Incoming

Before Wang Zhifan and the girl in the tracksuit and steel helmet could respond, the short, middle-aged man in a hooded cloak vanished swiftly into the mountain forest like a shadow melting into the night, clearly giving neither of them any chance to refuse.

"Uncle, should I hide in that patch of grass?"

Seeing the person she trusted run off so quickly, the girl was immediately dumbfounded. She had wanted to confirm the details of their cooperation with him, but received no response. Left feeling uneasy, she could only crouch down and hide in a nearby thicket.

Wang Zhifan, however, was not as obedient as the girl. Rather than following the man's instructions and staying put to face the enemy head-on, he found a concealed thicket as well and carefully hid inside. His position formed a supporting angle with that of the tracksuit-clad girl in the steel helmet, allowing them to assist each other at any moment.

That middle-aged man clearly means me no good. Even if I'm a melee class and can only fight up close, there's no need for me to stand here and risk my life as bait, is there? I can't treat him as a teammate I can rely on. From now on, I need to adapt to the situation and do my best to clear this dungeon with my own strength.

The reason Wang Zhifan decisively chose not to follow the middle-aged man's arrangement and hid instead was that his trust in his middle-aged teammate had fallen to a very low level. He had already disliked the man's manner, and judging from the role assigned to him now, the fellow probably wanted to set him up. He had never regarded Wang Zhifan as an equal teammate at all.

Only a few seconds after Wang Zhifan hid himself, the voice of the gunner girl sounded from a thicket not far away.

"Handsome, you don't need to hide! You should come out and face it!"

She did not speak very loudly, but there was urgency in her tone. Clearly, Wang Zhifan's independent action had caught her off guard.

But Wang Zhifan had no intention of listening to her nonsense. He lowered his voice and replied without mercy, "Stop talking! If you want to clear this, remember to shoot the tiger in the head when it gets here! I'll work with you to kill it!"

Wang Zhifan's response was firm and carried a trace of killing intent. Whether the girl listened or not, he made his position clear first.

"Oh... but..."

The girl was startled by Wang Zhifan's sudden rebuke, and for a moment, she seemed completely at a loss.

But before she could decide whom she should listen to, several soul-shaking tiger roars suddenly rang out from deep within the dim mountain forest, frightening her so badly that she nearly collapsed to the ground.

Wang Zhifan was also intimidated by the sudden tiger roars. His heart began pounding uncontrollably. It was not because he was timid—tiger roars really were that terrifying. The majesty of the forest's overlord was engraved in every animal's genes, and few could remain completely unafraid.

Once the tiger's roars began in the distance, they did not stop. Its growls grew increasingly savage as they rapidly drew nearer and nearer to Wang Zhifan and the girl.

Seeing this, Wang Zhifan took several deep breaths to keep himself from becoming too nervous. At the same time, he did not forget to warn the tracksuit-clad girl in the steel helmet nearby.

"Watch out! It's almost here! Get ready to shoot it in the head! I'll help you kill it!"

"O-okay!"

At this tense moment, the gunner girl, who had never had much of an opinion of her own, seemed to find a backbone the moment she heard Wang Zhifan's voice. The continuous, terrifying tiger roars had scared her mind blank, and she had already forgotten what she was supposed to do next. But Wang Zhifan's timely urging eased her tense state of mind.

Before long, amid the increasingly furious and terrifying roars, Wang Zhifan saw a massive beast, brownish-yellow with black stripes all over its body, racing toward them from deep in the forest off to the side as it chased a nimble black shadow. Both were astonishingly fast. The instant Wang Zhifan saw them clearly, they had already reached the area nearby.

"Shoot! Shoot!"

Realizing that the tiger was much faster than expected, Wang Zhifan immediately called for the gunner girl to fire while rapidly shifting positions within the thicket.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The girl was probably tense to the extreme by then. At Wang Zhifan's renewed urging, the top of her steel helmet immediately rose from the thicket. Gripping the silver-white pistol with both hands, she opened fire on the massive beast charging in from the side.

In that instant, she completely forgot Wang Zhifan's earlier advice to shoot the tiger in the head. Or perhaps she simply lacked the skill. Her pistol rounds sprayed toward the tiger's body in the blink of an eye, kicking up fallen leaves and dirt around it, yet not a single drop of blood appeared.

"Fuck, how did she manage to miss every shot?"

Having already changed positions, Wang Zhifan immediately sensed that things were going badly. He had not expected the girl to land a shot on the tiger's head, but she had emptied her entire magazine without harming the tiger in the slightest. That turn of events caught him completely off guard.

"Run! Don't reload!"

At that moment, the tiger had been chasing the suspicious shadow ahead when someone suddenly ambushed it, only to abruptly stop firing. Its hostility immediately shifted, and with one leap, it charged toward the gunner girl!

Its body was enormous, yet it possessed agility and nimbleness entirely out of proportion to its size. In almost the blink of an eye, it had darted around several tree trunks and closed in on the tracksuit-clad girl in the steel helmet!

The girl had just emptied her pistol's magazine and was trembling as she tried to load rounds into the empty magazine. Suddenly seeing the massive beast charge right in front of her, she froze in terror. Several bullets she had just taken from her personal storage space immediately slipped from her palm and fell toward the ground.

This terrible situation had almost pronounced the gunner girl's doom. At this distance, she could no longer escape the tiger's attack with her speed, nor did she have the presence of mind to flee.

But just as the tiger lowered its body slightly, preparing to leap onto the girl, it suddenly noticed a figure rush out from behind a large tree at its side! The figure charged with great speed, wielding a long weapon in hand, and reached its side almost instantly! But a tiger was still a tiger. Its dynamic vision far surpassed that of humans, as did its reflexes. Faced with this second ambush, it immediately arched its body sideways to dodge laterally while swinging a thick tiger paw at the attacker's head!