Chapter Two: The Annihilation of the Hungry Wolves

"Clop, clop, clop!"

The sound of hooves echoed as a group of figures galloped fiercely along the official highway.

"Giddyup! Giddyup! Giddyup!"

As they passed, clouds of yellow dust billowed across the road.

"Young Commander, I recall there's a tea shed just ahead. The brothers have been riding hard, and with this heat, everyone's parched. How about we take a brief rest before moving on? We can still reach Yellow Peak Stronghold before nightfall!"

Zhao Ze rode abreast of Murong Xun, shouting out over the din.

"Very well!"

Murong Xun replied.

"Brothers!"

Zhao Ze hollered to the men behind.

"The Young Commander has given the word! We'll rest at the tea shed up ahead, so pick up the pace!"

"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!"

Excited cheers erupted from the men trailing behind.

Riding horses under the blazing sun wasn't nearly as pleasant as one might imagine. Covered in dust and grime, traveling on the roads of this era was truly a trial beyond words.

Fortunately, they were martial artists whose physical attributes far exceeded ordinary mortals; otherwise, such long hours in the saddle would have been sheer torture.

Murong Xun used to watch television shows where characters dressed in flowing white robes looked effortlessly handsome whenever they made an entrance.

Only now did he realize that the scriptwriters must have been out of their minds. Wearing white while riding horses in an era like this? Even if you brought a hundred sets of clothes and had a whole platoon trailing behind you just to wash them, it still might not be enough.

Wearing flowing white was a privilege reserved only for the extraordinarily capable.

Didn't he and his men now wear pitch-black garments, complemented by bamboo rain hats and heavy cloaks?

All of that was meant to keep out the wind and sand.

Cloaks were absolute essentials for travel, incredibly practical whether one needed to ward off dust storms on sunny days or shield against relentless rain.

The rhythmic thud of hooves continued, but before they reached the tea shed Zhao Ze had mentioned, seven or eight figures suddenly emerged from the opposite direction, blocking their path.

"Finally found you!"

The burly man leading the group pointed directly at Murong Xun, a look of profound triumph plastered across his face.

"Brat, did you really think you could escape to this world and I wouldn't be able to track you down? How much better would it have been if you had just handed over the item obediently? Instead, you forced me to waste a tracking scroll! Feeding you to the wolves later is the only way to soothe the irritation in my chest!"

"What kind of scum are you?"

Zhao Ze bellowed in fury.

"We are members of the Raging Dragon Gang standing right before you. What path do you bastards walk?"

At this moment, Zhao Ze was utterly incensed. As a leader of the greenwood outlaws, having their way blocked by uninvited interlopers was nothing short of an absolute humiliation—especially when the stranger had the audacity to point and yell insults directly at the Young Commander, completely ignoring their presence.

"I don't give a damn if you're the Raging Dragon Gang or the Raging River Gang. My grievance is with this punk, so stop sticking your noses into other people's business, damn it!"

Dire Wolf held no regard whatsoever for these native inhabitants.

He had tracked his target into this world purely for the equipment on Murong Xun. Once he secured the loot, he and his men would leave immediately, and whatever happened to anyone else was entirely irrelevant to them.

"You have some nerve!"

Zhao Ze's eyes bulged with rage, pushed past the breaking point of anger. Yet, he still remembered his station and refrained from acting entirely on his own accord.

"Young Commander, how shall we deal with them?"

"Kill them all!"

Murong Xun replied indifferently.

He had no idea who these people were, knowing only that they were players. Since they had come looking for trouble, there was no need for courtesy; executing every last one of them on the spot was the most efficient solution.

It could also be said that the Dire Wolf Adventure Group simply had terrible luck. They had tracked Murong Xun down, completely unaware that he had not entered the dungeon world through normal means. This time, he had utilized a class-transfer scroll to enter, granting him a legitimate status within the native world right from the start.

Moreover, that scroll had certainly lived up to its price tag, equipping him with a rather prominent identity in this realm from the very beginning.

More importantly, the moment they finally located him happened to coincide with Murong Xun and his entourage heading toward Yanzi Mountain, surrounded by a legion of elite experts.

"Kill them!"

With a thunderous roar, Zhao Ze spurred his horse forward and charged straight at Dire Wolf.

The rest of the men didn't hesitate for a moment, drawing their blades and fanatically engaging their respective opponents in combat.

Not all of them rushed into the fray, however. A detachment remained tightly clustered around Murong Xun to ensure his absolute safety.

Murong Xun's personal formidable strength was one thing, but his subordinates' staunch loyalty in guarding him was entirely another.

As a veteran member of the Raging Dragon Gang, Zhao Ze's martial prowess was no joke. A embroidered saber danced swiftly and viciously in his hands, so fast and lethal that Dire Wolf was instantly forced onto the defensive, facing peril at every turn. Panicked and overwhelmed, Dire Wolf had no choice but to tumble out of the saddle and continue the fight on solid ground.

In truth, he wasn't particularly skilled at mounted combat to begin with.

Seeing this, Zhao Ze unhesitatingly leaped down from his horse to match him blow for blow.

At this juncture, Dire Wolf's mind was an utter blank. He still couldn't fathom what had gone wrong.

All he had wanted to do was shake down and rob a common, ordinary player.

Before making their move, they had evaluated the opponent's strength. Had the target been too formidable, they never would have struck. The very fact that they had attacked meant the adversary's power level should have been well within their capacity to easily crush. So what on earth was this current situation?

Why on earth were there so many terrifying experts surrounding this target?

They had never encountered a scenario like this before!

Yet, right now, a single Zhao Ze was suppressing him so thoroughly that he couldn't even catch a breath, rendering any counterattack exceedingly difficult.

When facing these natives, they were forbidden from utilizing guns or firearms whose mechanics were alien and inconsistent with this world's setting; even magic systems were restricted. Consequently, their overall combat effectiveness suffered a catastrophic decline, ultimately reducing them to being one-sidedly crushed.

"Fall back!"

Dire Wolf shouted in a panic. Ignoring the fate of his companions, he seized the split second when Zhao Ze slashed down with enough force to drive him backward, using the kinetic impact of the blow to propel himself violently through the air.

With a few rapid leaps, he scrambled far away into the distance.

"Where do you think you're going?!"

Zhao Ze gave chase without a moment's hesitation.

Yet, swift as his movement techniques were, they still couldn't match the speed of an opponent directly triggering a movement skill.

Murong Xun's gaze turned chillingly cold.

Drawing his blade from its scabbard, he vaulted from his horse and instantly activated Aurora Flash. His figure flickered and reappeared ten meters away, immediately followed by Wild Bull Charge. Propelled forward like a cannonball leaving the barrel, he closed the distance between himself and the fleeing Dire Wolf with relentless momentum.

"Huh?"

When Dire Wolf glanced back and saw how terrifyingly fast Murong Xun was closing in on him, a fierce snarl twisted his features. Those natives were so far away, who did this kid think he was trying to intimidate?

Realizing he couldn't outrun him, he abandoned the flight and resolved to eliminate Murong Xun right here and now, allowing him to immediately log out upon completion. That way, he could at least recoup his losses from this expedition.

Noticing the enemy halt his retreat, Murong Xun remained expressionless. The moment his Aurora Flash cooldown reset, he triggered the skill once more, instantly blinking right to Dire Wolf's side.

"Brat, your biggest mistake was leaving the protection of those natives!"

Dire Wolf grinned malevolently. This trip had turned into an absolute disaster, with the core backbone of the Dire Wolf Adventure Group practically wiped out in a single engagement. At this point, his only recourse was to slaughter this player to stanch the bleeding.

His heavy saber cleaved straight down toward Murong Xun.

He possessed absolute confidence in his own combat capabilities, certain he could dispatch his opponent in short order and make a clean getaway.

After all, they had probed the target's strength right at the beginning of the encounter.

However, what he failed to realize was that in this world, there existed a phenomenon known as temporary skill effects.

"Clang!"

The blades met, and Dire Wolf's expression instantly froze.

"How..."

Before he could finish his sentence, his entire body toppled forward.

"Your luck is simply abysmal!"

Murong Xun muttered coldly as he scooped up the crimson badge materializing from the corpse, then turned and walked away.

There were too many people around, making it inconvenient to feed the corpse to his devouring gauntlets.

Indeed, Dire Wolf's fortune was remarkably poor. The exact moment their weapons clashed, Shadow of Slaughter had triggered its One-Blade Severance trait. Not only was Dire Wolf's saber sliced completely in half, but the effect extended directly to his body, decapitating him cleanly.

Such a probability was exceedingly low, yet it had transpired right then and there.

Naturally, the primary catalyst was the layering of various passive effects bolstering Murong Xun. Every single one of those passives amplified either his attack power, burst potential, or critical damage multiplier, and their numerical values were far from negligible. When stacked together, the resulting output was utterly terrifying.

"The Young Commander is mighty!"

Seeing Murong Xun dispatch the enemy leader with a single strike, Zhao Ze cheered ecstatically.

The stronger the successor to the gang's leadership, the more reason for jubilation among their ranks.

"The Young Commander is mighty!"

Everyone else roared in unison.

In stark contrast, the morale of the remaining members of the Dire Wolf Adventure Group plummeted into the abyss. Once the guards who had previously protected Murong Xun poured into the fray, the skirmish rapidly devolved into a one-sided massacre.

Since Murong Xun had deigned to take action personally, they naturally couldn't just stand around watching.

After wiping out all the intruders, the men began clearing the corpses, piling them not far from the official road before setting the heap ablaze to burn them thoroughly to ashes.

Only two unlucky fellows had sustained minor injuries during the clash, caused entirely by the congestion of their own numbers accidentally clipping one another in the chaotic melee.

"Where on earth did these petty cutthroats crawl out from? The leader's martial arts weren't half bad, but were they out of their minds? To dare lay a hand on the Young Commander..."

Zhao Ze voiced his deep perplexity. Initially, he had suspected these individuals were assassins dispatched by a rival faction specifically to ambush Murong Xun. He had even ordered the hidden experts within their ranks to hold back while he personally probed the situation. When Murong Xun stepped in, Zhao Ze's heart had briefly leaped into his throat, terrified it might be a diversionary tactic.

Yet, once the fighting commenced, he realized things were nothing like he imagined. The enemies' actual strength was mediocre at best; aside from Dire Wolf himself, the rest possessed merely the competence of ordinary elite foot soldiers within the Raging Dragon Gang—completely negligible against a force consisting entirely of seasoned experts. Their only saving grace had been some bizarre, unpredictable movement techniques that caught them off guard for a fleeting moment.

How could a group with such paltry strength dare provoke them?

Moreover, it baffled him that these people had seemingly never even heard of the Raging Dragon Gang.

In the northern territories, the Raging Dragon Gang reigned supreme, their words carrying more weight than imperial edicts. Even in foreign regions, merely mentioning the Raging Dragon Gang would invariably elicit thumbs-up gestures of profound respect and awe from anyone. How could anyone possibly remain ignorant of their fame?

"They were nothing more than a band of petty bandits."

Murong Xun brushed the topic aside with an indifferent tone. The existence of players was a secret he could not afford to let these natives discover.

Even so, a lingering trace of curiosity remained in his mind: why had these individuals locked onto him so unerringly?

However, dwelling on the matter was unnecessary at present. With his adversaries thoroughly exterminated, his immediate priority was to press on to Yanzi Mountain and complete the main questline first.

Everything else could wait until that objective was successfully fulfilled.