and mass production so Qianye still preferred the military’s standard-make weapon.

Three people had already arrived in the workshop. Two were sitting, while a young man with tanned skin was busy processing components at the workbench. When Yu Yingnan and Qianye entered, all of their gazes fell onto Qianye. There were curious ones, complementing ones, but there were also hostile ones.

Yu Yingnan did a simple introduction to both sides.

Yang Tian was like her, a four star hunter. He was over forty years old and looked to be a honest and sincere middle-aged man. He reached out and shook Qianye’s hands, as he smiled, “It’s actually the first time I’ve seen someone who could put Yingnan down on the liquor table! Welcome!”

As for the other two, one was named Jesse, and the other Li Lunzhe.

Jesse never left the workbench. Other than giving Qianye a glance when he came in, Jesse went back to being immersed in messing with the parts in his hands. Even when greeting Qianye and answering Yu Yingnan’s questions, his gaze had never left the components in his hands. One could tell that this was a technical madman.

Li Lunzhe was very young, around his mid-twenties or so, but his strength had actually also reached rank four, the same rank as Yu Yingnan and Yang Tian.

Carrying a faint arrogance, he reluctantly shook hands with Qianye. Not greeting Qianye, he instead turned his head and spoke to Yu Yingnan, “Sis Nan, this kid looks quite green, does he have battle experience? How about a little test?”

Yang Tian who was on the side spoke, “No need, people who Yingnan had chosen won’t be bad. Also, this is someone acknowledged by Old 2.”

Hearing that Old 2 had also gave his words before, Li Lunzhe mumbled and no longer said anything else. However, his hostility toward Qianye was still clear as day and he was not hiding it in the slightest.

Then, everyone discussed about their respective duties and details in the operation plan.

The hunters would move separately first and then converge at the arranged location outside of the valley, so as to hide their intent of raiding from being noticed by werewolves. Jesse would be responsible for the escape route, Qianye would mobilize with Yingnan and had the responsibility of taking the totem away the moment they get their hands onto it. The others would cover his retreat in the meanwhile. They did not deploy any hard combat mission for Qianye. All he needed to do was to use his advantage in speed and successfully take the totem back.

After done negotiating the plan, Yu Yingnan knocked on the table, “Now it’s the old rules. Equipment goods as well as handing in the operation’s deposit, Qianye’s share is on me!”

Qianye had wanted to pay his deposit himself, but seeing that the other three all took five gold coins out, he could only stay silent. After paying the tab yesterday night, he only had one gold and several silver on him.

The only income since Qianye came to Darkblood City was the ten gold bounty traded in at the Home of Hunters. The expenses of settling down, buying equipment and supplementary supplies exceeded his expectations. This was also the reason why he didn’t reject to join in on this operation even though he felt somewhat uneasy about it.

To Yu Yingnan’s decision, Yang Tian and Jesse didn’t raise any objections, while Li Lunzhe’s hostility toward Qianye had become more intense.

Everyone dispersed very quickly, and agreed to meet at the arranged location after three days.

When leaving the shop, Yu Yingnan patted Qianye’s shoulder, “You come with me, we will be leaving again at night.” From start to end, Qianye never had the choice to object to her plans.

Just after the two traveled two street blocks, Yu Yingnan suddenly stopped in her tracks.

This was a street not too wide nor narrow, and was relatively clean. Most of the buildings on the side were single storied with the occasional two story buildings. Other than residential buildings, most of the others were various types of grocery stores.

It was three or four in the afternoon and the sky has begun to darken. Gas lamps lit on one by one, and it happened to be the peak time for hunters to return to the city. This place should’ve also been the busiest at this time, but at this moment it was dead silent. Even a person’s shadow could not be seen in the streets and alleyways.

All of the doors and windows were tightly shut, as though the entire street had closed down for the evening without notice. The muddle light of gas lamps shone on the lonely signboard, appearing even more hazy and powerless in the natural light that has yet fully vanished.

Yu Yingnan looked at the surroundings, and suddenly sneered, “Since you’ve come already, why still goof around and hide?

A freakish sounding voice suddenly floated out from behind the two, “Of course it’s because we’re worried that you would get scared after seeing us, then suddenly making a run for it!”

As the old door axle made a creaking sound, a thin and shriveled looking man walked out from the house behind them.

Then, many doors on the side of the street opened one by one. A few dozen people walked out and surrounded Yu Yingnan and Qianye. Most of these people possessed a power of a rank one Fighter, while that freakishly sounding man was shockingly a rank three Fighter.

Qianye’s gaze swept through them, then discovered that there was a venomous snake tattoo on the bare arms of every one of them. He could already tell that they ought to be gang members of a gang called Sky Snake Gang.

Sky Snake Gang could be said as the third biggest gang in Darkblood, possessing quite the power. This street block just happened to be their territory.

Qianye quickly sized up the surrounding environment. The buildings on this street actually couldn’t cause any obstruction, and even if there were still ambush inside the rooms, there was no possibility of them stopping Yu Yingnan and Qianye if their strengths were about as high as those out here right now.

Yu Yingnan raised her brows and said, “Tree Snake, no need to play these little tricks on me. Don’t beat around the bush, what is it this time? If it’s obviously a trap, then of course I will leave right away, then take my time and settle it with you lot later.

Tree Snake took his time and spoke leisurely, “Leave? You no longer want your business in the city?”

Yu Yingnan didn’t get angry either, and just spoke indifferently, “Yeah, but your Sky Snake Gang’s people, especially you, shouldn’t think about leaving the city from now on either. If you are going out, then prepare your own funeral arrangement first!”

The expression on Tree Snake’s face changed as his momentum instantly died down by a few notches. They did indeed have the power in numbers. Everyone of them possessed some combat power, not needing to back off against anyone in the city.

But the wasteland was an entirely different world. Unless they form large parties to travel every time, then they definitely won’t be the match of a veteran hunter like Yu Yingnan. If Yu Yingnan was determined to go at it, and keep watch everyday outside of the city, then not many of Sky Snake Gang’s members would really dare to go out. At least, they wouldn’t dare to get too far from the city.

Qianye instantly gained a whole new level of respect toward Yu Yingnan. He had thought this was a woman whose brains were filled with violence and muscles. But when he thought about it again, it really was true that no four star hunters were easy to deal with, no matter their personality and behavior.

Tree Snake put his smile away, “Alright, Yu Yingnan, you win! Now then, what are you going to do with that debt you owe our boss? If you want to keep delaying and not pay it back, that’s actually fine too. Our boss said that he’ll go speak to the Old 2 when the time comes, and not a single copper of interest and fines will be spared!”

Chapter 66: Snakes

Yun Yingnan’s expression was ugly. She said, “I’ll return the money after I’m done with this mission!”

Tree Snake sneered, “Done with your mission? Who knows when you’ll be done with your mission? Plus, you said the same thing twice earlier. And the results? Not only did you fail to clear up your debt, it grew even bigger than it was before. Miss Yingnan, with your mission completion rate, do you think you can trust yourself to pay back your debt at the end of your mission had you been in my position?”

Yu Yingnan’s face grew uglier and uglier. Her right hand was clenched into a fist, and she looked like she was about to lose control.

But not only was Tree Snake unafraid, he even moved his face closer and pointed at himself, saying, “C’mon, hit me! Hit me hard! Hit right here and make sure you kill me when you do hit! For goodness sake please don’t hold anything back at all!”

There was a loud bang, and the ground beneath Yu Yingnan’s feet suddenly cracked under pressure. This was because she failed to control some of her origin power from spreading. But despite the fact that Tree Snake had obviously made up his mind to bully her shamelessly until the end, she couldn’t punch him no matter how much she wanted to.

She inhaled deeply as her chest moved up and down. She barely managed to restrain her emotions before she yelled, “What the hell do you want then?”

Tree Snake made an inviting gesture and said, “What do we want? That’s up to the boss to decide! Follow me.”

Moments later, Yu Yingnan and Qianye walked into a big house a street away.

The first floor’s living hall was decorated luxuriously. A calligraphy writing was hung on one side of the wall, and a landscape drawing was hung on the other. There was also a row of heavy firearms hung inside the building, and the three styles looked completely incompatible with one another when gathered in one place.

Several dozens of fearsome-looking men suddenly surged into the living hall and stood still beside the walls. Then, they opened their eyes wide and stared angrily at Yu Yingnan and Qianye with impressive vigor. However, Qianye merely cast these small fries who were rank one Fighters at best a sweeping glance before ignoring them completely. Instead, he put his attention on the screen painted with a beauty lying drunkenly beside a lake at the left side of the building.

When everyone was done assuming their positions inside the living hall, a bare chested man finally walked out from behind the screen.

The man was a full head taller than Qianye, and a giant twin-winged python was tattooed all around his upper body. The head of the python sat at the center of his chest.

He was the boss of Sky Snake Gang, and his name was Sky Snake. No one actually remembered what his real name was.

Sky Snake threw his gigantic body directly onto the center of the sofa and laughed, saying, “Yingnan, it’s quite difficult to find you, you know!”

Yu Yingnan said coldly, “Cut the nonsense and get straight to the point! Stop wasting my time!”

Sky Snake slapped his own thigh once heavily and pointed at Yu Yingnan, saying, “Very good, I like that frank attitude of yours! In that case I won’t mince words with you. Do you know how much money you owe me right now? I doubt you’ve ever calculated it properly yourself, have you? Green Snake, bring over the bill and show it to her!”

A woman with long curly hair wearing a mini skirt walked over while twisting her round butt. She passed a bill to Yu Yingnan.

In reality, her looks were incomparable to Yu Yingnan’s. However, her advantage lay on her huge breast, long legs, and short mini skirt. She immediately knocked a certain four star hunter out of the limelight and attracted most of the men’s attention inside the living hall. Even Qianye couldn’t help himself from casting her a few glances.

Yu Yingnan immediately noticed his gaze and she shot him a fierce glare. Then, she snatched the bill from Green Snake’s hand and gave it a sweeping glance. She immediately cried out, “It can’t be this much!”

Sky Snake finally laughed to his heart’s content when he saw Yu Yingnan’s reaction to the bill. He said leisurely, “This bill clearly outlined everything you owed in detail. I’ve always worked fairly, and I will never swindle another person! If you don’t believe me, you can find someone else to help you calculate it properly!”

Yu Yingnan looked reluctant. Qianye only needed to look at her once to know that this extremely masculine friend of his wasn’t too good with numbers. Therefore, he said, “Let me have a look.”

Yu Yingnan hesitated for a moment before passing the bill to Qianye.

Qianye’s life skill class had included basic calculation, and the bill before him was in fact quite simple. He only needed to check through a small portion of the bill carefully to figure out that the bill was probably proper and not tampered with.

Although the total amount owed had reached a shocking amount of 500 gold coins, only one third of it fell under interest and fines. Yu Yingnan had owed this sum of money for half a year, and in this chaotic city, there was no denying that that the annual interest of this debt was on the low side considering that it hadn’t exceeded 100%.

After a moment’s hesitation, Qianye ultimately said, “This bill looks fine, if you did borrow a sum of 300 gold coins or so.”

This time Yu Yingnan fell completely silent. A moment later, she glared at Sky Snake and said heavily, “What do you want? Say it.”

Sky Snake slapped his thigh again and chuckled, “Oh, I don’t really want anything actually. You see, we’ve known each other for such a long time, so there’s no way I’d force you to pay if you really can’t afford it, right? How about this: why don’t I go find Old 2 and...”

Before Sky Snake could even finish, Yu Yingnan immediately yelled out fiercely, “Don’t even think about it!”

“Then I can’t do anything about it. Unless…” Sky Snake leaned against the sofa again and looked playfully at Yu Yingnan. He snapped his fingers once, and Tree Snake jogged over and passed over another paper to Yu Yingnan.

Sky Snake waved a hand and said impassionedly, “It’s very simple! If you sign this contract, then your debt will be gone in one stroke!”

Yu Yingnan cast a glance at the paper and felt her eyebrows furrow immediately. She said in a chilly voice, “A death arena?”

“Exactly! If you participate in the death arena on our behalf and either win five matches or fight ten matches in a row, then your debt would be struck off completely! What do you say?” Sky Snake stared at Yu Yingnan with bright eyes. There was undeniably lust in his eyes, but the light of greed was even greater.

“This appearance fee seems a little high. You’re telling me that I can clear my debt this simply?” Yu Yingnan sneered.

Sky Snake laughed loudly and said, “Oh no, this appearance fee isn’t high at all. Sure, for another rank four Fighter this price is at least three times their worth, but you are different, Yu Yingnan! If you are willing to participate in the death arena, I can guarantee that the seats would be filled to capacity every time.”

He paused for a moment and worked hard to put on a kind smile despite his fiendish looks, “If you’re still worried, I can even ask your opponents to sign a minimum guarantee clause. This means that they cannot kill or disable you even if they win, or they would have to cough up a large sum of money. What do you think?”

His offer sounded unbelievably good, but in reality that was not the case. Qianye knew a little about death arenas. It was a bloody battle held publicly inside Darkblood City. The challengers were not restricted to just humans, and sometimes there would be battle between humans and foreign races. Sometimes, there would even be battles between ferocious beasts.

A beautiful female challenger and especially someone as reputable as Yu Yingnan was extremely favored by the audiences. This was because the battle had no set rules, and any methods were allowed inside the arena. If the female challenger wasn’t good enough, then the fight would often turn into a public show of humiliation.

In order to maintain the people’s interest, the organizers would often change things up a little inside the blood soaked arena. Every once in a while, the organizers would throw in a few beautiful female challengers to push the arena’s atmosphere towards a greater climax.

If Yu Yingnan were to attend the death arena, then there was a chance an “aftershow” might happen during the match. Of course the audiences were going to flock to the arena. It was only normal that the tickets would be prized at four to five times its usual prize.

Yu Yingnan’s face changed colors constantly. Suddenly, she clenched her teeth and said, “Alright, I’ll sign it!”

Just when Sky Snake was about to shout in joy at the unexpected good news, Qianye suddenly said, “Wait!”

When everyone’s gazes were focused onto him, Qianye waved the bill in his hand and said, “There are still seven days until this bill is due, right?”

Sky Snake said disdainfully, “So what? You’re not telling me that she could gather this sum of money, or complete a big mission that will pay a sum like this in a such short time, aren’t you? I’ve already inquired about the mission you’ve completely recently, and the total payout of that mission is only a hundred or so gold coins. Or are you saying that a small fry like you is going to repay the sum she owed?”

Qianye said, “Seven days isn’t too much, but it should be enough to sell off a couple of things.”

While saying this, he opened his backpack and took out the Flowing Gold Rose. Slowly, he placed it in front of Sky Snake.

“Cancel her debt in full, and this gun will belong to you. Or if you so wish, I can sell this myself and return 500 gold coins to you later. Now choose!” Qianye said indifferently.

Sky Snake’s expression changed greatly as he picked up the Flowing Gold Rose and gave it a close examination. Then, he carefully tested its origin power conversion rate before finally putting the gun back onto the table with great care. He let out a breath and said, “This is a grade three origin gun! It is the fine handiwork of the vampire race too!”

“You definitely have an eye for things, that’s for sure. So what do you think of my previous suggestion?”

Yu Yingnan grabbed Qianye’s arm immediately and said hastily, “Qianye! You can’t...”

Qianye patted her hand and motioned for her to keep quiet. Then, he looked back at Sky Snake once more.

If this Flowing Gold Rose were to be sold on the empire’s upper continent, its price could easily reach a thousand gold coins. In fact, it could reach an auction price of 600 gold coins even at a place like Darkblood City. It was more than enough to cancel out Yu Yingnan’s debt.

Sky Snake pondered for a moment before his expression suddenly changed when he recalled something. Then, he revealed a somewhat sinister smile and said, “This gun is a little interesting. But does it truly belong to you? I think I remember a friend who seem to have lost something just like this.”

Qianye retorted rudely, “Is your friend a vampire?”

Qianye wasn’t really angry when he heard Sky Snake’s obviously malicious tone. He knew from the beginning that the Flowing Gold Rose would bring trouble the moment it was revealed, but it wasn’t like he had any other choice. Considering Yu Yingnan’s temperament, she would’ve signed that piece of contract under that circumstances. She was an excellent hunter, but that didn’t mean that she could become an excellent gladiator. Moreover, the top champions of the death arena were all at rank five minimum.

Sky Snake slapped his table once and yelled angrily, “What the fuck do you mean by that! You’re too green to be accusing me falsely!”

“I’ve snatched this gun from a vampire on the wasteland. That’s why I asked you that question.” Qianye looked into Sky Snake’s eyes and said that softly. It was as if he didn’t know that Sky Snake Gang would immediately be uprooted by the expeditionary forces the second they were confirmed that they were in cahoots with the vampires.

Sky Snake let out a snort before sneering at him, “And why should I believe your words? In my opinion, you must’ve stolen this gun from somewhere else! How about you leave this gun with me until I confirmed that it wasn’t stolen from my friend. Then we’ll talk about repaying her debt later.”

While saying this, Sky Snake leaned forwards and clutched the Flowing Gold Rose firmly on the table. However, his expression suddenly turned apprehensive when he felt two cold, sudden killing intent pressing down on his body. His movements stopped midway just like that.

Sky Snake slowly raised his head and looked at Qianye with a bit of surprise. It was only natural that Yu Yingnan would carry a thick aura of death around her since she was a rank four fighter with a lot of years of experience as a hunter.

But what surprised Sky Snake was that the other killing intent had actually came from Qianye. This big boy that he nearly overlooked earlier actually carried an aura of death that was much thicker than even Yu Yingnan’s! Sky Snake could even smell a wet scent that felt like a blood waterfall pouring down from above his head.

“Is this the level of trustworthiness Sky Snake Gang has?” Qianye asked coldly.

“Trustworthiness?” Sky Snake wanted to laugh when he heard this word, but he actually found the urge vanishing when he stared back at the little fellow’s calm, almost serious gaze.

But he was ultimately a rank five expert. His face immediately darkened as he replied coldly, “I am Sky Snake, and my name is trust itself! As for you, you are just a kid whose hair isn’t even fully grown yet! How dare a mere one star hunter talk about trustworthiness with me!”

Yu Yingnan had already taken down the assault rifle behind her back by this point and said angrily, “Sky Snake! Don’t you push it too far!”

Qianye sighed quietly on the inside. He understood that Yu Yingnan’s words had screwed up the potential deal instead.

Chapter 67: Boiling Blood

Sure enough, Sky Snake laughed. He settled himself, his entire body relaxing. He spread his arms, exposing his unprotected chest.

“Shoot! Shoot! It’s best if you kill me! If you kill me, then your little guys will be happy!”

Yu Yingnan bit down on her lower lip so hard that it turned white, but her fingers froze in midair, unable to press down on the trigger. After her mind-numbing anger subsided, she realized that if she pulled the trigger, severe consequences would occur. Besides, a trifling gun that used gunpowder had no way of killing Sky Snake in one hit.

A hand reached over, steadily but forcefully lowering Yu Yingnan’s gun.

Qianye seemed as if he couldn’t see that Sky Snake’s underlings had already taken out their weapons and only looked at Sky Snake. He said, “Since you use your name to protect your reputation, you wouldn’t prevent us from leaving at this moment, right?”

Sky Snake narrowed his eyes and stared at Qianye for a little, then laughed loudly, “Why would I do that! My best customer, you guys can come and leave whenever you wish! You’re welcome to return at any time!”

Qianye nodded his head and then said to Yu Yingnan, “Let’s go, let’s leave this place.”

“But,” Yu Yingnan still wanted to say something, but Qianye half supported and half clutched her right shoulder that was controlling the gun and walked out.

Yu Yingnan felt an irresistible, strong force clutching her right shoulder. Any struggle would be futile, so she could only follow Qianye as they walked. She did not even think of questioning why Qianye could restrict her with just the power of a rank three Fighter.

In the eyes of Sky Snake’s gang, on the other hand, it seemed that Yu Yingnan followed Qianye of her own will. They all felt indescribably weird since they had never heard of anyone who could persuade this hot-tempered female hunter.

“Wait.” Sky snake called out to stop them.

Yu Yingnan instantly turned around and stared at Sky Snake, her eyes full of fury. In contrast, Qianye half turned around with a questioning look on his face, He did it so naturally that it seemed like nothing had happened.

Sky Snake looked at Qianye thoughtfully, pondered, and then said, “How about this, I’ll give Old 2 some face. I’ll void any interest she has and I’ll give her two more months to pay back her original debt. It’ll be fine if she returns her original loan within two months.”

“You!” Yu Yingnan couldn’t contain her anger, but Qianye nodded towards Sky Snake, and then dragged her outside.

After leaving the headquarters of the Sky Snake Gang and reaching the street, Yu Yingnan suddenly howled in frustration and heavily punched a tree on the roadside!

“Why did you stop me?” Yu Yingnan shouted at Qianye.

“Because you weren’t ready to fight to the death, and we can’t beat them.” Qianye calmly responded.

“How do you know I wasn’t ready to fight to the death?”

Qianye didn’t answer and only silently looked at her. Under his gaze, Yu Yingnan’s fury began to subside. She then ultimately punched the tree again and said, “If it was just me...”

“Maybe a good idea would be to find a place to sit down and listen to your story.”

A moment later, the two people returned to Yu Yingnan’s house.

She found a few bottles of liquor that she had hidden, and directly gulped it down from the bottle without using a cup. After two bottles lacked even a drop of alcohol, her excited mood finally started to slowly but surely return to normal.

Yu Yingnan stared at the bottle of liquor she was swinging around in her fingers and said, “You probably want to know why I have such a large debt, right?”

It wasn’t a complicated story.

A year ago, during a mission, she had been met with an enormous tragedy. Her small team was annihilated, with her as the sole survivor. Yu Yingnan believed that she was to blame for bringing them to such a tragic end. Thus, in the next half year, she had found every late team members’ family and sent them to relatively safe cities along with enough money for these families to live.

The children of these team members that still needed to go to school, including Yu Yingnan’s own younger brother, were still living in Darkblood City, receiving basic combat training.

In this manner, Yu Yingnan had not only spent all of her savings, but also incurred a massive debt with Sky Snake. If she chose to turn completely hostile, she was worried that Sky Snake would hurt the families of her fallen comrades, and maybe even their children.

If the Sky Snake Gang intended to force her into a dead end, then she would not be afraid and would fight them to the death. However, it was still just money business. She truly did not have the resolve to fight them over this. She could only endure.

This bit of money was barely even worth considering for powerful families, but in a place like Darkblood City, it was enough to force people into their graves.

After saying this, she forcefully buried her face in her two hands, and said with a whimper, “Sorry, I dragged you into this. Don’t worry, I will return the money for that gun!”

“That isn’t important, but won’t you let Old 2 know of this?”

“Because Old 2 had already helped me many times. I already owe him so much, but if he knew of this, he would still pay off this debt for me. Truthfully, Old 2 has already used a lot of resources on me.” Yu Yingnan couldn’t say anything else and could only forcefully pull on her hair.

This was a hunter’s pride. It sounded ridiculous, but she would rather enter the death arena than rely on Second Elder again.

Qianye also poured himself a cup of alcohol, but only held it in his hands. He stared at the slightly yellow alcohol and asked thoughtfully, “Hunters shouldn’t be afraid of the Sky Snake Gang right? You’re a four star hunter, so why are you still being bullied this obviously?”

Yu Yingnan let out a long sight before explaining, “Hunters and mercenaries are different. We have more freedom, but in exchange, Home of Hunters will remain neutral in this kind of conflict. In reality, many hunters want to me to die horribly. In any case, I really do owe Sky Snake money and I can’t even pay it back, so Old 2 doesn’t have a way to use Home of Hunters to suppress Sky Snake. Sky Snake used to be very rule abiding, but I never thought he’d act this way today.”

Qianye smiled and said, “I already had expected that.” The logic was very simple. When the benefits and the opposing assets were no longer balanced, rules were bound to be discarded.

Yu Yingnan was surprised, “Then, do you have a way to take back your origin gun?”

“He still ultimately voided your interest and gave you another two months. The gun could be considered to have been exchanged for two hundred gold coins. We didn’t lose out so badly.” Qianye said.

“This is ‘not losing out so badly’?”

Qianye wagged his finger at her and didn’t let her continue speaking. He then said, “Considering my current background and strength, to sell it without any trouble would be pretty difficult. That’s why we can just let it end here.”

“No!” Yu Yingnan pounded on the table.

“I don’t have the strength, so I can’t keep Flowing Gold Rose. Isn’t that just the rule of Darkblood City?” Qianye calmly said. He was even more clear on this concept than Yu Yingnan. In addition, if he had not taken out the Flowing Gold Rose, they would have had no way of leaving Sky Snake’s control.

However, his tone suddenly changed, becoming indifferent yet containing a hidden chill, “However, I really love this rule. When I have enough strength, I will naturally make Sky Snake return what he owes hundredfold!”

Yu Yingnan looked up, and stared at Qianye as if knowing him for the first time.

Qianye now had his original look, delicate and almost exquisite. When he spoke, his expression was indifferent, but his words had a bloody will that could shatter all obstacles.

Yu Yingnan suddenly found that the boy in front of her became extremely foreign, as if the rookie one star hunter that couldn’t fire into a mob had never existed.

“Now, we should probably finish our mission before we speak of this again.” Qianye glanced at her as he voiced his opinion.

Yu Yingnan regained some energy and then quietly adjusted her equipment before giving Qianye a case. Qianye opened it and saw three lined up origin bullets with her aura. He didn’t decline and put the case in his backpack.

At three o’clock at night, Yu Yingnan and Qianye left Darkblood City one after the other, and then split up, taking different paths to reach their destination.

When he entered the wasteland, Qianye took out his Ambusher and steadily ran toward his destination. He chose to run northwest at forty kilometers per hour as his limit.

A number of hours later, the werewolves that had been chasing Qianye for an hour already had decided to give up. Qianye’s speed and endurance surprised them. He seemed to have boundless endurance as he crossed the wasteland.

In the middle of running, Qianye suddenly shook, and became alert for no apparent reason.

He was on a foothill with mild slopes. The majority of the foliage there were vines and shrubs that had spikes, and the only other structures were scattered ruins drowned within the foliage. Maybe one hundred years ago it had been a small town inhabited by humans, but only a few crumbled walls remained.

Qianye sprinted as he neared the the ruins. At the same time, he vigilantly searched for signs of movement in all directions. Suddenly, he saw a small, floating shadow, far in the distant sky.

The person wasn’t very big, and his entire body was wrapped in a black cloak, hiding the structure of his body.

At this time, they had a few kilometers between them, so Qianye could only barely see mysterious person’s outline. It probably was a humanoid organism. However, when Qianye saw the mysterious person, this person almost instantly reacted and turned his head to look at Qianye.

Qianye was aghast and closed his eyes as fast as he could. His body curled up and rolled on the ground, almost falling into a natural hole under two stones at the side of the ruins. He simultaneously began using several military secret arts to hold his breath, stop his heart, and enter a death-like state.

He just finished entering this state when an enormous consciousness swept past the area, right over his body!

The consciousness was extremely cold. From this instant, Qianye could only feel a black sun gradually rise in front of his eyes.

He almost couldn’t feel fear, he could only feel flames that were darker than the abyss, slowly being dragged across the entire world by the black sun.

Qianye desperately pushed his consciousness into his third, already extinguished, origin node, wildly trying to remain awake. He had an ominous feeling that the moment he relaxed his consciousness, it would be absorbed by the black sun, falling into an eternal night.

After who knew how long, the icy consciousness retreated like floodwater. The black sun’s flames also gradually left Qianye. However, at this moment, the blood of darkness that had been sleeping in his body for a long time suddenly began to act up. It almost instantly boiled over!

Chapter 68: Assaulting the Werewolves’ Hideout   

Qianye was completely shaken, but at this moment, his heart was no longer beating. The army’s turtle breath technique could be used to conceal oneself in extreme conditions, and to fake one’s death in dangerous situations. Once it was used, one would lose any ability to move or protect oneself for the next half hour.

The moment that Qianye saw the man in the black robe, he judged based on his years of fighting experience that the man was an enemy he had no way of resisting, so he had decisively activated this secret art. As expected, the man had almost destroyed his firm will that had been tempered through numerous battles and seas of blood. Such power could almost be compared to Dark Monarchs!

Unexpectedly, he had just avoided tragedy, but the blood of darkness within his body actually started acting unusually at this moment. However, Qianye was powerless.

His consciousness had only just cleared up, and it seemed to be completely separated from his body. He could only stare coldly from the side as the blood of darkness raged like boiling water.

Qianye suddenly found that the raging blood wasn’t actually pure. Within the flowing dark blood were innumerable hair-thin blood strands that pursued and entangled each other as they were embroiled in fierce combat!

The main, dark-red blood energy had an obvious advantage of numbers. The pale-gold and strange, purple blood energies were eye catching, but were very low in number. However, in just a moment, the tides turned. The dark-red blood energy was continuously minced, gradually weakening until only a few strands remained. In contrast, the pale-gold blood energy did not change at all, while the strange, purple blood energy gained an entire extra ring after destroying the numerous strands of dark blood energy.

The blood stopped raging just as suddenly as it started. When Qianye regained his consciousness, everything had already ended. His limbs were all able to move, his entire body was covered with syrup-like sweat, and he was thoroughly soaked, from his clothing to his hair, as if he had been immersed in a pool.

The black blood within his veins had already lightened up, with many strands of blood energy slowly moving without showing any signs of excitation. Origin power flowed out from the three origin nodes, returning to fill his limbs and bones.

Qianye slowly recovered his ability to move, inspecting if his military secret art or his raging blood left hidden damage. His body seemed normal for the moment. At the same time, he began pondering the encounter he had just had.

The strength of that black-robed man could be described as deep as hell. Why would an expert who could influence the situation of the entire continent suddenly appear in the surroundings of a small city like Darkblood City, and actually stop there? There must have been something here that attracted this major figure of the dark races. However, no matter the reason, Qianye had no qualifications to participate in such a battle.

As for the black blood within his body, he still had no way to control it. Qianye emptied an origin bullet, and then refilled it with a strand of blood energy following the origin power, giving this tangible bullet Qianye’s unique mark.

Qianye stared at the transparent bullet for a while, and then threw the little thing back in its case. The recent few strange changes in his black blood made Qianye numb. Thus, he decided that as long as it didn’t interfere with fighting, he wouldn’t care!

At this moment, the wasteland had already become extremely dangerous. Qianye had become even more careful after recovering, no longer running at his limit as he pleased. He cautiously proceeded, barely making it to the gathering place before the time limit.

Yu Yingnan, Yang Tian, and the others all had arrived. They were waiting for just Qianye.

Upon seeing Qianye, Li Lunzhe let out a loud snort and smiled coldly as he said, “Running for three days to travel this bit of distance, your speed is truly fast!”

Qianye wrinkled his brows, his expression immediately becoming heavy.

Without waiting for Qianye to act, Yu Yingnan’s cold voice rang out, “Qianye arrived before the arranged time, is there a problem?”

Li Lunzhe was stricken, immediately revealing an indignant expression, angrily saying, “Sister Nan! What are you trying to imply, we all got here a long time ago, and everyone here waited for him for over half a day! The time limit is only the bottom line. If no unexpected accidents occur, all should arrive as early as possible. This is an unwritten agreement between hunters. Was I wrong to reprimand him? Sister Nan, have you fallen for this pretty boy here?”

A crash sounded. No one thought Yu Yingnan would suddenly pull out her pistol and point it right at Li Lunzhe’s forehead!

Yu Yingnan spoke one word at a time, emphasizing each one, “Who I like is up to me! It’s none of your business!”

The crowd was stunned, not at all having expected such a strong reaction, especially since her expression showed no signs of joking around.

Yang Tian saw that things were getting out of head, so he immediately pushed Yu Yingnan’s gun to the side and advised, “Yingnan! Right now, we’re all teammates, there’s no need to act like this.”

Yang Tian then spoke to Li Lunzhe, “Qianye is our teammate now as well, and he just became a hunter. He is probably not clear on many rules, so it’s unnecessary to pick at the details. Other than that, be careful when you speak.”

Yang Tian was a veteran hunter and had always had high prestige, so when he chose to mediate in this dispute, Li Lunzhe stopped bickering. He raised both of his arms, and retreated two steps, indicating his concession. However, after seeing those obstinate and unruly eyes, and that resentful smile, anyone would know that this problem was a long way from finished.

Yu Yingnan snorted and ignored Li Lunzhe, taking the lead in heading out. Yang Tian and Zha Xi followed behind her.

Li Lunzhe purposefully slowed down to wait for Qianye to catch up before he whispered, “Boy, this hasn’t finished yet. In the future, you better be careful when you leave the city, you better not let me see you!”

Qianye glanced at him, lightly responding, “In such a hurry to die?”

Li Lunzhe suddenly stopped walking, his eyes emitting killing intent. He spoke in anger, “Die? From just you? A one star hunter?”

“Idiot.” Qianye left one comment and stopped listening to Li Lunzhe. He left to catch up to Yu Yingnan.

At this time, Yu Yingnan was concealed at a cliff, looking into the valley that Yang Tian had already snuck into.

At the valley floor was a cave with a few gray wolves that seemed to be guarding the entrance, and were dozing off.

Yang Tian did not disappoint his name as a werewolf expert. He had already snuck within thirty meters of the cave entrance, yet the gray wolves still had no response.

Yang Tian suddenly stood up, tossing a few grenades into the cave entrance. He then pulled out his pistol as fast as lightning and shot continuously. Surrounded by the sounds of gunfire, the few gray wolf guards didn’t even have a chance to stand up. All of them had been shot through the head, whimpering as they fell.

Yang Tian had thrown in gas grenades mixed with origin power drugs. Pale-yellow smoke sprayed out of the cave immediately.

“Attack!” Yu Yingnan shouted quickly, immediately leaping down from the cliff. This was a hundred meter tall cliff!

Midway, she threw out a hook and hooked it to the edge of the cliff. She then borrowed the force of her fall to swing to the valley floor. When her feet touched the ground, she barely paused to cushion her fall, instead running toward the cave in large strides, simultaneously firing her gun. She was able to shoot down a werewolf that had suddenly appeared.

Li Lunzhe leapt down as well and latched his hook onto the edge of the cliff to slow his fall, just like Yu Yingnan did. Unlike Yu Yingnan, he was not able to use only one hook, he was forced to use three before reaching the valley floor.

However, Li Lunzhe had only been halfway before seeing a figure, lightly floating over his head, heading toward the valley floor. That was Qianye. He was actually faster than him!

Li Lunzhe was stunned for a moment, and couldn’t resist lifting his head to look at the cliff, whereupon he found there were no additional tools. How was able to get down, he actually hadn’t used any tools!

Qianye had already followed Yu Yingnan in charging the cave before Li Lunzhe finally regained his senses and hastily followed up.

Only Zha Xi remained behind them. He needed to enter the valley through a pull. When he reached the valley floor, the others had already entered the cave. He did not follow them in and instead began laying down various traps.

In the werewolf hideout, Qianye followed closely behind Yu Yingnan. After passing through many twists and turns, five different tunnels appeared in front of them.

A few vicious werewolves ran out of one of the tunnels. Yu Yingnan ran towards it, directly blocking that tunnel then pointed at another, shouting, “Qianye! Run that way and look for ways to find the totem. I will try my best to keep the werewolves away!”

Yang Tian threw a few grenades which instantly emitted a huge wave of pale-yellow gas into the tunnel Yu Yingnan pointed at, and then turned and charged into a nearby tunnel.

Inside the pale-yellow fog, werewolves whimpered in pain one after another. Many weaker ones even began rolling around on the ground. The smoke had an extremely pungent smell, which was equivalent to a deadly poison to werewolves that had sensitive noses.

Qianye charged into the tunnel indicated by Yu Yingnan, bending over as he snuck forward. When he left the werewolves’ line of sight, he suddenly changed his posture, and his speed doubled! At bends with a slope and no sharp rocks or obstacles, Qianye virtually did not reduce his speed at all, and directly ran on the walls of the cave!

After passing a tunnel entrance, two werewolves suddenly charged out, but Qianye’s abrupt increase in speed caused them both to miss. The werewolves chased closely without giving up, but the distance between them and Qianye still became longer and longer.

The two werewolves both widened their eyes, staring unbelievably at Qianye in the distance! They were actually unable to run as fast as Qianye in their own cave!

Qianye ran faster and faster, sneaking through like wind. However, in front of him appeared a gigantic werewolf, its body taking up virtually half of the tunnel. It was on all fours, and its head was raised, roaring fiercely at Qianye.

A vicious expression flashed across Qianye’s face before he similarly roared deeply and actually collided into the werewolf!

A muffled thud sounded. It was actually the werewolf that had been struck flying! It roared again. but before it even reached the ground it, a fist began to enlarge within his field of view.

With a snap, Qianye completely crushed the giant wolf’s nose.

Qianye held onto the wolf’s hind legs and brandished it at the werewolves chasing from behind. The two werewolves roared angrily, dodged the body, and dove toward Qianye from his left and right.

However, in just this brief moment, Qianye’s Ambusher had already locked onto the werewolf on the left. A gunshot sounded as a origin bullet boosted by Heavy Caliber blasted the wolf into the air. The werewolf’s chest became a mutilated mess of flesh and blood.

Afterwards, Qianye threw down his Ambusher and grabbed the other werewolf’s front claws. The two of them began wrestling.

The werewolf roared at Qianye, suddenly opening his mouth and biting towards Qianye!

However, his mouth only closed halfway before it suddenly howled a painful cry directed at the sky.

Qianye’s hands had used force, so the werewolf’s claws broke amidst sounds of shattering! The werewolf was at least twice the size of Qianye, and their race was known for their strength, but it had actually been crushed by Qianye in this contest of brute strength.

Qianye’s hands extended outwards, clamping down on the werewolf’s lips. He roared again, forcefully ripping them out.

The werewolf immediately fell into a crumbling state as it fell onto the ground, its four limbs convulsing.

At this time, the other werewolf struggled to stand up. Having seen all of this happen, its eyes revealed deep terror. Qianye steadily walked towards this werewolf. It suddenly roared and actually turned around to flee!

Qianye suddenly sped up, following it like he was its shadow. He then directly dove onto the wolf’s back, his hands extending forward to hug the werewolf’s head. He forcefully twisted!

Amidst a cracking sound, the werewolf’s neck broke with a snap.

Chapter 69: Success

With a light, overhead flip, Qianye landed on the ground ten meters away as he stared coldly at the werewolf that was struggling madly where it stood in hopes of dealing one final blow before dying. However, its nervous system had been completely damaged, and it stumbled and swayed sideways with every move it made. It couldn’t hit Qianye at all, and after struggling for a moment, it collapsed on the ground and no longer got up.

Qianye slowly walked back and picked up his Ambusher. He then continued to walk deeper into the cave, but he only took a few steps before coming to an abrupt stop and shuddering. He suddenly recalled that that wasn’t his usual style of combat at all!

He tore apart flesh and blood with his own, bare hands just now! This was obviously the preferred method of slaughtering werewolves to an elite vampire!

Qianye suddenly shuddered from the bottom of his soul.

At this moment, Qianye felt an unprecedented level of panic. He found it a little difficult whether to identify himself as a human or a vampire. If he had to become a vampire one day, then he would rather just end his life right now.

He hadn’t been this afraid even when he was tainted by the black blood and at the edge of death.

This had nothing to do with interest. It was a matter of faith.

After pausing for a moment, Qianye continued going deeper into the werewolf cave. Regardless of whether he would transform into a true vampire, he had to finish this mission first.

The were more and more dead ends ahead. The cave was like a maze. However, Qianye’s charge was as lightning fast as ever, neither hesitant nor slowed at all. He had participated in almost ten operations to annihilate werewolves back at the Red Scorpions, so he was most familiar with the layout of such caves. He could identify the right route with just a little clue to aid him.

He had taken out a few more werewolves along the way.

When he saw these humanoid lifeforms baring their fur and displaying their combat form, Qianye still could not help but charge forward and tear them apart with his bare hands. After a couple of times of the same method, he gave up resisting and completely obeyed his combat instincts to end the battle in the swiftest and most effective way possible.

By now, Qianye noticed that Yu Yingnan’s information on this wolf den was a little inaccurate. The clan’s warriors were a little stronger than initially estimated. If he was delayed for even a moment, it would no longer be an ambush but rather a suicide attempt.

Suddenly, Qianye charged into a hall.

This place was wider than any of the caves he passed through earlier. There was an altar at the center of the hall, and there was a wooden totem entangled with heavy, black energy placed above it.

Several old werewolves surrounded the altar.

Right now, the hall was filled with faint-yellow mist. It was the origin drug spread through the tunnels or air vents. Although the mist was a lot thinner and spread out than before, its effect obviously hadn’t faded just yet. Several elder werewolves were sneezing continuously through the mist, looking rather discomforted by it. However, they did not plan on leaving the place at all.

Qianye’s sudden appearance in the hall caused all four werewolf elders to turn their heads in surprise. The two fastest among them had already acted, and pounced at him. However, the faint-yellow mist disrupted their movements and generated just a little unnecessary movement in their breathing.

When it was a matter of life and death, the tiniest bit of a mistake could be fatal.

Maintaining his high speed, Qianye calmly leaped into the air, drawing a light arc across half the room before landing close enough to become extremely dangerous to the elder werewolves beside him. He had switched his form in midair, and when he landed, he was already in a half-crouching posture, lifting Ambusher evenly and pulling the trigger.

An origin bullet made by Qianye himself escaped the chamber and ripped a werewolf elder’s head to shreds.

Qianye pushed his origin power madly, causing Ambusher’s gun chamber to shine with a yellow light that almost penetrated the metallic gunbarrel itself. It was a sign of the gun’s origin array being pushed to its limit. A second origin bullet escaped the chamber, and a yellow light, mingled with a single wisp of red, struck heavily onto the charging werewolf elder’s left shoulder and chest area..

Although he still had an origin bullet in his gun, it was already too late to fire it. The third werewolf elder had already pounced to above Qianye’s head. Qianye wasn’t afraid of his current inferior positioning at all as he pushed the ground with his left hand and launched himself into the air, ramming at full force into the werewolf elder as they fell some distance away.

While still in the air, Qianye shot out the spike bayonet he got from Nighteye and plunged it into the fourth werewolf elder.

At first, the werewolf elder who had been shot by an imaginary origin bullet and the one struck by the spike simply shrugged off the minor injury. One of them had even activated their wolf-shape combat form. However, they had charged only a few steps before they abruptly collapsed on the floor and spasmed non-stop. They were actually incapable of climbing onto their feet.

Qianye calmed down greatly. It seemed that the blood energy inside his handmade origin bullet was especially harmful to the werewolves. This was great news considering that the poison on Nighteye’s spike was especially effective against werewolves as well. It was only unfortunate that after this one usage, the poison on the thorn was more or less gone.

This time, it was the werewolf elder who had been sent flying by Qianye who shook its head and swiftly recovered from its stunned state. It let out a couple of low growls and bared its fangs, charging at Qianye’s once more.

Qianye grabbed his Ambusher and swiftly filled it with energy. Then, he calmly fired off his last origin bullet.

The werewolf elder’s sharp claws were just about to strike Qianye’s temples when the origin bullet hit its stomach and instantly sent it flying backwards.

The shot was not fatal, but it was enough to immobilize it for a moment.

Qianye pulled the gun bolt. He had used up all of the origin bullets he had handmade, so he reloaded with Yu Yingnan’s origin bullets. However, instead of securing the kill on the werewolf elder, he grabbed the totem and escaped immediately.

The werewolf elders howled on the top of their lungs and looked extremely saddened. However, Qianye had no sympathy for their feelings as he swiftly withdrew from the path he came from. When he heard rapid footsteps following behind him, he turned a corner and threw two hand grenades mixed with origin drugs behind him.

Faint-yellow mist immediately covered the passage behind Qianye, and since it was twice the number it was twice as effective. The werewolves who heard the commotion and chased after him realised the trap only after the turned the corner, and since they couldn’t halt in time, they ran head-first into the mist. They immediately let out extremely pained howls as they rolled all over the ground. The agent was simply too destructive against a werewolf’s nose especially in such a narrow environment.

Right now, outside the wolf den, at the three fork road closest to the road leading outside, Yu Yingnan, Yang Tian and Li Lunzhe were fighting back to back against the werewolves that continuously charged out of the cave.

There were more than a dozen werewolf bodies padding their feet already, and although they seemed to be fighting well, they’d expended all of their physical and origin bullets. Whatever remained of their origin power was now used to fight in close quarters, and they’d all switched to close quarter weapons as well.

Yu Yingnan wore a glove with sharp needles on it, and her knee and elbow armor were installed with sharp needles as well. Her combat style was open and pure brute force. Meanwhile, Yang Tianxun held a short dagger in his hand, and his combat style was very careful and meticulous. However, every time he charged, blood would spill from a werewolf’s body. Li Lunzhe’s combat style could only be considered average.

“Gas grenade!” Yu Yingnan roared loudly. Her technique was the most brutal and forceful of them all, and since she held back most of the werewolves by herself, the greatest pressure was on her.

Yang Tianxun swiftly tossed out a gas grenade before yelling, “This is the last one!”

“God dammit! We can’t hold out for much longer. Why is that Qianye not out yet?” Li Lunzhe couldn’t help but cry out.

“He had just gotten in, and judging from the info we got, he probably hasn’t reached the altar hall yet! It will take at least another ten or so minutes before he finishes exploring the wolf den and comes out. We must hold on for another ten minutes, or he’ll be dead for sure!” Yang Tianxun answered.

He was the werewolf expert among them, but his direct combat abilities were a little weak.

“Ten minutes! It’ll be a miracle if we can hold out for another five!” Li Lunzhe roared.

“We must wait for Qianye’s return! Even if we are to fight to our deaths, we must wait for him to arrive!” Yu Yingnan’s forceful attitude ended the argument.

A light of ruthless determination flashed across Li Lunzhe’s eyes. He vented all of his frustrations onto the werewolf before him, but he couldn’t help but look at Yu Yingnan’s vitals from the corner of his eye.

Li Lunzhe suddenly exploded and stabbed repeatedly into a werewolf’s chest while roaring madly! Blood spilled over his entire head, and amidst the werewolf’s dying howls, Li Lunzhe’s eyes turned bloodshot as he chanted repeatedly in his heart, where no one could hear, “If I can’t get you, then no one else will!”

Li Lunzhe let go of the werewolf’s body and leaped to his feet. Suddenly, he stumbled on his feet and collapsed in Yu Yingnan’s direction.

Yu Yingnan noticed Li Lunzhe’s abnormal condition and hastily retreated backwards to support him with her back. She asked anxiously, “Are you okay?”

“I-” Li Lunzhe panted as if he had been hurt, but his hand clenched the knife in his hands tightly!

It was at this moment that Qianye ran out of the wolf den like the wind. Without pausing for even a millisecond, he charged towars the exit and cried loudly, “I got the totem! Let’s go!”

His voice rumbled and resonated far through the cave walls.

Yang Tian exclaimed, “This quick? He shouldn’t have even reached the altar hall yet!”

Right now, Qianye charged right to the exit and did not bother fighting with the werewolves who attempted to block him at all. With his running speed and brute force, he knocked the gray-skinned fellows directly out of the way and charged out of the wolf den in an instant!

Qianye flipped in midair and threw his last gas grenade down at the cave entrance.

Amidst the spreading smoke, a few pursuing werewolves collapsed and rolled out of the cave as Qianye fired continuously with his origin rifle, and with three origin bullets and one mithril bullet, he took out four werewolves. While running sideways, Qianye then refilled his Ambusher with origin power and fired another two shots.

This time, he had ran out of luck, as he was unable to push blood energy into the origin bullets. Naturally, the power of a normal origin bullet was a lot weaker, but it was still enough to hurt the last werewolf.

Qianye tossed the Ambusher’s strap over his shoulders and charged towards this last werewolf like the wind or thunder. He had already taken out his handaxe while he was charging midway.

When the hurt werewolf finally put on a combat stance, Qianye had already rammed into it with his entire body. The werewolf stumbled backwards like a small hill that was ran over by a giant rock, and its head split apart as the combat axe fell right into its head!

When he killed this werewolf, Qianye felt so tired that all he wanted was to collapse on the ground and sleep. He knew that this was a sign that he had used too much strength, and he immediately took out a syringe from his pocket, pulled off the casing, and stabbed it into his neck, pressing all of the medicine into his body.

As the medicine dripped into his body, a fiery warmth swiftly spread through his entire body as he immediately regained his spirit. The syringe was a military-use stimulant. Of course, he had made it himself, and the effects of the stimulant would last for half an hour, just enough to help Qianye escape his current predicament. However, after the duration was over, he would feel the aftereffects and fall into a weakened state.

When Qianye converged with Yu Yingnan and the others, they immediately charged out of the valley, following the tracks they’d set up along the valley. Werewolves repeatedly charged out of the wolf den behind them, and chased after them.

Chapter 70: Hidden Danger

A devastating gunshot suddenly resounded above the mountain cliff. Zha Xi had set up an old-styled, large caliber machine gun, and was currently shooting every metallic bullet at its disposal at the werewolves. The werewolves who had just charged out of the cave were immediately staggered by the gunfire, their bodies blossoming with blood continuously.

However, werewolves had thick skin and flesh, and it was very difficult for a heavy machine gun to actually shatter their bones and deal fatal damage at this range. At best, the werewolves suffered some flesh wounds. To completely kill them,origin gun or direct close-quarter combat skills were necessary.

However, Zha Xi simply wanted to hinder the werewolves for a moment so that his companions could exit the valley smoothly. Four boxes of bullets were fired off in the blink of an eye as the heavy machine gun’s barrel turned bright red and was usable no longer. Meanwhile, Yu Yingnan’s group had already charged out of the valley and was running towards the agreed gathering spot.

His job done, Zha Xi threw down the heavy machine gun and ran madly along the retreat path he’d prepared earlier.

Even more werewolves charged out of the cave as their angry howls rang continuously. However, as Zha Xi’s traps were triggered one after another, explosions began to resound again and again inside the valley, blasting the werewolves that charged out into a complete mess.

Very soon, the entire hunter squad assembled at the gathering spot. The werewolves’ howls and the sound of their paws cutting through air closed in on them in an instant.

Zha Xi immediately pushed out a small, four-wheel truck, and poured black crystal powder into its ignition chamber. The propulsion meter immediately rose madly, and the truck began to rumble, driving off shakily toward Darkblood City.

Zha Xi drove while Qianye and the others climbed to the back of the truck. Li Lunzhe took out a rank two origin gun and aimed behind the car, while Yu Yingnan and Yang Tian were busy dealing with their wounds. Meanwhile, Qianye was rushing to channel the Combatant Formula and recovering as much origin power as possible.

Li Lunzhe’s face was expressionless, but his eyes were extremely dark. He had almost done it back at the wolf cave. If it hadn’t been for Qianye’s sudden cry, he would’ve plunged the knife into Yu Yingnan’s lower back, and dealt similarly with the defenseless Yang Tian. Then, he would run off on his own.

If that had happened, the severely injured Yu Yingnan and Yang Tian definitely wouldn’t have been any match to the werewolves, and it would have been very easy for Li Lunzhe to kill the tech nerd Zha Xi after having escaped from the wolf cave.

However, he had hesitated for a moment when Qianye had snatched the totem with surprising speed, so he lost his chance to follow up with his plans.

A few dark shadows appeared at the end of his vision. They were the werewolves chasing after them. The four wheel drive rolling at forty kilometers per hour was akin to a crawling tortoise in the werewolves’ eyes, and they swiftly shortened the distance between them. Li Lunzhe calmed himself down and paid full attention to the foremost werewolf that chased them. It was only when the werewolf had shortened the distance to less than a hundred meters that he pulled the trigger!

A blue light shot out of the barrel and struck the werewolf’s head dead on. The werewolf flipped a couple of times in midair before crashing heavily onto the ground. It was after he saw the blood splatter and organs scatter that Li Lunzhe finally felt that his evil desires were quelled a little.

Two more origin guns poked out from his left and right side. They were also aimed at the chasing werewolves. They were Qianye and Yang Tian’s. The two had recovered a bit of origin power, and barely had enough strength to fire just one more shot.

Gunfire rang as two werewolves flew backwards in response, and drew a bloody line in mid-air before slamming heavily onto the ground.

Half of the six pursuing werewolves were killed just like that. The remaining werewolves immediately slowed down and dared not get close to the truck any longer. They simply gave chase, staying out of the range of the origin guns as they waited for their group to reach them.

The two sides quickly approached the place where Qianye had met the mysterious, black-robed person.

A commotion suddenly broke out among the werewolves as many of them suddenly paused their footsteps and looked warily towards their surroundings. They continuously let out whines of fear, and some of the pursuing werewolves even felt the hair stand up at the back of their necks.

More and more werewolves slowed down their footsteps and began to whisper amongst each other. There were a few werewolves of exceptional size that sniffed hard at the night air before suddenly turning around and running with their tails between their legs at top speed. The rest of the werewolves followed after them, and soon, all of the werewolves were gone.

The sudden retreat of the werewolves caused Yu Yingnan and the group to look at each other in confusion. Not understanding what just happened, they could only be on their maximum guard. There weren’t many dangers on the wasteland that could cause a werewolf to backpedal.

Qianye guessed that the phenomenon might have something to do with the mysterious, black-robed person, but he didn’t think that it was a good idea to announce this matter.

The quintet’s latter journey was eventless, and they actually managed to return to Darkblood City safely. The mission was submitted very soon, and the totem was said to have impressed the expeditionary army’s specialist in the imperial research center quite a bit. Therefore, their original reward of one hundred gold coins had been doubled to two hundred gold coins.

This good news caused every member of the team to grow spirited. Most hunters were poor, and unlike fixed mercenaries, they did not receive basic equipment distribution, and had to use most of their income to upgrade their equipment and weapons. Without sufficient strength, it was only a matter of time before they perished on the wasteland.

Since Qianye had defied expectations and performed excellently during the mission, he had acquired forty gold coins. This ratio was obviously more than the usual distribution. Although Li Lunzhe’s face turned darker, he said nothing this time. After the rewards were distributed, he hastily left the place.

Yang Tian and Zha Xi also bid their goodbyes one after another, leaving Yu Yingnan and Qianye at the Home of Hunters.

“You wanna get a drink?” Yu Yingnan asked.

Qianye shook his head and said, “Nah, I’m going back to rest for a bit.”

“Then I’ll come look for you in two days.”

This time, Qianye did not turn her down and nodded.

After returning to his accommodation, Qianye first checked the place thoroughly. Other than a few blood droplets on the walls and rooftop corner, he did not find any signs of infiltration. It would seem that those sneaky fellows finally learned their lesson and avoided this dangerous little building after having suffered dearly from the traps.

Qianye shut the door and immediately charged madly into the kitchen. He took out everything that was edible and began to eat like his life depended on it. He completely devoured all of his reserve food and continued eating until his stomach was swelling uncomfortably before finally stopping.

The saturation diluted Qianye’s desire for blood.

The hunger had begun during the latter half of the mission, after he charged out of the wolf cave. Perhaps it had been he had nearly completely exhausted his origin power and stamina, but when the blood of werewolves splattered about, Qianye once again felt the hunger for fresh blood. However, unlike before, when his hunger burned at his rationality, his mind had been absolutely clear. The splattering blood simply emanated a delicious scent and energy that tempted him to taste it.

Qianye pressed down on his head and smiled bitterly. He had a faint idea what was going on already. For a vampire, sucking blood was a shortcut to quick recovery and recuperation. After he acquired the physique of a vampire, he had inherited even this basic talent of the species. After he injected the military stimulant, he had been able to suppress the hunger easily, and he did not experience the kind of hunger that corroded and burned his entire body either.

Qianye did not spend too much time tangling himself in this matter. After taking a bath, he decided to head to Home of Hunters to see what equipment he could purchase. Great strength was a safeguard against one’s mortality, especially now that he had quite a lot of trouble on his shoulders.

As usual, Old 2 was sitting behind the counter, reading a book. It was only when Qianye walked into the hall that he raised his eyelids a little to glance at him once before setting his sight back onto the page.

Home of Hunters was rather crowded today, and the two tables in the hall were almost completely filled with people. Seven or eight hunters had taken up seats, causing the already small space to immediately feel congested.

The hunters were chatting about recent events and exchanged information that they had acquired during their adventures. However, a similarity Qianye heard amongst the different topics, was that the dark races had been unusually irritated and violent as of late. Even the normally gentler creatures were attacking adventurers rather frequently, causing a non-stop stream of casualties of adventurers, hunters and mercenaries alike.

Qianye acutely sensed that the hunters were all a little anxious.

Qianye walked to the counter and asked, “Old 2, when can I become a two star hunter?”

Old 2 answered without even raising his head, “When you accumulate a bounty of a hundred gold coins, then you’ll be able to ascend in rank. Right now, you can’t.”

“Okay. I’d like to see what I can buy.”

Old 2 nodded and summoned Little Mi to lead Qianye to the warehouse. It was still the same warehouse he was led to the last time, but somehow, the same array of equipment was now completely different in Qianye’s eyes.

After having fought with the style of a vampire back inside the werewolf cave, Qianye discovered that he was suddenly in love with it.

Normally, a human was weaker in terms of strength than most dark race warriors despite being of the same rank. Werewolves were a species well known for their strength, and when they went up against a human, their instinct was to rely on their strength to beat them. However, when they encountered Qianye who had an even greater strength than them, they had been defeated exceptionally quickly.

Qianye had already been known for his strength back at the Red Scorpions, and although his physique didn’t seem particularly impressive, his strength had been improved upon further when he acquired the physique of a vampire. Right now, he was comparable to a rank five Fighter, and his advantage in close-quarters combat due to his great strength was indisputable.

Usually, Qianye would place his attention on origin guns and their relevant accessories when choosing his weapons, but this time, the array of close combat weapons had attracted his eyes. Qianye picked up one piece of armor after another, and tested them over and over before placing them back to their rack. Finally, he picked up an armguard and played with it repeatedly.

This metallic armguard was to be equipped on his forearm. It had good defense, and it had a weight that would turn it into a terrifying blunt weapon when swung. Moreover, it had a standard card groove on the surface that could be installed with military knives, thorns and similar weapons. There was also a small-scale origin array attached to its armguard. If injected with origin power, it could turn into a shield and block the shots of an average, rank one origin gun.

Qianye was very satisfied with this armguard. Its only weakness was that it weighed ten kilograms, but this bit of weight could be completely overlooked with Qianye’s current strength.

The armguard was labeled with two stars, indicating that it was an equipment that only a two star hunter could exchange for. If Qianye wished to exchange it before he ascended to rank two, he would have to pay an additional 20% of its original cost. Besides the armguard, Qianye also picked a few plates of armor, made from the outer shell of a cave spider. He would install them on the vital spots of his armor. This was a cheap and effective way of upgrading his armor.

These items alone cost more than thirty gold coins. The most expensive part was naturally the origin power-propelled armguard.

After walking out of the warehouse, Qianye walked to the counter again and asked, “Can I request someone to modify some of my equipment?”

Old 2 finally put his book down reluctantly and walked to an independent workshop at the side, beckoning Qianye to come in. He closed the door tight.

What Qianye took out was Flowing Gold Rose’s tactical accessories. This included a scope, a storage device that could enhance blast power, and a silencer.

“I’d like to have these parts modified so they can be used on the ‘Ambusher’ rifle.”

Old 2 picked up these parts and examined them closely, saying, “These are all standard accessories of vampires. The workmanship is pretty good. They are all originally part of the Flowing Gold Rose’s set, right?”

“You already knew about it?”