Su Chen drove his RV along the river. Across the water, a stand of jacaranda trees resembled a green wall stretching from south to north.
He had already swept the area around the South Bridge. Since it served as the outer perimeter of his base for approaching the Mysterious Forest, heading straight for the North Bridge was the wisest move.
He slammed on the accelerator. As the RV sped up, his eyes kept drifting to the right, hoping to spot those two beasts.
’A dog’s nose is incredibly sharp.’
Su Chen’s clothes were stained with blood, and once the fluctuations of his Elemental Rune began to ripple from him, he probably registered as a terrifying bipedal ape to the Demon Dogs.
At that thought, he glanced at the car’s air freshener, but unfortunately, it wasn’t a spray.
’Changing clothes probably wouldn’t do any good, either.’
One thing was certain: in the Mysterious Forest, the Demon Dog species was purely at the bottom of the food chain.
Based on what he’d seen so far, some were starving and skeletal, while others were just corpses left to rot in the woods. Even the Demon Dogs he’d found scavenging near the crystals had been grievously wounded, clearly hunted by other predators.
’Just a pack of pathetic strays.’
As Su Chen reflected on this, he found it no wonder that a species so submissive, one that was barely clinging to life, was so easy for him to chase around.
’I need to get the Flame Burst Rune to level 3 as soon as possible.’
He felt a sense of urgency. To be blunt, you could call it a fear of insufficient firepower.
At the very least, he needed to establish an absolute lethal advantage for when he encountered monsters from a higher tier of the food chain.
’It’d be awesome to have a real gun right now,’ Su Chen mused. He reckoned the situation in Dongfu City hadn’t completely collapsed yet; at least the police force still had an advantage with their firearms. He just worried their numbers were far from enough. Like a fire brigade, they couldn’t possibly contain all the blazes erupting everywhere.
’Of course, who knew how long conventional firepower would even be useful in a Magic World.’
Su Chen’s thoughts snapped back to reality.
In his line of sight, an electric cart and a golf cart sat completely burnt out on the side of the road. The charred remains of two humans lay nearby, emitting a foul stench.
These were fellow humans who hadn’t managed to escape in time.
The area between the North and South Bridges had no on-ramps. The only options were to cut through the wooded hillside or risk jumping into the river. Anyone too slow would have been in grave danger.
Not far off, on the riverbank, stood a public restroom.
An idea struck Su Chen. He hit the brakes and pulled over.
’If any desperate survivors were forced to hide, this building would be the only option.’
Confirming his suspicion, a mess of claw marks covered the ground outside the men’s restroom.
Su Chen got out of the RV, axe in one hand and a red brick in the other.
The moment he heard the sounds of gnawing from inside, he activated his Flame Burst Rune without hesitation, channeling a frenzied, surging Power completely into the red brick.
The sudden surge of Rune Power immediately alerted the creature inside. A panicked Demon Dog crept toward the door, only to be met by a fiery meteor.
WHOOSH!!
The red brick slammed into the Demon Dog’s forehead like a shooting star, the terrifying force of the impact instantly causing its head to burst like a watermelon.
Blood sprayed out, splattering across the floor and walls.
A pair of gray sneakers stepped over the corpse. The other Demon Dog inside was already having a severe stress reaction. Its limbs trembled, and it even lost control of its bladder and bowels on the spot.
But no matter how it trembled and scrambled about, it could not find a second exit.
Fear had stripped it of any will to resist.
After scrambling into a stall on the right, it was struck in the back by an axe. It let out a squeal like a slaughtered pig, but a second swing of the axe fell upon its head, silencing it for good.
Su Chen expressionlessly wiped a drop of warm blood from his neck. Hooking his axe into the Demon Dog, he dragged it out of the stall.
As he walked from the right side to the left, he dragged a straight line of blood across the floor.
In the innermost stall on the left, the metal door was scorched black and warped. The couple who had been hiding inside were like fish in a barrel.
The two Demon Dogs that had chased them here couldn’t break down the metal door, nor did they possess a cat’s agility to jump over it. So after burning the people inside to death, they had resorted to clawing through the gap under the door to feed on them.
Su Chen stood in silence. Having seen so much, he was growing numb.
According to a friend’s assessment, he possessed a superpower-level of emotional detachment.
In truth, he hadn’t cared about public affairs for years and was seldom emotionally disturbed by the outside world.
Sometimes, he would feel detached from the world, only to suddenly recall his own name and life experiences, bringing with it a sense of dislocation, like logging into an account.
Only when doing extreme sports could he feel a strong sense of his own existence.
If a pop-up window were to ever appear asking, ’Do you want to know the true meaning of life?’, he would choose ’Yes’ without a moment’s hesitation.
With the world changing so drastically, you could say that Su Chen had found a long-lost excitement. His mind grew more focused than ever before. He inwardly relished such a challenge and craved more Power.
And with the connection to his ancestral Jade Pendant, it made him feel all the more that he had come to the right place.
’But he wouldn’t force this attitude toward life onto others. Everyone else was innocent, their lives stolen by this abominable new world.’
’If some god is manipulating all of this, then we have a blood feud.’
"Rest in peace."
Su Chen turned to leave, having collected a Fire Element essence from each of the two Demon Dog corpses.
After this latest haul...
Upgrade Requirement: 5/6 Fire Element Essences.
After all that hunting, he was just one essence away.
After leaving the public restroom, he tried to find the two Demon Dogs that had fled, but the pair were utter cowards. Perhaps startled even further by the death cries from the restroom, they had already fled past the North Bridge and scurried back into the forest.
An SUV was crashed against a bridge pier. The driver’s seat was empty, but a dead Demon Dog lay crushed beneath the front left wheel.
Su Chen pictured the scene in his head. Clearly, some brave soul had slammed on the accelerator and used the Demon Dog as a speed bump.
The Fire Element essence it should have dropped was gone. It had either been picked up by the driver or absorbed by another of its kind.
Speaking of which, after the Jade Pendant on his chest had absorbed the energy from the eerie green crystal, it stopped reacting to any of the essences he collected.
He pulled it out from under his shirt to take a look. The imperial-green patterns on its surface had grown even more profound and complex, as if it were still brewing some kind of special change.
’I’ll just have to wait and see.’
Su Chen glanced back toward the South Bridge. Peering into the distance, he didn’t see any Demon Dogs crossing it.
Perhaps the trail of their own kind’s corpses leading to the bridge had caused a panic. Given their nature—fierce in appearance but cowardly at heart—they were likely too scared to approach.
’No more mobs to grind.’
Su Chen turned his gaze to the river, trying to find any floating Water Element essences, but a full scan of the surface came up empty.
’Guess I’ll have to head back for now.’
He finally returned to the RV. Following the shouts coming from up the slope, he drove up the on-ramp and back toward the public campground.
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