The woman's face went deathly pale, fear and anger twisting together in her chest. She, and those two, were all Level 2 Survivors. Even though they lived in three different rooms, they had worked together for a long time to survive.
Each of them played a different role, forming a perfect combination, covering one another's weaknesses while striking at the enemy.
But now, that perfect combination had been defeated with ease by a single man.
Her chest rose and fell with each angry breath, yet she knew the young man in front of her was an extremely dangerous Survivor.
She took a deep breath, forcing a smile uglier than crying, and said calmly, "Alright. Let's each take a step back. We'll pretend what happened today never happened, okay?"
Rover snorted a laugh and shook his head. "You talk pretty. Your skin is so thick, you could probably replace a few apartment doors with it and use it to block zombies."
"You..." She ground her teeth, about to say something, when Rover's voice cut her off.
"Each take a step back..." Rover sneered. "You really know how to talk. If I were the one lying here and I said that, would you accept it?"
She pressed her lips together, frowning, but she still wanted to save Zac and that man. After all, they were the perfect combination. With three of them, losing even one meant it would be hard to keep surviving in this damned world.
So she kept trying to persuade Rover. "Then what do you want?"
"What do I want? I should be asking you. What do you want? You ambushed that girl, and then you wanted to ambush me too. What do you want?"
"That's because she brought a monster with her. I can't accept a creature that threatens everyone's safety living in this apartment."
"My brother isn't a monster!" Millan shouted. "If you dare insult my brother one more time, I'll..."
"Enough!" Rover barked. He frowned at Millan, then looked back at the woman and said softly, "Name your price. I'll let them go. Otherwise..."
"You dare kill them?" The woman frowned. "You should know this is currently a peace period. If you kill other Survivors, you'll receive the 'Blood Mark.' Do you really dare?"
Rover raised a finger and pointed at Zac. "You can try and see whether I dare."
"You..." The woman bit her teeth, then said, "Fine. I can give you 20 gold coins."
"Do you take me for a beggar?" Rover said, his voice frighteningly cold.
"30 gold coins."𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞
Rover shook his head with a laugh. "Looks like... you don't want them to live anymore. If I kill them, my harvest could be ten times what you want to give me in gold."
The woman clenched her hands until they turned white, her body trembling violently, not sure if it was from anger or worry.
She took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down, and said, "70 gold coins, one Rank B superpower scroll, and one Mid-grade defense tower blueprint."
"I think you can offer a more reasonable price," Rover shrugged.
"Don't force me into a corner!" the woman shouted.
Rover frowned, his tone utterly indifferent. "You don't get to choose."
"Nory, give him everything," the man trapped in the shadow spoke up at this moment. "Stop being stingy!"
Nory gritted her teeth. Her eyes were filled with displeasure as she looked at Rover, but when she looked at Zac and that man, she could only take a deep breath and say, "70 gold coins, one Rank B superpower scroll, one Mid-grade weapon selection card, one Mid-grade defense tower blueprint. That's everything I can give you."
Rover glanced at Zac and the other man, then looked at Nory and said with a smile, "Good. Trade first. After the trade is successful, I'll release them."
"You... you have to release them first!" Nory shouted.
Rover frowned. His sharp gaze made her afraid, and in the end, she could only trade with him first.
When he saw that all items had been traded successfully, he smiled in satisfaction and lifted his hand.
BANG!
The glass shattered, then turned into particles of light and quickly disappeared.
Rover smiled. "If there's something fun like this next time, remember to call me."
"Get lost!" Nory roared through gritted teeth.
Rover shrugged, said nothing more, and turned to leave. The surrounding crowd didn't dare block his path. They hurriedly parted to make a way for him to pass.
The way everyone looked at him carried all kinds of emotions: greed, fear, worry, but also envy, and even gazes filled with killing intent.
Rover sensed it all thanks to his [Intuition] skill, but he didn't care, because he could tell that everyone here was far weaker than him.
At this moment, he truly felt just how powerful [Intuition] was. Not only could it help him sense everyone's strength, it could also warn him about who harbored hostility toward him, so he could be on guard in advance.
Suddenly, he sensed an icy gaze filled with killing intent, so intense that it made him shiver.
Rover turned his head and looked toward the crowd, but he couldn't pinpoint where that gaze had come from. Moreover, that feeling only lasted for a single second before vanishing, leaving him utterly confused.
He frowned and quickly pushed Morie's wheelchair away.
Millan left with Dokai. Naturally, no one dared to stop them anymore.
Nory walked over to Zac and the other man. The man who hid in the shadows was now sitting on the ground, his body still intact, unharmed.
But Zac was different. He was barely hanging on, his life like a candle in the wind, ready to go out at any moment.
"Carry him back. I can help him," the man said.
Nory nodded. She was about to take Zac with her when she suddenly froze mid-motion, her eyes widening.
She felt her vision suddenly flip upside down. Then she saw her own body, but her body no longer had a head. Fresh blood sprayed from her neck like a fountain, and that man was so terrified his face twisted in horror.
'Hm?! What is this?' A thought flashed through Nory's mind, but she could feel her life slipping away, her consciousness gradually sinking into darkness.
What was even more horrifying was... the man's head fell too, his face still frozen in absolute terror.
In the end... Nory's mind plunged into darkness.
The surrounding crowd was stunned. They couldn't believe what they had just seen.
"What the hell? They... they're dead!"
"I'm not blind either. Why are you shouting so loud?"
"But I didn't see anyone strike."
"Maybe it was that young man from earlier."
"What?! But he left a long time ago!"
"How would I know. Maybe it's his superpower."
"Fuck! Aren't you going to pick up the items from those three?"
"Hahaha... if you want to die, go ahead and pick them up. Even if I'm an idiot, I know there's another terrifying existence here. Those things belong to that being. If you pick them up, then the next one to share the same fate as those three will be you."
"That's terrifying. Killing from this far away... who is that person, really?"
"Let's go, stop asking. We can't stay here long. It's too dangerous."
Everyone quickly dispersed, leaving two headless corpses on the ground. Zac slowly exhaled his final breath, then died as well.
Only after everyone had completely left did a small spider, no bigger than a thumb, appear. It crawled toward the three corpses lying in the middle of a large pool of blood, then began touching each item one by one.
Every time it touched an item left behind by those three corpses, that item immediately vanished, along with three room keys.
After finishing, the tiny spider immediately hung itself on an extremely thin strand of silk, finer than a hair, then climbed up to the ceiling.
It didn't crawl into any room. Instead, it followed the corridor and crawled to a small crack. Using its two front legs, it began pulling away the strands of web sealing that tiny hole, then slipped inside.
The spider crawled for a long while. In the end, it reached a fairly spacious area. No, this wasn't a room. More precisely, it was a cave.
The space inside the cave was lit by stones that looked like crystals, each as large as a tennis ball.
The tiny spider crawled deeper into the cave and saw a gigantic spider ahead. The tiny spider happily climbed onto that spider's back.
At that moment, a feminine voice suddenly sounded out: "Not a bad harvest... and today, I also found an interesting one, hahahaha..."