Chapter 164: Lin Huang the Actor

Hearing Bai Yan's voice coming from behind, Lin Huang frowned slightly.

He hadn't made a fatal move earlier because killing other candidates was strictly prohibited during the assessment; doing so would result in being permanently blacklisted by the Hunter Association. However, if Bai Yan continued to pester him, he was seriously considering whether he should just eliminate him, provided he acted cleanly enough to leave the Hunter Association without any evidence.

"Is there something else you need?" Lin Huang stopped in his tracks, turning around with an unfriendly look on his face.

"I just wanted to warn you that the news of you stealing all the weed from Heisenberg has already leaked. Many candidates are rushing here right now, hoping to seize the weed from your hands," Bai Yan warned him.

"I stole the weed from Heisenberg? Where on earth did you hear such nonsense?" Lin Huang was momentarily speechless.

"Someone just posted it at the entrance of the Hunter Association. Rumor has it that it was a woman," Bai Yan said, noticing Lin Huang's reaction, which made him begin to doubt the authenticity of the rumor himself.

"That damn girl!" Upon hearing that it was a woman, Lin Huang immediately realized what had happened. The only person he had crossed paths with was that yellow-haired ponytail girl. With a somewhat peculiar expression, he looked at Bai Yan and asked, "How many people saw that notice?"

"Probably everyone by now," Bai Yan replied, then couldn't help asking, "So the news is false?"

"Of course it's false! I haven't even had the chance to make a move yet!" Lin Huang cursed in frustration.

After Bai Yan left, Lin Huang knew his troubles were far from over. He hadn't expected that girl to pull such a malicious stunt that harmed others without benefiting herself.

"That damned crazy girl, what on earth is she trying to do? The assessment only lasts forty-eight hours in total. By misleading the others like this and making them waste a massive amount of time on me, she might hinder my movements, but it does her no good at all in acquiring the weed. Furthermore, with a large crowd flooding into this dense forest, if the castle's garrison is alerted, getting the weed will become even more difficult..." Lin Huang couldn't quite figure out what her objective was. If she was merely doing this out of spite because he rejected her team-up offer, it was far too childish.

About twenty minutes later, a large crowd began pouring into the dense forest south of Beixuan City. These people were all duped by the ponytail-wearing girl and had come looking for trouble with Lin Huang.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang had already used a designated transformation card to turn into a phantom, slowly sinking into the ground and heading all the way toward the castle. With a large group flooding into the forest, unforeseen complications could arise, forcing Lin Huang to advance his operational timeline.

Moving underground, Lin Huang bypassed the main gate entirely and entered the basement of the castle.

Inside the castle, there was an open-air square courtyard, beyond which lay the main building. Upon entering the first floor, Lin Huang slipped into the wall. Circumnavigating the entire floor from within the wall, he saw several Silver-tier powerhouses on patrol, but nothing else of interest.

He then moved up to the second floor along the wall. Circling the second floor yielded once again zero results. The third and fourth floors were identical—not even a shadow of the weed could be seen.

When he reached the fifth floor, Lin Huang finally made a discovery.

This floor was bustling with workers in white uniforms. Lin Huang spotted a massive amount of chemical materials and a complete production line. Black crystals were continuously being molded and shaped on the production line, then packed into boxes along a conveyor belt. Observing from inside the wall, Lin Huang noted that these boxes were small in size, each seemingly holding only one hundred weeds before being packed up.

Having observed the entire production process, Lin Huang also noticed that aside from the staff in white uniforms, this floor had the highest concentration of guards. In addition to a Gold-tier level-3 powerhouse, there were ten Silver-tier level-3 powerhouses stationed there.

Before getting his hands on the goods, Lin Huang had no intention of alerting the enemy just yet. He continued upward to the sixth floor.

After circling the sixth floor, Lin Huang discovered a room that served as a warehouse, already piled high with over a hundred boxes of weed crystals. This was the exact target room Lin Huang had been looking for initially.

However, a Gold-tier level-3 powerhouse was sitting inside this room, and two Silver-tier powerhouses were stationed at the door. On top of that, five or six Silver-tier powerhouses were patrolling back and forth across the entire floor.

The Gold-tier level-3 powerhouse was watching some video on the Emperor Heart Network, occasionally letting out chuckles. However, his browsing window was semi-transparent, and he was facing directly toward the stack of boxes containing the weed crystals.

"From that angle, if I attempt to steal them, he will definitely notice," Lin Huang frowned, looking up at the surrounding surveillance cameras as well. "The surveillance is also a major headache. If the cameras spot me and the alarm sounds, everyone will know there's an intruder. By the time they store the items away into their Emperor Heart Rings, my mission will fail."

Having not yet located the security monitoring room, Lin Huang retreated from the room and continued upward to the seventh floor.

Upon reaching the seventh floor, Lin Huang finally found the monitoring room, which was guarded by three Silver-tier powerhouses. After observing for a moment and confirming no other anomalies, he suddenly summoned Bai directly behind the three men.

Before the three could react, one of Bai's blood-spirit wings morphed into a sharp blade and slashed out, severing three heads in a single stroke. Glancing at the limp, headless corpses slumped in the chairs to confirm they were completely dead, Lin Huang recalled Bai and returned to the sixth floor.

Back in the sixth floor's warehouse, Lin Huang held nothing back this time. In his phantom state, he reached out and swept all hundred-plus boxes of weed into his storage space.

Almost at the exact moment Lin Huang made his move, the Gold-tier powerhouse sensed something amiss. He quickly closed the video window and looked with utter astonishment toward the spot where the weed had vanished. Before he could fully process what was happening, Bai had quietly materialized behind him. Realization dawned on him too late; one of Bai's blood-spirit wings transformed into a hand to muffle his mouth, while another winged blade pierced straight through the back of the chair and transfixed his heart.

Moments later, he died without a sound, completely unnoticed by the two Silver-tier guards at the door.

Only then did Lin Huang drop his phantom state, reverting to his original appearance.

Bai stepped out through the doorway, two of his four blood-spirit wings transforming into sharp spikes that pierced straight through the temples of the two guards at the door. The other two wings transformed into long whips that lashed out into the void, instantly cutting the remaining guards in half at the waist.

Although Bai was also Silver-tier level-3, he was a dual-mutated monster, roughly equivalent to a peerless human prodigy whose combat strength spanned a full tier higher. Ordinary Silver-tier level-3 opponents were no different from fruit on a chopping board before him.

The sixth floor was instantly cleared. Lin Huang followed closely behind Bai down to the fifth floor.

Bai's previous killings had been executed without causing any commotion. As he descended from the sixth floor, many guards on the fifth floor were momentarily stunned before realizing the castle was under invasion.

Lin Huang immediately summoned Charcoal and the Masked Jester as well. He refrained from summoning Tyrant only because of his massive size, which made him unsuited for combat in such confined spaces.

The Gold-tier powerhouse on this floor barely managed to move before falling into the Masked Jester's trap, leaving him unable to break free for a moment. Meanwhile, Charcoal unleashed a torrent of dragon breath; all staff touched by the flames perished instantly, and the Silver-tier powerhouses rapidly lost their life force.

Bai, too, reaped lives like the grim reaper.

Within the ten-odd seconds that the Gold-tier powerhouse was trapped, everyone else on the floor was completely slaughtered by the three summoned beasts.

The trapped Gold-tier powerhouse glared at Lin Huang, realizing that this Beast Master was orchestrating the entire event. "brat, do you have any idea what kind of trouble you're bringing upon yourself? Our Heisenberg has three Transcendents holding down the fort. If you destroy our branch, the headquarters will definitely dispatch Transcendents to hunt you down to the ends of the earth!"

"They won't find out it was me," Lin Huang said with a slight curl of his lips, issuing an order to his three summons: "Take him down!"

Though Gold-tier level-3 was formidable, none of Bai and the others lacked comparable combat power. In less than a minute, the man was jointly slain by the three summoned beasts.

After cleaning out the fifth floor, Lin Huang did not destroy the manufacturing equipment, deciding instead to leave it intact for the Union Government authorities to come and take over. After a moment's hesitation, however, he took fifty boxes of finished weed products and piled them next to the production line.

Accompanied by his three summons, he continued sweeping downward through the floors, rapidly clearing out the fourth floor down to the first without leaving a single survivor. Even the guards stationed atop the two watchtowers were driven to kill each other under the Mind-Control of the Masked Jester before perishing.

Having wiped out everyone entirely, Lin Huang returned to the seventh floor and had Charcoal unleash dragon breath to completely incinerate the entire monitoring room, instructing it to burn down all surveillance equipment along the way as well.

When Lin Huang recalled all three summoned beasts and stepped out from the first-floor lobby, two warning-bugs simultaneously emitted piercing shrieks. The sound resembled cicadas from Earth, but was dozens of times louder and infinitely more grating.

Completely ignoring the shrieking warning-bugs, Lin Huang pushed the main gates wide open, applied a designated phantom transformation card, and slowly sank into the ground.

Crossing underground back into the forest zone, he found a deserted spot to revert to his original appearance. Waiting until he saw people noticing smoke billowing from the castle and rushing out of the forest, he blended in with the crowd and charged forward along with them.

Most people had seen Lin Huang's profile picture; the moment they spotted him, many who had been hesitating in the forest immediately gave chase.

Lin Huang ran for his life all the way, leading the mob straight into the wide-open gates of the castle.

Upon seeing the gruesome corpses strewn across the castle interior, many froze, temporarily forgetting about pursuing Lin Huang.

"What on earth happened here?" someone couldn't help asking.

"Looks like this castle was slaughtered by someone," Lin Huang replied, catching sight of the ponytail-wearing girl who had framed him and casting a glare in her direction. "Let's search around; the weed crystals we're looking for should be in here."

"Weren't all the weed crystals already stolen by you?" someone immediately demanded.

"I'm only Bronze-tier level-3. Do you really think I have the ability to steal things single-handedly right under the noses of two Gold-tier and a bunch of Silver-tier powerhouses?" Lin Huang glanced at the questioner before pointing straight at the ponytail girl. "You were all tricked by that woman. She had a prior grievance against me and deliberately leaked fake news to frame and entrap me."

Many heads immediately turned toward the ponytail girl. Without denying it, she bolted straight into the castle's main building.

Lin Huang immediately gave chase, feigning participation as he searched the building floor by floor alongside the others. Looking at the horrific corpses lining the corridors, many could not suppress sighs of awe.

"Just who on earth did this? How could they be so vicious and powerful?"

Before long, Lin Huang followed the ponytail girl and a few others up to the fifth floor.

The moment they caught sight of the crates sitting beside the production line, Lin Huang and the ponytail girl lunged forward simultaneously. The group instantly erupted into a chaotic free-for-all.

Hearing the commotion overhead, more people rushed upstairs. Upon seeing the boxes, they instantly joined the fray. The entire fifth floor plunged into absolute chaos.

Taking advantage of an opportunity when he got close to the boxes, Lin Huang deliberately knocked over several crates, spilling black crystals scattering across the floor.

The sight of the scattered black crystals drove the crowd into an even more frantic frenzy of looting.

After a fierce and brutal scramble, Lin Huang snatched a dozen or so boxes while the others secured their own shares. Before more people could flood up from below, the group completely divided up the spoils of the weed crystals.

Those arriving late from downstairs were overcome with regret upon learning the news, kicking themselves for not coming upstairs sooner. Some even approached Lin Huang and the others directly to negotiate purchasing the black crystals...