Chapter 832: Chapter 84: Paranoia of Persecution

"A trap?" Sun Hang suddenly felt that the brain circuitry of the slightly good-looking female Hunter in front of him seemed somewhat unusual.

Other Free Hunters and mercenaries, upon learning that Dubhe Tower was involved in this operation, mainly thought that Dubhe Tower intended to monopolize the "treasure," coercing them to act as cannon fodder using half-deception and half-temptation; however, Suyue clearly didn’t think so.

"I thought... this was a joint cleansing operation planned by Chun Feng and Dubhe Tower." Suyue’s lips trembled slightly. "The main purpose is to find an excuse to get rid of those Free Hunters and mercenaries who don’t comply with the management... and the so-called treasure map and treasure are most likely just a ruse, a bait."

Sun Hang suddenly understood, this woman wasn’t odd-brained, but simply paranoid.

"If you think it’s a trap, why are you still participating in this operation?" Sun Hang couldn’t help but ask.

"It’s the organization’s decision, I have no power to oppose it." Suyue sighed, "Besides, we didn’t know beforehand that Dubhe Tower sent people to participate in this operation... Originally, the appearance of Bai Hu gave me a bad feeling, and I tried my best to propose withdrawing from the operation temporarily, but the organization and Third Sister didn’t agree... until your appearance."

"Want to quit, but it’s too late?" Sun Hang asked.

Suyue nodded: "I was still thinking about how to persuade the organization when our account received fifteen million from that anonymous account."

"Actually, it’s not a trap," Sun Hang said.

Suyue’s eyes widened slightly, looking at Sun Hang with some disbelief.

"If... if it’s not a trap..." Suyue murmured, "then you could have issued a bounty targeting the treasure itself; why issue a high-reward bounty for information and also personally join the operation? After all, you at Dubhe Tower... never lack money, right?"

"Issuing such low-difficulty bounties is naturally to attract more hunters to participate in this operation," Sun Hang said.

"And you say it’s not a trap?!" Suyue’s expression was a bit subtle, "Or is it that starting from where the treasure is, you need more cannon fodder... or ’sacrifices’?"

Her voice began to tremble somewhat.

If, by unfortunate chance, her guess turned out to be correct, then even if this young Hunter in front of her was willing to let them go, they would hardly escape death.

The word "sacrifice" sounds saturated with savage, cruel, and ignorant religious hues, but in fact, in many events related to sinister objects, words like "offering" and "sacrifice" often appear.

According to Federal law, regardless of the purpose, live human sacrifices are prohibited. But for Dubhe Tower, they have the full capability to bypass this law—they only need to rebrand death-row prisoners from the prison under another name... like "consumable of category C," "special experimental material," and so on, as long as they don’t include the word human, there won’t be any problem.

Before Suyue became a Free Hunter, she was already working in some special department responsible for such matters.

It is precisely because she knows enough about the dark side of Dubhe Tower that, when standing face to face with the darkness herself, the deeply ingrained fear feels even more real.

"I think you probably have some misunderstandings..." Sun Hang didn’t even need to activate his emotional vision to see the shadow of fear rising from behind Suyue—this woman had clearly written her fear on her face—for her, being sacrificed was something more terrifying than death itself.

It didn’t just refer to the time before death but also to what comes after.

Many materialistic people would consider death as the end of life; being dead is just being dead, and everything ends. In their view, being sacrificed to sinister objects is no different from death, except there might be some ceremonial "shamanistic performances" before death.

But Suyue knows very clearly that death and sacrifice are entirely different.

Common sacrifice rituals are divided into two categories, one involving the offering of the body, the other offering the soul—neither of which she was ever willing to accept.

She finds it hard to describe the various horrors and torments that occur after being sacrificed, viewing these potential occurrences as exemplified by the incisive phrase: "Neither live nor die."

If she had her own choice, she would rather choose a straightforward death.

Or perhaps, even a less straightforward death—as being tortured to death is vastly better than being sacrificed to a sinister entity.

"Mis...understanding?"

"I intended to attract a large number of Free Hunters and mercenaries to participate in this operation because I want to treat this as an assessment," Sun Hang stated. "I need to select a group of outstanding talents to go..."

"Go where?"

Sun Hang suddenly felt an urge to toy with the other party, pretending to be mysterious as he said, "Go to hell."

"... Isn’t that just selecting sacrifices?!" Suyue’s expression froze. If she didn’t know that bullets wouldn’t affect this young Hunter in front of her, she would have drawn her gun and fired—she didn’t seek to kill him, only to provoke him into "accidentally" killing her.

Or perhaps...

Suyue’s thoughts hardened, deciding abruptly as she drew the handgun strapped to her thigh, pressing the muzzle against her chin.

Bullets loaded with Beastification Inhibitor had much weaker power than regular ammunition, but that is concerning her Third Sister—after beastification, the high-intensity muscles would rupture the thinned metal casing of the bullet, exposing the needle hidden inside to inject the inhibitor deep into the muscle tissue of the target.