In this dark environment that was already eerie to begin with, someone actually appeared in the most unexpected of ways and approached them while jumping rope.
It was no wonder the Pyro Company members were afraid. If it were anyone else, who wouldn’t feel scared? After all, there was already something spooky about the atmosphere here!
Ren Xiaosu looked at the Pyro Company members and said while jumping rope, “Hang on, don’t leave yet. Let me finish skipping first.”
The Pyro Company members looked like they had encountered a formidable foe. However, they could not understand what Ren Xiaosu meant. One of them said, “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here? We are the Pyro Company’s T3-ranked Midnight team. If you came out from the mountains, we should be friends.”
It was not uncommon for Pyro Company members to be killed by the monsters in the mountains. Therefore, they were now scared that the research laboratory in the mountains had released yet another monster that did not differentiate friend from foe.
But at this moment, Ren Xiaosu fell silent. Two seconds later, he said with a sigh, “Don’t make a sound. Y’all have interrupted my counting! Don’t talk until I’m done jumping. Otherwise, I’ll have to kill someone.”
He had already jumped more than 200 times just now, but when the Pyro Company members interrupted him, he lost count of how many times he had jumped. He had no choice but to start counting from 200 again so as not to affect the quest’s completion level.
The members of the Pyro Company fell silent. They had only come out here to gather the prey recently caught by the tarantulas. Although they were also trained in combat, they were mostly deployed like handymen in the mountains. Now that they encountered a legendary monster in the mountains, they did not even have the courage to put up a fight.
At this moment, they ascertained this young man in front of them was a freak monster that came out of the mountains. Any normal person outside the mountains would not behave like Ren Xiaosu.
If Cheng Yu knew about these thoughts of theirs, he would probably get so emotional he would want to shake hands with them.
About ten seconds later, Ren Xiaosu finally stopped skipping. Looking at the Pyro Company members, he noticed they had their sabers pointed down. This subconscious action implied they had no intention of fighting ll. It was as though they were at a loss after giving up on resisting.
Ren Xiaosu pondered things for a moment and asked, “What’s that black box for?”
“It plays back a sound that’s used against the tarantulas. It was specially developed by the research lab in the mountains. And these tarantulas really are terrified of the sound. They run away the moment they hear it,” a member of the Pyro Company explained.
“When did these tarantulas get released here?” Ren Xiaosu asked.
“Last year.”
“They’re used to deal with outsiders, right?” Ren Xiaosu pretended he was on the same side as them. “Against the Anjing House?”
“I’m not too sure. We T3-ranked combatants know very little about this. You might as well ask those big shots in charge of our battle plan when you return to the mountains.” A Pyro Company member said, “Just a few months ago, the higher-ups suddenly ordered us to come here and check on the situation every three days. They said a lot of people would be coming here on their own. It’s not only this place that has the tarantulas; other places have them as well. Also, T31901 and I were transferred here to Mt. Shenchi only recently.”
Ren Xiaosu frowned. A few months ago, the Pyro Company told them there would be people sending themselves to their doorsteps. That meant the Pyro Company had deliberately tricked the Anjing House and lured them out here into the Sacred Mountains.
His previous speculation was not wrong. The Pyro Company was hoping the supernatural beings would walk right into their trap!
Therefore, while it seemed like the Anjing House and the Pyro Company were suffering losses as they plotted against each other, it was in fact the consortiums fanning the flames that suffered the most significant losses. After all, the victims that were captured by the tarantulas this time were all the consortiums’ people.
Wait a minute! Ren Xiaosu suddenly thought of something. If the Wang Consortium’s target was to gain control of the Central Plains, and perhaps also the southwest and northwest of the Alliance of Strongholds’ entire territory, then with the Anjing House having formed a coalition with the Wang Consortium, could their objective for this operation have been to lure the various consortiums’ experts into the Sacred Mountains so they could help the Wang Consortium eliminate some potential threats all along?
Truly, the minds of these conspirators were way too complicated. Ren Xiaosu was far too inferior to others in this aspect. In fact, no matter who it was that was caught up in this maelstrom, there would always be several motives for every single thing they did.
Ren Xiaosu felt ashamed of himself.
At this moment, a Pyro Company member in front of him suddenly asked, “Which research lab did you come out from?”
To play it safe, Ren Xiaosu replied, “Lab 1.”
But Ren Xiaosu noticed the expressions of the Pyro Company members changing after he said that. A Pyro Company member raised his saber again. “There’s only Lab 2 and 7 in these mountains. What Lab 1 are you talking about!?”
Ren Xiaosu was stunned. “Where’s Lab 1 then?”
“Lab 1 was destroyed in The Cataclysm.” The Pyro Company member sneered.
Ren Xiaosu had asked too many questions just now, and shouldn’t the monsters in the mountains know more than them?
At first, everyone was confused by Ren Xiaosu’s odd behavior. But they finally realized Ren Xiaosu was not like those freaks at all. Other than jumping rope and singing, he was essentially no different from a normal person.
This was someone who had come from outside of Mt. Shenchi!
After that, the Pyro Company members slowly surrounded Ren Xiaosu. Then they were all killed by him.
“You don’t get to live long if you’re too smart,” Ren Xiaosu lamented as he looked at the five bodies.
They were only a five-man Midnight squad, so Ren Xiaosu wondered where they found the courage to try to kill him. Not even a Dusk team was able to handle him. Perhaps there would still be some hope if it were a five-man Dawn team that were here.
Ren Xiaosu turned his head and looked at the dozen or so white cocoons hanging on the stone walls. After making Old Xu to leave, he used his saber to cut off the spider silk holding up the cocoons and saved the people who were captured.
When Ren Xiaosu cut open a cocoon, he found the person inside was still breathing evenly. Their facial complexion was also normal and it looked like they could still be saved.
Ren Xiaosu remembered that tarantulas were venomous. However, they would only inject digestive enzymes into their prey after they were dead to liquefy the body before consuming it, so it was unlikely they were at that stage yet.
After tying the cocoons together one by one with a rope, he dragged them back like a bunch of Chinese hawberries.[1] He even carried the black box in his hand in case the tarantulas came after him.
When he returned, Ren Xiaosu did not drag these unconscious people over to the group personally. Instead, he made Old Xu drag them over to Cheng Yu before disappearing into the white fog again.
Cheng Yu gazed at White Mask’s receding figure. He thought to himself how he did not even have a chance to thank him before he left.
This mysterious and powerful image of White Mask could not be erased from Cheng Yu’s mind. Sometimes, he would lament how there was such a huge gap in power even among superhumans.
While he did not dare to move away from where they were, the other party had pursued the tarantulas back to their nest and even rescued everyone there.
It wasn’t until the people trapped inside the cocoons began coming to that Ren Xiaosu slowly made his way back.
Cheng Yu snapped, “Where did you go?”
“I went to jump rope,” Ren Xiaosu answered matter-of-factly.
[1] Tanghulu (simplified Chinese: 糖葫芦; traditional Chinese: 糖葫蘆; pinyin: tánghúlu), also called bingtanghulu (simplified Chinese: 冰糖葫芦; traditional Chinese: 冰糖葫蘆; pinyin: bīngtánghúlu), is a traditional Northern Chinese snack of candied Crataegus pinnatifida, also known as mountain hawthorn, Chinese haw, Chinese hawthorn, Chinese hawberry, or shanzha (山楂) in Mandarin Chines
