"These creatures are indeed interesting," Asran was fiddling with a thumb-size essence stone.
He was sitting on a boulder with corpses of dark green humanoids all around him. The stench was unbearable yet Asran didn't mind. His thought was focused on these essence stones.
"The quality of these stones differed greatly from one creature to another, make sense since stronger demon beasts have a higher quality demon core," Asran couldn't help but to link these creatures with demon beasts he fought back when he was Bai Long.
He had two pocketful of essence stones and he knew it wasn't enough.
BANG...
His sight gazed upon the source of the gunshot. The spirit sense he relied on was still at its weakest state. Like a light bulb shined above his head, Asran realized something.
"Ah, I'm supposed to babysit," he leaped off the boulder and his leg muscles exploded as he ran through the wood.
The trees and shrubs blocked his path and they were no grounded path yet Asran moved effortless like a thread of silk being weaved. He jumped, he skipped and he glide through the forest floor as his speed never step down.
'Profound Silk Step, never thought I would use this technique,' over the course of his hunt of green humanoids, he had honed this technique and ingrained it into his entire body.
'For a peak yellow grade technique, it's not bad at all,' he smirked as he knew he had attained complete mastery over the technique. For him who had an experience over a million years, this crude technique wasn't much for the likes of Asran.
Living in this whole new earth, Asran felt the need to quickly strenghten himself. Increasing one own power was indeed necessary but technique itself was important.
When thinking about technique, one would either think about offense or defense. Killing one's opponent or defending oneself to the absolute limit. But Asran has his own principal, no matter what, his main priority of technique to be learn was no doubt a movement technique.
With speed, he could do anything.
"Argh," the cry of anguish was not far. The situation might be more dire than he expected.
'Time to pick up the pace,' he left a blur as he pushed himself to the limits.
---
"Come on, run faster you damn mongrels," a black suit man was shouting at these frightened people.
The submachine gun in his hand roared as bullets came flying at the incoming enemies.
"Hey back me up, wait why the hell are you running away?" The leading black suit man was firing like a mad man yet his comrades were running away like the rest of those people.
In a matter of seconds, he was lynched by a mob of dark green humanoids.
His yell drowned by the cackling of these humanoids who were jabbing and biting at him as if he was a poor little lamb.
"Shit, didn't anyone tell that newbie about the SOP?" A man with an eye patch sounded his colleagues. The rest could only scratched their heads baffling the eyepatch man.
"Damn it, boss wouldn't like it if we escape like this," the eyepatch man, Brian glanced to his back as he saw a few dark green humanoids chasing from behind. Most were feasting upon the dead colleague of his.
"Damn those goblins, why the hell are they here? It's only been three hours," Brian was confuse by the sudden appearance of those goblins. According to his experiences diving into this portal, it usually take one whole day before those goblins started attacking them near the mines.
Brian was deep in his own thought, but then something happened.
"Help me," Brian glanced behind and saw a woman in her late 30s on the ground looking helpless with tears streaming down her cheeks.
She accidentally tripped on the ground and she knew her fate would lead to death if she don't stand up right now. Yet her legs betrayed her at this dire moment.
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She froze unable to move out of fear. She saw Brian who was a few steps away from her, her hand reached out to him hoping to be save.
But Brian didn't bat an eye as he turned away and ran alone leaving her to her own fate.
Her heart stop beating as if someone was clenching her heart tightly. From her back, she could heard the eerie laughter of those goblins becoming louder by the second. She didn't dare look back.
"Hey, why aren't you helping her," a woman yelled out to one of the black suit men.
"Shut up and just run," Sofia disguised as Atira frowned at the action of these men. In her eyes, these people are lower than scums.
Strapped within the inside of her vest, was a small revolver fully loaded with three special bullets.
Her heart was pushing her to do the right thing, but her mission was at stake here. It was too soon for her to act.
"To hell with it," but she had decided the moment she held that badge on her first day of work.
"Hey, where you going?" Brian shouted at Sofia who ran passed by him from the front.
"These freaking stupid people," Brian didn't idle around and ran for his life. In life, he had met way too many stupid people.
Sofia ran with all her might. She ditched the basket filled with gems and slipped her hand inside her vest.
She was prepared to unveil herself.
But her hand stuck within her vest as she saw a silhouette appearing right in front of that helpless woman.
She saw an unbelievable scene unraveling in front of her.
The helpless woman closed her eyes fearing for her life, she couldn't face the reality of being eaten by a nasty looking goblin.
Yet the pain didn't come. She was surprised but still anxious. Those eerie noise she heard was gone as if it never existed. She felt a sudden sense of courage and opened her eyes slowly.
She saw the back of a person standing tall like a mountain.
“Hmm, one of them died huh,” Asran noticed a group of goblins feasting upon a man.
He paid no heed to the wriggling goblin in his grasp. His grip tightened as the face of the goblin turned red. Air was running out and the fear of death crept into the heart of the goblin.
It glared at Asran as it was about to initiate its last-ditch effort of surviving.
But...
SNAP
The goblin dropped dead on the ground as its survival instinct was futile.
The woman who had just been saved reached out her hand to her savior but Asran left without even looking back.
“Wait...” even her word was helpless as she could only stared at his back.
“Miss are you okay? Are you hurt?” Sofia arrived by the side of the helpless woman.
“I’m fine but him, is he going to be okay?” the helpless woman was worried.
Sofia traced her eyes on the ground seeing the dead corpses of these goblins. Seeing them up close, they were disgusting in looks as well as their stench. The smell assaulted her nostril as she felt the urge to vomit.
“Let’s go miss,” Sofia helped her stood up.
“and him?” the helpless woman’s eyes never left the sight of Asran's back.
“Don’t worry he can handle himself,” Sofia looked back at the sight of that man in black suit.
She had mixed emotions seeing that man. Relief but worry at the same time, she didn’t thought that this illegal business involved an evol. It only made her mission more complicated than she expected.
But if it wasn’t for him this lady would have died by now.
---
Asran was walking slowly towards the goblins who were entranced in their voracious appetite.
His steps were silent but deadly.
The moment he was one step away from these goblins, it all ended in mere seconds.
Four more goblins went limp and dropped on the ground with their necks bent at an absurd angle.
It didn’t take him long to extract the essence stones.
“The sizes are pretty much the same,” Asran wasn’t satisfy with his current harvest.
Although for the last three hours he managed to recover his cultivation state from the side effects of Blood Flash Ignition, his cultivation level was still in a stagnant state.
‘I need to go deeper,’ thought Asran.
He flashed himself away from the spot and met up with the group at the front.
His speed was fast catching up with the front group in a matter of a few minutes.
“Stop,” Asran blocked the path of these frantic people.
“What the hell are you doing? Get out of the way,” said Shayu as he aimed the nozzle of his SMG at Asran.
“There’s no need to run, you can order the people to continue doing their work,” Asran said.
“I said get out of my way, you want all of us to die from those goblins?” Shayu’s words roused the fear of the black-suited men around him.
No one in their right mind want to die out of all places.
“I’ve already killed off those things, so go do your job,” Asran stared down at this Shayu. He was having thoughts of killing this nuisance since he was bothering him.
Shayu knew that this guy was an evol and it could be true. But he still had doubt about this guy. How can he defeat those goblins in a matter of a few minutes.
That doesn’t make sense according to his logic that is.
Yet a devious plan hatched inside his mind. The timing was perfect.
“Stop bullshitting, you want us all to die aren’t you,” Shayu turned around as he fueled the hearts of these men and women that were in despair of being kill.
“Listen up you people in debt as well as my brothers in arms, this man here think he can lord us around since he’s an evol, but I’ll not take this nonsense without fighting for my own life. This man wants to overthrow our benevolent boss Andika and he will pay the price for it,” for a despicable man he was quite eloquent in his words.
A few people in the crowd were eating the bait from this Shayu.
Some mocked and cursed at Asran as they were lost in their desperation. They knew the danger was coming from behind them.
Shayu knew his plan was going well as he smirked internally. It was time to end the life of that evol bastard.
“Let’s raise up our weapon and show him ou-” his words stop short.
Shayu was confused, soon inexplicable pain came wrecking his entire body.
“Argh,” he shouted as if it was his last breath.
Shayu looked down and saw a hand piercing over his chest, with blood seeping out non-stop. He saw his beating heart within the grasp of the bloody hand as it slowly died down and stop beating.
He thought his plan was perfect but he didn’t know that he was being idiotic and stupid.
No sane man would turn their back at their opponent and he did just that while provoking him through the crowd.
Shayu died not knowing his own stupidity.
Asran threw the heart to the ground and flicked his arm a few times.
“I really need a weapon, going barehanded is rather disgusting,” said Asran.
“Kyaaa,” a few women flopped to the ground, screaming as she saw the horrific scene.
While some men and the weak-hearted people puked out whatever they had for breakfast.
The black suit men were tense seeing their leader died in an instant. They were alarm by the action of this evol.
“What happened here?” Brian just arrived to the front group and saw the rather tense situation.
Soon Sofia came along.
A nearby black suit man explained the situation to Brian.
He had gotten the gist of it and Brian knew it was a dumb idea from that greedy Shayu.
“Whose second in command?” Asran loud voice reached out to the back.
The black suit men were hesitating as they were still aiming their guns at Asran.
Brian, on the other hand, ran towards Asran and knelt down on one of his knee.
“I’m Brian sir, the second in command after Shayu.”
“It seems there is still a brain among the idiotic,” said Asran as his voice was heard loud and clear by the rest of them.
“I’ve neutralized the enemies, you can go and lead them to continue their work,” said Asran.
“Yes sir,” Brian sighed out relief. His impulsive action was right. He cursed at that Shayu trying to kill someone like him who can kill goblins this easily.
Brian explained to the rest of the crowd as well as to his men. They didn’t believe it but Sofia testified along with the woman from before assuring the whole crowd that they were safe.
They walked back to the mining cave with the idea of continuining their work.
“Miss, aren’t you coming along?” the helpless woman called out to Sofia who was in a daze.
“Yes, I’m coming. Let’s go,” said Sofia yet something was bugging her.
A thought that was rather problematic.
‘I couldn’t see his face but why is his voice sounds familiar?’