Fugitive Goda

It sounded like a raging wind, yet also like an earthquake.

When Goda instinctively closed his eyes and focused intently on listening, a terrifying intuition pierced through his brain like a spear, giving rise to an inexplicable thought.

Could that... be the voice of some gigantic creature?

The thought flashed through his mind, and Goda's sanity was instantly shattered by an indescribable force. A violent wave of nausea began battering his body, his will began to collapse, and his emotions spiraled out of control.

As his fingertips tore bloody gashes across his cheeks, the more he looked at the black threads beneath his feet, the more they resembled the naturally thick hair on his hands. The more he looked at the scattered iron chains around him, the more they resembled shackles and iron hoops binding his life.

Then he flew into a rage, screamed, and finally awoke from the nightmare.

The moment he woke, Goda was astonished to discover that his body had undergone a horrifying mutation.

He was no longer short and frail. He had become tall and powerful. Feeling the strange energy filling every part of his body, that gift from the Auling Labyrinth, Goda believed that his life had finally reached a turning point.

From then on, his personality changed completely. No one ever bullied him again, because he was the one bullying others. Whether it was thugs outside or his vicious wife at home, the strong and violent Goda was no longer a victim. He had become a perpetrator through and through.

Revenge, oppression, violence, pleasure, crime, addiction.

Time flew by, and eventually Goda faced the consequences of his reckless behavior: he was wanted throughout Frost White City.

Defeated by the overwhelming difference in numbers, Goda was eventually captured by the city guards.

The guards had never seen such an aberrant being as Goda, and they were all shocked and intensely curious. The Lord, however, offered no explanation. He merely ordered them to torture Goda until he was half-dead, had a specially made pair of weighted handcuffs and enormous shackles put on him, then decided to hang Goda the following day.

But in the end, everyone was fooled by Goda's acting. He pretended to have been tortured out of his mind, pretended he could not break free from his restraints, and then, in the dead of night when no one was watching, exhausted all his strength to barely snap the chains on his hands and feet. Using them as weapons, he smashed through the prison wall in one blow and escaped Frost White City just like that.

He first ran all the way back to his abandoned home, quickly grabbed a pile of trap tools for dealing with pursuers as well as several slices of moldy bread, then fled as far from Frost White City as possible to this abandoned village beneath Snow Mountain Church.

Here, Goda hid while pondering how to continue his mad life.

"Hehehe, I'm the chosen one favored by it! No one can kill me! Nobody can do it! Bloody disaster will surely descend upon every idiot who defies me! Hehehehehe—!"

Within the village ruins, Goda curled up in a corner of the only small wooden hut that could shield him from the snow. He muttered to himself like a madman, bared his filthy yellow fangs, and let out a savage laugh.

Back in the present, Ye Chen pressed down the hammer with his thumb and fired three shots at the target without hesitation. However, the bullets he fired were bronze-colored. He did not immediately reveal his trump card, the "Blood Bullet."

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The three shots shattered the village's dead silence, and three bullet holes sent the fuzz on the blanket covering the black shadow flying.

Ye Chen's three bullets hit the target precisely. Yet the thing merely shifted from the sudden impact, showing none of the reaction a living creature should have, and no bright red liquid splashed out.

As expected, it was only a decoy!

Ye Chen's instinct had been right. Since his opponent had deliberately set up steel wires within a hundred meters of the area, there was no way he would lie in the most conspicuous spot inside the wooden hut.

The blanket only contained a dummy piled together from miscellaneous objects. The real prey was undoubtedly hiding within a blind spot Ye Chen had been unable to observe directly from outside!

Crash!

Just as Ye Chen reached that conclusion, glass suddenly shattered from the broken window on the side of the hut. A huge black shadow climbed out through it, as though it had long been prepared for an enemy attack.

The true appearance of the fugitive Goda finally revealed itself before Ye Chen.

Pointed ears set at the back of his head, deeply sunken eyes with a dark green hue, snow-white skin covered in lumps—these were the traits of the Frost White Person, the only Sapien Race Ye Chen knew of in the Eternal Winter Hidden Domain.

Yet Frost White People usually had builds similar to humans. Goda, however, stood a full two and a half meters tall, his body terrifyingly massive.

He wore a tattered prisoner's uniform. Rings of iron chains wrapped around his exposed hands and feet, which were packed with muscular definition and bulging veins. The fangs in his mouth protruded sharply, more terrifying than those of an ordinary beast. Altogether, he looked like a monster that had emerged from deep within the mountains.

The instant Goda revealed himself, Ye Chen aimed his revolver at him. But seeing that Goda only stared at him after climbing through the window, without making any move for the moment, Ye Chen was in no hurry to pull the trigger.

"You're not from Frost White City?"

"No... looking at you, you're not even a Frost White Person."

"What exactly are you?"

Goda had initially assumed that the Lord's forces had come to hunt him down, so he had immediately intended to flee through the window. But when he realized that his attacker was merely a strange-looking young man, the tension and hostility on his face were instantly swallowed by curiosity and shock. For a moment, he even forgot to move.

After all, Goda had never seen a being like Ye Chen before: someone who stood on two legs and resembled a Frost White Person in shape, yet possessed vastly different facial features. Thus, he could not help questioning him in Frost White Language.

Although Ye Chen often went to Frost White City to buy daily necessities at Lyle's instruction, he always wore a cloak and mask when entering the city. Therefore, none of the city's residents had ever discovered that another Sapien Race completely different from themselves lived within the Eternal Winter Hidden Domain.

But unlike the intensely curious Goda, Ye Chen knew exactly what his opponent was. He had no intention of making small talk.

While Goda stood still, Ye Chen swiftly swung out the revolver's cylinder, dumped out three casings, reloaded it, and carefully adjusted the cylinder's position. Just as Goda was about to speak again, the young man fired another three bronze bullets, sparks flashing as they flew in a probing attack.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three gunshots rang out, but no blood flew.

The instant Ye Chen fired, Goda raised both arms to shield his face and groin.

Ye Chen's bullets struck his chest, abdomen, and thigh respectively. Yet Goda merely took one step back before immediately regaining his footing.

The three bullets only left shallow bruises on his skin. Beyond that, they could not even knock Goda to the ground.

Without a word, Ye Chen watched the fugitive Goda's movements and instantly loaded three fresh bullets into the revolver.

That body is far too powerful. Is this also the Nightmare's Influence? What exactly is different between what he experienced and what I did? If I have another nightmare in the future, could I become like him too?

Ye Chen thought to himself.

The reason he had not aimed at Goda's head was because he followed the Mozambique Drill Lyle had taught him: aim only for large body parts, then finish the target with a shot to the head after bringing them down.

A headshot might theoretically be the optimal solution, but in practice, the head was a small target. It was easy for the shooter to miss and easy for the enemy to dodge. So unless he was absolutely certain, Ye Chen would only target the prey's torso.

Furthermore, although Goda neither dodged nor avoided his bullets, Ye Chen still had no intention of firing a Blood Bullet directly.

For Nightmare Sensors like Ye Chen and Goda, whose perception and physical capabilities far surpassed those of ordinary living beings, dodging bullets was no difficult task. Therefore, to minimize the risk as much as possible, Ye Chen decided to proceed according to the original plan.

After defending against Ye Chen's shots, Goda casually brushed away the three misshapen bullet heads, then twisted his neck with a crisp crack. Wearing a savage grin, he chuckled softly.

"Hehe, no matter how many bullets you fire, they're useless against me. Looks like you're not one of the Lord's men. Otherwise, he would definitely have told you beforehand."

"I don't know where you came from, and I don't know why you attacked me, but... forget it."

"No matter what kind of strange creature you are, if you have flesh, you can fill my stomach! It seems that my sincerity in enduring hunger for an entire day without forgetting to pray has truly reached it."

"And you are the reward I received for that sincerity—the gift it has bestowed upon my devotion!"

In the blink of an eye, Goda's expression became vicious and terrifying again. His yellow teeth split into a half-circle, excited saliva began to drip continuously from his mouth, and an extremely violent aura radiated from his entire body.