Volume 2: Embarking on the Journey - Chapter 39: Eliminating Two

Wang Jue stood alone before the hotel's rear entrance, which had been barricaded from the inside. Instead of forcing his way in immediately, he patiently waited for nearly an hour.

"It's time to go in. Those eight members of the Fierce Tiger Squad are probably far away by now."

Wang Jue looked at the battered back door in front of him. Having initially intended to break through it, he hesitated and ultimately decided against it.

Mainly, he did not want the noise generated by breaking the door to alert the two people left behind inside.

With that, Wang Jue shifted his gaze to the shattered window nearby. With a light tap of his foot, he slipped into the hotel as nimble as a swallow.

Once inside, fearing that his footsteps would be too loud and attract attention, Wang Jue moved with extreme lightness on every step.

"It seems they must be upstairs!"

Stepping carefully, Wang Jue advanced up the stairs step by step, not making the slightest sound.

Yet, upon reaching the second floor, his eyes immediately caught sight of a massive Dark-Night Leopard slowly pacing down the corridor, suddenly spotting the human warrior who had appeared right before its eyes!

"Damn it."

Both sides discovered each other almost simultaneously, and Wang Jue was so startled he broke out in a cold sweat.

"Whoosh..."

A streak of dark light flashed across the Dark-Night Leopard's neck almost instantly, leaving the beast with no time to roar before its massive head was cleanly sliced off and sent tumbling down.

The next second.

Wang Jue extended his right hand, and a dagger flew in a circle from a distance, landing right back in his palm.

"Whew, close one, close one."

Wang Jue inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. "That was almost a disaster. Fortunately, the Dark-Night Leopard didn't get the chance to roar; otherwise, if it had alerted the two Blaze Squad members upstairs, the trouble would have been enormous."

Although Wang Jue felt that killing two members of the Blaze Squad would be as simple as slaughtering chickens, two Blaze Squad members on high alert would likely contact the rest of the Fierce Tiger Squad before dying.

If the rest of the Fierce Tiger Squad found out that a human warrior was assassinating them, Wang Jue's subsequent actions would undoubtedly become ten times, dozens of times, or even a hundred times more difficult.

After all, he did not believe his current strength could support him in single-handedly slaughtering the remaining members of the Blaze Squad in front of an Orange-Star Tier and a Yellow-Star Tier powerhouse, and then escaping unscathed.

That would be far too crazy!

Perhaps in the future.

At least for now, Wang Jue did not possess such capability!

"Goodness, they actually chose to settle down on the eighth floor."

Wang Jue quickly arrived at the eighth floor, a trace of a smile involuntarily appearing on his face.

His luck was not bad.

Climbing from the first floor to the eighth floor and only encountering a single Dark-Night Leopard was probably due to the Fierce Tiger Squad having cleared the place out when they first entered.

And that Dark-Night Leopard had likely entered the hotel only recently.

Wang Jue once again softened his footsteps, slowly advancing down the eighth-floor corridor.

"I didn't expect there to be so many rooms in this hotel. Which one are they actually in?"

For a moment, Wang Jue could not determine which specific room corresponded to the window he had observed from outside.

Suddenly, a thought struck Wang Jue, and his eyes lit up. "Why did I become so foolish? From my vantage point, they were on the east side; from their perspective looking out, it would be the west side—meaning the room with the window facing west. If I search from east to west, it should be one of those four or five rooms ahead."

Wang Jue held his breath, his body floating lightly without making a sound as he passed three or four rooms in succession without sensing anyone inside.

He finally stopped outside the very last room, pressing his ear once more against the wall to listen intently.

Sure enough.

Through the door, he could faintly hear the sounds of conversation.

This allowed Wang Jue to instantly determine that those two individuals were inside this exact room.

"I didn't expect them to be in this room."

Wang Jue's spiritual power swiftly swept through the interior of the room, and then he smiled. "Well, look at that. Instead of sleeping, they're sitting there chatting."

...

Meanwhile.

Inside the room where the two members of the Blaze Squad were hiding.

Gangzi was arranging several quilts spread out on the floor, sitting with his back against the wall, while Aze stood by the window, leaning against the wall and polishing the submachine gun in his hands as the two idly chatted.

"Damn it, that Gale Squad is truly cowardly," Gangzi muttered with curses. "After running into us last time, they actually fled straight back to the front lines. No wonder we couldn't track them down no matter how hard we looked these past few days. If my friend on the front lines hadn't sent me a message, we might have wasted quite a bit of time searching for them."

"Heh, they can run on the first day of the month, but can they run on the fifteenth?" Aze sneered. "Since they've forged a blood feud with us, their Gale Squad is destined to die."

"Hah, based on them?" Gangzi scoffed. "Their strength is inferior to ours, their numbers are inferior to ours, and they still want to fight us?"

"Hmm?"

As he spoke, Gangzi's expression shifted slightly, and Aze's expression changed as well.

"Did I imagine it?" Gangzi looked at Aze somewhat doubtfully. "Aze, did you feel anything just now?"

"No, you didn't imagine it." Aze frowned. "I felt a sudden pang of palpitations just now."

Having spent years wandering between life and death, one develops a psychological intuition when encountering danger.

Moreover, the reason they felt it so distinctly was entirely because Wang Jue had swept the area with his spiritual power. When this spiritual telekinesis radiated outward, ordinary people found it very difficult to detect.

Yet formidable warriors would still perceive a trace of it.

With a somewhat solemn look on his face, Gangzi lowered his voice and said, "Do you think a stellar beast from outside might have broken in?"

"Very likely." Aze nodded. "When we first moved in, although we cleared out all the stellar beasts in the entire hotel, so many days have passed; perhaps some new stellar beast pack has entered the hotel. Come on, let's go check it out. If it's a stellar beast, we'll deal with it and then go to sleep."

"Alright." Gangzi immediately stood up from the bedding.

"Clack!"

Aze gripped his submachine gun, while Gangzi held an axe similar in shape to a firefighter's axe but several times larger, and the two walked toward the doorway together.

The door to their room was merely pulled shut, the lock having long since been corroded and broken by time.

Reaching the doorway, Gangzi gave it a gentle pull, and the door creaked open.

Not even the shadow of a stellar beast was visible outside the door.

"Seems like there's no movement." Gangzi and Aze exchanged glances.

"Hiss..." Gangzi took a deep breath. "Let's go, let's check it out together."

Gangzi cautiously prepared to step outside to take a look.

Right at that moment!

"Whoosh!"

A streak of pitch-black light instantly appeared before Gangzi and Aze, flashing across Gangzi's right arm, which was positioned in front, and instantly severing it cleanly.

Having severed Gangzi's arm, the streak of pitch-black light did not lose momentum, instantly slashing across the neck of Aze, who was holding the submachine gun behind him. With a wet squelch, Aze's head sent flying instantly.

The next second.

The streak of pitch-black light returned from whence it came, slashing across Gangzi's throat from behind!

Sensing the arrival of death, Gangzi endured the excruciating pain from his arm, a powerful desire to survive prompting him to jerk his head backward.

Unfortunately, while he narrowly escaped having his head separated from his body, he could not escape having his throat slit.

"Squelch!"

Blood spurted forth.

"Ugh..."

Gangzi's eyes widened, completely unable to utter a sound.

The speed of the pitch-black light was far too fast—so fast that even though Gangzi was only a meter or two away from it, and Aze was only three or four meters away, across such a short distance and moving at a speed even more astonishing than a sniper bullet, how could they possibly have time to dodge?

Perhaps an Orange-Star Tier warrior might have possessed a shred of survivability against such an ambush relying on astonishing physical stats.

As for the two of them, they did not even have a shred of hope!

"Ugh... ahh..." Gangzi wanted to speak, but no sound came out. He wanted to press his communication watch, but his right arm had already been severed, and the watch along with the arm had long since fallen to the ground.

"I'm going to die? No, impossible. How... how could I die?"

Leaning against the door, Gangzi covered his throat with his remaining left hand while blood sprayed wildly from it, clearly feeling his life force draining away. "I... I don't... I don't believe it. How could... how could this happen..."

Suddenly.

A figure appeared in the doorway, clad in warrior combat attire, carrying a long sword on his back, a pair of cold eyes staring straight at him.

"Ugh..." Gangzi's eyes widened into perfect circles, staring in disbelief at the warrior before him!

Wang Jue?!

It was actually that rookie newbie from the Gale Squad whom he had looked down upon the entire time?!

"You can take your leave first. Rest assured, the rest of your Blaze Squad members will soon join you to keep you company."

Wang Jue's somewhat chilling voice rang out. "I guarantee you, that day won't be too far off!"

Gangzi opened his mouth to say something, but his throat had been slashed and his windpipe compromised, making speech utterly impossible. As his life force continually ebbed, his body, leaning against the door, slowly slid down until he sat heavily on the floor, while his vision began to blur into successive waves of blackness.

"Whoosh!"

At that moment, a streak of pitch-black light flew to Wang Jue's side, hovering before him—it was precisely a dagger.

The ink-black dagger hovered in mid-air just like that, before gracefully descending into Wang Jue's extended palm.

"Ugh, ugh!"

Gangzi's eyes bulged as he tried to utter something, but his body shuddered and he collapsed limply to the ground with a heavy thud.

Before his death, he had finally discovered Wang Jue's grand secret, but unfortunately, he was destined never to share this secret with anyone. In a daze, Gangzi seemed to catch a glimpse of the nightmarish future awaiting all his fellow members of the Blaze Squad...

"Drip, drop..."

The only sound remaining in the entire room was the patter of blood dripping onto the floor; no other noise lingered. The two corpses lay and slumped there respectively, while Wang Jue quietly stood by the doorway watching them.

Slaughtering these two caused Wang Jue not the slightest burden in his heart.

It was not because he was accustomed to killing, but because the world of warriors was simply this cruel.

He believed that if their roles were reversed, the members of the Blaze Squad certainly would have struck down their target even more decisively than he had!

"The Blaze Squad had seven members in total; two have now been eliminated by me, leaving five."

Standing aside as he looked upon the dead men, Wang Jue's mind worked at lightning speed. "Calculating the time, those who left will be returning very soon. Once they return and discover that these two have been murdered, they will undoubtedly become vigilant and deduce a great deal!"

"No, I cannot expose myself yet. I must do something."

At this thought, as if a brilliant idea struck him, Wang Jue slapped his forehead with a sharp 'slap,' his eyes brightening. "Heh, I almost walked into a dead end. Why didn't I think of something so simple? As long as I prevent them from discovering that these two fellows were killed by someone, wouldn't that suffice?"

"It seems I need to carefully arrange the scene. As for whether or not I can successfully deceive them, I'll leave that to fate..."