Lu Ce checked the condition of his body, confirming that both arms and legs were still intact and usable.

Never having felt pain before, he didn’t know what pain actually felt like, but the downside was—it meant his body lacked a built-in warning system.

To avoid the possibility of some bloody hole still existing somewhere on him, he downed another bottle of Basic Healing Potion.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure you gave me several coordinates.”

On the other end, the Black Knight spoke to Lu Ce somewhat speechlessly.

“All of them are suspicious locations. You’re faster than me, so go first, loop through each one, and let me know if anything seems off.”

...

She saw it.

Xie Antong was walking alone down the street, her steps slightly unsteady.

“What... is that?”

Her gaze was a little unfocused, and she uttered the same question as the last eliminated Player.

Among all the Players, she was the first to see it—she clearly saw the appearance of the “Hunter.” 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

It was a roughly two-meter-tall humanoid-looking thing, entirely blood-red.

Its torso was quite small, seemingly existing only as a connector for its limbs, and its head was shaped like a triangle.

As for its limbs—they were four long, massive spikes, like four spears, born for the sole purpose of killing!

Just a moment ago, her All-Seeing Eye had clearly witnessed its appearance. It had suddenly appeared in the middle of the street, startling everyone around.

One of the civilians had even stepped up to it, pointing in the direction of a Player—and the next instant, it exploded into motion, its spear-like limbs piercing the Player clean through.

Xie Antong had almost never seen a burst of speed at that level. It was too fast—if ranked by Player standards, perhaps only “Sin” could match that velocity.

This thing was a Hunter? Then it was clear—Players really should just run.

But then, the All-Seeing Eye delivered an even more grotesque scene to Xie Antong.

After killing, the creature didn’t immediately look for a new target. Instead, it let out an excited roar and began brutally mutilating the corpse!

Its four massive, spear-like limbs stabbed at such speed that the eye couldn’t track it. The ground turned blood-red in an instant—it looked like ground meat.

Xie Antong felt nauseated at the sight. With a thought, she pulled up the Game Panel, and after a brief pause, quickly wrote:

“The true identity of the Hunter is a blood-red creature with spear-like limbs and extremely high speed.”

Ding!

After she finished writing, the newly added game decryption progress bar jumped from 30% to 31%.

【Player [Blank] has advanced the game decryption to 31%!】

【The true identity of the Hunter is a blood-red creature with spear-like limbs and extremely high speed!】

The game announcement appeared again, this time broadcasting Xie Antong’s guess to all other Players.

She immediately perked up—realizing that as long as the progress bar advanced, whatever she wrote down could act as a means of message transmission.

After a bit more thought, she continued writing on the game interface.

Ding!

【Player [Blank] has advanced the game decryption to 45%!】

【The Hunter’s appearance condition is likely related to a reduction in “Prey.” Also, the first Hunter is currently slaughtering Players on Kral Street and may be heading south toward Player “Shen Dao’s” location.】

This time it was a long string of text—the latter part was essentially a warning from 【Blank】 to the other Players!

The key issue was—she had to find a way to let the top-tier Players know the Hunter’s location. On her own, there was no way she could handle that kind of killing machine.

“Shen Dao” was currently hiding out in an ice cream shop. He hadn’t participated in any fights yet.

Seeing the sudden warning pop up in-game, his whole mind went blank.

“What the hell is coming for me?! Who the hell is ‘Blank’? How do they know where I am?”

Shen Dao jolted upright in panic and looked toward the north. It still looked calm and peaceful over there.

“Tch, what the hell?!”

Cursing, he sat up straighter like a guilty thief, pretending nothing was wrong, and started writing in the game interface.

“Who is Blank? Do you know me?”

But the “answer” he wrote flickered for a moment—and disappeared without triggering anything.

Clearly, he hadn’t advanced the game decryption, so there was no Player broadcast.

“Huh?”

“F**k!”

Realizing what happened, he quickly stood up, finished his drink, and headed outside.

What he didn’t notice was that behind him, the shopkeeper was watching his back with a pair of cold, dead eyes.

And once Shen Dao had left, the man opened his mouth slightly, as if to say something.

Shen Dao started to run. He arrived at the bus stop. In the sky, the Hunter carved crimson lines, rapidly closing in.

Xie Antong, posing as a normal civilian, used her All-Seeing Eye to track Shen Dao’s movements.

She knew there were no Players or Hunters near her, and no one was paying attention to her—but she remained cautious, determined to act like a regular civilian.

Otherwise, she had a bad feeling—maybe something the All-Seeing Eye picked up had seeped into her subconscious. She hadn’t fully realized it yet.

...

At that moment, Shen Dao looked into the distance and saw a bus approaching—but it didn’t slow down at all, instead speeding past with a roar!

“What?!”

He froze, about to curse, when he suddenly whipped around—and came face-to-face with the blood-red creature.

Ahhhhhhhh!

A sharp roar rang in his ears. His eardrums burst instantly, blood gushing out—it felt like he’d been hit by a sonic weapon.

Battle instinct kicked in, and twin sabers appeared in his hands! He slashed hard.

Bang! Crack!

A crisp sound echoed—the high-grade weapon shattered into fragments in an instant, and Shen Dao flew backward without any footing.

He looked like he was barely hanging on to life.

Xie Antong’s heart sank. She only knew about Shen Dao because he was ranked over 2,000 in the world!

And that was 2,000 in the combat category—not like her, a functional-type Player... and he couldn’t even survive one round.

Her heart began to turn cold.

Suddenly, she found her All-Seeing Eye had stopped working—it could no longer follow the battle below.

But the next second, the All-Seeing Eye’s perspective began to spin on its own, as if it had been grabbed by something.

Then, a menacing Blue Mask filled her field of vision.

“Sin” had arrived!