This assassin is upright

Chapter 447 Competition among the Excavation Teams
Amidst the sandstorm, a monster covered in bristles gradually revealed itself.

Its twisted limbs are asymmetrical, with six legs on one side and seven on the other, just like its huge and asymmetrical body.

The monster's head protruded from its huge, fleshy body, looking somewhat like a canine head, but with two curved ram horns.

The monster's hideous body is covered with sharp teeth, slime, eyes, muscle tissue, and other things. Its indescribable appearance gives people a sense of chaos and makes people feel terrified.

"Tsk~" The rat raised its modified prosthetic arm, and a sharp blade instantly sprang out. "No matter how many times I've seen it, the Pollution Beast is still so unsettling."

"So even if I starve to death, I will never eat a single piece of contaminated animal meat."

"When you're really starving, you'll just find it delicious again." Wolf Fang, standing not far away, curled his lip in disdain. "Don't think I don't know that."

Listening to the two bickering, Yu Zhun's expression turned slightly green.

If he remembers correctly, when he first came to this world, he ate the flesh of a Pollution Beast, though he didn't know what a Pollution Beast was at the time.

Now that I see it...

Yue!

"Hahaha!" Seeing Yu Zhun gag, the rat laughed gleefully. "Looks like you didn't know what a Pollution Beast looked like before. But that makes sense, most ordinary people in settlements are like that."

"Ordinary people who have seen the Pollution Beasts have all become their food."

At this point, a mischievous glint appeared on the rat's face. "Think about it, the dried meat of the polluted beasts you usually eat might actually be from those beasts..."

"Alright, you rat." Iron Tower shook his head helplessly and said half-jokingly, "Aren't you afraid that Yu Zhun will stab you in the middle of the night?"

"After all, he was able to defeat you even before he evolved."

"Uh..." the mouse muttered, then reluctantly shut its mouth.

Even as the polluted beast was about to pounce, the group continued chatting casually, and the atmosphere seemed quite relaxed.

"You guys..." Black Hawk glanced helplessly at the others behind him, then drew a long knife from his waist and charged towards the polluted beast.

The two passed each other, and the polluted beast let out a screech before instantly turning into a mass of minced meat and exploding.

Having witnessed the entire process, Yu Zhun couldn't help but marvel.

Captain Black Hawk lived up to his reputation as a second-tier evolver; he was quite skilled, slashing his sword more than a dozen times in a short while and directly killing the polluted beast.

It's crisp, clean, and highly entertaining.

Black Hawk's killing of the corrupted beast was not the end of his work; he used his longsword to stab into the shredded flesh, searching for something.

"Ding--"

With a crisp sound, a black crystal stained with blood and flesh was picked out by Black Hawk with his longsword.

After picking it up and wiping away the dirt, Black Hawk casually stuffed it into his pocket.

"This is the pollution core of the pollution beast," the rat explained to Yu Zhun. "It's the only valuable thing on the pollution beast."

"Most of the inferior gene drugs on the market are made from this stuff. Besides that, it can also be used as an energy source." The rat paused slightly at this point. "Of course, the meat can also be made into jerky."

"However, this stuff is bad for your health if you eat too much of it, and it's very cheap, so we generally don't care about it," the mouse said, shrugging.

"Usually, ordinary diggers passing by will pick up the corpses. Most of the contaminated beast jerky you ate before was..."

Meeting Yu Zhun's slightly unfriendly gaze, the mouse made a shushing gesture.

"Rat, you'll get what's coming to you sooner or later because of that lousy mouth of yours." Wolf Fang chuckled coldly, then looked at Yu Zhun. "Squad rules: whoever kills gets the loot. If you need help from others, then you have to share a portion of the spoils with them."

"Searching for resources in ruins is the same," Wolf Fang added. "Providing information is also a contribution."

"understood."

Yu Zhun nodded slightly, his gaze falling on the already dead polluted beast.

After being chopped into pieces by Black Hawk, the guy no longer looked as disgusting as before.

"What did the captain mean by the medium-sized pollution beast?"

"It's a classification of the polluted beasts," Iron Tower explained from the side.

"Unlike mutated beasts, polluted beasts do not have a clear hierarchy. However, most polluted beasts follow a rule: the larger the size, the stronger the beast."

"Therefore, we usually classify pollutant beasts into different categories such as small, medium, large, and super large." Iron Tower paused for a moment. "Small refers to pollutant beasts whose size does not exceed that of a human. Even ordinary people can kill such pollutant beasts if they work together."

“Medium-sized is the kind we just saw, over 10 cubic meters in size, capable of causing considerable destruction when it rampages.” At this point, Iron Tower changed the subject, “Medium-sized pollution beasts are equivalent to first-tier mutated beasts.”

"Pollution beasts often appear in these uninhabited areas. Next time you encounter a medium-sized pollution beast, you can try to take action."

"Understood." Yu Zhun nodded slightly.

"A large pollution beast, over 100 cubic meters in size, looks like a mobile combat tank. Its strength is equivalent to a second-tier mutant beast. It's a target that our team can only defeat if we work together."

“As for even larger, colossal or gigantic ones…” Iron Tower shook his head, “I’ve never seen a pollution beast of that size.”

“The polluted beasts are inherently unstable mutated creatures. The larger they are, the easier they are to collapse. In most cases, large size is already the limit.” Black Hawk walked over slowly and casually tossed the polluted core he had just obtained to Yu Zhun.

Yu Zhun subconsciously took it, then cast a questioning look at Black Hawk.

"...It's alright now." Black Hawk silently took the contaminated core back from Yu Zhun's hand and put it back in his pocket.

Yu Zhun: "???"

"Hehe~" The mouse next to him laughed when it saw this.

"One characteristic of cyborgs is that they find it hard to resist the temptation of contaminated cores, regarding them as delicious food, and they can indeed enhance their power by consuming contaminated cores."

Upon hearing this, Yu Zhun immediately understood.

Although he had already completed his evolution, Black Hawk still couldn't determine whether Yu Zhun was a cyborg because the gene drug he used was somewhat special. So he deliberately used this method to verify and test it.

"Let's go." Seeing that the rat had seen through him, Black Hawk gave the rat a subtle glare, then looked in the direction they had just entered.

"Our destination is not far away."

"This is an old site that I heard about a few days ago. Before the catastrophe, it seemed to be a very prosperous shopping mall."

"A shopping mall?!" Wolf Fang's eyes lit up!
"Wouldn't that mean there's a lot of gold?"

In times of chaos, gold remains a timeless truth; even in a post-apocalyptic world, this precious metal remains a form of hard currency.

"Put away your lust for gold," the rat sneered. "Our target should be valuable electronic components." "These kinds of malls are bound to sell tech products. If we can dig up something of value, even a small thing could be worth dozens or hundreds of times more than the same weight of gold."

As he spoke, the rat couldn't help but show a dreamy expression, "The next stage of my prosthetic body modification is almost ready."

"Once I finish modifying it, I might be able to rival a second-tier warrior." With that, the rat proudly raised its head, looking at the three first-tier evolvers in the group, as if to say, "I'll crush you all once I'm done modifying it."

“What I’m worried about is that there will be a lot of excavation teams competing for a place like this,” Iron Tower said more cautiously, calmly pointing out, “After all, a good place like the mall can’t be the only one we know about.”

“It’s certain that there are other excavation teams,” Black Hawk said calmly. “The one who sold me the information made it clear that he sold it to more than one person.”

"What's more, there will be other teams that find out through other channels." As he said this, a fierce glint flashed in Black Hawk's eyes. "The rule of the excavation team is that whoever gets it gets it. In the end, strength is the only true measure of success."

"This should be Yu Zhun's first time working with them. If he runs into other excavation teams, please take care of him."

The three nodded in unison, and even the mouse looked serious at that moment.

"Newbie, stick close to us when you see people."

"Okay." Yu Zhun nodded, agreeing readily.

He chose to join the excavation team because he saw that such a team, which travels around, could come into contact with more things in the current environment.

In this way, he can not only quickly understand the world, but also find a large number of kills to trigger the power of the world's death knell.

Thinking of this, Yu Zhun couldn't help but touch the dagger at his lower back.

He hasn't gotten a single kill since he arrived here.

Perhaps encountering other excavation teams later will be the right opportunity.

In the post-apocalyptic world, the broken order is perfect for his actions.

“It’s just ahead, less than a kilometer away.” After traveling for a while, Black Hawk suddenly spoke.

Following his directions, the group quickly spotted a corner of a building exposed to the sandstorm. Before the disaster, it might have been a thriving high-rise commercial building, but now it had collapsed and was mostly buried by the yellow sand.

Near one corner of the building, several small black dots were clearly visible; they were the other excavation teams that had rushed over after hearing the news.

"Keep your eyes peeled," Black Hawk said in a deep voice, then quickened his pace.

Yu Zhun and his three companions followed silently, and soon the other party also noticed them, silently watching their direction.

The two stood about ten meters apart, and then stopped.

"Wait here."

One of the excavation team members guarding the area pointed to the entrance to the ruins next to them, "An excavation team just went down there, and we'll be next."

"After us, it's your turn."

"Since when has there been any concept of first come, first served when excavation teams enter ruins?" Black Hawk raised an eyebrow, his eyes becoming profound.

What good stuff might be left after other excavation teams have finished looting?

"You're from somewhere else, aren't you?" The man from the other excavation team who had spoken earlier picked his ear impatiently. "That's the rule here."

"Rat, is there really such a rule?" Yu Zhun lowered his voice and secretly asked the rat, who couldn't help but sneer upon hearing this.

"What a load of rubbish. Only a greenhorn like you could be fooled."

"I bet the excavation team that's already down there is stronger than them. They don't dare to go up and strengthen their forces, so they're using this rule to keep the people behind them out."

At this point, the mouse's face showed some worry. "But I think this team is about the same strength as us. If they can't deal with the excavation team, we can't deal with them either. In the end, we'll have to wait for them to come out first."

At this point, the mouse turned to look at the black hawk.

"Boss, what do you say?"

Black Hawk glanced at the other party, then slowly said, "Wait here."

"If those who have already entered are indeed very strong, then we should back down and not compete with them."

"If the other side isn't that strong, and they just looted it, we can take it from them, and in the end, the stuff will still be in our hands."

"Brilliant!" Mouse's eyes lit up, and Wolf Fang and Iron Tower nodded in agreement, seemingly thinking that Black Hawk's method was quite good.

“But…” Yu Zhun frowned slightly upon hearing this, “Captain, what if this batch in front of us is the same group as the batch that went down?”

Ok?
Upon hearing this, everyone was stunned.

Together?

They glanced sharply at the group on the other side, but the other group ignored them, chatting and laughing as if they weren't worried at all about someone getting there first and leaving them with nothing.

It's really possible!
If the two groups inside and outside the ruins are indeed working together, once the other group comes out, they might not only fail to intercept the loot, but they could also be wiped out by the other group working together!
The thought of this possibility sent a chill down Black Hawk's spine.

"You're right." He patted Yu Zhun on the shoulder, and a hint of murderous intent flashed in his eyes as he looked at the group of people on the other side.

"You guys will see what I tell you to do later."

As he spoke, Black Hawk quickly put on a warm smile and strode toward the other excavation team. "Excuse me, we are a newly established excavation team. We were operating in another area before."

"So I really don't understand this rule you're talking about." He paused for a moment. "Since there are rules, they can't be broken easily."

"You're quite sensible." The one from the other excavation team who spoke relaxed, and his voice softened a bit. "Don't worry, this ruin is quite large. Even if we go in and excavate first, you'll definitely find something."

"Newcomer, don't worry too much about gains and losses!" he said, extending a hand smugly as if to pat Black Hawk on the shoulder.

A cold glint suddenly flashed in Black Hawk's eyes, "Kill!"

With a low shout, Yu Zhun and the other three who had followed him sprang up at the same time. As they got closer, Yu Zhun had already spotted one of the men in the opposing group, a young man whose left and right hands and one leg were all prosthetic.

Without a doubt, an evolved being would not allow such a vital organ to be replaced by a prosthetic body, so the other party must be a prosthetic modifier.

With a roar from Black Hawk, Yu Zhun pounced on his opponent like a wolf, who still looked somewhat bewildered, and his dagger instantly pierced the opponent's shoulder.

In an instant, Yu Zhun sliced ​​off the opponent's prosthetic right hand, along with a large chunk of flesh. With a belated scream, Yu Zhun's dagger plunged into the opponent's heart, piercing through it instantly.

The cyborg youth shuddered, his face drained of color rapidly, and before he could utter a sound, he collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

"Belant is dead! Kill those bastards!"

Only then did the others, as if waking from a dream, roar and attack.

(End of this chapter)