Chapter 97: The Open Ambush (Second Update, Requesting Monthly Tickets)

Lu Mi first carefully wrapped his left hand in layer upon layer of white bandages, then picked up “Fallen Mercury,” the iron-black axe, gray amber perfume, biscuits, cheese, lamb chops streaked with blood, rope for traps, and a bag of cooled boiled water, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and exited his half-buried home.

Amid the thin, drifting gray mist, he crossed a barren wasteland devoid of a single blade of grass, cracked and broken, and entered the ruins of the dream, heading straight for the open ground where the flame monster most often roamed.

Hearing distant sounds from that direction, Lu Mi turned toward the path the creature always took, arriving at a natural trap he had previously scouted.

It was a deep pit beside the road, with collapsed walls directly ahead and to the left, a pile of stones to the right, and a half-collapsed house behind it.

Simply passing by on the road, it was nearly impossible to notice such a natural trap—Lu Mi had only discovered it after multiple inspections.

He crouched behind the pit, tossed in several sharpened wooden stakes, then covered them with a rope net he had woven in advance, sprinkling a thin layer of loose soil on top.

The simple trap was now complete; the final step was placing the bait.

Lu Mi carefully positioned the two blood-streaked lamb chops along the edge of the net, half supported by the ground, half hanging over the pit’s abyss.

Standing up, he glanced at the fragile balance, then stepped back several paces and entered the half-collapsed house, climbing onto the remaining outer wall, where he crouched.

He adjusted his position to clearly observe the trap without being directly visible to any monster passing along the road.

Then Lu Mi pulled out the gray amber perfume and sprayed a light mist onto the wall’s edge.

A faint, sweet, floral scent drifted away, carried by the occasional winds sweeping through the dream ruins, leaving behind only a trace.

Some of it clung to the wall and to Lu Mi himself.

Lu Mi did not linger—he leapt backward.

Landing, he moved in a wide arc, carrying the faint perfume scent, and returned to the path the flame monster always took, now positioned closer to the area where the creature hunted flesh to replenish its energy.

Lu Mi changed direction again, crossing the road and entering the ruins on the opposite side.

Arriving at the rear of the crumbling house, he stopped, pressed his back against the wall, and waited.

As with his strategy against the rifle monster, Lu Mi never expected his earlier setup to deceive the flame monster or inflict serious damage.

This was merely bait and an “alarm,” designed to exploit the target’s extraordinary sense of smell, observational skills, and behavioral patterns.

Only a “Hunter” knows how to use a “Hunter’s” own strengths against it!

Of course, this entire plan relied on the assumption that the target acted primarily on instinct, with only minimal intelligence remaining for combat.

Pressed against the wall, Lu Mi drew “Fallen Mercury” with his left hand, wrapped in white bandages, and tore off the black cloth covering its surface.

He did not know how long it would take for the flame monster to arrive; all he could do was wait patiently.

And patience was a skill he had cultivated since his days as a wanderer.

As moments passed, unseen by Lu Mi, the monster—its entire body charred black, blazing with crimson flames—entered the road.

After walking ten or twenty meters, its nose twitched suddenly.

It smelled faint traces of blood.

The monster did not turn immediately; it continued forward, glancing sideways with its peripheral vision toward the source of the scent.

As it passed the collapsed wall blocking its path, the two lamb chops, still dripping blood, came into view.

They were excellent food—but the flame monster did not act on instinct to devour them immediately.

It kept moving forward, only slowing its pace.

Soon, it detected a faint, unfamiliar scent in the wind.

Instantly, it recognized the meat as a trap—someone was lying in ambush nearby.

And this hunter was different from the one who had previously “vanished” to observe it; it lacked sufficient understanding of “Hunters,” and had failed to properly mask its own scent.

After a few more steps, the flame monster confirmed, through the scent’s origin and faint footprints, that its enemy was hiding on the outer wall behind the trap.

It pretended not to notice, pulling back another seven or eight meters.

Suddenly, it spun around, its body erupting in crimson flames that rapidly coalesced into a fireball tinged with white-hot brilliance.

Boom!

As the flame monster extended its right palm, the fireball shot toward Lu Mi’s original ambush position, collapsing the outer wall and shaking the house to its foundations.

Far away, Lu Mi heard the explosion and immediately broke free from the building he had been leaning against, leaping into a wild, erratic, twisting dance across the narrow open ground.

To him, the explosion was a flare—its signal to activate the second trap!

The idea of letting the prey trigger its own signal was a strategy Lu Mi and Aurora had painstakingly devised.

Amid the rhythmically intense, mysterious dance, Lu Mi sensed the translucent, blurred forms of the mouth monster, the rifle monster, and the skinless monster.

Meanwhile, the flame monster had reached the collapsed wall and began searching for its enemy’s trail.

Lu Mi danced for another ten or twenty seconds; as the dance grew more frenzied, he drew the ceremonial silver dagger with his right hand and stabbed a tiny wound into his left wrist.

A single drop of blood seeped out, forming a miniature spherical bead.

Lu Mi stepped forward, turned, lifted the blood drop, and aimed it at the mouth monster.

“I!”

He whispered in Ancient Hermes, his voice low.

By then, the flame monster had already spotted Lu Mi’s faint footprints and caught the lingering scent, beginning its pursuit.

After swiftly uttering the next command, Lu Mi watched as the mouth monster swallowed the blood bead at the dagger’s tip and merged into its own body.

Madness, bloodlust, cruelty, and intense hunger surged through him instantly.

Lu Mi forcibly suppressed the discomfort, swiftly binding the tiny, nearly invisible wound with the white bandages he had brought.

Then he shoved a piece of cheese into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, confirming that the lingering gray amber perfume masked all other odors.

During this, Lu Mi sprinted to the road’s edge and halted where the monster could not see him.

Then he clamped his mouth shut, turned his body around, and retraced his steps, walking backward along the path he had come, step by step.

Relying on the Hunter’s observational skill and the Dancer’s exaggerated flexibility, Lu Mi precisely matched every one of his own faint footprints, leaving no extra traces.

Soon, he reached the center of the road and stopped there.

He stood openly in the middle of the road—yet remained invisible.

Lu Mi waited again, using shallow meditation followed by abrupt interruption to quiet the flood of thoughts in his mind, refusing to think about the upcoming attack on the flame monster.

This was a crude method of disrupting the target’s danger sense.

The inspiration came from the Hunter’s clear self-awareness.

The method of retracing one’s own footprints backward to the road’s center to ambush was something Aurora had once written in a novel.

After seven or eight seconds, the flame monster’s pitch-black form appeared in Lu Mi’s vision—he had twisted his body with terrifying flexibility, watching the area the target would soon approach.

The flame monster followed the faint footprints and lingering scent, and since it had not left its “territory,” it did not halt mid-pursuit as it usually did.

Back on the main road, it sniffed the air and, unsurprisingly, detected the faint perfume.

Instinctively lowering its head, it easily found the barely visible footprints.

At the same time, it detected no signs of traps in the area.

Without hesitation, the flame monster followed the footprints toward the opposite side of the road.

Its charred face and nearly dislodged eyeballs grew larger, clearer in Lu Mi’s line of sight.

Lu Mi held his breath, ceasing the cycle of meditation and interruption, instead striving to empty his mind completely.

Five meters… three meters… one meter… he lunged at the target, raising his left hand—gripping “Fallen Mercury”—and slashed forward!

He did not wait for the distance to close further, fearing it might trigger the prey’s danger sense and cause it to evade prematurely.

The flame monster instantly felt a powerful sense of crisis.

Without a moment’s thought, it lunged sideways.

At the same time, its vision caught Lu Mi’s figure—the white bandages on his left hand gripping a silver-black dagger slashing toward it.

The distance between them was so minimal that even though the monster reacted, it could not avoid the blow—Lu Mi slammed directly into it.

Sssssch! The razor-sharp blade of “Fallen Mercury” plunged into the flame monster’s right chest.

The fate peeled from the “Noodle Man” seeped into the target’s body as a phantom, mercury-like bead.

Simultaneously, the river of countless intricate silver symbols reappeared faintly, and a few strands of fate rapidly shrank into the silver-black blade.

Lu Mi did not bother selecting which fate to exchange—he let “Fallen Mercury” act on its own.

Boom!

The monster’s surface flames erupted in response.

A powerful shockwave hurled Lu Mi and “Fallen Mercury” away; sparks of crimson flame ignited his clothes and scorched his facial skin.

Lu Mi gritted his teeth against the searing pain, twisted his waist midair, and maximally altered his trajectory.

The moment he landed, he rose and sprinted away.

But without extinguishing the flames on his body, he could not re-enter “invisibility.”

Boom!

Even as Lu Mi zigzagged, he was still knocked over by the explosion’s residual force, his back numbing with pain.

He rose stubbornly, crawling and rolling away from the road into the ruins where he had previously hidden.

The flame monster relentlessly pursued him—now that he could no longer “vanish.”

ps: Second update, requesting monthly tickets—another update in five minutes~

(End of Chapter)