After a short skirmish, only about a dozen elites escaped the ants' entrapment, leaving the remaining hunters to drown in the sea of ants. This would undoubtedly be the worst day the Li clan had experienced for years to come.

 "You damnable bastard, get out here!" Li Jin yelled out hoarsely, having witnessed the death of so many of his subordinates, but Zhang Lie had vanished as though he were a ghost.

In fury, Li Jin tossed out a glowing white orb, which exploded in mid-air in a dizzying array of light.  

This white orb was a rare, consumable soulshard that could break all manner of stealth. As a consumable, its only selling point was its reliability: it was otherwise expensive, short-lasting, and with a small area of effect, and wasn't something an ordinary hunter could afford.

The stealthed Zhang Lie was slowly revealed by the light.

"You even have that gimmick? You should really have used it earlier, huh?"

Zhang Lie walked up to him, still shielding his eyes from the light. He didn't seem at all anxious that he had been discovered.

"Die!" Li Jin, enraged beyond belief, shot a golden spear in his direction.

Zhang Lie dashed to one side, not wanting to pit his strength or genetic energy against Li Jin's in his weakened state. Nevertheless, he was as calm as ever. 

"You were struck by my blade, but you don't seem poisoned at all, so you must have some superior-grade soulshard that grants poison immunity. Not bad, not bad! As expected of the successor to the Li corporation—you must have at least five superior-grade soulshards on you! How about this? If you hand over your soulshards, I'll spare your life."

"You think you can handle me?" Li Jin dashed forward and launched a flurry of attacks at Li Jin.

As he did so, Zhang Lie activated the superior-grade blood-ant soulshard he had just obtained, encapsulating Zhang Lie in a cloud of mysterious red steam.

Li Jin headed right into the cloud. He felt a sudden impact and saw a spray of blood, his pupils contracting. Before he could react, he suddenly felt a chill in his extremities, and he fell paralyzed to the ground.

From start to finish, Li Jin had seen nothing but a red blur at the edge of his vision.

In truth, even Zhang Lie was amazed by the increase in his strength.

"Argh! Aren't the side effects of this soulshard a little too extreme?!"

Of course, the stronger the enhancement, the stronger its side effects. After that one attack, Zhang Lie slumped against the ground, feeling as though his body was melting in a heap of molten lava.

Even Zhang Lie, who had gotten used to all sorts of injuries in his past life, was whining in pain, his teeth and fists tightly clenched. Fortunately, he had only activated the soulshard for a short period of time, and the pain was quickly dissipating.

Within ten seconds, it had receded to a level that Zhang Lie could tolerate.

As for Li Jin, when he heard Zhang Lie complaining about the soulshard, he was so enraged that he almost spat out blood. He hadn't expected that the soulshard would provide such an extreme boost, as though he were facing a hunter magnitudes stronger than himself.

Of course, most frustrating was the fact that he had been so close to obtaining the soulshard himself!

"Who exactly are you? Why are you targeting the Li clan?!" As he lay on the ground paralyzed, he had no choice but to accept the reality that he had been downed in a single blow.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," Zhang Lie replied. "I don't bear any ill will toward the Li clan, and I haven't been targeting it. To be frank, it's too weak to be worth my time. Li Hong tried to steal a kill that was rightfully mine, and then to slaughter the witnesses nearby. And what about you? If you're bringing such a large horde of hunters intending to kill me, I'm obligated to act in self-defense, aren't I?"

Li Jin couldn't help but laugh in self-mocking. He'd grown too used to dominating over the hunters in the Blacksteel settlement, but he had no idea when someone like Zhang Lie had emerged from the Blacksteel settlement.

"A superior-grade stealth-type soulshard, and a black cloak... you couldn't be..." 

Li Jin was stupefied. Who else could this mysterious hunter in front of him be? It had to be the hunter in the venombane glade who had toyed with the representatives of the six largest clans of the Blacksteel settlement!

"Are you sure you want to keep guessing?" Zhang Lie asked, giving his blade a few casual swings.

He wasn't too worried about his identity being revealed. After the auction he'd attended, along with the bountiful harvest from the blackwater sands, he was just about ready to concoct Potion #2. Once he did so, he would have nothing and no one to fear within the Blacksteel settlement.

Whether or not Li Jin could hazard a guess as to his true identity was irrelevant.

"Hand over your soulshards, and I just might spare your life!" Zhang Lie offered again.

"How can you guarantee it?"

"What guarantee do I need? You can choose whether or not to hand over your soulshards, but are you sure you want to risk your life on the gamble?"

Zhang Lie held Venombane directly above Li Jin's heart, then slowly lowered his hand. It sliced through layer after layer of armor, piercing the skin...

"Wait, wait! I'll hand them over!" Li Jin succumbed to his fear the moment Venombane drew blood. Was there anyone who didn't fear death? All conscious life had an innate fear of its antithesis.

Once Li Jin made up his mind, he instantly handed over five superior-grade soulshards. Four were weapons, and the last was augmentation-type. 

Of the four weapons, Zhang Lie had seen three of them: a longbow as tall as he was, a resplendent golden polearm, and a sturdy, intricate tortoiseshell shield. The last weapon was an obsidian spear curved like a snake. All four weapons were high quality, and he would gladly collect as many such soulshards as he could find.

The augmentation-type soulshard took the form of a green bead. According to Li Jin, this bead could negate the effects of a large class of poisons, and once absorbed into a hunter's soulspace, it would dramatically increase that hunter's self-healing capabilities, even allowing for limited regrowth of flesh and limb.

Zhang Lie was very pleased to have obtained five superior-grade soulshards in one fell swoop, and he had to admire the Li clan's wealth.