In Depth

Dudian sneaked around for five or six hundred meters along the neighborhood. It was at this point that he smelled other odors close to his location. However, he felt that they were aware of his location too and were closing up on him. He was alerted as he knew that it was not an ordinary undead which had detected his presence. "What kind of variation is it this time?" Dudian whispered.

However, this time he was ready. He found a relatively good location for shooting. He took out dark silver arrows and tightly stared at the front of the street. According to the sense of the smell he knew that it was about the time the skeleton's would pop out from the corner.

It's going to come out!

Dudian narrowed his eyes as he hand suddenly pulled the string of the bow and released it.

Whoosh!

The arrow shined as it pierced through the air.

The corner of the street was covered in moss and vegetation. The next moment a huge figure came out of the corner. It had long hands and legs. The skeleton's back was curved as camel's and the scythes were protruding from its arms. It was the same as the previous skeleton. A mutation!

Puff! The arrow shot into its face the moment it ran out of the corner.

Dudian had long anticipated the timing of the skeleton and he had fired the arrow according to the previous skeleton's height. However instead of aiming at its forehead he had focused on mouth of the previous skeleton. He had made the shot according to his visualization of the target.

It seemed that the skeleton wasn't affected by the silver arrow that was covered with a special substance. It roared and rushed out. Nevertheless it didn't even ran out for ten meters that it slipped over the moss and fell to the ground. Its body rolled for a few times and came to stop.

Dudian was scared as he didn't expect that his own special silver arrow wasn't actually able to kill it directly. He took out an ordinary iron arrow, focused at skeleton's head and shot. He carefully began to walk towards its corpse as he saw that there was no response after the shot. He used the dagger to cut for several times before completely cutting off its cervical spine.

Dudian took back the iron arrow. However he was surprised when he pulled out silver arrow. It had bursted out and there was dark silver luster which was the mercury.

Dudian had envisioned many methods in order to enhance the destructive power of the arrows. He finally throught about mercury. It was a highly toxic substance and in case it got into blood vessels then there was a high chance that it would kill the opponent.

Dudian took out his dagger and quickly dissect the skull. He saw that mercurcy had penetrated into the brain. Because of the endothermic effect of the cold crystal the temperature of the brain was low but mercury had gradually entered the head. Although because of cool tissues the effect didn't take instantly but mercury was enough to damage the intracranial tissues and kill it.

Dudian wrapped the cold crystal and stored it. He was planning to accumulate few more, go back to relatively safe area and absorb them.

"It appears that the undeads at this side of the giant wall have gone through mutations." Dudian had hunted down three undeads. Two of them were skeletons while the third one was an ordinary undead. Most probably it hadn't mutated or was eaten because it was trapped in the car. So it seems there was a factor which made them mutate.

"The squad of senior and intermediate hunters from Huasheng consortium who had entered the region ten years ago most probably had met lots of ordinary undeads. However, to hunters at that level they would never hunt ordinary undeads. They would look at disdain to these creatures as the cold crystals would be exchanged for a gold coin. So they must have gone deeper inside and have met something very ferocious." Dudian secretly thought about the possible situation. Most probably they have gone to hunt a more valuable monster to strip its body materials but have ended up in demise.

"Now, ordinary undeads seems to be extinct here and the ones which are left are skeletons. So some kind of a monster has eaten them or the skeletons have preyed upon them. The first reason is unlikely as the monsters will migrate if they can't find food. The second reason which involves skeletons seems more sensible. The question is do they really eat them?"

Dudian quickly analyzed the option.: "If it is the second case?! If skeleton's prey upon ordinary undeads or each other then the ones who are left are extremely terrible level monsters."

He knew that there were two factors. His face had turned ugly as both options were very dangerous. He didn't dare to take either of these options as an easy way out.

He decided the old method to hide his body odor. He cut pieces of flesh from skeleton's skin and attached to the surface of his own armor in order to prevent it from slip. He didn't apply skeleton's blood because he thought that the smell of blood may agitate some monsters apetite. Normally they wouldn't attack skeletons but the blood may stimulate their hunger.

Moreover, the skin was enough to cover up his own smell. Although there was smell of blood that radiated from below the skin but it was inevitable.

Dudian quickly left the place.

The number of skeleton's was sparse in comparison to ordinary undeads that you could find in different regions.

However, soon he found out that another mutated skeleton which was about seven or eight hundred meters away began to approach towards him. It seems the method he used to cover up his smell has backfired on him. The odor of the mutated skeleton was quickly approaching him.

Dudian thought that if he hadn't used dead mutated skeleton's skin to cover his smell then using stealth methods he could get at 500 meters close to the other mutated skeleton before it was able to detect him.

It was too late to think about another method. He quickly took out a dark silver arrow and looked around to find a suitable location to shoot. There was two hundred meters of distance between them now.

Soon, the body of the enemy rushed out as it sliced the vines and vegatation that was covering its way. It roared and rushed at Dudian.

It was another mutated skeleton!

Dudian had long expected its movement trajectory so he had made the shot on time.

puff!

Arrow pierced its face.

Dudian face slightly change as the location which arrow had pierced was far away from its brain. It would take a lot of time for mercury to reach its intracranial tissue.

He took out another arrow. Because the mutated skeleton was about hundred meters away from him then he was going to use an ordinary iron arrow.

"Be calm, focus! ..."

Dudian's finger let go of the string.

Arrow shot and pierced mutated skeleton's eye.

Dudian was relieved as he saw that mutated skeleton fell to the ground. He didn't waste time and rushed out to cut off its head.

After he took out the cold crystal, Dudian took the gunpowder box and went to another location.

In the blink of an eye two days passed.

There was no rain in the last two days and the weather was a bit gloomy. However the conditions were perfect for hunting.

Dudian hunted at daytime but didn't dare to run around at night. Although he had dark vision but there were some monsters which preferred to hunt at night. Every night he would find broken ruins and sprinkle gunpowder around the place. The first reason was to use gunpowder to cover his own smell. The second was to make sure that in case a monster went pass that circle he would be able to smell the distortion.

There was no extra protection as he was alone out of the giant wall. He was risking his life.

He had killed twenty two mutated skeletons in the last consecutive two days. He had cleared our the nearby region. Right now he was considering whether he should go to a deeper area or retreat back to the giant wall.

He could smell odors of different species coming from further afar. Although the mainly there were mutated skeletons but he couldn't tell what kind of monsters the other smells belonged to.