Consecutive Kills

Zhao Wei's blade struck the wild boar, leaving a huge wound every time.

His Vitality Value was high, and his weapon was good.

But his face grew paler and paler, his hands trembled, and his accuracy steadily dropped.

Li Wei's blade technique was somewhat better than Zhao Wei's, but her weapon was inferior. Facing a First Rank wild boar's thick hide, she found herself somewhat powerless.

Wang Jun climbed back to his feet, blood at the corner of his mouth, yet he still charged forward with a blank expression.

Sun Qiang was sent flying by a wild boar once, then got back up and charged again.

Liu Tingting's legs had gone weak with fear, but she still gritted her teeth and kept swinging her blade.

The two First Rank wild boars were too strong.

Their hides were too thick, their strength too great, and their speed too fast. Even giving it everything they had, the group could only barely hold them back. They simply could not inflict fatal wounds.

Li Wei shouted, "This won't work! We can't kill them!"

Just then, a voice rang out.

"Move."

Everyone froze.

Song Chen stood up.

He was covered in blood, breathing heavily. The blades in both his hands trembled slightly, but his gaze remained calm.

Li Wei cried anxiously, "Are you crazy? You can still fight like this?"

Song Chen did not answer.

He tightened his grip on his twin blades and walked toward the nearest wild boar.

That wild boar was being tied down by Li Wei and Wang Jun, and it had not noticed him.

Song Chen did not charge in directly.

He circled the wild boar, searching for an opening.

Where was a First Rank wild boar's weakness?

Its eyes.

Its throat.

And also...

He suddenly recalled something his father had said. "No matter how strong a mutated beast is, it is still an animal. An animal's weakness will always be in the same place."

He stared at the wild boar's belly, the softest place on its entire body.

But attacking its belly head-on was no different from seeking death.

He needed an opportunity.

At last, the opportunity came.

Li Wei slashed the wild boar across the face. It recoiled in pain, briefly lifting its front legs.

In that instant, its belly was exposed for less than half a second.

But for Song Chen, that was enough.

He slid across the ground, skimming close to it. With a sliding tackle, he passed beneath the wild boar, his battle blade stabbing precisely into the softest part of its belly.

More than half the blade sank in.

The wild boar let out an earth-shaking scream. Its huge body crashed to the ground, its limbs twitching.

[First Rank mutated beast Mutant Wild Boar killed. Obtained 7 Killing Value.]

Li Wei stared blankly at the scene, forgetting to swing her blade.

Zhao Wei's blade nearly slipped from his grasp.

When the last wild boar saw its companion killed, it finally became afraid.

It abandoned the attack, turned, and ran.

"Don't let it get away!" Zhang Zhenyun's voice rang out.

But Song Chen had already chased after it.

He was not fast, but he chose his route perfectly. He cut across at an angle, neatly blocking the wild boar's escape route.

With nowhere to run, the wild boar could only turn back and fight desperately.

It opened its blood-filled maw and bit toward Song Chen.

Song Chen did not dodge. Instead, he took a step forward and thrust his left arm directly into the wild boar's mouth.

"Song Chen!"

Everyone cried out in horror.

The wild boar's tusks pierced through his arm, blood spraying out.

But in that same instant, Song Chen's blade stabbed in through the wild boar's eye, piercing straight into its brain.

The wild boar's body stiffened.

Then it crashed to the ground.

Song Chen crouched halfway to the ground. The flesh of his left arm was mangled, blood still pouring from it.

But there was no expression of pain on his face. He merely lowered his head to look at the dead wild boar and smiled faintly.

[First Rank mutated beast Mutant Wild Boar killed. Obtained 7 Killing Value.]

The surroundings fell deathly silent.

Li Wei, Liu Tingting, Sun Qiang, and Wang Jun all stood where they were, looking at him with expressions too complicated to describe.

There was shock, fear, and disbelief.

And there was also a kind of... awe that could not be put into words.

Zhao Wei stood furthest away, his face ashen.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but he could not utter a single word.

His gaze fell on Song Chen's left arm, which was still bleeding. The bone might even have been broken.

Yet Song Chen had not made a sound, and he was still smiling.

What kind of person was this?

Zhao Wei suddenly remembered all the things he had said before.

"Trash with 0.6."

"Lie down and play dead."

His face burned fiercely.

Zhang Zhenyun emerged from the grass, lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag.

He looked at the wild boar corpses littering the ground. Twenty-three Unranked ones and three First Rank ones, all dead.

Then he looked at Song Chen.

The youth covered in blood, whose left arm was nearly ruined, slowly stood up. Using his right hand, he wiped his blade clean and sheathed it.

Song Chen looked at Zhang Zhenyun. "Captain, the mission is complete."

Zhang Zhenyun looked at him in silence for several seconds.

Then he smiled.

"I've been a Martial Artist for ten years. I've led no fewer than eighty new recruits, if not a hundred."

"You're the first one who's made me feel that this is what a fucking Martial Artist should be."

As he spoke, he exhaled a mouthful of smoke.

"Vitality Value of 0.6, yet you killed three First Rank beasts and twenty Unranked ones."

"Do you know what that means?"

Song Chen shook his head.

Zhang Zhenyun pointed at his own eyes. "It means you were born to make a living in this line of work."

"Decisive in killing, calm in danger, able to seize opportunities down to the finest hair—those things can't be taught. You're born with them."

He paused and glanced at Song Chen's left hand.

"Of course, next time, don't fucking feed your hand to a mutated beast. Your life is worth more than an animal's."

With that, Zhang Zhenyun tossed him a bottle of blue medicine. "Your hand isn't badly injured. The bone isn't broken. Apply this medicine, and it'll heal quickly."

Song Chen caught it without saying much and directly poured the medicine over the wound on his left arm.

The pain immediately vanished. A cool sensation surged up his arm, and the wound began healing at a visible rate.

He turned around and looked toward distant Evergreen City.

Then he lowered his head and glanced at his left hand. It was almost healed already. This medicine is pretty good.

He swept his gaze over the system panel again.

The Killing Value line was finally no longer zero. It was 21.

[Song Chen]

Rank: Unranked

Vitality Value: 0.6

Mental Power: 0.7

System Level: 1 (5,000 Killing Value required to upgrade the system)

Current Killing Value: 21

Song Chen thought of all the good things in the System Shop, and excitement welled up in his heart.

Meanwhile, Zhang Zhenyun walked around the pile of wild boar corpses, confirming that there were no survivors.

Then he dug three thumb-sized Crystal Cores out of the hearts of the three First Rank wild boars.

The Crystal Cores glimmered with a faint red light in the dimness, like frozen flames.

He looked at the group. "Get in the vehicle. The smell of blood will draw other mutated beasts here. We can't stay long."

Song Chen clenched his right fist and turned to follow Zhang Zhenyun toward the Armored Vehicle.

Behind him, Zhao Wei stood in place, staring at his back for a long while without moving.

Zhao Wei walked last, limping.

During the chaotic battle just now, a wild boar had rammed him. A gash had been torn open on his calf, blood soaking through his pant leg.

His face was even paler than Song Chen's, but not because of pain. It was because of fear.

He still had not recovered from the battle just now.

Those three First Rank wild boars.

He had watched Song Chen kill them one after another with his own eyes.

The first one—Song Chen had used seven strikes, each more vicious than the last, hacking the wild boar's neck clean through.

The second one—Song Chen had slid beneath the wild boar and driven a blade into its belly, spilling its organs all over the ground.

The third one—Song Chen had directly fed his arm into the wild boar's mouth in exchange for a blade through its brain.

Remembering those scenes, Zhao Wei's stomach churned.

He had seen Song Chen fight in class and knew that Song Chen had trained his martial techniques well. But fights in class stopped at the right point; they were sparring matches, and once victory or defeat was decided, they ended.

Outside the city was different.

Outside the city was life and death.

Every blade drew blood, every move was fatal, and one might offer up an arm to a mutated beast's mouth in exchange for a life.

Zhao Wei suddenly realized that he had never known Song Chen at all.