Zhou Heng spread his palm, and the Jiao Jiao Bow appeared in it.
Without hesitation, he drew the bow and loosed arrows, combining them with his class talent, "Archer's Discipline," to fire repeatedly at the two men and two women surrounding the woman.
To be safe, he gave each of them ten arrows.
With his current physical attack, ordinary players at level 20 or below certainly could not withstand them.
After firing forty arrows, Zhou Heng stopped attacking and headed farther to the right.
His reason for not interfering too much was simple: the hint from "Fate Hint" concerned a turning point in fate. This meant that if he did nothing, the woman would die, whereas his intervention could change her fate.
So all he needed to do was kill those people, rather than interfere any further with her.
As for anything else, what did it have to do with him?
After those forty arrows, the only thing he needed to do was wait for "fate" to take its course and see whether history could be changed. If it could, he would come out ahead.
"Hand it over!"
"That's not something you can possess!"
"Kailina, you have no choice! Don't force us to kill you!"
"You don't have any Revival Coins left!"
"If you die again this time, you'll really be dead!"
Surrounded by the four of them, the white-haired woman bit her lip lightly, her expression grim.
She clutched the silver coin in her hand. She had found it in the Interstellar Wreckage.
She had to take it out of here, or her grandmother's illness could not be treated.
Seeing Kailina hesitate, the four exchanged glances, each seeing murderous intent in the others' eyes.
In the past, a single silver coin would have been enough to spur them to act like this, but now prices had skyrocketed, and silver coins kept soaring in value relative to copper coins.
After all, a single silver coin could now be exchanged for three hundred thousand copper coins.
How could they possibly let something like that slip away?
"Looks like you have a death wish!"
"Since you're asking to die, don't blame us for showing you no mercy just because you're a woman!"
But just as the four were about to attack Kailina, arrows came whistling from the distance.
Alarmed, the four hurriedly maneuvered to dodge.
But no matter how they twisted and turned, the arrows kept following them.
"Damn it, what the hell is this?!"
"Since when could arrows turn corners?"
"This feeling... damn it, this is the Extreme Long-Range Shooter's class talent, Extreme Long-Range Tracking!"
"There's an Extreme Long-Range Shooter in this secret realm."
"Run! I only have one Revival Coin left!"
"You still have a Revival Coin? I don't have any!"
"Aaah..."
Amid four successive screams, one man and one woman turned into light and vanished from the secret realm, while the remaining man and woman were erased outright.
"Was I... saved?"
Kailina looked at the drops left behind by the dead man and woman, a trace of bewilderment on her face.
She looked around but saw no one nearby who could have attacked. Still, she knew which class had most likely used such a method. Her grandmother had taught her.
"An Extreme Long-Range Shooter?"
"Thank you!"
Kailina did not know who had saved her. After bowing in thanks in every direction, she picked up the dead man and woman's belongings: a total of 3,000 copper coins and a basic light-element skill book.
After putting everything away, Kailina continued deeper to the left. The reason she had saved money to enter was to reach the deepest part of the Interstellar Wreckage's left side.
Her grandmother had told her to visit the deepest part of the Interstellar Wreckage, saying there was something she needed there.
She did not understand. She had forgotten so very many things, but she believed her grandmother would not deceive her.
So she could only keep heading left.
"Friend, hand over all your money!"
"You've found some silver coins, haven't you?"
Zhou Heng had explored roughly thirty kilometers into the Interstellar Wreckage when a group leaped out from behind the wreckage.
It was a gang dressed in gray-and-black outfits, six people in total: four men and two women.
Their leader was a burly man holding a wrench. He looked at Zhou Heng with an arrogant grin, his eyes full of mockery.
Zhou Heng's gaze sharpened slightly. He had run into robbers in the secret realm.
Zhou Heng rested his hand on the Sakast Imperial Sword (Holy Sword) at his waist and said flatly.
"Everyone, entering the secret realm already costs quite a bit. There's no need to take things this far, is there?"
The six froze for a moment, then pointed at Zhou Heng and burst out laughing.
"A newbie, huh?"
"Definitely. What veteran would say something that pretentious?"
"This kid's got something going for him, though. This batch of new players only logged in eleven days ago, right? If he made it into Frost City in so little time, he must be pretty strong."
The burly leader toyed with his wrench and said to Zhou Heng with a smile.
"Kid, since you're new, I won't hold it against you. Let me explain: whenever we from the Bright Association run into players who've scavenged resources in the interstellar secret realm, they have to hand over everything they got inside."
"The only thing you're allowed to take out of the Interstellar Wreckage secret realm is experience from killing monsters. Understand?"
Zhou Heng's expression turned cold.
Paying five silver coins to enter a level 11-20 secret realm, only to be allowed to take away nothing but experience from killing monsters-this was no longer a question of being reasonable. This was blatant robbery.
Besides, he had not seen a single wild monster in the thirty kilometers he had traveled.
"The Bright Association?"
"May I ask whether a Longevity Family backs your association?"
Zhou Heng felt that the Bright Association alone should not have the standing to plunder players' wealth so brazenly. Clearly, there was a power behind it.
"Looks like you do know what's what!"
"You guessed right. A Longevity Family backs our Bright Association. Otherwise, how would we dare rake in resources so openly?"
"The higher-ups said that none of the technological resources scavenged from the Interstellar Wreckage can be taken out."
"As for the silver coins you find, you understand. That's our payment."
The burly leader walked up to Zhou Heng, patted him on the shoulder, then held out his palm in a money-collecting gesture.
The meaning was obvious: now that he understood the situation, it was time to pay.
Shing!
There was the sound of a blade leaving its sheath, followed by a flash of cold steel.
Before the burly man could even react, Zhou Heng cut off his head with a single stroke.
Watching the head fly, the remaining five's pupils contracted sharply, and they swiftly closed in on Zhou Heng.
At level 20, they were no pushovers either.
But as fast as they were, Zhou Heng was faster.
His movement speed of 3.2 m/s and attack speed of 2.0/s were no joke. Coupled with his terrifyingly high attack after equipping the Sakast Imperial Sword (Holy Sword), trash who acted as lackeys for dogs like these were nowhere near enough.
With five successive sword strikes, Zhou Heng beheaded all five before they could even use their skills, ending their lives.
"Six people, and not a single Revival Coin!"
"So, is this the cold that foreign friend was talking about?"
Picking up the six people's worthless drops, Zhou Heng could not help sighing.
Who would have thought that in an Online Game Era, players would not even have a chance to revive? Where could anyone go to seek justice for that?
Back at school, he had heard teachers talk every day about entrenched class divisions and the difficulty of progressing, but he had not really felt it then.
Now, after logging into the world of "Boundless Endless," the suffocating feeling brought on by those entrenched class divisions grew ever stronger.
"Hmm? What's this?"
After Zhou Heng finished picking up all the drops from five of them, he noticed something different among the sixth person's drops.
Zhou Heng picked it up and cast Appraisal on it...
Before you continue