Chapter 513 - 163: Golden Armor
Golden Armor sighed, "I’ve been watching them for days now. I’ve attacked them twice before, and only today did I finally succeed."
As he spoke, he continued slowly, "As for the spoils here, I’ll only take the things from the leader’s body. The rest are yours. How about it?"
"Alright!" Chen Yan agreed immediately.
Then, the two began to clear the battlefield. A moment later, the bodies of five Fierce Beast Race monsters were lined up together.
Chen Yan scavenged through the belongings on these monsters and found three small pouches inside, which indeed contained those black crystals with active Primordial Qi fluctuations.
However, the leader’s body was moved aside by Golden Armor.
Unexpectedly, Golden Armor did not scavenge the leader monster’s equipment but instead took out a dagger. After sizing up the monster’s body for a moment, he stabbed it into the monster’s chest, pulling aside the flesh...
A moment later, the fellow actually dug out the entire heart of the leader monster! Then, slashing down with his hand, he opened it up and finally extracted a crystal the size of a fingernail from inside.
Golden Armor’s hands were covered in blood, but his expression remained unchanged. He just wiped his hands with the snow and then wiped the fingernail-sized crystal clean before carefully putting it in his pocket.
Chen Yan watched clearly from the side, witnessing the entire process as this guy calmly opened the leader monster, gutted it, and extracted its heart.
This guy is ruthless... Chen Yan remained silent.
And as for the thing Golden Armor dug out from the heart of the Fierce Beast Race leader, Chen Yan did not pry further.
After collecting the crystal, Golden Armor’s whole demeanor seemed slightly relaxed, not as tense and murderous as before.
He actually walked to the fire, threw a few more branches into it, stirred it to make the flames more vigorous, and then turned back to look at Chen Yan, "Want to come over and take a rest?"
"...Okay," Chen Yan nodded.
Seeing Golden Armor rummaging through the supplies left by the Fierce Beast Race monsters, seemingly searching for some food, Chen Yan waved a hand: "Wait a moment."
Chen Yan ran back into the forest, retrieved his mountaineering bag from a tree, and took out a packet of dried meat, tearing it open and handing a strip to Golden Armor.
Golden Armor was not pretentious and took it, glancing once before biting into it.
The tough dried beef strip entered his mouth, the salty and fragrant taste made Golden Armor’s eyes light up. Biting forcefully on the beef, he said to Chen Yan, "Fellow Daoist, being a Loose Cultivator, you’ve ventured deep into the belly of the Fierce Beast Race, are you also here for the bounty hunting?"
Bounty hunting?
Chen Yan felt somewhat puzzled but maintained an impassive expression, vaguely remarking, "Cultivation as a Loose Cultivator isn’t easy. If one doesn’t take some risks, how can they earn resources for cultivation?"
Golden Armor nodded as well, "Indeed, it’s not easy for Loose Cultivators."
As he spoke, he took off his boots, stretching his feet towards the fire to warm them, and said in a low voice, "Ever since the Immortal Platform issued the ’Seven Evil Tribes Bounty Order’ a few years ago, countless Loose Cultivators have rushed into the territory of the Fierce Race to hunt and exchange for rewards from the Immortal Platform. Yet, going this deep, you’re the first I’ve seen."
Fierce Race’s Seven Divisions? Bounty Order?
Chen Yan pondered these words, saying slowly, "I’ve been following this group of monsters for several days now. Before, I encountered two sets of bodies on the road..."
After recounting the two incidents of bodies he encountered on the road, Golden Armor candidly admitted, "That was my doing."
Golden Armor sighed, "In the mountains, it’s rare for Fierce Beast Race squads to go out. Encountering this squad is considered fortunate.
I’ve been following them for several days, lurking secretly for an opportunity. I heard there was some incident in the mining area, and they went out to capture something, allowing a squad to venture outside. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know how long I’d have to wait, lurking outside the mining area."
As he spoke, he looked into Chen Yan’s eyes with a smile, "That leader had awakened a special physique, much stronger than ordinary Fierce Beast Race warriors, quite difficult to deal with.
Of course, elsewhere, his newly awakened special physique wouldn’t withstand a single sword from me.
But here, with both inner and outer Primordial Qi suppressed, our cultivators’ strength is reduced by ninety-nine percent, making it hard to deal with him.
I attacked them twice before finally heavily injuring the leader.
Even more fortunately, I managed to kill a domesticated burrowing dragon they brought out. That burrowing dragon had a keen sense of smell, able to detect abnormal scents from ten miles away if the wind was favorable. Fortunately, I killed it; otherwise, with a burrowing dragon in their hands, tonight’s ambush wouldn’t have been as successful."
Burrowing Dragon?
Chen Yan immediately recalled the body of that animal, dog-sized, with a head like a crocodile’s.
Golden Armor’s gaze fell on the recurve bow slung across Chen Yan’s back, smiling, "Fellow Daoist, that bow of yours looks interesting. Did you get it from the outside world too?"
Chen Yan felt slightly nervous—his recurve bow’s manufacturing process was evidently quite modern.
"No need to be nervous," Golden Armor smiled, "Although the Immortal Platform officially prohibits things from the outside world from circulating in the Domain Realm, in reality, even within our War Department, many cultivators secretly use them.
The original ban was issued a hundred years ago and is clearly an outdated antique. It’s just that those old traditionalists who imposed the ban back then refuse to slap themselves in the face, so they insist on not repealing it.
But, in reality, nobody cares about such things in private anymore."