48 Chased once again

As Antoine crossed the street filled with hunters, his expression remained cold and brimming with intent to kill. Every step he took left cracks in the ground, and each punch he threw caused small explosions.

Every hunter within a three-meter radius was either sent flying or just disintegrating, leaving a pile of dust scattered across the ground.

A particularly large hunter, towering two meters above the rest, appeared behind Antoine and attempted to grab him, but its arm was easily torn off before it could even react.

With a wave of his hand, Antoine sent his aura toward the hunter's general direction. The monster screeched painfully as the black aura swallowed its body, tearing its flesh and bones to shreds, reducing it to a pile of meat that soon turned to nothing.

Antoine's movements were swift and merciless, but it was the aura enveloping him that proved most lethal. Anything it touched seemed to corrode upon contact, leaving traces of decay even on the ground beneath his feet.

Even from a distance, one could tell that the man's aura was extremely dangerous. In fact, it was so thick that it looked more like a tangible substance than an energy.

Some unlucky hunters were slowly melted alive by the dark aura.

Despite his rapid progress, Antoine's expression was grim. The surrounding hunters didn't seem to be weakening in any way. Instead, most of the tier 2 hunters seemed to wait patiently for him to get tired at a distance. They were using tier 1 Hunter as a cannon folder.

One of them even continuously screeched to attract more hunters toward the location. This was one of the differences between a tier 1 and a tier 2 hunter. In addition to their ability to conjure and use their consumed authority, tier 2 hunters were also much more intelligent.

Some of the more experienced hunters also seemed to have noticed something about Antoine. To the discerning eye, it was immediately apparent that his movements were clumsy, and his posture was extremely incorrect. Each attack lacked proper technique and control, to say the least. It was akin to giving a tank to a baby—while the strength was there, the control and accuracy were sorely lacking.

He looked more like he was swinging his body randomly. If one looked closely, one would notice that he even had trouble walking straight.

Even Antoine's control of his authority was mediocre at best. While his dark mist had very high destructive power, he could not control it and instead unleashed it haphazardly. It was as if his body was not yet adapted to the changes brought by the power, making the situation even more bizarre.

He could only rely on his higher attributes and aura to compensate for his lack of skill. But despite his crude style, the man still managed to kill countless hunters in a short time.

As time passed, his aura began to fade, its dark hue growing lighter and lighter. Seeing this, the man frowned a bit and could only reduce his power output to conserve energy. As the aura grew weaker, so did he.

Observing this, tier 2 hunters began launching ranged attacks. As Antoine's aura continued to weaken, the frequency of these ranged assaults increased.

'Fuck! I feel like shit... I still can't even run or move too fast without losing control. If I am not careful, I might even crash into a wall.' cursed Antoine internally as he punched a hunter that had a spider-like body.

However, his reduced output made his punch more precise but significantly weaker. Yet, it was still enough to instantly kill it.

While he walked, the golden light in his clothes dimmed and dimmed, and his strength slowly faded. The closer he was to his normal state, the more he had to use his item to defend himself.

"Damn it!"

Antoine was extremely frustrated. He was supposed to have more than enough chaos energy to level up a few times while still having enough for the main story. Still, he had largely underestimated the situation and thought that his raw power would be enough to compensate for his lack of control.

"If only I had Blood Dominion, I would have already killed all of those fuckers in a single second," said Antoine out loud, regretting his past choice.

However, the mayor didn't have the luxury of complaining. More and more hunters surrounded him, and their numbers only increased with each passing second.

The golden shields around him were getting thinner and thinner, and the pressure was increasing.

'I am already level 13. This should be enough to dominate other candidates even without my main authority. There are about 10 minutes until the start of the main story, so it should be fine—What's that?' his eyes moved slightly and stopped on a particular building.

"An item is over here," Antoine muttered to himself after gazing for a few long seconds, his eyes fixed on something in the distance. A surprised expression appeared on his face, followed by a smile that formed on his lips as he continued to read.

Without hesitation, he sprinted towards the building, ignoring the hunters' attempts to block him.

It was now Frederick's turn to frown. He had been watching the whole show until now. With little need for reflection, his pupils turned crimson from the sanguine infusion as he swiftly darted off in the opposite direction.

Frederick would be foolish not to realize that he had been discovered.

"I just want to talk!" shouted the mayor, clearly annoyed. He was a bit surprised to see the other party's speed and vague figure. He couldn't discern the other party's identity but was certain that it was not an average candidate.

Frederick ignored him and didn't stop. Instead, he used all the energy he could muster to accelerate the pace. Despite still being weakened, his speed was still incomparable to that of an average human now that he had used sanguine infusion.

With his camouflage activated, Frederick remained hidden from the sight of most hunters as they charged toward the mayor. However, not all of them were fooled by his concealment. Some of the more advanced tier 2 hunters seemed to have detected his presence and began to pursue him as well.

Dodging some projectiles aimed at him, he quickly continued his escape. However, Frederick failed to dodge every projectile. A spike that he did not see hit him on his arm, penetrating it halfway. Despite Frederick's best efforts to evade them, one of the hunters managed to launch a long-range attack that pierced his shoulder, inflicting a deep wound that bled profusely.

Seeing this, the mayor grinned and thought that Frederick would slow down because of the wound and the pain. However, his grin quickly disappeared.

Frederick simply ignored the projectile that was still inside his shoulder and accelerated even further.

'Does this guy not feel pain?' wondered Antoine as he almost rammed inside a wall because of his poor control.

Contrary to the mayor, who used his raw power to compensate for his lack of skills, Frederick focused on technique. His technique and control were superb, and his movement was extremely efficient, with few to no unnecessary movements, allowing him to maintain an incredible speed despite the wound.

Frederick had noticed this earlier but only needed a day to get used to his new body. Even his base dexterity attribute seemed to increase much more rapidly than the average candidate. Perhaps he was talented, or perhaps it was thanks to his mind attribute. Either way, he was adapting quickly.

Running between a group of hunters, he used them to slow down Antoine. His movements were extremely precise, almost artistic, and every step was calculated and performed with an inhuman precision.

Frederick did not waste a single inch of space, moving forward in a flash.

His body was full of energy, and he felt extremely light while everything around him seemed to move in slow motion. This was something he wouldn't usually be able to do. However, Sanguine Infusion seemed to scale with his own constitution and attribute, meaning that the enhancement he received was extremely significant.

If he had to quantify his current attribute, it would be around 21. This seemingly small difference compared to his 18 points was extremely important, as attributes are exponential in their effects.

The mayor looked at Frederick's vanishing silhouette about fifty meters behind him. Unlike Frederick, who was calm and composed, the mayor was starting to breathe heavily.

His movements were extremely crude, and he could not dodge hunters like him. Instead, he directly rammed inside most of the hunters on his way.

'I have to avoid overexerting my chaos energy reserves; otherwise, the backlash would be too heavy for me to handle, even with my healing authority… I hate to admit this, but I was reckless this time.' even if his ego has been greatly hurt, he had to admit that it was too much for him to handle.

The once overwhelming aura around him was gradually dissipating. Yet the mayor was still leagues above Frederick in terms of pure raw power.

Frederick has long noticed that Antoine's control was extremely mediocre and purposely took advantage of this by using complicated ways and narrow passages filled with hunters.

Despite having high attributes, Antoine was shocked to see Frederick's speed. 'What is happening? My attributes should still be much higher than his. How can he be this fast?' wondered the mayor as he struggled to catch up.

Yet the difference between attributes had a great impact, and Antoine was slowly catching up to him. Even if he was way weaker than before, it was still hard for Frederick to escape him.

"If you give me your item, I will allow you to join Haven City." shouted the mayor.

Frederick ignored his offer.

"How about this? If you give me the item and join Haven, I will protect you until you have enough level to defend yourself," said Antoine, trying his best to reach him.

Even Antoine seem to not be very sure about what he was offering Frederick. The current Haven was more or less hell. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the city has fallen.

With only about 20 meters left between him and the mayor, Frederick could hear him clearly despite the screams of hunters pursuing them.

'At this rate, I will be caught. This guy's authority seems to be able to boost his attributes to the extreme using a kind of highly destructive energy. But looking at how clumsy he is, either he is a retard, or it is his curse. I would likely opt for the latter option.' thought Frederick as his coat began to emit a dark smoke similar to the mayor's own. However, it was nowhere near as potent.

Without hesitation, Frederick took out his newly repaired rifle and fired three shots in the mayor's direction. However, Antoine's item was too powerful, and a shield appeared out of thin air, causing the bullets to fail to penetrate. Instead, they created a sound like that of a steel wall being hit repeatedly.

"Haha! Do you think you can hurt me with those puny weapons? I only allowed them in my city because I am immune to those!"

It was clear that he was being mocked. Yet, shooting those few bullets successfully slowed the mayor down a bit. Frederick wasn't foolish and knew that it wouldn't do any damage. He only wanted to buy some time.

After putting his gun back in his Dark Cache Trenchcoat, Frederick glanced back and saw that the mayor was almost upon him.

"You should've accepted my offer, now die!" yelled the mayor as he extended his arm toward Frederick, his palm glowing purple as a wave of destructive aura traveled across the ground toward him.