Freedom

A few minutes later, Jiang Ran drove off again in his sports car.

Xia Xuan and the others were left staring blankly as its taillights disappeared around the corner.

Silence fell for a moment.

A young team member beside them said slowly, "Why do I get the feeling that big shot... is about to do something huge?"

Hearing that, everyone silently nodded in agreement.

After all, Jiang Ran had just taken every grenade they were carrying.

In exchange,

Jiang Ran had promised to make it up to them later.

After a while, another team member looked at Xia Xuan. "Captain Xia, should we head back to restock, or... follow him and take a look?"

He didn't mean anything by suggesting they follow Jiang Ran. He was just curious.

What exactly did this mysterious expert, whose methods were completely beyond ordinary understanding, want so many grenades for?

Xia Xuan stared in the direction Jiang Ran had gone, his brows tightly furrowed.

Reason told him he shouldn't pry into the actions of someone like that.

But deep down, his irrepressible curiosity was stirring too.

In the end, he took a deep breath and made his decision.

"Let's go," Xia Xuan said, turning around, his voice regaining its usual composure. "We'll head back to restock, then continue our mission."

With that, he looked at Wang Zhenguo, who had been standing quietly to the side.

Wang Zhenguo immediately waved his hands. "Thanks, Captain Xia, but I'll pass. I still have some... personal business to take care of nearby."

Xia Xuan gave him a long look but didn't press him. He simply nodded, then led his team away.

After watching Xia Xuan and the others disappear at the end of the street,

Wang Zhenguo immediately turned around and hurried toward the warehouse Jiang Ran had opened earlier.

He took a deep breath and reached for the rolling shutter...

Rattle!

The door lifted.

A heavy stench of blood hit him at once.

Wang Zhenguo instinctively took half a step back, then slowly widened his eyes.

Inside the warehouse lay a mountain of monster corpses.

Gray-green lizardlike monsters, cat-shaped beasts with bone spikes on their backs, and even several strange species he'd never seen before...

Severed limbs and shattered shells were scattered everywhere.

By his rough estimate, there were at least thirty or forty bodies.

He stood there, stunned for several seconds.

Then he slowly raised a hand to cover his mouth, forcing himself to calm down.

He pulled out his phone, unlocked it, found the number saved as Director Chen, and called.

The phone rang five times before it was answered.

Wang Zhenguo took a deep breath, then another.

When he spoke again, his voice had regained its usual calm composure.

"Director Chen, I think... we can have a proper discussion about the deal now."

Elsewhere,

a red Porsche raced down the street.

Jiang Ran drove with one hand, resting the other on the edge of the window.

He hadn't handed over every monster corpse in the Heavenly Net Pouch to Wang Zhenguo.

He'd left about half of them there.

He wanted to see how quickly Wang Zhenguo could handle these resources and how capable he was before deciding what to do next.

After all, with Jiang Ran's current strength and hunting efficiency, the monster corpses would only keep piling up.

What really interested him were the stronger beings.

Like... Zhi.

Jiang Ran slowly pressed the brakes.

The sports car stopped at an intersection a hundred meters from the main road through the business district.

He pushed open the door, got out, and picked up a grenade from the passenger seat.

It felt heavy in his hand.

He pulled out the safety pin.

There was something romantic about breaking away from the routine of everyday life.

Jiang Ran had always thought so.

Many people felt their blood inexplicably surge and their spirits grow unusually excited amid howling winds and torrential rain.

It wasn't an illusion.

It was the most intense signal nature had to offer.

Howling winds and driving rain, snow sweeping over the mountains, waves crashing against the shore...

They stripped away your sense of human order in an incredibly overbearing fashion.

In that moment, the human perspective widened without limit.

You clearly realized that you weren't trapped in a cage of steel and concrete, but truly existed upon this vast land.

But what Jiang Ran was enamored with wasn't the storm itself.

It was the freedom that surged through the crack when the seemingly unshakable order of everyday life was torn open.

Just like now.

He stood in the deserted heart of the city.

In his hand was a weapon powerful enough to shatter steel. Above him stretched the vast night sky, and before him stood a man-eating Exotic Beast from ancient myth.

There were no rules.

No restraints.

Only the clash of strength against strength, and the struggle between life and death.

The corners of Jiang Ran's mouth slowly curled upward.

Then he raised his arm and hurled the grenade with all his strength...

The grenade traced an arc through the air and landed in the middle of the street a hundred meters away.

Two seconds later,

BOOM!!

The explosion tore through the silence of the night.

Flames and smoke billowed upward.

Almost at the same time, dozens of dark green eyes lit up in the shadows of the buildings on either side of the street.

Roars came from every direction.

Then, atop a distant thirty-story building, a massive shadow slowly rose to its feet.

Zhi.

It lowered its head, its blood-red eyes locking onto Jiang Ran in the street from hundreds of meters away.

Moonlight fell across its dark blue-green fur.

Jiang Ran met its gaze, his smile growing wider.

He slowly raised his right hand and gave the ancient beast the finger.

Zhi might not understand what the gesture meant.

But Jiang Ran's very existence

was the greatest provocation of all.

"ROAR!!"

A roar erupted from atop the building.

The next second, Zhi leaped.

Its five-meter-tall body plunged straight down from the thirtieth floor.

The concrete road exploded into a crater several meters wide, cracks spreading out like a spiderweb.

Amid the dust, Zhi slowly straightened.

Its dark blue-green fur gleamed like metal in the moonlight.

Its thick, long bovine tail swayed behind it, and the bone spikes along its back stood erect.

It raised its head, its blood-red eyes fixed on Jiang Ran.

At the same time, dozens of Bone-Spike Cat Monsters surged out of the surrounding buildings like a tide.

They crouched low, threatening hisses rising from their throats as they fanned out to surround Jiang Ran.

Jiang Ran watched them, his smile not fading in the slightest.

He turned back to the sports car, took a brick from the passenger seat, and wedged it against the accelerator.

Then he rose from the driver's seat.

With his left hand, he took the black recurve bow from his back.

Nocked an arrow.

Drew the bow.

The two-stone bowstring creaked as he slowly pulled it back.

The muscles in Jiang Ran's arms bulged as his vital energy surged into them.

The bow was drawn to its fullest.

The arrow aimed at Zhi.

By then, Zhi had already begun charging toward Jiang Ran.

It was incredibly fast. Its five-meter-tall body thundered down the street, each step making the ground tremble.

The Bone-Spike Cat Monsters around it seemed to respond to a signal and pounced at once.

Jiang Ran's eyes sharpened.

He released the string.

Whoosh!!!

The arrow's sharp whistle split the air.

The heavy arrow became a black streak, shooting straight toward Zhi's head.

At the same time, Jiang Ran released the handbrake.

Vroom!!!

The Porsche engine roared. Its tires scraped violently against the ground, sending up white smoke.

The sports car shot forward.

The arrow and the car moved almost simultaneously.

Zhi didn't dodge the incoming arrow. It raised a forepaw and swatted it aside.

Clang!!!

The crash of metal rang out.

The arrow went flying, but a faint white mark appeared on Zhi's forepaw.

It lowered its head and glanced at its paw, a flicker of surprise in its blood-red eyes.

It hadn't expected this human's arrow to leave a mark.

By then, Jiang Ran had already driven dozens of meters away.

Standing in the speeding car, he drew his bow again.

This time, he didn't aim at Zhi.

He aimed at the Bone-Spike Cat Monsters rushing in from all around.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Three arrows flew in rapid succession.

The heads of the three monsters in front exploded, their bodies hurled backward by the arrows' tremendous force.

Against these low-level monsters, the power of a two-stone bow was overwhelming.

Jiang Ran's gaze remained calm. His movements didn't pause for a moment.

He drew an arrow, nocked it, and pulled back the bowstring.

Every arrow found its mark.

The sports car raced down the street. Standing inside it, Jiang Ran kept up a steady barrage of fire as he moved, like an archer on an ancient war chariot.

The monsters around him kept falling.

But more poured out of the buildings on either side.

And Zhi had caught up.

It was much faster than the sports car.

With each leap, it covered dozens of meters, rapidly closing the distance between itself and Jiang Ran.

Thirty meters.

Twenty meters.

Ten meters.

Zhi opened its enormous jaws and lunged at the sports car.

Jiang Ran's eyes sharpened. He released the bow with his left hand and pulled a grenade from his waist.

He pulled out the safety pin.

Two-second delay.

He threw it.

The grenade spun through the air and landed precisely in the path of the charging Zhi.

BOOM!!!

Flames and a blast wave burst outward.

Zhi's charge came to an abrupt halt. The explosion knocked his massive body back several steps, and the fur on his chest was scorched black.

He let out an enraged roar.

But Jiang Ran had already driven the sports car away again, opening up some distance.

He looked back at Zhi, driven off by the grenade, and could barely contain his excitement.

Adrenaline surged through him.

His heart pounded violently in his chest.

Tearing through an empty city, shooting monsters in the streets, casually tossing grenades...

Any one of these things would have been impossible in the past.

So when Zhi shook the smoke from his head and roared as he came after him again, Jiang Ran stood on the speeding sports car, facing the gale, and shouted excitedly at the five-meter-tall behemoth.

"Come on!!!"

Meanwhile, several streets away.

Xia Xuan's squad had just completed a rescue mission.

But unlike before, this time they had another squad with them.

The two groups had run into each other by chance on the way. When they discovered their destinations were close, they decided to work together and watch each other's backs.

And the leader of the other squad, Zhao Feng, was supposedly a Transcendent.

At that moment, the two squads—nine people in all—were cautiously making their way down a narrow alley.

Suddenly...

BOOM!!!

The distant explosion brought everyone to a halt.

Then came the roar of an engine, and... a monster's bellow.

"Are there other squads on a mission around here?" Zhao Feng asked, frowning as he looked toward the sound of the explosion.

Several members of Xia Xuan's squad exchanged glances.

That familiar sports car engine. That rhythm of explosions...

"Could be... that person," Zou Yue said softly.

She didn't say who she meant, but Xia Xuan understood.

Zhao Feng was already on his feet.

He stared in the direction of the explosion, his eyes gleaming slightly. "Let's go take a look."

"Wait." Xia Xuan raised a hand to stop him. "Our mission is to escort the survivors here."

"With that much commotion, it's bound to attract a lot of monsters." Zhao Feng glanced back at Xia Xuan. "If we don't go help, that squad over there might be wiped out."

Xia Xuan fell silent.

He wanted to say that it might not be a squad over there at all. It might be just one person.

A monster who didn't need their help.

But he couldn't say that aloud.

Zhao Feng had already turned and was striding toward the explosion. "You keep going with the mission. I'll go take a look."

"Captain Xia, what should we do?" a squad member asked.

"Escort the civilians back." Xia Xuan sighed helplessly. "I'll go after him."

But they weren't the only ones who'd heard the explosions and sounds of battle.

For several streets around the business district, every unaffiliated survivor who hadn't been recruited by the Federation had been drawn by the sudden noise.

Some hid inside buildings, nervously peering out through windows.

Some climbed onto rooftops and watched through binoculars.

And a few of the smarter ones...

Launched drones.

A recording device was strapped beneath one drone. It slipped out through the window of an office building, rose silently into the sky, and flew toward the fighting.

The man piloting it turned the drone and zoomed in.

The next second, he froze.

On the screen...

A red convertible raced wildly down the street, with a person standing on its roof, drawing a bow and firing arrows.

Behind the car, a dark tide of monsters gave chase.

And at the very front of the horde was a... giant beast he'd never seen before.

One person, one car, facing a horde of monsters and a giant beast alone.

The man's hands trembled slightly around the controller.

"My... God!"