Chapter Eighty-Three: Breakthrough
Is the serrated hyena powerful? There’s no doubt about it.
Just look at those bronze-tier evolvers out on the periphery—usually, it takes an entire squad to take down a single serrated hyena. That alone says enough.
For a bronze squad, killing one serrated hyena is relatively easy.
But when there are two of them... the squad has to fight for their lives. There might even be casualties.
And if the number reaches three...
No bronze squad would ever provoke three serrated hyenas at once!
Because that’s not hunting anymore—that’s suicide!
In terms of single combat strength, the serrated hyena easily ranks in the top ten among bronze-tier battlefield creatures.
Power, speed, genetic vitality... all utterly terrifying.
So, is there anyone who can face three serrated hyenas alone?
Of course there is.
Silver-tier berserkers, pugilists, heavy blades... all possess that capability.
After all, evolvers at the silver tier, whether in speed or strength, far surpass the serrated hyena. On top of that, they wield fearsome genetic battle techniques. When their power forms an overwhelming advantage, then naturally, it’s possible.
There are even plenty of such battles on BattleQ.
The opponents range from silver-tier to even gold-tier creatures.
But to be honest, those battles are always massacres.
They’re all filmed by high-tier evolvers.
Either they win by sheer strength, showcasing a brutal beauty,
Or they win by speed, displaying a visual feast...
But the battle before their eyes now—this is different! Completely different!
“Holy crap, this is bad, this is bad, he’s about to get hit... wait, seriously? He dodged that too?! Incredible! This guy is unbelievable!!”
Zhou Xiaolin was filming with his communicator, his whole face flushed with excitement. Apart from exclaiming, he was at a loss for words.
Because the scene unfolding before him...
Was simply too shocking!
That black figure, facing the onslaught of five serrated hyenas, each over two meters long, managed every single time to find a way to dodge at the very last moment and succeed!
And, most crucially...
They could all see that his speed was not much faster than the serrated hyenas, and his strength was about the same!
This was nothing like those one-sided slaughters on BattleQ!
Every attack from those five serrated hyenas could have easily torn him limb from limb!
And yet...
Despite neither surpassing them in strength nor speed, the man moved like a dancer, dodging and weaving under the relentless assault of five serrated hyenas.
Every move, every dodge, was played to the very limit!
Even the choices he made with each dodge seemed, to outsiders, full of imagination!
Everyone who watched couldn’t help but wonder, “How on earth can someone dodge like that?”
---
Choices full of imagination, evasions pushed to the utmost limit... In his fluid, almost effortless dodging, a staggering impact was born—enough to make one’s scalp tingle and adrenaline surge!
Just how calm a mind, how analytical a brain, must one possess to do this?!
Zhou Xiaolin was too excited for words.
This was a visual feast of ‘evasion’!
He even began to suspect the man had eyes in the back of his head!
Otherwise, how else could he repeatedly dodge attacks from the serrated hyenas coming from behind?
Zhou Xiaolin and Zhou Xiaozhou had seen plenty of outnumbered battles on video.
But never one where neither speed nor strength tipped the scales, and yet the fight reached such heights...
They’d never seen it! Not even heard of it!
This battle seemed to embody a kind of ‘extreme beauty’!
Sidesteps, crouches, backward leaps, dodges, vaults... even the occasional rolling tumble—every move was pushed to the edge.
In under a minute, to Zhou Xiaozhou and Zhou Xiaolin, that man below had already survived death by a hair’s breadth dozens of times!
Yet each time, he survived.
It was the two of them, mere spectators, whose hearts thundered, whose scalps tingled, whose backs were drenched with cold sweat under this suffocating visual pressure!
Zhou Xiaozhou was nearly breathless with excitement.
Her face, already attractive, was now flushed crimson!
Not only because this visual spectacle alone was enough to earn her a wave of followers.
More importantly...
That person... very likely was a gunfighter!
Everyone knows!
The gunfighter is a profession that freely switches between ‘big boss’ and ‘cannon fodder’—it all depends on one factor:
Distance.
Give a gunfighter the right distance, and never mind three serrated hyenas—even ten or twenty would be no problem!
But if the hyenas get close?
Forget ten or twenty...
Even one...
Is enough to crush a bronze-tier gunfighter’s skull!
That’s the gunfighter—
A king at range!
Up close... useless!
But what was she seeing now?
Someone who appeared to be a gunfighter, without using any genetic combat techniques to boost himself, facing five serrated hyenas alone! Using imaginative footwork and split-second judgment, he’d lasted two or three minutes without being killed...
No, not just survived...
But handled it with ease!
---
His dodges were extreme, but so smooth—there wasn’t the slightest error.
Or rather, there couldn’t be.
But this was simply astonishing. Even a bronze-tier berserker, facing such an assault, probably couldn’t pull this off!
And that, she realized, was the key to her potential fame!
But she still couldn’t be completely sure he was a gunfighter... True, she’d seen him use a pistol, the signature weapon of a gunfighter. But that alone wasn’t enough to be certain.
Gunfighting technique was the key!
If, in the next moment, he used a true gunfighting technique, then it would confirm his identity as a gunfighter.
If not... then it would remain uncertain.
Zhou Xiaozhou grew tense.
Even with just this footage, she was sure she’d go viral—at least enough to surpass the ten thousand clicks from her last “Swiftwind Canyon Adventure.”
But if she could confirm his identity as a gunfighter, the explosion would be far greater than a mere ten thousand...
It could transform the whole perception of the gunfighter profession!
“Please, be a gunfighter!” she prayed nervously.
Seeing the chance for a breakout, she admitted to herself, she was getting greedy...
...
...
While Zhou Xiaozhou was caught up in excitement and anticipation,
Fang Mu, caught in the thick of battle, entered a state of unprecedented clarity.
He hadn’t noticed Zhou Xiaozhou or Zhou Xiaolin... In this situation, even a split second of distraction could mean death.
When the fifth serrated hyena joined the fray, the pressure on him doubled instantly!
There was no room for a single misstep!
Under this terrifying pressure, his adrenaline surged like never before, to the point where even breathing felt strained.
Just two minutes later, he heard a faint popping sound in his mind.
It was as if something inside him had broken.
In the very next instant, the genetic primal energy within him erupted in a frenzy!
“I’ve broken through!!!”
Fang Mu was overjoyed!
After a month of life-and-death trials, after today’s pressure pushed him to the limit, he had finally taken the last step to advance!
He could feel his body undergoing violent changes.
But before he could savor the sensation, a terrifying sense of being devoured suddenly swept over him!
A tenth of his previously abundant genetic primal energy vanished in an instant...
What was happening?!
Fang Mu was struck with terror!