Chapter 169#

The Hunt 20#

It wasn’t an illusion.

When Anfi came downstairs and his fingers naturally rested on Yu Feichen’s forearm instead of the closer staircase railing, Yu Feichen confirmed that Anfi’s current attitude toward using him had become more practiced and more a matter of course.

This change had fully taken place at the moment Yu Feichen said the words “I never left” to Anfi. After waking up, the slight, sharp coldness on Anfi’s body had vanished, and he no longer felt offended by intimate gestures.

He no longer emphasized his sovereignty over his possession, because he had already confirmed that he owned the thing completely.

To this, Yu Feichen seemed to have no objection.

The circus was not at peace. Before they had even reached the ground floor, they heard the sound of intense fighting coming from outside. The sounds of combat were mixed with the activation of props, the clashing of blades, and the roar of burning flames.

The stairwell was steep and dim, overgrown with damp moss. The circus was not built of brick or stone, but mostly of a strange kind of wood; the outside sounds filtered through, echoing layer upon layer within the building’s walls, sounding particularly eerie.

“Are they always in this much danger?” Anfi asked. “You should have come out earlier.”

Yu Feichen had always maintained a calm and breezy demeanor; Anfi had assumed everything was going smoothly outside and required no attention, only to realize now that this didn’t seem to be the case.

Yu Feichen identified the sounds, his voice certain: “It’s not late.”

At that moment, they passed a large terrace. They saw the scene outside.

The blue light of a Gatling gun pulsed continuously, strafing the streets outside; the massive noise set the tone for the chaos.

A rain of arrows shot into the circus walls like meteors from a building across the street, and three or four places were on fire. Reflections from sniper scopes flashed in distant large buildings, and the sound of gunfire rang out continuously throughout the circus.

And those were just the distant threats. Up close—

A dozen or so “prey” who met the criteria were guarding the circus’s “Beast-Mouth” main gate, with Windsor and Bai Song mixed among them. That spot was a blind spot for machine-gun fire, and they were engaged in a fierce clash with dozens of hunters surging from outside the gate.

On the other side, the Goddess of Fate stood high on a tightrope, dealing alone with attacks from the air; her predicted uses of the Threads of Fate were nearly exhausted.

After the previous night, the prey who had escaped to the circus had posted on the blackboard, proving that this sanctuary truly existed and was not some sinister trap.

Consequently, more and more prey wanted to come to the circus.

And so, even more hunters wanted to come to the circus.

There was no need to traverse the city searching; the circus was the largest target. Not only were there many prey inside, but many more were on their way—thus, nearly half the guests in the City of Mists were slowly converging toward the circus.

Not counting the hunters lurking in various places, there were about two hundred visible around the circus right now.

The two mental patients had long since giggled and slipped into the surrounding streets. They were elusive and ignored commands. Wherever they went, hair-raising wails often drifted back; it was unknown what those who encountered the two of them actually experienced.

Shina’s roar drifted from afar on the wind.

“Vincent—!!!”

“You motherf—! You don’t fight—you don’t sleep—you spent the whole night drawing cards—”

“Can’t you at least draw a card to see if we can hold out right now?”

Murphy looked up from his cards, casually picked one from those scattered on the ground, flipped it to the front, and said listlessly, “We will remain safe.”

“Really? I don’t believe it,” Shina said.

Murphy drew another: “The danger is to the south.”

Shina’s cannon barrel slowly shifted toward the south, guarding against potential enemies. However, before she could even aim at the southern street entrance, a gap appeared in the western defenses, and Shina decisively turned back to the west.

Murphy activated a prop, climbed down from the high platform, and headed straight for the south.

—When even Murphy, who specialized in painting and fortune-telling, had to go out to face the enemy, it was clear how dire the situation was.

Only the Goddess of Fate remained on the high point to support the defense, and the sound of screams coming from somewhere added to the chaotic scene.

The atmosphere of danger was on a hair-trigger; at this moment, if a breach appeared anywhere, the place would fall.

“Is this what you meant by ’not late’?” Anfi scanned the surroundings and said tonelessly.

Yu Feichen also saw the scene below and said, “Not late.”

Anfi: “?”

“I have experience.” Yu Feichen led Anfi away from a position where he might be seen from outside, stood on the terrace himself, and said, “Wait for me here.”

Anfi nodded slowly.

In an instant, black demon wings unfurled behind Yu Feichen, blocking the sunlight in front of Anfi. Chains clanked with his movement, and Yu Feichen took off in one direction.

Anfi had slept for a long time, but Yu had not; he was very clear on the situation outside—at the moment he took flight, he gave serious thought to Anfi’s questioning expression from just now and confirmed he was right. It truly wasn’t late; he had seen this kind of situation many times.

After using a heavy machine gun to “deliver” others for a long time, Shina’s hands were numb from the vibration. Just as a new wave of hunters appeared from all directions and she anxiously turned her gun barrel toward another direction, her peripheral vision suddenly caught a black shadow rising into the sky from the main building.

Thinking of who this long-overdue black shadow might be, she looked numbly at the miserable scene of the circus, which was a mess of jumping chickens and flying dogs.

At that moment, Shina suddenly remembered a saying that circulated in the Paradise:

“If God Yu is carrying, just don’t die.”

Southern street entrance.

A burly man with a hulking physique appeared at the corner of the nearest alley. The setting sun cast a massive shadow of him onto the ground. His muscles were knotted, and his total width was nearly the same as the width of the alley entrance. On his shoulder, however, he carried a pitch-black heavy sphere that was a full size larger than himself. The sphere was covered in chilling spikes and was held by a heavy chain. Its material was indistinguishable, but with every step the brute took, small cracks appeared in the road beneath his feet.

There were certainly defensive props in the City of Mists, but the defense of props also had its limits.

Under this kind of heavy killing machine, a human body was as vulnerable as a lump of play-dough. Of course, facing it, the circus walls might also be in great danger.

The brute looked up at the circus nearby.

The fact that a few dozen struggling prey could defend until now was practically a miracle. Those laying siege were just a useless rabble.

Then let him be the one to end this ridiculous sanctuary.

As the brute lifted his leg, a slender, thin figure slowly walked toward him from the opposite side.

The newcomer’s face was slightly pale, with long chestnut hair draped over his shoulders. One of his eyes was blind, the eyeball a pure grayish-white. He looked very weak at first glance, yet he carried an unspeakable aura of mystery that forced one to treat him with caution—especially since this person held a stack of cards with cryptic patterns in his hand.

Just as the brute was sizing this person up, the man drew a card, looked at the face, and turned his gaze toward him: “You come from a primitive world where the winner takes all.”

The second card.

“The most recent person you killed was a young girl.”

The brute’s gaze gradually darkened as he tightened his grip on the iron chain of the heavy sphere. He said to the mysterious man before him, “What are you trying to do?”

The third card.

“Watch your right ear; it will be the source of your calamity.”

The muscle-knotted chest let out a roar: “Get lost!”

Murphy lowered his eyes expressionlessly, pinched a fourth card between two fingers, lightly pressed the edge of the card against his lips, and made a “shh” gesture.

Then he flipped over the fourth card.

“The last injury you suffered was to your left waist.”

The brute’s left arm subconsciously moved toward his left waist.

“I have no ill will; I’ve simply used up all my available offensive props and need to find a powerful companion,” Murphy said. “There is an unknown danger hidden in the circus; those who break in will encounter misfortune. If you are willing to cooperate with me, my cards will tell you what to do.”

The evening wind blew at just the right moment, fluttering his long hair, making even that grayish-white blind eye seem exceptionally mysterious and desolate.

During the Hunt, it was common for hunters to pair up with other hunters.

The brute stared intently at Murphy, opening his mouth to say “Alright.”

But a bizarre intuition surged straight to his brain, making him shudder violently as if doused in cold water. A feeling of dead silence and ghostly horror enveloped him from the right in an instant.

Just now, this charlatan had mentioned his left waist, and all his attention had been on his left side; only now did he realize with shock that his right side—and above him—had already been shrouded in shadow. And at this very moment, a narrow, long, cold-sunken blade pierced into his right ear. Like a ghost, it pierced through the gaps in his skull at a cunning angle, angling upward to bore through his entire brain.

The blade gently rotated and churned.

Human life was often fragile like this, no matter how massive or strong the body.

The brute collapsed downward like a crumbling mountain. The pitch-black heavy sphere crushed his chest and then smashed a deep pit into the ground, with cracks spreading in all directions.

Murphy: “…”

He stared straight at the person who had suddenly appeared and stolen his enemy, saying through gritted teeth, “Yu Feichen.”

Yu Feichen looked at the corpse on the ground. He hated these types of massive people; they had few vital points that could be hit in a single strike. Someone like Murphy, by contrast, would die from a single stab without spilling many drops of blood; it was much cleaner.

He didn’t pull back the knife stained with brains.

On the contrary, he was quite interested in that heavy sphere.

“Take it back to the circus,” Yu Feichen said.

Murphy: “Why don’t you take it? I still have to go to other places to deal with enemies.”

Yu Feichen felt compelled to ask a blunt question: “Can you actually fight?”

Murphy: “?”

He said, “Didn’t you see what I was doing just now?”

Yu Feichen: “I only heard you talking.”

In the next second, his wings unfurled, and Yu Feichen left the spot, heading toward the northwest.

Murphy felt a sense of humiliation.

To the northwest, in a dilapidated two-story building. Two people were facing the window, aiming at the circus. Their weapon was a large magic crossbow. The tips of the arrows burned with a raging fire.

“Good stuff—this has a much longer range than a Gatling,” one of them chuckled.

“But what’s the point of us staying here for long-range attacks? Even if we burn the circus down, the prey will belong to those guys in front.”

“If we can’t kill the prey, we can at least make things difficult for them. Anyway, I just can’t stand the sight of those idiot prey huddling together. Wouldn’t it be better to just be killed obediently?” The man’s eyes were full of sinister laughter.

The cooldown ended. The two began loading the bolts, drawing the bowstring with strength. Countless long arrows burning with fire were about to fly toward the circus, creating a grand meteor fire shower over the grounds.

“Tremble, prey.”

At that very moment.

The heads of the two men were suddenly slammed toward each other by a massive force.

With a dull thud, their heads collided heavily, and both lost consciousness simultaneously.

Yu Feichen let go, and the two bodies slumped over their magic crossbow.

Before leaving, Yu Feichen left a mark on the window. If Murphy finished cleaning up that black heavy sphere, it would be easy for him to find this sign and drag this heavy crossbow back as well.

Bringing back effective props—wasn’t that much more efficient than fooling people?

On the high platform, Shina suddenly noticed that the pressure coming from all directions was gradually diminishing.

Occasionally, a black shadow would streak across the sky above the circus and drop one or two panicked prey. According to them, they were all suddenly hoisted up while being chased and found themselves here in the blink of an eye.

Shina let out a sigh.

“Is something troubling you? Aren’t things improving?” the Doctor asked.

Compared to the two crazy patients, the Doctor was practically the only normal person left in the world. Perhaps doctors who treated mental illness possessed a magic that made people speak the truth; Shina couldn’t help but voice her real concern: “I’m worried that after he gets out of here, he’ll come to me for his wages. Sigh, our company is really poor. I’m tempted to strip the floorboards to sell them.”

The Doctor gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder and said, “There isn’t really a good treatment for that kind of situation.”