Within Fortress Three, everyone had been rendered speechless by Xiang Ning’s action. He was too ruthless; if no one else found the safe house, it meant that Zhang Hongyu would be imprisoned until the end of the exercise.

Wu Zhishen was livid. This is so embarrassing! They were the students of his academy. It was already bad enough that they weren’t able to win against Xiang Ning but to think they would even lose in terms of intelligence. 

“Wu Zhishen, I think your students are far too polarized.” Qi Jiuming laughed. What he meant was that, while he had Wu Rui, who was placed first in the rankings, Zhang Hongyu was dumb enough to be barricaded in the safe house.

Wu Zhishen snorted at the provocation. He had placed all of his hopes on Wu Rui. They were first in the rankings, and that was all that mattered. As long as they kept in first place, they would win. And coming in first meant he could sweep everything that had happened under the rug with no fuss.

……

On the other hand, Xiang Ning and his squad had already forgotten about Zhang Hongyu.

The night was approaching, and it was extremely dangerous in the wilderness. Not only would their vision be limited, but nocturnal beasts would also attack them. Like the Night Cat, whose attacks would be as strong as a tier two beast. And even if they were in broad daylight, a moment of carelessness meant death. A Night Cat could easily leap out from a building or a tree and bite off their heads.

“Where should we go? We still have an hour and forty-three minutes left, should we find a safe house?” Li Zimo was looking at his map. Safehouses could appear anywhere, but only one would appear in a single region. There should be no more safehouses near them.

Xiang Ning examined the map as well and stated, “I don’t think we have enough time to find another safe house. But we can try our luck here, it shouldn’t be too bad.” He pointed to a spot on the map. It was a city two kilometers from their current position. As long as they avoided any ferocious beasts along the way, they should arrive in an hour and a half.

There were many buildings in that area that could provide them with some shelter. While it was true that ferocious beasts often made their nests inside buildings, they usually only did so on the underground level or around the first few floors. They were usually too nervous to go up higher than the first few floors.

Everyone agreed with Xiang Ning’s suggestion. It was the best idea that they had for now. They marched onward, and an hour and a half later, they arrived at a twenty-floor hotel. They had to travel slowly, because the entire route was infested with ferocious beasts.

They were outside the city wall for quite some time before being able to climb onto the roof of a seven-floor building to survey their surroundings. They almost cried in shock at the sheer amount of beasts.

To think that the streets had thirty or forty ferocious beasts roaming around, ranging from the size of a dog to the size of a tank. If they were spotted by even one of them, they would immediately be surrounded.

Throughout the journey, their alertness had remained at their maximum. They would choose another route the moment they sensed something was amiss. Luckily, they managed to bypass all the ferocious beasts and enter the building with their sufficient amount of caution.

“Be careful. While the hallways are small, smaller beasts like Night Cats can still fit in here.” Xiang Ning silently pushed open the wooden doors and entered the building. He took out a glow stick from inside his bag. Its light was faint, but at least he could see the hallway in front of him.

The rest silently followed his lead as they tried to find the emergency exit. Along the way, they found dead bodies, some of them rotten while others were fresh. That meant that someone may have recently passed by, but they had all been killed. Everyone shuddered at the sudden revelation.

When he saw the remains, he bent down towards the ground to reduce his presence and held his scornful shield up. There was a beast in there, and it was highly likely to be a Night Cat.

They slowly walked toward the emergency exit to climb up the building. As long as they passed the twelfth floor, they would more or less be safe. Just ahead of them, they could faintly make out ‘F9’ on the wall, showing that they were on the ninth floor. It was the average height for this city. Most of the surrounding buildings were around twelve floors, so it was natural that a beast could make its nest around this floor.

Perhaps because they were extremely careful, they successfully managed to reach the emergency exit without incident. Xiang Ning finally sighed in relief’ the darkness was too oppressive for him.

But just as they were prepared to go up, he gave the signal for everyone to be quiet and stop. He felt a slight movement from up ahead and carefully shifted to the center of the stairs so he could see above them. A Night Cat was slowly walking up, much bigger than the one he had encountered before.

It was at least a tier two beast; they were completely outclassed. He whispered to everyone else, “No wonder the entire building was so quiet, to think there was a tier two Night Cat here!”

“What!” Li Zimo was shocked. A tier two night cat could easily wipe out their squad.

“Let’s go somewhere else, this is too dangerous,” Fang Rou recommended. The difference between tier one and tier two was too large. If a tier one beast could be defeated by a single tier one martial artist, a tier two beast would require at least tens of tier one martial artists. Their strength was too high, and Xiang Ning still remembered how he had almost lost his life to the Tyrant Spider before.

“No, this is the tallest building around here. If we shift to the lower buildings, we could easily be discovered by the other beasts.” 

“I think I can kill it.” Lu Shiyu suddenly spoke.

Xiang Ning smacked his head in realization. They had a weapon capable of dealing a lethal blow! A Hunting God Mk. 1 Sniper could easily kill a tier three beast, not to mention at such a short distance.

“But the sound of the shot would be too loud, it’d attract all the nearby ferocious beasts.” Li Zimo turned to look at the black box she was carrying. He was hesitant as to whether or not the plan would work.