Chapter 509 - 162: Snowfield Pursuit
Crawling out of the sleeping bag, Chen Yan gnawed on an energy bar and packed up his gear, strapping on his backpack.
His weapons were already fully equipped, with a long-handled axe in his right hand.
A recurve bow hung on his left shoulder, and ten arrows were placed in the quiver at his waist.
"If only I had a hunting dog with me, it would greatly enhance our safety..."
Chen Yan mused to himself, and a slight smile appeared on his face.
Even if there wasn’t a hunting dog, if Big White were here, it would undoubtedly be better. In such an environment, the scent and sharpness of a beast could provide significant help.
Unconsciously, Chen Yan hadn’t noticed the change in his mindset.
During the ten days he returned to the real world, his life was uneventful and routine. In fact, even he hadn’t realized that his attitude towards life in the real world had turned passive and complacent.
It seemed that the real world could no longer ignite much interest or passion in him.
On the contrary, being teleported to this place, with its harsh cold environment and lurking unknown dangers and strange races...
All of this seemed to excite Chen Yan, as if the passive indifference in his life attitude was wiped away.
After resting and setting off once more, two hours later...
This time, Chen Yan again discovered two corpses on the ground.
One corpse was the familiar short and thick build of the Fierce Beast Race.
As for the other corpse, it was surprisingly...
"Is this... considered a dog? A tamed hunting dog?" Chen Yan scratched his head as he looked at this "dog" on the ground.
From its physique, it resembled a large dog.
But it was leaner, with long fur. Its limbs were also long, and its paws were large.
The head was small, but the mouth was long and the jaw wide—its head resembled a cold-blooded animal’s outline, like a lizard or crocodile.
A crude leather collar around its neck indicated that it was a domesticated beast.
Its death was gruesome, with its belly slashed open.
Chen Yan roughly deduced that it had leapt to attack the enemy and someone had cut open its belly from below.
The corpse of the Fierce Beast Race monster had a sword piercing its throat, with a penetrating wound on its neck.
From the wound’s traces and the killer’s swift method, Chen Yan speculated it was likely the same person responsible for the previous wave of corpses.
This suggests that he might have caught up with this group of monsters!
And these monsters were fleeing from a powerful sword-wielding enemy—could this enemy be human?
After all, a finely crafted sword and advanced swordsmanship are characteristics easily associated with humans.
Of course, Chen Yan was not certain, as he was unfamiliar with the Domain Realm’s races. Maybe in the Domain Realm, advanced forging techniques and swordsmanship were not exclusive to humans.
The Fierce Beast Race’s corpse had a cut leather strap on the belt buckle—the pouch was also taken.
Evidently, their killer knew that the Black Crystal in these pouches was a valuable prize.
After a brief pause, Chen Yan suddenly drew a short knife from his snow boot and violently stabbed it into the Fierce Beast Race monster’s belly, slashing it open!
Then, Chen Yan took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and reached his hand into the gash of the Fierce Beast Race’s abdomen...
It’s not that he was maliciously twisted to torture the corpse.
A few seconds later, Chen Yan withdrew his hand, quickly moving to the side, breathing heavily, suppressing the nausea within, and grabbed some snow to wipe the blood off his hands.
Hmm... The abdominal cavity still retained some warmth, the viscera felt soft to the touch.
So... this guy couldn’t have been killed long ago.
At least it couldn’t have been days earlier.
More precise time estimation was out of the question—after all, Chen Yan wasn’t trained as a forensic scientist and lacked the expertise, only able to make a rough guess.
Possibly, it hadn’t even been a day?
After putting on his gloves again, Chen Yan gripped the long-handled axe even tighter.
Perhaps, he was getting closer to the other party!
·
Countdown: 114:36:51...
It was already the third day since the teleportation.
Chen Yan lay in the snow, wrapped in a sleeping bag... The sleeping bag was white, blending into the snow beneath the mountain ridge, making it easily overlooked among the ice-covered rocks if one didn’t look carefully.
His eyes squinted, fixed on the distance in the northern direction...
To the north, a faint flickering light was visible in the darkness.
The light was unstable, swaying and flickering at intervals, leading Chen Yan to believe that someone might be resting there, with a campfire.
Chen Yan lay there for half an hour, waiting silently.
From when the firelight appeared until now, Chen Yan hadn’t moved or tried to approach.
After the firelight persisted for two hours, Chen Yan finally crawled out of the snow, packed the sleeping bag into his backpack.
Visually estimating, the firelight shouldn’t be more than two kilometers away—though it might not be accurate.
With the backpack on, Chen Yan left the snow area at the foot of the mountain and slowly entered the forest, using the darkness and mist as cover to stealthily approach the light source.
He proceeded cautiously, and after ten minutes, Chen Yan carefully set down his backpack, hanging it from a strange tree trunk, then continued creeping towards the firelight’s target.