茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Xiang Kun isn’t aiming to catch the mutant instantly, but rather to exhaust its sanity over time, driving it to madness with the hunger born from its Blood-drinking Period and forcing it to turn back and attack Xiang Kun.

Xiang Kun initially judged that those ‘branches’ scattered everywhere likely couldn’t be created on a whim and required a significant amount of time to prepare. They might even be similar to the items he used to establish ‘Super Sensory Contact’ and ‘Emotional Infusion,’ needing to be ‘activated’ after the next blood-drinking session.

Given the mutant’s actions, it seemed highly dependent on these ‘branches’. Unless absolutely necessary, it would not abandon its long-established territory easily.

Moreover, knowing Xiang Kun’s existence, a mutant human creature, it would probably hesitate to consume blood and hibernate freely outside, even if it could temporarily shake Xiang Kun off.

Xiang Kun was the ember, constantly sparking, persistently goading, forcing it to ignite.

But if it rained, the smell Xiang Kun used for tracking would undoubtedly be significantly affected.

If he couldn’t consistently determine the direction, he wouldn’t be able to keep pressuring the mutant, which might give it the opportunity to drink blood and hibernate.

If he couldn’t find where the mutant was hibernating, then it would be his turn to run – because his Blood-drinking Period was nearing too.

However, as Xiang Kun was worrying about how rain would affect his scent-tracking and how he should find the mutant, he suddenly felt something and looked up sharply.

He was standing in a belt linking two forests, and with no branches to cover his head, he could peer into the vast night sky, black as the abyss and seemingly brewing a storm.

A light group suddenly flew across the sky, making Xiang Kun slightly dazed. What the hell was that? A drone?

But after quickly switching to the Infrared thermographic vision mode, he was stunned to discover that the glowing object that flew past was unmistakably the mutant he was chasing.

Although Xiang Kun had already witnessed the mutant’s flight from the edge of the cliff from afar and knew it had some flight abilities.

But Xiang Kun previously thought that the mutant’s flight ability had significant restrictions, at most, it could only glide and control the direction of the glide. Otherwise, why would it run towards the heights and then fly whenever Xiang Kun chased it? It could have just taken off directly and even mocked Xiang Kun in the sky. And when it wanted to observe Xiang Kun, it could have just appeared directly in the sky without having to sneak up and run away after being found.

But now, the mutant was indeed flying in the sky. Judging from the terrain ahead, it was unlikely that it ran to a high place and glided down with the help of momentum; the mutant must have taken off directly.

Not only did it rise into the sky, but its body was also surrounded by a ring of light?

How on earth had this turned sci-fi all of a sudden?

Could it be possessed by an alien or something?

The current situation opened up Xiang Kun’s mind to these possibilities.

But where was it heading by flying off in that direction? Back to its lair?

In the next second, Xiang Kun saw that the light group turned a circle and came back, then dived towards him.

Xiang Kun didn’t panic. He pulled an arrow, lifted the bow, and aimed. But he didn’t release immediately, instead, waiting for the mutant to close the distance rapidly.

When he felt the distance was close enough for the mutant not to have enough time to dodge, Xiang Kun shot the arrow.

Xiang Kun’s attention was highly concentrated, and his Dynamic Vision was used to its extreme. The arrow he shot seemed to head straight for the diving light group. Under normal circumstances, it should hit.

But what Xiang Kun didn’t expect was that, just as the arrow was about to touch the light group, as if nudged by something, it deviated slightly from its original direction, grazing the edge of the light group and shooting diagonally into the sky.

The light group’s rush towards Xiang Kun slowed down, but he sensed danger. In his Infrared thermographic vision mode, the light group became even brighter, and the blue light in the middle of it became intensely vibrant.

“What the fuck!”

Realizing what the mutant was about to do, Xiang Kun instinctively cursed, immediately dropped his bow, covered his head and rolled to the side.

The light group swept over Xiang Kun from an altitude of four to five meters above him, spraying a large amount of strong corrosive liquid at him.

Although Xiang Kun reacted quickly in tucking and rolling, plenty of the corrosive liquid still splashed onto him, causing him and the surrounding grass to smoke.

Enduring the severe pain caused by the corrosive liquid, Xiang Kun instantly jumped up from the ground. Without bothering to remove the clothing still soaked with corrosive liquid to reduce the continuous damage, or inspect the wounds, he took out one of the two stones from his pocket – which he always carried with him, occasionally swallowing it before dining with people to suppress his stomach – and threw it towards the light group, which hadn’t yet managed to rise in altitude, using all his strength.

This time, the stone didn’t mysteriously deviate from its path like the arrow he had just shot, but instead hit the light group solidly, making a muffled ‘thud’ sound and an ear-piercing scream.

The ring of light around the mutant instantly disappeared, and its body fell straight down, just like a quail hit by a slingshot.

Xiang Kun gritted his teeth, quickly tearing off his clothes that were still covered in corrosive liquid, not caring about the local injuries still smoking due to the corrosive liquid on his scalp, arms, back of his hand, and elsewhere. With his upper body naked, he rushed towards where the mutant had fallen.

Now it was truly a desperate survival showdown.

With the Infrared thermographic vision mode, Xiang Kun easily located the mutant, which was also terribly injured. Its body had a sizable hole, with various body tissues scattered around. It was screaming, but it could still move and at a pace that was not slow.

After closer inspection using the night vision mode, Xiang Kun saw the mutant creature for what it truly was – a spider the size of a washbasin!

Compared to common spiders, it was not only enormous in size but also quite different in appearance. The portion occupied by its mouthparts was significantly larger, making it look incredibly ferocious. It was covered in green roots of varying thickness, as if it were a kind of plant growth protruding from its body. Beside the mouthparts of its head were a pair of green tentacles, far longer than its body, like insect antennas.

The mutated spider clearly didn’t want to engage in hand-to-hand combat with Xiang Kun. Regardless of its injuries, it desperately attempted to escape.

But it couldn’t just fly away. It fled into the forest, shooting out long threads of spider silk, using the tree branches to catapult itself away.

Perhaps due to its injuries, its speed had sharply decreased, and Xiang Kun kept up with it, even closing the distance between them.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning streaked down from the distance. After the mutant spider hit the ground, it stopped abruptly; its body slightly raised as it emitted a faint white light, similar to the one it had emitted while flying earlier, except much dimmer.

With his forward momentum, Xiang Kun threw the stone— the last one that had established a “Super sensory contact”— that he had been gripping tightly, at the mutant spider.

The stone arrived in an instant, hitting its mark perfectly.

Like being shot, the mutated spider’s body exploded, the stone embedded itself into its body extinguishing the white light it had just emitted.

Simultaneously, a thunderous sound echoed from the distance, syncing perfectly with the stone hitting the spider, almost as if the thunder was providing sound effects for the stone.

But Xiang Kun could not revel in his “Strike of Thunder God”. He never stopped, and continued to charge forward.

He knew that for such mutants, no matter how severe their injuries, as long as they could escape, they had the opportunity to recuperate, as those injuries would heal before long.

Even though the mutated spider had been badly injured by his two stones, he still couldn’t let his guard down.

As expected, upon seeing him approach, the struggling spider suddenly ejected a corrosive liquid from its broken body.

However, for Xiang Kun, who possessed Infrared thermographic vision mode, it couldn’t catch him off guard. This was primarily because the changes in its body during the preparation were too apparent.

Nor could it launch a surprise attack akin to the plunging blow earlier that was almost impossible to avoid.

With preparation and foresight, given Xiang Kun’s reaction speed, the corrosive poison couldn’t even touch him.

Moreover, the mutated spider’s poison was clearly running low, and its dispersal range was barely over a meter.

It seemed like the mutated spider knew that it couldn’t injure Xiang Kun this way. As soon as it finished ejecting the poison, it landed and immediately continued to run, despite its severely damaged body which was embedded with the stone.

The mutated spider was out of poison and didn’t have any silk left either. It tried to escape to narrow and challenging terrains, but Xiang Kun predicted its every move, always blocking its path.

Finally, as the rain started to pitter-patter down, the moment the mutated spider tried to crawl into a hole, Xiang Kun managed to hold it down firmly.

As the rainfall washed over Xiang Kun’s wounds that were burnt by the corrosive liquid, he took a deep breath of relief.

Prior to this, he had been too engrossed in pursuing the mutant spider and didn’t have the time nor energy to tend to his wounds. Despite his strong regenerative ability, the corrosive liquid was still causing continuous harm. His injures on the arm and hand were so severe that his bones were visible, and the pain was relentlessly stimulating his nerves.

Now that the rain was washing it away, the persistent harm from the corrosive liquid was instantly alleviated, making him feel much better.

The restrained mutated spider aimed its mouthparts at him, suddenly ejecting a long, slender object at a high speed, aiming directly for his eyes.

But Xiang Kun dodged it effortlessly, thanks to his visual sensory advantage, his extraordinary reaction speed, and his massive strength. He dominated the close combat fight with the spider.

Xiang Kun grabbed the slender object that the spider ejected from its mouthparts, preventing it from being retracted.

Upon seeing the organ he held— with a hard shell, a screwdriver-like sharp tip, and many small holes around it, Xiang Kun figured out that the wild boar and the leopard earlier had been stabbed to death by this. Their blood must have been sucked out by this thing as well.

What was this? A tongue? Or a mouthpart that evolved specifically to suck blood? It looked a bit like an alien artifact, didn’t it?

The spider, whose elongated mouthpart had been caught by him, struggled furiously and let out a piercing cry. Xiang Kun, who was already infuriated by the burning of the corrosive liquid, yanked the elongated mouthpart straight out of the spider’s mouth with his right hand.

But then Xiang Kun was taken aback to find that, the mutated spider he had been holding down seemed to shrink dramatically amid its violent struggle. Gradually, it stopped moving completely, as if it had died instantly.