The glow of the team ability, Sacred Healing, began to emanate from Fang Senyan’s body. He immediately set off in pursuit of the miserable Lamb, chasing after the spot where he had fled.

At this point, no tracking abilities were necessary at all.

The path Lamb had taken was marked by the clearest signposts: thick phlegm laden with the A-virus and dark purple blood. Even handprints smeared with pus and gore could be seen in the corners of the walls—traces of Lamb likely covering his mouth to cough before steadying himself against the wall while fleeing.

As a precaution, Fang Senyan usually kept his Virus Monarch Aura active when walking through places like the streets. Anyone infected would effectively enter the incubation period. However, under normal circumstances or for ordinary people, without the trigger of the Sun Ladder, the spores of the A-virus would quickly wither, and those who left Fang Senyan's viral range would naturally recover.

But Fang Senyan was certainly no soft-hearted fellow who spared his enemies!

Therefore, those unlucky souls had already been under the shroud of his viral aura for… eighteen minutes now. This meant they had been in the incubation stage the entire time. Although these individuals appeared outwardly normal, the pathogens reproduced by the A-virus had already deeply permeated their entire bodies.

While these unfortunate people had displayed no symptoms, the internal state of their bodies was akin to a ten-thousand-ton ocean liner that appeared perfectly sound, seemingly capable of full-speed navigation, with the Captain, First Mate, Second Mate, Third Mate, and crew all at their posts. Yet, a red dot from a laser sight was fixed precisely on their foreheads…

Lamb’s stumbling figure appeared ahead. It had to be admitted that his speed was far greater than Fang Senyan’s. If he hadn't been forced to stop frequently to cough and gasp for air, Fang Senyan would never have caught up.

The reason Fang Senyan was pursuing Lamb was that the number of potential targets for culling was higher in this direction. Lamb’s team, along with the people from the Curse-Annihilation Dao, were concentrated in one area, while the other attackers were scattered sporadically.

Crucially, those afflicted with the disease would see their symptoms rapidly alleviate and fully recover if they left the effective range of the Virus Monarch. Therefore, Fang Senyan naturally chose the direction where the population density was higher.

Furthermore, that Curse of Grudge ability posed a significant countermeasure against Fang Senyan. If this power could not be brought under his control, Fang Senyan was determined to destroy it!

“That bastard is actually still alive, cough, cough! I suspect the sudden onset of the disease was his doing,” Lamb’s face was contorted. He gasped violently, his eyes filled with disbelief:

“That bastard is a dual-attribute specialist! And he broke through to become an Awakened during the fight! Even more terrifyingly, I initially estimate his equipment is likely capable of suppressing us completely. A normal Awakened certainly couldn't contend with him. Our team might be able to fight him, but absolutely not after we’ve already endured such a tough battle! Cough, cough, cough, we have no reason to continue fighting, KD. While the reward is good, we need to be alive to claim it!”

KD was also wracked by violent coughing, leaving him unable to reply to Lamb. But at that moment, Purzibila, sprawled across the windowsill, his face flushed with high fever, suddenly widened his eyes and shrieked with all his might:

“Lamb! Lamb! That guy is catching up to hunt you down!”

Because from Purzibila’s vantage point, his vision could only cover the majority of the battlefield. He had seen Fang Senyan toss Bos, and his gaze had been drawn to Bos. By the time he registered the change, Fang Senyan had unintentionally vanished from his line of sight.

What Purzibila never anticipated was that when he next saw the sailor, the man had closed the distance to within a hundred meters of Lamb—it felt like a starving wolf, near death in the winter, stealthily trailing Lamb, fixing its greedy gaze upon his flesh!

“Damn it, why did I use up Chill of Resentment just now! Achoo!!” Purzibila muttered through clenched teeth, but his hands were not idle. He quickly reloaded a thumb-sized, fiery red crystal into his magic crossbow. Strangely, this crystal struggled wildly, even emitting a shriek during the loading process!

Upon hearing Purzibila’s shout, a terrifying chill erupted on Lamb’s spine. He couldn't help but look back, and his hands immediately began to tremble. He suddenly realized that the enemy’s eyes behind him had, in an instant, turned incomparably deep, containing nothing but boundless, terrifying darkness, like a bottomless abyss with an infinite suction force, threatening to draw his very soul in!

This strange phenomenon lasted only a few seconds. Then Lamb noticed the anomaly: his running speed had clearly decreased, while the speed of the pursuer behind him had increased!

This was the effect after Fang Senyan used the Predator’s Eye. Lamb fled another thirty meters, and Fang Senyan closed the distance to less than ten meters. However, at that moment, an intense sense of crisis flooded Fang Senyan’s mind. He abruptly looked upward and saw Purzibila coldly aiming from a distance, along with the magic crossbow shining with a mysteriously magnificent light. He immediately raised both arms, crossing them defensively in front of him.

A piercing, dreadful whoosh of a fireball echoed in the air. A bizarre blue fireball, at least two meters in diameter, shot toward them like a comet! With a deafening boom, it slammed directly into Fang Senyan!

The brilliant blue instantly consumed all of Fang Senyan’s senses. He felt as if he had fallen into lava, struck by a terrible heat that scorched his hair and eyebrows until they curled and blackened. Moreover, the sound of the fireball’s explosion left his ears ringing with a continuous buzz. The sheer explosive force knocked him back five or six meters.

The instantly brilliant, surging blue flames immediately engulfed Fang Senyan like a tidal wave. It was even possible to see faint blue flames winding inward like leeches along the veins on his arm, causing his flesh to sizzle audibly as it burned.

“What powerful force!” Fang Senyan felt a surge of caution:

“If the enemies hadn't already been afflicted by my disease for over ten minutes, and if they hadn't already expended most of their ultimate skills and were currently on cooldown, and considering they are already at their limit, facing this team head-on, I would only have a chance to flee…”

With this thought, a sinister grin spread across Fang Senyan’s face:

“So, if I don’t kill you now, should I wait until you all recover and come back to kill me?… The magic crossbow, very good, very good!! The one that blasted Mogansa into ice dust was your masterpiece, wasn’t it! Now, debts are being paid!”

Within the searing flames, Fang Senyan noticed small black spots appearing on his skin. These spots were inconspicuous when they first materialized but quickly became distinct, revealing themselves to be composed of extremely fine, minute black specks of carbonization.

Soon, these tiny carbonized specks converged and surged across his skin with a tide-like momentum. Acrid blue smoke rose, thick with the smell of charring! Fang Senyan’s health bar plummeted wildly, like water draining from a basin, though the rate of decline remained relatively stable.

“Hmm? So hitting me also causes a degree of paralysis, creating a lingering fiery sea around me?” Fang Senyan immediately prepared to lunge sideways to avoid sustained damage. However, at that very moment, a powerful wave of psychic energy washed over him again.

He suddenly felt his ankles become incredibly heavy, as if a hundred kilograms of weight had been forcibly attached. Immediately following, he felt an intense tightening. Looking down, he realized that rock formations, which had sprouted from nowhere, had pinned him in place, locking his feet like shackles! He was utterly unable to move even slightly.

“This must be some auxiliary magic ability. Too bad that fellow Kurut’s power can’t reach this far, or you’d be dust!” Seeing that he could no longer evade the subsequent damage, Fang Senyan simply wrapped both arms around his head and stubbornly allowed the residual flames to burn over his body.

This was Fang Senyan’s incredibly stubborn method of response—perhaps the only Tank who would dare to gamble his life this way! Witnessing this, Purzibila became even more frustrated, grinding his teeth:

“Damn it, if I hadn’t expended so much mental energy earlier, how could I let you act so presumptuously?”

As he spoke, he coughed violently, then his eyes suddenly lit up as if he remembered something. He immediately pulled out a pearl-like object from his robe and shouted to KD:

“KD, help me!”

KD took a deep breath and poured his mental energy into the ‘pearl’ at top speed. Then Purzibila, gritting his teeth, drew his magic crossbow again!

Clearly, this firing rate was too fast for the magic crossbow. As a result, the hand Purzibila used to draw the bow suffered a gruesome laceration, blood instantly soaking the bowstring—the cost was considerable. But in that instant, he re-aimed at the enemy and shot out another leaping beam of light, truly a miniaturized version of a comet striking the Earth.

But Fang Senyan did not dodge, nor did he assume any defensive posture. He merely looked over with a strange, mocking gaze. The ultimate weapon jointly forged by KD and Purzibila whistled by, utterly missing its mark. It swept past a full five or six meters from Fang Senyan’s head, flashed briefly in the center of a building five or six hundred meters away, and then vanished without a sound.

There was no doubt; seeing Purzibila’s ashen face confirmed he had committed the most common error a marksman makes: he had missed. This was not luck on Fang Senyan’s part, but rather the effect of the A-virus headache evolving into: Hallucination, which gives the enemy a certain probability of experiencing hallucinations, guaranteeing the next attack will be lost.” (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you are welcome to cast recommendation votes and monthly tickets at the novel website… Your support is my greatest motivation.) RQ

For more novels, visit storyread.net.