Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 330: What Kind of Entity Is This?

The weather in early February carried the first faint hints of spring.

Even the frozen river seemed to be beginning to thaw — which meant ice floes would be coming soon.

Li Wei was driving the Enchanted Chariot south of the small city, moving along the road, when he could see the vast white expanse of the frozen river stretching out ahead.

In summer, the river's widest point reached nearly a kilometer. The current was relatively calm. Before the apocalypse, river shipping along this route must have been thriving.

The south bank was a series of rolling low hills, with steep cliffs along the waterline. At that moment, Li Wei wasn't sure if it was his imagination — out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of movement on the south bank, several kilometers away, on one of the low hills. Fast. Gone in an instant.

A shame Adai wasn't here. He would have spotted it clearly.

With that thought, Li Wei continued driving at a steady pace, expression unchanged. But when the road reached an intersection ahead, he turned off immediately onto a different route.

He wasn't being paranoid — just cautious. The two hundred-plus people he was leading were almost entirely untested Freeman recruits and academy mercenaries. No point in taking risks.

There was more than one road to Riverside Fortress. No need to push through.

The electric bus drivers behind him hadn't noticed anything and simply followed. Eight buses in total — an impressive convoy. Passing through an abandoned small town stirred up the mutant creatures hiding inside, but none posed a real threat. At seventy kilometers per hour, the convoy left them behind easily.Li Wei kept checking the rearview mirror. Eventually he pulled over, let the Engineering Department's deputy chief engineer Alex take the wheel, and moved to the last vehicle in the convoy.

That bus was carrying premium timber. Li Wei jumped onto the roof, planted his feet as if nailed in place, and swept his gaze across the surroundings. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, a faint unease had settled in his chest.

It was strange. Had some powerful player shown up to raid them and stumbled onto the convoy by accident?

But that shouldn't be possible.

As for mutant creatures or wandering Ability Users — outside of Radiation Storm months, they posed no real threat.

The convoy pressed on. The road was reasonably clear and the speed held steady.

About half an hour later, the unease in Li Wei's chest finally faded.

Distance had been put between them.

"Something's still off. Adai has been out recruiting and running his little crow network, but he never neglects his actual duties — he patrols this route every day. If even he didn't pick up anything, that's interesting."

No further incidents. The detour had cost them about an hour. They arrived at Riverside Fortress without further trouble. The Enchanted Chariot and six buses rolled into the underground level to charge.

Everything here looked calm.

Li Wei specifically asked Thomas and Javier.

"Nothing unusual. Javier and I take turns leading patrols every day, with special attention to the south bank of the river. Nothing to report. What we do need to watch out for is the ice breaking up — could cause flooding."

"Understood. Thomas — suspend external patrols for the next few days, stay on high alert. Javier — receive the new Freemen and assign them work. The three new combat squads go to Seth for daily training. I'm going to scout the south bank."

Li Wei gave his orders. The south bank had been a relatively neglected area — not just for lack of time, but because the wide river served as a natural barrier.

He didn't delay. He crossed the ice and entered the south bank.

The south bank was hilly and uneven, with some steeper ridges, but generally gentle terrain. Along the bank, intact embankments and riverside roads were visible. Occasionally a cluster of rust-covered abandoned trucks sat together, as if huddled for warmth. Patches of snow remained. The air was damp. Dry grass crunched softly underfoot.

Tall trees stood in silence, like sentinels of this world, guarding the last remnants of dignity even as everything else had been overturned.

Li Wei moved through this landscape as if it were his own backyard — light-footed, crossing hill after hill, memorizing the terrain as he went. His fourth Profession Card, the Rare Scout Card, was nearly ready to advance to Three-Star. Scouting experience came at least twice as easily as before.

But more than scouting experience, Li Wei wanted to grind his Scout Destiny Grid. So whenever the opportunity arose, he preferred to go out alone.

He pushed south for forty or fifty kilometers until he found a sizable town — larger than a county town, smaller than a city, with relatively intact buildings. But by instinct, he judged there was a Level 5 mutant creature inside.

He observed from a distance and didn't enter. He was looking for the source of the earlier unease, and this place was too far from where he had seen the flash.

He continued east, but not in a straight line — he moved only along the highest ridgelines. The best scouting method. Combined with his now-powerful eyesight, each pass gave him a ten-kilometer-wide reconnaissance strip.

He kept moving for another forty or fifty kilometers. Darkness fell. Still nothing.

He wasn't in a hurry. He found a sheltered spot out of the wind, unslung his pack, pulled out his Scout Cloak and a soft wolfskin blanket, curled up, ate something, drank some water, and closed his eyes. He was asleep within minutes.

When he woke, it was the middle of the night. The world was still. A gentle mountain wind. Stars filling the sky — distant and dreamlike.

He ate again, dug a hole to handle personal business, and set out again. The mountain forest at night was always his domain.

Night also had one advantage: better visibility for long-range observation from high ground.

An hour later, Li Wei climbed to a mountaintop and swept his gaze across the surroundings. A faint smile crossed his lips.

Found it.

To the southeast, about twenty-five kilometers away, a small cluster of firelight — a campfire, judging by its look. Hidden in a valley, in a very secluded position. Without standing on high ground, it would be nearly impossible to spot.

Li Wei approached silently. He didn't go straight in — he circled wide, spiraling inward in gradually tightening loops.

A scout's necessary caution.

Sure enough: when he was still five or six kilometers from the campfire, he began finding traps. One after another. Over twenty in quick succession — varied, ingenious, expertly concealed.

These had been set by an experienced hunter. Not just for catching animals — for catching intelligent prey too.

Some traps were deliberately exposed as decoys, appearing obvious while hiding lethal follow-up mechanisms — triple-chains, five-chains.

Genuinely impressive. Li Wei felt that this sequence of traps alone could wipe out an elite ten-person squad.

Who was this?

A player?

There shouldn't be a player camp in this area. Then again — maybe not necessarily.

Li Wei ran through the terrain data in his mind. If he used Scar Glenn's original Scavenger Camp as a reference point and traveled roughly 500 kilometers northeast, that was his own starting location. This position, separated by the river, was roughly 200 to 250 kilometers from Scar Glenn's camp in a straight line — but the bridge over the river had been destroyed, impassable except in winter. The south bank was hilly and heavily forested with underdeveloped roads. Without precise navigation, two camps stumbling into each other would be difficult.

As for the distance from Li Wei's own camp — over 300 kilometers in a straight line.

So was this really a player camp?

If so — who?

Eleven months into the mission, this camp should have developed considerably.

Turning it over in his mind, Li Wei carefully navigated around the remarkable traps and pressed deeper toward the center. And then he was genuinely awed — how many traps were there?

"987... 988..."

He counted as he moved. At this point the traps were even impeding their own people's movement. He found himself genuinely curious about the total.

He was willing to bet that some of these traps would be invisible to someone with Perception +1 or +2.

Were there any that even his Perception +4 couldn't detect?

Almost certainly not.

[You have successfully identified 1,000 One-Star and Two-Star traps. Scouting experience +100. Scout Destiny Grid +1. Current value: 16.]

A line of text drifted up silently. Li Wei was genuinely pleased.

An unexpected bonus like this?

He had to keep going. There were clearly many more traps ahead.

Large, medium, small. In trees, on the surface, underground, in pits. Every variety imaginable. He had found a trap fanatic.

Thank you, friend. Truly.

In that moment Li Wei had almost forgotten his original purpose. He moved through the dark night with genuine enthusiasm, hunting down every trap he could find.

Unfortunately, nothing above Two-Star. This wasn't a trap upgrade zone. Many traps were duplicates — not an exhibition, not designed for someone like Li Wei to appreciate. Just pure defense against intruders.

After another full circuit, he had found only about 3,000 traps total — yielding 200 scouting experience and +2 Destiny Grid. And then the traps ran out.

By now the campfire in the valley had long since gone cold. Dawn was approaching. Li Wei could faintly hear snoring. Then he spotted two hidden sentries and two visible ones.

Tight security.

But who were these people?

Li Wei's mind was full of questions. In the dim pre-dawn light, he could see clearly: the two visible sentries looked human, but larger and more powerfully built than any human — nearly two meters tall. In temperatures that must have been around minus fifteen, they stood with their upper bodies bare. Their skin was an eerie ink-black. Savage muscle groups were marked with what appeared to be runic symbols.

Most striking were their faces. Deep-set eyes. High, prominent cheekbones. Wide foreheads. They looked more like — not that kind of person, but Neanderthal-type features.

Though perhaps not quite. Because these sentries had long limbs and looked powerfully capable. The bows on their backs flickered with a faint dark blue light.

Formidable. One Four-Star, one Five-Star.

No question about it — this was the source of the unease Li Wei had felt earlier.