Chapter 504: A Frightening Battle in the Shadows!
Meng Chao’s pupils shrank into two dots before they instantly returned to their original state.
He did not slow down. Instead, as if nothing had happened, he continued staggering toward Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang.
Meanwhile, his brain cells let out high-pitched screams as they worked at high speed and above their maximum capacity.
‘Is it a coincidence?’ Meng Chao thought nervously. ‘Did Bloody Slaughter Gao Yan run here from the ruins?’
No. It was not a coincidence.
Gao Yang wore a cloak made of a special material. It seemed like it had the effects of optical camouflage and mimicry. It could change continuously based on the changes in the surroundings.
When the man hid in a corner, the cloak also turned dark.
Besides, he reduced his heartbeat, breathing, and vitality magnetic field to the lowest, so the villagers who fled into the area in a hurry would not spot him.
Even Meng Chao had not noticed his existence in the beginning.
It was a high-grade optical camouflage cloak. Its internal structure was definitely very sophisticated, so it was impossible that it could withstand great heat, high pressure, and impact waves.
So, Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang was never affected by the explosion.
He did not escape to this place, but waited here intentionally!
When Meng Chao thought about it carefully, it made sense.
Ghost Eagle Song Yu might have been an infamous wanted criminal, but the worst crime he committed was harming a few innocent citizens walking in the dark at night.
He had a high cultivation realm but did not have much fighting experience and possessed relatively weak willpower. He was the stereotypical case of someone who was not good enough to accomplish anything and would spoil everything. It was impossible for the Vortex to treat him as its henchman.
Using him as bait to lure the hunting squad was making full use of trash.
But Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang was different.
He was a superhuman who had slaughtered his way out of a pile of corpses.
Forget about whether he stood on the side of evil or good for now. If Meng Chao only looked at his experience, cultivation realm, willpower, and fighting strength, the man was top tier.
Besides, he was originally a hunter. After he entered spirit energy deviation, he broke away from dozens of pursuits by other hunters. During that time, he also repeatedly counterattacked them and killed a number of them.
It could be said that he had a clear understanding of the specialties and weaknesses of the veteran hunters and the situation in the hunter circle.
The Vortex would be reluctant to use him as bait.
In fact, the Vortex and Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang might have been the ones who created the plan to use the fake Deification Capsule pharmacy, robbers, and wanted criminals as bait to lure the hunting squad to die.
Even if Ghost Eagle Song Yu and Tsunami Wan Zhuiyun were kept in the dark, Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang had to know the truth. Before the super crystal bomb exploded, he should have gotten himself out of explosion range.
Then, since he had already fled safely, why did he come back?
Meng Chao gulped under his cloak.
‘He’s here to kill those who remain.’
The Vortex naturally knew that a single explosion from a super crystal bomb could not possibly kill thirty-three Heaven Realm superhumans.
But quite a number of them would be badly wounded and caught under ruins weighing a few ten thousand tons, so they could not move.
Practically everyone should have been affected by the impact waves and spirit energy tsunami, so they would temporarily lose their fighting ability, or at the very least, their fighting strength and cultivation realms would end up compromised.
The hunting squad was now at its weakest.
This was the moment when the hunter would become the hunted, and the hunted become the hunter.
If the uninjured Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang found the veteran hunters who were badly injured, drained of spirit energy, and at lower cultivation realms, he would, without a doubt, kill them.
And he had really good instincts.
He deduced that some of the veteran hunters would not be able to run up and would choose to crawl underground.
So, he decided to hide and wait for them to fall for his trap one by one.
Now, the question was: Had Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang noticed him?
Meng Chao recalled what he did after he appeared within Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang’s sight.
He knew that before coming he had adjusted his breathing, heartbeat, and vitality magnetic field to the point that it was the same as those of the villagers and wrapped himself tightly in the cloak. His face was also so swollen that his parents could not recognize him.
Even if Bloody Soul’s outline was revealed under the cloak, weapons were a daily necessity in Dragon City, because there were dangers everywhere.
Forget about cold weapons, it was nothing strange if someone decided to carry with them a rocket launcher.
The only possibility of him exposing himself was when he revealed his hand from under the cloak when he squatted down to pick up the synthetic food cans.
Meng Chao was a veteran hunter. He needed his hands to use most of his skills, so he used a lot of monster blood and fat to nourish them. He also nourished them day and night by circulating spirit energy through the spirit meridians around his fingers.
His hand was naturally different from the villagers’ hands, which were incredibly coarse because of their lives.
But it had only taken a moment for him to pick up the can.
Besides, his hands had been ripped to bloody ribbons when he pushed aside the ruins. They were covered in dirt, dust, and blood.
Could Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang have realized that he was different?
Or was he just being paranoid?
Meng Chao entered a fierce debate with himself.
Even so, he did not slow down. He blended in among the fleeing villagers and slowly headed to a corner.
He was only five meters away from Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang.
Now, he had two choices.
First, he could test his luck and take a gamble that Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang had not noticed him and pass by him as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
Second, he could attack first.
Even though they had fought earlier and Meng Chao had a slight advantage and had even relied on his own strength to make Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang, Ghost Eagle Song Yu, and Tsunami Wan Zhuiyun retreat in a sorry state, he knew very clearly that he was not actually so strong that he could fight against three people and win.
The point was, at that time, he had the initiative. The thirty-two Heaven Realm superhumans were also about to surround the place at any moment, so he did not really have to kill the three criminals. All he needed to do was to hold them back, which was why he could calmly choose his strategies.
Now, he was the one alone and without backup.
As for Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang, he might receive the Vortex’s support at any moment.
Before Gao Yang went through spirit energy deviation and became a lost person, he was at Spirit Gaze Realm. In other words, a five-star superhuman.
Even if he didn’t improve after so many years, he had still managed to escape after being chased by other hunters, and his hunting and counter-hunting experiences were definitely top-notch.
Right now, he was also within the claws of the Vortex, so he would have gained a lot of benefits from the monster civilization.
In terms of overall strength, his fighting skills might be at Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong’s level.
Based on Meng Chao’s data on paper, he should not be Zhou Chong’s opponent.
But he had a trump card that could turn the tables—Gao Yang should not have guessed that he would recover so soon.
Even if Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang could recognize him, from what he knew, Meng Chao should be heavily injured and drained of spirit energy, which would compromise his fighting strength, right?
If Meng Chao could use his trump card well, he might be able to launch a miraculous counterattack on this peerless criminal and cut down the Vortex’ right hand in the lair!
Four more steps.
Three more steps.
Meng Chao’s mind raced. He instantly squashed the faint thought of trying to test his luck.
He would not let anyone else decide his fate.
Even if he were to take a gamble, he wanted to be the one to throw the dice.
Even if Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang really did not see him, Meng Chao did not intend to spare this peerless criminal whose hands were stained with the blood of innocents, who joined the monster civilization, and who worked together with the enemy!
There were only two steps left between them.
Meng Chao intentionally increased his breathing and heartbeat to make it look like he had discovered Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang and exposed some openings in his panic.
And while his body temperature and vitality magnetic field were firmly controlled by Walking Corpse, he pretended that his spirit energy was drained and that he had lost a lot of blood.
He believed that Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang would notice his erratic breathing and rapid heartbeat, then put two and two together to make sense of this abnormality.
He also believed that Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang would deduce that Meng Chao was testing his luck and trying to pretend to be a Leprosy Village villager to escape from his claws.
Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang should then try to use his trick against him and attack when Meng Chao passed him.
Meng Chao’s plan was to be ready, all his muscles, bones, nerve endings, and cells tensed in preparation.
The moment Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang attacked, Meng Chao had absolute confidence that he could cut off his hand!
Two steps. One step.
Meng Chao passed him without incident.
Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang did not attack. He continued to hide in the dark corner like a silent shadow.
He had even moved his gaze away from Meng Chao and cast it on another Leprosy Village villager, as if he was not interested in the one who just went by at all.
Meng Chao was puzzled.
‘Could it be that he didn’t notice the breathing and heartbeat I intentionally made obvious?’
Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang’s act of ignoring him was against his expectations.
Meng Chao was caught off guard, and he lost the best angle and distance to attack Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang. He could only join the group of Leprosy Village villagers and continue onward.
Once they reached the end of the corridor more than ten meters away, they would enter a corridor leading downwards.
Even so, Meng Chao did not hear Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang chasing after him, nor sense any fluctuations in his breathing, heartbeat, or spirit energy.
Meng Chao sighed in relief.
Even though he did not manage to ambush him, he was not discovered by Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang either. This was an ending that was neither good nor bad, but he could accept it.
Wait!
Meng Chao suddenly realized something so bone-chilling that he felt his skin crawl.
There was no way Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang could not have noticed him.
Even if he did not hear the breathing and heartbeat he intentionally revealed, when Meng Chao squeezed through the ruins, he’d gained dozens of lacerations and scratches on his body.
They might be superficial wounds, but he bled a lot, so there was a heavy scent of blood about him.
Gao Yang was a Heaven Realm superhuman and an ace hunter with a lot of experience. With these two statuses, it was impossible for him to not have smelled the blood on Meng Chao.
So there was a problem. The underground had not been affected by the explosion. Even if the Leprosy Village villagers were affected by the shockwave, they either had internal injuries or concussions.
And here he was, a guy covered in injuries and drenched in blood. His presence was a bizarre event. Could Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang’s awareness be so bad that he would not even be bothered to check it?
Meng Chao’s pupils shrank to the max.
A piercing wail came from the depths of his mind.
Cracking sounds came from his spine, and he moved his head backwards in a fierce motion.
Whoosh!
A sharp blade that was as thin as a shadow shot out from the wall ahead of him at the spot where his head was 0.01 seconds ago.