Epoch of Twilight

Chapter 50: Leeches

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Zhang Chao pulled the trigger and fired. There was a light, soft sound, and a badger-like mutated beast got shot on its head and fell silently to the ground. They stepped over its body and moved forward, leaving it lying dead by the side of the road.

“Primary mutated animals are worthless. Half a kilo of meat can only buy you one kilo of food stamps. If we can’t find any secondary level animals, we might be facing a loss if we use too many bullets on the trip there and back,” Luo Yuan said.

Qian Dakui knew that this was Luo Yuan’s first time there. To make up for the rift in their friendship, he whispered, “Secondary level mutated animals are worth more money. Half a kilo of meat can buy you 15 kilos of food stamps, and this is not even a set price. You can probably get a higher price in the black market. You could get up to 50 kilos of food stamps. But each person can only trade 1.5 kilos of meat. The rest is taken by the military base.”

“Primary mutated animals?” Luo Yuan asked uncertainly.

“This is according to the military base. The mutated rats you killed in Donghu city were classified as primary mutants, and the King Rat was a secondary level mutant. The military base has a special of examining the animals,” Qian Dakui explained.

According to the system examination, animals that ranked white had to be primary level and the ones that ranked light blue were secondary level. Luo Yuan nodded. Usually light blue rank animals were bigger in size. Even the small ones weighed more than 50 kilos, and the big ones could weigh a few hundreds, some maybe even a ton. If they were lucky enough to hunt a secondary level mutant, it would be more than enough to cover the expenses of their weapons and bullets. In fact, profit was proportional to the risk. Blue rank mutants would definitely be worth a lot more than that.

“Wait! Don’t move!” Zhang Chao, who was walking in the far back, shouted.

Luo Yuan immediately stopped and checked his surroundings carefully, but he didn’t notice anything strange. He felt uncertain. Zhang Chao took out his short army knife and walked over quickly. He cut down one of the leaves in front of Luo Yuan. He saw something moving when the leaf fell to the ground. That was not a leaf. It was a green worm, though it looked very similar to its surrounding leaves. It was difficult to tell the difference if they did not pay close attention.

“Damn it! It’s a mutated leech!” Yang Dawei shouted as he checked it out properly. Then he rushed to the front and sliced the leech in two.

Blood flew freely from its body. Yang Dawei did not look relieved though. He turned to Qian Dakui and asked him, “Please check if there are any on my back!”

Qian Dakui looked frightened as he opened Yang Dawei’s shirt to check. “No, nothing. Everyone check your bodies!” he said before he checked his pants as well.

Although Luo Yuan had his doubts, he realized that something was wrong when he saw his friends’ reactions. He used his senses to check his entire body, but did not sense anything different. They checked on each other as well.

“Nothing,” Zhang Chao sighed as he tied his pants tightly.

“I am safe too,” said Qian Dakui before he looked at Luo Yuan and asked, “Brother Luo, don’t you want to check too?”

Luo Yuan shook his head and said, “No, I would sense it.”

Qian Dakui didn’t ask any further. He remembered how he had easily noticed the invisible man. He was aware that Luo Yuan was a man with powers beyond his imagination.

“Thank god we realized it in time,” Yang Dawei said, looking grateful. “Can’t believe there are mutated leeches. I can’t imagine what would happen if it had gotten into our bodies.”

Luo Yuan was slightly nervous when he asked, “They can do that?”

Yang Dawei nodded. He looked scared as he explained, “Once they latch onto your skin, they only need a few minutes to enter your body through the wound. The scariest thing is, you won’t feel anything throughout the process, and once it absorbs enough blood from your body, it will lay eggs.You will get very skinny and die in less than a day from blood loss. Then the mutated leech will squeeze out of your body." He slowly lowered his voice and added, "One of our friends actually died from such an attack. We left that area, but we didn’t expect to see any here."

Luo Yuan felt extremely uncomfortable while he listened. He had not expected that blood-sucking leeches would have already become so terrifying.

“Are we still going over there?” Zhang Chao asked.

Yang Dawei looked very nervous. Qian Dakui looked at Luo Yuan for a second, but Luo Yuan did not object. He said, “I believe they will be in other places too, so we’ll have to be more careful. Let’s go.”

Although it was Luo Yuan who had killed the invisible man, his comrades would certainly be coming after Qian Dakui, Zhang Chao, and Yang Dawei. They probably would not stop pursuing them if they found out that the invisible man was dead. It was definitely better to kill them before they sought revenge. Zhang Chao nodded and followed, holding his sniper rifle. Yang Dawei hesitated before he sighed and joined the group.

All of them stayed alert and checked carefully every single branch along the way. They found several mutated leeches in just a few hundred meters of journey. They also came across the dried corpse of an animal by the roadside, which only served to increase their fear.

"Shhh!” Qian Dakui pushed the branches away and brought his index finger to his lips, gesturing for them to be quiet.

Several people were sitting on the ground around a clear area. One of them was lying down weakly, looking very pale. Luo Yuan looked at them through the gaps between the branches and realized they were the other four men from Hedong City. He thought his senses might be fooling him. He sensed that the guy who was lying down had become a lot skinnier, his originally round face becoming very thin and narrow.

“I think there are leeches inside his body. He can’t survive for long. It’s three more to go,” Yang Dawei said softly, sounding quite happy. He took out a grenade and installed the launcher.

“Wait! There are too many branches, they will block it. Get closer!” Qian Dakui advised, stopping him. Yang Dawei nodded and moved forward with his rifle. They walked slightly farther before they stopped again. Suddenly, the four people on the ground seemed to sense that something was wrong. They quickly turned and looked in the direction of Qian Dakui’s group.

They shouted, “Run! It’s the people from Donghu City!”

Bang!

They had even not finished their sentence when Zhang Chao fired his sniper rifle. One of them was shot into pieces while a grenade exploded farther ahead.

“Damn! I missed!” Yang Dawei shouted madly. He was frustrated with himself because he had not practiced enough. It was difficult for ordinary people to master heavy weapons. Qian Dakui fired his old machine gun. After a short fight, only two of their opponents were left. They quickly took cover and began to fire again. Bullets were flying all around.

Both parties were amateurs and most of their shots did not find their targets. Luo Yuan thought their skills were actually close to his level. Besides the guy who had gotten shot by Zhang Chao, no one else had gotten injured after more than ten minutes of firing.

“F*ck! You sneaked up on us and attacked us! You f*cking Donghu people! We’re going to kill you today!" their opponents cursed while they fought.

"You motherf*ckers! You’re about to die and yet you’re still lying, huh?” Yang Dawei cursed right back.

The next moment, a bomb exploded further up front, causing a huge barrage. “They have a mortar! Dawei! Don’t save the grenade! Attack!” Qian Dakui almost jumped up when he saw their opponents using heavy weapons.

Luo Yuan leaned on the ground, frustrated by the sounds of bombs and gunfire. The naked human eye normally had a buffering time that acted as protection to prevent a brain overload. The average image differentiating speed was 24 frames per second. In other words, if you completed a motion in less than a second, your eyes would not notice it. The speed of bullets was 700-800 meters per second on average, and they could travel 30-40 meters in 1/24 seconds, which the naked eye could not capture.

However, this was not a problem for Luo Yuan’s sixth sense. Although it was similar to eyesight, it was not an organ of the body and it was not connected with any nerves or blood vessels. It extended from his consciousness, meaning that he could somehow see things as he sensed them. No matter how fast a bullet could travel, it would leave a blurred image on his brain. His sixth sense was highly sensitive to moving objects, so Luo Yuan could actually see every single bullet traveling through the air.

Once or twice was bearable. However, that was almost 20 minutes of fighting. There were more than 100 bullets flying across the battlefield and his attention was forced to switch between them. Sometimes, when there were too many bullets flying at the same time, his attention was split so many ways that it drove him crazy. He suddenly felt his nose itch and he touched it. He looked at his hand and was shocked to see that it was covered in blood.

Just as he was about to retreat, he suddenly got shocked and he felt his head exploded. His attention was too focused, something that had never happened to him before. He could sense a small dot being fired toward his head. His head subconsciously leaned to the side before he could even think of moving. At the same time, a hot blast of energy passed by his ears, leaving behind a burning smell. Luo Yuan turned very pale and he had some difficulty breathing. He could feel his heart beating wildly.

His expression was one of disbelief. He wondered whether he had just managed to dodge a bullet.