Volume Two: Setting Out on the Journey Chapter 40: Wang Jue's Generous Gift

Having made up his mind, Wang Jue didn't waste a word. He spun around, headed straight for the stairwell, and dashed downward. With a few agile leaps down the stairs, he went from the eighth floor to the ground floor in the blink of an eye, then made his way to the hotel's back door.

Seeing that the back door was completely blocked off, Wang Jue gave up the idea of forcing it open. After a brief moment of thought, he decided to exit directly through the front door of the hotel.

"Hmm?"

Stepping outside, Wang Jue cast a glance around the surroundings.

"This is troublesome. It doesn't look like there are any large-scale star beast packs nearby!"

Frowning, Wang Jue stood at the entrance of the hotel. A quick glance revealed only a scattered handful of star beasts in the vicinity. However, this pitiful number fell far short of what his plan required.

After all, his goal was to make the other eight members of the Fierce Tiger Team, who were soon to return, believe that Gangzi and Aze had been killed by star beasts.

Even though the local star beasts were scarce, Wang Jue had clearly no intention of giving up.

Without delay.

Dropping his previous caution, Wang Jue bolted outward along the street in front of the hotel in a high-profile manner.

After sprinting breathlessly through two or three blocks, he finally spotted a large pack of multi-armed apes not far away. There were at least a thousand of them in the group. Among them were thirty or forty six-armed apes, and even a couple of eight-armed ones.

Multi-armed apes were pack-dwelling star beasts. Generally, two-armed apes were tier-one star beasts, four-armed ones were tier-two, six-armed ones were tier-three, and eight-armed ones reached tier-four!

On the outskirts of a ruined city, a tier-four star beast was an absolute entity not to be provoked!

An ordinary Red Star Realm martial artist would have run away in a panic upon encountering such a force, but a faint smile crept onto Wang Jue's face instead.

"Wonderful, they'll do."

Wang Jue had no intention of concealing himself and rapidly closed the distance.

"Roar..."

Many of the multi-armed apes locked their gazes onto the human martial artist who had suddenly appeared.

"Roar!"

An angry roar echoed from within the pack of multi-armed apes—it was the alpha of the tribe!

Instantly, the entire pack of multi-armed apes set their massive legs into motion and charged frantically toward Wang Jue.

"Rumble..."

For a moment, the ground of the entire street began to tremble.

Just imagine.

What it looked like when over a thousand giant apes, ranging from three meters to seven or eight meters tall, charged forward!

"Damn it all, I was planning to kill one or two first just to draw their aggro, but they came after me en masse before I even got close." Wang Jue immediately spun around and bolted back toward the hotel.

"Rumble..."

Fortunately, the street was relatively wide, just wide enough for five six-armed apes to run abreast at the front.

Even while fleeing, Wang Jue certainly didn't forget to maintain their hostility.

"Slash!"

A streak of pitch-black light flashed past from behind and flew back to Wang Jue's side. Instantly, a bloody gash was torn directly across the neck of one of the leading six-armed apes.

"Splurt!"

Fresh blood poured endlessly from the wound as if it were worthless.

"Roar..."

The angry roars of the multi-armed ape pack grew even louder, clearly driving them into a greater fury.

"Hehe, the angrier, the better!"

A flash of excitement involuntarily crossed Wang Jue's eyes.

Ten minutes later.

Wang Jue's 'desperately fleeing' figure moved like lightning from the street, rushed through the front entrance of the hotel, and bounded up the stairs.

"Rumble!"

One multi-armed ape after another burst frantically into the hotel, racing upward along the stairwell.

Fortunately, the reinforced concrete stairs were of good quality and could withstand the charging weight of so many multi-armed apes.

Yet, carefully controlling his pace to stay roughly ten meters ahead of the entire ape pack, Wang Jue rushed straight to his destination on the eighth floor!

Upon reaching the eighth floor, Wang Jue immediately used his spiritual power to seize control of Gangzi's fire axe and Aze's machine gun.

An axe and a gun hovered suspended in mid-air, with a long belt of ammunition trailing from the machine gun, floating right before Wang Jue's eyes.

"Roar..."

At that moment, the multi-armed apes poured onto the eighth floor like a surging flood, charging frantically down the hallway one after another toward Wang Jue.

"Hehe, come on, my darlings. I've prepared a grand gift for you, don't stand on ceremony!"

Wang Jue grinned widely, a hint of madness dancing in his eyes. His mental energy pulled the trigger, and the thick barrel of the machine gun began to roar. Rune bullets sprayed wildly outward, tearing viciously into the bodies of the charging multi-armed apes ahead.

Although the multi-armed apes looked similar to humans, the momentum behind each charging beast was far more exaggerated than that of star beasts running on all fours. Even the terrifying impact of the rune bullets was unable to stop them in their tracks!

"Puff, puff, puff, puff..."

On the other side, the hovering fire axe began to dance wildly, slicing across the arms and throats of the multi-armed apes. The apes leading the charge lost control; some crashed straight to the ground, while others slammed heavily into the walls on either side.

"Rumble!"

The walls of the rooms continuously collapsed and shattered under the impacts.

Relying on the dual firepower of the machine gun's rune bullets and the razor-sharp fire axe, Wang Jue managed to slaughter forty to fifty multi-armed apes in one breath, leaving their corpses to litter the corridor.

Even so, this failed to halt the advancement of the apes behind them.

"Roar..."

Accompanied by an angry, roaring cry, the previously frantic multi-armed apes instinctively cleared a path.

A massive multi-armed ape appeared, its entire body covered in fur that shimmered with a silver hue, possessing four pairs of gigantic arms.

The fire axe and machine gun, which had just been displaying such ferocious might, had now dropped to the floor beside the corpses of the two deceased Flame Team members inside the room.

As for Wang Jue himself, he had long since leaped rapidly out of the room's balcony!

"Whoosh!"

Wang Jue plunged downward from the eighth floor like a streak of lightning, simultaneously directing his mental energy beneath his feet to generate a cushion of supportive force, sharply mitigating his downward momentum.

With a soft thump, Wang Jue landed effortlessly on the street outside the hotel entrance, then dashed swiftly into a nearby alley.

Moments later, his figure vanished from sight.

On the eighth floor of the hotel.

"Roar..."

Having lost dozens of their kin, the infuriated tribe of multi-armed apes rampaged wildly through the dilapidated hotel, searching for that hateful human martial artist.

Alas, failing to find the human warrior, they stumbled upon the corpses of two human martial artists instead.

Then, as if venting all their hatred onto these two bodies, the multi-armed apes began to frantically tear apart and devour the flesh of the human corpses.

To the multi-armed apes, human flesh was undoubtedly far more delicious than that of other star beasts!

To one's surprise, some of the two-armed apes even began to devour the corpses of their fallen four-armed kin!

In the harsh survival environment of star beasts, they rarely had the chance to feed on humans, spending most of their time eating the carcasses of fellow star beasts.

As wild and deeply instinctive creatures, consuming the bodies of their own kind was entirely normal.

In less than ten minutes.

Both the human corpses and the remains of the multi-armed apes had been reduced to scattered piles of broken bones.

At the same time, the floor of the entire eighth-floor corridor had been stained completely crimson with blood...

Elsewhere.

Having departed the hotel, Wang Jue slipped quietly back to his former hiding place and observed silently.

"Hmm, it's been nearly three hours, and the eight members of the Fierce Tiger Team are only just returning?"

Growing somewhat impatient, Wang Jue finally spotted the eight figures within his line of sight, and a bitter smile immediately surfaced on his face: "Damn it, I completely forgot that you can hear the roars of star beasts everywhere in this ruined city. Since the previous battle took place inside the hotel, and the Fierce Tiger Team was several kilometers away, it wasn't that easy for them to notice."

"If I hadn't been pressed for time, I might have set things up even better. Now, I can only hope the multi-armed ape tribe pulls its weight..."

...

Meanwhile.

Right at the main entrance of the hotel, the eight high-spirited members of the Fierce Tiger Team were walking back while chatting and laughing.

"The Young Master's sword strike earlier was truly magnificent, precisely grazing the throat of that tier-three star beast, the 'Crimson Flame Tiger'." Jiang Dawei, captain of the Flame Team, flattered them with a smile.

Yet his smile suddenly froze.

"Hmm?"

Jiang Dawei looked into the hotel, and the others followed his gaze inside.

"Why is there a smell of blood?"

The elderly man surnamed Li walked directly into the hotel, with the others trailing behind him: "Huh, the scent of blood seems even stronger."

"No, a massive battle must have taken place here. A couple of star beasts couldn't possibly produce a blood stench this heavy." Jiang Dawei frowned, his expression turning solemn.

Nearby, Dashan immediately pressed his communication wristband and shouted, "Gangzi, Aze... Gangzi, Aze, answer immediately if you hear me. What happened?"

Seeing no response come through the wristband, the expressions of the five Flame Team members shifted, a faint unease gripping their hearts.

"Captain, they aren't replying." Dashan looked at Jiang Dawei.

The sole female member of the team couldn't help chiming in, "Could they have fallen asleep and missed the vibration of the watch?"

"Let's go up and take a look first," Jiang Dawei said in a low voice.

With senses as sharp as a martial artist's, how could they have failed to notice?

"Let's go, let's head up and see," the elderly man surnamed Li also commanded.

The eight of them made their way toward the stairs together, but the moment they saw the condition of the staircase before them, all eight of their faces changed.

Clearly, the stairs had just undergone a massive stampede; chunks of the concrete had cracked open, exposing the steel reinforcement bars within.

Luo Lei, the middle-aged man, drew his weapon and warned the others, "Something's wrong. Everyone, be careful."

At this, all eight drew their weapons and cautiously made their way step by step up the stairs.

No matter how slowly they moved, it didn't take long.

The group arrived on the eighth floor.

"Hiss..."

All eight of them drew in a sharp breath of cold air simultaneously.

The eighth floor was unmistakably the most chaotic and ruined level of the entire hotel. Some of the walls of the hotel rooms had been smashed to collapse, the floors were soaked in blood, and the area was littered with a vast amount of corpses and skeletal remains, the majority belonging to star beasts.

Taking in this sight, the hearts of the eight people sank heavily.

They knew that Gangzi and Aze, who had been left behind to guard the hotel, were most likely dead beyond doubt.

"Look, there are bullet holes on the wall."

"There are some here too."

"There are plenty of shell casings over there. Aze must have fired here to hold back the star beast pack, but there were simply too many."

Moving along, the group quickly discovered numerous traces.

Soon enough.

The party arrived at the room where they had been resting.

There, they found the tattered combat uniforms scattered on the floor, the fire axe with its handle slightly deformed from being trampled, the completely warped machine gun, and a few scattered human skeletal remains.

"Gangzi's machete, and Aze's gun."

"These two sets of combat uniforms..."

Combat uniforms were exceptionally tough. Though torn to shreds by the bites of the multi-armed apes, they could still be identified as belonging to Gangzi and Aze.

"How could this happen?"

The square-faced member of the Flame Team gritted his teeth and muttered, "How on earth did Aze and the others get so unlucky to run into a foraging star beast pack right inside the room?"

"Let's go, let's head downstairs!" The elderly man surnamed Li suddenly spoke up.

"Downstairs?"

The square-faced man, Dashan, Xiaoshui, and the female member were all startled, a trace of anger flashing across their faces.

Jiang Dawei, acting as captain, frowned and barked, "Alright, gather up Gangzi and Aze's belongings, and let's go downstairs!"

Since the captain had spoken, none of them dared to refuse.