Chapter 14

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

“Roger.”

“Lord, I am here.”

The voice was deep and powerful, and as it rang out, the iron tower of a man walked over. His steps seemed slow, but he was actually moving swiftly, and it wasn’t long before he had walked up behind Chief Tang and bowed.

The man was two meters tall and had a head of short brown hair. He wore a suit of black armor with a giant sword on his back, and held his helmet in his hand. As the man got closer, Chen Haiping felt an enormous pressure on his heart.

Chen Haiping’s pupils constricted.

This sort of pressure did not come from energy. He could sense only a weak energy from Roger, but this pressure came from the way the man carried himself. This was the awe-inspiring and imposing attitude of someone who had fought their way out of a mountain of corpses.

It was a suffocating and fiendish pressure that impacted against his nerves and made his blood run cold.

He recalled his years in the military and those special-forces soldiers he had run into. These were soldiers who had truly been on the battlefield and killed people. Chen Haiping had felt the same fiendish energy on them, and compared to them, it was even more obvious on this iron tower of a man!

This was undoubtedly a super expert!

…

The tavern allowed him to make one free summon per day, which could be made at any time in the day. Yesterday, Tang Yu had summoned an ordinary D-grade adventurer, so he had not signed a contract. But this morning, he had summoned Roger.

With the precedent of an A-grade, the C-grade Roger wasn’t that impressive, but what Tang Yu cared about was Roger’s strength.

Not even he knew how many tiers there were to Awakened. He only knew that Awakened were basically divided into three levels. The first level was the Foundation Level, extending from Tier 1 Awakened to Tier 5 Awakened. This was the level of followers that could be summoned in the tavern. The second level was the Body Molding Level.

Roger had once been a peak Body Molding Level expert. Normally, Tang Yu would have never been able to summon him. But when on a campaign against the black flood, Roger had been heavily injured, and his strength fell to Awakened Tier 5. He had also been left with a disability that ensured that he would never go onto the battlefield again.

But when he was summoned, the contract’s power healed all of Roger’s injuries. Though he remained at the peak of the Foundation Level, it would be extremely simple for him to reach the Body Molding Level again.

Many years of injuries had been cured in a single day, and Roger’s imposing aura had erupted. As Tang Yu had the contract, he didn’t find it uncomfortable, but Chen Haiping took on the direct impact.

His face turned pale, but his eyes were excited, and there was a hint of anticipation and impatience on his face.

He was probably anxious to start learning skills to deal with demonized beasts, right?

…

A convoy stopped outside the entrance to the vacation villa.

It consisted of two off-road vehicles and one minibus.

The car doors opened, and numerous people got out. They had excellent equipment, holding guns and wearing bulletproof vests. These people immediately spread out and began to warily inspect their surroundings.

Wang Tai came out of the car, and behind him were his two subordinates.

As he looked at the nearby ruins of the vacation villa, Wang Tai once more felt his heart ache.

Before the apocalypse, he had been a big boss, and this Green Shade Vacation Villa had been his property. When the apocalypse took place, he had been nearby. With his personal guns and a group of loyal men, Wang Tai quickly managed to form a group and gradually develop the vacation villa into a shelter.

But with one demon flood, it had been completely wiped out!

Fortunately, he still had a chance for a resurgence… Wang Tai walked up to the middle-aged man and smiled. “Captain Han, we’re close to the Origin Crystal vein now, but it’s all mountain roads from here that aren’t easy to traverse. Should we stay and rest a little here?”

Han Jing narrowed his eyes and examined his surroundings. Just as Wang Tai had said, this place had come under attack by a demon flood, and the entire shelter had been annihilated. But this was not what he cared about. What he wanted was only one thing: to verify the existence of the Origin Crystal vein.

This Origin Crystal vein was the primary concern of the intelligence report provided by Wang Tai.

After the apocalypse, the Earth had changed dramatically, and many new products had appeared. Origin Crystal veins were one of these. An ore vein containing numerous Origin Crystals, even if excavated only a little, would produce far more Origin Crystals than killing thousands of demonized beasts. This was a temptation that Lin Wei could not resist.

As Lin Wei’s close aide, Han Jing had worked for the man for ten-some years and was well aware of what his boss was thinking. “Team Two, scout in the nine o’clock direction. Team Three, scout in the three o’clock direction. The rest, stay here and wait for orders.”

The remaining men spread out around the cars and stood guard.

Wang Tai looked into the distance, his eyes glinting.

He naturally understood the value of an Origin Crystal vein. If the shelter had still been around, he would have never offered this Origin Crystal vein to anyone! Fortunately, he had been able to trade it for something else. Wang Tai looked around and began to think about how he would secretly make his way to the villa to get the items he had hidden.

At this time, Team Three, which had only been gone a short while, came back, two of them escorting two panicked survivors.

“What’s going on? How can there still be survivors here?” Han Jing asked.

Wang Tai shook his head to indicate that he didn’t know. He was also flabbergasted!

…

Wang Zhou and another survivor looked at the men around them and trembled in fear.

They had simply come out to see if they could find any useful resources left behind by the demon flood. Why had all these savage-faced men with guns suddenly come out of nowhere? The two of them didn’t dare to resist and were instantly captured.

One of the men pointed his gun at the two and shouted, “Talk! Who are you? Why are you here? What were you doing? Tell me the truth and nothing but the truth, you hear!?”

Wang Zhou paled while the other survivor was struck dumb, his eyes growing wide and his hands and feet nervously twitching. It seemed that he had been scared silly. “He… hehe… hehehe.”

Seeing that the man was about to fire, Wang Zhou summoned his courage and instantly knocked his companion unconscious. “Wait, wait, wait! I’ll talk! He’s an idiot while I’m normal. Let me talk.”

He calmed himself down and hastily began to speak. “We’re survivors from the Green Shade Shelter–”

“Survivors? I told you to tell the truth! The Green Shade Shelter was already wiped out by the demon flood!”

Wang Zhou was so frightened that his face twisted up like a wrinkled shirt, and he was on the verge of tears, but he had no way of voicing his miseries. “We’re really survivors from Green Shade Shelter—wait! Wait… Let me finish. When the demon flood happened, we hid in the underground storage and managed to survive.”

Wang Tai frowned and came forward to ask, “The underground storage? How long were you hiding there? Why is it that you didn’t run into any demonized beasts when you came out?!”

“We… we hid for about two or three days. When we were so hungry that we couldn’t take it anymore, we ran out. As for the demonized beasts, I don’t know either. When we came out, the outside was like this,” Wang Zhou stammered.

The man with the gun was clearly no ordinary survivor, and with his unkind face and their rough demeanor… Wang Zhou knew that even if he told the truth, his chances of survival weren’t great. It would be better to conceal key information and wait for Chief Tang to save him.

Not even he was sure if Chief Tang would save them. In the apocalypse, ordinary survivors were the most worthless of all. But it was better to believe in Chief Tang than believe that these armed men would let him go. After all, Chief Tang had treated them rather well in the last few days.

Han Jing stood on the side and listened to the interrogation continue, then he turned to Wang Tai.

“They’re all survivors from your shelter. Do you not have any impression of them?”

Wang Tai shook his head. “They’re just ordinary survivors, so I have no idea. If they were Awakened, I might be able to recognize a few.”

Han Jing turned pensive.

From this interrogation, it seemed that there were more survivors than just these two. There were also other people, but they weren’t strong and didn’t represent much of a threat. But out of caution, he ordered, “Bring these two people with us. Since there are other survivors, we’ll capture all the mice first.”

…

After doing a few rounds of the area and finding no demonized beasts, Tang Yu returned, alone, to the clearing outside the castle.

As the number of demonized beasts dwindled, hunting demonized beasts became less and less efficient. At first, he could run into many demonized beasts in the first few minutes, but now, he could search for half an hour without finding one. Rather than accompanying the hunting team, he decided to return to the castle and find a place to train.

Awakened also needed to train, particularly when they had big boosts in strength. In order to better control his power, Tang Yu needed to spend some time on training.

At this time, his body was contorted into an extremely awkward position. This was a training method that Roger had taught him this morning.

It was a battle warm-up exercise.

At this time, a notification appeared in his mind.

“Ding! Your domain residents are in danger. Please note…”

“Ding!…”

“Ding!…”

Tang Yu was struck dumb.