novel520 Chapter 853 - 94: Materialized Desire (Part 2)
Chapter 853 - 94: Materialized Desire (Part 2)
A loud clang of metal echoed, and the whip struck the top of the tunnel, rebounding almost enough to injure the female Hunter herself.
Only then did the female Hunter realize how bad the situation was — the tunnel was too narrow, and her weapon was completely ineffective here!
She turned and ran!
The original host immediately chased after her.
The female Hunter quickly reached the vertical part of the tunnel, but just as she grabbed the ladder and climbed up two steps, a huge downward force suddenly pulled on her right leg, followed by a heart-piercing pain from her calf!
She turned her head to see the original host clutching tightly to her pant leg, then plunging a dagger into her calf.
"You’re courting death!"
The pain not only triggered a surge of adrenaline but also unleashed the female Hunter’s savage side. She lifted her other leg and kicked wildly at the original host’s head. Every blow from her thick rubber boot left a bloody mark on the original host’s head.
Yet the original host seemed to forget the pain, enduring the female Hunter’s fierce kicks as he climbed upwards. As he climbed, he pulled the dagger out of her calf and stabbed it into her thigh!
"Ah!" the female Hunter screamed miserably, releasing her hands and plummeting downward.
With a loud thud, they both fell to the bottom of the vertical tunnel, the original host getting pinned under the female Hunter.
"Die!! Just die!!!"
The female Hunter didn’t care that she was tearing the wound on her thigh by turning. She flipped over onto the original host and pressed her hands tightly against his throat!
With the dagger no longer in hand, the original host could only punch the female Hunter’s arms desperately. Due to the angle and obstruction, he couldn’t even manage to hit her head.
They fought like two wounded beasts, battling for their lives in this narrow tunnel.
The sensation of suffocation transmitted into Sun Hang’s mind through memory information. At this rate, the original host probably had little chance of a comeback—when the female Hunter fell, she just so happened to crush the original host’s spine, leaving his lower body completely paralyzed, making it impossible to get her off him.
The dagger was also too far away for him to reach, and as for the gun in the backpack under him, that was out of the question.
As his vision gradually blurred, the original host seemed to catch a strong scent of blood.
The force on his neck gradually lessened, and the original host took this opportunity to breathe heavily, while the breathing of the person on top of him started to weaken.
After several minutes, the original host’s vision cleared, and the hands on his neck began to grow cold.
With some difficulty, the original host pushed the female Hunter off to the side. He turned his head to find the pale-faced, grimacing female Hunter had stopped breathing.
The original host reached out to touch his numbed legs, only to find a mass of wet, hot, viscous substance under his fingers.
It was blood.
The dagger that had stabbed into the female Hunter’s thigh, in the fall, had severed the main artery in her leg, and a massive amount of arterial blood spurted from the wound... In just a few minutes, she lost enough blood to cause shock and subsequently death.
With some difficulty, the original host turned over, crawling forward on his hands... Crawling onward, his consciousness gradually slipped into darkness.
The memory of this Free Hunter ended there.
"Golden chips?" Sun Hang muttered quietly, drawing back his consciousness from the other’s memory, "Is the treasure Nagano Souta’s father found years ago just a pile of casino chips?"
No, no, no...
Chips can be exchanged for cash, but that’s based on the condition the casino that made those chips operates normally—should the casino go bankrupt or abscond with the money, this mountain of chips would just be a pile of intricately crafted plastic trinkets.
The absurd number of chips can be set aside for now; after all, it’s an enigmatic artifact and can’t be measured by conventional thinking—but the casino in Dragon City probably hadn’t even arisen during Nagano Souta’s father’s era, right?
A group of Hunters slaughtering each other over a heap of casino chips from the future, with unknown value?
If it were a pile of gold coins, it might still make sense...
Hold on...
Sun Hang suddenly recalled that apart from the original host, nobody else, including the three mercenaries and the female Hunter, could see the golden chips scattered in the tunnel ahead.
But in that rock-layer cavity, the three mercenaries were so awestruck by the mountain of golden chips that it gave the original memory owner a chance to attack.
"I understand!" Sun Hang slapped his thigh abruptly.
"Understand what?" Candle Dragon asked, puzzled, as he walked over.
"What those three mercenaries saw wasn’t chips at all, but what they most desired in their hearts. As for why this guy’s seeing casino chips, it’s because he’s a hopeless gambling addict... He must have been fixated on using the mission reward to continue gambling during the mission..." Sun Hang murmured.
"Mercenaries? Chips?" Candle Dragon was utterly confused, "And who’s the gambling addict? Do you know this guy?"
"I do now." Sun Hang drew his pistol and shot the gambling addict in the head.
Blood and brain matter splattered, mixed with fragments of his skull, as a screen of water suddenly rose, blocking the flying debris.
"Don’t get into gambling in your next life," Sun Hang looked at the headless corpse on the ground, "Your death is a relief for your mother."
"Who was he?" Candle Dragon asked again.
"No idea." Sun Hang shrugged, "He’s likely one of the missing Hunters."
"You shouldn’t have blown his head off; now we can’t do facial recognition... Although we can still extract DNA samples, the equipment to recognize DNA samples is only available in Dragon City." Candle Dragon shook his head, "I have to find a way to confirm if he’s one of those on the missing list..."
"It no longer matters who he was." Sun Hang shook his head, "I think I already know what ’treasure’ is hidden in Nanhua Town."
"What is it?"
"Remember that Hunter named ’Bao Si’?"
"The owner of Type-A Enigmatic Artifact ’Charm’ Meme?" Candle Dragon blurted out.
"The ability of this enigmatic artifact should be similar to charm." Sun Hang said, "The emphasis is different... This enigmatic artifact, in your eyes, will appear as what you desire most."
"What you most desire..."
"If this is a Type-A enigmatic artifact, perhaps it could be codenamed ’Desire’—uh, that codename hasn’t been taken yet, right?"
"Desire... materialized desire!" Candle Dragon’s eyes lit up, "So that’s what the ascetic monk meant by desire! I thought it was a metaphor or some symbolic term, but it means exactly what it says! Did you discover this while absorbing the Free Hunter’s meme?"
"Yes." Sun Hang nodded. He didn’t tell Candle Dragon he could consume memes to digest others’ memories, but Candle Dragon didn’t press for details—knowing the gist was sufficient.
"No wonder the Hunters started killing each other... And since the enigmatic artifact appears differently to different people, it easily incites suspicion and conflict..."
"Actually, I’m more concerned about something else now," Sun Hang said.
"What is it?"
"This enigmatic artifact imagery of ’what I desire most’... I wonder whether it truly turns into this object, or is merely a ’Blinding Skill.’" Sun Hang said, "If it’s the former..."