He clamped his palm hard over the wound, but blood still kept seeping through his fingers, dripping onto the rotting leaves.

Obviously, they had just gone through a perilous, close-call fight.

Standing opposite them were five examinees with extremely arrogant looks.

The five were spread out in formation, faintly forming a half-encirclement, cutting off the crew-cut guy and his companions’ retreat.

All of them held blood-stained military bayonets, with dark-red Blood Beads slowly sliding along the blood groove.

The five all wore cruel and mocking smiles at the corners of their mouths, their gazes sweeping up and down, like they were sizing up prey that had fallen into a trap.

The lanky one standing in the middle was clearly the leader; he casually twirled a Knife Flower, flicking off the bits of flesh from the blade.

The crew-cut guy stared at the leader opposite, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, a murderous glint flashing in his eyes as he gritted his teeth and shouted:

"We’re all Special Search Team examinees, we’ve got no past grudges or recent feuds—why the hell are you going in for the kill like this?"

The lanky leader let out a sneer, stopped playing with the Dagger in his hand, and looked at the crew-cut guy like he was an idiot:

"Who said you need a grudge to kill someone?"

He stepped forward, closing in by half a meter, his combat boots grinding the dead branches underfoot with a piercing crunch:

"Blame it on your shitty luck—you just happened to run into our operation to clear the perimeter and collect offerings."

"To prevent any leaks, I’m afraid we can only wrong you gentlemen and have you keep your mouths shut forever."

As he spoke, he licked his lips, a trace of pathological excitement flashing in his eyes.

As if killing people was just an entertaining game to him.

"Clear the perimeter, collect offerings?"

The crew-cut guy frowned deeply, tugging at the wound in his ribs, the pain making him suck in a sharp breath.

He forced himself to endure the agony and raised his Dagger across his chest:

"What the hell are you trying to do? This is the West Mountain Military Restricted Area—dare to go on a killing spree here, and you’re not afraid the official Special Search Team will track it down to the end and send all of you to a military court?"

"A court? Someone’s gotta make it out alive to testify first."

The lanky guy’s grin grew even more manic, his eyes turning increasingly fanatical and greedy:

"Compared to that, what we’re looking for is far more important—that’s the entrance to an ancient civilization ruin."

The entrance to an ancient civilization ruin?

The crew-cut guy and the two companions beside him were all stunned for a moment when they heard this.

They seemed to have never heard of this classified term before.

The lanky guy took in their reactions completely, but didn’t bother explaining, the corner of his mouth curling into a cold arc:

"Just so happens the magnetic field around here is in chaos, with intensified fluctuations—we need high-intensity Life Energy as a primer."

As he said this, he pointed his bayonet through the air at the three of them, his tone icy:

"Since you’ve kindly delivered yourselves to our door as material for the blood sacrifice, we’d be rude to refuse."

"Fuck your blood sacrifice! You want to use our lives as stepping stones, you’d better make sure you’ve got the teeth for it!"

The companion on the crew-cut guy’s left cursed, gripping his Dagger with both hands and assuming a stance to fight to the death.

The other companion spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the ground and glared viciously at the opponents:

"Worst case, a life for a life—who’s scared of who?"

The lanky guy’s group, upon hearing this, not only showed no fear, but burst into loud laughter.

They then began flexing their fists and rubbing their palms, getting ready to move in and finish the prey.

The tension between the two sides spiked instantly; a new round of slaughter was about to erupt.

This battle might completely decide the winner, and someone was doomed to fall here.

Behind a patch of dense shrubs dozens of meters from the clearing, a hand silently pushed aside the thorny branches.

Fang Cheng kept his body low, crouched on the ground, raised his left hand, and made a hush gesture to Ma Donghe and Hou Peng behind him.

The two gave slight nods to show they understood, deliberately slowing their breathing rhythm by half a beat.

Through the gaps in the leaves and the relatively thin mist, Fang Cheng took in the scene in the clearing at a glance.

His gaze paused for a moment on the face of the injured crew-cut guy.

He remembered this man’s face.

He was the police academy student who’d traded a brief glance with him a few days ago when they collected their exam permits at the service hall.

As for the five arrogant examinees on the opposite side, Fang Cheng had no memory of them at all—they were all unfamiliar faces.

However, listening to their conversation just now, and recalling the corpse hanging under that tree with the copper bell, the victim slaughtered by the Triangular Spike...

That corpse was obviously one of the "offerings" this group was talking about.

"Ancient civilization ruin..."

Hearing those few words again, Fang Cheng’s pupils constricted sharply.

All kinds of fragmented clues in his mind instantly linked together into a complete chain of logic.

These people not only carried a clearly defined mission, they even knew that West Mountain hid clues to an ancient civilization’s ruins.

Obviously, taking the exam was just a cover; their real goal was the secret hidden here.

This was absolutely not information that an ordinary social candidate could ever access.

The key point was that the Special Search Team’s interview segment was extremely strict, and the chief examiner was especially skilled at Spirit pressure and psychological profiling.

How did these five Assassins, whose hands were drenched in blood and hearts full of malice, manage to pass background checks and psychological tests so smoothly and swagger into the candidate ranks?

Unless, someone high up in the Special Search Team was covering for them, or was even their mastermind from the very start.

A flash of cold light crossed Fang Cheng’s eyes.

The water in the Special Search Team’s pond was much deeper than he had imagined.

"Damn, these bastards hit hard. Fiercer than when I was grabbing turf in the gang."

Ma Donghe was squatting behind Fang Cheng, his broad shoulders tightly hunched.

He rested that heavy mutant boar leg across his knees, lowered his voice, and muttered in a tone only the three of them could hear.

Hou Peng, ears sticking out like sails, swept his sharp gaze around them and chimed in:

"This is an organized, premeditated hit squad, picking places like this on purpose. Brother Fang, best we don’t wade into this mess. Let’s just circle around quietly."

"Don’t move yet. Watch carefully first."

Fang Cheng replied in an even tone, his gaze still locked on the crowd in the middle of the clearing.

Ma Donghe and Hou Peng clearly had no idea what "ancient civilization ruins" meant, but he himself knew perfectly well.

Back then, the Masked Guest had also mentioned related clues, but unfortunately the man had already been blown to pieces and reduced to dust in his fierce battle with the military.

As for Shanks, a newcomer who had only recently joined Bloodthorn, there was no way he could know the exact location of the ruins’ entrance or the method of entry.

Now that they had run into this by sheer chance, how could he possibly walk away empty-handed?

Whoosh—

A gust of cold wind reeking of thick blood blew in from the depths of the forest, sending fallen leaves all over the ground whirling into the air.

Under cover of that wind, a strange figure drifted out of the blind spot of everyone’s vision like a Ghost.

The man wore the same camouflage uniform, holding a still-dripping Triangular Spike in a reverse grip, and silently walked up to the tall, skinny leader’s side.

"Sector One has been cleared. The offerings are left where they are for now."

His voice was hoarse, like sawing through wood.

The tall, skinny man nodded in satisfaction, a cruel smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

But Fang Cheng, hiding behind the bushes, suddenly narrowed his eyes.

With his extraordinary vision empowered by True Sun Fire, he clearly saw that the Assassin who had just returned from his killing run was actually wrapped in faint, elusive strands of black qi.

That black qi was definitely not the forest’s mist; it seemed to have a life of its own, like a swarm of tiny leeches.

It was crawling along the skin of the man’s neck, constantly burrowing inward and writhing, exuding a nauseating, sinister chill.

Right after that came a few extremely soft snaps of breaking twigs.

Three more figures radiating murderous intent emerged one after another from the dense fog in different directions and gathered at the tall, skinny man’s side.

Their blades were likewise stained with fresh blood, clearly having all successfully completed their cleanup tasks in their respective sectors.

Fang Cheng studied these three late arrivals carefully; there was no sign of that strange, writhing black qi on them.

"Very good."

The tall, skinny leader’s smile spread fully across his face. He lifted his hand and pointed the bloodied tip of his blade at the buzz-cut man and the other two:

"Slaughter these last three, make up the nine pieces of Blood Sacrifice materials, and we can use them to activate the Tracking Array."

Hearing this, every muscle in the buzz-cut man and the other two police academy students instantly tensed.

The three of them pressed together back to back, their eyes filled with the fury of those driven to the brink, as well as a tension and despair they could not hide.

They knew very well that facing nine cold-blooded Assassins, today they were almost certainly doomed.

Yet the tall, skinny leader did not immediately give the order to surround and kill.

"But before that, we need to get rid of a little trouble first."

His tone shifted abruptly as he moved the direction of his Triangular Spike away from the buzz-cut man and slowly toward the right.

Those narrow, vicious eyes seemed to pierce dozens of meters of fog.

The tall, skinny man bared his teeth in a grin of bone-white, his voice echoing faintly across the clearing:

"Friend, you’ve been sneaking in there and watching for quite a while. Aren’t you going to come out and say hello?"