After indulging his cigarette, the man let out a sigh of deep contentment, then turned and spotted Fang Senyan. He rose without even bothering to put on his oxygen mask and walked toward him.

When he’d first removed the mask, Fang Senyan had gotten a clear look at the fellow: a bald man with a menacing face, bisected by a dark red scar that slashed from his left forehead straight down to his left lip. Though the wound had long since healed, the thick, raised texture of the puckered flesh still suggested the sheer brutality of the strike that had inflicted it.

It was obvious that under such a vicious blow, his left eye should not have survived intact. The entire globe of the eye must have been swept away in the arc of the blade, dark, white, and red matter spilling out in a torrent. Yet, his left eye now glittered with sharp intelligence, clearly restored by the Nightmare Space. The bald man with the scar regarded Fang Senyan, sizing him up, though his tone was surprisingly mild, lacking any sense of arrogant entitlement:

“Hey there, brother, what’s your business? This North Exit has been reserved by our Illumination Society.”

“Illumination Society…!!” The three words flashed through Fang Senyan’s mind instantly. He immediately recalled the intelligence Reef had provided earlier:

“…….That was the second clash between my team and their Illumination Society!”

“Damn it, that means the Bowen I killed in Pirates of the Caribbean must have been one of these people.”

“One of them even threatened to take my skull as a collector’s item.”

“The core of this team seems to be a woman named Zi! She specializes in wielding the Force from Star Wars!”

“This team clearly possesses a highly unified structure, very strict rules, and even uses a co-chair meeting format to decide team actions, much like the Banks Gang we encountered before…”

This cascade of information swept through Fang Senyan’s mind. He knew this world was a Free World; while killing incurred Slaughter Points, it could also yield benefits. If these people identified him as Contractor 1018, they would certainly be eager to eliminate him permanently, all hands on deck.

At his current level, Fang Senyan was far from capable of fighting dozens single-handedly, so under the current circumstances, it was best for him to slip away quickly. However, Fang Senyan’s Perception stat was a solid 28, making it extremely difficult for others to impose perceptual suppression on him.

Coupled with the “Rass Pulse Disruptor” built into his helmet, which could interfere with enemy detection and possessed priority screening, the chance of his identity as Contractor 1018 being exposed was slim unless he ran into a reserve Colonist. Even if he did meet a reserve Colonist, considering the world had just begun, no one would be foolish enough to unleash their ultimate ability immediately, as that power could only be used four times before hitting the limit.

Though all these thoughts raced through Fang Senyan’s mind, to an outside observer, he merely paused for a moment—a normal reaction upon encountering a stranger, causing no alarm. Facing the bald, scarred man’s inquiry, he smiled calmly, neither subservient nor overbearing:

“I’m a sailor, good evening—I’m guessing your team needs some extra assistance, perhaps a free, powerful buff?”

The bald, scarred man suddenly burst into loud laughter, turning toward a thin, pale man wearing black mage robes and holding a staff:

“Ah ha, dear Mord, and lovely Freya, someone’s come to steal your business.”

As a cohesive and powerful team, the Illumination Society naturally cultivated its own support professionals. The death-servant Mord was one such member. The right hand of his mage robes always featured a patch of necrotic scar tissue. The ability he studied was called Rotting Curse; when cast on an enemy, it reduced their Physical and Magical Defense by 10% while inflicting a persistent stinging damage.

But when he cast the curse upon himself, it caused explosive fluctuations in his spiritual power, drawing up dissipated necrotic energy from the ground to surround them, granting all allied attacks an extra burst of dark energy damage, supplementing the original strike by 6%–10%. Since dark energy was elemental damage, and only specific creatures possessed resistance to dark elements, the actual damage amplification to his allies typically fluctuated between 12%–13%.

Freya, meanwhile, was a sniper. She shared a similar functional overlap with Fang Senyan. Strictly speaking, Freya's raw damage output was significantly lower than the previous dead man, Joel, but she had received the favor of fortune, acquiring a Tier Four talent tree skill that had been upgraded to Tier Three.

This talent tree ability was called Precision: For Freya while in combat, every additional two seconds spent aiming at the same target increased her hit rate by 3% and her critical hit rate by 2%, stacking up to a maximum cumulative critical hit bonus of 20%.

For allies near Freya, every successful hit she landed generated an area-of-effect shockwave, boosting the hit rate and critical hit rate of affected allies by 1% each. This effect could not currently be stacked.

These two contractors were typical examples of those who could both fight and serve as backup support, and they promised to be quite formidable as they matured. For the time being, the Symbiosis Society was quite satisfied with them.

Why did the bald, scarred man suddenly mention “stealing business”? It was due to the rules of the space: Since Fang Senyan was not a member of their team, if the Symbiosis Society accepted a beneficial status effect from him, the space would automatically prioritize assigning the resulting battlefield contribution points to him, meaning Mord and Freya within the team would not receive them.

To put it plainly: Beneficial effects can coexist, but the rewards can only go to one party.

This was essentially a protective measure implemented by the space. Compared to lone individuals, teams were inherently the stronger party. The purpose of this design was twofold: first, to safeguard the interests of weaker individuals, and second, to encourage teams to actively recruit support-class talent.

Mord and Freya were both individuals with high self-regard. After hearing the scarred big man’s comment, neither of them responded. One refused to take his eye off the scope, seemingly ignoring Fang Senyan entirely; the other gloomily examined his staff, as if it were not an arcane focus but a naked beauty. Their disdain for Fang Senyan was palpable.

However, a burly man with shaggy hair and unnaturally long arms snorted derisively through his nostrils and waved a hand dismissively:

“Akfeel, why the long monologue? Just tell him to scram already. Last world, I met some fool who boasted endlessly about his support skills, ended up offering some pathetic +3% health recovery garbage! We have our own incredibly powerful primary support members; there’s no room for you.”

Fang Senyan raised an eyelid, feeling a stir of recognition. This man’s voice sounded familiar, perhaps the same one who had vowed to take his skull as a trophy. The big man sat casually on the grassy slope, beside him rested a massive blade wreathed in black light. The blade itself was dull, yet it intermittently emitted wisps of dark vapor, much like water boiling in a pot.

“Sabre, I truly should have let that Viper Wolf tear your damned mouth apart just now!” the bald, scarred man, Akfeel, laughed and cursed. He then turned back to Fang Senyan, shrugging his shoulders:

“My apologies, brother, looks like you’ll have to find work elsewhere.”

Fang Senyan noted that Akfeel appeared to be the leader of the Symbiosis Society, the 'M' man. He hadn't worn an oxygen mask since he started smoking, and after at least two minutes, he remained perfectly vigorous and unaffected. Furthermore, no one else seemed surprised.

This strongly suggested that his resistance to abnormal status effects had reached a terrifying level. Either he possessed something monstrous like "Giant's Resolve," or his talents were exceptionally powerful! Any contractor specializing in magical offense would likely find him an incredibly troublesome opponent.

Hearing Akfeel issue the eviction notice, Fang Senyan had been wishing for those words for a long time. Guilt-ridden, he was about to turn and leave. But at that exact instant, his pupils constricted sharply. A powerful threat radiated down from high above. His Perception, far exceeding everyone else’s, was signaling an alarm a fraction of a second prematurely!

Fang Senyan immediately looked up and saw seven or eight small dots suddenly burst forth from the funnel-shaped white clouds above, even stirring a few wisps of cloud-like fluff. In only five or six seconds, they were hurtling down with a gale and an indescribably eerie cry, plunging toward the ground!

At first glance, these uninvited guests resembled Earth's pterosaurs, but their skin was scaled like a lizard’s. Their broad, flat wings possessed semi-transparent membranes, allowing them to fly using the membranes stretched over their skeletal structures. They possessed the bulkiness of a bat combined with the lazy grace of a ray gliding through the ocean. Most striking were their mouths: their lower jaws projected forward by at least seven or eight centimeters, filled with rows of sharp, pointed teeth.

These flying monstrosities varied in size; as they drew closer, one could see an adult spanning twelve meters across the wings! Even the smallest had a wingspan of seven or eight meters. These were the Stingwing Wyverns (also known as Banshee Wyverns) of Pandora. Their name derived from their signature shriek, which resembled the mournful wail of the bean-sí—the death omen banshee of Irish legend.