Chapter 369: Supply Point Watchtower — Night Conversations and the Tenacious White-Scaled Giant Lizard

Following the crudely made wooden ladder, Jier arrived at the second floor of the Supply Point Camp watchtower, holding an oil pot in one hand and a lit oil lamp in the other.

The space on the second floor was quite cramped; after coming up the wooden ladder, there was a corridor that circled the outer wall of the watchtower. The corridor could only accommodate one person walking, and against the inner side were small, narrow rooms.

The crude rooms had no locks, and Zhao Ji pushed one open with ease.

The room near the wooden ladder was a storage room, with many things placed inside in basins and jars. Zhao Ji didn't pay much attention and left after a glance. The room next to it was for living; it was narrow, containing only a simple, low wooden bed and a few wooden shelves fixed to the wall.

Following the corridor, he checked several rooms in succession, and they were all the same.

Only one was slightly larger, with an extra desk placed in the middle of the room and a Wooden Box for storing items. This room was likely provided for Lanisha the Knight.

After circling the square-shaped corridor, Zhao Ji stepped onto the wooden ladder behind the one leading from the first to the second floor and arrived at the third floor.

It was relatively spacious here, surrounded by closed wooden windows, and in the corner, there was a Toilet screened off with animal hide. He poked his head in to take a look and discovered that the waste chute connected directly at an angle to the outside of the watchtower.

This was quite convenient, as it required no cleaning work. Moreover, the chute was not large and was located at a relatively high place, so there was no need to worry about small animals from outside sneaking in to make a home when no one was around.

Zhao Ji opened a wooden window and, by the faint, lingering glow on the horizon, gazed at the distant, darkening mountain forest.

Darkness was like a beast, crouching in the shadows, eyeing every life that attempted to conquer it with predatory intent. Only the most formidable and fierce creatures could earn its recognition and take everything they wanted from it.

Looking at the deep, dark mountain forest, Zhao Ji asked himself: what did he want to take from here?

Wealth?

He had secretly sold dozens of tons of Silver Plate; he reckoned he wouldn't lack money for the rest of his life.

Power?

Kela the Knight had already made a deal with him, and next spring, he would teach him the method to become a Knight-rank Warrior.

Fame?

He didn't even have a house to settle in locally, and his meager reputation was earned solely through slaying Monsters.

Then what was it?

Breathing in the cold air, Zhao Ji thought silently.

Perhaps.

Was it a desire for adventure and exploration driving him?

He wanted to see the animals living in that forest, the strange and terrifying Monsters.

To fight the fierce Wolf Pack in person and conquer these ferocious animals.

To spend this winter in a fulfilling way.

"Jier, what are you doing?" someone spoke suddenly from behind, pulling Jier back from his deep thoughts.

Turning his head, he saw it was Lanisha the Knight, who had removed her armor. She was wearing a thin hunting outfit and draped in a cloth cloak embroidered with her family crest.

"Oh, it's you, Knight. I was just staring at the mountain forest outside and lost in thought."

Patting Jier on the shoulder—she was tall, even taller than Jier, and the pat was easy and natural—she said, "The conditions here are poor, and the subjugation activity on this trip is quite dangerous. I'm sorry for you, having just joined the team."

Smiling, Jier said, "I just realized, for me, these things aren't important."

The female knight rolled her eyes at Jier: "If these aren't important, then what is?"

Jier pointed to the deep, dark mountain forest outside the wooden window: "Adventure, conquering the forest, proving myself."

"Big talk. Heh, I used to think the same way, back when I first left Kendall and arrived in the big city. I originally felt that with my own ability and hard work, I could always achieve a success there that would satisfy me."

She leaned against the wall, waving her hand as she spoke.

"As for what happened after, you might have heard. Family responsibilities and the duties of a knight followed one after another. It disrupted every plan I had for my life. &%%￥%."

"Now, compared to the quill pens and brushes I used to pick up often, I trust the weapon in my hand more. When I defeated my first Monster, I still felt I could return to my previous life. But by the time I broke the head of the hundredth Monster or Human, I had long since forgotten my previous life."

Jier rubbed his nose: "Perhaps if we defeat them this winter, starting from next year, the life you had before might return?"

Lanisha the Knight squinted at Jier, examining him carefully, especially the Long Sword at Jier's waist: "You are very familiar with Kela the Knight, aren't you? Then you must have heard about next year's events."

Jier indeed had vague guesses about next year's events, and Kela the Knight had hinted at it more than once; he hesitated for a moment and nodded gently.

Although there was only one oil lamp on the third floor of the watchtower, resulting in poor lighting, Lanisha the Knight's sharp eyes still noticed Jier's movement.

"You know. So the kind of peaceful life you mentioned for next year definitely won't exist for me. Jier, it's the same for you. Kela the Knight won't let go of any power he feels he can use. This matter cannot be revealed to others yet; remember to keep your mouth shut."

"I understand, I won't say anything more." Jier nodded vigorously.

Using the fatty lake fish tails they had obtained earlier, along with clean snow from the ground outside, the old hunters happily boiled a pot of fish soup.

Everyone was served a large bowl of fish soup, and they soaked their frozen-hard Bread in it; finally, they didn't have to waste their teeth chewing that dreaded Bread.

At night, the female knight assigned tasks to everyone. Jier and a young Hunter would drive the carriage and horses back to River Mouth Town. The Knight herself would ride a horse to Umi Lake Village early tomorrow morning. As for the other two old hunters and one young Hunter, they needed to tidy up the Supply Point Camp and send someone to keep an eye on the surrounding open ground from the top of the third-floor watchtower.

To see if those cunning Wolf Pack had prepared any surprises for these hunters.

This time, they had brought a full cartload of gifts for those Wolf Pack.

The next morning.

After Jier got up, he took out his armor and put it on, packed some necessary items into his Backpack, picked up the Backpack, equipped his weapons and gear, and walked downstairs.

The horses were drinking water from a wooden bucket. This water was made by scooping up plenty of snow from outside and slowly melting it by the fire pit. Some was taken for the horses to drink, and some they used for themselves.

For breakfast, they had the fish bellies of the lake fish; the belly of a large lake fish was enough for everyone to have a meal.

The fat-rich, soft belly was delicious; it slid down the throat as soon as a wooden spoon put it into the mouth, and there was no worry about fish bones. The boiled soup was rich and fresh.

Jier and the Hunter returning to River Mouth Town carried only a little food and set off with the empty carriage.

Since River Mouth Town was located in the lower southern part, they could be said to be traveling downstream on this return trip.

There was also one easy thing about the return journey: they only needed to follow the snow tracks left by the carriage when they arrived. This saved them the trouble of finding the way.

The weather was also quite cooperative; although it was still overcast, at least it was no longer snowing.

The carriage led the way, and Jier followed behind on horseback. He carried a wooden Long Spear, remaining vigilant of the surrounding wilderness.

What they needed to be careful of was not just the cunning and ferocious Wolf Pack, but also other hungry animals.

They covered more than half of the return journey quickly during this day, and the night of rest was the time Jier was most tense.

After simply feeding the horses, the young Hunter armed himself and sat by the campfire dozing, while Jier leaned on his Long Spear, remaining vigilant of the surrounding dark, snowy wilderness at all times.

The horses discovered something before Jier did. They flicked their long ears and neighed softly in unease as they looked at Jier.

Jier grew alert; he walked around the simple Yingdi, shifting the Long Spear to his left hand while drawing the Long Sword from his waist with his right.

Sensing Jier's fighting spirit, the blade of the Long Sword began to glow brightly, shining no less brilliantly than the campfire.

Following the white light emitted by the Long Sword, Jier saw a pair of reflective, glowing eyes slowly retreating in the distant snow. He shouted toward that direction, attempting to scare the creature away.

As it turned out, being startled by Jier only provoked the creature's ferocity; it made a strange "pa-pa-pa" sound with its mouth and slowly closed in on Jier's position.

Once it drew closer, a large area of reflective circles suddenly appeared around the creature's glowing eyes.

Aided by the light of the Long Sword and the reflection from the surrounding snow, Jier finally saw clearly what the thing was.

A giant, pure white lizard, topped with a ring of flared, reflective fin-like bone spurs around its head, was stepping toward Jier.

Its feet were broad, allowing it to walk atop the thick snow, and its mouth was open, emitting a threatening "pa-pa-pa" sound.

Jier looked at his opponent, stuck the Long Sword into the snow nearby, and then pulled a giant axe from his back, gripping it with both hands.

"I'm not afraid of you, come on! Big lizard!" Jier shouted back.

Provoked by Jier, the white giant lizard quickly moved its six legs and sprinted across the snow, its open mouth filled with sharp, dense teeth.

While still several meters away from Jier, it coiled its strength and lunged, mouth agape, to bite at Jier.

Jier was no pushover; he swung his axe directly, accurately striking the lunging white lizard in mid-air first.

But the sensation transmitted from the axe handle felt wrong; Jier suddenly realized this.

There was none of the usual satisfying feeling of the axe cutting through bamboo; the axe had merely struck the lizard's head and collided with its exceptionally tough skull.

The struck lizard knocked Jier down, flailing its six legs and scratching at Jier with its sharp claws. But it did not know that some Humans have the protection of tough armor.

After falling, he ignored the lizard scratching at him, retracted his legs, and delivered a powerful kick, sending the white giant lizard—which weighed as much as a person—flying.

Jier rolled to the side and crouched, raising his axe. Taking advantage of the moment the lizard, which had fallen on its back, turned to land on its front, he brought the blue axe he held high down in a Heavy Cleave.

"Die!"

With a crisp "crack," Jier's axe split the lizard's skull, pinning it to the spot.

It seemed the creature had been stunned; Jier tried to pull the axe out, but it seemed to be stuck in the creature's hard skull.

Fortunately, at that moment, an Arrow streaked past his side and accurately pierced the white lizard's reflective vertical pupil.

"Pa-ah!!" The lizard let out a miserable shriek and began to spin and writhe wildly on the ground.

Jier let go of the axe, jumped backward, turned, and grabbed the Hunting Sword stuck in the snow.

Sensing his killing intent, the blade of the Long Sword bloomed with light, which then quickly receded to the surface of the sword.

Jier ran two quick steps and leaped, the Long Sword inverted as he dove down, ignoring the giant lizard's rolling, and stabbed directly into the midsection of the lizard's body.

The white, smooth, and hard scales on the lizard's surface did not work this time; they were pierced directly by the narrow, sharp tip of the sword. It not only pierced through the side he hit, but Jier learned through the vibration of the hilt that he had also stabbed through the other side of the giant white lizard's body, pinning it directly into the ground.

White light gushed out from the lizard's wound. Jier released the hilt, stepped on the lizard's body with one foot, and stood firm with the other. He grabbed the handle of the axe with both hands and swung it left and right, causing the pinned lizard to hiss repeatedly.

Finally, after several attempts, he loosened and pulled the axe from the lizard's hard skull.

Stepping back, he swung the axe to Heavy Cleave the lizard's flank. Jier had already witnessed the hardness of the creature's head and decided to try a different spot.

With one axe blow, white scales flew; the sound of the axe face colliding and rubbing against the scales was like blacksmithing, the metal vibrating with a sharp, shrill ring.

With another axe blow, white blood splashed out from the wound on the lizard's abdomen. It wasn't just the outer scales; the muscles of this thing's body were also incredibly hard and resilient—simply ruthless.

The lizard seemed to sense a fatal danger; it finally began to scramble its six limbs desperately, and even while pinned to the ground by the Long Sword, it kept trying to move.

The result exceeded the expectations of all humans and Monsters.

After Jier's Hunting Sword was stabbed into the ground, it didn't move at all, and the white giant lizard, with its body pierced through, twisted its body frantically. The final result was that half of its own body was severed by the sharp edge of the sword.

It was free, but half the width of its torso had been severed by its own movement.

A large amount of flesh and blood gushed from the jagged wound. The lizard was tenacious; it lay on the spot, hissing for a long while before it finally stopped moving.

"Is it dead?" The young Hunter, who had been aiming with a bow, slowly approached and asked Jier with doubt.

"Hard to say. This thing has very tenacious vitality; let me try." Jier pulled out the Long Sword.

The Long Sword, which had been fixed in the ground as if it had taken root, was pulled out easily by Jier, which surprised Jier himself quite a bit.

But now was not the time to be surprised by the magic of the weapon; he fetched the Long Spear he had stuck in the snow and carefully poked the lizard with the spear tip.

He poked the lizard's head, which had been attacked many times but remained largely undamaged.

The lizard did not move.

He poked the wound on the torso that the lizard had severed with its own movements.

As a result, the tail of the lizard, which had appeared dead, gave a flick and knocked Jier's Long Spear aside.

The eye that wasn't blinded also rolled, no longer playing dead, and stared intently at the two of them.

"Looks like it was playing dead. Good heavens, this thing's vitality is truly tenacious," Jier said.

The young Hunter pointed in panic at the white giant lizard's wound and shouted: "Jier, look there! After the white blood on the surface of its wound covered the wound, no new blood is flowing out."

Upon seeing this, Jier was also amazed by the tenacious vitality of this small Monster.

"It's fine, its body recovery ability is far worse than that Spider-type Magical Beast. Watch me chop it in two!" Jier said, sheathing the Long Sword, turning the axe in his hand, and moving to the other side of the lizard. He raised the axe and brought it down, hacking into the lizard's previous wound.

The lizard reacted strongly to being hacked; it struggled incessantly, but because its body was nearly split in two, the front and back of its body moved discordantly—one part pulling forward, the other pulling backward—making it impossible to coordinate its movements.

Jier avoided its sporadic counterattacks, found an opening, and raised the axe to strike.

Soon, he had chopped the white giant lizard into two halves.

One half accounted for a small portion of the body, containing the head and a pair of front claws. The rear body contained most of the abdomen, four claws, and the long tail.

"How about that! Let's see if you die now." Jier was triumphant, planting his axe in the ground.

Unexpectedly, even in this state, the limb containing the head moved its two claws in sequence, dragging the head to move rapidly around the campfire.

And the other half of the body was even more exaggerated. Its tail suddenly went rigid, then the scales at the base of the tail split, the muscles underneath burst open, and it directly blew its own tail off.

Once the two parts separated, the tail stopped being rigid and began to constantly contract and twist, bouncing on the ground.

As for the headless and tailless torso, it flailed its four legs, bumped into the surrounding snow with a thud, and went "gulu-gulu" as it pushed through the snow, running off into the darkness.

Jier simply could not make it in time; he had only run two steps before he could no longer keep up.

However, he could not worry about that anymore.

The lizard's head shifted its target, chasing closely after the Hunter who had blinded one of its eyes; the headless head's mouth kept opening and closing, attempting to bite the Hunter's lower leg.

As the lizard's teeth opened and closed, they made a *clack-clack* sound of hard teeth colliding.

"Jier, save me! ~" the young Hunter let out a strange cry, took a great leap, jumped outside the carriage canopy, stepped on the wheel, and gripped the thick canvas tightly with his hands.

Jier first kicked the constantly twitching white lizard tail away, then rushed over and chopped off one of the claws beside the lizard's head with an axe.

Then, with another strike of the axe, he directly chopped off its other claw as well.

"You're done for now!" Jier said with a strange expression.

The lizard seemed very stubborn; although only its head remained, it still used its mouth to bite the carriage wheel tightly, refusing to let go at all.

"Alright, now it can't move anymore." After saying this, Jier sat down on the ground, panting incessantly.

The Hunter also jumped off the carriage, carefully used his bow to push aside the lizard's claws, and then locked eyes with the single eye of the still-living lizard head. With only a head left, this lizard also stared at the young Hunter with its only remaining eye, blinking every so often.

The young Hunter had fought giant Magic Beasts, so he was not at all afraid of being stared at by this creature that had lost its ability to attack. He looked around and discovered that the Monster's body was gone.

When asked, Jier pointed straight at a pile of scattered snow nearby and said: "It's hellish; that thing is truly bizarre. Without its head and tail, it just burrowed into the snow at high speed and ran off."

"It doesn't matter. It has no head and nothing to eat; even if its vitality is tenacious, it will eventually die somewhere."

"That's right, that's what I thought too." Jier nodded.

Just as he finished speaking, the lizard's white tail nearby bounced and twisted on the ground, suddenly striking Jier's Helmet.

*Bang. *

Jier sighed, silently climbed up from the ground, found a piece of Rope in the carriage, grabbed the still-energetic tail, tied it in the middle with the rope, and then hung it directly in the middle of the carriage cabin, suspended in the air.

He and the Hunter stood with their arms crossed, watching the lizard tail twisting incessantly in the air, and the two looked at each other in dismay.

"Have you ever seen this scene?"

"Never. Have you?"

"I haven't either."

"Do you think this thing is edible?"

"Hard to say; it's possible it could be fatal."

"Why don't you try it?"

"I'm not trying it. You try it?"

"If you won't try it, there's even less chance I will. Sleep, sleep. Jier, you can't sleep tonight. You keep watch tonight; I'll drive the carriage tomorrow, and you can rest in the carriage then."

"Fine. I'll watch the surroundings; you sleep, but don't fall into a dead sleep. If there's any movement, protect yourself."