Lianye landed on the trunk of a towering tree and held his breath. In the silent forest, even the smallest sounds were amplified until they resembled the clamor of a marketplace. Once every distracting factor had been filtered out and the surroundings returned to silence, he focused all his mental energy and activated Ultimate Predator's enhanced senses.
Since this Hero Ability was called the Pride Stalker, its hunting abilities naturally could not be underestimated. The bandits were not Void monsters like Kha'Zix, capable of vanishing without a trace once they entered the Void. In Lianye's eyes, their speed and ability to resist were not worth mentioning.
The Pride Stalker had entered its Ultimate Predator state. No one could escape his eyes. Hunt.
His vision shifted from a normally colorful world into one of pure blood-red, filled with a dense killing intent.
To ordinary people, the somewhat chaotic and indistinct view would have been difficult to make out. Yet in Lianye's mind, it was exceptionally clear. His enhanced visual senses excluded every obstruction—trees, weeds, rocks, slopes—and concentrated all perception on prey capable of movement. It was far more efficient than ordinary visual enhancement.
Simple visual enhancement allowed one to clearly see things more than ten kilometers away. Such an ability was suited to naval battles, aerial combat, and similar situations, but when hunting through a forest, one's line of sight would be obstructed.
But Lianye was different. He had already clearly locked onto the movements of the bandits' convoy, hidden more than ten kilometers away behind layers of brush and forest shadows.
There were four carriages in total. Krista was in the second carriage, her wrists bound with hemp rope so tightly that she could barely move. A bandit holding a hunting rifle stood guard over her.
The space in the remaining carriages was likely used to carry the ODM Gear stolen from the Expeditionary Team's members, with even more bandits guarding the goods.
They did not look like vicious criminals. They looked more like ordinary impoverished civilians who had been forced into banditry because they could not make a living.
Such situations were not uncommon in the Inside Wall Area. The nobles inland could indulge in luxurious, carefree lives. Until the second wall, Wall of Rose, was destroyed by Titans, they had never needed to fear the threat of Titans.
Meanwhile, ordinary people in the outer regions had to tremble at the possibility of Titans breaking through the walls at any moment. Even basic survival was a challenge. They spent their entire lives merely trying to stay alive, yet still had to risk their lives for the inland nobles and serve them like cattle and horses.
Therefore, the root of all this evil should have been the foolish inland Royal Government and those bloated, contemptible inland nobles.
Just as Kha'Zix despised the weak human race, hypocrisy, chaos, filth, and suffering filled the ever-changing human masses. Perhaps letting the Titans invade and properly cleanse this dirty world would have been a good thing.
After all, these human-killing Titans seemed to have been created from the start as "weapons of war" by certain people with ulterior motives. Yet, like every story of disaster, something uncontrollable had gone wrong in the end.
However, none of that had anything to do with Lianye. He was not some champion of democracy, and he had no intention of forging a new order or founding a new nation under this incompetent royal regime.
At least for now, Lianye's interest was in being a hunter. His ability was the Pride Stalker—the ultimate hunter.
And hunters only cared about their prey. Lianye only cared whether anything had gone wrong with Krista.
"Hehehehe... I never expected that one moment I'd be explaining the complexity and beauty of human nature to a Void monster like Kha'Zix, and the next I'd have to show ordinary people what cruelty truly is."
A helpless, amused expression rose on Lianye's lips. Was this what people meant when they said that after seeing too many people, they started liking dogs?
Of course, there was still a difference. Kha'Zix was a Void monster with limitless potential for evolution, unlike ordinary Wang Jiang. Because of Lianye's involvement, who knew what interesting changes might occur in Kha'Zix's evolutionary path.
Lianye naturally knew there were plenty of terrible people in this world, but there were also quite a few lovable ones. Instead, he had come to like a kindhearted girl like Krista, someone utterly out of place in this cruel world.
He had already become quite skilled at typing Kha'Zix's name.
End of Chapter
The Invisible Predator
"We... didn't do something really terrible, did we?"
On the last carriage of the bandits' convoy, a young thief kept watch as he looked at the scenery rushing backward. He spoke with a trace of emotion in his voice.
"Even if we left them with it, they couldn't beat the Titans anyway. So what's wrong with taking weapons they can't even use? Some nobles in the city want this stuff, and we're just delivering goods. That's only natural."
"If you don't have the guts to be ruthless, you won't even be able to stay alive. As for the Titans, who gives a damn!"
The other thief, a senior-looking man with a full beard, spoke as though it were only right.
Stealing the ODM Gear that soldiers relied on to fight Titans was obviously suicidal if one thought about it. When the Titans invaded again someday, they would understand how foolish this internal conflict was.
But if these bandits did not commit such petty thefts to earn the nobles' rewards, even surviving would become a problem. Who had the time to care about the Titans?
"Wait, something feels strange. Come take a look."
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