One morning, with frost covering the mutated leaves thickly, Thuong Sinh carried a rattan basket out of the formation's range. He intended to go deeper toward the Western valley, where wild strawberry bushes were in their ripe season—a fruit that both Lam Thanh Moc and Thuong An loved dearly.
He walked leisurely, his feet mobilizing "Phantom Steps" at the gentlest level so as not to disturb the sleeping mutated birds. But just as he crossed a dry creek about two kilometers from home, Thuong Sinh abruptly halted. He stood as motionless as a rock, his entire breath retracted to the absolute maximum.
His spiritual sense had just swept through a dense thicket ahead and encountered very strange life vibrations. It was not the chaotic heartbeat of fierce beasts, but the rhythmic breathing of humans.
"Six men... no, seven."
Thuong Sinh narrowed his eyes; his deep purple pupils flashed slightly. He lunged, transforming into a blurred shadow that flew onto a towering ancient tree branch, hiding behind a layer of broad leaves. Looking down from above, he saw a group of people moving cautiously on the ground.
They wore ash-gray field fatigues with an insignia of a broken steel gear on their shoulders—these were not people from Iron City, nor did they look like the burly bounty hunters typically seen at apocalyptic bases. This group was extremely modernly equipped: pulse rifles, handheld energy detection devices, and notably, the one leading held a compass-like device whose needle was spinning frantically.
"Captain, the pure energy signal just appeared in this area and then vanished again," a soldier whispered through his radio. "It is very similar to the description of 'Life Source 01' that the higher-ups requested us to find."
The captain, a middle-aged man with a long scar running down his face, raised his hand to signal a stop. The captain's gaze swept across the foliage where Thuong Sinh was hiding, but then he frowned and looked down at the device in his hand. He did not sense Thuong Sinh's presence at all; for a high-level ability user specializing in the Sensing-system like him, not seeing anything there meant the place was "empty."
"Damn it, is this machine broken?" The captain cursed, striking the side of the device with his hand. "This energy is nothing like radiation or energy from the cores of those monsters."
The soldier beside him hurriedly adjusted the frequency on the radio: "Report to the Captain, the analysis department at headquarters said this could be a new form of biological matter born from balanced mutation. If collected, its value is enough for us to trade for a permanent resident card on the Top Floor."
Hearing "Top Floor," the eyes of the entire hunter group lit up. In this dusty and deadly apocalyptic world, that was the only paradise.
Thuong Sinh sat on the tree branch, listening to every single word. It turned out that from the perspective of those using technology and abilities, the spiritual energy of the Pure Spirit Grass was defined in such a way. They had no idea what they were facing; they merely regarded his family as a gold mine to be exploited.
"Spread out!" the captain ordered. "Use thermal scanners combined with sonic waves. Anything with an Oxygen concentration higher than normal in this area must be reported immediately. The target could be a rare plant species."
He circulated internal force, but this time he did not project it outward. He used his spiritual sense to control the toxic fungal spores and mutated pollen floating in the air—things this forest never lacked. Under the influence of internal force, these tiny dust particles began to gather, forming a thick mist with high electrical conductivity.
Scritch... scritch...
"Captain! The equipment is malfunctioning! Is there an electromagnetic storm?" a soldier cried out in panic as the radar screen in his hand jumped erratically.
"Stay where you are! Combat mode!" the captain shouted.
Thuong Sinh looked down from above; his silhouette glided as light as a dry leaf falling amidst the forest. He needed to end this before the sun rose high, before Lam Thanh Moc carried Thuong An to the yard to bathe in the sun. He did not want the blood of these greedy people to defile this atmosphere.
He appeared right behind the soldier at the end of the line, making no sound. He only gently placed a hand on the man's neck. A surge of purple-black internal force directly penetrated, destroying the soldier's central nervous system in an instant. The soldier collapsed, but Thuong Sinh's hands were quick to catch his body, laying it down on the carpet of rotted leaves in absolute silence.
One.
Thuong Sinh laid the first soldier's corpse on the rotted leaves gently, his purple-black eyes glancing over the remaining six. The three ability users in the group began to realize the abnormality when their comrade's life signal on the radar screen flickered out.
"No. 7? No. 7 report immediately!" the captain roared over the radio.
There was no answer. Only the sound of wind whistling through the mutated canopy.
"Into formation!" the captain shouted. Immediately, the three ability users erupted with power. One roared, muscles bulging, stiff fur sprouting through his field fatigues, his snout elongating and filling with fangs. Another stomped hard on the ground, causing the surrounding earth and rock to rise into a small wall. The last one held a gun, but green lightning sparks began to dance around his fingertips.
Thuong Sinh stood on the high branch, his gaze icy as he looked at them.
"Phantom Steps"
Thuong Sinh's figure fell from above like a ghost.
He did not reveal himself completely. Those below only saw a long, winding black streak tearing through the mist. The Lightning-system ability user had just intended to launch an electric bolt when he suddenly felt his throat go ice cold. Thuong Sinh glided past him so fast the budding green lightning died out. A thread-like bloodline as thin as hair appeared on the man's neck; he fell clutching his throat, eyes rolling back, not understanding what had just happened.
"Behind! It's behind us!" the beast-form user roared; his sharp sense of smell helped him grasp a bit of Thuong Sinh's breath.
The beast-form man lunged out, his razor-sharp claws slashing at the air. But Thuong Sinh was like smoke; every step he took left a dense black afterimage. The beast-form user frantically clawed at those afterimages, but each time his claws touched, the black shadow dissolved only to reappear in another position.
Thuong Sinh appeared right beside the Earth-control ability user. This man roared, controlling a sharp stone pillar to thrust up from the ground. Thuong Sinh did not dodge; he only gently placed a hand on the tip of the stone pillar, using the momentum to leap into the air. Mid-air, he swung his hand. A surge of Foundation Establishment internal force condensed into a blurred blade that tore through the wind and lunged down.
Puk—!
The Earth-control user did not have time to erect more shielding walls; the internal force blade pierced through his shoulder, pinning him to the ground. Thuong Sinh landed; without waiting for the man to groan, he flicked his finger, and a spark of spiritual power pierced the man's temple.
By now, the beast-form user had gone mad. He turned, seeing his comrades nearly all dead, and concentrated all his power into a life-or-death pounce. Thuong Sinh stood still, hand still resting on the white-cloth-wrapped sword hilt yet not having drawn it. When the monster's fang-filled snout was only a few hand-spans away, Thuong Sinh suddenly vanished.
Slash—!
He appeared behind the beast's back. A punch wrapped in purple-black internal force slammed directly into the beast-form user's spine. The sound of bones shattering rang out dryly. The giant monster slammed hard into the ancient tree trunk, convulsed a few times, then returned to human form and ceased breathing.
All occurred in less than ten seconds.
The captain and the two remaining ordinary soldiers stood rooted to the spot. The pulse rifles in their hands trembled violently. They had hunted dozens of monsters and faced many hunter guilds, but they had never seen anyone kill like a gliding wave—silent and brutal like this.
"You... what kind of freak are you?" the captain stammered, the scar on his face twitching incessantly.
Thuong Sinh slowly stepped out of the dust mist, the afterimages of "Phantom Steps" still lingering dimly around his body like a dark cloak. His purple-black eyes bored into the captain, cold enough to make the man's blood freeze. Thuong Sinh did not answer him, but his footsteps approached faster with every moment. He did not want to leave behind any signal that could transmit information back to their headquarters.
Thuong Sinh did not hurry to finish the remaining three. He advanced, each footstep like treading on the captain's frantically beating heart. A surge of pressure as heavy as Mount Tai crashed down, causing the two ordinary soldiers to immediately drop to their knees, while the captain wheezed like a drowning man.
He lightly waved his hand; a surge of purple-black internal force tightly coiled around the captain's neck, lifting him into the air.
"Speak. Which organization do you belong to? Why are you in this dead zone?" Thuong Sinh's voice was icy, devoid of emotion.
The captain's eyes rolled back, his face turning purple from lack of oxygen and fear. He stammered amidst groans: "We... we are Collection Team No. 4... belonging to the Neos Biological Corporation... Let go... I'll speak..."
Thuong Sinh loosened the surge of internal force, letting the man thud onto the ground. The captain coughed violently, hurriedly confessing everything in hopes of keeping his life: "Headquarters detected an extremely high energy wave emitting from these coordinates yesterday afternoon... It was unlike any mutated specimen ever seen. The scientists call it 'Life Source 01'. If brought back... we would get a ticket to become Top Floor residents..."
Thuong Sinh narrowed his eyes; the intent to kill them all grew even more concentrated.
"Life Source 01?" "You dare to lead troops all the way here based only on a few readings on machines?"
The captain trembled; he felt the pressure around his neck tightening again.
"It wasn't just readings... Yesterday afternoon, a low-orbit satellite of the Neos Corporation scanned this region. It recorded a bright spot with Oxygen concentration and clean spiritual energy exceeding the surrounding environment by over 99%..."
Thuong Sinh was silent; he understood now. It turned out their technology had reached a level capable of scanning vibrations of natural energy. Although he had set up a concealment formation, the trace emitted initially had turned this place into a red dot on their map.
"So, besides you all, who else knows about these coordinates?" Thuong Sinh asked, his voice deepening.
"Only our team was sent..." the captain said while gasping. "If after 12 hours we don't send a report back... they will send a stronger team."
Thuong Sinh's eyes grew even colder. He lightly released his hand; the captain collapsed to the ground, thinking his life had been spared. But at the very moment he intended to scramble up and flee, Thuong Sinh had already turned his back, his hand lightly flicking into the air.
Whoosh—!
Three surges of icy Blade Wind, compressed by him into spiral shapes as thin as dragonfly wings, tore through the mist. There was not a single tragic cry; three corpses collapsed among the leaves, each corpse having a precise cut right in the middle of the neck.
Thuong Sinh walked over slowly, picking up the fabric basket. He did not forget to use internal force to burn away the electronic devices they carried. He nonchalantly picked a few more red wild strawberries and put them in the basket, as if what had just happened never occurred.
When he stepped back into the range of the "Spirit-Hiding Ground-Lurking Formation", the killing intent within Thuong Sinh retracted immediately. Entering the yard, he saw Lam Thanh Moc holding Thuong An standing by the ancient tree. Seeing him return with the basket full of fruit, she smiled.
"You were gone longer than usual today. Anything interesting out there?"
Thuong Sinh reached out his hands to receive Thuong An; the boy, seeing his father return, waved his arms and legs. He turned toward her: "Just ran into some lost wanderers." "I just showed them a shortcut to leave the forest."
Under the porch, the family of three gathered together. Thuong Sinh watched Thuong An excitedly savoring the sweetness of the wild berries; his eyes—already deep—grew even deeper as he silently calculated in his heart.