Qianye silently leapt onto the rooftop, his pupils suddenly tinted with a layer of blood red as he scanned the surroundings.
In the silent town, a wolf’s howl echoed, and soon, a massive werewolf appeared from afar, charging swiftly towards where Qianye had stood. However, Qianye had already vanished into the night. The werewolf stood where Qianye had been, growling in confusion.
More werewolves appeared, followed by a spider demon climbing onto the roof. This arachnid was half the size of the roof, and the wooden house beneath it groaned under its weight, threatening to collapse. Inside, panicked cries erupted, and a man and a woman hurriedly ran out.
A werewolf growled and pounced onto the street, pinning the woman down and opening its mouth wide.
At that moment, a deep voice came from the side, “If you take a bite, I can’t guarantee that my gun won’t go off.”
The werewolf raised its head, its greedy eyes fixating on a middle-aged man who had appeared before him. The man had an ordinary face, with a long scar being the only distinguishing feature.
The werewolf snarled threateningly, but the middle-aged man remained unperturbed, gradually applying more pressure to the trigger. In his hand was a third-level origin gun, with a large, obviously modified barrel, indicating its dangerous firepower.
Another werewolf approached, pulling its companion off the woman, then turned to the middle-aged man, “Commander Zhou, are you going back on this deal?”
Commander Zhou calmly replied, “The deal did not include the lives of my men. You promised that last night’s incident would not happen again. Or can’t you control your own people?”
The werewolf leader roared in anger, “You’re insulting the valiant Bente! If I want to, I can raze this broken place to the ground!”
Commander Zhou remained unfazed, sneering, “You can try. Although I and my men will die here, I can also assure you that no more than a third of your people will survive. And you, valiant Bente, after screwing up a decade-long trade route, do you think your clan will see you as a hero or a fool?”
Bente, enraged, growled incessantly, but he was not truly insane. He knew Commander Zhou’s words were not exaggerated and dared not attack.
The spider demon also leapt down from the roof, saying, “We are here to complete the transaction, not to ruin it. Bente, why did your subordinate suddenly start howling?”
Bente turned to the first werewolf, who said, “I just smelled the stench of a vampire!”
Bente immediately glared at Commander Zhou, growling, “You still have vampires here?”
Commander Zhou coldly retorted, “Are you really looking for trouble? When you moved in, you checked every corner. If there were vampires here, would you only find them now?”
The spider demon shook its head, “Bente, control your subordinates! That’s a lousy excuse! Even if there were vampires here, you can’t do anything. So, put away your empty threats. We need rest. Also, this shipment includes something specifically requested by Duke Luos. If you mess up this deal, that ill-tempered lord will twist your head off!”
The werewolves reluctantly roared and slowly retreated. Commander Zhou sighed and turned to leave.
Not far away, Qianye quietly watched the farce. He turned and walked into a narrow alley, heading to the other side of the town.
Earlier, under the golden blood force’s sweep, Qianye detected a large number of human blood responses in that direction, with a density exceeding normal residences, amounting to several hundred. However, the blood responses were weak.
Qianye vaguely guessed a possibility.
He quickened his pace, arriving at a strange camp. At first glance, the structure looked like a barracks, heavily guarded with several sword spiders lying around the gates. The walls were as high as the town’s. Qianye chose a blind spot and climbed up, peering inside.
Inside the camp, rows of longhouses were built, with all windows nailed shut. Several pack wolves lay at the entrances. Two werewolves stood in the center, muttering to each other.
Qianye instantly understood the purpose of the camp: a slave camp, holding a large number of slaves. Each longhouse could hold over a hundred humans, and the dense, weak blood responses were coming from there. At its peak, this camp could hold nearly a thousand slaves, an astonishing number.
Now, the commodity of this transaction was clear: live humans.
Qianye had heard from Yu Renyan that Wu Zhengnan also traded humans with the dark races. But this was the first time Qianye saw it in reality. These people, once delivered to the dark race’s territory, would either become food or laborers and breeding machines.
This transaction might include other items, but the humans were clearly the main commodity.
Qianye quietly left the town, finding a temporary hiding spot in the wilderness where he could observe the town gate. He wrapped himself in a cloak, closed his eyes, and recalled the terrain and the distribution of the town’s defenses and various forces.
The spider demon leader was a level seven, accompanied by three level five spider demons and werewolves, with the rest below level five. This team was formidable, but Qianye was not new to fighting dark race patrols. With enough distance and terrain advantage, he could eliminate them.
After two mental simulations, Qianye selected a few ambush spots and began to rest.
At dawn, the town gate opened, and a convoy drove out, heading north. The cargo trucks’ compartments were modified, revealing shadowy figures through the iron bars. Qianye’s guess was correct; these were slave transports. The trucks were surprisingly advanced, almost comparable to the Imperial main army’s equipment.
Seeing the convoy, Qianye gained a new understanding of the transaction’s value. Dark races usually made slaves walk, rarely using vehicles. Their warriors, adept at outdoor movement, disliked the bumpy, smelly “metal cans.”
However, this time, all the captured humans were transported by truck, indicating the dark races’ high regard for this batch, unwilling to lose even one person en route.
This further resolved Qianye not to let the dark races have them!
The convoy continued its slow journey on the rugged terrain, while Qianye sprinted across the wilderness, soon reaching the chosen ambush site. It was a valley filled with towering stone pillars, with a rough, barely passable road.
The valley reeked faintly, dead silent, with no signs of life. Qianye concluded this was the dark races’ inevitable path. In the valley, he detected a clear residual scent of spider demons. Where they passed, small creatures and insects faced disaster. This route was likely both their entrance and exit.
This area was close to the dark races’ domain, but they lacked the concept of road construction. High-ranking dark races, however, developed advanced civilizations with magnificent structures, even surpassing the Great Qin Empire’s projects. The upper and lower dark races lived in different eras.
Qianye chose a hiding spot, set some traps, and waited for the convoy.
About an hour later, the roar of engines filled the valley, and a truck appeared in Qianye’s view. A werewolf drove, with two spider demons sprawled in the back. Their massive bodies couldn’t fit entirely, so some legs hung outside. Sword spiders and pack wolves patrolled the sides, preferring to run alongside the convoy rather than be crammed into metal cans.
Qianye raised his Eagle Strike, locking onto a spider demon with the Four Symbols scope. This one, with a white stripe on its belly, was the leader, the only level seven, and eliminating it would be half the victory.
The leading truck suddenly spewed black smoke and stopped. The werewolf grew restless, and others jumped out, growling and looking around.
“Bente! What now?” the spider demon shouted impatiently.
The tall werewolf roared, “Smell of bloodsuckers, fresh! You know there shouldn’t be any here!”
The spider demon, wary, said, “Wait, I’ll check.” It struggled to extricate its swollen abdomen from the truck.
That action cost it its life.
A crimson light flickered in the distance. The spider demon sensed danger, screaming, and slashed with its limbs, tearing open the truck. This injured the other spider demon, a level five, severely, rendering it combat-incompetent.
But the first spider demon fared no better. Its compound eyes clearly saw the incoming origin bullet, which was not just glowing, but surrounded by swirling light bands. This indicated a disturbance in the surrounding energy, the more brilliant, the more terrifying the power.
The spider demon’s abdomen burst into a blood mist, and its huge body was thrown into the air.
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