Hunter

Zhang Xiang ran wildly under the moonlight, avoiding the towering flames and rampaging demons. He made his way into the deep mountains and forests, where he threw off all his weapons, rolled around in a mud puddle, held his breath, and forced his body to relax from the extreme tension. He then used the ancient secret technique passed down by scouts: the Dead Man's Technique!

Well, to put it bluntly, it's just playing dead...

Zhang Xiang was no coward. He was originally a scout in the Shuofang Army. Back then Shuofang Army was almost wiped out by the Hu Barbarians. The entire town's soldiers and civilians were relocated to the Central Plains by the Grand Tutor to fill the vacancies in the Western Imperial Guards. As a scout and elite soldier from a regional military town, he was assigned to the General of Anxi's camp as a subordinate. Because of his solid skills, and because the General of Anxi lacked capable and elite confidants, he was selected and promoted all the way to become a centurion in the Tabai Army. Now, he has also made meritorious contributions and become Martial Cavalry Captain. He has cultivated to the Perfected Realm the Divine Essence Body and is heading straight for the Martial God.

He's done assassinations of the Xiongnu chieftain, fought battles to defend isolated cities, stormed mountains, scaled cliffs to seize strongholds, led the charge in breaching cities, and captured flags and generals. What kind of tough battles hasn't he fought? What kind of bloody seas haven't he braved? For years, Zhang Xiang has slept on the front lines.

But now, he lies prone in the mud, not daring to breathe.

Because this war cannot be fought.

While they were still dreaming, the next second, the entire battalion of brothers, the elite of the White Army, were turned into mincemeat by the shrapnel.

Zhang Xiang had been a scout since childhood and was a light sleeper. Although he had just fought a battle with the Blood Sentinels of the Protectorate Army during the day, he got up and went out to check after the first three claps of Thunder Roar. Because he didn't have time to put on his armor, he subconsciously gathered the fighting spirit of the Sword Immortal Sect Dou Department to protect his body. This allowed him to preserve his internal organs from being blasted apart by the heavy artillery the moment the iron rain fell.

But it was all gone. The elite soldiers who had followed Zhang Xiang in breaking through the enemy lines over the years were bombarded wave after wave, and attacked wave after wave. They didn't even have time to lick their wounds before the demons and monsters rushed into the camp with a bloody wind, crushing the remaining soldiers into a bloody pulp.

Escape, escape is the only option.

One cannot let their life be wasted in a place like this; even in death, one must return home.

Zhang Xiang lay in the cold mud, gazing at the blood and fire filling the sky, forcing himself to calm down and think amidst the screams of battle. It was like a falcon hiding in a cave, watching the storm outside and contemplating its escape route.

The vanguard is gone, and we can't go to the center. Anyone who has been a scout can see that General of Anxi's main camp is too far forward. If the Divine Sect breaks through the front line, they will definitely take advantage of the situation and rush up to kill the general. General of Anxi is not unaware of this, but he is inexperienced and has been in command for the first time. Without holding the general's flag in front to supervise the battle, he cannot command the fierce and arrogant soldiers in the guard.

We need to retreat to the rear camp to regroup. The rear camp has mountains of provisions and equipment, and is guarded by a large number of veteran soldiers from the Western Garrison. As long as we retreat to the camp, we can regroup and fight again... No...

Zhang Xiang frowned, staring at the smoke and clouds billowing from the wildfire in the sky. After a moment, his scout experience kicked in again. The hot wind was blowing directly from the east. Fire! A huge fire! The granary! The rear guard!

Zhang Xiang barely managed to hold back from jumping up, his heart sinking to the bottom.

The cult's night raid actually succeeded! What were the rear guard doing?! Where was the central guard?! Didn't the night sentries protecting the central guard react at all?! They let him swagger through the defense zone and cut off his retreat, and they still have the nerve to call themselves the best scouts in the world?! Bah!

Zhang Xiang closed his eyes. "So be it," he thought. "If I'm defeated, there's no need to run anymore. There are so many monsters in the Divine Cult's army. In the dark, the scattered soldiers are just their prey. I'll sleep, conserve my energy, and if I'm still alive by dawn, I'll figure out how to escape..."

"Click, click, click"

Zhang Xiang slowly opened his eyes in the mud, while Falcon, who was already used to seeing in the dark, looked into the empty darkness.

Something seems to be coming... something... unseen...

At that moment, a bright light suddenly shone, as if cultivators were fighting in the sky and their magical treasures had been destroyed, bursting forth with dazzling light like a small sun.

Amidst the dramatic shifts in light and shadow, Zhang Xiang's pupils contracted, and he instantly spotted the two objects. They were two transparent things, as if covered by a membrane, through which light seemed to slip, obscuring even their shadows. Only in the fleeting moments of sudden brightness and darkness did their outlines become vaguely visible.

A square-shaped monster, about the size of a chariot, with eight legs—was it a spider... or a crab?

There was another person, a young woman from her silhouette, with a fantastic figure, curvaceous and seemingly naked. She was nothing like those ordinary village girls. At just one glance, Zhang Xiang, a burly man who spent most of his life in the military and could only relieve his lust through killing, almost lost his composure and became violently aroused...

Suddenly, the crab monster unleashed a burst of lightning, the current leaping and sweeping across Zhang Xiang's body. For a moment, he felt a sharp pain in his spine, thinking that the other party had discovered him, and he almost felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

Fortunately, the "Dead Man Technique" is a secret technique passed down orally among the Immortal Palace's scouts. It was developed through years of war with the Demon Race and is a folk remedy that can literally fool a dog's nose. The fact that this function has been passed down shows that it is indeed useful. Not only can it be used to feign death, but it can also enhance the scouts' six senses to some extent, making it easier to gather intelligence.

The woman and the monster didn't notice Zhang Xiang in the mud pit not far behind them, or if they did, they didn't seem to care much about the corpses scattered everywhere, and even started talking.

"This is Heluo, this is Heluo. Signal boost is on, signal boost is on. All groups, report: is communication clear? Is communication clear?"

Then other voices came from the crab monster, accompanied by rustling noises.

"Ear Mouse received. Target locked, covertly tracking, location shared."

"Xiqu received, now approaching the center."

"... Received,... Received, poor communication quality... poor quality..."

The woman raised her hand and waved it in the air, as if silently conveying something unseen.

"Chongming, the signal is weak. Fly lower to avoid being affected by the natives' brainwaves."

"Shh... shh..."

"Chongming, did you hear that?"

"Shh... Received, received. Too many level-four wild animals in the sky. Shh... Too much brainwave interference. Shh... Low visibility, can't see the prey. Repeat, can't see the prey."

The woman continued waving her arms.

"Chongming, reconnect once, and let the Ear Mouse share its location again."

"Ear Mouse received, location shared, coordinates sent later."

"Shh... Chongming received, now approaching the prey."

"Alright, the prey has now separated from the group and is hunting. The Ear Mouse will maintain the tracking and location. Once it arrives, Chongming will Chongming with it, Xiqu will capture it."

"Ear Mouse received."

"Shh... Chongming received, arriving soon."

"... Xiqu? Where is Xiqu now?"

"Shh... shh... Xiqu received, arriving in thirty seconds."

"Alright, full-band jamming will begin in one minute. The intrusion is expected to last fifteen minutes. You have ten minutes to capture your prey, perform brain resection and ionization chip modification on-site, and then transfer it to the launch site for recovery via the Ear Mouse."

"Ear Mouse received."

"Shh... Chongming received it."

"Shh... Xiqu received."

Although Zhang Xiang didn't understand what they were talking about—communication quality, brainwaves, signal coordinates, full-channel interference—he could still understand terms like prey, capture, and hunting.

Yes, it's actually understandable. These people's pronunciation is a bit strange, but it is indeed the 'common language' of the Ancient Immortal Palace period. Compared to the official language of the Three Enclosures, it is closer to the dialect of the Hebei vassal army. Moreover, within the vassal army, many of the ancient immortal army's body-refining and military training methods were taught using this 'ancient common language'.

These people, are they from the Xuanmen sect? No, they're not from the Three Great Sects...

"All units, take your positions and prepare to log off. This is Heluo. Privileges granted. System restrictions lifted. Wide-area ECM interference. First attack. Five-second countdown. Five, four, three... wait!"

Judging from the noise, the woman seemed to have suddenly turned around! She was holding something up directly in front of Zhang Xiang, which startled him so much that his heart skipped a beat.

"Heluo? Heluo's going on?"

"Shh... shh..."

"Shh... shh..."

Suddenly, a flash of blue light appeared, and with a thud, something fell next to Zhang Xiang.

"... Nothing, just a bird. Reset the countdown, five, four..."

Zhang Xiang rolled his eyes, looking at what was beside him.

It was a shattered crow, its body torn in two as if ripped apart by something, its internal organs charred and emitting a foul stench. The bird's head landed right in his palm.

Zhang Xiang looked at the crow, and the crow stared back at Zhang Xiang, its eyes reflecting a scarlet light.

"... Three, two, one. Brainwave intrusion, full-frequency blocking."

With a soft hum, Zhang Xiang suddenly felt as if his scalp had pierced through a curtain of icy water, and instantly lost consciousness.

No, it wasn't that I lost consciousness, but rather that my six senses and five perceptions were suddenly squeezed together, compressed into a ball, and placed in a sealed jar.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't feel anything, but he wasn't dead.

It was as if the ground beneath him had suddenly vanished, and he plummeted off a cliff, into the sea of stars, into endless nothingness, into endless darkness, with no foothold to hold onto, no one to rely on. It was like falling into a nightmare from which he would never wake. Falling, falling, falling into a bottomless abyss.

The woman, codenamed Heluo, looked at the satellite panorama projected by the system and surveyed the surrounding battle situation.

As the system's brainwave intrusion began, the entire battlefield fell into an instant silence.

Those cultivators below the Golden Core realm immediately fell into a coma and shock, while those at the Nascent Soul Realm were also severely injured, with some with weaker foundations plummeting from the clouds. Those at the Transformation Stage could withstand the impact, but they were clearly shaken by the shock to their Divine Sense. The experts of the Divine Sect who refined their primordial spirit techniques were especially stunned and astonished! They couldn't understand where such an expert had come from, actually using their primordial spirit to attack all the cultivators on the battlefield! This was already at the level of a Divine Lord!

Even more devastating consequences followed: Legion Technology completely crashed! The seal on the primordial spirit was also broken! The demon gods and great demons controlled by the cult instantly broke free of the shackles of their primordial spirits and awakened! And they all went berserk!

The Divine Cult army, which had just been chasing the defeated remnants of the Immortal Palace, was thrown into complete disarray! Those cultivators with even a little bit of Nascent Soul cultivation were able to escape, but those warriors who had only refined their bodies were directly knocked unconscious and were devoured alive by the rampaging giant demons around them! They were trampled into mincemeat!

The commanders of the rear legions fared even worse, suffering a direct and devastating blow from Heluo, their systems instantly shutting down! They trembled and convulsed, their brains, mixed with various bodily fluids, gushing from their seven orifices, killing them all instantly!

Of course, things weren't much better for the Immortal Palace. Most of the second-generation officials who used drugs for dual cultivation didn't refine their primordial spirits. Like Zhang Xiang, they fell into an infant-like sleep, trapped in endless nightmares and unable to move. Only a very small number of Martial God with extremely strong wills were able to grit their teeth and use this opportunity to escape after suffering severe damage to their primordial spirits, or even launch a counterattack.

Meanwhile, the cult's cultivators had to quickly subdue the rampaging demons, and in the ensuing chaos, without any command, no one had the will to fight anymore.

Great, no one's bothering us anymore.

"This is Heluo. Authorization granted. All weapon systems deactivated. Target: Prey. Hunting begins."

Heluo gazed into the void and granted weapon permissions to the drone.

In the virtual view of the electronic eye, real-time footage of the 'Ear Mouse' capturing its prey, transmitted from the scene, is being displayed.

A massive beast, as large as a mountain, leaped and bounded, moving as fast as a whirlwind. Beside it, dozens of dog-sized, optically stealthy drones maneuvered rapidly, dodging the beast's attacks while unleashing bursts of lightning-fast iron winds! This oncoming storm was mixed with a large number of metallic needles, relentlessly bombarding the beast!

The 'prey' reacted swiftly to the attack and provocation, leaping and blasting through the mountains, even using sound to pinpoint enemy locations, and shattering the invisible spider-like drones with a single blow. Its incredible strength even tore apart the alloy joint plates! Yet, these drones were still able to launch a large amount of ammunition in time!

The 'prey' was indeed troublesome, its speed even fast enough to completely dodge the oncoming storm of steel. However, the projected iron rain did not miss its target; instead, it swarmed back like locusts, chasing after the ferocious beast in the gale!

These were actually sharp, cone-shaped iron arrows, which you could call intelligent target acquisition missiles or ultra-miniature drones. In any case, after inputting the target's biological genetic signals, these intelligent missiles would continuously track and attack the target until their microelectromechanical engines ran out of energy.

Within that cone-shaped bomb bay, about the size of an adult's index finger, there are not only various target acquisition systems, tracking systems, power and maneuvering devices, and microcomputers, but also solar panels for charging. Furthermore, in addition to the armor-piercing kinetic energy damage of its own highly maneuverable alloy warhead, it can be equipped with various chemical explosives, providing thermal, electromagnetic, and kinetic energy detonations, and even, to an absurd degree, can directly mount metallic hydrogen warheads...

Yes, these are just outdated level 4 technologies from the previous generation. After all, the Third Division doesn't want to reveal their whereabouts to the Legion, so the equipment they use now is lower than corporate-level security, merely at the level of an outsourced team of elite mercenaries.

Mercenary-level military technology is indeed sufficient, but it's merely an appetizer. The 'prey' is overwhelmed by the dense barrage of iron rain launched from stealth drones from all directions!

Even if the 'prey's' fur is impenetrable, it will begin to break through its defenses under the repeated bombardment of dense bullets! It will spray out large amounts of blood mist in the gale! Even if the 'prey' can suddenly disappear, causing the bullets to lose their target for a moment, when it reappears to hunt down those stealthy drones, these intelligent bullets will lock on within a thousandth of a second! They will relentlessly pursue it!

The 'prey' immediately realized something was wrong and turned to run away! But it couldn't escape!

Spider-like stealth drones were continuously destroyed, but the drone vehicles continued to launch! These drones carried not only intelligent bomb bays but also gravity-based devices, gradually creating a distorted gravitational field trap in space! Like invisible hammers of gravity, they relentlessly pounded down from the sky, creating deep craters around them! Finally, they captured the raging winds trying to escape the rain of iron, repeatedly striking and knocking them to the ground!

"Roar--!!"

The prey was trapped! The blood-soaked red tiger roared to the sky! But its roar was drowned out by the explosions! Surrounded by dozens of drones that pounced on it, it was firmly pressed to the ground by the powerful gravitational field! Its whole body was hit by a dense rain of iron! Amidst the exploding lightning, its mane flew wildly and its flesh and blood splattered everywhere!

"The prey has been captured, Xiqu, proceed with the arrest."

"Shh... shh..."

"Xiqu, Chongming, make the arrest! Make the arrest immediately!"

"Wait! High-energy reaction detected ahead--!"

"Roar--!!!"

In that instant, the 'prey' exploded! It literally exploded! It transformed into a white fireball! The bluish-white ionic flames were engulfed and spread out by the shockwave! In that instant, even the system lost sight of its target! It lost contact!

"Holy crap! What kind of monstrosity is this?! A biological nuclear bomb??"

Heluo gazed at the bluish-white mushroom cloud rising on the horizon. The optical invisibility film around her body vibrated under the impact of the ion flow, losing its effect for a moment, revealing her slender figure wrapped in a black latex suit.

Of course, it wasn't that 'Heluo' insisted on choosing such a prosthetic body to carry out the mission. The main reason was that they hacked into the company's administrator privileges through a backdoor and directly used the cloned prosthetic body data backup in the system's backend to directly clone the biological vehicle. They didn't have that many options.

"Ear Mouse, Xiqu, Chongming, did you hear the reply?"

Although an unexpected explosion occurred, the system did not indicate that the prosthetic body was destroyed. Was it because the impact of the ion storm interrupted communication...?

"Bang!"

"Wh-what!"

Heluo turned his head in shock and suddenly saw a mud figure standing behind him, punching him in the neck.

But the punch was firmly blocked by a layer of glass-like, snowflake-like crystals just three inches away from Heluo's body.

"That scared me to death! Where did this thing come from?! Weren't there no dangerous creatures detected nearby?!"

An anti-Newtonian fluid molecular shield, while not something mercenaries could afford, is something a commander and hacker like myself naturally need to prepare for every mission with my prosthetic body. Spending a little money is fine, I can afford it...

"Target threat level assessment: negligible, ant-like."

Although startled, Heluo realized that the mud monster was just a native human, a half-dead soldier at that. But to be on the safe side...

"His brain was also uploaded and stored on an ion chip for analysis."

"Confirmed, scanning in progress..."

But before Heluo could figure out how this person had suddenly appeared from behind, the other person loosened his fist and showed her what he had been holding in his palm.

Then, instinctively, 'Heluo' caught a glimpse of an eyeball.

The Raven's Eye.

"Heluo, Xiqu, Chongming, did you hear a reply? Did you hear a reply?! Damn it! It's all background noise!!"

"... This is... Heluo... The interference... is too strong..."

"Yes, yes..."

"Too powerful, too powerful..."