The Hunters’ Deadly Journey Begins

Adrian’s incessant rambling finally began to wear on Ilisia’s nerves.

She was thirsty.

Adrian had barely fed her any blood over the past few days.

“Alright, time’s up,” Ilisia declared, turning her head with a cold expression.

“Eh? I was almost done with my recap. Couldn’t you cooperate a little longer?” Adrian scratched his head, a hint of awkwardness on his face.

“I don’t want to listen. I don’t care,” Ilisia replied, an unmistakable weariness etched across her features. “Unless, of course, you feed me some blood.”

“So, this is what you’ve been thinking about all this time?” Adrian raised an eyebrow.

Ilisia nodded impatiently.

Adrian pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long sigh.

He knew Ilisia was incapable of genuine emotion.

Her current display of ‘feelings’ was merely the most ‘reasonable’ response, extracted, analyzed, and matched from a vast repository of past memories.

It was Adrian himself who had taught her how to mimic, how to perform, how to layer what humans called ‘emotions’ onto her very being.

Unexpectedly, Ilisia had quickly turned Adrian’s own lessons against him.

Now, Ilisia was more akin to a precise emotional simulator—

She judged what people wanted to hear and what actions were expected based on context, then delivered an accurate response.

This was precisely why her portrayal of White Star had been so remarkably vivid.

However, when Ilisia felt hunger or thirst, she would become sluggish, rigid, and even struggled to maintain a coherent conversation.

She used this vulnerability as leverage, compelling Adrian to feed her.

Adrian reined in his horse, gracefully dismounting.

Ilisia was already standing by his side.

“Just the normal amount, don’t take too much, or I’ll get dizzy and won’t be able to ride,” Adrian said, turning his face slightly.

Ilisia tilted her head, gazing at him. “I’m always careful,” she assured him.

Upon hearing that she would receive blood, Ilisia instantly reverted to her usual anthropomorphic state.

She raised a hand, deftly unfastening Adrian’s stand-up collar.

The next instant, Ilisia’s lips met the side of his neck; the icy touch began as a mere prick, then slowly spread.

As his blood surged forth, Ilisia closed her eyes.

Her hands pressed against his shoulders, tightening gently, her entire being seeming to melt into his body as she drank, murmuring, “…Promise me, this sweetness is mine alone to savor… otherwise, I’ll be angry.”

Adrian heard her, but offered no reply.

He knew Ilisia’s sweet words at this moment were nothing more than a residual habit.

Ilisia merely wished to keep Adrian close, driven by her craving for his blood.

After a long moment, Ilisia finally released him.

A vibrant crimson stained her lips, as if she had just sampled the finest wine.

Ilisia delicately licked the corner of her mouth, her voice soft and low. “Alright, I can tolerate your rambling now.”

Adrian rubbed his neck, which Ilisia had warmed, and sighed.

Just as he was about to speak, the cry of a raven suddenly echoed from above.

Moments later, a raven landed on Adrian’s shoulder, a letter tied to its leg.

Adrian retrieved the letter, then casually took a piece of dried meat from his pouch and offered it to the bird.

“A message from the Order?” Ilisia inquired.

Adrian nodded. “Intelligence on several dangerous individuals,” he confirmed.

“We’re moving out again?” Ilisia said. “We’re already at the kingdom’s border, in these godforsaken places.”

“There’s nothing for it. There are places beyond the Order’s reach, even though I had them hire many demon hunters to fill the gaps,” Adrian paused. “But no matter how seasoned demon hunters are, there are some things they simply cannot handle.”

“So, it falls to us to deal with these threats hiding along the border,” Adrian concluded, swinging himself back onto his horse.

He crumpled the letter into a ball and ate it.

“This is our purpose as partners, Ilisia,” Adrian said, taking up the reins. “We slay the monsters the Order dares not, we handle the affairs the Order cannot…”

“In short, we manage what the Order can, and we especially manage what the Order cannot.”

‘Act first, report later, by imperial decree…’ Adrian wisely held back the latter two phrases.

“I really am curious, how do you manage to utter such novel absurdities every single day?” Ilisia asked.

“I learned it all in my past life, back in Dongqi,” Adrian replied, shaking the reins to set his horse into a trot.

Soon, the two horses broke through the night, galloping towards the distant darkness.

Stars hung high, fields lay tranquil…

The two hunters’ deadly journey had only just begun.

****

An unsettling procession emerged from the darkness.

The riders’ cloaks flapped wildly in the wind, streaked with blood that had not yet dried.

It was an Evil Seed and their subordinate Corrupt Seeds.

The humanoid monsters rode magnificent steeds, fresh droplets of blood still clinging to the lips of some Corrupt Seeds—

They had just slaughtered an entire village.

A small village, home to merely a dozen souls, nestled isolated in a border valley of the kingdom, living a life almost entirely cut off from the world.

No one would notice their disappearance.

Some Cor-rupt Seeds still clutched wine flasks plundered from the village, containing a dark crimson liquid…

Wine? Blood? They themselves couldn’t distinguish, only knowing that what they drank made them laugh, made them sing.

The rear of the convoy consisted of several dilapidated carriages.

Haphazardly piled within were items scavenged from the village—a few baskets of potatoes, some coarse cloth, a couple of children’s dolls, and a chicken still twitching faintly.

The monsters took these things not out of necessity, but simply because ‘it was amusing’.

The horse troop swept like a gale along the road beside the fields.

Madi rode at the forefront.

He was the Evil Seed, the master, the leader of this procession.

On the very first day he transformed into an Evil Seed, he had felt an unprecedented, absolute control over the world.

He no longer feared anything; rules had ceased to exist for him.

He slew anyone who defied him.

His subordinates—those Cor-rupt Seeds—were somewhat troublesome, however.

They were bloodthirsty and frenzied, and seemingly immortal; if one were to betray him, it would indeed be a bit of a nuisance.

Nevertheless, Madi held no great grievances against these relatives, his loyal retainers; they were like a pack of loyal hounds, or perhaps more aptly—mad dogs.

They reveled in slaughter, they reveled in obedience…

Madi narrowed his eyes, gazing at the oppressive dark forest in the distance.

He knew there were more villages ahead.

This meant more screams, more blood, more corpses…

“Whoa!”

Madi pulled on the reins.

He saw a carriage sprawled across the road ahead, completely blocking it.

Ordinarily, he would have simply ordered his troop to charge through, but this time, a person stood before the carriage.

It appeared to be a maiden seemingly awaiting assistance…

She would surely taste delicious…

Moreover, Madi liked the horse he was currently riding; he didn’t wish for it to be injured by colliding with an obstacle.

Madi rode his horse directly before the maiden.

“Miss, do you require assistance?” Madi inquired politely.

Madi paid no mind to the bloodstains on his own body; he simply wished for this lost young girl to understand—

She was about to die.

Despite the deep darkness of the night, Madi, as an Evil Seed, possessed night vision as a fundamental skill.

She was a very beautiful girl, especially her long, silvery-white hair, which stood out remarkably…