Freedom

Minutes later, Jiang Ran drove off again in the sports car.

Leaving Xia Xuan and the others staring blankly as the taillights vanished around the street corner.

After a moment of silence.

A young team member beside him said slowly, "I get the feeling this big shot... is planning something big?"

Hearing this, everyone silently nodded in agreement.

Because right now, all the grenades they carried had been taken by Jiang Ran.

In exchange.

Jiang Ran left behind a promise to compensate them later.

After a while, another team member looked at Xia Xuan: "Captain Xia, should we head back for resupply, or... follow and see?"

His suggestion to follow wasn't malicious, just pure curiosity.

What did this mysterious expert, whose actions defied all normal understanding, want with so many grenades?

Xia Xuan stared at the direction Jiang Ran had disappeared, brow furrowed.

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

But deep down, that hard-to-suppress curiosity stirred as well.

Finally, he took a deep breath and made a decision.

"Let's go," Xia Xuan turned, his voice regaining its usual steadiness. "Back for resupply, then continue our mission."

With that, he looked at Wang Zhenguo, who had been standing quietly nearby.

Wang Zhenguo immediately waved his hand: "Thanks, Captain Xia, but I won't go back. I have some... personal matters to handle around here."

Xia Xuan gave him a deep look, didn't ask further, just nodded and led his team away.

Watching Xia Xuan and the others disappear at the end of the street.

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

He took a deep breath, reached out, and pulled up the rolling door...

Clatter!

The door lifted.

A thick stench of blood hit him instantly.

Wang Zhenguo instinctively stepped back half a pace, then slowly widened his eyes.

Inside the warehouse, monster corpses were piled like a small mountain.

Gray-green lizard-like monsters, cat-shaped beasts with bone spines on their backs, and even a few alien species he'd never seen before...

Severed limbs and shattered carapaces were scattered everywhere.

Wang Zhenguo roughly estimated at least thirty to forty bodies.

He stood there, frozen for a good few seconds.

Then, he slowly raised his hand, covered his mouth, and forced himself to calm down.

He pulled out his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, found a contact labeled Director Chen, and dialed.

The phone rang five times before it was picked up.

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 now properly discuss the deal."

On the other side.

The red Porsche roared down the street.

Jiang Ran held the steering wheel with one hand, the other resting on the window edge.

This time, he hadn't handed over all the monster corpses from the Heavenly Net Pouch to Wang Zhenguo.

Only about half.

He wanted to first see how Wang Zhenguo handled the pace and skill of processing this batch of resources before deciding on the next steps.

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

What truly interested him were the stronger beings.

Like... Zhi.

Jiang Ran slowly pressed the brake.

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

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

It was heavy in his hand.

He pulled the pin.

Breaking the routine of life was, in his mind, a truly romantic thing.

Jiang Ran had always thought so.

Many people, in the midst of extreme weather—howling winds, torrential rain—would feel their blood inexplicably boil, their spirits strangely heightened.

It wasn't an illusion.

It was the most intense signal from the natural imagery of heaven and earth.

Gale-force winds, mountain-blanketing snow, crashing waves against the shore...

They would, in an overwhelmingly domineering way, instantly erode your perception of human social order.

In that moment, a person's field of vision would be magnified without limit.

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

Yet what Jiang Ran was obsessed with wasn't the storm itself.

It was the freedom that came rushing in through the crack, when the seemingly unbreakable order of daily life was torn open.

Just like now.

He stood in the center of an empty city.

In his hand, a weapon capable of shattering steel; above his head, the deep night sky; ahead of him, a man-eating exotic beast from myth.

No rules.

No constraints.

Only the clash of power against power, the gamble of life and death.

A slow smile crept across Jiang Ran's lips.

Then, he raised his arm and hurled it with force...

The grenade arced through the air, landing in the middle of the street a hundred meters away.

Two seconds later.

Boom!!

The roar tore apart the silence of the night.

Flames and dust billowed upward.

Almost at the same time, from the shadows of the buildings lining the street, dozens of dark green eyes lit up simultaneously.

Snarls came from every direction.

Then, atop the thirty-story building in the distance, a massive dark silhouette slowly rose to its feet.

Zhi.

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

Moonlight spilled over its dark blue-gray fur.

Jiang Ran met its gaze, his smile growing more pronounced.

He slowly raised his right hand and flipped the ancient exotic beast the middle finger.

Zhi might not understand the meaning of the gesture.

But Jiang Ran's very existence.

Was the greatest provocation.

"Roar!!"

The bellow exploded from the top of the building.

The next second, Zhi leaped.

Its five-meter-tall, massive frame jumped straight down from the thirtieth floor.

The concrete pavement burst open into a crater several meters wide, cracks spreading like a spiderweb.

Amid the dust, Zhi slowly straightened its body.

Its dark blue-gray fur gleamed with a metallic sheen under the moonlight.

Its thick, long ox tail swayed slowly behind it, and the bone spikes on its back stood erect.

It raised its head, its scarlet pupils fixed on Jiang Ran.

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

They crouched low, threatening hisses rumbling from their throats, fanning out to encircle Jiang Ran.

Watching this scene, Jiang Ran's smile didn't waver in the slightest.

He turned back to the sports car, picked up a brick from the passenger seat, and pressed it down on the accelerator.

Then, he stood up from the driver's seat.

His left hand reached behind his back and pulled off the pitch-black recurve bow.

He nocked an arrow.

He drew the bow.

The bowstring of the two-dan bow was slowly pulled taut, letting out a creaking groan.

Jiang Ran's arm muscles bulged, his blood and qi surging into both arms.

The bow curved like a full moon.

The arrow aimed at Zhi.

And at that moment, Zhi had already taken a step forward, charging straight at Jiang Ran.

Its speed was immense. Its five-meter-tall body thundered down the street, each footstep shaking the ground faintly.

The surrounding Bone-Spike Cat Monsters, as if receiving a command, all lunged out at once.

Jiang Ran's eyes sharpened.

He released the string.

Whoosh!!!

The sound of the arrow piercing air was as sharp as a whistle.

The heavy arrow turned into a black line, shooting straight at Zhi's head.

At the same time, he released the handbrake.

Vroom!!!

The Porsche's engine roared, tires screeching against the ground as white smoke billowed up.

The sports car shot forward.

The arrow and the car moved almost simultaneously.

Facing the incoming arrow, Zhi didn't dodge or evade. It raised its front claw and swatted fiercely.

Clang!!!

The sound of metal clashing exploded.

The arrow was knocked flying, but a shallow white scratch was left on Zhi's front claw.

It lowered its head to glance at its own claw, a flicker of surprise passing through its crimson pupils.

It seemed it hadn't expected that this human's arrow could actually leave a mark.

By now, Jiang Ran had already driven the sports car dozens of meters away.

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

This time, he wasn't aiming at Zhi.

But at the Bone-Spike Cat Monsters lunging in from all sides.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Three arrows in rapid succession.

The heads of the three leading cat monsters exploded, their bodies sent flying backward by the immense force carried by the arrows.

The power of a two-dan bow was utterly crushing against these low-tier monsters.

Jiang Ran's eyes were calm, his movements without a single pause.

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

Every arrow found its mark.

The sports car tore down the street at breakneck speed. Jiang Ran stood inside it like an archer on an ancient war chariot, continuously laying down fire while on the move.

Monsters around him kept falling.

But more monsters surged out from the buildings on both sides.

And Zhi had already caught up.

Its speed was far greater than the sports car's.

With every leap, it could cross dozens of meters, rapidly closing the distance between itself and Jiang Ran.

Thirty meters.

Twenty meters.

Ten meters.

Zhi opened its massive maw and lunged at the sports car.

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

He pulled the pin.

Delay two seconds.

Toss.

The grenade spun through the air, landing precisely in the path of Zhi's charge.

Boom!!!

Fire and shockwave exploded outward.

Zhi's forward momentum was brutally halted. Its massive body was thrown back several steps by the blast, its chest fur scorched black.

It let out an enraged roar.

But Jiang Ran had already pulled distance again in the sports car.

He turned his head to look at Zhi, forced back by the grenade, the excitement on his face nearly impossible to contain.

Adrenaline was surging.

His heart pounded violently in his chest.

Racing through the empty, deserted city, gunning down monsters on the streets, casually tossing grenades...

None of this would have been possible before.

So when Zhi shook off the smoke from its head and charged after him again with a roar, Jiang Ran stood on the speeding car, facing the wind, and shouted at the five-meter-tall beast with exhilaration.

"Again!!!"

Meanwhile, a few streets away.

Xia Xuan's team had just finished a rescue mission.

But unlike before, they now had another squad with them.

The two teams had run into each other by chance on the road. Finding their target locations close by, they decided to move together and watch each other's backs.

And the leader of this other squad, Zhao Feng, was a so-called Transcendent.

Right now, both teams—nine people in total—were cautiously advancing through a narrow alley.

Suddenly...

Boom!!!

An explosion in the distance made everyone stop in their tracks.

Then came the roar of an engine... and the howl of a monster.

"Is there another team operating nearby?" Zhao Feng frowned, looking toward the direction of the blast.

The members of Xia Xuan's team exchanged glances.

That familiar sports car engine sound, that rhythm of explosions...

"It might be... that person," Zou Yue said quietly.

She didn't name names, but Xia Xuan knew who she meant.

Zhao Feng, however, had already stood up.

He stared toward the source of the explosion, his eyes gleaming slightly. "Let's go check it out."

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

"That much noise is bound to attract a lot of monsters." Zhao Feng glanced back at Xia Xuan. "If we don't go help, that team might get wiped out."

Xia Xuan was silent.

He wanted to say that it probably wasn't a team over there at all.

It was one person.

A monster that didn't need their help at all.

But he couldn't say that out loud.

Zhao Feng had already turned and was striding quickly toward the direction of the explosion. "You continue the mission. I'll go take a look."

"Captain Xia, what do we do?" one team member asked.

"You escort the civilians back." Xia Xuan let out a helpless sigh. "I'll follow him."

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

Within several blocks of the business district, every free agent not yet recruited by the Federation was drawn by the sudden noise.

Some hid inside buildings, nervously peering through windows.

Others climbed to rooftops, using binoculars to observe.

And the smarter ones...

Launched drones.

A drone with a recorder strapped underneath flew out from a window in an office building, silently rising into the air and heading toward the source of the battle.

The man controlling the drone turned it, zooming in the lens.

The next second, his entire body went rigid.

On the screen...

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

Behind the car, a pitch-black tide of monsters surged in relentless pursuit.

And at the very front of that monster tide was a beast... one he had never seen before.

One man, one car, alone against the monster tide and the colossal beast.

The man's hand, clutching the remote, trembled slightly.

"Holy... mother of God!"