Chapter 12: Exit with Funds and Killing!

“Get ready, I’m starting!”
Thick veins bulged on the man’s arms. With a loud yell, he gripped Yang Zicang’s legs with both hands, rotated on the spot, and swung him like a pendulum.
A few people facing a life-or-death crisis on the opposite platform caught sight of the two on the precarious bridge and were instantly filled with sheer terror.
[10 anonymous investors withdrew 157.4N in funds and split the dividends.]
How many thousands of feet deep was that cliff below!
“Hah!”
Yao Qiming let out a roar, and as Yang Zicang, already swinging with inertial force in his hands, launched himself instantly, soaring toward the heights of this dark and profound enormous cave space.
A beam of sunlight streaked across his fish-like body, the feeling of weightlessness in his ears quickly fading, followed by the howling wind.
[Trajectory Dispatch!]
Yang Zicang’s body abruptly accelerated, diving down from high above.
The worm that had just swallowed a woman raised its head, looking at the creature falling from afar. The golden light in Yang Zicang’s hands posed a strong threat to it!
The monster immediately arched like a cobra, its maw aimed at that figure and spat out a mass of dark green pus.
The liquid tore through the air, scattering at an altitude of twenty or thirty meters outside the platform.
[Anjixiu withdrew 500N and took a share of the profits.]
The time count in his hands suddenly decreased by two thousand years.
The number visible only to himself on Yang Zicang’s chest plummeted, injecting into the weapon in his hands.
“Damn it!” the young man gritted his teeth.
Before his body contacted the spreading curtain of green liquid, he weirdly traced out an S-shape!
{Holy shit!}
[Anjixiu wants to add 500N investment for me.]
[Zhao Minyuan wants to add 20N investment for me.]
[James wants to add 21.5N investment for me…]
Countless feedback flooded in like a burst.
[Zhao Laide wants to add 112.5N investment for me…]
“The hell with you!”
Yang Zicang’s figure, before colliding with the vertical mouth of the creature, defied physical trajectory and left a trailing afterimage in parallel, landing instead on its back.
“Pfft!”
The golden broken blade pierced the worm’s skin deep, and a burst of green fluid gushed out.
Whoosh! The agile figure, with overwhelming force, swiftly slashed down along its spine!
Bang-puff-puff-puff!
The golden broken blade, like a divine weapon that cuts through iron as if it were mud, sliced from the top of the monster’s head all the way to its tail in an instant.
The phantom flames on the sword changed from gold to silver.
The moment he landed, Yang Zicang kicked off and shot away like lightning, as the fluid fell from above his head.
“Run!”
The remaining three people from the Monster Hunter Alliance each pulled a novice and dashed toward the open ground opposite the monster.
“Bang bang bang!”
The creature’s back split open from top to bottom.
The cave echoed with the screams of its agony.
The monster collapsed onto the platform, writhing. The runners suddenly felt their speed at least doubled, and they sprinted even more steadily toward the broken bridge.
The four novices who had inhaled the toxic gas aged instantly. One of them, upon taking a second breath, turned into a withered skeletal figure in mid-run, collapsing in pieces.
The survivors’ minds were already numbed; they were now acting purely on instinct.
But that didn’t stop them from using the last shreds of their failing sanity to conclude, upon seeing this crazed figure descending from the sky, that YangZicang was the superhero who could save them.
{Bro, I’m sorry about earlier. When’s the next time you’re going to take on a monster of this level?}
[Get lost!]
The seven of them ran on the narrow bridge, leaving the poisonous gas far behind.
That place would be inaccessible for a while—the parts where these monsters had rotted were now death zones.
After running several dozen meters, the few of them slowed down.
“Team Yao was right. You really are as strong as… that man. Even crazier than him.”
“That man?”
Having satisfied his bloodthirsty inner desires, YangZicang calmed down a bit and looked at the member of the Monster Hunter Alliance in front of him, a look of confusion on his face.
“It’s our former captain, Zhao Anlong. You must have heard of him.”
“Sorry, never heard of him.”
“Uh…” The man was momentarily speechless.
They stopped in their tracks. The three newcomers crouched on the bridge, too afraid to stand, and one of them—the old woman—covered her face, sobbing bitterly.
The woman with a sword strapped to her back and a ponytail sat on the bridge edge, legs dangling, panting heavily: “Ha, go ahead and cry. At least crying means you haven’t gone crazy yet. That’s good news.”
[I have gained 72.1 years.]
YangZicang, his head throbbing, sensed the number gathered within the halo: 657.3N!
Finally, when it broke through the monster’s tail area, the creature had already redirected many Chronos to converge there. As a result, not only was Amplified Chrono completely exhausted, but the principal was also offset by ninety years.
In just one second, ninety years were gone. Fortunately, the back of this giant worm monster had been thoroughly split open.
YangZicang had grown to despise those who withdrew their investments at the critical moment. Especially the one named Anjixiu, whom he had initially thought was a good person.
“Thank you. Are you a new member of our alliance?” The three looked at YangZicang.
“No, I received your help before, and I was just pulled in to lend a hand by Captain Yao.”
Help, just a helping hand!
The three were momentarily at a loss for words.
{Your performance is astonishing.}
It was Luo Xin’s voice.
{Your name is Zicang, right? If there’s a chance in the future, I hope we can have a hearty drink. It’s been a long time since I’ve met someone like you.}
[Hmph. Instead of drinking, I’d rather that kid be saved. He’s just trying hard to survive.]
{Hahaha, well, that depends on whether you have the capital to save others in this world.}
[Luo Xin wants to convert his temporary investment into a full-authority Chrono investment, requiring only ten percent of the monthly dividends earned.]
“I refuse.” YangZicang muttered to himself.
……
No one chose to withdraw their investment at this time, but some investors within dozens of miles nearby were already in an uproar.
“This guy is amazing. If only we could contact him every time he goes into battle.”
“But his ability is just a wind shield, very weak. Are you sure you want to hand over the earned lifespan to this madman? If it were me, I wouldn’t even think twice about such a thing.”
“There’s a guy like that in our town this year. Maybe we can improve our ranking next year. Let’s try to get him to that place sooner…”
Some of those closer had already started heading this way.
They brought along things like ladders, ropes, and wooden planks to help.
“He seems to have a wind field ability. It’s a shame it overlaps a lot with force field barriers.”
“But at least it’s a quadrilateral, which is still better than an ordinary triangle.”
The scene in everyone’s perception gradually dimmed, and sequential feedback was obtained.
Yang Zicang actively ended this round of sequential financing.
……
By the time they returned to the base, it was already dark. An increased number of people crowded around, making the base noisy and bustling.
After a round of welcomes and thanks, Yang Zicang drank the low-concentration salt-sugar water that Mu Xiaoyu had thoughtfully brought over and went into the big bathhouse to soak.
“Are those people who were dragged off by the monsters really just going to be given up on?”
Leaning against the edge of the pool, Yang Zicang stared at the stone ceiling, his inner emotions still surging violently at that moment.
“Below is the monster’s nest. Those people hold no value to the monsters once they’ve been used. Even if we had gone to rescue them, it would probably be too late.”
“Why are there monsters this powerful?”
After pondering for a moment, Yao Qiming, from the edge of the pool, said:
“These monsters were actually left behind on purpose, to continuously generate sequence. But… after the former captain disappeared, we no longer have the ability to clean them up thoroughly.”
“……”
After a moment of silence, an awkward and muted atmosphere spread throughout the large bath.
“Are many people born into this world every day?” Yang Zicang asked.
“No, only once a month—specifically today, because it’s the full moon. Apologies, that phrasing isn’t accurate; we’re just used to the Earth term. Strictly speaking, today is mid-month, the sixteenth of May.”
“Full moon is fine too, since the moon here never shows a missing tooth,” another person added.
……
Teams of people shuttled through the shattered city, rescuing one bewildered, terrified, and desperate life after another.
“Attention all squads, a Moon Shadow-level Nightmare is about to breach from an A-class dimensional space!”
Rumble.
The earth trembled as a massive monster, like a giant beetle, burst through a building and soared into the sky, stirring up a violent wind.
But within seconds, from the tops of several towers, figures shot out from motorcycles launched off hundred-meter-tall rooftops.
[I have received investment from the Vanguard Group…]
[I have received time-sequence investment from the Mountain Folk Group…]
[I have received time-sequence investment from the Olin Chapter…]
Boom! Boom!
The giant beetle struggled only briefly before plummeting from the sky.
As these figures leaped off its body, they pulled open the packs on their backs, and gliding folding wings snapped open with a whoosh.
“Another Nightmare vanquished!”
“Whoosh! Our Skyriders are invincible, haha!”
Boom! The moment the beetle crashed to the ground, all its vital energy converged, and a crimson ray coalesced from the fissure in its belly, piercing through space like an anti-aircraft shell toward the figures in the air.
“Ah, look out!”
A force field unfurled high above like a giant umbrella.
But the two people outside the force field had no time to react and were instantly reduced to ashes.
Countless similar battles were unfolding across this city of ever-shifting terrain.