Chapter 10: The End

Chapter 10: The End

The Old Hunter knew he had hit something. The smell of blood hung in the air, but he could not pinpoint Lan Mu’s location from it.

“I must escape this villa!”

He said this, but the Old Hunter dared not make a sudden move.

A prey targeted by a beast would be instantly attacked if it tried to flee; he was clear about that.

The Old Hunter calculated in his heart. His only hope was for Lan Mu to jump out first to deal with the others.

The Old Hunter had already guessed that the White-maned Lion would become visible once it attacked. The fleeting flash of white just now, when it killed one of the poachers, was the proof.

As long as Lan Mu attacked others, the Old Hunter was confident he could quickly draw his gun and hit him.

The Old Hunter adjusted his angle slightly, placing most people within his line of sight. His focus was sharper than ever.

Yet, they waited a full five minutes without the slightest movement in the villa’s main hall.

“Has he left?”

“Let’s run too! Let’s not stay here!”

In the oppressive silence, someone finally cracked. The intensely focused pressure was about to shatter their minds.

The five minutes of constant fear felt unbearably long. Fear grew and grew, quickly overwhelming poachers with slightly weaker mental fortitude.

Two poachers finally couldn’t bear it any longer and rushed towards the main door.

“What are you doing? Stop! Don’t go out with guns…” one of Boss Zhao’s men shouted, but before he could finish, he saw a horrifying sight.

The two poachers had just taken a step outside the door when a white flash attacked them. As if cut by a sharp blade, their necks spurted blood as they fell to the ground.

“He’s outside!” the Old Hunter yelled, firing his shot simultaneously, but it missed.

He never expected Lan Mu to be hiding outside the villa, attacking from a blind spot. The fleeting white flash was merely an arm.

Seeing their companions die, the poachers finally broke. With the sound of the Old Hunter’s gunshot, they also started firing wildly.

Under the barrage of gunfire, the villa door was shattered. The view opened directly into the courtyard, but not a single shadow could be seen.

“Stop firing randomly!” the Old Hunter tried to stop them, but it was too late.

Their makeshift shotguns could not fire continuously. During this lull in the gunfire, the Old Hunter felt an unprecedented sense of dread. Every hair on his body stood on end.

“Whoosh!”

The Old Hunter swiftly drew a short knife. He knew the enemy was close. His eyes darted around. Firing a gun was probably too slow now; he could only fight with the knife!

However, he couldn’t find any trace of Lan Mu.

“Thwack!”

The attack came from above. The Old Hunter was pierced through the top of his head by a blade-like nail that went straight into his brain.

A tremendous force pulled him backward, making him fall. The last thing he saw before death.

Was a white beast-man with imposing fangs and a lion’s mane descending from above, with a swaying chandelier behind it.

“The boss is dead!”

“Run! The boss is dead!”

The poachers completely fell apart, scattering and fleeing in all directions without a care.

With their main pillar gone, watching their leader die, they were completely unrestrained, chaotically pouring into the courtyard.

The four strong men Boss Zhao had left behind now roughly understood their predicament. Though very confused, suspecting they were in a dream, their discipline was much better than the poachers’. The four men relied on each other, standing back-to-back, watching their surroundings and even above, slowly moving step by step towards the courtyard.

Lan Mu watched all of this. He was in no hurry to strike.

With the Old Hunter, the biggest threat, dealt with, the rest were not a concern.

Lan Mu remained hidden. He was now crouched on the villa’s wall, calmly watching these people escape the villa.

Under his Hunting Rhythm, as long as they didn’t escape beyond a one-kilometer radius, he could hunt them down precisely!

Most poachers had fled. Only the four men standing back-to-back on guard remained. Lan Mu narrowed his lion eyes, his muscles tensed.

He gripped a short knife in his hand, the one he had taken right after killing the Old Hunter.

Moving with cat-like steps, he walked silently along the wall. From his high vantage point, he waited until the four men had just passed through the iron gate before pouncing.

It all happened too fast. A flash of white, and a short knife seemingly out of nowhere stabbed into a head, causing instant death.

By the time the others reacted and fired their guns, Lan Mu had already turned invisible again. His footsteps made no sound on the ground. With a light, agile leap, he landed behind them.

The three men were still firing into empty air, unaware that a short knife appeared behind them again, instantly killing one of them.

The remaining two turned around again, only to see their companion bleeding and collapsing, with the killer nowhere in sight.

“Gurgle… uh…”

Another short knife stabbed from a strange angle, driving diagonally into one man’s left side, piercing his heart.

In a very short time, three men were instantly killed by an invisible enemy. The last man was drenched in cold sweat, his whole body trembling.

They lacked the Old Hunter’s keen intuition. They were completely unaware of Lan Mu’s attacks. Dealing with them was simply too easy.

Lan Mu silently walked behind the last man. A casual stab with the knife sent him on his way. No more fear was needed.

Looking at the remaining fleeing poachers, there were only three. They were smart, fleeing in different directions. Even now, they had run less than a hundred meters. Lan Mu’s hunt was simply too fast.

Since the hunt had begun, there was naturally no reason to stop halfway.

Lan Mu shook his head slightly. In his heart, he had already sentenced them to death.

He knew these people all had blood on their hands. Rather than locking them up for decades only to release them to harm others again, it was better for them to die by his hand.

Fast, accurate, and ruthless in the hunt; that was clean and efficient enough.

With his speed, all it took was a burst of acceleration followed by a flying pounce to instantly kill a fleeing poacher.

In less than a minute, he chased down and ended the poachers fleeing in three different directions.

The farthest one had only run about three hundred meters from the villa.

After dealing with everyone, Lan Mu stayed hidden. He soon saw a passerby approach the area, see the dead bodies on the road, and run off to call the police in fright.

Seeing someone had called the police, Lan Mu made several bounds, leaped onto a house, and then jumped across rooftops. In a short while, he reached the villa from earlier.

The villa was now empty. Lan Mu did not dispose of the bodies. He only gathered the things he had left there. The rope he had snapped and the torture tools the poachers had used, he took those with him as well.

Then he quickly left, running swiftly out of the villa district. Finding an unoccupied spot, he threw the short knife, rope, and torture tools into a sewer.

Lan Mu thought about changing back to human, and his body instantly shrank. In half a second, he returned to his human form.

“Using invisibility and X-ray Vision continuously, even a monster would find it a bit much to bear.”

“Fortunately… I can still change back…”

Seeing that he had indeed changed back to human form as he wished, Lan Mu finally let out a sigh of relief.

He roughly understood his newly acquired ability. It seemed he could transform between human and the White-maned Lion.

A thought crossed his mind, and he changed back into the white lion. However, a wave of weakness hit him. The energy within him felt empty, so he hurriedly changed back.

“Never mind. I’ll figure out the ability slowly later. First, I need to make a call.”

Lan Mu walked out of the alley, looked towards the villa district, steadied his mind, and dialed Officer Xiong’s number.

The call connected quickly. He heard Officer Xiong say.

“Mr. Lan, where have you been? The men I sent said you weren’t at the hospital.”

Hearing this, Lan Mu frowned, then chuckled coldly.

“Is that what they said? Were the men you sent called Wang Jinghu?”

Officer Xiong said, “Yes! Mr. Lan, don’t run around. You need to cooperate with our police work!”

Lan Mu said, “I cooperated too much… Officer Xiong… That Wang Jinghu is a traitor!”

Next, Lan Mu explained how Wang Jinghu had tricked him into going to Boss Zhao’s villa. However, what happened afterward, he changed to say he took advantage of their carelessness and escaped by climbing over a wall.

Regarding Boss Zhao, he left nothing out, telling everything. He also stated.

“Officer Xiong, I have a recording here. You’ll understand once you hear it.”

Officer Xiong was utterly shocked. He didn’t know this Boss Zhao—after all, there were many people named Zhao—but someone with enough influence to even bribe his own subordinate police officer… thinking about it, only one person was possible.

That person was Zhao Mingcheng, a major local businessman involved in many industries. His main holding was called Mingchang Investment Holdings Co. His reach extended from small retail supermarkets to large department stores, freight logistics, luxury brands, and real estate. He had even recently been trying to enter the pharmaceutical industry. He was a major taxpayer in Fuzhou.

Officer Xiong quickly realized the seriousness of the situation, and he knew Lan Mu must be in extreme danger right now.

He immediately said, “Mr. Lan, where are you? I’ll come pick you up right away.”

“I’m at Qingshu Villa in Zaolin District…”

“Huh? We just received a report of a homicide there. Mr. Lan, are you at the scene?”

Lan Mu quickly said, “No! A homicide? I escaped a long time ago. I wouldn’t dare go back. To be honest, I hesitated a long time before making this call. I don’t have much trust in the Fuzhou police anymore.”

“Ahem…” Officer Xiong was somewhat embarrassed by Lan Mu’s words. He hastily said, “Please don’t say that. Ultimately, it’s just one or two black sheep. Rest assured, we will definitely guarantee your safety!”

“Alright, I believe you, Officer Xiong. I’m at a spot outside Qingshu Villa, two roads away, opposite a tea house called Mingxiang Tea House.”

“I’ll be right there. I’ll come myself! Please, don’t leave.”

After hanging up, Lan Mu let out a heavy sigh, trying his best to calm his emotions.

He had used the White-maned Lion’s body to hunt and kill twelve people. Physiologically, he had no reaction at the time. But now, having calmed down, the horrific images of those people dying in terror kept surfacing in his mind. As a human again, just recalling it made him feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Fortunately, Lan Mu had strong mental fortitude. Kill was kill. He didn’t look for excuses to deceive himself. Even if these people were untried suspects, even if they were all sentenced to death, killing them—even if they were death row inmates—was still murder. Under the law, an individual never had the right to end another’s life.

However, Lan Mu wasn’t that rigid. Using a crime to end a crime—what could be done about it as long as he wasn’t caught?

He felt his life had become different from the moment of his first transformation. Back then, he had tried with all his might to suppress himself, preferring the agony of hunger to giving in.

He thought he had strong willpower. He never expected that when truly pushed to the brink of death today, he instantly abandoned all those laws and morals.

When someone possesses great power, it’s difficult to view the weak and the deserving of death equally anymore.

“They deserved to die anyway. The police couldn’t solve it, and it affected me. I guess I had to take care of terminating them myself…”