Hunting Season (Part 2)

Mr. Liang was not afraid of the "darkened" lion cub engaging in close combat with him; in fact, he hoped for a hand-to-hand fight so that the cub wouldn't be able to escape.

Unexpectedly, after the little lion pounced in front of it, it suddenly braked sharply, and then its jaws snapped open as if dislocated, spewing out a large cloud of black mist.

Mr. Liang was startled. He wasn't sure what the black mist was or whether it could harm him, so he covered his head and face and tried to avoid it as much as possible.

After spewing out the black mist, the little lion did not continue its attack. Instead, it fled into the distance at an even faster speed than before.

Because of that strange howl, all sorts of wild beasts around fled, including a pride of lions.

The "blackened" lion cub ran towards the pride, its color and size changing as it ran, quickly transforming into a smaller lion than before it "blackened." It then leaped into the pride and ran together in a certain direction.

Xiang Kun smiled. The little lion's response was actually quite clever, cunning, and quick-witted.

The problem is that the two people it is facing now, whether it is Xiang Kun or Mr. Liang, are not relying solely on vision, or rather, ordinary human vision, to lock onto and track targets.

Its physical transformation, its "integration into the environment," was utterly useless to them; in the pride, it shone as brightly as a star.

Mr. Liang quickly determined that the black mist was not harmful at all; it was merely meant to obscure, interfere with, and frighten people. So he took off and turned back to continue the pursuit.

Xiang Kun knew that, under normal circumstances, even if he didn't intervene, Mr. Liang could finish the fight in six to eight minutes at most.

But after glancing at a lone tree a few hundred meters away, he changed his mind. He walked six or seven steps away from the jeep and stood still, extending his right hand. In his palm lay three beads. These beads were not the 0.5mm tungsten steel beads from the bag; each one was 8mm in diameter, which was quite large.

The ball disappeared in the next instant, and a fragrant, crispy pork knuckle appeared in Xiang Kun's hand.

Xiang Kun got into a stance, mimicking a baseball throw, and then threw it with all his might towards the little lion's location.

Xiang Kun's actions also attracted Mr. Liang's attention. He didn't notice when Xiang Kun suddenly had a pig's trotter in his hand, but the action of throwing the pig's trotter was obviously aimed at the Mutated Little Lion, which made him very curious - judging from the initial speed of the throw, although it was not slow, it didn't seem like it could cause any damage. Moreover, according to the movement trend of the pig's trotter, it might not even hit the lion cub that was still running and changing direction.

Why use pig's trotters?

Thinking back to the earlier illusion created by the Rabbit Woodcarving, and the various rabbit meat elements in the dream, Mr. Liang felt that this might be Xiang Kun's little quirk or perverse taste—a particular fondness for using various ingredients to realize his abilities.

Suddenly, the pig's trotter, which didn't seem to be moving very fast, underwent a strange change and disappeared in mid-air.

Mr. Liang vaguely heard a whooshing sound, then felt something flying at an extremely fast speed. Immediately afterwards, with a loud thud, there was a commotion in the pride of lions. One lion was knocked into the air, tumbled to the ground, and slid a long distance away.

Mr. Liang's gaze locked onto a small lion, and he discovered that its lower body was almost completely gone, its flesh and blood ripped open, and it was lying on the ground struggling.

He instantly realized that the lion cub was the "Blood-feeding Creature" he was chasing. The ripped flesh and blood, the half-section of the body with visible internal organs, bones, and muscles, clearly showed that its structure was different from that of ordinary wild animals. The intestines were even wriggling rapidly, trying to "scoop" back the surrounding remains of flesh and organs.

So what just happened?

Was this damage caused by the pig's trotter that disappeared halfway through?

Mr. Liang, suspended in mid-air, was momentarily confused and bewildered. What the hell was this? A pig's hoof cannonball? But the pig's hoof hadn't even hit the "Blood-feeding Creature" at all. How was it working?

Before meeting Xiang Kun, Mr. Liang always believed that his understanding of "Blood-feeding Creature" was the best among all living things. At least he was quite satisfied with his cognitive system of "High-Dimensional Factor" derived from his own observations and experiments, Academician Shen's research, and data from other "Blood-feeding Creature" researchers obtained through various channels.

He was quite confident, even proud, of his chosen path of mutation and evolution—he believed that his ideas of "reshaping the body with non-carbon compounds" and "Biological Component" were advanced and the most likely way to resist the life-or-death judgment of the "Ultimate Predator."

But after getting to know Xiang Kun and joining his plan to deal with the "Ultimate Predator," Mr. Liang suddenly found himself becoming ignorant and clueless.

Regarding Xiang Kun's many abilities and the methods he has displayed, he not only doesn't understand the underlying principles, but often he can't even comprehend them at all.

Just like that "pig's trotter throw," he couldn't understand how Xiang Kun did it, nor could he understand what Xiang Kun actually did. He didn't even figure out how the "Blood-feeding Creature little lion" was hit.

If this "pig's trotter" was aimed at him, he didn't think he could withstand it—and even if he could, it would probably be meaningless, because he had no idea what the upper limit of its power was.

Mr. Liang landed beside the lion cub, whose body was now only half its original size. The pride of lions, which had been frightened by the attack and were about to regroup, scattered and fled again.

Mr. Liang was still invisible, but he didn't deliberately conceal himself when he fell from the sky. So the sound of his landing, along with the unusual air currents and odor disturbances, triggered the instinctive danger warnings of these wild beasts—the lion cub with only half a body left made them dare not hesitate for a moment.

Mr. Liang glanced at the little lion, but instead of going forward immediately, he turned and walked to a "fresh" little pit not far away, squatted down and scooped up a handful of soil from the pit.

After fiddling with it for a while, he pulled out a steel ball that was a few millimeters in diameter.

After searching again, I found two more.

Looking at the three steel balls lying in his palm, he immediately understood what had just happened; the real cause of the injury was these steel balls.

But what about the pig's trotters? Where did they go?

Does that mean the pig's trotter is equivalent to the missile's launch device and missile structure, and the three steel balls are equivalent to the warhead?

Mr. Liang glanced at Xiang Kun, who was slowly driving a jeep towards them in the distance, suppressed the "pig's trotter questions" in his mind, put away the three steel balls, and got up to go to the little lion with only half a body left.

His figure appeared, the wings on his back retracted into the protruding "bio-plugs" on his back, and he bent down and pressed down on the little lion's head.

The moment his hand touched the lion cub's head, the cub's face began to undergo a strange change. With the undulation of its muscles and skin, its feline face slowly began to resemble a human, or more precisely, an infant.

Even more bizarrely, the baby-like face emitted the sound of a baby crying.

Mr. Liang was stunned for a moment, but he had seen many "Blood-feeding Creature" and was familiar with all kinds of strange abilities. In fact, he himself possessed some similar abilities, so he quickly understood what was going on. He swung a punch and smashed it into the strange face, almost burying the face completely into the ground. The chilling baby's cry stopped instantly.

The lion cub's head was smashed and deformed, but it didn't die so easily. Its whole body was still writhing, and more and more tentacles that looked like intestines but were covered with various tiny hairs to help it writhe emerged from its broken half-body, trying to dig itself out of the ground.

Xiang Kun arrived in his jeep. He jumped out and stood next to the half- Mutated Little Lion, which no longer resembled a lion at all. After looking at it for a few moments, he shook his head and said, "I didn't expect this thing to actually be a lion transformed. I thought it was just an 'abnormal species' in lion skin. But it definitely wasn't transformed from a lion cub. It was most likely deliberately transformed into this lion cub shape for easier hunting and hiding. Tsk tsk, what a cunning lion. Judging from its various transformation methods, many of them are specializations made specifically for humans."

In fact, even if it were a regular Blood-feeding Creature, and had undergone similar number of transformations as this Mutated Little Lion, it would be difficult to defeat it. Especially if it were a human Blood-feeding Creature, its chances of winning against this lion cub would be even smaller.

But it happened to encounter two of the most unusual human Mutated Creature. No matter which one it encountered, it would have a hard time escaping, let alone encountering two at the same time.

"What's next?" Mr. Liang asked.

Xiang Kun understood his question was whether or not to start the blood-drinking process right now. He raised his hand to signal him to wait, then took a few steps in a certain direction and stopped, staring intently at a lone tree in the distance.

Mr. Liang was initially puzzled, but after looking in the direction of the big tree for a while, especially after receiving the information from the drone, he immediately understood and also kept his eyes on that side without making a sound.

Five or six minutes later, just as the remains of the "Mutated Little Lion" that Mr. Liang had been suppressing had dug itself out of the ground and wrapped its tattered half-body wounds with its tentacles, Xiang Kun raised his right hand, and once again a crispy pork knuckle appeared in his hand.

This time, Mr. Liang was right next to him, finally saw clearly that the pork knuckle had appeared so unexpectedly and abruptly. To say that he "saw clearly" was actually equivalent to not seeing anything at all; he had no idea how the pork knuckle had come to be.

Is it an illusion? Impossible.

Mr. Liang's determination of whether an object exists does not rely solely on sight.

He could even clearly smell the aroma of the pork knuckle.

Just seconds after Xiang Kun took out the pork knuckle, a clump of low shrubs suddenly "grew" up next to the big tree that Xiang Kun was staring at in the distance.

Then, the "shrub" quickly transformed into an Africa native man wearing leather pants covered in green plants, with a bare, muscular upper body and various tattoos on his face.

The man slowly raised his hands above his head, then took a few steps forward, slowly knelt down, and prostrated himself on the ground.

A very obvious gesture of submission.

This is a human-like "Blood-feeding Creature" with the ability to create optical camouflage and blend into its environment. The "shrub" that the native man was disguised as actually had an identical one right next to him. Clearly, he completely copied the visual shape of that shrub, creating an illusion through light and shadow to hide there.

If this were in China, the indigenous man would not have been able to hide in this way at a distance from Mr. Liang, because Mr. Liang would have had access to far more drones and a much wider reconnaissance range.

Mr. Liang was curious about how Xiang Kun would deal with this native. If it followed the rules set by Academician Shen and the established practices of "Shenxing Technology," the way human "Blood-feeding Creature" were treated—domestic human "Blood-feeding Creature" who committed serious illegal acts would be dealt with in a similar manner, such as being directly detained to "assist" in research if they were to be sentenced, and being directly "dealt with" if they committed murder. Someone like Guo Tianxiang Mr. Liang, would also end up being fed to other "Blood-feeding Creature" in the laboratory.

However, their approach to dealing with human "Blood-feeding Creature" abroad has always been to avoid provoking them, refrain from meddling, and not to go abroad to "uphold justice." But if they are attacked by "Blood-feeding Creature" while conducting normal business abroad, they must take counter-attack or retaliatory action.

Before meeting Xiang Kun, Mr. Liang judged from the information he had gathered that Xiang Kun was not a tyrannical and bloodthirsty person, and could even be considered a defender of the rules to some extent.

However, in the short time he spent with Xiang Kun, he discovered that Xiang Kun possessed a decisive and ruthless aura, as well as an inexplicable and sinister quality.

He also knew that he couldn't really control Xiang Kun, so he didn't offer any advice, but simply observed from the sidelines.

Then he did something even more unbelievable to Xiang Kun —this bald, burly man actually took a piece of paper out of his pocket, quickly folded it into a paper airplane, and threw it towards the natives crawling on the ground in the distance.

There's no way a paper airplane could reach that distance.

But that's just the normal situation. The paper airplane was thrown by Xiang Kun, and Mr. Liang even suspected that it might turn into a crispy pork knuckle halfway through its flight—after all, the pork knuckle that Xiang Kun had just been holding had disappeared.

The paper airplane didn't turn into a pork knuckle, but just as Mr. Liang had guessed, it flew slowly and steadily over the natives in a way that seemed both illogical and perfectly natural, before finally landing.

Then, the sound of drums began, followed by the faint sound of someone humming a song, which seemed to be a woman's voice.

Mr. Liang subconsciously turned to look at the jeep. The sound seemed to be coming from the car, but it didn't seem to be coming from the car. It seemed as if the singing was coming from all directions, drifting in with the air.

Then the earth began to tremble, the sky darkened, and a huge figure emerged from the ground, swaying as it rose upwards.

Looking up at the massive, eight-armed, eight-eyed figure, Mr. Liang, having already experienced it once, immediately made a judgment:

This is an illusion.

In the distance, the native who had been kneeling on the ground also raised his head, staring in disbelief at the Eight-Armed Eight-Eyed Giant "rising from the ground," his whole body trembling.