Chapter 191: The Withering Hong Clan

The sound of footsteps arose all around him, as though there were a thousand soldiers on horseback rushing toward him.

.

"What a strange footwork technique," Zhang Lie murmured, opening his eyes wide. The first thing he saw was blades of sword energy heading in his direction.

He activated [Mirrored Refraction]. It felt as though a drop of water had landed in a still pool, casting out ripples in every direction. In the blink of an eye, Zhang Lie vanished from sight.

The youth's sword cut down the afterimages that Zhang Lie left behind, frowning as even more sword energy gathered around him. "[Ocean's Bounty: Rain of Blades]!"

A strange mark appeared on the youth's forehead as he was swallowed up by sword energy. The moment the mark appeared, Zhang Lie felt a sudden tinge of recognition, but he didn't know just where he had seen it before. Subsequently, a far stranger thing occurred: Zhang Lie's [Eclipse] activated of its own accord.

A tremendous pressure forced that youth to bow down as a radiant moon appeared in the skies.

"Th-This is [Eclipse]! You..."

The technique that the youth was charging up for failed to manifest against the dominating pressure of [Eclipse]. The youth's face was filled with shock, but killing intent glinted in his eyes.

Zhang Lie frowned and thrust forward with his blade, sending a crest of golden sand toward the youth.

"[Cresting Sweep]!" The youth launched another technique in his direction, tilting forward and making a quick flick with his wrist. Behind him, the river roared. His sword energy clashed against that from Venombane.

Amidst an explosion of white light, the youth stumbled back, a slice through his armor. The youth, brimming with fury, turned and leaped back into the river. "I'll remember this!"

Zhang Lie tsked, but didn't give chase. The youth didn't seem like Li Hong and the others, who had taken advantage of their strength to bully others. Instead, it seemed that circumstances had pushed him into dire straits, forcing him to try to snatch what he needed from others.

Zhang Lie hadn't struck him with a lethal blow, and he didn't give chase. Shaking his head, he picked up the superior-grade cuttlefish and left the Mo river. The evening sun cast a long shadow ahead of him as he walked.

That night, the manager of the Blacksteel Inn walked around with a curious expression on his face, as did all the hunters who walked by the inn. A deep, complex aroma permeated the entire inn, and quite a few hunters swallowed a gulp of saliva upon smelling the scent.

The scent originated from Team Zenith's suite. After rushing around the dimensional world for the entire day, the fatigued hunters were all eyeing Sun Mengmeng's superior-grade firemane lion stew with gusto. Even before they began to eat, Sun Xiaowu's saliva was almost about to drip into the stew, causing Sun Mengmeng to give him a disgusted look.

𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"Alright, if everyone's ready, we can dig in now," Zhang Lie said, glancing at the ravenous faces all around him.

"No one else could make such a delicious-smelling stew!" Sun Xiaowu exclaimed, grabbing the ladle and serving himself immediately.

"Have some too, Captain." Sun Mengmeng specially served Zhang Lie a bowl of soup.

After the meal, everyone rubbed their bellies in satisfaction as they let out burps, announcements from the dimensional world pinging in their heads.

"How was your haul today?" Zhang Lie asked.

"Relatively decent. We've pretty much scoured the vicinity of the Blacksteel settlement by now, so we'll likely have to start going farther out by tomorrow," Fang Yi replied.

"Despite our hard work, we only managed to obtain around seventy sprigs," Sun Xiaowu sighed. Their haul the first two days had been rather impressive, but the rest of what they needed would be far harder to acquire. Even with two whole days of searching, the hunters had only managed to acquire around two hundred sprigs of herbs that they needed.

"This is the dimensional world, after all, and you have to rely on yourself for personal growth. If you can't find all these herbs, then it'll be impossible for you to break through!" Not only did Zhang Lie not console them, he even pressured them harder. He walked out of the suite, leaving the rest of the night for the exhausted members of Team Zenith to relax.

At the same time, downstream of the Mo river, where the Carter settlement was located, a pale youth shrugged off the pale blue armor he was wearing, one with a deep rent through it.

"Can this suit of armor be repaired?"

"The severity of the damage is too great to be repaired," the robot he was speaking to droned in a cold tone.

The youth frowned, picked up the armor, glanced briefly at it, and then threw it into the furnace. Then, he clutched the wound on his shoulder and hobbled deep into the settlement.

"Oh? Isn't this Young Master Hong, Hong Xiao?" A mocking voice came from behind as a silver-haired youth walked by.

Hong Xiao ignored him, straightened up, and covered up his debilitating wound with his left hand.

"Ignoring me, are you? Were you unable to find the deepsea vine to rescue your grandfather?" The youth boomed with laughter as Hong Xiao's gaze turned icy.

"Scram. I have no time to bicker with you."

"Still so proud? You should know that the Hong clan's about to meet its end."

Hong Xiao inhaled deeply, ignored the offending party, and headed deep into the settlement grounds.

"Ah, you're leaving just like that? As I said, there's no honor in being a member of the Hong clan any longer!"

Laughter to his back, Hong Xiao clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white, causing the silver-haired man to laugh even more loudly. Just as he was about to taunt Hong Xiao further, however, one of his subordinates came running up to him.

"Captain, there are hunters from other settlements encroaching on our territory!"

"What? From what settlement?" Liu Feng frowned, motioning for his subordinates to follow him as he walked away.

The Carter settlement was adjacent to the Mo river as well as the Labyrinthine Forest, which was far larger than the Night Forest near the Blacksteel settlement. It was full of resources and herbs, so even though it was far from the Blacksteel settlement, three members of Team Zenith had still headed toward it, planning on grabbing whatever they could find.

Deep within the forest, a superior-grade monkey-type lifeform fell lifeless to the ground.

Fang Yi's eyes brightened. "Look at all the herbs in this area! Does no one from the Carter settlement care about them?"

Sun Xiaowu shrugged, plucking the herbs from behind the monkey's carcass. "Who knows? Maybe they don't even know how to make use of them."

Yang Ze smiled. "That really might be the case. Would we recognize these herbs if we didn't get a list of them from the captain?"

They were simply surprised that there were so many herbs in this forest that were on Zhang Lie's list; Sun Xiaowu was stuffing them into his potbellied-toad pouch handful by handful.

"Apparently, the nearby Mo river is particularly suited for the growth of these herbs," Fang Yi explained. "At any rate, we certainly haven't wasted our time traveling here."

"Alright, shall we keep heading deeper into the forest? We'll surely beat the other team today like this!" Sun Xiaowu urged.

Fang Yi nodded, leading the way with his obsidian spear in hand. Suddenly, he frowned. He thought he had sensed quite a few fluctuations of genetic energy heading in his direction, but they had all vanished.

"Is something wrong?" Sun Xiaowu asked.

"No, it's nothing." Fang Yi shook his head, thinking that he was being too paranoid.

As they strode deeper into the forest, a malicious gaze suddenly landed on Yang Ze's back.

"Yang Ze?! What's he doing here? In that case, these three hunters must all be from Team Zenith!" the silver-haired Liu Hong mumbled to himself, malice distorting his otherwise attractive features.