When Wu Song fought the tiger, it was only a single tiger.

Here, there were ten beasts no less ferocious than tigers, and all of them were injured.

A cornered beast will put up a desperate fight. The surrounding area was open ground, with no traps or obstacles. Anyone who dared to charge in first would surely meet the most gruesome end.

The pack of Giant Hyenas roared where they stood, but for a long time, they received no response from their leader.

One Giant Hyena in the pack, tangled in a hunting net, was particularly conspicuous. It wasn’t howling pointlessly like its companions; instead, it was tearing at the ropes before it. With the sound of snapping cords, the large net was finally ripped open. It shook its neck, and the tattered hemp rope slid from its body.

This Giant Hyena’s most distinct feature was its tail, which was a good deal shorter than those of its kin.

Its beady eyes swept over the surrounding humans before it let out a sharp, short howl and fled northeast without a backward glance.

The other Giant Hyenas grew agitated. After a moment’s hesitation, they all followed its lead and retreated.

The tense atmosphere didn’t ease until the last Giant Hyena had vanished from sight.

The residents of the Gated Community and the students and teachers alike all breathed a sigh of relief.

Many people slumped to the ground, their weapons slipping from trembling hands.

"They’re finally gone..." someone muttered.

If the Giant Hyenas had stayed to fight to the death, the beasts would have been the ones to perish, but human casualties would have been staggering.

Not everyone was a fearless warrior, ready to embrace death. Compared to a victory won at a terrible cost, most people preferred a "no-casualty hunt."

"Thank you all for your help!"

Luo Gang approached with a few students to sincerely thank Qin Ziwen, Zou Jianghe, and their people.

"That last wave was dangerous. The three wooden doors in the stairwell were broken through. If the crucial Giant Hyena King hadn’t been lured away, with it and its pack on the staircase, we might not have been able to hold our position. They would have broken through."

A deathly pale Cao Biansheng followed behind Luo Gang. He had been seriously injured; his arm had been torn off by a Giant Hyena.

Fortunately, they had acquired an External Injury Healing Card from a trade yesterday, allowing his arm to be successfully reattached.

However, he was now in a weakened state that would last for twenty-four hours.

"Thank you," Cao Biansheng muttered, then silently turned and walked away.

Luo Gang explained on his behalf, "His roommate sacrificed himself to save him. He was a good kid, too."

Zou Jianghe sighed. "Understandable."

After a moment of silence, Luo Gang changed the subject. "What’s your progress on the hunting task?"

Qin Ziwen said, "My current progress for the Giant Hyenas is one killed, with nine more to go."

Zou Jianghe said, "One of my team members killed one. If we have to hunt more Giant Hyenas, I plan on bringing him along and trying to let him get the final blow."

At this, Zou Jianghe shook his head. "I feel like this challenge task is even harder than I imagined. We’ve been at it all night and taken such heavy casualties, yet we’re still so far from completing a single Level 1 Task."

Luo Gang said, "My progress is at two. We got pretty lucky—Cao Biansheng landed the final blow on both of them."

Zou Jianghe shook his head. "Then you still need eight more, and Brother Qin and I both need nine. It looks like everyone’s task is separate."

"But the overall task progress should be shared," Qin Ziwen said. "It says the Gated Community needs to complete tasks from the Hunting Celestial List no fewer than ten times. If we can all complete the Giant Hyena hunting task, that should count as three completions toward the total."

Zou Jianghe scratched his hair. "If a Level 1 Task is this difficult, won’t a Level 2 task be impossible?"

"I don’t think we have to rely on brute force; we could use other methods," Qin Ziwen suggested. "For example, we could coat our weapons with poison."

"It’s not that simple," Luo Gang chimed in from the side. "We’ve looked into that strategy before. In practice, we found it has many limitations. The main issue is that toxins have a limited effective duration. The potency of poison applied to a weapon continuously degrades. Snake venom, for example, becomes completely ineffective after just a few hours of air exposure, and even faster in high temperatures. Scorpion venom lasts a bit longer, maybe a day or two."

"So there’s nothing that’s permanent once you apply it?" Zou Jianghe asked, surprised. He didn’t know much about this and had assumed that poisoning a weapon was like giving it a permanent Enchantment. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"There are, but they’re incredibly rare. The toxins from Poison Arrow Wood and Poison Dart Frogs can last for several years because they are small-molecule compounds—you can think of them as stable substances, like salt or sugar. But we haven’t encountered any yet."

"What a hassle," Zou Jianghe mused. He was contemplating whether they should try to farm some venomous creatures, but he was worried about the risk of being harmed by them.

Wang Yun, standing behind Qin Ziwen, pushed up his glasses. "The most common venomous creatures in the Gobi Desert are snakes and scorpions. If you’re planning to hunt them, it’s best to use cobra and scorpion venom.

Cobra and scorpion venom are neurotoxins, so the prey’s meat is still edible after it’s killed. Rattlesnake venom is a hemotoxin; the carcass will be contaminated after death, creating a risk of poisoning."

Hearing this, Luo Gang turned to look at Wang Yun, who was standing behind Qin Ziwen, feeling the camaraderie of meeting a kindred spirit.

Just then, a girl with a low ponytail hurried over. "Teacher Luo, we’ve finished the count. Three students died in the attack, and eleven others were injured to varying degrees."

Luo Gang closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Have all the farewell letters been collected?"

"They’ve all been collected and put in the safe."

"Prioritize treating the wounded." Luo Gang turned to Qin Ziwen and Zou Jianghe and said earnestly, "I have a few Cards I can’t use at the moment. If you have any spare medical supplies, I’d like to trade for them."

Zou Jianghe looked troubled. "We’re really short on modern medicine; every bit we use is one less we have. I can personally contribute some alcohol and cotton swabs, though. I hope you understand."

Qin Ziwen said, "I have a surgeon with me. He can take a look at the students first."

Luo Gang thanked them both again.

Seeing Zhao Pu approach, Zou Jianghe started coughing loudly.

’Isn’t that our Alliance Association’s building leader?’

’Ah, forget it.’

’I didn’t see him.’

’This task is difficult and requires sincere cooperation. We’re all partners now.’

Zhao Pu came and stood by Qin Ziwen’s side. "Captain."

After Qin Ziwen explained the situation, Zhao Pu nodded calmly. "I’ll go take a look, then."

Xiaozhou quickly led Zhao Pu to the school building.

Luo Gang then proposed an idea: letting some of the students stay in the Gated Community’s vacant housing for the night. "The ground-floor doors of the school building were destroyed. It’ll be very dangerous if more beasts attack tonight. If we hadn’t already established eight Homes inside the building, we would have been preparing to abandon it completely."

"You guys only have eight Homes?" Zou Jianghe asked, surprised.

Luo Gang nodded. "That’s right. We originally only planned on building one Home. But the task requires activating Homes in 20% of the rooms, and some of the buildings from our Cards have a large footprint, so we ended up making eight."

Zou Jianghe fell silent. He finally understood why Luo Gang and his group’s Lord of the Homeland ranking was so high.

...

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