Volume One: Planet of Ten Thousand Beasts - Chapter 57: Fierce Battle (Part One)

Amidst the ruins, gunshots echoed continuously.

"Brother Night Owl, you're a Tier 2 hunter, right?" The redhead rapidly emptied his magazine, quickly ducked behind a broken wall, and wiped away a heavy bead of sweat. As he reloaded, he cast a look of deep admiration at Li Juxu beside him.

Carrying a person while going up and down stairs, weaving back and forth for five or six hours without showing a hint of fatigue—even he, a close-combat shooter burdened only with ammunition, was already panting.

If not for the gentle breathing of the woman strapped to Li Juxu's back, he would have mistaken her for an inflatable doll. A Tier 1 hunter's physical endurance could never sustain carrying over a hundred pounds for that long. Just carrying dead weight was one thing, but this was active combat, requiring sudden sprints, leaps, and various dynamic movements. Though he hadn't reached Tier 2 himself and didn't know the exact physical limits of a Tier 2 hunter, he was certain that a Tier 1 hunter could never possess such astonishing stamina.

A day ago, Li Juxu had a sudden realization concerning the Joyful Pharmacy. He figured out that getting medicine didn't strictly require returning to the hotel to fetch his own stash; the pharmacy's supplies were also available, provided one didn't mind spending a bit of money.

However, he hadn't spent any money. The Joyful Pharmacy had already been breached by volcanic scorpions, and the staff were either dead or had fled, leaving the place completely deserted. Shelves were overturned, and various medicines were scattered across the floor. Fortunately, he still recognized fever medication. He grabbed the fever medicine along with a few other potentially useful drugs and made a swift departure.

After taking the medicine, his younger sister's fever subsided, but she remained unconscious. For reasons unknown, Li Juxu visited two clinics in a row only to find them abandoned; the doctors had no idea where they had escaped to. Unable to diagnose the cause, he could only carry her on his back and continue his search for a doctor. During the retreat, he casually saved the redhead's life. Afterward, the redhead asked to form a team, and the two joined forces to deal with the volcanic scorpions.

The redhead went by the nickname Redhead, though his hair wasn't actually red. Li Juxu hadn't bothered to ask why; when crossing paths by chance, people could call themselves whatever they liked. Redhead, Blondie, Greenhead—even Curly Hair was entirely their own freedom.

Redhead excelled with dual pistols, wielding one in each hand and firing alternately with lightning speed. He could reload with a single hand in a single second, looking exceedingly handsome and dashing.

His marksmanship was astonishingly accurate, hitting his target every single shot with casual flair, something Li Juxu privately admitted he couldn't match. However, because Redhead prioritized firing speed, he chose the Banyan-75 pistol. Its distinguishing feature was a larger magazine than average, holding a full fourteen rounds, with an effective range of fifty meters and an extremely rapid rate of fire—theoretically capable of one bullet every tenth of a second. Its drawback was poor penetration, though shooting human targets posed no problem at all.

Shooting ordinary volcanic scorpions required just one shot per creature, but encountering blue-tailed volcanic scorpions meant they had to run. As for the silver-tailed fire scorpions, aiming was skipped entirely to avoid wasting bullets, as the firearms simply couldn't pierce their shells.

Working in tandem with Li Juxu, their partnership could be described as combining their strengths to cover each other's weaknesses, which was why Li Juxu had agreed to team up in the first place. Normally, Li Juxu never formed teams with unfamiliar people. Over the years, hunters dying at the hands of their teammates happened all too often, and he had no desire to become one of those statistics.

Just as Li Juxu was about to speak, intense gunfire erupted from the alley on their right, and a squad of more than ten people retreated toward their position.

"Damn it!" Redhead almost jumped, swearing vehemently. "With so many places to go, why did they have to retreat right toward us? Isn't this going to get us killed?"

He and Li Juxu had finally found ruins with relatively few volcanic scorpions and intended to rest for a bit. Not even half an hour had passed before that peace was about to be shattered.

These were clearly remnants of a defeated force with severely depleted ammunition, yet they had brought a massive swarm of volcanic scorpions in their wake. The rustling sound of the scorpions crawling across the ground made one's scalp tingle.

Li Juxu immediately swung his muzzle around to support the squad. Just as his bullet blasted a blue-tailed scorpion to pieces, the rear-guard hunter collapsed with his hands clamped over his face. White smoke rose from between his fingers accompanied by agonizing screams; he had been struck in the face by venom.

Bang, bang, bang...

Li Juxu's firing speed was extremely fast, but the number of volcanic scorpions was simply too great. The fleeing hunters fell one after another. Volcanic scorpions crawled across both the ground and the walls, creating a pincer attack. Lacking experience, this group of hunters panicked and failed to watch their backs. Hearing Li Juxu fire and realizing there were reinforcements, they ran even faster, and the rear guard abandoned their position to run along with the rest.

"Do they have any common sense at all?!" Redhead was so angry he nearly jumped. While sustained firepower kept the volcanic scorpions somewhat cautious and restrained in their pursuit, once the suppression stopped, the scorpions moved much faster than ordinary humans. This retreating squad was already utterly exhausted with severely depleted stamina; the moment they gave up their rear guard, their fate was sealed.

From the moment they appeared in the alley until they failed to even run out of it, the entire group fell. A dark red flood washed over them, and their screams abruptly ceased. They were dead, but what they left behind for Li Juxu and Redhead was an uncountable horde of volcanic scorpions. Having lost their previous targets, the scorpions surged directly toward the ruins.

"These banes of existence!" Redhead was furious yet helpless, his belly full of unreleased rage, leaving him with no choice but to fire frantically at the approaching scorpions, emptying one magazine and immediately swapping to the next.

"Let's move!" When the volcanic scorpions were less than twenty meters away, Li Juxu swiftly grabbed a rope and scaled the wall to leave. This was an escape route he had prepared well in advance. Slinging his sniper rifle across his neck, he used both hands and feet, charging up to the third-floor rooftop in mere seconds. Redhead grabbed his rope almost simultaneously. By the time he climbed up, Li Juxu had already pulled up his own rope and fired a single shot directly at the ground.

Bang—

A red fire extinguisher, placed in a conspicuous spot beforehand, exploded. Fine powder instantly filled a ten-meter radius, obscuring the volcanic scorpions' senses and turning them into headless flies.

This trick was something Li Juxu had learned by observing other hunters—simple and effective. Afterward, he quietly paid attention to the combat styles of other hunters. Sometimes, opening one's mind truly yielded unexpected results. When someone was alone, they often hit bottlenecks, but what troubled them might be a trivial matter in the eyes of others.

"Damn it all!" Redhead stowed his rope and turned to follow Li Juxu, only to see him suddenly halt in his tracks. Finding it strange, Redhead looked along Li Juxu's line of sight, and his hair instantly stood on end as his face drained of color.

The reason they had chosen this building as an escape route was that it stood adjacent to a much taller building. From there, they could choose any direction to retreat using neighboring structures, and the elevated vantage point provided a broader field of view, offering more information for future decisions. However, the current reality was that volcanic scorpions were continuously pouring out of the building's windows—blue-tailed scorpions and even silver-tailed fire scorpions among them, growing in number endlessly.

The building had fallen!