Where Did All These Old Sayings Come From!?

The next day.

"Deputy Commander Bai, you're more or less familiar with the gun now. The mutated beasts are fairly large, so if we let them get close enough, hitting them shouldn't be a problem. How about we set out today?" Tan Jie asked.

Bai Ye impatiently waved a hand. "Old Tan, it's not that I want to say this, but there's an old saying: haste makes waste. Yesterday, I practiced shooting stationary targets, but mutated beasts aren't dead objects. They move. Today, I'll practice on moving targets!"

Tan Jie suppressed the fury in his heart and nodded reluctantly.

The third day.

"Deputy Commander Bai, you've practiced on moving targets too. It's time to act today, isn't it? I'm not trying to rush you, but the food in our East District is nearly gone, and we don't have many bullets left either. If this keeps up, we may collapse before we even deal with the mutated beasts. How about today..."

"Old Tan, there's an old saying: more haste, less speed..."

Bai Ye had barely begun when Tan Jie was practically exploding with rage. Where the hell did all these old sayings come from!?

Just as he was about to lose his temper, Bai Ye suddenly changed tack. "But there's another old saying: speed is vital in war, and a quick blade cuts through tangled messes. So... time waits for no one. Let's set out as soon as possible!"

Tan Jie: "..."

His chest heaved violently as his triangular eyes glared at Bai Ye. He was so enraged that he wanted nothing more than to split Bai Ye's skull open and see just how many old sayings were crammed inside!

"Old Tan, what are you standing around for? Hurry up and move! Double time, go, go, go! Thinking of the residents of Grey Soil Town suffering from hunger under the threat of the mutated beasts feels like a knife twisting in my heart!"

Bai Ye, already several meters away, urged him on in dissatisfaction, as though Tan Jie were the one who had been stalling and refusing to leave.

Tan Jie took a deep breath and silently followed with his underlings, killing intent surging in his heart. He was nearing the end of his patience. Once Bai Ye killed the mutated beasts, he swore he would immediately kill Bai Ye, or else he would be angered to death sooner or later.

After a long while, the group arrived at the walls of Gray Soil Town in grand force.

Rather than a city wall, it was more accurately a dirt barricade piled together from soil, bricks, and barbed wire. It was crude, but highly effective.

"Brother Bai Ye, three days apart, and you look even more impressive than before." King Snake greeted him with a smile from atop the wall, directly ignoring Tan Jie.

Now that Bai Ye had cleaned himself up, coupled with the bright vigor of his youth, even his ragged clothes could not conceal the vitality unique to a young man.

Bai Ye glanced at King Snake and said flatly, "Call me Deputy Commander Bai."

His expression was cold, showing no respect whatsoever for King Snake, the commander of the West District. Yet this manner somehow made Tan Jie feel much better.

So Bai Ye wasn't targeting me. He treated everyone this way.

King Snake narrowed his eyes, quietly weighing things in his mind. He had heard about Bai Ye's attitude toward Tan Jie over the past few days. The two being at odds suited him perfectly. What he feared most was the two getting along like blood brothers. If that happened, the pressure on his West District would become immense.

Logically, if Bai Ye and Tan Jie did not get along, then Bai Ye should at least have been friendlier toward him, the West District commander. After all, the enemy of one's enemy was a friend. Yet Bai Ye treated him the same way. That was enough to make one think.

Could this kid have been carried away by his taboo item? Does he think holding a taboo item makes him invincible, so he doesn't put either commander in his eyes?

Or was he hiding his true abilities? Was he deliberately acting arrogant to make others lower their guard?

In truth, Bai Ye was not hiding anything. He was simply arrogant. A mere town commander had never been worth his notice, much less after three days had passed.

Three days apart, and one should view a man in a new light. This saying suited Bai Ye perfectly, because by the third day, his time reserve had reached three minutes and fifty seconds!

What did three minutes and fifty seconds mean? It meant Bai Ye could instantly kill King Snake, Tan Jie, and even all their subordinates!

That was why he could not be bothered to build relationships with King Snake and Tan Jie. To ordinary people, the commanders of a town of eight hundred might be distant, powerful figures who held the power of life and death. But in his eyes, sorry... every last one of you here was trash.

The reason he had not killed them yet was not because Bai Ye was kindhearted. Though he came from a civilized world, he was no bleeding heart. The crimes King Snake and Tan Jie had committed in Gray Soil Town over the years were enough to have them executed a hundred times over. He felt no psychological burden whatsoever in killing people like them.

The main reason was the mutated beasts.

The mutated beasts were not a single creature, but a pack. Bai Ye needed King Snake and Tan Jie to help him deal with them. Otherwise, if the mutated beasts breached the town, he would suffer too.

At that moment, Tan Jie handed over a battered tactical telescope. "The mutated beasts are hiding nearby. Those bastards never come within a hundred meters of Gray Soil Town. They circle around outside, and the moment anyone dares leave, they attack."

Bai Ye took the telescope. Before his eyes lay a barren wasteland, its yellow-brown ground cracked into countless savage wounds. Violent winds roared past, sweeping sand and dust into the sky.

By all rights, such terrain should not have supported any vegetation. Yet scattered weeds, dead trees, and even a few clusters of shrubs grew across the ground.

These were mutated plants. Their mutations simply were not severe enough for them to become living entities like taboo items.

His gaze swept across the land through the telescope, and he soon spotted several scarlet eyes within a shrub over half a man's height, more than a hundred meters away!

The howling wind pressed the shrub down, exposing their full forms.

Hyenas!

These mutated beasts had evolved from hyenas. Large patches of their originally brown fur had fallen away, replaced by grayish-purple tumors covering their bodies. The surfaces of those tumors were covered in vein-like protrusions, while their claws and fangs were sharp as blades.

"Why are there only a few?" Bai Ye asked as he lowered the telescope.

"These mutated beasts are just scouts sent by the Hyena King to keep watch and prevent us from escaping," Tan Jie explained.

"These pups aren't stupid. What's your battle plan?"

"Leave the town!" King Snake narrowed his eyes and stared at the hyenas hidden in the shrubs. "Tan Jie and I will each bring our elites, along with you, out of the town. We'll hold the hyenas off in close combat, while you use [Breath of Bones] to kill them."

"Why do we have to leave the town?" Bai Ye was slightly surprised. "Can't we lure them over here and shoot down at them from higher ground?"

King Snake shook his head. "We tried that before. We sent people out as bait to lure the hyenas within a hundred meters, then opened fire. We did kill a few, but after that, the hyenas got smarter. No matter how we baited them, they refused to come close recklessly. So we can only leave the town and fight them head-on!"

Bait? Bai Ye's heart stirred. He did not need to think to know what had happened to those baits. They had surely long since become dog food.

On the wasteland, human lives were the cheapest thing of all.