Hunting Time

"Can you tell which ones are Deathmatchers?"

Liu Yue stood with her hands on her hips, surveying every onlooker beyond the cordon.

"Uh, aren't those the ones?"

Zhuo Li pointed at the several battered corpses sprawled inside the cordon.

When chaos broke out at the shelter, quite a few Deathmatchers had tried to take advantage of the confusion and force their way into the Research Center.

But the several bodies strewn inside the cordon made it clear that their attempt had failed.

The rooftops of the Research Center and the nearby Administrative Building were both guarded by snipers.

It was like how, across all of Handong Province, only Qi Tongwei, armed with a high-precision sniper rifle, could effectively keep Sha Ruijin in check.

Under a sniper's scope, everyone was equal.

Many shooter games actually downplayed the intimidation snipers wielded on the battlefield.

Even for Deathmatchers, storming a building under the watch of several sniper rifles wasn't easy.

Only a few Deathmatchers with special abilities could probably sneak inside, and there couldn't be many of them.

Liu Yue rolled her eyes at Zhuo Li and said irritably, "I mean the ones who are alive."

"Just kidding."

Zhuo Li grinned and nonchalantly pointed into the crowd a few times. "That one, and that one, that granny, and the balding guy beside her. They're all Deathmatchers."

"But we'd better not attack so openly. Let's start by looking for the ones hiding alone," Xiao Xueyin interjected.

"Of course, of course."

Zhuo Li waved his hand. "Follow me."

A sword flashed through the tent, its gleam cold and clear as autumn water.

Without so much as a struggle, a figure collapsed to the ground.

[ Ding! ]

[ Points +1, Current Points: 17, Current Rank: 1/117 ]

As Lu Bai wiped the blood from the Eight-Sided Han Sword, Liu Yue proudly put her hands on her hips. "Well? Aren't we a pretty good crew?"

This was already the seventh Deathmatcher they had hunted.

To avoid making too much noise, they had mostly let whoever got the opportunity claim the points.

After working together for a while, Lu Bai had more or less figured out what everyone else in the group brought to the table.

Zhuo Li focused on gathering intelligence and scouting. Liu Yue stepped in to restrain their targets when she had the chance, while the Hoodie Man excelled at stealthy assassinations and ambushes.

As for Xiao Xueyin, who had put the team together, he had [Outstanding Among the Crowd] and had assigned himself a support role. No one had objected.

Though Lu Bai had fought him before and knew he was quite skilled.

Looking at it that way, the team was actually well-rounded in every respect. The only slightly weak area was direct combat.

But Lu Bai's arrival had made up for that weakness.

Given all this, it was hard to believe Xiao Xueyin had simply thrown together a few random Deathmatchers.

Lu Bai studied Xiao Xueyin, who looked sickly on the surface, and asked with interest, "Were you really planning to invite Guo Mi to join us?"

"Actually, you were the one I wanted to recruit from the start. But at the time, my instincts told me that if I said that, you'd probably cut me down on the spot."

Xiao Xueyin's answer sounded like a joke, but it somehow carried a hint of sincerity.

Lu Bai rubbed his chin, thinking back to what had happened.

Given Xiao Xueyin's bizarre way of showing up, and the fact that he'd just slashed Guo Mi, it seemed like Lu Bai would've taken a swing at him first no matter what.

Dawn was breaking, a faint blue glow spreading across the distant horizon.

Five people emerged furtively from a tent. Many of the onlookers who had been gathered in the walkway had already sat down where they were and begun to doze.

After all, the military seemed to have the chaos under control. With no immediate danger, most civilians naturally stopped fighting off their drowsiness.

Of course, only a few had chosen to go straight back to their tents to rest.

"It'll be light soon."

Zhuo Li first looked up at the sky, then turned to the others. "Should we call it quits for now?"

Xiao Xueyin thought it over. "Let's keep looking for another target."

"We've already taken out seven Deathmatchers. Continuing seems a bit risky," Zhuo Li explained.

After all, they hadn't done anything to conceal the bodies. It was only a matter of time before they were found.

Xiao Xueyin glanced at the Node's location on the System Panel. It still hadn't changed at all. Then he asked, "If someone went to the trouble of causing all this chaos, do you really think they'll just let it fizzle out?"

As they spoke, a woman's scream suddenly rang out nearby.

They all looked toward the sound. Zhuo Li even climbed onto a tent to his left and watched for a moment before saying helplessly, "Well, it's not that they might find us soon. They've already found us."

The sudden scream jolted many of the civilians dozing by the roadside awake.

Some even scrambled to their feet and instinctively started running. By the time their senses returned, they stopped awkwardly in their tracks.

"What's going on?"

"Have the infected broken through?!"

"Sounds like someone's screaming."

"Damn it, I was sleeping so well."

Soon, a squad of fully armed soldiers hurried toward the source of the scream.

An old acquaintance was leading them. From the weary look on Zhou Zongming's face, he clearly hadn't rested all night either.

Lu Bai frowned and retreated behind the others.

Perhaps because of his lack of sleep, Zhou Zongming passed right by without noticing him.

"Guys, I don't think something's right."

Only after the squad of soldiers had gone some distance did Zhuo Li speak up. "Wasn't the woman who screamed a Deathmatcher?"

At that, Xiao Xueyin's brow furrowed.

"Is someone trying to frame us?" The Hoodie Man's expression darkened. He looked ready to stab someone at the slightest provocation.

"No, probably not. We didn't leave behind any clues that could point to us, and Zhuo Li confirmed that no one was secretly watching us while we were at work."

Xiao Xueyin's frown eased a little. "If I'm not mistaken, someone's about to get serious."

Rat-a-tat-tat!

As if to prove him right, a dense burst of gunfire shattered the silence of the night.

And it wasn't one-sided. From the sound of it, two groups were locked in a fierce firefight.

Without needing a prompt, Zhuo Li quickly explained what was happening. "One side is the squad of soldiers that just passed by. The other is the Survey Corps. Holy crap, where'd they get so many guns?"

"What's the point of this firefight?" Lu Bai asked, puzzled.

"It seems more like they're trying to draw attention..."

Xiao Xueyin picked up where he left off, but halfway through, he suddenly turned toward the Research Center.

At the very moment he turned around—

BOOM!!!

A violent explosion ripped through the rooftop of the Research Center. Thick clouds of smoke billowed into the air as shattered stone sprayed in every direction.