Chapter 141 – Trap
A hint of contempt flashed past the three-eyed scarface’s face before reverting back. Nevertheless, he extended a ma.s.sive hand and grabbed the back of the two youths like they were little chicks. At the same time, he took out gas masks and shoved them onto their faces.
The two youths were clearly Lu Zhan Tian and Adams. The rough treatment woke them up, leaving a look of shock on each of their faces.
Currently, scarface, along with the others, had already put on their own gas masks. The man carrying the steel-plated instrument placed it on the ground and began to operate it.
The hallucinations that Lu Zhan Tian and Adams had just experienced made a cold s.h.i.+ver run down their spine. A moment later, Lu Zhan Tian forcefully stabilized himself and asked, “I don’t see the monster you mentioned. There shouldn’t a problem, right?”
“No one has ever doubted our capabilities,” scarface coldly replied. “As long as the signal source you provided doesn’t have any problems, I can guarantee that they won’t live past the third day. Regardless of whether they die from mutated beasts or by my hands, you only need to pay the remainder of the commission and keep your eyes wide open as you watch. That’s all!”
Lu Zhan Tian calmed down and stabilised himself further before saying, “Ha ha. Of course I have faith in the golden signboard of the Three-eyed Scorpion. The reward has long been prepared for you. So long as it’s successful, I’ll personally add five thousand as well as thirty cans… there’s definitely no problem with the signal source. Once they set off, my man will send it over from his skylink. This had been checked repeatedly.”The third eye that looked like a wart bobbed a little as scarface nodded his head, acknowledging his consent. He walked over to the man adjusting the contraption and saw the man’s fingers running rapidly across the instrument as he inputted the information. A circle soon appeared in the centre of the screen and fluctuated outward. As it crossed the screen, five red dots quickly appeared and were locked on. The screen then changed once more as a map of the entire C grade restricted region appeared.
Lu Zhan Tian’s eyes stared fixedly at the five glowing red dots on the screen.
The operator of the instrument actually had eight fingers. After pressing on the screen for a while, the instrument seemed to connect with the five glowing red dots and emitted an undulating frequency signal. The corners of his mouth tilted upwards slightly in a hint of a smile. His eyes lost focus as he continued to operate his machine. With his inputs, minute changes began to appeared on the restricted region map shown on the screen.
Seeing this, Lu Zhan Tian’s eyes started to s.h.i.+ne. The scarfaced man gave a soft laugh as he leaned against a tree. “Just relax and enjoy the show for now. They will come knocking on our doors soon enough!”
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☀
The mystery meat roasting over the firepit gave off a fragrant smell that swept through the area. Amidst the darkness, at least 200 pairs of glowing eyes could be seen, each filled with hunger as they gravitate towards the firepit.
These creatures were known as mutated mice. Each had a white crystal embedded in its forehead that seemed to glisten in the light of the fire. It was small, just the size of a grain of rice, but it was a reflection of their mutation grade.
Compared to the evolved new humans, the mutated lifeforms on Earth faced much stricter grade differentiation. Inherently, the mutated lifeforms, having been transformed by the dimensional energy, were the same as humans. Their bodies in turn produced a great deal of dimension energy, which was the so-called soul power that humans experienced.
The bodies of these mutated lifeforms gained the ability to take in and store large amounts of that dimensional energy. This was done either through hereditary inheritance, devouring of their own kind, or further mutations from dimensional energy. What they lacked were the training methods of humans along with the inability to direct the flow of dimensional energy. This led to an excessive store of dimensional energy in their bodies.
During the early phases of the dark era, those that had excessive energy stored within their bodies would explode. However, genetic diversity and the innate ability of living creatures to adapt has allowed for some to survive even with excessive energy in their bodies. As such, they were able to pa.s.s down hereditary traits that conferred advantages in terms of energy storage, culminating in an evolutionary track that vastly differs from that taken by humans. Interestingly, the result of this was the condensation of excessive energy into a crystal that is typically located on their foreheads. Additionally, they had the capacity to utilise the stored energy and make themselves incomparably powerful.
The Federation would often collect the corpses of the mutated beasts for the sole purpose of obtaining the energy crystals. The dimensional energy within those crystals was exceedingly pure and the skeletons of the mutated beasts could also be harvested and used as crafting materials. Both the crystal and the bones became some of humanity’s strongest weapons.
Currently, mutated beasts are placed into 9 distinct ranks based on their soul power level. Level 1 to 3 beasts were equivalent to Cast Soul stage new humans while Level 4 to 6 beasts were akin to Heroic Soul stage new humans. For those belonging to Level 7 to 9, they had power that was strong enough to rival Heavenly Soul stage new humans.
Despite these rankings, the energy within mutated beasts was definitely stronger than their human stage counterparts. After all, animals were always much better at using the energy within their bodies than humans.
The present horde of mutated mice that were inching closer to the campfire had mainly translucent crystals that was milky in colour. This indicated that their power level was at around Level 1 and 2. The remainder lacked any dimensional crystal.
Mice were usually very timid and mutated mice didn’t deviate from this trait. They were, however, still very crafty and perceptive. The mutated mice slowly approached the origin of the fragrance while examining their surroundings for any signs of danger. After a brief period of time, the Level 1 mutated mice lunged towards the roasted meat over the firepit. It was not long before the entire swarm of mice stormed in.. In this moment, seven to eight arrows suddenly shot out from a tree. A few gunshots followed. The barrage instantly struck a few of their Level 1 targets!
Cold arrows coupled with bullets were prepared beforehand to form a perfect all-angle encirclement. The sudden attack had caught the mutated mice unawares. Three mutated mice were simultaneously pierced through by powerful arrows. The lure of the fragrant meat had made them toss caution to the wind and the attack had hit them before they could activate the energy in their crystals to withstand the barrage of attacks. They were pierced by the arrows and pinned to the ground. While they hadn’t been instantly killed, they did squeal in pain. Another two mice luckily avoided the arrows, but the crazed barrage had them rolling across the ground. The entire mice swarm was frightened and everything instantly turned chaotic.
“Take action!”
Two figures shot out of the trees and lunged forward with lightning speed at the same time. Light reflected off two chilling blades as they each launched attacks toward the two Level 2 mutated mice that had avoided the previous barrage. They were in a disastrous situation and the frantic mice couldn’t muster up any strength to respond to the attacks. Before they could even stabilize themselves, they were already cut apart by the sharp blades.
Ominous light instantly shone from the two Level 2 mutated mice. As they frantically screeched, a white frost begun to creep out across their bodies in an attempt to cover their necks in a layer of protection.
Regretfully, the bullets from before had hit them and made their blood churn. Those blades were also too fast to follow and the layer of protective frost was, in the end, too slow by a beat. Before it could even cover half their necks, they were cut down by the lightning fast blades.
Colby could clearly feel the effects of the frost layer. It seemed as hard as a rock, making it tougher to cut through!
However, he knew that the sneak attack just now had given him just a slight window of opportunity. Colby instantly circulated his soul power to its peak. The high-grade rune weapon from KD Heavy Industries displayed its high efficacy at this moment. That perfect conduction of soul power made the blade move even faster and increased the strength behind it. It was an incomparably sharp blade edge that was many times more dangerous than a normal rune dagger.
Although it was still met with resistance, the cold metal won in the end and created a huge spray of fresh blood. The powerful Level 2 mutated mice had barely any time to shriek before it was beheaded.
Colby didn’t stop and instead, followed the other a.s.sa.s.sin that had come down. The two knives stabbed toward the three Level 1 mutated mice that had been pinned to the ground by the arrows. Those pitiful beasts should have originally been filled with fighting strength. They weren’t even given the chance to counter before their fates were sealed!