Love and passion, cutting up the wasteland.

The man who knocked Blood Hunter unconscious with a mace was tall and thin, with a sickly look. It was obvious that he was not in good health, probably due to an old illness.

Only those eyes revealed a sense of efficiency.

He grabbed the Blood Hunter by the scruff of the neck and only breathed a sigh of relief when he was sure that he had completely defeated the enemy.

"Xiao Huo!" Lu Beiyou gestured to him from a distance, "Well done."

"Don't call me that," the man said unhappily, "next time if there's a job like this, do it yourself."

"After all, we have worked together so many times, so don't be so formal." Lu Beiyou smiled, "If my disguise skills were not as good as yours, I would be willing to do it myself."

The man surnamed Huo snorted.

But judging from his smiling expression, the two parties were indeed familiar with each other to a certain extent, which was why they had no fear when talking to each other.

The two men were far apart, seemingly chatting about family matters, but in the blink of an eye, Lu Beiyou's knife had killed several more corpses, and the conversation did not affect his breathing at all; on the other side, some wild folk discovered the situation on the Blood Hunter side and were horrified, they wanted to come over, but were all forced back by the men.

Finally, the savages' psychological endurance reached a critical point and they fled in all directions.

They are indeed not afraid of death, but they would not do anything just to die in vain.

Someone ran to the water tower in a panic, trying to hide there, but when he looked up, he saw a huge piece of brick pressing down from the sky.

He was knocked unconscious on the spot.

Izumi hid aside, panting. She covered her injured arm and did not exert any strength. Instead, she calculated the angle and used her back to push the stone down using the bulge of the platform.

Looking back at the tower at this moment, his face was full of disbelief.

Lu Beiyou actually charged towards the enemy group alone and fought them off; he also placed people among them in advance and finally captured a nearby blood hunter alive.

It seems that this was planned long ago.

Lu Beiyou turned around and picked up Izumi, who was looking at the Five-Skull Blood Hunter thrown on the ground, at a loss, until the man who captured him came forward to say hello.

It turned out that the man lurking among the savages was named Huo Buyang, an adventurer who had traveled to many places on the continent. He was best at surviving in ruins, so even if he sneaked into the Ai Mine Town, it was not abrupt and he quickly won their trust.

I don't know how he got in touch with Lu Beiyou, a young man from a noble family, and he even acted together with him under his planning.

The biggest difference in status in the United City was that he never expected that one of his officers could have such a deep connection with the lower-level adventurers.

It can be said to be a two-way affair.

"Do you think there is a possibility..." Looking at Huo Buyang playing with the iron mace, Lu Beiyou said thoughtfully: "Are you more suitable for using blunt weapons?"

"With my body? It's too late." Huo Buyang paused, calmed down his disordered breath, and threw the weapon in his hand to Lu Beiyou, "I think its material is good, it's okay to leave it to you for forging weapons."

"There will always be a way."

The officer took it, smiled and said nothing more.

This time he went straight to the Scrap Master Group in Kaiton City, learned the inherited forging skills before joining the army.

He also made this armor for himself.

Perhaps even the master who introduced Lu Beiyou to the art of martial arts did not expect that this dandy boy who seemed to be just here to play around was actually as skilled as the top craftsmen. He even used this to get into martial arts - not to mention that the weapons in the Blade Walker series required an intelligent core to unlock the technology tree, as for the armor, if Lu Beiyou was inspired, it was possible for him to create a masterpiece. He just didn't have the time to increase the chances of success.

Huo Buyang just thought that he was probably obsessed with the skill of forging.

Not too many questions.

Izumi carefully stepped over the blood and corpses on the ground. She was no longer at the age where she would scream when she saw the dead. Or rather, she had never experienced such a time before. The girl came to the side of the Wild Blood Hunter, looked around, and suddenly spoke:
"What did they take away?"

Hearing this, Huo Buyang looked at her in surprise, while Lu Beiyou asked with interest, "Guess?"

Izumi thought for a moment and said, "Before you came, this group of people had always lived the best among the wild people. They were always able to get fresh food. Sometimes I wonder why... This cannot be achieved by relying solely on the power of scavenging and blood hunting."

For them, there was no need to rob the grain transport team in Kaidun City.

People are always greedy - but after all, it involves a behemoth like the United City.

It would be bad if we end up getting burned for such a small profit.

Thinking of this, Izumi turned to Lu Beiyou and said, "When you sent people to escort them, you must not have let them reveal their identities as members of Kaiton City. Maybe they were from the Hunter Gang, or maybe they were from the Shield Guards... That's why the Wild Folk and the Blood Hunters dared to take action."

There was still surprise on Huo Buyang's face, but this time, he looked at Lu Beiyou with a puzzled look, as if asking how could you casually bring back such a smart girl - the details the other party said were basically correct.

Of course, there was also this traitor who instigated and fanned the flames.

But Huo Buyang changed his mind and thought: when the other party came to him, they were strangers to each other, but Lu Beiyou had an inexplicable trust in him and saw through his hidden talents and abilities, so he felt relieved.

Perhaps, this is also a kind of talent.

"But after they succeeded, they realized something was wrong. In order to prevent revenge from Kaiton City, they had to eliminate the evidence..." Izumi said this and suddenly frowned. She found that there were some things that didn't make sense.

The military rations and supplies they had just recovered from the scene, even after the wild folks had eaten them up in the past few days, were far from the number that Lu Beiyou had told her before; and the bodies of the soldiers from Kaidun City who had been killed were nowhere to be found; and Lu Beiyou, as an officer of the United City, had deliberately invited the attack of the Blood Hunters, and his motive...

"That's all."

Lu Beiyou patted her head to wake Izumi up, and said with a smile: "After all, the information is still not enough."

"However, I can reveal one thing: those people were sent to monitor me. Unfortunately, they thought I wanted to harm them and refused to listen to my 'suggestions'. Instead, they thought it was a good idea to disguise the march in the Mine Town."

Hearing this, Huo Buyang shrugged his shoulders, glanced at him, and thought that the soldiers and officers were right in thinking, but it was a pity that they did not expect that this guy had taken this psychology into consideration and achieved his goal by using the reverse provocation method.

"Moreover, Xuelie didn't know that what he robbed was 'military rations'." After Lu Beiyou finished speaking, Huo Buyang pointed at the white-haired officer and added to Izumi: "As for the 'military rations being robbed'..."

"The purpose of the blood hunt is not the food... but those people themselves!" Before Huo Buyang finished speaking, Izumi was stunned and suddenly realized, "The military rations were robbed, and that's the excuse you need to report to the United City."

"That's right, but I did plan to use food as bait at the beginning to create an opportunity to escape from Kaidun City and leave the military camp." The young officer smiled and nodded, kicking the unconscious Wilderness Blood Hunter at his feet with his boots, "But I didn't expect that compared to ready-made food... it seems that living people are more attractive to them." "It's a pity that I didn't find out where the prisoners went." Huo Buyang said, "I was not the one responsible for escorting and trading."

"Plans can never be perfect." Lu Beiyou said indifferently, pulling Izumi over and saying earnestly: "The rest is up to you..."

"What do you mean?" The girl was startled.

"Find out where the captives are and who they are trading with." The officer said innocently, "Otherwise, even if we hand over the bodies of these barbarians and the recovered military rations, the robbery has already happened, and it can only be regarded as making up for the mistake."

But if we dig deeper...

"That's called foresight in playing a big game of chess!" He smiled and said, "Looking back, this little twist in the middle is just a temporary difficulty, and no matter how much loss there is, it's just a bait -"

"What if we can't find it?" Izumi asked anxiously, "And why me?"

"It doesn't matter if I can't find it. At worst I can just throw away my clothes and become a drifter. Being wanted is nothing to be afraid of." Lu Beiyou didn't care. "This planet is so big, don't you think there is no place for me to stay?"

Izumi subconsciously thought that the other party was just being stubborn, but when she glanced at Huo Buyang on the other side, she found that there was no opposition or disdain on her companion's face. It seemed that he really believed that he could do such a thing, and there was even a hint of "You should have made this decision a long time ago."

It seems that his achievements will be even higher.

Izumi was momentarily incomprehensible: Is it true that someone would rather give up the status of a noble family and an officer in the United City and instead regard it as a bondage? This is something that others cannot envy.

But Lu Beiyou's next words made her stunned:

"As for why it's you...wouldn't it be easier if you just ask yourself how you feel?"

Izumi was awakened by these words, and suddenly realized: although they were strangers whom he had just met, when he was with them, he not only did not feel the slightest bit of nervousness or unhappiness, but on the contrary he was much more relaxed, which was totally different from his usual style.

It wasn't because she had lost her guard.

Instead, under the guidance of an officer named Lu Beiyou, they went from being wary of hostility to calculating transactions, and finally even thinking from their perspective.

I opened up my defenses step by step.

Moreover, compared to the fear and anxiety of the hunting patrols in the past, every time she returned to that home which was not dark but for some reason was always covered with a layer of gray in her memory... at this moment, as the samurai swung the gorgeous sword, even Izumi's mood seemed to be illuminated and appeared in color.

This kind of feeling.

Maybe it's called happiness.

"Next!" The warrior picked up a bag of cheese biscuits distributed to senior officers from the ground and threw it to the girl. He pointed at the corpses on the ground and said, "Count it on them."

"Bait." Huo Buyang nodded and repeated what Lu Beiyou had just said.

What he meant was obviously their plan. They could cause any damage during the process, as it would be reimbursed by the United City anyway...but when combined with the situation here, it had a hint of irony.

Izumi was stunned for a moment and then laughed.

"it is good."

……

……

"Compared with Kaidun City, the gap between your manpower and that of Kaidun City is still too big. Can you catch up with their progress?" Lu Dai looked at the less than 100 people around him and said to Lu Meng with some worry.

Because of the high profile and grandness of the Kaiton City envoys, even the high wall shield guards looked up to them. At this moment, they rarely left the city wall station and cleared the surrounding area in a form of half escort and half supervision.

Lu Meng and his group could go straight through the outskirts of the wild people's activities. Even the wild blood hunters among them would not dare to provoke them, but if they went deeper, it would be hard to say what would happen.

Lu Dai knew that those brought by Lu Beiyou were the elite of the Cult of Embers. Except for a slight difference in equipment, their strength, physical fitness and most importantly, loyalty were no less than those of the royal guards of Kaiton City... However, the other side had the advantage in numbers after all.

Before setting off, Lu Meng, the Red King, for some reason did not mobilize them or say anything inspiring. He just stared at an abandoned water tower on the side of the road in a daze.

Then he shook his head.

The direction is wrong.

"We don't need that many people. I don't know if Tianxin Li Zhengqing knows this." Hearing the concern of Lu Dai, he spoke up, "In fact, if we just want to go deep into Ai Mine Town, a few unknown people will be enough."

Hearing the Red King's answer, Lu Dai laughed subconsciously: If it were in the past, she could quickly understand what the other party meant, without any ambiguity - but it was precisely because of you that the meaning of the word "Nameless" on the entire continent has changed, and she still has to react for a while after hearing it.

You are the only one like this.

Want a few more?
However, since the other party was confident, Lu Dai had nothing to say and felt relieved.

At this time, the old webmaster among the technology hunters appeared at the edge of the crowd. He seemed to have struggled for a long time before making up his mind. He walked up to Lu Meng and wanted to get closer to her.

An Iron Guard soldier stretched out his hand to stop him, but Lu Meng stopped him and gestured for the other party to come over.

"I want to remind you of one thing..." the old hunter said in a low voice, not without seriousness: "Don't eat the meat in Aikuan Town."

"……I see."

Lu Meng nodded to express his gratitude, and called over an officer, asking him to pay a few strings of coins to the old hunter. The other party did not expect this and quickly declined, until a thin woman walked out of the team and whispered a few words to him. The old hunter was stunned and looked at the two of them, and then he accepted it without saying a word.

But when he looked at Lu Meng's back, there was a hint of complexity in his eyes.

Late autumn ends, and the whole world officially enters the harsh winter. The temperature drops rapidly as if it had never been announced. Even in the fertile Pride of Oakland or the swamp forest with abundant rain and heat, people will no longer be able to grow crops for a period of time. Every family can only rely on the savings accumulated throughout the year to get through the next hurdle... or become desperadoes.

This is especially true for the town of Mine, which is full of rocks and ruins.

But at this time, two groups of people, one large and one small, left their warm camp at the same time and went deep into this wild land after civilization as if competing.

(End of this chapter)