The First Order

On the way out of the black market.

“Why are the Sacred Mountains called the Sacred Mountains?”

This question might sound a little nonsensical, but the Great Hoodwinker’s interest was aroused when he heard it. He answered Ren Xiaosu, “Actually, this mountain range did not have a name in the past. Everyone was caught up with trying to survive in these wastelands, so why would anyone care to remember its name? Moreover, the terrain around here had also changed since The Cataclysm. Later, the Pyro Company only named this place the Sacred Mountains after they set up a research laboratory here and cordoned it off.”

“I keep getting the feeling that this name sounds a little religious. It’s somewhat awkward to hear it being called that,” Ren Xiaosu muttered.

“It has nothing to do with religion at all. The Pyro Company only believes in genetics.” The Great Hoodwinker said with a sigh, “However, there’s a rumor circulating among a minority of people that this is hallowed ground. The Qing Consortium defined the Jing Mountains as hallowed ground as well, but now that the Jing Mountains have been destroyed, no one dares to explore there anymore.”

“Hallowed ground?” Ren Xiaosu wondered, “Does that mean that something like a god has appeared at this place before? What’s the explanation for that?”

“That, I’m not sure. It’s very difficult to infiltrate the Pyro Company’s territories. Back then, I was only brave enough to walk around the outer perimeter of the Sacred Mountains. It somehow felt like there was some kind of unknown danger lurking on the inside.” The Great Hoodwinker said, “However, the Qing Consortium seems to have a lot more spies out there. They defined it as hallowed ground because there was someone who appeared there, or was born there, that sparked changes to the surrounding environment.”

Ren Xiaosu had never asked Luo Lan about these things. As for the Jing Mountains, it was a memory from a long time ago.

However, Ren Xiaosu knew Qing Zhen disliked the Pyro Company a lot. With Qing Zhen’s character, he would indeed spare no effort to understand as much as he could about his opponents.

Therefore, this information that had originated from the Qing Consortium might very well be true.

“Hallowed ground…” Ren Xiaosu muttered to himself. That place was where the Pyro Company’s Laboratory 39 was, and now, it had somehow become known as hallowed ground? Could this also be related to the No. 001 Experimental?

“Why are you suddenly so interested in this matter?” the Great Hoodwinker asked.

“Yang Xiaojin and I both went to the Jing Mountains. We can at best be considered survivors of that cataclysmic earthquake.” Ren Xiaosu said in a low voice, “If there’s a correlation between the two hallowed grounds, we had better be more careful. There could be extremely terrifying creatures living here in the Sacred Mountains.”

When they were traveling into the Jing Mountains, that black shadow in the river gave Ren Xiaosu a sense of danger. Then there were the events of the fish bones and meat and human corpses that had mysteriously disappeared. There were also the Experimentals and face bugs too. Some of those were strange existences that even supernatural beings were not capable of dealing with.

But what worried Ren Xiaosu the most was that enormous monster living in the volcano. Could there be something similar lurking in the Sacred Mountains?

Once the volcanic eruption destroyed the Jing Mountains, Ren Xiaosu was constantly worried for several months that the creature would come out of the volcano. But when there were no signs of activity there, Ren Xiaosu began to forget about it.

But how could he truly forget about a creature as surreal as that?

If there were also such a monster in the Sacred Mountains, all those who ventured into the Sacred Mountains this time would probably be in trouble.

The three of them were walking at the back of the group. Someone had suggested they drive to the periphery of the Sacred Mountains, but Cheng Yu rejected that plan.

Cheng Yu was a very cautious person. He would rather travel on foot in the wilderness for a 100 kilometers than drive on the main road.

After all, the Sacred Mountains was the home field of the Pyro Company. By being more cautious, it would ensure they could survive longer.

At this moment, Cheng Yu turned around and shouted at the Great Hoodwinker, “Guide, what are you constantly mumbling about at the back of the group? Lead the way from the front! How are we going to proceed from here?”

The Great Hoodwinker obliged as he jogged to the front of the group. “Normal people like me can’t keep up with the pace of people like you. My feet aren’t nimble either, so isn’t it quite normal that I fall behind? You should have a map on you, right? Let me draw the route of the hike for you.”

Cheng Yu thought for a moment before having his assistant bring over a map. The Great Hoodwinker took the map and drew on it as he said, “To reach the outer perimeter of the Sacred Mountains, we still have to cross three large mountains first. We’ll reach the foot of Mt. Fang by tonight, then Mt. Wuzhai in two days, and finally arrive at Mt. Shenchi after seven days. Once we get to the mountainside of Mt. Shenchi, we should be able to see the outline of the Sacred Mountains.”

Cheng Yu was a little unhappy. “Why does it take seven days when it’s only a 100 kilometers of walking or so?”

“Because my legs aren’t good. If you all think that I’m slowing you down, you can carry me. Or since I’ve already drawn the route, maybe you should go there by yourselves?” the Great Hoodwinker muttered as he marked the map.

Cheng Yu was so angry that he laughed. “Carry you? Why don’t you die instead? You better stay put in the team and behave yourself. If it’s gonna take seven days, so be it.”

When they arrived at the foot of Mt. Fang that night, the Great Hoodwinker secretly said to Ren Xiaosu and Yang Xiaojin, “There’s some things that I didn’t tell them. In recent years, I’ve been coming to the outer perimeter of the Sacred Mountains yearly. As a result, I realized the zone in which the plants have mutated has slowly been expanding. So we must be careful once we’ve gone past Mt. Wuzhai so that we don’t end up dying.”

Ren Xiaosu suddenly thought he could have Zhou Yingxue come here in the future. Didn’t she have the ability to replicate the powers of mutated plants now? This would be the best place to collect them.

Thinking of this, Ren Xiaosu stepped away from the Great Hoodwinker and asked Yang Xiaojin in a low voice, “Do you have any weaknesses in your superpower? Let’s communicate this in advance so that we’re better aware when fighting others. Take me for example. The shadow clone power that I copied from Xu Xianchu, if it gets hit hard enough between the eyes, it will vanish. The steam locomotive power that I copied from Wang Congyang will reflect any damage done to it onto me in the form of pain.”

All supernatural beings had weaknesses in their superpowers. For example, Zhang Baogen, whose power was blowing explosive saliva bubbles, could not do so if his mouth was dry.

Powers were born from the willpower of a person, but that did not mean it would be perfect. This was something limited by objective factors.

Under normal circumstances, supernatural beings would never tell others about the weaknesses of their superpowers. However, this was not a problem between Ren Xiaosu and Yang Xiaojin.

Yang Xiaojin gave it some thought and said, “My power’s weakness is that my sniper rifle can only fire one shot at a time. Every time it’s fired, I have to reload, and the rate of fire restricts how effectively I can use my superpower. I’ve always had a feeling that I can’t exert any strength at all.”

Ren Xiaosu was a little stunned. In previous battles, Yang Xiaojin’s rate of fire had always been extremely high, such as in Luoyang City and the Li Consortium’s stronghold.

If a bolt action rifle could already be fired at such a high frequency, what kind of results could she get with an automatic rifle?

Wait a minute, he had two black sabers and two black sniper rifles, didn’t he? However, “Old Xu” was not capable of firing the sniper rifle with any accuracy at all, so it might as well be carrying a heavy machine gun instead.

In that case, could he let Yang Xiaojin use his black sniper rifle? After all, the black sniper rifle had so many advantages. Its effective range was even farther, and there was no need to equip it with an additional flash guard or manually reload it. There was also the black bullet ammunition Ren Xiaosu had not dared to use even now.