Chapter 9

They are bounty hunters!

They accepted a commission from the town, and their purpose is to hunt down the werewolves that have appeared!

In the early days, werewolves were akin to beasts. After being infected with the virus, they had almost no chance of transforming into human form. These primitive werewolves had no rationality whatsoever and were nothing more than living beasts. They attacked any living creature and roamed the wilderness in small groups, making the areas outside the wilderness fraught with danger. For their existence, ordinary people had almost no means of defense, and they even had to rely on the protection of some vampire lords!

However, humans were not entirely defenseless.

There were also many elite warriors among humans, especially during the Crusades. Even in this remote land, there were wandering knights and rangers. The Crusaders returning from the distant holy city of Jerusalem were the greatest threat to these early werewolves, and even vampires had to retreat to a corner of Europe.

"This is probably why the locations in the 'Underworld' trilogy are all set in a small area of Europe," Zhao Futu thought to himself.

The threat of werewolves to ordinary people might be hard to resist, but for the strong among humans, whether in the same period in Europe or in the land across the ocean, it was not insurmountable. Otherwise, those irrational werewolves would have spread like a plague long ago. Early vampires were also quite wary of those werewolves, even hiding in fortified castles. In the movie 'Underworld: Rise of the Lycans,' the castle of one of the vampire leaders, Viktor, was destroyed by a werewolf attack!

In fact, this information can give Zhao Futu a simple hypothesis: the current strength of werewolves is likely suppressing the vampires. However, since they are just a group of irrational beasts, they cannot defeat the vampires. The ending of the movie is that the werewolves, led by their leader Lucian, finally captured the vampire lord Viktor's castle.

Since the werewolves are already so powerful,

why hasn't their threat spread?

Clearly, besides the hunting by vampires, there is another external force suppressing them!

This force is the people Zhao Futu is facing. They claim to be bounty hunters, but Zhao Futu believes they are the legendary monster hunters!

He is a practitioner of Dao.

If placed in the same ancient period, he might even be a ghost-hunting celestial master!

This might require some additional context.

That is about—ghosts!

To ordinary people, ghosts are just special spirits. All things have spirits, and humans, being the most advanced, naturally have the strongest spirits. Some special spirits, due to certain reasons, remain in our world, which is what ordinary people call ghosts. Few people have seen ghosts, but many have experienced being spooked, which is the effect of spirits, the only way they can interfere with the material world.

Zhao Futu has never seen the legendary monsters and demons, and he doubts they exist in reality.

The reason is simple.

In the techniques of Mount Mao, there is a powerful spell called "Palm Thunder" that can instantly kill any ordinary monster.

The reason for mentioning this is that lightning was very rare in ancient times, but in modern society, it is ubiquitous.

This is why there are fewer people experiencing being spooked in modern times compared to the past.

...

In the 'Underworld' world, the ultimate rulers are still humans, not vampires or werewolves. They have to hide from human sight; otherwise, they would be hunted down and exterminated by ordinary people! Even at the height of their power in the Middle Ages, they only occupied a small corner of the world!

For example, the land under Zhao Futu's feet.

"Are you a Crusader?" On the way to Rocktown, Zhao Futu finally couldn't help but ask softly.

The leader of these bounty hunters, the knight at the front, his aura, his equipment, his sword, and the cross he wore under his shirt all clearly indicated his identity. Even if he wasn't a legendary Crusader, he must have had a close relationship with them. His equipment was the standard issue for the Crusaders, and as a history enthusiast, Zhao Futu wouldn't make a mistake!

"No, my father was," the knight replied, glancing at him.

His name was Cain, the leader of the group. Three days ago, they received a commission from Rocktown to kill the werewolves that had appeared near the town. Cain was not only a knight but also the lord of a small piece of land. These people were his guards, some of whom were his father's former subordinates, like the bearded man, who was a warrior who had returned from the holy city of Jerusalem.

The werewolves near Rocktown had already killed over a dozen townspeople, and merchants had abandoned the area due to fear of the werewolves.

In the end, the people of Rocktown had to pool their money to hire these warriors to help them eliminate the werewolves. Ordinary people couldn't kill these werewolves, but the elite warriors among humans could. In this era, the combat power of the Crusaders was astonishing! They had traveled to Jerusalem, crossed half of Europe, and then crossed the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea to reach the land of conflict, fighting against the most powerful nomadic Islamic tribes of the time!

The warriors who eventually returned to Europe alive were undoubtedly formidable.

These elite warriors of the Middle Ages, though they did not have the special powers of werewolves and vampires due to viral mutations, were not at all weaker.

Human potential is often more easily pushed to its limits in this brutal era of cold weapons!

The group continued along the road.

After walking about twenty to thirty miles, Cain looked up at the sky, pulled on the reins, and said slowly, "Let's rest for a moment!"

He then took out a piece of cured meat and a loaf of white bread from his bag and threw them to Zhao Futu, smiling, "Catch!"

Zhao Futu caught them, thanked him, and sat down to eat without hesitation.

The morning battle had drained a lot of his energy. Although his recovery ability had improved significantly after entering this mysterious space, his appetite seemed to have been enhanced as well. After the battle, he felt a bit hungry, and now he was ravenous. This space was full of danger, and maintaining full energy was essential for survival.

"Water!" The bearded, muscular warrior threw him a water bag and then dragged the head wolf's corpse from the horse.

Gulp!

Zhao Futu drank the water in large gulps and swallowed the last piece of meat.

Looking around, he noticed that even during rest, these people maintained a high level of vigilance. They were spread out, keeping an eye on everything around them. Zhao Futu silently observed them, wanting to use his detection ability to see their attributes, but he ultimately decided against it. These were clearly battle-hardened elites, and they often had a strong sixth sense. Zhao Futu doubted his perception could suppress theirs, and he didn't want to risk offending them.

However, his attention was soon drawn to the bearded warrior.

Zhao Futu didn't know his name, but the others called him Butcher. It was said that he was a butcher before joining the Crusaders. He pulled out a special skinning knife, similar to a modern-day cleaver, and skillfully dissected the head wolf's body. He threw the internal organs aside but carefully preserved the heart.

Noticing Zhao Futu's gaze, Butcher looked up and said, "Werewolves enter a mating season every full moon. Some werewolves live with wolf packs and can mate with ordinary wolves during this period. If they successfully produce offspring, you get these giant wolves! The wolves in this area are much stronger than their counterparts because of this."

Zhao Futu listened thoughtfully.

Early werewolves couldn't transform back into human form, and as beasts with wolf traits, it wasn't strange for them to mate with ordinary wolves during the mating season.

However, these people seemed to know a lot about werewolves?

After a while, Butcher chopped up the head wolf's heart, mixed it with some strange powders, and then threw a portion to Zhao Futu, saying, "Catch!"

"This head wolf was killed by you. The potion made from its heart has some special effects!"

Zhao Futu didn't refuse, and he was very curious.

When he caught the potion Butcher threw, he noticed a faint blue glow on it. Then a row of item data appeared in his mind:

"Head Wolf's Power" (Status: Successfully Prepared)

"Origin: Underworld"

"Item Rarity: Light Blue"

"Material: Essence of the head wolf's heart, black magic potion"

"Weight: 10 grams"

"Effect 1: Permanent +1 Strength (Maximum strength increase is 10 points. If your strength exceeds 10 points, the potion has no effect. Drug resistance: 3)"

"Effect 2: Consume with strong alcohol to activate all effects, increasing strength by 5 points for 30 minutes (Maximum strength increase is 25 points. Using more than 5 times will cause drug resistance)"

"Effect 3: After developing drug resistance, consuming the potion passively increases life recovery speed by 50%"

"Evaluation: This is a relatively low-level black magic potion that can enhance strength for ordinary people."

...