Chapter 38: The Hunt Begins

The two grown men insisted that she eat a little more, and Xu Xuehui managed a few more bites before finally frowning and declaring she couldn’t eat any more.

Ding Longyun couldn’t force her, so he collected the remaining fried rice, which was now completely cool.

Xu Xuehui finally let out a sigh of relief.

By now, the sky had completely darkened. Ding Longyun found a candle and lit it, making it the only source of light in the dark apartment.

“Rest for a while. We’ll go up to the roof together soon,” Ding Longyun said. He took out the steel shovel and a dagger, gently wiped them with a rag, and then solemnly handed the dagger to Xu Xuehui.

Xu Xuehui took the dagger. It was far sharper than the cleaver she had used before.

“I sharpened this dagger; it’s very sharp. Be careful when you use it not to injure yourself,” Ding Longyun instructed Xu Xuehui.

Xu Xuehui nodded and softly acknowledged him. She glanced at Su Li and, feeling she couldn’t favor one over the other, also brought the hammer he had given her.

The three of them rested for a while. They had just eaten and weren’t suitable for strenuous activity immediately.

Ding Longyun checked the clock on the wall; it pointed to 7:00 PM. Assuming they were sufficiently rested, he blew out the candle on the table and said, “Let’s go.”

He held the steel shovel in one hand and opened the door with the other.

Xu Xuehui followed behind him, and Su Li, holding the iron rod, took up the rear.

The three then dragged the Corpse Beast bodies they had left in the corridor and headed up the stairs to the roof.

Ding Longyun led the way. As they ascended to the expansive roof, Su Li saw many corpses piled up.

Clearly, most of the Spiritual Source Beasts that Ding Longyun had killed over the past few days had been carried up to the roof by him. Su Li estimated there were at least 20 to 30 corpses in total. The vast majority were low-level Corpse Beasts, along with a few Water Rat Beasts. The most eye-catching was a gigantic Water Rat Beast corpse, several times larger than the ordinary ones.

Su Li knew immediately that it was the Water Rat King, the evolved Elite species of the Water Rat Beast. The “Soul Devour” ability Ding Longyun possessed was the special skill acquired from killing this Water Rat King.

“The moon tonight is especially big and round,” Ding Longyun said, looking up at the sky. Although it was night, the gentle moonlight provided enough illumination that it wasn’t completely dark. They could at least make out each other’s vague shapes.

“They say the moon on the sixteenth is the fullest, and today is the 17th; the moon is still beautiful,” Su Li said, also glancing at the sky. He watched Ding Longyun drag two Corpse Beast bodies to the edge of the roof. Ding Longyun suddenly used both arms to heave the two corpses over the edge.

Su Li leaned out slightly and watched the two bodies plunge into the water below with a “plop,” splashing water.

Su Li noticed four thick ropes hanging down from the roof’s edge. One end of these ropes was secured to the roof, and the other end dangled into the water.

“What are these ropes for?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” Ding Longyun replied, throwing two more Corpse Beast bodies over the edge.

Su Li didn’t press the matter further. He watched Ding Longyun throw down a total of eight bodies, then stop and say, “Tossing down eight bodies at once should certainly alert them. We’ll wait here for them to come up.”

Su Li asked, “So you’ve been using this method to alert and lure the monsters up to kill them?”

“Exactly. But you have to be careful with the quantity. Throw too few corpses, and the effect isn’t obvious. Throw too many, and you risk attracting dangerous monsters. That giant water rat was a result of that. We didn’t know any better back then and threw all the corpses down at once. It lured that huge bastard up, and we nearly all got killed. I was lucky to grab the opportunity and kill it, but it was purely by chance that I survived.”

Ding Longyun still sounded shaken when talking about killing the Water Rat King.

Su Li quietly acknowledged this and said nothing more, only focusing his gaze downward. Beneath the moonlight, the eight corpses slowly sank into the water. Soon, unusual ripples began to appear in the water below. Dark shapes quickly surfaced.

“If you don’t throw the corpses down, they won’t appear?” Su Li asked Ding Longyun softly, thinking that even when he hadn’t thrown corpses into the water for the past two days, Spiritual Source Beasts still occasionally appeared. Clearly, the monsters’ appearance wasn’t entirely dependent on throwing bait.

Ding Longyun kept his eyes on the movement below and explained, “Of course not. Even without throwing the corpses, they will still appear, but their appearance is completely random and unpredictable. That’s bad for us because we constantly have to be on guard. Throwing the corpses down all at once lures them out, making them show up at a set time, which makes it easier for us to hunt them. And after they show up in a concentrated burst like this, the frequency and numbers of their appearances at other times drop significantly.”

Su Li understood Ding Longyun’s explanation and nodded slightly. His method was indeed clever. By using the corpses as bait, they could fix a time, prepare fully, lure the Spiritual Source Beasts out for a concentrated hunt, and ensure the probability of the monsters appearing at other times was much lower.

Su Li watched as figures began to surface in the water below. By the moonlight, he could see their swollen, pale faces, recognizing them as low-level Corpse Beasts.

The Corpse Beasts surfaced, reached out, grabbed the dangling ropes, and began climbing up.

Su Li quietly took a breath, now understanding the purpose of the four ropes: they were there for the Corpse Beasts to climb up onto the roof.

“These ‘zombies’ have simple minds, but they know how to use ropes to climb up. All we have to do is guard here and deal with them easily,” Ding Longyun said, holding the steel shovel and smiling. “But killing these ‘zombies’ is useless for us. We’ll leave them to the little girl, Xuehui, so she can reach Level 2 quickly.”

Xu Xuehui was standing beside Su Li, stretching her neck to look down just like him. Her pupils constricted slightly, like an eagle’s eye. She looked down and suddenly spoke: “There’s one with three hands down there.”

“One with three hands? Are you talking about the Corpse Beasts?” Su Li was slightly taken aback. He looked down at the climbing Corpse Beasts, but he didn’t see any with an extra hand.

Xu Xuehui nodded.

The Corpse Beasts climbed up the ropes quickly and soon appeared before the three of them.

Ding Longyun did not attack immediately, afraid of knocking them back down. He waited for them to reach the roof before raising his steel shovel and slamming it down.

(End of Chapter)