"Right, right, right. Brother Li, you're absolutely right. We should get out of here fast." Boss Gao eagerly agreed, casually summoning the young maid beside him.
"Xiao Kui! Let's go!"
Weighing over two hundred pounds, he hurriedly threw himself onto the back of a girl less than five feet three inches tall. The girl in the black-and-white maid outfit remained expressionless, her body not even trembling, as if she were carrying a feather.
Behind a large tree in the distance, Li You was completely baffled.
"Brother Ye, what are they even doing? Why did a feather suddenly fall from the sky, and now these people are leaving? That Transcendent looks really powerful, and that fat guy is way too shameless. He's actually making that little girl carry him??"
The string of questions gave Bai Ye a headache. He couldn't be bothered responding to Li You and instead stared at the feather on the ground, feeling that it looked familiar.
The feather was grayish-black all over, marked with black spots and stripes, its tip a dirty white. Together, they formed a distinctive pattern.
Such a unique feather... he felt like he had seen it on Animal World before. What was it again?
"Holy shit! Headshot!" Li You suddenly cried out in a low voice. His body trembled involuntarily from the shock.
Bai Ye's pupils contracted sharply as he looked toward the group of more than ten people. One of them had had his head explode without warning!
"That beast is back! Mr. Li, act quickly!"
Startled cries erupted from the crowd. They began firing into the air again, while the shadow behind Li Xiao writhed and rose to its feet once more.
He struck repeatedly, and more than ten strange, pitch-black Shadow Darts intertwined in midair, forming a rapidly spinning net.
Clang, clang, clang...
The sound of metal clashing rang out without end. The Shadow Darts seemed to be continuously colliding with some creature, scattering tiny sparks.
At that moment, Bai Ye finally saw what they were fighting.
They weren't shooting at thin air, but... a Peregrine Falcon!
They hadn't seen it earlier because it was too far away, and because the Peregrine Falcon was too fast for the naked eye to catch. It was nothing more than a streak of black lightning, gone in an instant.
Now that Li Xiao's Shadow Darts had forced it back, its speed slowed enough for them to see its full form.
"It really is a Peregrine Falcon," Bai Ye murmured.
Li You had also caught a fleeting glimpse of its shadow and hurriedly asked, "What's a Peregrine Falcon?"
Bai Ye recalled the introduction from Animal World. "The Peregrine Falcon is the second-fastest flying bird in the world. Because of its extreme speed, it's known as the stealth bomber among birds. If it doesn't like the look of you, it dives straight at you with its claws. Creatures targeted by it often get disemboweled before they even see its shadow."
Li You was stunned. He had never read much, so naturally he had no idea such a creature as the Peregrine Falcon existed.
"Something that fast is only ranked second!? Then what's the fastest bird?"
Bai Ye glanced at him and said blandly, "Naturally, it's you, my friend, because you only last three seconds."
"Huh? Me?" Li You pointed at himself with his mouth hanging open. It took him three seconds to realize he had been insulted, and he flew into a small rage.
"This is a mutated Peregrine Falcon. It's clearly even faster, almost beyond the limits of what the naked eye can track. Those people are in danger."
Bai Ye watched the panicked crowd. Just moments ago, another person had been pierced through the head.
The mutated Peregrine Falcon was too fast, faster than bullets. When it flew past ordinary people, it couldn't even leave an image on their retinas.
After observing for a while, he came to a decision and chose to step in and save them.
This group was not weak. The Transcendent could control shadows, and the petite maid was no ordinary person either. Just now, while protecting the fat man, she had actually taken a strike from the Peregrine Falcon's claws head-on. Aside from swaying slightly, she was unharmed.
The middle-aged man holding dual guns was an excellent marksman and knew Gun-Fu. There were also several Genetic Modifiers in the group, clearly a level stronger than Tan Jie the boar.
Only the fat man seemed to be an ordinary person, needing protection the entire time.
This was a powerful team. If they had faced the hyenas, gray sparrows, or the like from earlier, they could have crushed them with ease. Unfortunately, they had encountered a mutated Peregrine Falcon.
The Peregrine Falcon itself was not particularly strong, but its speed was unmatched in the world. No matter how strong they were, it was useless if they couldn't hit it.
But the Peregrine Falcon's top speed was nothing to Bai Ye. Could it possibly be faster than Time Stop?
After thinking for a moment, he said to Li You beside him, "Li Zuo, it's time for you to show off."
"Huh? Me?" Li You pointed at himself, his mouth wide open and his face full of confusion.
Bai Ye smiled mysteriously, leaned close to his ear, and whispered a few words.
"Li Xiao, can you even handle this? I paid a fortune to hire you to protect me!"
Boss Gao shouted, his face covered in cold sweat. He had nearly died just now. If Xiao Kui had not blocked that attack for him, he would have been dead already.
Seeing that Li Xiao was still unable to deal with the Peregrine Falcon, he could no longer afford to be polite.
Li Xiao's expression was extremely ugly. His eyeballs darted rapidly in their sockets, but even so, he could only catch a trace of the Peregrine Falcon's afterimage. How could someone as proud as him admit that knocking off a feather earlier had been nothing more than blind luck?
"Shut up! Stop making noise! I'm thinking of something!" Cold sweat ran down Li Xiao's face. He was even considering whether he should abandon these people and run away alone. He was a man destined to become one of the Ten Kings. How could he die so miserably at the claws of a bird?
Just then, the grass in the distance suddenly rustled, and the sound of shoes scraping through weeds rose abruptly.
Someone was coming?
Li Xiao and the others noticed the newcomers, and their hearts immediately lifted. Anyone daring to appear on Black Mountain at this time could not be ordinary. Yet when the people in question emerged from the grass, everyone's hearts sank.
Two ragged Wastelanders slowly emerged, looking extremely strange. One carried a mechanical leg over his shoulder. The other's right hand was wrapped in filthy bandages, while his left hand carried a large sack, bulging as though it contained a square box along with many miscellaneous items.
"Two Wastelanders?"
"Why would there be Wastelanders here? Were they captured to scout the way?"
They had seen quite a few people capture Wastelanders and bring them to Black Mountain to scout ahead.
With disaster looming, Gao Bancheng could no longer worry about much else. He hurriedly called out past Bai Ye and Li You, "Friends behind them, I am Gao Bancheng, son of Gao Shanhe, chairman of the Fortune Commerce Association! If you can help me through this crisis today, I will repay you handsomely in the future!"
Everyone waited eagerly for a response, but only the two Wastelanders stood there. No one appeared behind them.
"Damn it!" Gao Bancheng cursed under his breath.
Just then, the Wastelander with bandages around his right hand spoke coldly. "How much?"
Gao Bancheng froze. Could these two be more than mere Wastelanders? It wasn't that he judged people by appearances, but no matter how little a true powerhouse cared about appearances, they couldn't possibly dress as shabbily as Bai Ye and Li You, who were practically naked.
At first, their clothes had been worn but at least covered their bodies. But after encountering three waves of Mutated Beasts and suffering an attack from a Man-eating Flower Tree along the way, their already cheap burlap rags had naturally become even more tattered.
Before you continue