"Ah! Help!"
Having just narrowly escaped death, the Leather-Clad Female Archer was jolted back to her senses by the shock. Without caring about her dignity, she scrambled backward, rolling and crawling as she fled toward the main road while shouting for help.
The cunning hunter who had attacked from hiding did not launch another attack. However, Xuan Ye, concealed elsewhere nearby, did not dare lower his guard in the slightest. Who knew whether the enemy had already left?
He hurriedly slipped away from the spot where his arrow had exposed him. After several flips, he circled around to another tree trunk not far away. With his back against the thick trunk, he raised his vigilance to the limit!
Although Xuan Ye had combat experience against magical beasts and humans, this was truly his first time fighting an Alien Race!
Even though Gnolls were an Alien Race with relatively weak innate gifts, they were still ancient creatures capable of condensing their own cores and advancing into the professional rank without relying on external aid! The Human Race's advantage over Gnolls was built on their deep accumulation and superior martial strength!
At the professional rank, because humans ultimately condensed their cores with external aid, human professionals of the same level were actually inferior to Alien Races. This was true even when facing Gnolls!
Compared with the Human Race's ever-changing and numerous Bloodline Powers, most other races possessed only a few types. In exchange, however, they found awakening them much easier. Usually, they naturally possessed one or two common innate talents from birth or adulthood! They could even possess multiple talents simultaneously!
Before facing one himself, Xuan Ye's understanding of this had remained limited to descriptions in books. After truly confronting one this time, however, the experience left beads of sweat densely covering his forehead from the intense tension.
He couldn't sense it!
He couldn't sense where the enemy was at all!
He had inscribed five Bright Eyes Runes onto his Perception Core!
Judging from the interception with his arrow, the enemy should only have been slightly stronger than him—at most, in the middle or late stage of One-Star! They were both only at the One-Star professional rank! Yet, at the same level, the enemy had actually concealed itself from his perception. Was the Gnoll's Ambush talent really that useful?
Ambush was an innate talent possessed by many races. Gnolls could only be considered competent users of it; many races were far better. Even so, this seemingly unimpressive talent made Xuan Ye feel extremely helpless in the current environment.
In the jungle, both of them were skilled at ranged attacks. Whoever exposed themselves first would take a hit first. Xuan Ye was confident that, with a sneak attack, he had a chance of killing even a Three-Star powerhouse. But if he were ambushed by someone of the same rank, his fate would only be worse!
"There's still a chance. I have five Runes reinforcing my core, and I deliberately suppressed my aura so that even Roland didn't realize I was a Ranger. It shouldn't be able to find me either."
Forcibly calming his somewhat tense emotions, Xuan Ye seemed to be reassuring himself. Luo Luoji's words continued to echo in his ears: a Ranger had to keep a calm heart at all times. Because of inexperience and habit, he could not achieve that immediately, but he could still barely manage it by adjusting himself.
"A professional-rank Gnoll has infiltrated the Oasis. Its most important task is to find a way to hide itself and avoid attracting the attention of the powerhouses in Stanrose. In this situation, it definitely wouldn't leave any survivors, just like how it shot the Sword and Shield Warrior through the throat at the start. It was probably afraid that he would approach and notice something, which means it should have initially been near that area.
"Since it failed to finish off the surviving woman, it allowed her to leave. That means it wasn't confident it could deal with me, hidden in the dark, and was afraid of exposing its location and being ambushed by me. Now, is it worried that the woman will attract other powerhouses and has withdrawn, or has it set its sights on me, planning to eliminate me first before going after the woman...?"
Although Xuan Ye could be a little slow at times, he had experienced quite a lot along the way and learned plenty. Relying on the accumulated knowledge in the Database, he quickly came up with two possible explanations.
If it was the former, Xuan Ye had no interest in eliminating a threat for Stanrose. They could each go their own way. But if it was the latter, that meant the enemy was confident it could locate and eliminate him quickly!
In the jungle...
Not good!
After a thought flashed through his mind, Xuan Ye immediately leaped away from his position, instinctively using the springiness of the branch beneath his feet without giving it any thought.
The instant he left, a silent black shadow pounced down from above onto the treetop where he had just been standing. Its claws easily snapped the thick branch with a single swipe!
Because he had left so hastily, Xuan Ye could only roll after landing to bleed off the force and regain his balance. His body was covered in fallen leaves. Kneeling on the ground, he gripped his bow tightly and stared at the black shadow that had nearly ambushed and killed him. Only then did he realize it was a creature extremely similar to the hyenas of Earth, with an ugly face and a ferocious posture.
Saliva continuously dripped from its sharp teeth, while its claws scraped at the ground, as if it were about to attack at any moment.
It was a Predator Rank Hyena!
What the hell! That guy even brought a baby along! Wasn't that cheating?
No wonder it had decisively chosen to deal with him first. Relying on the Predator Rank Hyena's sense of smell, it could indeed find him in this jungle. After all, his first arrow had exposed his approximate location, and even if he moved, he would not be too far from where he had started.
Fortunately, he had noticed something was wrong. Otherwise, given the enemy's concealed ambush, taking that blow would have truly been disastrous.
"Failing to ambush me, yet not advancing recklessly. Taking an attacking stance, yet not coming forward. Did you get separated from your master too quickly? In that case, I'll kill you first!"
After a brief pause, Xuan Ye swiftly made his judgment. Without hesitation, he flipped around and drew his bow, constantly weaving through the jungle to keep moving while launching attack after attack at the Hyena!
He moved in the direction away from the enemy's approximate position in his memory, determined to delay the time before the two of them could reunite!
One sharp arrow after another shot through gaps between the branches, flying at the Hyena from tricky angles.
Although Hyenas were not magical beasts with the high agility and Dexterity of Azure Wolves, in this jungle terrain, they could easily find cover. Its master was a Gnoll hunter who was equally skilled with a bow and had considerable experience dodging arrows!
Most of Xuan Ye's attacks were dodged or blocked with cover. Only twice, when driven into desperate situations, did it use its claws and teeth to block them head-on. Moreover, after every pause caused by blocking a powerful arrow, it cunningly found somewhere to hide or retreated along with the arrow's momentum.
In this terrain, Xuan Ye truly found it difficult to deal with his opponent using arrows alone.
However...
"φωτι?τε?χο?" (Elven: Wall of Fire)
After the two-syllable words rapidly left Xuan Ye's mouth, the ring, which he had already been channeling with his Spiritual Power for three seconds, burst into dazzling light. A mass of liquid crimson flame surged upward, swallowing an entire area measuring two by five meters!
The Hyena, which had been dodging Xuan Ye's arrows while attempting to close in and harass him, happened to be forced into the area by one of the powerful arrows he had shot earlier!
Without suspense, it was swallowed by the Wall of Fire, whose intensely concentrated heat resembled liquid flames!
After a brief two seconds, the Wall of Fire vanished, leaving behind only a patch of glassified scorched earth!
Every plant within the area had disappeared completely, and the Hyena had been utterly reduced to flying ash!
The force had been compressed so powerfully that even after the magic vanished, it did not ignite a forest fire, because all combustible material within the area had already been consumed in an instant!
Dean's Chain Fireball had been a rank spell with a long duration and a wide bombardment range. The Wall of Fire before him had a smaller range, but its power was astonishing.
For ordinary mages, Wall of Fire was usually used to block enemies from approaching. It could even melt and shatter incoming arrows. But in the hands of Xuan Ye, a half-trained Ranger, his unique talent had forcefully transformed a defensive skill into a powerful offensive spell, instantly killing a magical beast at his own level!
Facing the Wall of Fire's terrifying might, Xuan Ye was shocked as well. It had even melted the bones into ash. If he took a hit from it, he would certainly die!
But then, as a cracking sound came from the surface of the ring, he watched the magical ruby split into pieces. The stingy Xuan Ye immediately felt his heart bleed.
As expected, an apprentice-level mage could only cast magic by throwing money at it. The price of this single magical ruby exceeded a hundred gold coins, and there were only a few in the Spatial Bag Dean had left behind. What was even more infuriating was that it had completely melted the Hyena, leaving him not even a bit of material to sell.
Fortunately, Xuan Ye knew how to distinguish priorities. No amount of money would be useful if he lost his life, and this was no time to feel pain over the expense. He had already heard the furious howl coming from the direction he had been pursued from after the Hyena's death. The Gnoll hunter was already not far away.
If he had not made the snap decision to deal with one of them first, he might not have had another chance...
Before you continue