The Dark King – Chapter 112
Encountering the enemy
Btw, I’ve totally forgotten to mention it but according to the results of the previous poll we will NOT be using page-level ads for readers who use mobile/smartphone/tablets…
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I would like to thank MrMartinke for doing an awesome job by editing the chapter!
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Hunting level four ordinary was a primary hunter’s favorite compared to hunting other beasts. Undead chase on instinct. It’s enough to use simple traps to kill them, unlike other monsters which have cultivated a beast-like sense of survival. Even the ‘bone rats’ knew how to avoid a dangerous situation and were pretty difficult to capture using traps.
However, it had to be noted that ordinary undead would evolve into a skeleton after going through another mutation. After heavily consuming they would reach a new level, all of its capabilities would leap up and upgrade. It would reach a level where it could directly fight head on with an intermediate silver ranked hunter. Moreover, it would have a sense of consciousness and would not be easily killed by external forces.
Dudian had previously seen a skeleton’s corpse in area no. 1. He could easily distinguish this one as ordinary undead and that’s why he dared to hunt them using traps.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Arrows flew out. His effective range was 100 meters and was the height of a twenty-four-story building. Normally, the normal height of the majority of residential buildings was around four to five meters between each floor.
Dudian was standing on the twentieth floor right now, about 80 meters from the ground level. The roof was dangerous to stand on as the concrete was crumbling because of serious corrosion. He used stones to attract the undead into his effective range.
Arrows accurately hit the undead. He was able to capture their movement trajectories efficiently after the high-intense experience with the Black Weaver. Dudian felt a lot looser shooting the undead in comparison to the Black Weaver. It was much easier to predict their actions.
The arrow would hit the undead on its head and nail it to the ground.
Occasionally he would hit the undead’s shoulder or the arrow would pierce its face. The force of a shot would be enough to stumble its body onto the ground, but an undead would feel no pain. So most of the time they would stand up to run towards the direction of the sound.
Dudian would continuously pull the string and shoot the arrows.
The arrows in Dudian’s quiver ran out as he went to pull another arrow from the back and couldn’t grab onto any. He had a wry smile on his face because of joy. He went to the other side of the building and began to throw stones to attract the gathered undead to another location.
The stones fell into the neighboring streets. The sound of falling stones echoed out loudly inside the silent ruins. An undead’s ear was particularly keen so they immediately gathered to move towards the source of the sound.
Dudian quickly went down the stairs while he smeared undead powder all over his body. He reached the ground floor and went over to the pile of corpses. He cut their heads or fracture their necks. He took seven or eight heads and carried them back into the building. He squatted in a corner and began to cut open the heads. He found cold crystals inside them and began to collect them.
As he finished with this batch, Dudian ran outside to collect more heads and brought them back to dissect them in the corner.
In about three rounds, he had collected all the heads of the undead and the arrows that he had shot before were recovered too.
However, after this, he didn’t continue to hunt but went back to the roof of the building. He took out one of the cold crystals and sliced his finger. The hot blood dropped onto the crystal. It seemed like ice had encountered the hot water. The location where the blood dropped, the crystal began to melt, turning into a transparent silver liquid.
Dudian continued to observe.
He stopped dropping blood to check how the cold crystal would end up. Over the time, the temperature of the blood cooled down however it didn’t freeze back into the cold crystal.
Dudian was relieved, but he thought that just this one experiment was not enough. He returned downstairs and collected the blood of undead. The blood of an undead couldn’t melt the crystal. Instead, when it dropped on to the crystal it was frozen immediately, changing to a shape of a dark red tear.
Dudian was assured after this: “After absorbing the magic marks my blood had changed. Cold crystals can’t erode my blood. It means that I should be able to directly absorb the cold crystals.”
He clutched the cold crystal as he wanted to directly absorb it. However, there still was a trace of hesitation in his heart. Although he knew that according to his speculation his body would be able to absorb it, but as a human, he was afraid of the unknown. Moreover, he knew that one experiment was not enough to prove that the results would be stable. He was uncertain about the side effects that could pop up after a long period of absorption of cold crystals.
He thought more about the topic and eventually gave up on the impulse to immediately absorb the cold crystal. After all, he only has one life so he had to be cautious not to lose it.
He put back the cold crystal into the bag and grabbed his bow and arrows to continue to hunt the undead. He planned to continue with the experiments and slowly study the secret of cold crystals, to be able to maximize its effects.
Time was passing fast.
In a blink of an eye, two days went by. Dudian had hunted down close to 600 undead in area no. 7. It was equal to 600 gold coins. Occasionally he met some large monster which he had seen before. He couldn’t identify their level so he bypassed and avoided them.
“I will turn half of these cold crystals in while I’ll keep the rest. Maybe in the future, I’m going to build a secret base outside the giant wall?” Dudian made plans while checking around the surroundings.
suddenly–
A familiar smell drifted into his nose.
A woman’s figure emerged in his mind.: “It’s her!”, Dudian whispered.
He would never forget this smell which belonged to ‘bloody swordsman’ Linda.
“Thirty miles or so… Is she hunting in area no. 7?” Dudian’s eyes flashed. He thought that area no. 7 was the focus of the consortium. They wanted to thoroughly clean this area. So it was not surprising that Linda ended up in here.
The first time both of them had met in the scavenger headquarters and he had stayed alive and narrowly escaped death. The idea of killing her flashed in his mind, but at the same time, a voice secretly spoke: “It was only a verbal conflict which would not rise to the point of killing each other. A long time had gone by, perhaps she has forgotten you as meets lots of people daily.”
However, another idea emerged: “We are outside the giant wall. Even if you kill her, no one will know. The law of the wall does not protect anyone here. Even if people found out, there would be no way to convict you. Kill her! Kill her so you want to have unnecessary trouble in the future. Although she is a silver level hunter, but how can she protect herself if she can’t the enemy!”
“Murder… It’s too harsh.”
“Kill! Kill! No one will see.”
The two different voices echoed out in his mind as Dudian pondered over the matter. At first, he was not aware, but later he had learned the identity of the hunter he had killed. He was called Brian and was THE woman’s younger brother. He put away the hesitation in his heart as he spoke in determined tone: “She won’t let it go! I’m in my training period so there is no way for her to deal with me. However, after the training period, she will try everything within her capabilities to kill me!”
“She has to die!”
The softness in his heart faded away as he looked at the scratches on his right hand.
He hesitated for a moment, but later on, he took out the bag of cold crystal from his backpack. He pierced his hand and clung the cold crystal.
Coldness entered his body through his palm and moved along his arm.
“Even if I ambushed her, it would be very difficult to kill with my current strength. I hope my speculation about cold crystal is right. Nevertheless, I can’t absorb too much.” Dudian’s lips moved as he whispered. The feeling he got from the cold crystal gradually disappeared, but his nervousness in his heart increased.
After a moment, he took out the second cold crystal and continued to absorb it. He stopped as he felt discomfort in his body.
“It is a heaven sent opportunity and my only chance to fight back!” Dudian thought: “After the training is over, I’ll have to carry out the mission. She will be the one hunting while I will be the prey. If I can seize this opportunity.” He prayed in his heart. He prayed for success. It was going to be a risky move. But if he didn’t grasp onto it, then the situation will be much more difficult after he finishes the training.
It was best to firmly grasp the opportunity. Otherwise, he would have to passively fight back against Linda’s attacks in the future.
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