Farewell, Good Luck

Deep in the Mist Forest, Yeye and Lu Yuan tore through the canopy at blinding speed, their silhouettes blurring between the ancient trunks until they were barely visible.

Every time Yeye stopped, it meant a powerful Feral Beast had crossed their path.

After another hundred-plus kilometers, the surrounding beasts had thinned to almost entirely First-rank. Lu Yuan slowed to a halt. This section still leaned toward the forest's interior, where Second-rank Feral Beasts roamed in numbers — they had no choice but to keep pushing toward the outermost zone.

Just then, Yeye stopped without warning.

Lu Yuan tensed immediately, eyes sweeping the trees around him.

But this time, Yeye simply said, "I'm exiting the Mist Forest from here."

He blinked, then remembered something and turned to her. "Is Youming City in this direction?"

"Mm."

"I'll come with you to the outer edge, Lady Yeye."

"Mm."

The two of them sprinted toward the perimeter. They looped around the entire outer ring of the Mist Forest in a wide arc — the route was longer, but it traded distance for safety, and here that trade was worth making.

"Let's head out, then."

"Mm."

They pressed on.

Several days passed. Lu Yuan was moving through the forest when a distant **boom** reached his ears.

*A fight?*

Curiosity nudged him in that direction. He slipped behind the trunk of a massive tree and peered into the undergrowth.

In the dense jungle, three Gnolls and three giants — each over three meters tall, skin a pale, stony gray — were converging on a lone human figure at the center of their circle.

That human was a petite young girl with long, light-purple hair.

Even from his hiding spot, Lu Yuan's eyes went slightly wide.

At this moment, the purple-haired girl was launching streams of purple vines from her palms, while more vines simultaneously erupted from the surrounding trees. They wove together into a living barrier, weathering the combined assault of the Gnolls and gray-skinned giants, and occasionally snapping out to seize one of the attackers and send them tumbling through the air.

He stared at the purple vines, expression faintly odd.

Even furious, her brow furrowed and lips pressed tight, the girl somehow managed to look less threatening than adorable.

She was petite — short, with a slightly round, youthful face that still held traces of baby fat, large eyes carrying a mysterious light-purple hue, red lips, a pert upturned nose. Her looks were genuinely striking. Lu Yuan's gaze drifted briefly downward, and the corner of his mouth tugged in a small, resigned twitch.

*Clearly from money.*

He had to admit he was a little dazzled.

From her, he sensed a formidable aura — one that could match his own.

*Another Transcendent Gene genius?*

*How do I keep running into these people?*

The next day, Lu Yuan entered the Land of Origin.

The moment he stepped in, the Traveler's Cottage was right there beside the entry point. Yeye was already online.

He walked over and knocked.

"You're here?" She opened the door and stepped out. She looked him over with her usual serious expression and said, "Your barbecue has gotten better and better lately."

The corner of Lu Yuan's mouth twitched. "Next time we meet, I'll grill for you again, Lady Yeye."

Only then did Yeye give a small, satisfied nod. "Mm."

He looked at her properly and said:

"This is where we part. Thank you for bringing me this far, Lady Yeye. We're both on White Cloud Continent — I'm sure we'll meet again someday. If you ever need anything, just say the word."

"Mm."

A beat passed.

"Then I'll be off." Yeye gave him a small nod — and her body blurred into a streak, vanishing without a trace.

When she was gone, the world around him turned quiet. Only distant beast cries drifted in from far away.

Lu Yuan rubbed his forehead. He'd grown used to having company — even if Yeye rarely spoke, traveling in pairs was different from traveling alone. Being by himself again felt strange.

*Didn't expect it to happen this soon.*

Inwardly, he was genuinely grateful. Without Yeye, he could never have reached this point — the danger along the way would have been several times worse. He had no illusions about his own role in this arrangement.

*I was basically just her personal cook.*

Still, he'd come to know her over these weeks of travel. Yeye might seem cold on the surface, but underneath she was, at her core, a gentle person. He'd developed a real fondness for her.

It was just that she happened to be a dedicated food lover, and his cooking was exactly passable enough to catch her interest. Without that, there was no way he'd have gotten to tag along.

He checked his Battle Net messages. One from Xue Wang, sent a while back:

*You actually ended up traveling with the rich Cat-kin girl?! I'm dying of envy!! Can you ask if she has any sisters?!*

Lu Yuan rolled his eyes.

*My luck really is something else.*

Over three months of Land of Origin time had passed. In the real world, just over a week had gone by.

He was no longer far from Tianrao City. He would make it there within this Land of Origin session.

Lu Yuan continued pressing northeast, cutting down First-rank Feral Beasts without breaking pace.

*Finally. Almost there.*

Excitement flickered in his eyes.

The distance between Tianrao City and Youming City wasn't enormous — at his current speed, he could cover it in roughly ten days.

Wild Wolf Materials Store.

Lu Yuan pushed the door open to find Xue Wang behind the counter, sorting through a pile of materials. He paused, taking in the somewhat emptied-out shop floor.

"Old Xue — what are you packing everything up for?"

Xue Wang looked up, adjusted his black sunglasses, and grinned. "You here to sell? Good timing — I might not be around starting tomorrow."

"You're heading out? Where to?"

"That's a secret."

Lu Yuan laid out his haul without pressing further. Xue Wang began the tally.

Halfway through, Xue Wang frowned. "Lu Yuan, this isn't a great batch — why's everything First-rank? Elite Grade materials are down too. That wasn't the case before."

Lu Yuan shrugged. "My ride reached her destination. On my own, a haul like this is doing fine."

Xue Wang clicked his tongue, muttered something under his breath, and kept counting.

"Done — fourteen million, one hundred and eighty thousand total. Transferring now."

A moment later, Lu Yuan's phone vibrated with the incoming notification. He glanced at it, then back at Xue Wang. "You're not in some kind of trouble, are you? Need any help? I can't promise much, but—"

Xue Wang waved him off. "No trouble at all. You're overthinking."

"Once you're gone," Lu Yuan said, "I'll have to find a new partner."

"Hey, hey!" Xue Wang scrambled to protest. "We've had such a great run — you're eating well out there, can't you look out for a brother? And come on, except for that one time at the very start where I was going to take you for a ride, I never actually did!"

"You *know* you were going to," Lu Yuan said flatly.

"It didn't pan out, did it? Don't dwell on the details."

Xue Wang changed the subject: "Wasn't that big shot heading to the same city as you?"

"Male or female?" Lu Yuan asked.

"Female. What of it?"

"Good-looking?"

"Yeah, pretty good-looking."

Xue Wang's expression toward Lu Yuan grew increasingly peculiar.

"Your imagination is quite something," Lu Yuan remarked.

"She wouldn't be... non-human, would she?"

"She's Cat-kin."

Xue Wang's mouth twitched even harder. He cleared his throat.

Lu Yuan left the materials store. Xue Wang went back to his packing.

Late at night.

A dim lamp cast its wavering light across the back room of Wild Wolf Materials Store. Xue Wang leaned against the headboard of his bed, his black sunglasses set aside on the nightstand.

His pupils were an unsettling ghostly green — like will-o'-wisps smoldering in the hollows of his eye sockets.

He held a photograph.

The photo was missing roughly a third of itself. The absent portion had been torn away — not carefully, but roughly, as if ripped off in anger. What remained showed a dark-haired woman with a gentle smile, cradling a thin, frail child with short, slightly curly black hair. The child's face was radiant with unguarded laughter.

Where someone else had once stood beside the child was nothing but a ragged edge.

Xue Wang's fingers moved slowly, tracing the woman's face. His eyes grew faintly wet, his gaze drifting somewhere far away — somewhere else, somewhere in memory.

After a long moment he came back to himself. He tucked the photo away, exhaled quietly, and a cold, sharp glint cut through his eerie green eyes.

*Xili City — Slum District. Another room, a different part of the district.*

Xue Ren sat cross-legged on his bed. A black orb rotated slowly in the air before him, and from within it came eerie, tortured screaming.

Black fog seeped out of the orb in thin tendrils, dissolving into his body. His aura swelled — steadily, relentlessly.

After a time, Xue Ren opened his eyes. Wisps of black fog coiled within them as they cleared.

The coldness in his face had deepened since his injury. Something subtly wrong had taken root in his gaze.

A savage expression crept across his features:

*"Xue Wang is a Second-rank Battle Master. Consuming him would be worth a hundred Trainee Rank Gene Warriors. My strength would surge dramatically..."*

The black fog rippled — and a flash of struggle broke through. His mouth opened, as if some surviving fragment of his former self wanted to speak. Then the fog surged thicker, and his expression sealed back into ice.

His face twisted with dark resolve:

*"Damn those Night Watchmen who just won't leave me alone. My last move attracted too much attention. If this keeps up, they'll pin it on me soon enough. I'm not strong enough yet — I need to be stronger!"*

*"I could lure the Gene Warriors from other gangs under the pretext of a joint meeting, and then consume them... No. That won't work. Their warriors are certainly being watched right now. If I reach out without reason, they'll lock onto me completely. Can't do that — I need a different approach!"*

*"But now even killing a single Gene Warrior gets noticed... What can I do?"*

A cold gleam entered his eyes. He reached for his phone.

**Beep. Beep. Beep.**

The line connected. The voice on the other end was icy, edged with faint mockery:

"Well. It's rare that you'd call first."

Silence.

After a moment, the same cold voice:

"Come back. I have something to tell you."

Xue Ren let out a hollow laugh. "I've said it before — I'm not going back. When I go back, it'll be to claim what I'm owed."

"What I have to say concerns your mother."

Silence.

*Xili City — Li Qinghe's residence.*

Li Qinghe sat on the sofa. Franming stood before her and reported with careful composure:

"My Lord, after a week of investigation, we've eliminated most of the suspects. During the unrest a week ago, the majority of individuals had verified alibis. Only six people were unaccounted for at the time. Of those six, our investigation found that only three subsequently disappeared for several days: Xue Ren of the Wild Dog Gang, the independent known as Ellis, and the wilderness hunter Lucius. The other three show no injuries consistent with what you inflicted, My Lord. Our assessment is that the Aberration host is one of those three."

Li Qinghe's eyes narrowed. "Has he recovered?"

"Based on the damage you dealt him at the time, he should have been unable to act for a while — but we cannot rule out that the Aberration carries some form of regenerative ability. He may have already recovered. A host approaching full assimilation is no longer a normal person. He won't be able to resist the Aberration's hunger — he will attack again..."

Li Qinghe took a slow drag of her cigarette, thinking. Then she continued:

"My appearance last time should have put him on guard. His next attack won't be as brazen — he'll move more carefully. But given the strength he showed, ordinary human souls can no longer satisfy him. He'll almost certainly start targeting Gene Warriors. Send people to track down Xue Ren, Ellis, and Lucius. And keep a close watch on the Gene Warriors operating in the Slum District — they're the most likely targets."

A cold smile touched her lips. "And yet, at this point, he still couldn't resist the pull of greed. So different from the caution and restraint he showed before. In the end, he's just another Aberration host being driven by hunger. Once he's set his sights on Gene Warriors, a first attack will never be the last."

Just then, Lin Hong burst through the door, his face drawn tight:

"My Lord! The host has struck again — just received a report from the local Night Watchmen. The deputy gang leader of the Poison Scorpion Gang, Kayle, was found dead in his own home."

Li Qinghe's eyes narrowed to slits.

Three months of Land of Origin time later.

In the real world, over another week had elapsed.

He had spent more than a month in the Land of Origin on the journey alone — the distances involved were simply that vast. But Tianrao City was finally close. He would reach it within this session.

Lu Yuan streaked northeast through the forest, cutting through First-rank Feral Beasts without breaking pace.

*Finally. Almost there.*

Excitement crept into his eyes.

The distance from Tianrao City to Youming City wasn't enormous either — at his current speed, he could cover it in about ten days.