Dark Blood Path
Chapter 43: Crisis

Sun Daxiang led his men slowly through the street outside the campus’s east gate. The sun shone brightly, which felt a bit dazzling. The ground was littered with fallen leaves and glass shards as they reflected the view of several people walking down the street, all holding machetes, iron bars, hammers and other weapons in their hands. Suddenly the crowd heard footsteps coming from the side of the road. Thinking it was a monster appearing, everyone was startled, but what followed the sound was the figures of Du Tao, Zhao Dahai and others.

Both groups were stunned and looked at each other with surprised expressions. Then, there was a long breath of silence in the air.

Sun Daxiang breathed a sigh of relief, “It turns out they’re only a bunch of human beings; you scared me for nothing.”

Xu Li frowned and said, “What should we do? Should we leave first to notify the boss and have him send someone over?”

Sun Daxiang snorted disdainfully, “What are you scared of? God, you’re so cowardly! They don’t appear to be particularly strong; we will give them a warning, and if they don’t know what’s good for them, then… humph!”

Du Tao immediately dispatched one of the group members to inform Xiao Yu and the others, and then stepped forward on his own, with a kind smile on his face, and said: “I wasn’t expecting to meet you here; can you tell us where you came from? But first, let us make acquaintance. Then, of course, if you want to join us, I can speak on behalf of our team and extend a warm welcome to everyone.”

“Pooh, shut the f**k up!” Sun Daxiang came out with a machete in his hand and shouted loudly, “We’ve taken over this place now, so get the hell out and leave everything. Otherwise, don’t blame me for being ruthless!”

Upon hearing this, Du Tao and the others all changed their expression. Obviously, It was impossible to talk about peace with this group of people.

Zhao Dahai growled: “Who are you? This is our school. We took it back with great difficulty. Now It belongs to us. Why should we leave it for the likes of you?!”

“Zhao, don’t be impulsive.” Du Tao embarrassedly smiled, with a reconciling expression on his face: “Don’t be impulsive, brothers. I understand survival is difficult for everyone, so we are willing to share supplies and make new friends. How about that?”

“F**k, are you sending beggars away?” Sun Daxiang showed disdain, then he suddenly spotted a beautiful young girl among the other party, his eyes lit up, and he said with a smirk: “Everything here belongs to us, and those ladies over there will also have to stay. Our brothers haven’t tasted a woman for days straight! As for you, if you don’t want to die, then get the f**k out of here!”

Sun Daxiang’s subordinates noticed the girls in the group, and their eyes lit up with excitement. All eager for some good time.

Du Tao’s narrowed eyes gleamed with an unnoticed chilliness as he smiled and said, “In this case, we have nothing to talk about.” His tone was a bit cold.

“What the hell, don’t you understand human language?” A burly man stood out, “The team leader gave you a chance to leave, so f**king leave, don’t be ungrateful!”

When Zhao Dahai heard this, he was furious and shouted angrily: “You are bullying us far too much!” The big sword in both of his hands slashed fiercely across the burly man’s shoulders, blood spattered, and one arm was directly cut off amidst the other party’s screams.

Zhao Dahai swung his sword and slashed again, and before the unlucky guy had time to retreat, his body was cut in half by the blade. The blood directly dyed him red as he turned into a bloody figure. The strength of an elementary warrior was several times stronger than that of people who were about to evolve and five to six times stronger than ordinary people. When exerting all of his power, he can easily break through a thousand catties’ amount of strength. Moreover, with the talent of “strength enhancement,” his strength can reach levels beyond ordinary people’s imagination.

Sun Daxiang was surprised and enraged as he yelled: “You dare to attack my people; you’re seeking death! Kill them all!”

A flaming arrow shot right through his chest just as he finished speaking. The impact made him fly several meters away in midair before he fell heavily against the ground. Sun Daxiang stared wide-eyed at his wound and opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say anything. His throat was dry, and he could only let out a hoarse sound of agony as he felt like he was hit in the chest by a rocket instead, and the internal organs in that area all had been burnt to a crisp.

“Team leader!”

Xu Li and the others were overcome with fear before they decided to help him. They ran toward his body sprawled several meters away; however, they found his eyes bulging out strangely and a burnt smell of flesh permeating the air. The guy was already dead. Even though Sun Daxiang was hotheaded and arrogant, he was still an elementary level warrior, yet he still got shot to death by just one single arrow. How mighty was this archer?

Xu Li looked up and was shocked to replace that many figures appeared from both sides of the street, surrounding them tightly. His face changed, and he spoke loudly: “Not good; everyone, scatter and inform the boss!”

Du Tao sneered and said, “You want to leave? Is it still possible for you to do so?!”

Zhao Dahai shouted angrily, trampled a person to the ground, and charged at Xu Li. The latter swiftly swung his machete and engaged the opponent in a close quarter twice, pushing the opposite party back. Zhao Dahai then realized something.

So he is also an elementary level; the good news is that he lacks any powerful innate skills, so he should possess an ordinary talent like mine!

Xu Li was not much better than Zhao Hai in terms of strength. Still, because of his “Agility Enhancement” talent, his speed was better than the opponent’s by a few points. Along with his relatively rich combat experience, he could defeat most of his enemies within a few moves. But after a few blows were exchanged between them, his wrist went numb from the shock, and several large gaps appeared gradually in the machete. He was aware that the other person’s weapon quality and strength were much more excellent than his own, but he thought the gap was manageable.

Now he knew that he might not be able to defeat this guy even if he gave it his all. So, why would he continue to fight? He immediately found a chance to escape, turned around and fled without hesitation.

As an elementary level warrior with “agility enhancement” talent, his speed was astonishingly fast, leaving the other party by a large margin in the blink of an eye.

However, just when he thought he could escape.

Suddenly, he had the feeling of being thrown high while his whole world was spinning. When his view stabilized, He could see a headless body running forward, and he couldn’t help but wonder… Why that figure looked so familiar?

“Could it be, that’s my body… No, That’s impossible…”

Xu Li’s headless body continued running six to seven meters forward before it collapsed hard on the ground. The head tumbled and moved, rolling far away. His eyes were still wide open, filled with surprise and disbelief. He couldn’t believe it until the moment he died. The cyan light of the sword in Xiao Yu’s hand gradually faded as he stood by the side. Looking back, he saw Wang Chao, Han Kexin, and Yun Yun joining the fray while the outsiders were brutally murdered in turns.

This was not a battle but a massacre; their fighting power was on another level compared to theirs. Jiang Xiaowen couldn’t stand the bloodshed, even though she knew they were a gang of thugs like Wang Yunfei, which were also the first to show hostility toward them. She also knew that if they showed mercy, endless troubles would come to bite them back. But she couldn’t accept the guilt of killing her kind with her own hands, so she neither stopped them nor took action from start to finish. The battle was over in a matter of minutes, and Du Tao didn’t even have enough time to order the group to leave someone alive for questioning.

“These people should belong to a larger group based on how they address each other.” Du Tao said with a sullen expression: “The one who Yun Yun shot just now was their team leader, and there is a ‘Boss’ with a higher status according to what he said. I believe this should be a powerful organization, and everyone should be wary of it.”

Wang Chao said disapprovingly: “He’s nothing more than a punching bag. I’ll have no trouble dealing with five or six of his kind. I guess their boss wouldn’t be that bad, but I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about.”

“No, you can’t underestimate anyone. Du Tao is right.” Xiao Yu said slowly: “The world has changed. This cruel and dark environment often unveils the dark side of people’s hearts. Some of them are so evil that we really must guard against them. Strength represents everything in this world, and improving it is especially crucial. I won’t offend others if they don’t offend me, and I’ll strike back if someone does! In the future, exercise caution, and be on the lookout for suspicious activities.”

Du Tao nodded, saying, “I’ll arrange some people to look around the area for signs of other humans’ presence.”

“Anyway, if enemy soldiers come, a general should stop them. Plus, with our strength, we shouldn’t be afraid of them.” Xiao Yu continued: “Don’t just sit there; let’s get to work and try to empty out all these supermarkets within a day.”

(TN: full idiom: ‘if enemy soldiers come, a general should stop them, and If flood waters come, the earth should stem it’ meaning there’s always a solution to a problem, and to take measures as the situation calls for)

“yes!”

Leaving Du Tao and the others to clean up the corpses, the others quickly dispersed to carry the remaining supplies. Every minute and second ticked by, while having to take everything required more than a dozen trips back and forth as they finally emptied the two small supermarkets near the school gate, along with the surrounding snack bars and restaurants, which were also taken care of. Food, water and supplies, basically everything that could be collected, was taken away back to the cave.

Dusk finally arrived on their last back trip. The setting sun sprinkled upon the forest’s surface, coating the deep green wilderness with a layer of golden shade as the forest became dark and cold. Everyone had been working hard all day, but they were not tired. On the contrary, they were all smiling and full of enthusiasm.

Wang Chao was carrying a lot of stuff on his back, while a cigarette was dangling from his mouth, and the eyes on his big fat face were narrowed into slits. “Haha, it’s so f**king cool to be able to take as much as you want without paying for anything.”

Jin Shi also laughed and said: “we got so much food, and we only have over a hundred people. I don’t think we can starve even if we sit and do nothing for three months straight.”

Just as Wang Chao was about to open his mouth to make some jokes, he felt the ground underneath was no longer there. His feet gave away before he staggered and almost fell. After regaining his footing, he cursed loudly: “This road is really making it harder for us. Wait, why is there a big hole in the ground?!” He looked down and carefully gazed beside his feet; he was a little surprised and asked the others, “Hey, why does the shape of this pit looks like a big foot?”

Jin Shi didn’t believe him: “Foot? How can there be such a pit.” He walked over and looked down before speaking with a surprised look on his face, “strange, it does look like a foot. It should be a foot, but it’s so large that it can’t be human.”

“What are you talking about?” Jiang Xiaowen was mildly intrigued as she squeezed over, “Hey, those are footprints! Why does the shape look so familiar though… I remember, these are the footprints of an ogre. Ah! Not good, an ogre is here?!”

Xiao Yu overheard their chatter long ago, but at that specific word, he immediately stopped in his tracks, approached the footprints, and took a closer look. He raised his head and spoke with a solemn expression: “Xiaowen is right, this is the footprint of an ogre, and it is less than five minutes away from the cave. Its area of ​​activities has already reached over here. Everyone should know that the fighting power of the ogres is far stronger than that of a mere goblin leader by several notches. Our current situation is difficult, and I am still not its opponent.”

When Jiang Xiaowen heard this, she was a little scared and said hurriedly, “Then what should we do?”

“There is nothing we can do for the time being. After all, we can’t defeat the ogre, and we can’t leave or give up the cave for the time being. We can only try to be careful when going out.” Xiao Yu saw Jiang Xiaowen’s two willow leaf eyebrows knotted in a frown, so he continued: “You should be aware that there are almost no long-term safe havens in this world. There are dangers everywhere. One can only survive by adapting quicly.”