Within the black mist, a massive figure wielded a bloodstained machete, dragging it across the ground with a noisy and unpleasant sound.
The butcher's eyes were bloodshot. When Jiang Ran accepted the bounty, he had only one thought left—to chop him to pieces with the cleaver in his hand!
"Right there..."
Jiang Ran's aura was incredibly close! The butcher raised his machete with both hands, pushed off with his legs, and charged forward with all his might, swinging the machete forward!
The thick tree trunk was chopped in half! The bounty poster was also cut in two! The butcher was puzzled, because Jiang Ran was nowhere to be seen!
Jiang Ran, carrying the soul lamp, stepped onto the branch of another tree. Although he couldn't see the butcher now, he could vaguely discern the butcher's location through the loud noise.
He kept thinking, they said these bounty hunters were supposed to hunt them down, but everyone was blind in the black fog, so how did these guys locate them?
The answer is simple: a bounty!
The butcher wasn't tracking Jiang Ran's location, but rather the location of the bounty poster! If you tear off the bounty poster and foolishly put it in your pocket, it's like installing a tracker on yourself!
What's frightening is that, based on habitual thinking, many people will choose to do this.
Okay, so the butcher has been successfully lured over. The next question is, how do we kill him?
Jiang Ran jumped down from the tree. The butcher had a violent temper and might go crazy cutting down the surrounding trees to vent his anger because he couldn't find him, so he'd better get out of this dangerous place as soon as possible.
Kindred's Mark: Wolf!
Jiang Ran suddenly accelerated, and the butcher, hearing the sound on the ground, immediately swung his knife at him. However, his clumsy movements were a step slower than Jiang Ran, allowing Jiang Ran to successfully circle around behind him again!
"ah!"
Jiang Ran used a tree branch he had casually broken off as a weapon and stabbed it into the butcher's calf. The butcher, who was over three meters tall, was like a small giant. The injury to his calf made him scream in anger, but it was not enough to bring down this behemoth!
The butcher wasn't very bright to begin with, and now he completely lost his mind. He swung his knife again, but forgot that Jiang Ran was standing behind his calf. Jiang Ran dodged to the side, and the butcher's knife sliced off his own calf instead!
The behemoth finally crashed to the ground, and the butcher, still lying on the ground, continued to swing his machete. However, this clumsy movement made it easier for Jiang Ran to dodge his attacks.
"It's really not easy to kill this big guy."
Perhaps Jiang Ran is still missing a crucial tool, something powerful enough to kill these big guys.
However, from the perspective of viewers watching the live stream, no one has obtained a similar item, meaning that such an item may not even exist! Even if it did, it's unlikely to be something you can just pick up on the street!
Jiang Ran reviewed all the rules again. If there was any place where weapons to deal with these guys were hidden, it would definitely be the Holy Church. As a location emphasized by multiple rules, the Holy Church must be a place that no one can bypass, and it may even be the key to passing the level!
But Jiang Ran certainly couldn't run to the Holy Church now. The Butcher was right here. He couldn't possibly go to the Holy Church to retrieve his weapon and then come back to kill him, could he? If he did that, would he really be able to find him?
Weapons are not the only solution; there are many other things around us that can be used!
Jiang Ran deliberately exposed himself to the butcher's knife, then quickly retreated. The butcher roared and swung his knife, but missed by just a little distance. Enraged, he moved forward and slashed again!
The tree was cut down and crashed down, smashing onto the butcher!
The butcher's knife was so long that he couldn't even see the tip of his own blade in the black fog. His vision was severely obstructed, and he didn't even know that there was a big tree right in front of him. Even if he fell down and swung his knife with one hand, his strength would be enough to cut the tree in half!
The tree trunk collapsed and hit the butcher on the head, causing him to faint briefly. Jiang Ran took the opportunity to snatch the large cleaver, which was more than two meters long, from his hand and used the effect of the Thousand Jade Seal to lift the heavy weapon!
"Your story ends here, Butcher."
The cleaver fell! The butcher was decapitated!
"Who goes there?!"
Sensing someone approaching, Jiang Ran turned around abruptly and saw a strange thing standing behind him.
This is a bizarre humanoid creature. It has no feet, and its entire body is like a ghostly green fluorescent polymer. Its face is that of an old man with a long beard, and its pupils burn with ghostly green flames.
"Dear bounty hunter, I am the Soul Merchant."
How will you prove your identity?
As the Soul Merchant raised his right hand, Jiang Ran felt as if he had lost something out of thin air. Three bottles appeared in the Soul Merchant's hand. The first two bottles were full, while the third bottle was only partially filled.
"Here's your reward, catch it, bounty hunter."
Jiang Ran reached out and caught the three bottles, which were indeed filled with lamp oil. It seemed that after killing the bounty hunter, they did not need to actively seek out the Soul Merchant, as the Soul Merchant would come to them on his own.
With these less than three bottles of lamp oil to sustain him, Jiang Ran was finally able to avoid being eliminated due to running out of lamp oil for a period of time.
"Bounty hunter, interested in making a deal with me?"
"What transaction?"
"I want fingers, human fingers!" The soul merchant revealed a sly smile. "If you can bring me three pure human fingers, I will give you a compass that can guide you to the Holy Church!"
"As long as I keep walking towards the center of the island, I will reach the Holy Church sooner or later."
To obtain a pure human finger, one must take it from other ghost story tellers. Cutting off someone else's finger is an injury enough to be kicked out of the world and disqualified from completing the game. Jiang Ran did not know the purpose of the Soul Merchant's setup, or whether it was just to trick him for fun.
"No, no, no." The Soul Merchant shook his finger. "Do you know which direction you're heading? Can you discern what lies ahead? Without the guidance of a compass, no matter which direction you go, you'll eventually reach the River Styx!"
"Of course, you can choose not to believe me, but you'll be wasting your own time."
If the Soul Merchant is telling the truth, then to reach the Holy Church, one must first obtain a compass, which can only be obtained by exchanging a human finger. This would essentially trigger conflict among the ghost storytellers!
Killing the ghost storyteller with something else and then cutting off his fingers from his corpse? That's one way to do it, but is that all the Soul Merchant is after?
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