Chapter 660 - 431: Do Your Best to Kill Me (Part 1)

With a crisp SNAP.

The man’s neck was twisted at a gruesome angle, killing him instantly.

"Ding! You have killed a human Slaughterer! Reward: 30 Royalties!"

Next, Hu Qi repeated the process, killing another person.

This time, however, there was no notification.

Hu Qi’s eyes flickered as he registered this fact.

At his signal,

Vera and Zhou Zhipeng split the remaining people between them, killing them one by one.

As expected,

only three of them yielded Royalties when killed.

As for the others, killing them produced no response at all.

’Just as I thought!’

Faced with this situation,

Hu Qi seemed to have anticipated it.

Killing a single human Slaughterer awarded thirty Royalties.

If that were always the case,

then even with a reduced population, Shenmu City still had hundreds of thousands of people.

Any Intern Reader with their own Ability and a bit of luck could easily accumulate a massive amount of Royalties in this Trial World.

’That would be far too simple.’

’It seems there must be other requirements.’

If his guess was correct,

the key to a human "Slaughterer" was the "slaughter."

Only a human who had actually killed someone could be designated a Slaughterer.

There might even be a time limit, such as only counting those who had killed someone during the current Slaughter Day.

These thoughts flashed through Hu Qi’s mind.

He turned and went back inside the house.

...

Two more hours passed, bringing the time to three in the morning.

After things had been allowed to fester for a while,

the screams had become far less frequent than at the start.

Across Shenmu City, vicious tongues of fire licked at the buildings, and thick smoke coiled upward like wicked dragons.

Above the dark sky, heavy storm clouds continued to gather. Lightning snaked between them, tearing the night into fragmented, ghastly white shards.

As if they had reached their limit,

a deafening peal of thunder cracked, and a torrential downpour cascaded from the sky as if a celestial river had burst its banks.

The sudden deluge brutally extinguished the dancing flames throughout the city.

The dense raindrops hammered against the ground with a deafening PITTER-PATTER, completely drowning out the sporadic sounds of gunfire in the city.

The world fell into a momentary silence.

Inside the villa, Hu Qi opened his eyes, ending his feigned sleep.

In that instant, it was as if two tangible beams of cold light flashed through the dim living room.

Nearby, Vera and Zhou Zhipeng shivered involuntarily.

"I’m leaving this place to you. I have something else to attend to."

Before the words even left his mouth, he gave them no chance to reply.

Hu Qi stood, his figure blurred,

and he vanished right before their eyes.

"The boss... just how strong is he?"

Vera stared in the direction Hu Qi had disappeared, her voice trembling slightly.

That ability, which was almost like teleportation,

reminded her of the Level 5 Space System Superpower User she had once seen.

But then a more practical question surfaced in her mind.

’The boss is gone. What are we supposed to do now?’

Sensing Vera’s gaze on him, Zhou Zhipeng said with a bitter smile,

"Miss Vera, with the boss gone, it’s safer for us to stay here and defend this position..."

If he hadn’t met Hu Qi,

he definitely would have chosen to go out and hunt.

But after his interactions with him over the past few days, he had been so demoralized that he was starting to question his own existence.

He seriously suspected there might be other experts of that caliber among the Intern Readers; otherwise, none of it made sense.

’It’s just too unfair. With a gap that wide, how are we supposed to even fight?’

Vera nodded silently.

Though she was reluctant, she knew exactly how dangerous it was outside.

Rather than acting rashly, it was better to hold their ground here.

Between the two of them, plus the controlled mercenaries and the villa’s original security forces, as long as nothing unexpected happened, it shouldn’t be difficult to survive the Slaughter Day and complete the main quest.

’As for the other quests, forget it.’

’After all, staying alive is the most important thing.’

Only an existence like Hu Qi would have the power to dominate and reap the rewards in this world.

...

The night was deep.

On the edge of a high-rise rooftop, Hu Qi’s figure quietly materialized.

He gazed down, the former prosperity of Shenmu City now gone without a trace.

The streets were littered with dismembered human remains.

The glass curtain wall of an office building reflected the dancing firelight.

One of its floors was ablaze, thick smoke twisting into the night sky like a giant python.

On the street below, several cars were burnt down to their blackened frames, and the rain hissed as it struck the scorching metal.

Fortunately, the sudden downpour was suppressing the flames.

Through the curtain of rain, a few scattered flames flickered defiantly before finally dissolving into wisps of green smoke.

Hu Qi’s attention was not on the surrounding carnage at all.

He was staring at the dismembered corpses.

Wisps of Yin Energy, invisible to the normal eye, were rising from the remains.

From the dark corners, strange RUSTLING sounds rose and fell, as if some terrifying form of life was gestating.

Yin Beasts were being born.

Catalyzed by the mass deaths in Shenmu City, the Yin Beasts, which would normally have taken six or seven hours to form, were now bursting forth from the bodies at an astonishing rate.

These twisted, mutated monsters were staggering in number and varied in form, like creatures that had crawled out of Hell itself.

They were a physical manifestation of the darkest, most twisted emotions in the human heart.

Hu Qi watched all of this with an indifferent expression.

This was precisely why he had chosen to appear at this moment.

He wasn’t just waiting for the Slaughterers to complete their "work" and transform into true Slaughterers.

He also needed to give the Yin Beasts enough time to gestate.

Striking too early would be pointless, like a farmer trying to harvest unripe fruit.