# Chapter 31: Hunting
In the inner hall of the ancient castle, flames slowly burned in the fireplace. The priest, who had been reclining in the lounge chair, had left after the arrival of the Dark Bishop, leaving a message in the team channel that they would rendezvous at the Holy Serpent Tribe later, as he was going to meet with the Voodoo Shaman·Baze first.
As for whether the priest would scheme against the Voodoo Shaman, Su Xiao wasn't worried about that. Both were thousand-year-old foxes; when they met, there would certainly be harmony on the surface while secretly scheming against each other.
In reality, whether it was Su Xiao, the priest, or Baze, none of them had good intentions. If it aligned with their own interests, they would "reluctantly" stab a "good teammate" in the back without hesitation.
However, there was one point: until all enemies fell, the interests of the three were aligned.
Su Xiao's goal was to kill the Soul Reaper and hunt exotic beasts to obtain more [Eternal Life Source].
The priest was initially forced into this, not wanting to receive Su Xiao's -1,000,000 point Legendary Degree gift. But after learning about the three supreme gods of the Dark God Cult—the Death God, the Lust God, and the Serpent God—the priest's enthusiasm for this trip significantly increased. He clearly had his eyes on the large amount of Divine Source Blood of the three gods.
The old priest had one thing that was practically invincible: no matter what characteristics the source blood had, he could directly absorb it.
Why was this? Because the priest's source blood was Ancient God source blood. No deity's source blood was darker or more bizarre than Ancient God source blood. In fact, the priest dared to directly drink the Divine Source Blood of other gods.
Finally, the Voodoo Shaman·Baze, this old fellow, had two goals: to expand the Holy Serpent Tribe's territory and to feast on divine flesh and blood. This high priest of the primitive tribe could strengthen his own voodoo by blasphemously consuming divine flesh and blood.
Thinking about it this way, the Soul Reaper clearly didn't know how vicious the three "good teammates" he had provoked truly were. Once the Soul Reaper was killed, none of his remains would go to waste. Su Xiao would devour the Soul Reaper's [Soul Source Matter] through the Soul Devourer, the priest would drink his Divine Source Blood, and Baze would consume his divine flesh and blood—nothing wasted at all.
Of course, the three gods of the Dark God Cult didn't yet know how ferocious Su Xiao, the priest, and Baze were. That was precisely why the Soul Reaper had sent a Dark Bishop, intending to use the safety of the Winter Territory as leverage to negotiate with Su Xiao. In reality, a trap had certainly been set there, waiting for Su Xiao to walk into it.
This plan seemed full of holes, but that was due to an information gap. If Su Xiao hadn't learned of the Soul Reaper's existence through the [Hunt List] bounty, he wouldn't have known that the Death God, one of the three supreme gods of the Dark God Cult, was the Soul Reaper.
It could be said that the Soul Reaper had many identities: the god worshipped by the Soul Herding Tribe of the tribal faction, and the Death God, one of the three supreme gods of the Dark God Cult.
Su Xiao estimated that the Soul Reaper likely had other identities as well. The purpose was obvious: to plunder the soul source matter of powerful soul-type beings, thereby reaching [Absolute Strength] and even being crowned [Supreme].
Among the many divine systems, they were exceptionally powerful in the early and middle stages, but in the later stages, the difficulty of advancement skyrocketed. By the late-late stage, at the [Absolute Strength] and [Supreme] levels, the easier the divine system's early advancement was, the more difficult it became at this level.
Of course, this didn't include Ancient Gods. More precisely, there were no Ancient Gods in the early stage. Even the weakest Ancient God's initial power was at the middle-stage level. Moreover, Ancient Gods were strong from beginning to end.
Based on Su Xiao's personal experience, his mid-stage Ancient God enemy was the Moon God, in the mid-to-late stage he encountered the Blood God and Feather God, in the later stage he faced the Sin God, and in the final stage, well, look up the Underworld God. Any Ancient God was never weak among their peers.
The Soul Reaper he was facing now was clearly not of the Ancient God system. For him to reach [Absolute Strength], he would need a massive amount of soul source matter. However, the trade-off was that once the Soul Reaper achieved [Absolute Strength], his strength would definitely be among the more formidable at that level, given his long accumulation.
With such long accumulation, the Soul Reaper's strength would certainly be exceptionally troublesome. Of course, the corresponding benefit was that killing this powerful enemy would yield a "massive" amount of soul source matter.
"Lord White Night, stop hesitating. Our Dark God Cult has been very restrained. If you refuse to cooperate with us, no one can guarantee what will happen on your territory next. Don't forget, you started this first."
The Dark Bishop, with a gloomy expression, spoke, his words full of threat.
"Cooperate? What is there for us to cooperate about?"
Su Xiao poured a cup of tea for the Dark Bishop opposite him. The Dark Bishop picked up the teacup with his palm facing down, then gave a fake smile and asked, "Lord White Night, there wouldn't be poison in this tea, would there?"
After saying this, the Dark Bishop put down the teacup and chose not to drink. He was about to continue speaking when he suddenly felt numbness on his lips and teeth. Then, this numbness spread to his limbs and extremities at an astonishing speed. In a very short time, he was poisoned to the point of being unable to move.
Zheng~
The Dark Bishop watched as the long blade was drawn. The next moment, the blade edge swept across. A head full of shock fell to the ground with a thud, carrying a trace of blood. This Dark Bishop couldn't understand until his death how Su Xiao dared to kill him like this. Wasn't he afraid that the members of the Dark God Cult would wreak havoc on the Winter Territory?
The answer was, of course, no. These parasites of the Dark God Cult could never have dreamed that the lord who came to the Winter Territory this time was positioned in the extreme evil alignment on the nine-square grid, neighboring chaotic evil.
Members of the Dark God Cult wreaking havoc on the Winter Territory? If the Dark God Cult dared to do that, Su Xiao would immediately recall the nine beast clans from the front lines, then search every inch of the territory. Even if those Dark God Cult members crawled into rat holes, he would drag them out and crush them. Being ruthless and holding grudges? The second place on the Void Grudge-Holding Rankings wasn't for nothing.
The smell of blood spread through the inner hall. Su Xiao wiped the blood droplets off his blade with a velvet cloth, then casually tossed the blood-stained cloth onto the headless corpse. He instructed the newly arrived butler to have someone clean up the area. It could be seen that this newly appointed butler, dressed in a black suit with frameless glasses, was somewhat nervous. But after working at the lord's estate for a while, he would get used to this kind of thing.
In the backyard, Su Xiao leaped onto the dragon's back and set off with Bubu Wang, Baha, and Xianlulu. Amu stayed behind to guard the home, preventing enemies from taking advantage of the situation to assassinate Jila, who was in the underground mother nest.
...
The early morning sun rose from the horizon. Su Xiao, who had been meditating on the dragon's back, opened his eyes. Without using the teleportation array, the Storm Flame Dragon had flown overnight from the beast clan territory to the tribal faction's domain.
Although the tribal faction's territory was not small, most of it was swamp terrain. The north side was a large poisonous swamp, separating the tribal and beast clan territories. The west side's wetland swamp had relatively mild terrain and fairly abundant resources. The Holy Serpent Tribe was located in this large area.
The east side of the tribal faction was the Red Tree Swamp, a forbidden zone for most living beings. Death and decay permeated the area, with only a few undead and necromantic tribal groups living there long-term.
The south side of the tribal faction was the Abyss Erosion Zone. More precisely, this was the most active Abyss Erosion Zone on the Wind Sea Continent at present. Without needing to think, this dark area was definitely the lair of the Dark God Cult, with many Abyss Spawn lurking there.
Overall, the tribal faction didn't have overly powerful forces. A few large tribes were the powerhouses here, such as the Holy Serpent Tribe and the Soul Herding Tribe, both considered large tribes.
But even large tribes didn't have excessively large territories. The surface combat power of the tribal faction wasn't strong. The truly terrifying existences were hidden in the shadows, such as the rumored 100,000-meter-level exotic beast lurking in the Wetland Great Swamp.
Or the Abyss Erosion Zone, with Abyss Spawn even stronger than [Absolute Strong], and the Swamp Lord in the Deadly Poison Swamp.
Whether these powerful existences were rumors or real was hard to determine, adding a layer of primitive mystery to the tribal faction.
The wind howled past his ears at high altitude. Looking down, swirling clouds were not far below. For some reason, the Storm Flame Dragon suddenly slowed its flight speed, as if it had seen something below through the clouds.
It seemed that after awakening another secret-level ability, [Dragon Devour], the Storm Flame Dragon's perception of same-level existences had sharpened considerably. The [Dragon Devour] ability was quite powerful, allowing it to enhance itself by devouring the flesh and blood of same-level overlord creatures.
Su Xiao stood up from the dragon's back. [Thunder Spirit] attached itself to the Black King Bracer. A dragon lance composed of soul energy + Aoge crystals + blood spear was condensed, held in Su Xiao's single hand. Faint golden arcs of lightning flickered across Su Xiao's body.
"Are we going to fight?"
Xianlulu made as if to hang onto Su Xiao, but Baha grabbed her back. Baha said sternly, "Do you want to die? With your lightning resistance, the World Thunder in dragon-riding state would vaporize you."
"Meow?"
Xianlulu looked confused, not understanding what dragon-riding state was.
Soon, Baha carried Bubu Wang and Xianlulu and flew far away. Just as Xianlulu was wondering why Su Xiao would use World Thunder when he didn't have a basic lightning ability, a thunderous sound came from behind, startling Xianlulu into a shiver.
A bolt of World Thunder struck Su Xiao. Golden arcs of electricity flowed over him, a portion entering the thunder lance, while the rest entered the Storm Flame Dragon. Clearly, it had inherited Su Xiao's lightning control method, using lightning resistance to harness World Thunder.
With a whoosh, the Storm Flame Dragon broke through the clouds below, creating a sonic boom and leaving a trail of golden lightning arcs in the air. It descended to about a hundred meters above the ground. Below was a vast expanse of water. Since it was still early morning, misty water vapor spread across the lake surface, and nearby water birds fled in fright.
Su Xiao looked at the lake below. He could sense a massive and vigorous life force lurking beneath this body of water. He pointed his thunder lance at the lake. Using [Thunder Spirit], a world-class equipment, as a medium for lightning control, the next moment, a golden World Thunder several meters thick crashed down onto the lake surface.
Crack!
Under the impact of the lightning, a large area of the lake instantly boiled. Yet even so, the water below remained quiet.
The lake surface was eerily silent, as if every second was slowed down. Just as the ripples on the vast water surface had calmed, a massive creature burst out from beneath the water with a roar.
This was a giant serpent, at least a hundred meters thick. Its length was unknown, with most of its body still hidden in the lake water. But judging from the section that had emerged, its total length was at least ten thousand meters.
This giant serpent had dark golden scales with a metallic texture. More notably, behind its head were ferocious bone spikes. On both sides and below its head were whisker-like tentacles. On either side of its two huge eyes were rows of progressively smaller eyes. This exotic beast was called Erba, a fairly famous exotic beast.
To be safe, before setting out, Su Xiao had asked the Voodoo Shaman·Baze whether the Holy Serpent Tribe had any connection with this giant serpent beast. The answer was that there was absolutely no connection.
It was worth mentioning that among the Hunter Guild's commissions, there was a hunting commission for Erba. However, because the commission amount was low, no one came to provoke this powerful exotic beast.
For Su Xiao, the commission reward was just a bonus. Eternal Life Source + treasure chest were what he really wanted. Additionally, the Storm Winged Dragon could devour its flesh and blood to enhance its strength. Bubu Wang could also eat some. And some delicious parts of the snake meat would be refrigerated for Xia to cook later.
"Roar!!"
The exotic beast Erba roared at the sky, sending layers of air waves and water splashing. But this time was different. When Erba noticed the gaze of the human on the dragon's back above, its momentum instinctively faltered. That look, like it was appraising ingredients, was truly more terrifying than a cold stare or murderous intent.
Whoosh!
Storm Dragon Flame sprayed down head-on. This cyan-blue dragon flame not only had astonishing high temperature but also possessed powerful impact force. The exotic beast Erba, located in the lake below, immediately felt the threat of this flame. Its aura slightly restrained, then from its massive snake mouth, it spewed out ice mist that seemed like a mix of water and frost, temporarily holding back the dragon flame above.
Crack, crack, crack~
On the dragon's back, the blood qi phantom drew the soul great bow to its full extent. With a boom, it shot out a blood spear covered in golden lightning. The blood spear broke through layers of sound barriers, heading straight for Erba's right eye.
With a hum, a scale-like phantom appeared in front of Erba's right eye, blocking the incoming blood spear.
Boom!
The blood spear exploded. The close-range impact caused Erba's raised snake body to tilt slightly. In this brief opening, the Storm Flame Dragon activated its secret-level ability [Dragon Clan's Wrath: World Incineration].
In an instant, the cyan-blue dragon flame turned pitch black. The freezing breath that had been opposing it collapsed immediately. The dragon flame directly sprayed onto Erba's head, making its roar even more furious.
While the Storm Flame Dragon was clashing with Erba, Su Xiao wasn't idle. Two fist-sized blood souls respectively entered his back and merged into the blood qi phantom above him.
The effects of the two blood souls stacked, bringing dual enhancement. The blood qi phantom pointed at Erba in the lake, and a super-enhanced version of Blood Smoke Cannon began to brew. Not counting the consumption of the blood souls, Su Xiao consumed nearly 50% of his blood qi value to condense this Blood Smoke Cannon.
The convergence of the Super Blood Smoke Cannon caused a crimson radiance to bloom. Below, Erba, who was resisting the dragon flame, rapidly constricted its snake pupils. It felt an unprecedented crisis.
Boom!!
The bucket-thick Super Blood Smoke Cannon shot out, diagonally hitting below Erba's head. It directly pierced through its hundred-meter-thick body. Snake blood and minced flesh scattered down, splashing on the lake surface with crackling sounds, sending water flying everywhere.
After diagonally piercing through Erba's snake body, the Blood Smoke Cannon plunged into the lake water. Looking down from above, the entire lake seemed like a water ladle that had been violently shaken. Nearly all the lake water surged backward from the impact, revealing the muddy lake bed.
The massive amount of scattered snake blood dyed large areas of the lake red. Looking at Erba now, there was a bloody hole about 50-60 meters in diameter at the snake body below its head. It was a complete penetration, a bloody hole through which the scene behind could be seen.
Erba crashed heavily onto the lake surface with a thunderous sound, large amounts of snake blood flowing from its mouth. Before it could catch its breath, black dragon flame sprayed down head-on.
Sizzle~
The high temperature caused water vapor to spread. In the steam, Erba, burned with pain, rose up. But in the next instant, blood spears came flying.
Puff, puff, puff...
The Blood Spear Grandmaster, at Lv.70, gave the blood spears powerful penetrating force. A total of over a dozen blood spears pinned themselves in a row along Erba's spine. The three-meter-long blood spears were almost completely embedded, then they exploded with blood qi one after another.
Boom, boom, boom...
The successive blood qi explosions caused Erba to arch its body in agony, eventually falling backward and crashing heavily into the water.
Su Xiao pointed his thunder lance downward, using his 62-point luck attribute to attract lightning. However, attracting lightning seemed to be one of the few uses of this 62-point luck attribute. As for the derived luck bonus, let's not mention it.
Boom!
A World Thunder several dozen meters thick plunged into the lake. As the World Thunder surged, Erba writhed in pain, causing water to splash everywhere. The entire lake was churned up.
On the dragon's back, the blood qi phantom drew the soul great bow to its full extent. Just before the blood spear was about to be shot, the Blade Demon Spirit attached itself to it.
Bang!
The blood spear pierced through layers of space, ultimately hitting Erba's crown, deeply embedding itself. Strangely, this blood spear didn't explode. Instead, the dark blue smoke coiled around it all entered Erba's skull.
A few seconds later, Erba's struggles intensified, and its roars became more pained. Upon closer observation, one could see that the whites of its eyes were gradually turning dark blue, as if smoke was coiling around them. Moreover, this dark blue color spread rapidly in its eyes until it completely occupied them.
Erba, with dark blue smoke drifting from its eyes, eventually raised half of its body out of the lake, let out a roar, then crashed down heavily, gradually sinking into the lake water.
Seeing the kill notification, Su Xiao used a mental command for the Storm Flame Dragon to dive down. The dragon's claws grabbed Erba's skull in the water, dragging this massive creature out of the water and flying toward the flat grassland on the shore. With the Storm Flame Dragon's strength, dragging the dead Erba in flight was no problem.
Su Xiao's water hunting spear dissipated, and [Thunder Spirit] was also put away. Before coming, he had consulted many intelligence reports and records, all saying how terrifying ten-thousand-meter-level exotic beasts were. But after actually fighting, this exotic beast named Erba was actually average in combat strength.
At least it felt average to him. Except for the real frost poison damage of 850 points per second spread around it, totaling 51,000 points per minute. If Su Xiao did nothing, it would take 15 minutes to poison him to death.
Those 15 minutes would probably be enough for him to kill Erba three times over. Although exotic beasts had a lot of health, their defense didn't seem that good. And after the Super Blood Smoke Cannon hit, even the healing effect was suppressed to silence.
Were exotic beasts really weak? Not at all. Exotic beasts weren't weak; they were quite prestigious among their peers. But the problem was that the dragon-riding state was a killer of large-sized creatures. World Thunder was a strong control, with a judgment high enough that immunity to control was basically ineffective. The Storm Flame Dragon had ridiculously strong mobility, and its dragon flame came with a healing suppression effect. Then the Blood Spear Grandmaster at Lv.70 was simply a nightmare for large-sized creatures.
From the fact that one Blood Smoke Cannon had pierced through Erba, one could see the effect of the Blood Spear Grandmaster against large-sized creatures.
Controlled by World Thunder, its mobility was greatly reduced. Suppressed by dragon flame, its recovery ability was hindered. One Super Blood Smoke Cannon had taken at least 50% or more of its health. And the Storm Flame Dragon had abnormal mobility. Even more unsolvable was that trying to capture the leader first was impossible. As a human, Su Xiao had even higher health than Erba. If Erba could speak human language, it would definitely curse Su Xiao a few times.
On the open grassland, the Storm Flame Dragon landed on Erba. Compared to this exotic beast, the Storm Flame Dragon seemed somewhat small, not even as big as its head. Su Xiao was even less significant. As a human, his size couldn't compare to the exotic beast.
Su Xiao checked the kill notification that had appeared.
[Notification: You have killed the exotic beast Erba.]
[You have obtained Beast Soul Treasure Chest (unique to the Wind Sea Continent. Upon opening, you will definitely obtain the Eternal Life Source of the killed exotic beast, with a chance to obtain other rewards).]
[You have obtained 0.21% World Source.]
...
The amount of World Source obtained was very small. Su Xiao didn't mind this. It wasn't because the reward was low, but because the World Source of the Wind Sea Continent had too high a gold content, resulting in a small amount obtained. When it came to the comprehensive evaluation, the rewards would only be more, not less.
Under Su Xiao's mental command, it didn't take long for the Storm Flame Dragon to tear off a large piece of fresh meat from Erba. Bubu Wang and Baha, who had arrived, skillfully processed it, refrigerated it, and stored it in the team storage space.
With Su Xiao's permission, the Storm Flame Dragon began to feast. Xianlulu, squatting on Su Xiao's shoulder, saw this and swallowed her saliva. She also wanted to eat some exotic beast meat. Or rather, for any summoned creature, this level of high-tier exotic beast flesh and blood was hard to resist.
"Can I eat some too? Although I didn't help much this time, just a little bit."
"..."
Su Xiao didn't speak. Baha, of course, understood Su Xiao's meaning. With a somewhat speechless tone, he said, "Just eat. You can even take some away if you want. Eat as much as you can, take as much as you can carry. It's all fine."
Hearing this, Xianlulu happily jumped off Su Xiao's shoulder. But after searching for a while, she felt there was nowhere to bite. Bite the giant snake's scales? She cherished her little white teeth that she brushed every day. One bite might break several. As for the wounds from the battle, some had dragon flame fluctuations, others had blood qi spreading. If she ate those, Xianlulu would probably have to walk through the gates of hell.
After observing for a while, Xianlulu secretly approached the Storm Flame Dragon. At the spot where it had torn off a large piece, she found a big chunk of exotic beast meat. After eating until she was half full, she put the rest into her small storage space, planning to bring it back for her master, Yueshitu, to try.
Just then, a very large piece of exotic beast meat was tossed in front of Xianlulu. Xianlulu looked up at this piece of meat and suddenly felt that her storage space couldn't hold it.
After eating some reasonably tasty grilled meat, Su Xiao leaped onto the Storm Flame Dragon's back. He took out a map to check and found that the Holy Serpent Tribe wasn't too far away. He had the Storm Flame Dragon pick up the massive Erba again and fly toward the Holy Serpent Tribe. Since this was his first visit to his "good teammate" Voodoo Shaman·Baze's tribe, and he hadn't prepared any gifts, this exotic beast would serve as a gift for the visit.
Meanwhile, in the sea clan territory, on the giant island where the Ancestral Lighthouse was located.
The large city on the island mostly had pointed-arch buildings, giving it a sea clan style. At this moment, in the southern part of the city, inside a four-story mansion.
The first and second floors were semi-open and connected. Walking up the stairs led to the bar on the second floor, where many relatively young spellcasters were drinking or chatting. In contrast, downstairs in the hall on the first floor, over a dozen spellcasters had a serious atmosphere.
Over a dozen spellcasters sat around a circular sofa. Sefeiliya, Dean Guya, Green Wei, Luen, Crow Woman, and others were all there. One spellcaster with a ponytail said, "The reason our ambush failed this time is most likely because someone leaked the information."
"Mm, it was the sea clan."
Sefeiliya concluded that the sea clan had leaked the news of the ambush against the Law Destroyer. It wasn't arrogance on her part, but rather to maximize the avoidance of internal suspicion among the spellcasters. If they started suspecting each other now, there was no way they could eliminate that Law Destroyer in this world.
"Yes, according to my informants' investigation, it was the sea clan who leaked the information."
Dean Guya also stepped forward to confirm this matter.
"One failure is nothing. Besides, we just didn't wait for the person we wanted to ambush. We just need to..."
Sefeiliya's words were cut off mid-sentence. Her peripheral vision noticed something that seemed to have appeared on the coffee table. She looked at the suspicious object. A pitch-black crown, as if burned by flames, came into her view.
A brief confusion appeared on Sefeiliya's cold, beautiful face. Then, her pupils contracted slightly. With her knowledge and experience, she could naturally tell that this was an Original Sin Object!
"Everyone, don't move."
Dean Guya spoke through gritted teeth. He had also naturally noticed the [Soul Crown] that had suddenly appeared on the table.
The dozens of spellcasters present all froze. In the past, some spellcasters might not have been able to identify this as an Original Sin Object. But not long ago, they had just witnessed the [Necronomicon]. Now, they quickly recognized this as an Original Sin Object.
"This is..."
Sefeiliya spoke with hatred. Without even needing to think, she knew where this suddenly appearing Original Sin Object had come from. She had experienced this plot before. She looked at Crow Woman, who put on an award-winning performance, her eyes full of shock and worry. Anyone who didn't know would think she had nothing to do with this.
"Calm down. We just dealt with an Original Sin Object not long ago and successfully sent that thing away..."
Before Dean Guya could finish his words, he suddenly noticed that on the table where the [Soul Crown] was placed, a dark green bone ring had appeared at some point. It was the [Nether Bone Ring].
Luen, who was nearby, also saw this. He gritted his teeth and wanted to say: 'You sent one daddy-level item before, and now you're sending two more. What does Arcane Eternal Star look like to you? A daddy-level item clubhouse?!'
All the spellcasters stared at the [Soul Crown] and [Nether Bone Ring] on the table. Pain masks were gradually appearing on their faces.
Before the spellcasters could recover, the [Necronomicon] also appeared on the table. It was clearly here because of Su Xiao's commission. Having just fished for evil gods together and reaped a rich harvest, the [Necronomicon] would accept this level of commission.
Three "daddy-level" artifacts gathered together, causing some young spellcasters to start staring blankly. However, what the spellcasters present didn't know was that a fourth "daddy-level" artifact was already prepared and would be delivered to them before long.