Unable to Escape

An hour passed quickly, and Wang Wu finally "sobered up."

Not daring to keep wandering, he hurriedly found a patch of grass, stayed still for three seconds, and entered Level 5 Stealth.

Daytime was often the most dangerous time. Many Sprites chose to lie dormant, but there were exceptions.

One of them was the Armed Bee Swarm.

Over the entire morning, Wang Wu actually spotted three separate Armed Bee Swarms. They searched the valley for wildflowers as if no other creatures existed, diligent and industrious.

This forced Wang Wu to flee farther away the moment he spotted an Armed Bee Swarm in the distance, tossing him about three or five times.

He had considered provoking one of the Armed Bee Swarms. With his current Health Points and two points of Bee Venom Resistance, killing a few wild bees should not have been a problem.

But in the end, he chose not to take the risk. This was broad daylight—what if a Giant Eagle suddenly flew overhead? How could he possibly escape?

Besides, there was another reason. For some reason, ever since encountering that Green-headed Fly today, he had felt restless, as if someone had their eye on him.

In such circumstances, it was better to believe it existed than to believe it did not. He could not cling to wishful thinking. His Level 5 Danger Sense should not be wrong.

At noon, after Wang Wu changed locations again and entered Level 5 Stealth in another patch of grass, he still felt uncomfortable. Yet when he focused carefully, he could not sense anything.

As for information prompts, he had even less reason to count on those. They were not his cheat ability.

Countless facts had proven that these information prompts were the sort that might be late, but would never be absent.

More often than not, the battle was already over before the relevant data arrived.

"Could it be that I caught some plague? Or was I cursed by that Green-headed Fly?"

Wang Wu felt a little irritated. It was not enough to disrupt his Level 5 Stealth, but it kept him from settling down.

"Even Level 5 Stealth can't shake this feeling. Either I really was cursed or got sick, or I've been tracked and watched all along. But the distance is too great, so I can't sense any more information."

"Fuck, could those Black Spiders be tracking me?"

The thought startled Wang Wu. After all, that whole Black Spider family was indeed bizarre. They could actually raise Fly Martyrs, so it would not be strange for them to have other tricks up their sleeves, some uncanny methods, or a particularly strong desire for revenge.

Thinking of this, Wang Wu could not help feeling fortunate. Only Level 5 Danger Sense could give him this inexplicable feeling of irritation. If it had been Level 4 Danger Sense, he probably would not have noticed anything wrong at all.

But what should he do?

Even his Level 5 Danger Sense had not detected the tracker, which meant the other party had kept a sufficient distance from him and must have had a broad field of view.

And if the other party had been tracking him from the start, there was no need to figure out how to break Level 5 Stealth. It only needed to confirm which patch of grass he had hidden in, roughly where he was.

All that remained was to keep watch from afar. Then, no matter how he changed hiding places, it would be useless!

"Still, the tracker followed me all morning without making a move. Is it because daytime is too dangerous?"

"If that's the case, then dusk will inevitably be the moment it launches its final attack."

Wang Wu came to that conclusion. After thinking it over, he did not try to change hiding places again. He felt this place was fairly suitable as a battlefield.

Yes, he had already prepared for battle. The tracker was too skilled for him to shake off, so this was his only choice.

And with his current 170 Health Points, 8 Strength, and 10 Defense, he should have some fighting power, right?

Especially since his Spider Toxin Resistance had already reached perfection.

After the scorching noon passed, rolling dark clouds suddenly gathered in the sky. Not a breath of wind stirred, and everything between heaven and earth seemed to have been placed in an oven, on the verge of being roasted through.

Suddenly, thunder boomed. A violent wind sprang up, and torrential rain poured down.

At that moment, Wang Wu was overjoyed. He turned and ran, refusing to believe that the tracker could continue locking onto him in such awful weather.

But abruptly, an inexplicable sense of danger rose in his heart. Before he could think, he instinctively rolled across the ground, tumbling three or four meters away.

His reaction could not have been faster, yet what he never expected was that a wisp of cold air followed him like a shadow, erupting at his side!

This was bad!

The next second, the dense raindrops around him seemed to suddenly gain minds of their own and froze in midair. In an instant, centered on Wang Wu's body, they turned into a massive block of ice!

He was frozen inside it, unable to move.

It was that White-Haired Rat. Damn it, how could it be her?

And after only a few days apart, this White-Haired Rat seemed to have become even stronger. No, was it the boost from the torrential rain?

The last time they attacked the Flame Scorpions, they had also struck when rain poured down in sheets.

So her ice magic needed a great deal of water to increase its power?

As Wang Wu thought rapidly inside the ice, the White-Haired Rat had already walked up before him. She looked even more like an Enlightened High Rat now. Not only could she walk upright like a person, she even wore an ill-fitting gray Daoist robe. Yes, a Daoist robe—but there was a strange emblem printed on its front, and he had no idea what it meant.

Wang Wu stared at the White-Haired Rat in horror. A strange layer of phosphorescence swirled around her body. The pounding rain was blocked and absorbed by that glow, turning into even more mist. Using some unknown method, the White-Haired Rat gathered the mist in her hand, where it gradually formed into a small ice spear!

As the small ice spear slowly took shape, Wang Wu's Level 5 Danger Sense began to shriek, like a 980 graphics card trying to run Black Myth: Wukong...

This feeling of danger even surpassed the ice restraining him. What kind of method was this? It seemed far stronger than last time!

But Wang Wu was frozen in the ice now. He had no chance to escape.

He could only watch helplessly as the ice spear gradually took shape, became increasingly lifelike, and grew more and more dangerous.

A full nine seconds passed like this. Just as the ice sealing Wang Wu began to loosen and he was finally able to break free, the ice spear in the White-Haired Rat's hand finished forming, and she launched it with a single strike!

At that instant, Wang Wu felt his vision go black. Even his heart stopped beating, and the blow blasted his thoughts into blankness.

The scent of death was so close!

A full three seconds later, he finally seemed to come back to life like a drowning man. When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying in mud and water. The ice was gone, but the ice spear seemed to be lodged in his chest, piercing through his heart.

Only then did several lines of information arrive, fashionably late.

"You encountered the advanced, officially registered White-Browed Rat King!"

"You were trapped by ice magic and continuously suffered 15 points of cold burn damage. Because you possessed 5 points of Ice Resistance, you were immune to all cold burn damage."

"The White-Browed Rat King used the special item—Ice Spike Talisman—on you. You suffered 100 points of piercing damage. Because you possessed 10 points of Defense, you were immune to 30 points of piercing damage. You ultimately suffered 70 points of damage."

"The White-Browed Rat King cast Ice Spike magic on you. You suffered 40 points of piercing damage. Because you possessed 10 points of Defense, you ultimately suffered 10 points of damage."

"You were struck by an ice spike... You ultimately suffered 8 points of damage."

"You were struck by an ice spike... You ultimately suffered 10 points of damage."

"You were struck by an ice spike... You ultimately suffered 5 points of damage."

...

Good lord, one combo plus an ultimate move plus a trump card had actually blasted away 103 of his Health Points!