His face grim, Feng Xue put away his work badge and finally realized the gravity of the situation.
He was unclear about the special nature of the Manager role, but he did have a certain understanding of Old Li.
Though the man seemed a mere Newbie Guide, the fact that he possessed the "Hermit" element's power was enough to suggest that he harbored many secrets.
Compared to mere Concealment, the Hermit element was undoubtedly a high-class article of a superior level. But now, even Old Li was planning to pack up and leave, which indicated the intensity of the current search.
At least the Concealment element was absolutely unprotective of him.
Old Li didn't know what had happened tonight, but Feng Xue was certain it had a direct connection with the ominous omen he had killed. Maybe the local gang wanted the phantom creature that killed the omen, or perhaps they just wanted to remove unsettling elements. Regardless, Feng Xue wasn't about to sit and wait for death.
He had considered the possibility that the other party might simply opt for appeasement, but in the end, he couldn't afford to gamble.
He was too weak, with no power to speak of.
The Dismantling Holy Mother was useful against a single enemy, but once surrounded, its disadvantages would be exposed.
Lacking area-of-effect skills, crowd control skills, defense skills, and only possessing the Assassin's Step mobility skill that came with the assassin label, in a sense, present Feng Xue was like a Phantom Assassin without Blink or a Berserker's Axe, practically dead in a team fight.
Escape!
Once his thoughts were clear, Feng Xue knew this was his only choice. Only by leaving this landfill area, and the local Manager gang's sphere of influence, would he be eligible to continue growing.
Having made up his mind, Feng Xue immediately activated the map function on his work badge, zoomed out to see the nearest landfill area to this location.
In truth, he had considered this when he discovered he could zoom the map. Now, he was simply making the final choice based on his earlier thoughts.
The outskirts of Infinite City were composed of thousands of landfill districts, each about three kilometers in radius, roughly the size of an urban district, and connected by a side road to a main road (Infinite City had four main roads, each extending outward from four major landfills around the residential areas).
If he could reach this main road, he could safely travel to other branches and reach most landfill areas around or head straight to one of the Four Major Landfills and arrive at the legendary residential area.
Though the important side road was monopolized by the Manager gang, the landfill's walls posed no hard restrictions on departures. As long as one wasn't afraid of the dangers in the wilderness, there were no truly unreachable places.
As for Feng Xue's current landfill, within a less than two-kilometer distance, there were as many as three other landfills he could go to. However, Feng Xue had the pride of a Golden Finger holder and didn't plan to head to the outlying landfills but preferred moving towards the direction of the residential area instead.
He knew the closer you got to the residential area, the older the landfill districts and naturally, the stronger their Managers. But that wasn't enough to deter him.
One should always move towards better places.
With this thought, Feng Xue chose the landfill to the east and began to prepare for his departure.
Having not been in the area for more than twenty days, he didn't have many possessions. The miscellaneous items were all stuffed into his Storage Bag, and as his white hood once again shrouded his face in shadow, Feng Xue entered a state of near-invisibility.
He pushed open his room door, and immediately Feng Xue heard some noisiness outside, but it seemed today's search started with East City due to the omen's appearance, which gave Feng Xue more time to react.
Instead of taking the normal route, Feng Xue directly climbed up to the roof. Leveraging the lightweight mobility of the Assassin's suit and the Silence effect of the Silent Boots, he moved like an elegant cat across the dilapidated rooftops of the slums.
Although the houses in the slum were mostly unsafe, Feng Xue was not affected at all. In a mere ten minutes, he had reached the high wall on the west side of the landfill. The process went so smoothly that he was somewhat surprised.
Exiting from City West to head to the landfills in the East would definitely mean taking a longer route. However, compared to heading to the already locked down East District, Feng Xue felt that taking this risk was worth it.
With a whooshing sound, a passage opened in the high wall for Feng Xue to leave, gazing into the dark tunnel, Feng Xue took a deep breath, and then without hesitation, he stepped inside…
...
Behind him, the passage closed quietly. Once again, Feng Xue found himself outside in the world. Almost the moment he stepped out of the city walls, a biting cold wind made him realize how different it was.
Unlike the landfill, where the temperature remained almost constant as if controlled by central air conditioning, there was a noticeable temperature change outside the walls. He looked up slightly, contemplating the pale blue moon above—an absence in the landfill districts.
Or rather, the sky above the landfills was actually a massive dome, where the so-called blue sky and white clouds were just images projected onto a screen.
The tops of the high walls Feng Xue saw were also projected illusions, a fact not too hard to guess. After all, if the walls were truly just high, how would they defend against flying omens?
Feng Xue, having witnessed the "real" landfill, didn't have much time to get sentimental. He looked around and, using the walls, headed towards his target.
Although the wilderness beyond the landfill was more authentic than inside, the utter Silence, devoid of any insect or bird sounds, still made his scalp tingle.
Of course, he now knew that the absence of sounds was not because of nearby ambushes, but because there were no living creatures besides omens in the wilderness of the landfill (considering omens as living creatures, for the sake of argument), including the trees and forests, which were nothing but Pseudo Artifacts resembling Plant life.
They didn't Grow, didn't blossom or wither, only stood there with the appearance of Plants.
Walking on this silent and desolate wilderness, Feng Xue felt an unprecedented loneliness. In less than twenty days, Feng Xue had left his Comfort zone for the second time, which was quite frustrating for a former homebody.
As Feng Xue indulged in a rare moment of poetic reflection, the faint sound of footsteps reached his ears.
Although the sound was extremely weak, it stood out starkly in the quiet, open wilderness.
Feng Xue took a deep breath and adjusted his hood to confirm his state of Concealment before continuing. What entered his field of vision next, however, was neither the omen he imagined nor a Corpse Collector out at night, but a field…