"Alright, I’ll try!"
Su Qingyao nodded, pulling a palm-sized crystal ball from her inventory slot. It was an item bundled with her fortune teller class. Cupping the sphere in both hands, she closed her eyes and began muttering under her breath, seemingly trying to connect with some unseen force.
A moment later, milky swirls inside the clear crystal ball shifted into a stark, crimson red.
Su Qingyao snapped her eyes open, her delicate face instantly draining of all color.
"What is it?" Logan pressed immediately.
"Blood... a bloody disaster!"
Su Qingyao’s voice shook with fright.
Logan’s chest tightened. "Can you get more details? Where is the danger coming from, and when does it hit?"
Keeping her composure as a corporate heir helped her stabilize quickly, but frustration still lingered in her expression. "I don’t know. The crystal is just completely red, nothing else is showing up... My class rank is still too low to see more."
Logan understood. For a level-one fortune teller, getting a vague warning was already a solid result. While the details were thin, those four words were enough to set off alarm bells. Danger could strike at any second!
"Everyone, stay close to the hut and don’t wander off!" Logan barked out to the group before striding alone onto the clearing outside the shelter. He needed to scout the perimeter and choke out any unknown threats before they reached the camp.
The clearing connected to an endless expanse of primitive jungle. Towering ancient trees blocked out the sky, plunging the forest canopy into a dim, menacing shadow.
Ten lumberjack girls were swinging their axes into the trunks near the main settlement, creating a steady rhythm of thuds.
"Keep going, we’ve almost got it!"
"Wow, Zihan, you’re chopping fast!"
The girls encouraged each other, working up a sweat. Most of them were still rocking their swimsuits or wearing crude wraps fashioned from broad leaves. Youthful energy radiated off them, droplets of sweat glistening under the harsh sun.
Further away, seven miners struck massive boulders with pickaxes to mine stone. A few others crouched near a bush, carefully harvesting red wild berries. Bai Nian led another crew gathering dry grass to line the interior of the hut.
In no time, the tiny camp transformed into a bustling construction site. The view was certainly scenic.
Logan kept his focus entirely off the scenery, his mind running hot as he scanned every shadow for hidden threats. Trees, sky, ground. Everything looked quiet.
Yet the deeper that stillness felt, the more his pulse quickened. Su Qingyao’s divination wouldn’t be wrong.
His eyes locked onto the berry bushes. Compared to the open shoreline, those waist-high thickets offered a textbook ambush point. Chuyu Fei and the art student Gu Xinran were picking berries right next to them.
Right then, the hairs on the back of Logan’s neck stood on end. An instinctive spike of dread told him he was being watched.
He whipped his head toward the brush. Through the rustling leaves, a pair of cold, starving eyes stared straight at an unawares Gu Xinran and Chuyu Fei!
Bad news.
"Fall back! Get away from that brush right now!" Logan roared.
His warning came a fraction too late.
The moment the words left his mouth, a gray blur erupted from the thicket, cutting through the air with a foul stench straight toward Gu Xinran!
"Aahh!"
Screams erupted as the girls panicked.
It was a lean, vicious wild wolf! Driven mad by hunger, it treated these defenseless college students as easy prey. As its razor-sharp claws lunged for Gu Xinran’s back, several girls squeezed their eyes shut in terror.
Logan’s reaction time peaked instantly. The moment the wolf lunged, his body surged forward.
The Blood Warrior instincts boiled his blood. With a flick of his wrist, a four-foot-long, narrow-bladed Miao dao materialized in his grip, its edge humming with cold steel. This was his starting weapon drop!
Logan stepped into a sharp angle, dodging the initial trajectory and letting the wolf’s momentum carry it past him.
Now!
Twisting hard at the waist, Logan put his whole frame behind a horizontal sweep, sending the blade hissing through the air to hack deep into the wolf’s hind leg!
*Slash!*
Blood sprayed across the dirt as the blade bit bone.
"Awoooo!"
The wolf shrieked, dragging a shattered, useless leg as it hit the ground. Pain sent its ferocity into overdrive. Locking its bloodshot eyes onto Logan, it snapped its jaws and lunged again.
Logan stood his ground, refusing to yield an inch.
Using the reach of his saber, he parried the slashing paws and shifted his stance to read the beast’s openings.
There!
As the wolf overextended its lunge and missed its bite, Logan surged forward. His blade flashed upward like lightning, driving straight into the soft underside of the beast’s neck!
The tip buried deep, and hot blood pulsed out. The wolf twitched violently twice, the fire in its eyes fading fast before it collapsed onto the dirt for good.
Combat over.
The entire exchange took less than fifteen seconds. Absolute silence gripped the clearing. Every girl stared wide-eyed at the blood-spattered young man standing tall over the carcass.
Logan took a sharp breath, his chest heaving as the adrenaline slowly ebbed from his veins. It was his first real kill, and his heart was still pounding.
Suddenly, two warm bodies slammed into him from different directions. Someone locked their arms tightly around his waist from behind, while another buried her face straight into his chest.
It was his ex-girlfriend Chuyu Fei and the art student Gu Xinran.
Both girls trembled violently, shaken to the core, clinging to him like their only lifeline.
Logan stiffened. He glanced down, his gaze dropping to Gu Xinran.
Her pink bikini top had been completely torn away during the scuffle. A single snapped strap dangled uselessly from a nearby branch.