Having fully recognized the reality before him, Ye Chen closed his eyes and let out a soft sigh.
"Phew."
Then, as if he had made up his mind, he opened his azure eyes again and calmly met Weimeng's gaze.
"Weimeng, with the Butcher Hunter meddling from the shadows, we have no choice but to change our plan again."
Weimeng asked tensely:
"What do you want to do?"
Ye Chen spoke with a composed expression:
"The Butcher Hunter's attitude clearly says he wants to watch the chaos unfold. I imagine he wants to see us confront them head-on, and in one-on-one fights at that."
"For now, the Butcher Hunter can be considered neutral. But if the two of us keep running and stalling, we may end up like Oko—forced out into the outside world by the Butcher Hunter together with the enemy's two clowns. That would obviously put us hunters at an overwhelming disadvantage."
"So rather than that, we might as well give them a straightforward answer right now."
Weimeng questioned him with a conflicted look:
"You mean we should fight them head-on right here? Two against two? But never mind whether we can win— even if we really do win, the Butcher Hunter will immediately harvest us with ease afterward!"
Ye Chen drew a deep breath before answering evenly:
"Even if we don't do this, we're already fish on his chopping block."
"Jietisikoki, who possesses a Divine Artifact, is even more dangerous than these core clowns before us. He is fundamentally an existence we cannot handle."
"So at this point, we have no other choice."
"The nature of the mission has completely changed."
"Our foremost objective now is no longer 'survival and victory,' but to take as many of the remaining Mad Clowns with us as possible before the Butcher