[Current Survival Points: 5500]
As he looked at the balance of survival points remaining on the panel,
a flicker of joy crossed Fan Shang's pale face.
Then Fan Shang turned his head and asked in confusion,
"Brother Tie, what's wrong with you?"
Seeing how Liu Tie looked like he was about to die, Fan Shang narrowed his eyes slightly.
Fan Shang had checked Liu Tie's condition when he intervened. Those should have been nothing but superficial injuries, so why was he in such a state?
"Hey, hold on, hold on. I should be calling you brother instead, Brother Shang."
"..."
Fan Shang fell silent at those words.
But before he could speak,
"As for this..."
Liu Tie shook his head.
"It's a side effect of using that talisman. I'll be fine in a day."
"But enough about that. Let's talk about something else. I really never expected you to be this strong, Brother Shang..."
Liu Tie looked at the pool of blood on the ground. It had belonged to a Grudge-Crying Ghost, the kind he had to give his all and practically risk his life to kill even one of.
Yet Fan Shang had killed it with ease.
Liu Tie had thought his estimate of Fan Shang's strength was already quite high, but he had still underestimated him.
He hadn't even seen Fan Shang use the steamed bun Zhou Ping had given him.
In other words, this was merely Fan Shang's strength in his normal state.
Liu Tie didn't know whether that was his full strength, but he knew Fan Shang was powerful, and definitely wasn't a House Guard sequence user.
Judging by his performance alone, his sequence had to be at least B-rank.
Fan Shang hadn't expected Liu Tie to address him that way, either, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
During that brief silence,
Zhou Ping, who had narrowly escaped death, finally came back to his senses.
His eyes lit up.
"W-wait, Brother Shang, you're actually this strong?"
"And that road beneath your feet just now, Brother Shang, and this cat, this..."
As he spoke, Zhou Ping recalled the Ghost Road that had appeared beneath Fan Shang's feet, then looked at the black cat beside him.
Zhou Ping might not have been particularly effective against supernatural horrors, but he did have a discerning eye. Besides, Little Black was extraordinary to begin with.
One glance at Little Black's enormous body and the chilling aura he gave off was enough to tell anyone he was far from ordinary. Then there was the way Fan Shang and Little Black interacted.
Zhou Ping could even sense the same chilling aura coming from the black cat as from Fan Shang.
"Is this really the [House Guard] sequence?"
Zhou Ping asked in confusion.
At that, even Liu Tie and Lin Xue looked at Zhou Ping in bewilderment.
It was as though they were looking at some rare creature.
Their stunned gazes seemed to say,
Seriously, you still haven't figured it out?
He obviously isn't!
Fan Shang paused at the question, then put on a serious expression.
"Oh, that road is a road in the courtyard. As for Little Black..."
As he spoke, Fan Shang looked at Little Black, who was sitting in front of him, and continued,
"It's perfectly reasonable for someone with the House Guard sequence to contract a pet to protect the courtyard, right?"
Reasonable, my ass!
That was what Liu Tie and Lin Xue were thinking. As for Zhou Ping, he also felt something was a little off.
But after hearing Fan Shang's explanation, he found it fairly reasonable. After all, a house guard guarded the house. Having a pet help out didn't seem all that different.
Having worked that out, Zhou Ping stopped worrying about those things.
He immediately moved to ask another question.
But Liu Tie spoke first, cutting him off.
"Zhou Ping, shut your mouth for now. Is this the time to ask about that stuff? Get things in the convoy sorted out first. Otherwise, if danger comes, we won't even be able to escape."
With that, Liu Tie led the others toward the convoy.
After this attack, the convoy's numbers had dropped from over fifty to just over thirty.
Yes, in just those few brief moments,
the two Grudge-Crying Ghosts had killed nearly twenty people in the convoy.
Looking at the scene, Fan Shang couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
No matter how many times he saw it, he still felt that humans were far too fragile in the face of supernatural horrors.
When the terrified survivors saw Liu Tie and the others return, relief at having survived appeared on their faces.
They had all witnessed the horrors being killed. Just looking at those creatures had sent chills down their spines.
Those terrifying monsters were dead, and they were alive. How could they not feel fortunate?
But naturally, not everyone felt that way.
With that thought, Fan Shang scanned his surroundings.
He saw some people crouched beside bodies, wiping away their tears.
One was a girl from a family of three, standing with her mother as they looked at the man lying by the roadside.
Another was a close friend leaning against a vehicle, looking at a body on the ground and murmuring something.
Others were hurling abuse, their faces filled with resentment.
"Useless! Useless! I haven't had a single good day since I got together with you! Well, there you go! You're dead, so it's all over for you, but I... what am I supposed to do now?!"
It was a woman's voice. She sat slumped beside a man's corpse, beating at his body.
She was venting the anger in her heart.
When she saw Liu Tie and the others approach, the woman finally lost control of her emotions and let all her accusations spill out.
"Why?!"
Her voice was loud, drawing looks from everyone nearby.
And the person she was confronting was none other than
Fan Shang.
Fan Shang was bewildered at being called out, unable to understand why she had stopped him.
But he soon got his answer.
The woman, who looked to be in her thirties, scrambled up from the ground and rushed straight up to Fan Shang, glaring at him with bloodshot eyes.
"Why?"
"Why didn't you act sooner? If you'd acted sooner, if you'd killed that horror sooner, my man wouldn't have died!"
The woman continued.
Fan Shang had yet to react, but Liu Tie had already frowned.
Before Liu Tie could speak, Zhou Ping spoke up from beside him.
He tried to reason with her.
"Hey, calm down first. You saw that horror just now, too. It wasn't that Brother Shang didn't want to act. If we hadn't figured out its behavioral pattern..."
But before Zhou Ping could finish,
"I don't care!"
"You're sequence users, aren't you?"
The woman demanded.
Dazed by her shouting, Zhou Ping answered,
"...Yes."
"Then why are you still asking why?! Aren't you sequence transcendents? Can't you deal with those horrors?
Then why didn't you protect us sooner? If you'd acted sooner, those people wouldn't have died!"
"You sequence users got them killed!"
As she spoke, the woman stared straight at Fan Shang, her eyes filled with venom and hatred.
It was as though Fan Shang had killed her man himself.
At those words, Zhou Ping swallowed the words of comfort he had been about to offer.
His previously calm expression instantly turned cold.
"What do you mean by that?!"
"Exactly what I said!"
Before you continue