End

Old Hunter knew he had hit his opponent. The air was thick with the smell of blood, but he could not determine Lan Mu's location from it.

"We have to get out of the villa!"

Though he said that, Old Hunter did not dare make any rash moves.

A prey targeted by a wild beast would be killed the instant it tried to flee. He understood that much.

Old Hunter calculated that his only hope was for Lan Mu to reveal himself first and deal with the others.

Old Hunter had already guessed that the White-haired Lion would become visible as soon as it attacked while in the Invisibility State. The fleeting white shadow when it killed one of the poachers earlier was proof.

As long as Lan Mu attacked someone else, Old Hunter was confident he could quickly draw his gun and hit him.

Old Hunter adjusted his angle slightly, bringing most of the people into his field of view as his focus reached an unprecedented level.

Yet after a full five minutes of waiting, there was not the slightest movement in the villa's hall.

"Did he leave?"

"We should run too! Let's get out of here!"

Amid the oppressive dead silence, someone finally could no longer endure it. The intense pressure was about to crush their minds.

Five minutes of nervous dread had never felt so long. Fear kept swelling until it quickly broke some of the more mentally fragile poachers.

Two poachers finally could not hold back and rushed toward the front door.

"What the hell are you two doing? Don't take the guns out—" Before one of Boss Zhao's men could finish, he saw a horrifying sight.

The moment the two poachers took a single step outside, they were attacked by a white shadow. As though sliced by blades, blood sprayed from their necks as they collapsed to the ground.

"He's outside!" Old Hunter shouted as he fired, but unfortunately, he missed.

He had never expected Lan Mu to be hiding outside the villa, attacking from a blind spot. The fleeting white shadow had only been an arm.

Seeing two of their companions die, the poachers finally broke down. Following Old Hunter's gunshot, they began firing wildly as well.

Under the barrage of gunfire, the villa's front door was shattered. Their view extended straight into the courtyard, yet there was not even a ghostly shadow to be seen.

"Stop firing wildly!" Old Hunter shouted to stop them, but it was already too late.

Their crude Hunting Rifles could not fire continuously. During this gap between shots, Old Hunter felt an unprecedented terror, and every hair on his body stood on end.

Swish!

Old Hunter quickly drew a short knife. He knew the enemy had already closed in. His eyes darted everywhere; there was probably no time to fire, so he could only fight with his knife!

However, he could not find any trace of Lan Mu at all.

Splat!

The attack came from directly above. Old Hunter was pierced from the crown of his head by a nail like a sharp blade, which drove straight into his brain.

A tremendous force pulled him backward, and he fell with his head thrown back. The final sight he saw before dying was—

A white beastman with imposing fangs and a lion's mane descending from above, with a swaying chandelier behind him.

"The boss is dead!"

"Run! The boss is dead!"

The poachers finally collapsed completely and scattered in all directions without a second thought.

Having lost the pillar holding them together, they became impossible to restrain after seeing that pillar die. In a chaotic rush, they flooded into the courtyard.

Boss Zhao's four strong men on guard had roughly understood their situation by then. Though they could not understand it and suspected they were dreaming, they were far more disciplined than those poachers. The four relied on one another, standing back to back as they watched their surroundings and even overhead, inching toward the courtyard step by step.

Lan Mu saw everything, but he was in no hurry to act.

With Old Hunter, his greatest threat, dealt with, no one remaining was worth worrying about.

Concealing himself, Lan Mu was now crouched atop the villa's perimeter wall, watching coldly as the group fled the villa.

With Lan Mu's Hunting Rhythm, as long as they did not escape beyond a one-kilometer radius, he could pursue them with perfect accuracy!

Most of the poachers had escaped, leaving only the four men standing back to back on guard. Lan Mu narrowed his lion eyes, his muscles already taut.

He held a short knife in his hand, one he had casually taken after killing Old Hunter.

His feline steps moved soundlessly along the wall. Looking down from above, he waited until the four had just passed through the iron gate before suddenly pouncing.

Everything happened too fast. There was only a flash of white, and a short knife that appeared from nowhere plunged into someone's head, killing him instantly.

By the time the others reacted and fired, Lan Mu had already turned invisible again. His footsteps made no sound on the ground, and with a light leap, he landed behind them.

The three men were still firing into the air, unaware that another short knife had appeared behind them and instantly killed one of them.

The remaining two turned around again, only to see their companion collapse in a spray of blood. The killer was nowhere to be found.

"Ghk... urgh..."

Another short knife stabbed from an unusual angle, plunging diagonally into one man's left rib and piercing straight through his heart.

In a matter of moments, three men had been instantly killed by an invisible enemy. The last man was drenched in cold sweat and shaking all over.

They did not possess Old Hunter's sharp instincts and sensed nothing of Lan Mu's assassinations. Dealing with them was simply too easy.

Lan Mu silently walked behind the last man and casually drove the knife into him, sending him on his way. He would not need to live in fear anymore.

Looking at the remaining poachers who had fled, only three were left. Cleverly, they had run in different directions, but they had not even made it a hundred meters. Lan Mu's killing had simply been too fast.

Since he had begun the hunt, there was naturally no reason to stop halfway.

Lan Mu shook his head lightly. In his heart, he had already sentenced them to death.

He knew every one of these people had blood on their hands. Rather than let them harm others after being imprisoned for a few decades and released, it was better for them to die by his hand.

Swift, precise, and ruthless pursuit killing was at least clean and efficient.

With his speed, all he needed was a burst of acceleration followed by a flying pounce to instantly kill a fleeing man.

It took less than a minute for him to catch and finish the poachers fleeing in all three directions.

Even the farthest had only run three hundred meters from the villa.

After dealing with everyone, Lan Mu concealed himself. Before long, he saw a passerby approach the area, spot the corpses on the road, and flee far away in terror to call the police.

Seeing that someone had reported it, Lan Mu leaped several times onto a house and bounded away across the rooftops. Before long, he reached the villa from earlier.

The villa was already empty. Lan Mu did not dispose of the corpses. He merely collected the things he had left there, including the rope he had snapped and the torture tools the poachers had used.

Then he quickly left, racing out of the villa district. Finding a deserted place, he tossed the short knife, rope, and torture tools into a sewer.

As Lan Mu thought about transforming back into a human, his body instantly contracted. In half a second, he had returned to his human form.

"Using invisibility and X-ray vision continuously is exhausting, even for a monster."

"Fortunately... I can still change back..."

Seeing that he had indeed returned to human form as he wished, Lan Mu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He roughly understood the ability he had suddenly gained. It was probably the power to transform between a human and a White-haired Lion.

With a thought, he changed back into the White Lion, but a wave of weakness immediately washed over him. The energy within his body was depleted, so he hurriedly changed back.

"Forget it. I'll study my abilities slowly later. First, I need to make a call."

Lan Mu walked out of the alley, looked toward the villa district, steadied himself, and called Officer Xiong.

The call was answered quickly, and Officer Xiong said—

"Mr. Lan, where did you go? The person I sent said you weren't at the hospital."

Lan Mu frowned upon hearing that, then sneered.

"Is that what he said? Was the person you sent named Wang Jinghu?"

Officer Xiong said, "Yes! Mr. Lan, don't run around. You need to cooperate with the police!"

Lan Mu said, "I cooperated too much... Officer Xiong... Wang Jinghu is a mole!"

Lan Mu then recounted how Wang Jinghu had tricked him into going to Boss Zhao's villa. As for what happened afterward, he changed it to say that he had climbed over the wall and escaped while they were careless.

He did not conceal anything about Boss Zhao, explaining everything and adding—

"Officer Xiong, I have a recording here. You'll understand once you listen to it."

Officer Xiong was deeply shocked. He did not know who Boss Zhao was—after all, there were many people with the surname Zhao—but someone with such enormous influence, enough to bribe even police officers under his command... after considering it, there was only one possibility.

That was Zhao Mingcheng, a major local businessman involved in many industries. His main company was Mingchang Investment Holding Company. From retail supermarkets to department stores, freight logistics, luxury brands, and real estate, it had its hands in everything. It had even recently been trying to enter the pharmaceutical industry. He was a major taxpayer in Fuzhou.

Officer Xiong quickly realized the severity of the situation, and he knew Lan Mu had to be in extreme danger right now.

He immediately said, "Mr. Lan, where are you? I'll come pick you up right away."

"I'm at Qingshu Villa in Zaolin District..."

"Huh? We just received a report of a homicide there. Mr. Lan, are you at the scene?"

Lan Mu hurriedly said, "No! There was a homicide? I escaped long ago. I wouldn't dare go back there. To be honest, I hesitated for a long time before making this call. I don't really trust your Fuzhou police anymore."

"Ahem..." Officer Xiong was somewhat embarrassed by Lan Mu's words and hurriedly said, "Don't put it that way. In the end, there are only one or two bad apples. Rest assured, we will guarantee your safety!"

"Alright, I trust you, Officer Xiong. I'm across from a place called Mingxiang Tea House, two streets away from Qingshu Villa."

"I'll be there immediately. I'll come personally! Whatever you do, don't leave."

After hanging up, Lan Mu let out a heavy breath and did his best to calm himself.

He had used the White-haired Lion's body to kill twelve people. At the time, he had felt no physiological reaction whatsoever, but now that he had calmed down, the horrifying images of their terrified deaths kept resurfacing in his mind. Back in his human body, simply remembering them made him feel sick.

Fortunately, Lan Mu was mentally tough. He had killed them, and he did not seek a pile of excuses to deceive himself. Never mind that these people were criminal suspects who had not yet been tried; even if they had all been sentenced to death, killing death row inmates would still be murder. Under the law, an individual never had the right to end another person's life.

However, Lan Mu was not that pedantic. Ending crime with crime—so long as he was not caught, what could anyone do?

He felt that his life had been different ever since his first transformation. Back then, he had done everything he could to suppress himself, willing to suffer gnawing hunger rather than lose control.

He had once thought his willpower was strong, but when he was truly forced to the brink of death today, all that law and morality had been cast aside in an instant.

Once people possessed great power, it became difficult for them to regard those weak and deserving of death as equals.

"They deserved to die in the first place. The police couldn't handle them, and they dragged me into it, so I had no choice but to end them for them..."