[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces":3,"chapter-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-313":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Dragon of a Thousand Faces",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2269959,4431,"Chapter 313: Hunt","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-313",313,"\u003Cp>The attackers arrived cloaked and masked, showing not a trace of friendliness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And what met them in return was the brutal counterstrike of the town’s defenders.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>While the outer wall burned in fierce combat, another battlefield was also ablaze—and even more critical.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Run! The wall has been breached; monsters are inside!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I told you this place isn’t safe—the slave traders came too, and they’re here to drag us away!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Trust the nobles? Are they trustworthy? In their eyes, we’re nothing but rotten stones—used to build walls, and even then, we’re too filthy to look at.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The bribed refugees set fires and screamed everywhere, creating chaos while spreading the rumor that the town was no longer safe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A newly built town can never be fully sealed; infiltration is far too easy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Many who were also “slaves” were willing to betray, promised freedom or the rank of slave squad leader.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those who never had loyalty saw only the present; for survival, they would do anything.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Boom!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The inner wall had not yet been struck—but it exploded on its own.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some escaped slaves, driven by fear and lies, chose to flee; the moment they left the underground zone and reentered the city, the slave catchers would re-enslave them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, the Jiaoyi Society would resume immediately; the black market, short on stock, would restart operations, and the withering market would naturally revive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Aaaah!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The rioting escaped slave suddenly collapsed; a hidden shadow assassin appeared in his place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Stay where you are. We guarantee your safety and freedom in the name of the Kingdom.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He held aloft the Royal White Lion Medal—a “precious” royal undercover agent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One by one, assassins and undercover agents stepped from the shadows, cheerfully harvesting the heads of the rebels.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To them, this was a long-awaited achievement.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outside the outer wall, royal knights, guard warriors, and mercenaries stepped forward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Led by four Huiguang Guards, the long-awaited hunt began.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or rather, the suppression of rebellion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No prisoners.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“All heretics deserve to die.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The high-ranking warriors’ battle cry said it all: this was a well-known “internal struggle,” yet it would still be branded as the work of heretics—so convenient, for every conspiracy, every failed experiment, always ended with heretics taking the blame.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The invading transcendent beings had few high-tier practitioners, for the “price” was too low; the greatest losses in the slave market fell to the middle tier, whose influence was limited, while the defenders had hidden many high-tier practitioners.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“How are there so many mages!!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li En’s appearance may have been accidental, but the appearance of the Grand Mages was certainly not.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Flame Storm.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The half-elf Grand Mage summoned an elliptical firestorm, unleashing a deadly hurricane across the battlefield.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His presence here was both accident and inevitability; after strengthening his cooperation with Li En, he was considering building a Mage Tower in this town.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His and his apprentices’ entry, and the display of high-tier spellcasters’ power, made the ambush end even faster.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No prisoners. No “surrenderers.” Survivors would become a shared nuisance to both sides.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All churches and organizations wished to avoid entanglement in this web of interests; the Royal House and Li En did not wish to break ties—let the attackers vanish entirely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Among all the killers and defenders, the Black Rider’s Long Qishi was the most dazzling.\u003C\u002Fp>",547,"2026-06-19T21:45:42.084Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","41219430619b12837e607aafeeeba484150dbe374c51c241f57a0e6318f0bde0","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-314","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-312",362,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-cover.jpg"]