Chapter 307

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]

Chapter 307

Following Zetoya’s lead, Zeon arrived at the Red Horn Crocodile Crew’s base and frowned deeply.

What lay before him was a gruesome and horrifying sight.

The ground was littered with the corpses of countless children.

Arms and legs were severed, and heads rolled across the floor.

Blood and entrails, spilling from split bellies, soaked the ground in a sticky red mess.

“Son of a… damn it!”

Zetoya turned his head, unable to keep looking at the corpses of his friends.

Whether he liked it or not, he had lived with them for over a decade.

They were like family, people he had both loved and hated.

Seeing them now, slaughtered so brutally, made him feel sick to his stomach.

Zeon spoke to Zetoya.

“If it’s too much, you can wait outside.”

“No. I can handle it.”

Zetoya replied, clenching his teeth.

It was then that Brielle spoke.

“They haven’t been gone for long.”

On the ground were scattered belongings, clearly left behind by the Helbrin Mercenaries.

The fact that they hadn’t even taken the time to gather their things meant they had left in a hurry.

Zeon let out a quiet sigh.

“Ha! I have to admit, their danger-sensing abilities are remarkable.”

“So you’re saying they knew we were coming?”

“I can’t say for sure, but one thing’s clear, they realized something was wrong when their comrades didn’t return.”

“Shouldn’t they have gone looking for them, though?”

“They’re not the kind of people you can understand with normal logic. Their instincts and thoughts are all geared toward survival. As long as they can stay alive, they don’t care about their comrades’ deaths.”

A deep crease formed on Zeon’s brow.

Even with all the different kinds of people he had encountered while wandering the desert, this was his first time dealing with a group like this.

They were the epitome of “bully the weak, fear the strong,” but more cunning than any scavenger and more savage than any beast.

They avoided those stronger than them with absolute caution, yet were merciless to those weaker, tearing them apart like rabid animals.

It was as if they were determined to leave no one weaker than themselves alive.

On top of that, their acute danger-sensing abilities allowed them to relocate their base at the first sign of trouble.

“This won’t be an easy game of hide-and-seek.”

Zeon wore a frustrated expression.

The sewer system was a labyrinth, vast and complex.

Even for Zeon, tracking them through this maze would be no simple task.

That’s when Zetoya spoke up.

“I can find them. Nobody knows these sewers better than I do. No matter where they hide, I’ll find them.”

“We have to move faster than they do. If we’re even a little late, we won’t even catch a glimpse of their trail.”

“I can do it. No, I will do it. I’ll make sure of it!”

Seeing Zetoya burning with determination, Zeon gave a small nod.

“Fine. I’ll leave the tracking to you.”

“Just promise me one thing.”

“The mana generator?”

“Yes!”

“I’ll keep my word.”

“I’ll trust you.”

Zetoya wasn’t someone who trusted easily, but for some reason, he felt he could trust the man in front of him.

He didn’t know why.

But his instincts told him this man wasn’t the kind to go back on his word.

Zetoya began the chase in earnest.

In the desert, Zeon was the unrivaled master of tracking. But in these filthy sewers, Zetoya reigned supreme.

If Zeon used the movement of sand to track his prey, Zetoya used the dampness saturating the underground air to pinpoint his target’s location.

“Sniff sniff!”

At a fork in the path, Zetoya paused briefly to sniff the air.

He pointed to the right and said.

“The smell is mixed in this direction.”

“You can distinguish smells even in this stench?”

“If I focus, I can separate hundreds of different scents and pick out the one I want.”

“Seriously?”

“People like you, those who come from above, have a distinct dry smell.”

“Dry?”

“Yes! Especially those who’ve spent a long time in the desert, they smell brittle and dusty. That scent is mixed into the air in the right passage.”

“That’s impressive.”

Zeon smiled faintly.

If Zetoya could truly track the Helbrin Mercenaries by scent, this hunt could go much more smoothly.

They wouldn’t waste time wandering aimlessly; they could chase directly after their targets.

Zetoya stepped into the right passage and called back.

“I’m going to start running now, so don’t fall behind!”

“Don’t worry about us.”

“Just keep going.”

As soon as Zeon and Brielle answered, Zetoya bolted down the sewer with incredible speed.

Zetoya was a human optimized for life in the underground.

Like a lizard, his hands and feet clung to the walls and floor, allowing him to run along even the damp, slippery surfaces as if they were flat ground.

It was this ability that had allowed him to evade the pursuit of the Helbrin Mercenaries’ Awakened trackers for so long.

“Wow!”

Even Brielle couldn’t help but let out an exclamation as she watched Zetoya sprint along the walls and even hang upside down from the ceiling as he moved.

Zeon was also impressed by Zetoya’s abilities.

‘At this point, you could call him a new breed of human.’

A human perfectly adapted to the underground world.

It only confirmed what Zeon already knew, humans are creatures that evolve to survive their environment.

“This way.”

Zetoya descended from the ceiling and veered into the left passage.

As they ran, he continued sniffing the air, collecting information in real time.

With a confident expression, he finally announced.

“We’re close now. We’ll catch up to them soon.”

“Understood.”

Zeon nodded and glanced around.

They had already passed dozens of forks in the path.

By now, they were deep underground, several dozen meters below the surface, by his estimation.

If Zeon had been on his own, he would never have reached this point so quickly.

Then it happened.

“Ahhh!”

A faint scream echoed from up ahead, as if to confirm Zetoya’s claim.

Zeon quickened his pace and said.

“I’ll go on ahead.”

In a flash, he overtook Zetoya and vanished into the darkness.

Zetoya stood there momentarily, staring blankly at where Zeon had disappeared.

“Wow!”

“What’s with you? Don’t be so amazed by that.”

Brielle said, scolding Zetoya.

Zetoya protested.

“How can I not be? He’s faster than me!”

“That’s nothing. Zeon’s abilities are far beyond just speed. You’ll see once you come to the surface.”

“I’d die if I went to the surface.”

“What?”

“Like I said, I’m fully adapted to the underground. If I’m exposed to sunlight, I’ll shrivel up and die.”

Unlike earlier generations of underground humans, who could at least endure brief exposure to the surface, children like Zetoya, who had completely adapted to the underground, couldn’t survive the sun’s heat or light.

“Oh… sorry.”

Brielle said, quickly apologizing.

She hadn’t realized Zetoya’s circumstances were so dire.

“It’s fine. Maybe if I Awaken someday, I’ll be able to survive on the surface.”

“You haven’t Awakened yet?”

“Obviously.”

Zetoya shrugged but didn’t look discouraged.

He had an unwavering belief that one day, he would Awaken.

Though, of course, that depended on whether he could survive until then.

* * *

Leaving Zetoya and Brielle behind, Zeon sprinted ahead and turned a corner.

The faint glint of a silver thread caught his eye.

His instincts kicked in, and he ducked his head.

Swish!

A silver wire sliced through the air, cutting off a few strands of his hair.

It was a trap, set by the Helbrin Mercenaries.

The silver thread, crafted from a blend of beast materials and titanium, was sharp enough to cut through the hardened flesh of a martial-type Awakened.

On top of that, its placement was cunning, set at just the right height to target an unprotected face.

If Zeon hadn’t spotted it in time, the thread would have sliced cleanly through the upper part of his face.

Even the way it severed a few strands of his hair was proof of its deadly sharpness.

As Zeon dodged the trap, an attack came hurtling toward him.

“Die!”

“Kill this bastard!”

With furious roars, several Awakened members of the Helbrin Mercenaries charged at Zeon.

The martial-type Awakened infused their weapons with aura, while the magic-type Awakened unleashed a barrage of spells.

The attack was sudden and left no time to evade.

Zeon’s response was simple.

He crossed his arms to shield his head and took the full brunt of the attack with his body.

Any ordinary Awakened would have died instantly, but Zeon’s robe, made from the hide of Leviathan, nullified the impact with ease.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Explosions rang out, shaking the ground.

But Zeon emerged unscathed.

Before his attackers could even react, Zeon launched his counterattack.

Shwshwshw!

Dozens of fire missiles streaked toward the mercenaries.

“Ugh!”

“Argh!”

The men who had attacked Zeon let out pained groans as they were thrown backward.

Zeon straightened up and stared at the group of men who had dared to attack him.

Turban-clad and wearing deshadas, they were unmistakably members of the Helbrin Mercenaries.

And at the center of them stood Hassim.

“Ugh… damn it. So it was you.”

Hassim spat, glaring at Zeon with a look of pure disdain.

When his men hadn’t returned after being sent to retrieve Zetoya, he had sensed something was wrong and abandoned their base.

The sewer system was vast, and there were plenty of crocodile dens to hide in.

There was no reason to stay in one place when something felt off, so they had moved to a new hideout, which turned out to be this location.

Zeon’s gaze shifted behind Hassim.

Dozens of people, mostly women and the elderly, were huddled together, trembling in fear.

The men had already been slaughtered, their bodies strewn across the ground.

The Helbrin Mercenaries had massacred them even before Zeon arrived.

“If you’d been just a little later, I could’ve cleaned things up nicely.”.

“I’ve met plenty of humans worse than beasts, but you take the crown.”

“Hah! I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from someone as strong as you. Damn bastard!”

“You’re Hassim of the Helbrin Mercenaries, correct?”

“I see my men told you everything before they died. That’s right, I’m Hassim, the leader of the Helbrin Mercenaries.”

Even as he spoke, Hassim’s eyes discreetly scanned Zeon from head to toe.

On the surface, Zeon didn’t look particularly powerful. But he was the monster who had survived the explosion Alton triggered with all his mana.

He was the relentless predator who had hunted the Helbrin Mercenaries down to this filthy sewer and killed Hassim’s men in the blink of an eye.

Hassim was certain, this man was a true threat.

Hassim let out a bitter laugh and said.

“I don’t know what kind of grudge you hold against us, but you’re taking this too far. Did someone you know live in that survivor village?”

“And why did you attack the survivor village?”

“Ugh… a foolish question deserves a foolish answer.”

The law of the desert was simple, strong preyed on weak.

To the Helbrin Mercenaries, raiding the survivor village wasn’t a crime; it was just survival.

Zeon’s pursuit of them was no different.

If he was strong, the mercenaries would fall to him. If they were stronger, they would crush him instead.

Hassim called out to someone.

“Alton!”

Boom!

The moment Hassim’s words rang out, an explosion erupted around Zeon.

Hassim had foreseen Zeon’s pursuit and ordered Alton to plant explosives in advance.

The detonation was focused solely on Zeon, and its power was immense.

Hassim shouted.

“Get ready, everyone!”

He knew it wouldn’t be enough to kill Zeon.

Fwshhh!

And sure enough, a fire missile shot through the smoke and struck Alton squarely.

“Argh!”

Alton let out a strangled cry as he collapsed, the fire missile having pierced his forehead.

“Shit!”

Hassim gritted his teeth, furious at the sudden loss of one of his key fighters.

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]