Chapter 118: Hunter

Enduring the sourness and the strange taste that exploded in his mouth, Tang Ling chewed on the leaves of the Sournia Tartar carefully.

Despite the acidity of the leaves, he dared not breathe or chew loudly since both the left and right forests were not exactly safer than the battlefield.

The forest did extend towards the battlefield and went all the way towards the mountains on the horizon. The safe zone that the warrior referred to must be the area around where the troops of Safety Sector No. 17 were stationed.

On top of that, the forests on both sides of the cliff were indeed relatively safer because according to Yang Kong, those powerful monsters were attracted to the Universal Source Stone.

In fact, the reason why the Safety Zone and the Secondary Safety Zone existed was the distance from the Universal Source Stone. All the powerful monsters within a certain range of the stone were all drawn away but only those within the limited range.

As for the monsters beyond the range… A bitter smile appeared on Tang Ling’s face.

He grabbed a handful of mud from the ground, mixed it with water, and chewed the Sournia Tartar leaves in his mouth. He then carefully smeared the mixture on himself.

Due to his strong desire to explore, he was confident that the area beyond the 1 km range of the battlefield was dangerous to a level that was hellish.

A little north of the mentioned area was the territory of the Level 5 mutated beast, the burst-eyed Toxodon. Back in the old civilization, a wild boar was considered a fierce animal, but this burst-eyed Toxodon was 20 times stronger than a wild boar. It was even ten times stronger than the common iron bristle hog in this era.

The main point was that its bursting eyes might be hideous, but it provided the Toxodon with extremely keen eyesight.

On top of that, due to the mutation, its arrow-like fangs could be fired at its enemy during a critical situation. Although such a strike could only be used once and it must wait for its fangs to grow back before it could shoot again, it was not easy to deal with a mutated beast with such lethal ranged attack.

At the south was the territory of another Level 6 mutated beast, the needle fur ape.

The ape was as massive as a gorilla from the old civilization. Even though it was not known for its strength, it was by no means weak either since it could easily punch with the force of over a ton.

It was feared for its agility and its ability to traverse across the forest. An even scarier thing was its fur. When relaxed, its fur was soft, but when it was enraged, its fur would stiffen up as if it had needles all over its body, hence providing itself with the best defense possible.

At the same time, it could also pull its own stiffened fur and throw it as projectiles in peril. It was another mutated beast with ranged attack.

Since the north and the south were guarded by powerful mutated beasts, Tang Ling instinctively wanted to travel further to avoid them, so he decided to explore the relatively safer middle route.

However, when he stepped forward, he realized that the middle route was the most dangerous one because it was the territory of a level 1 vicious beast.

Tang Ling did not get a clear look at the vicious beast. He glimpsed at it from afar and saw a deep purple stripe on the Level 1 vicious beast before he fled like a frightened kid. This was the so-called relatively safer left forest.

As for the right forest, it was not much different from the left forest either. There were also three mutated beasts that stood guard at around 1 km away from the battlefield. Although there was no Level 1 vicious beast there, the Level 9 mutated beast was not friendly either.

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After he smeared his neck with an extra thick mixture of mud and scent-covering leaves, Tang Ling heaved a breath of relief.

Unless one was trying to hunt for jumping chickens or hopping rabbits near where the troops were stationed, one should never be careless. The main artery around one’s neck had a stronger scent, hence he applied the extra thick mixture to it.

It all came from experience. Even so, given Tang Ling’s current level of power, he still could not wander far and explore beyond the limits.

Nevertheless, he was thankful to the information library of the First Reserved Camp which allowed him to understand some rules of the current era.

For example, there were king beasts above the wild beasts. Other than its appearance and species, the other way of differentiating king beasts was a faint purple spot on its belly.

Above the king beast was the mutated beast, and the purple spot on the belly would turn into a faint purple stripe instead. A Level 1 mutated beast would have one stripe while a Level 9 mutated beast would have nine stripes.

As for vicious beasts, the faint purple stripes on its belly would become a deeper shade, and the more deep purple strips it had, the higher was its level.

In terms of battling, even the king beasts only had all the basic abilities that revolved around strength, agility and reflexes.

However, the battle advantages of mutated beasts that had double the basic abilities were evolved such as the eyes and fangs of the burst-eyed Toxodon, and the fur of the needle fur ape.

Of course, all the mentioned abilities were considered normal. There were still many inconceivable abilities out there. Albeit Safety Sector No. 17 trying its best to gather information in this field, the database that it currently had was extremely limited.

As for the vicious beast, Tang Ling frowned at what the sector knew about them. He did not know how to put them into words. In a profound way, were their abilities a demonstration of the power of the laws of nature?

In fact, it was not exactly profound. A vicious beast that concentrated on agility would continue increasing its speed as long as it did not reach a bottleneck. Was that the correct way to understand them? So, was the electric eel of the old civilization a type of vicious beast?

Strange thoughts popped up in Tang Ling’s mind. In the next second, he reached to his pants and unbuckled the sheath at his boot to draw a knife out.

In a flash, he threw the knife out swiftly towards his left. Half a second later, a soft thud sounded and something fell down less than 5 meters away from him.

Tang Ling looked up to his left. At the corner of his blind spot, he saw a spider, which was as large as two palms of a grown man and was around 50 mm when it extended its legs, that had been stabbed in the abdomen. It was struggling fiercely.

He recognized it as a giant numbing spider which was a type of Level 1 mutated arachnid.

It could hunt birds twice its size but not mutated birds. The spider had extremely sharp fangs and could easily penetrate skin. Human skin and flesh were like marshmallows to the spider.

With a single bite from the spider, the bleeding from an injury it caused would be difficult to staunch and heal unless it was cured with a special medicine.

Furthermore, the scary thing was another type of venom the spider possessed, which was a numbing venom. When the numbing venom was injected into its prey through its fangs, even a mutated-scaled horse would be tranquilized in less than five minutes.

It spelled utter despair to suffer from unstoppable bleeding while being paralyzed.

The giant numbing spider was not dangerous as long as it did not sneak up on its prey. It could walk silently and dash extremely swiftly at the last moment during its hunt.

Still, it fell under the radar of Tang Ling’s Precise Instinct.

With a scowl, Tang Ling snuck over, took the machete out from his waistband, and smashed its head.