Chapter 26: The Terrifying Flock of Shadow Crows

The fat man was jolted awake by a hard slap and sat up abruptly. Noticing that his flabby upper body was exposed, he quickly pulled the blanket up and looked at Lin Huang with a wary expression. “What are you doing?!”

“There’s no time to explain, come with me!” Lin Huang ripped the blanket off him. The fat man was stark naked except for a pair of bright red briefs.

“You go out first, I need to get dressed,” the fat man protested, clutching his chest.

“With your life on the line, who cares about clothes!” Lin Huang grabbed his arm and dragged him out.

Though the fat man was full of reluctance, Lin Huang’s tone convinced him this was no joke. He hastily snatched up a pile of clothes nearby and followed Lin Huang out of the tent.

The moment they stepped outside, the fat man was stunned.

In the distance, the sky was pitch black, a vast swath of darkness flooding across what had been a clear, starry night. Half of the deep blue sky had turned inky, as if soaked in black dye. The two halves of the sky were distinct—one deep blue, one pure black—and the darkness was spreading.

“It’s a flock of shadow crows. We’re finished… we’re dead for sure…” The fat man’s face went deathly pale.

“Quit cursing us! Get up here, quick!” Lin Huang had already summoned the Tyrant once more and climbed onto its shoulder.

The Tyrant grabbed the fat man and placed him on its other shoulder, shot a glance at the encroaching shadow crows, and bolted at full speed. This time, it held nothing back, racing at over 120 kilometers per hour.

Lin Huang steadied himself, clutching the Tyrant’s bristly, steel-like stubble so he wouldn’t be thrown off. The fat man, on the other hand, hadn’t managed to settle in and was clutching an armful of clothes. After only a few strides from the Tyrant, he was flung off.

Lin Huang was startled to see him go flying, but fortunately, the Tyrant reacted quickly and caught him in midair. This time, though, it didn’t place him back on its shoulder. Instead, it simply gripped him in its massive hand and kept running at a mad sprint.

The Tyrant’s arm swung wildly with every stride—far more jarring than the rocking on its shoulder. The fat man felt as if he were on a roller coaster going dozens of times faster than normal, swinging back and forth. He lasted only a little while before dizziness overtook him and he fainted dead away.

Lin Huang, who had first found the fat man’s predicament amusing, was soon suffering himself. With the Tyrant sprinting at full speed, the jolts were double what they’d been before. His stomach churned, and it took all his willpower not to vomit.

Despite the Tyrant’s speed exceeding 120 kilometers per hour, the gulf between them and the massive flock of shadow crows behind them was not widening—if anything, it was slowly shrinking.

Shadow crows were an undead species. They had no physical form, existing only as spirits, and fed on the souls of living things. They floated through the air like a drifting cloud, yet their speed was anything but slow.

Individually, a shadow crow was weak, typically only at the black iron level. With no physical body, they were easily dispersed by a number of means. Consequently, through long evolution, they developed a swarming pack mentality—when a large flock of shadow crows appeared, even gold-level powerhouses would steer clear. A single ant is insignificant, but thousands upon thousands can bring down an elephant. Such was the terror of a shadow crow swarm.

At the Hunter Academy, there was a course called “Basic Monster Compendium,” which described shadow crows in detail. Lin Huang remembered a passage:

“When traveling through deserts, forests, or other desolate places, if you discover many bodies with no visible wounds, you must alter your route. Such a sight is a sign that a flock of shadow crows is nearby. They prey on souls alone, leaving the body untouched.”

Perched on the Tyrant’s shoulder, Lin Huang kept glancing back at the oncoming swarm, measuring the distance between them. With every passing second, the crows drew closer, and his expression grew grimmer.

His mind raced through possible solutions. “Shadow crows have no physical form—there’s nowhere we can hide, as they can pass through any obstacle, be it ground or mountain. So hiding is out of the question…”

“Divine energy can harm shadow crows, but even gold-level powerhouses wouldn’t dare face a swarm head-on—that’s suicide. Besides, I haven’t mastered divine energy yet, and the fat man is only at black iron level. Even if he had techniques specifically to counter spirits, he’s far too weak.”

“At this rate, we’ll be caught in less than half an hour. The only way out is to call for the examiner’s help. If the chief examiner uses that space-warping artifact, we’ll survive…”

Lin Huang turned this solution over in his mind, but hesitated. Pressing the emergency button would mean forfeiting his qualification for this assessment, as the examiner had warned from the start. Even with a valid reason, rules were rules.

Normally, Lin Huang would have chosen to give up without a second thought—there was always another chance to retake the test.

But this provisional hunter assessment was different. It was tied to the quest card linked to his golden finger. The penalties were severe—if he failed to complete the task within the allotted month, he would lose his golden finger and everything that came with it.

That meant not only would he lose Little Black, but also all his monster cards, skill cards, and even the divine light he’d recently gained through hunting Sand Slaughter with White. Everything would vanish. He’d be thrust back to the state he’d been in when he first arrived in this world—perhaps even worse.

These thoughts weighed heavily on Lin Huang. If he was disqualified from the assessment now, he couldn’t be sure he’d find another test site and complete the exam within the remaining twenty-plus days. He’d been so sure of passing that he hadn’t even checked for other assessment locations, and now, cut off from the network in this test area, he had no way to find out.

He glanced at the fat man, still unconscious in the Tyrant’s right hand, and felt a headache coming on. If the fat man were awake, Lin Huang would have tried to convince him to give up the test, offering two or three pieces of gear as compensation. But with him out cold, and his emergency communicator stowed away where he couldn’t reach it, that wasn’t an option.

After much internal struggle and watching the shadow crows draw ever closer, Lin Huang finally made his decision. “Survival comes first! I’ll deal with the quest later.”

Resolute, he pulled out his emergency communicator and pressed the distress button with all his might.