Chapter 51: Lake  

His excitement was immediately followed by a severe pain in his head. It felt like he was being burned by a hot wire, and he was sweating from the pain of it. Blood was gushing out from his nostrils. It was normal for a human brain to shut down sometimes. Even a machine could break down after being overworked for a long period of time, and avoiding the bullet had tested the limits of Luo Yuan’s brain. He was afraid that it might explode if he had to avoid any more attacks like that.

Bullets were still flying everywhere. Luo Yuan’s forehead was drenched in sweat as he sighed.

"Damn!"

He covered his nose, but blood kept dripping between the gaps of his fingers. It felt like his brain was shaking and turning into glue. He did not feel like he was conscious anymore. Luo Yuan did not know whether those two people were going to die, but he knew he was certainly going to if they kept on firing. His sixth sense was like a double-edged sword. It made his mind stronger, but it was also a burden. And he could not bear that burden in his current physical condition.

He closed his eyes tightly, but he could still sense where the bullets were coming from. He was like a volcano about to erupt and the urge of killing was getting stronger in his mind.

“I can’t wait anymore. Why not take the risk if I’m going to die anyway?”

He took a deep breath and picked up his Zhanmadao before jumping in front of Qian Dakui and his buddies. One of his legs landed on the ground and his body moved forward at a high speed as if he was on a spring. He had already left his rational side behind. He increased his speed, and the wind around him became gradually warmer at the same time that his body was surrounded by a strong energy.

The scene around him seemed to be moving in reverse. If someone had been calculating his speed, they would have realized that it had reached 100 meters in 8 seconds. However, he was in a forest and there were a lot of branches around, not to mention the bumpy ground. Had he been in any other environment, he probably would have been able to go even faster.

“Damn! Someone is coming! He seems very fast!” a young guy with long hair shouted.

“Fire, you idiot! It’s the evolution survivor! Kill him!” a 30 year-old man scolded him. He looked shocked as he quickly placed a bomb inside the mortar.

Boom!

Unfortunately, the mortar was not a gun. Although it was easy to operate, several factors contributed to hitting the target. Only professionals could master it. Usually normal people would just fire before they could even identify the location of their target. The man held the mortar and spun around, firing when he had passed by his target. The bomb exploded somewhere behind Luo Yuan. It had not even burned a hair on Luo Yuan’s head.

The guy with the long hair had used up all the bullets in his rifle. “Quickly, pass me a grenade!” he said as he threw the rifle aside.

“F*ck you! Get one yourself!” the middle-aged man cursed, clearly mad at him. His palm was sweaty as he picked up a grenade and put his finger through the ring.

Luo Yuan was as fast as a ghost. The branches in the forest did not affect his speed anymore. Initially, he had been 100 meters away from the two men, but it had taken just a moment for him to catch up. Now he was a mere 10 meters away from them. His killing instinct felt locked inside that time capsule, making him feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Run!" The thought had crept into his mind and filled his heart. Luo Yuan stared at the young man, who was still looking for the grenade, and thought silently, "Don’t blame me. Blame yourself for being stupid."

The young man had not realized that Luo Yuan was so close. He had taken a grenade out of his bag and was about to stand up. It was very hard for him to breath and his heart felt like it was cramping. He raised his head. Suddenly, his pupils contracted at the same time that his hair was blown back by a strong wind.

"F*ck!”

A green beam flashed and then disappeared. The young man felt like he was flying before he had even managed to finish his word. His vision kept spinning, and he saw blood gushing out like a fountain from a corpse without a head.

Luo Yuan shook his sword out and blood began to drip down its semi-transparent blade. He picked up the rifle the young man had thrown away, plus some bullets. He inserted the bullets into the rifle while he watched the middle-aged man run farther away. He pulled the trigger and fired.

He hit the man on his third shot. The man was wearing a bulletproof jacket though, so he only staggered shortly before he kept running like crazy.

Luo Yuan took a deep breath. A sudden inspiration struck him. When he aimed at his target again, the man’s brain exploded like a watermelon. He continued to run for a few steps before he fell to the ground.

"Beep!"

"After a short period of training, you have mastered the basic gun skill!"

Luo Yuan was stunned. He had only tried using a gun a few times. He’d barely even fired more than twenty shots. He certainly had not expected to master the skill in such a short period of time. He opened up the status panel.

“Knife expertise: 0”

“Guns: 1”

It was a surprise. After all, the men from Hedong City had been just a group of useless bullies. Their bullets had not even gotten near him. The funny thing was, Luo Yuan had almost died because of them. He was starting to get a little arrogant after escaping those bullets. His shooting skills were no better than theirs after all. Anyway, had they been in a different environment, Luo Yuan was confident that he could have made some good shots. He also had the special ability to move at a high speed, which had made it hard for the men to focus. They had been so panicked, they had just fired around randomly.

“Brother Luo, you’re awesome! You killed the two of them by yourself!” Qian Dakui said, walking up behind him a moment later.

They all stopped smiling when Luo Yuan turned around.

“Are you injured?” Yang Dawei asked.

They were so busy fighting that none of them had realized that Luo Yuan was bleeding. They were surprised to see it now. Luo Yuan looked horrible. His face and shirt were drenched in blood which, combined with the fact that he seemed to be struggling to stand still, made them think that he was severely injured.

"It’s nothing, don’t worry." Luo Yuan shook his head. He looked pale, but calm.

Everyone respected him for being able to act so normal while he was injured. None of them could have done the same. Luo Yuan wiped his nose. He was relieved when he realized that he was not bleeding anymore. He found a bottle of mineral water and washed his face. They all watched him, surprised to see his face clean. They were even more stunned to notice a headless corpse lying by the side of the road. Luo Yuan knew what they were looking at but he did not bother to explain. He turned to the corpse that had been attacked by the mutated leeches. It was not moving at all.

Luo Yuan wasn’t sure if the man had been lucky or unlucky that he hadn’t been injured during the battle.“What about this one? Should I kill him?” he asked.

“No!” Yang Dawei rushed to stop him. “It’s no use trying to kill him with a knife. The eggs inside his body must already have hatched. If you kill him, the leeches will come out through the blood flow and we will be in big trouble!"

"What about burning him then? That will burn all the mutated leeches inside his body too," Qian Dakui suggested.

"That’s not a bad idea," Luo Yuan agreed with him.

They made a pile of dried grass and branches and moved the corpse on top of it. However, just as they were about to light the fire, they noticed something strange about the corpse. A long moving object was coming out of the base of the dead man’s neck. There were only two in the beginning, but the body soon became packed with them. They were the size of chopsticks and about an inch in length, and they gradually covered every part of the dead body. Luo Yuan felt extremely uncomfortable looking at them.

“Dawei, hurry up! Light up the grass!” Qian Dakui shouted, looking pale.

Yang Dawei swallowed some saliva and lit up the pile of dried grass. Everyone had thought that the man was dead, however, when the flames got near the corpse, the man opened his eyes and began to struggle. He was too weak and he stopped after a few seconds. His clothes and hair were burning and turning into ashes. His struggling got weaker as his eyeballs became dry and cracked. The mutated leeches that were about to come out, squeezed back into the dead body to escape the high temperature. They could avoid the fire but they could not escape the burning flames that were going to turn the corpse into ashes.

An hour later, Luo Yuan’s stomach still felt upset. He was chopping off a branch when he asked, “How long now?”

Qian Dakui envied his Zhanmadao. He was very curious about the sword. It did not look like gold or jade, but it was very sharp. All it took was one cut for it to take own a whole branch, or even a tree. He had never seen Luo Yuan try to cut the same branch twice.

Qian Dakui looked at his watch and, after estimating the time of arrival, he replied, “We are close. About 30 more minutes to go.”

Luo Yuan looked very excited, but also doubtful. “Do you think it will still be there?” he asked. “It was so long ago. Perhaps somebody else might have taken it.”

“Chances are low. It’s considered a very dangerous place so people hardly ever go there. We came across it by accident. It’s only a small lake, but there are many secondary mutants there, even some tertiary ones. We only took a look and then ran away fast. The feather you’re looking for is just beside the lake.”

Qian Dakui and his friends looked very serious. Tertiary meant blue rank. Luo Yuan knew that blue rank animals were not easy to handle. He was not confident that he could defeat a blue rank animal despite the fact he was more skilled and powerful, and had more sophisticated equipment now compared to when he had killed the guard rank green beetles.