Murder

The sky brightened!

Blinding light tore through the gloom and came crashing down, like a sledgehammer smashing into their eyes.

Everyone in the canyon shut their eyes at once.

Bright Moon Illuminating People, who had been watching through binoculars, dropped them and clutched his eyes, rolling around on the ground.

"What happened?!" Mountains and Seas Affection cried out.

Bright Moon Illuminating People covered his eyes as tears streamed down his face. But the blinding pain was nothing compared to the way his whole body was shaking.

A terrible fear rose in his heart.

What had happened!?

What had that pig done? Why had the canyon blown apart?

No, it hadn't exploded.

It was as if a torrent of light had suddenly erupted from the bottom of the canyon. There had been the sound of rocks breaking only at first, then nothing but blinding light.

Like a laser beam over ten meters across, shooting straight into the heavens!

But he was certain that pig had caused it!

Otherwise, why would an explosion have happened the instant the Wild Boar jumped into the cave?

That pig had planned this all along!

"Go! Go!"

Get out of here, run! The farther away, the better. Never go near that pig again.

This Earth Vein Node explosion was much bigger than the last one, but gentler too. There was no loud bang, only a hiss like a red-hot Iron Rod plunged into ice water.

Hiss—

Zhu Jiusi plunged down the cave, following it all the way to the bottom, and crashed into a tomb.

He turned and saw the Green-Haired Zombie charging after him.

But the zombie had entered the cave too late. Its shoulder and half its head had melted away, and a mess of green and white matter ran down its back.

The stench of rotting corpses hit him.

The moment Zhu Jiusi landed, he twisted around and slammed into the zombie behind him.

He put everything he had into the charge.

Crack!

The zombie had only just landed when he smashed one of its legs clean in two. Its whole body toppled forward.

But while it was still in midair, Zhu Jiusi had already thrust upward, his tusks stabbing at the base of its neck.

Rip!

With a sound like tearing silk, his tusks scraped across its neck but failed to pierce the flesh.

The attack had done nothing. Zhu Jiusi rose onto his hind legs and brought his huge hooves down.

All his strength crashed into the zombie's shattered skull.

Boom!

Boom!

One blow, then two...

The zombie roared, but both its arms had been melted away in the explosion and it couldn't lift them. It tried to bite with its fangs, but Zhu Jiusi shattered them with a single kick.

Only when his front hooves were smeared with a mess of gore did another line appear on the Scroll.

Points +30

Only then did Zhu Jiusi let out a long breath and stop his beating.

If that zombie had entered the cave a moment earlier, before the exploding Earth Vein Node had left him half-dead, things would have been dangerous today.

The commotion outside the cave had quieted considerably. The Corpse Howls had mostly stopped.

But points were still ticking up now and then.

Points +1

Points +10

Points +1

Zhu Jiusi stood motionless at the mouth of the cave. Only after the points stopped rising completely and the heat outside had begun to fade did he laboriously climb out.

His thinking had grown set in its ways. He'd only thought that he could avoid the explosion by hiding in an underground cave. It hadn't occurred to him how hard it would be for a Wild Boar to climb back out.

After finally making it out, he found devastation as far as the eye could see.

It looked like a giant pot had been embedded in the ground, or a meteor crater. Everything around it was scorched black.

Every plant in sight had been carbonized. The instant the node exploded, its intense heat had wiped out most of the living things in the area.

Even some of the rocks glittered in places, where the sand and stones had melted into glass.

Thank heaven. If that zombie hadn't chased him into the cave and blocked the heat wave for a while, he'd be a roast pig by now.

A wave of heat rolled over him, searing his skin.

Zhu Jiusi cautiously tested the ground with his hooves. Once he was sure it wasn't too hot, he started picking his way out.

Charred corpses lay scattered around him.

He glanced at his points. They'd reached 774. What a haul. After exchanging for the remaining three Life Stones, he'd still have 684 points left.

If Zhu Jiusi had drawn the zombies to himself, he never could have earned so much.

Thanks, number one on the leaderboard!

Gratitude couldn't just be spoken. It had to be shown!

Zhu Jiusi turned and ran for the canyon's exit. He'd spent the whole day scouting the area and had memorized the surroundings.

Sure enough, you couldn't afford to take even the slightest chance in Journey Survival.

Resources were tight at the start, so he hadn't spent any to get another Dao Discussion Card. To be honest, he'd also been thinking of harvesting resources from this group and making a killing.

After all, they couldn't beat him.

But then those people had gone and sprung something huge on him! Even though things had worked out in the end, he'd never let anything like that happen again!

There were still sluggish walking corpses along the way, but Zhu Jiusi ignored them. He went straight up above the canyon. The night wind carried all sorts of scents.

There!

Out in the wilderness, any human scent had to belong to that group. There was no need to think twice.

Zhu Jiusi got himself ready and jogged after them.

From far away, he spotted two people running desperately, one ahead of the other.

But they were struggling to get away. Somehow, the two of them had angered a zombie too. A White-Haired Zombie was chasing them.

The names above their heads hadn't disappeared.

Mountains and Seas Affection, Bright Moon Illuminating People.

Both were on his blacklist.

Good.

Zhu Jiusi didn't charge straight at them. He followed from a distance until the two joined forces and barely managed to kill the zombie. Just as they were catching their breath, he suddenly sprang out.

Without a word, he slammed into Mountains and Seas Affection's lower leg and knocked him to the ground. Before the man could get up, Zhu Jiusi sank his teeth into his throat and tore outward.

Rip!

Zhu Jiusi tore out his windpipe and artery in one bite.

After landing the blow, Zhu Jiusi immediately turned and lunged at Bright Moon Illuminating People.

Bright Moon Illuminating People's face was deathly pale, and there was still a wound at the base of his neck. He looked as if a zombie had bitten him earlier.

Did this fool really think a zombie bite was just an ordinary injury?

He hadn't even tried to deal with it, and he still dared to run around.

When he saw the Wild Boar charging at him, the color drained completely from Bright Moon Illuminating People's already pale face.

He turned as white as a sheet.

His pupils quivered uncontrollably.

He'd encountered zombies twice. The moment he entered the instance, he'd been in a zombie tomb, and had only barely survived after sabotaging three other Path Seekers.

Then, just now, a White-Haired Zombie had chased him. He'd gotten a firsthand sense of how strong they were.

Yet this Wild Boar had already killed one on the Journey Survival road.

He'd seen what it did below in the valley with his own eyes. This pig had taunted more than ten Green-Haired Zombies and twenty or thirty White-Haired Zombies at once, and still moved with ease through a horde of walking corpses!

That couldn't be done with physical strength alone. It took real combat instincts—the kind only someone who'd spent years dancing on the edge of a blade could have.

Before entering Journey Survival, had this Wild Boar been a mercenary?

The instant Bright Moon Illuminating People saw what Zhu Jiusi could do, he knew he'd been wrong.

Terribly wrong!

This was someone he could never afford to provoke!

The moment Zhu Jiusi charged, Bright Moon Illuminating People dropped to his knees with a thud.

"I was wrong. As long as you spare me, I'll agree to anything."

He didn't even have the slightest thought of resisting.

Zhu Jiusi slowed his four hooves and narrowed his eyes at him. "Who else?"

Bright Moon Illuminating People didn't hesitate. He pointed at the corpse still twitching on the ground. "That's Mountains and Seas Affection. And me."

"Lame Fei and Sheep Seller are on the eastern route. Tanaka Banichi and Thin Monkey are in the eastern canyon. There are six of us..."

At that, he hurriedly added, "And Daoist Number 323. He didn't take part, but he gave them your location!"

Bright Moon Illuminating People swallowed hard as he looked at Zhu Jiusi. "As long as you don't kill me, I'll give you everything I have..."

Snap!

Before he could finish, Zhu Jiusi's tusks had already pierced his throat. He flung him backward like a piece of trash, smashing him against a rock.

"Fool! If I kill you, your stuff will still be mine!"

The moon itself had given him a friendly reminder: kill a Path Seeker in the instance, and there was a 100% drop rate.