At four in the afternoon, after getting plenty of rest, the Fire Hammer Squad resumed their search for Beast General-level monsters. They took up positions with their binoculars and scanned the area below.
Luo Zhe didn't join them. Instead, he sat in a corner nearby, eyes closed as he cultivated his Genetic Origin Energy.
During the morning's operation, Luo Zhe had risked striking an Iron-Haired Wild Boar in the belly with the back of his shield to stop the four boars from charging Gao Feng.
Though he successfully broke the boars' momentum, the recoil had bruised the tendons and bones in his shield-bearing left hand. Fortunately, the injury wasn't serious, and the special medicinal liniment Gao Feng had given him had greatly eased the swelling and pain.
Even so, Gao Feng hadn't assigned Luo Zhe to search for Beast General-level monsters while injured. He'd told him to rest. Fighting with an injury was one of the worst things you could do in the Wilderness Zone; any wound could become a fatal weakness in the heat of battle.
So as soon as the break began, Luo Zhe found a secluded corner and started cultivating his Genetic Origin Energy.
Over the past three months of cultivation, Luo Zhe had discovered that Genetic Origin Energy not only improved a martial artist's physical fitness, but also worked wonders in helping injuries heal.
It was daytime, and they were in the Wilderness Zone, where the surrounding cosmic energy wasn't nearly as abundant as it was in Dimensional Space. Still, once he entered a deep state of cultivation, the cosmic energy absorbed by his cells and transformed into Genetic Origin Energy greatly soothed the injury in his left hand.
As cosmic energy flowed into his cells and turned into Genetic Origin Energy, spreading throughout his body, Luo Zhe gradually felt a tingling itch in the injured part of his left hand.
He also had a faint sense that most of the cosmic energy absorbed through his left palm was being intercepted by the cells in the injured joints. It was like some greedy, gluttonous monster, its enormous jaws wide open as it devoured most of the cosmic energy that entered through his palm.
Before he knew it, Luo Zhe seemed to have entered the same scene he'd seen in Dimensional Space. There was one difference, though: in the world of his meditation, everything around him was pitch-black. Only within the area around his body's five centers could he faintly sense wispy, pale-blue threads drifting aimlessly with the cosmic energy. Nothing like the multicolored threads that had crisscrossed Dimensional Space.
In Luo Zhe's perception, the pale-blue threads began winding around the joints in his left hand, like water plants swaying with the current at the bottom of a river, mindlessly catching whatever passed by.
As more and more of the pale-blue threads tangled together, his left hand looked, from his perspective, like a huge zongzi wrapped in countless threads.
The pale-blue threads seemed to have no weight at all. In fact, as they drifted freely with the cosmic energy, Luo Zhe felt they were almost weightless.
Yet when those seemingly weightless threads wound around his hand, he felt a strange heaviness throughout his body. A heaviness, yes—nothing like the lightness he'd felt in Dimensional Space.
As more and more pale-blue threads appeared, his left hand grew heavier and heavier. He couldn't maintain the Five Hearts Towards Heaven cultivation posture any longer, so he had no choice but to open his eyes and leave his meditative state.
He instinctively looked at his left hand. It was bare, without a single pale-blue thread around it—or even a trace of where they might have been.
Only the distinct heaviness in his left hand remained, proof that what he'd sensed hadn't been an illusion. And as he ended his cultivation, he could feel the heavy sensation gradually fading.
Once the heaviness in his left hand had completely disappeared, Luo Zhe stood and stretched a little. He paid particular attention to the joint he'd injured earlier, flexing it a few times and finding that his left hand was more or less fine.
He raised his hand to check the time. It was already six in the evening. As dusk settled, he looked around and saw everyone—including Chen Gu, the sniper—carefully searching for Beast General-level monsters.
He walked over to the squad leader, Gao Feng, and said quietly, "Captain."
Gao Feng was lying at the edge of the rooftop, binoculars in hand, staring intently at the street below. Hearing Luo Zhe's voice behind him, he turned and saw Luo Zhe standing there.
"How are you feeling? Better?" Gao Feng asked with a chuckle.
Luo Zhe nodded. "I'm fine now. By the way, have we found anything?"
"Not that easy," Gao Feng said with a shake of his head and a sigh. "It's been two hours. We've spotted two Beast General-level monsters, but each one had a large group of Beast Soldier-level monsters guarding it!"
Chen Gu, nearby, lowered his binoculars and chimed in. "The urban districts are better. Sure, there are more Beast General-level monsters there, and even Lord-level Monsters. But the ordinary Beast Soldier-level monsters mostly gather around Lord-level Monsters and powerful Beast Generals. Plenty of the Beast General-level monsters are loners."
Earlier, Chen Gu had tried firing two shots at the two Beast General-level monsters they'd spotted.
But this time, luck wasn't on their side!
One of the two monsters was barely affected by the shot. The other was badly wounded, but survived! Worse, both were surrounded by hordes of ordinary monsters, leaving no chance to finish them off.
"That's the problem with counties. Even ordinary Beast General-level monsters can command a big group of monsters," Zhang Ke said helplessly.
"But at least counties are safe."
Gao Feng spread his hands with a smile. "There are only one or two Advanced Beast General-level monsters in all of County 0201. And they're surrounded by huge numbers of ordinary monsters, so we won't run into them. As for ordinary monster groups, our squad is strong enough to charge straight through them! We don't have to worry about suddenly being surrounded by several Beast Generals."
There were more Beast Generals in the urban districts, and it was easy to end up besieged by several at once, making them much more dangerous.
Luo Zhe nodded in agreement. Given their squad's current strength, even if two Beast General-level monsters attacked them at once, they could still get away as long as they weren't surrounded by a huge horde.
"Hm?"
Just as they were complaining about their meager haul, Luo Feng, who had been quietly scanning the area through his binoculars, suddenly spoke up. "Captain, I think I've spotted a target!"
A group of more than ten monsters had appeared by the edge of the street below. They were spotted and, at first glance, looked like tigers. They were Tiger Cats, a species of feline monster. The group was made up of fairly large individuals, and one of them even had two tails!
At his words, Luo Zhe and the others immediately rushed over to Luo Feng and looked down through their binoculars.
"A Two-Tailed Tiger Cat! It's a Beast General!"
Among Tiger Cats, the number of tails indicated their strength. Two tails meant Junior Beast General, three meant Intermediate Beast General, and five meant Primary Lord. Seven tails meant Advanced Lord. An eight-tailed Tiger Cat had surpassed Lord Level and stood at the very peak of its species.
As for felines, nine tails were the stuff of legend. Any nine-tailed one was a Nine-Life Cat Demon—also known as a Nine-Life Cat King—and ranked among the most terrifying monsters on Earth.
"It really is a Tiger Cat! Looks like having Luo Zhe and Luo Feng join the squad has brought us good luck. They've already found us two big catches in no time!" Zhang Ke said cheerfully. His words made both Luo brothers a little embarrassed.
"I've heard Tiger Cats don't like living in groups. Looks like it's true. There are only sixteen ordinary Beast Soldier-level monsters around this Beast General-level Tiger Cat." Gao Feng laughed. "Brothers, let's get ready to move."
"Sixteen ordinary monsters? I can handle those by myself," Chen Gu said with a grin. All the squad members were relaxed.
"Let's go."
At Gao Feng's command, Luo Zhe and the others immediately left the rooftop. This time, they didn't fire in advance, afraid of failing to kill the Tiger Cat and scaring it off. A Beast General-level monster with only a dozen or so underlings was a rare sight in a small county.
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