Ring of Fate

Chapter 98: "Open and aboveboard" ambush (Second update, please give me a monthly ticket)
Lumian first carefully wrapped his left hand with layers of white bandages, then took the "Corrupted Mercury", the iron-black axe, the gray-amber perfume, biscuits, cheese, lamb chops with blood, ropes for making traps, a bag of cooled boiled water and other items, put on his hunting rifle, and left his semi-underground building.

In the diffuse light gray fog, he passed through the wilderness full of cracks and without any grass, walked into the dream ruins, and headed straight for the open space where the fire monsters were most active.

After hearing the sound from afar, Lumian turned to the route the other party usually took and arrived at a natural trap that had been found in advance.

It was a deep pit located on the side of the road. There were collapsed walls in front and on the left, some stones piled up on the right, and a house that had collapsed most of the way back.

It is difficult to find such a natural trap just by passing by on the road. Lumian had to explore it several times before he saw it.

He squatted behind the deep pit and threw a few sharpened pieces of wood in. Then he covered it with the rope net he had woven earlier and filled it with some loose soil.

A simple trap is now complete, and the final step is to place the bait.

Lumian carefully placed the two bloody lamb chops he brought on the edge of the rope net, half of which was supported by the ground and the other half was suspended above the deep pit.

Standing up and taking a look at the fragile balance, Lumian took a few steps back, entered the half-collapsed house, climbed to the top of the remaining outer wall, and squatted there.

He adjusted his position so that he could clearly observe the trap without being seen directly by any monsters passing by.

Then, Lumian took out the gray amber perfume and sprayed a little on the wall.

The elegant and sweet fragrance dissipated, and was blown away into the distance by the wind that occasionally blew through the ruins of the dreamland, leaving only a little bit of it behind.

Some of them were attached to the wall and Lumian's body.

Lumian didn't stop and jumped backwards.

After landing, he walked forward for a long time with a faint smell of perfume, and returned to the road that the fire monster always took. However, compared to the trap, he was now closer to the area where the monster hunted for flesh and blood to replenish energy.

Lumian changed direction again, crossing the road and entering the ruins of the building on the opposite side.

When he reached the back of the ramshackle house, he stopped, leaned his back against the wall, and waited.

Just like the strategy used when dealing with the shotgun monster, Lumian never expected that the previous arrangement could be hidden from the fire monster and cause it to suffer heavy damage.

This is more of a bait and "alarm" designed to target the target's superior sense of smell, observation ability, and behavioral style.

Only a "hunter" knows how to use a "hunter's" strengths to deal with it!

Of course, all this assumes that the target acts mainly on instinct, with any remaining intelligence limited to combat.

With his back against the wall, Lumian used his left hand, which was wrapped in white bandages, to pull out the Corrupted Mercury and tear off the black cloth covering its surface.

He wasn't sure how long it would take for the fire monster to arrive, so the only thing he could do was to be patient.

This is a strength he developed since his wandering days.

Time passed by minute by minute, and in a place that Lumian could not see, a monster with a charred body and red flames entered the road.

After it walked forward about ten or twenty meters, its nose suddenly twitched.

It smelled faintly of blood.

The monster did not turn around immediately. It continued to move forward, glancing out of the corner of its eye at the place where the smell came from.

As it passed the collapsed wall blocking its way, the two lamb chops with blood on them came into its sight.

This was good food, but the fire monster did not follow its instinct and went straight over to swallow it.

It still moved forward, just slower.

Soon, it smelled a slightly different scent in the wind than usual.

It instantly determined that the two pieces of flesh and blood were traps and that there was a "hunter" lying in ambush nearby.

However, this hunter seemed to be different from the one who had been "invisibly" observing it before. He lacked sufficient understanding of the "hunter" and had not dealt with the smell on his body in advance.

After walking a few more steps, the fire monster confirmed with the help of the source of the fragrance and the tiny footprints it found that the enemy was hiding on the outer wall of the building behind the trap.

It pretended not to notice anything and increased the distance by another seven or eight meters.

Suddenly, it turned around, and the red flames gushing out of its body quickly condensed and turned into a fireball with a hint of white.

Boom!

As the fire monster stretched out its right palm, the fireball flew towards the position where Lumian had been "ambushing", causing the outer wall to collapse on the spot and the house to shake.

When Lumian, who was far away, heard the explosion, he immediately left the building he was leaning against and started dancing crazily and twistedly in the not-so-spacious open space.

The explosion just now was a signal flare to him, reminding him to quickly prepare to activate the second trap!

Letting the prey send out the signal flare itself was a solution that Lumian and Aurore came up with after much discussion.

In the mysterious dance with a strong sense of rhythm, Lumian sensed the transparent and blurry figures of the mouthpart monster, the shotgun monster and the skinless monster.

At this time, the fire monster had already rushed to the collapsed wall, looking for traces of the enemy.

Lumian danced for another ten or twenty seconds. When the dance became more intense, he pulled out the ritual silver dagger with his right hand and pierced a small wound on his left wrist.

A drop of blood seeped out and condensed into a tiny ball.

Lumian stepped forward, turned around, picked up the drop of blood and aimed it at the mouthpart monster.

"I!"

He lowered his voice and shouted in ancient Hermetic language.

At this time, the fire monster had already discovered the subtle footprints he left behind, smelled the faint fragrance, and began to track him.

After quickly shouting out the follow-up orders, Lumian watched as the mouthpart monster swallowed the blood bead on the tip of the ritual silver dagger and entered its own body.

Madness, bloodthirstiness, cruel will and intense hunger swept over me in an instant.

Lumian forced himself to suppress the discomfort and quickly bandaged the wound, which was so small that it was almost negligible, with the white bandage he brought with him.

Then he stuffed a piece of cheese into his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it, making sure that the remaining gray amber perfume on his body could cover up the rest of the smell.

During this process, Lumian ran to the edge of the road and stopped where he could not be seen by the other side.

Then, he shut his mouth tightly, turned around, and followed his own footprints, retreating step by step along the route he had taken.

Relying on the hunter's observation skills and the "dancer's" exaggerated flexibility, Lumian stepped on the tiny footprints he left with every step, leaving no unnecessary traces.

Soon, he retreated to the center of the road and stopped there.

He just stopped on the road openly, but remained invisible.

Lumian waited once again, and through repeated shallow meditation, he tried to control the various thoughts that flashed through his mind, and not let himself think about attacking the fire monster next.

This is a very crude way of interfering with the other party's sense of danger.

The inspiration comes from the "hunter"'s clear understanding of himself.

The method of stepping on one's own footprints and retreating back to the center of the road to ambush was something Aurore had written about in a novel.

After about seven or eight seconds, the pitch-black flame monster appeared in Lumian's eyes. With his terrifying flexibility, he half-twisted his body and observed the area where the target was about to catch up.

The fire monster followed the tiny footprints and faint scent left by the enemy, and because it did not leave its "territory", it did not stop halfway as it did in the past.

After returning to the main road, it sniffed the air and, as expected, smelled a faint fragrance.

It instinctively lowered its head and successfully found those inconspicuous footprints.

At the same time, it found no traces of traps in the area.

Without hesitation, the fire monster followed the footprints and ran to the other side of the road.

Its burnt face and eyes that were about to move away from their original position grew larger and clearer in Lumian's sight.

Lumian held his breath, no longer meditating and interrupting, and just tried to empty his mind.

Five meters, three meters, one meter... He pounced towards the target, raised the "Fallen Mercury" in his left hand, and paddled forward!

He did not wait for the two sides to get closer, fearing that doing so would trigger the prey's sense of danger and cause it to take evasive action in advance.

The fire monster suddenly felt a strong sense of crisis.

Without any thought, it pounced to the side.

At the same time, it saw Lumian's figure outlined in its sight, and saw his left hand wrapped in white bandages holding a silver-black dagger and slashing at itself.

The two sides were so close that even though the fire monster reacted, it was unable to dodge and was hit directly by Lumian.

With a swish sound, the sharp blade of "Fallen Mercury" pierced into the right chest of the fire monster.

The fate that was stripped from the "Noodle Man" then seeped into the target's body in the form of illusory mercury beads.

At the same time, the river composed of countless complex mercury symbols emerged dimly again, and a little bit of fate in it was rapidly shrinking towards the silver-black blade.

Lumian didn't bother to choose the fate he wanted to exchange, and let "Corrupted Mercury" play its own role.

boom!
The flames on the monster's body exploded in response.

The powerful shock wave pushed Lumian and his "Corrupted Mercury" away, and the red flames that shot out ignited his clothes and burned the skin on his face.

Lumian endured the burning pain, twisted his waist in mid-air, and changed direction to the limit.

As soon as he landed, he stood up and ran away.

However, as long as the fire on his body was not extinguished, he could not enter the "invisible" state again.

Boom!

Even though Lumian ran in an S shape, he was still knocked over by the aftermath of the fireball, and his back was paralyzed by the pain.

He stood up tenaciously, rolled and crawled away from the road, and turned into the ruins where he had just hidden.

The fire monster chased him relentlessly because he couldn't turn "invisible".

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(End of this chapter)