Chapter 15: Tainted Blood.

Behind him, it seemed to be a fierce evil dog. Xiao Fen could feel the foul, hot breath from its mouth.

As this hot breath drew closer, Xiao Fen could even imagine that the vicious dog must have opened its bloody mouth wide and was about to bite down hard on the back of his neck.

He suddenly dodged to the left. In the mist, he vaguely saw a wall on the left. On his right side, the monster pounced on empty air and surged to Xiao Fen’s side front. At this moment, it turned its head, staring dead at Xiao Fen, and made a growling sound.

In Xiao Fen’s view, that was a terribly frightening skull. Just the head alone was half the size of his body.

On that head, the huge mouth cracked open all the way to below the ears. The black nose looked bloody and blurred, and long fangs kept dripping red blood water.

Seeing Xiao Fen looking at it, this skull opened its big mouth again. Strangely, there was no tongue visible in this mouth. Instead, there was a single eye. The opening mouth looked just like that single eye slowly opening.

“Don’t look at its mouth, run, run fast!”

Sylvia suddenly shouted again. This shout came from behind Xiao Fen, but still some distance away. This female Trialist seemed to have a unique ability to see every move of Xiao Fen and that vicious dog through the heavy mist.

However, the shout stopped abruptly. After that, there was a low grunt from the female Trialist.

But it was too late. Xiao Fen seemed to be mesmerized by that strange eye, standing frozen in place without moving.

Only then did the massive body of this vicious dog fully reveal itself from the mist.

This was a behemoth whose height alone was twice that of Xiao Fen. Its broad body almost filled the alleyway behind Xiao Fen. The blood water constantly dripping from its body made the ground beneath it look like a pool of blood at every moment.

And now, this behemoth had locked onto its prey. A weird smile seemed to float on its hideous face. Then, the vicious dog opened its mouth to the maximum and bit down fiercely at Xiao Fen.

“Bang.”

This sound made Sylvia, who was following closely behind Xiao Fen, pause. Ignoring the severe pain from her injuries, she suddenly looked up.

It was Xiao Fen. The muzzle of the Revolver in his hand was emitting wisps of light smoke.

It looked like he was prepared early on, but was afraid he couldn’t inflict heavy damage on the Garm, so he deliberately pretended to be attracted by the eye and stood frozen.

Only when the vicious dog completely let down its guard and displayed the eye inside its big mouth without any obstruction to Xiao Fen did he suddenly open fire and hit the target.

To achieve this, Xiao Fen must have very calm judgment, able to consider what to do next in the most dangerous instant.

He also must have sufficient courage; otherwise, facing such a terrifying scene, he could not have executed his plan at all.

In addition, the eye inside the Garm’s mouth would produce images that had a hypnotic effect on humans. Xiao Fen had to have a certain resistance to this.

Finally and most crucially, he had to be able to realize in the first instant that that eye was the true vital point of this vicious dog.

Combined, these factors took only a few seconds, but even a level 10 Trialist might not have been able to do it. Yet now, before Sylvia’s eyes, an ordinary person pulled into the Trial World by Yggdrasil had done it all.

Not only did he do it, but he did it very well.

The eye in the dog’s mouth was shattered by a single shot from Xiao Fen. A large amount of blood spurted from the wound, spraying all over the unprepared Xiao Fen.

This terrifying monster stood there for a few seconds, then crashed heavily to the ground.

After confirming the danger was over, Xiao Fen glanced back in Sylvia’s direction, put the Revolver back into his bag, forcefully wiped the foul-smelling blood water from his face, picked up the key that had just emerged from the ground, turned his head, and continued running forward.

He could not stop. Xiao Fen was very clear about this.

The reason he hadn’t used such a sharp weapon as the handgun earlier was to avoid letting the other group of Trialists notice anything unusual.

But since he was forced to fire just now, the unusual sound of the gunshot in the middle of the night would definitely travel very far. Those Trialists would definitely discover this issue in the shortest time and rush here.

Therefore, Xiao Fen’s primary goal now was to rush into the depths of the Web as soon as possible and fully trigger the Radiance of Lux.

Sylvia was already used to Xiao Fen making the most accurate judgments instantly. She suddenly crouched, dodging past another Garm that pounced from behind her. She raised the kukri in her hand high and chopped down hard, hacking the Garm that had bitten her earlier to the ground.

With a backhand slash, she sliced open the belly of this giant monster. After a brief look, confirming there was no glow of a key, she gave a low “tch”. Sylvia turned and chased in the direction Xiao Fen had left.

Xiao Fen ran desperately ahead. However, a journey of just a few minutes had already consumed most of his energy.

He could faintly hear that above his head, those rustling sounds had appeared again.

At the same time, he vaguely felt an abnormal sensation on his arm. This sensation, which wasn’t very painful, had started since he was sprayed by the Garm’s blood filth, but now it became more obvious.

He lifted his arm to take a look. Earlier, while following Sylvia, Xiao Fen had scraped a layer of skin off his right arm. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now, a thin layer of blood scab had formed over the wound.

Although it had formed a scab, in the dim light of the mist, Xiao Fen clearly saw that the scab was actually wriggling like a living worm, slowly twisting and penetrating down into his wound.

By now, the strange sensation at the wound had become very clear, simultaneously mixing two completely opposite perceptions: cold and burning hot. At the same time, deep in the wound, it felt like something was splitting. This sensation of splitting rapidly spread along Xiao Fen’s right arm to his shoulder.

It was too late to stop all this now. Xiao Fen suddenly felt dizzy, and his vision went slightly black.

“Drink the Nutrient Agent, right now, hurry!”

Sylvia’s voice suddenly rang beside Xiao Fen. Her running speed was extremely fast; in a blink, she had rushed to Xiao Fen’s side. Seeing his abnormal state, she hurriedly gave a low order.

Xiao Fen was now dizzy and weak in his limbs. Even his hearing had buzzing phantom sounds. After hearing Sylvia’s voice, he stopped his steps, trembling as he took out a tube resembling toothpaste from his leather bag, using his last bit of strength to bite open the tip of the Nutrient agent.

After that, he didn’t even have the strength to squeeze the Nutrient agent. His body went soft, and he fell to the ground.

Before Xiao Fen fell into a coma, he vaguely felt that the Web above his head stopped moving.