CHAPTER 73: CHAPTER 42: TWENTY-SIX HOURS OF DEADLY PURSUIT (PART 1)

"Twelve hours! It’s been twelve hours!"

"Yan Luo has already held out for twelve hours. According to statistics, along the way, he has only rested a mere thirty-three minutes, and that’s not even all at once; it’s scattered rest that adds up to just thirty-three minutes!"

The roars of two commentators echoed in the studio, their eyes wide with excitement as they watched the live broadcast.

The strength of a city-breaking level mutant creature can be seen through the live broadcast.

The giant beast can easily smash through trees; no obstacle on the road can hinder its advance. I’m afraid even a reinforced concrete building wouldn’t stand a chance against it,—it could collide and smash it without a second thought.

In fact, a city-breaking level mutant creature can definitely accomplish such a feat.

Under the pursuit of such a giant beast, Yan Luo has been running nonstop, without being attacked by the giant wild ox once, remaining completely unharmed.

What’s more important is that Yan Luo is just an ordinary person with a strong physique, not so different from them and most of the audience.

This is precisely why the two commentators are so excited.

Engravers are different from ordinary people; they possess powers that surpass the mundane, while Yan Luo is an authentic ’mortal,’ challenging a supermundane beast with a mere human body.

From any perspective, this is enough to prove his strength.

In past commentaries on the Hunter Skills Contest, though the two commentators could feel the prowess of the engravers in the broadcast, it was only when seeing Yan Luo that they felt a sense of immersion.

Yes, ’immersion’!

Of course, besides this, there’s another reason for the commentators’ excitement: the main broadcast channel’s viewership count has exceeded one hundred million.

Across Blue Star, over a hundred million people are watching how Yan Luo, an ordinary man, confronts a city-breaking level mutant creature.

This number has already surpassed the historical record of simultaneous viewership in the Hunter Skills Contest, marking the most-watched episode since the start of the program.

This outcome leaves the sponsors of the Hunter Skills Contest feeling conflicted.

Logically speaking, Yan Luo is here to disrupt the program, yet simultaneously, he has elevated the program to a new height.

The problem is, they themselves created this opportunity for Yan Luo...

Regardless of external evaluations of Yan Luo, he has no time to ponder those matters; he’s focusing all his energy on running away.

Yan Luo estimated the distance between his current location and his target, realizing that although he had been sprinting for twelve hours, the remaining journey was still long, requiring even more hours of running.

Fortunately, Yan Luo didn’t feel fatigued yet.

He has been restraining his running speed, ensuring it doesn’t exceed the running speed of an ordinary person wearing an exoskeleton armor by too much.

To achieve this, Yan Luo needs to expend more mental effort to figure out how to limit the speed of the giant wild ox.

Otherwise, he’ll soon be caught up.

Luckily, this isn’t difficult for Yan Luo; in a state where his stamina isn’t severely depleted, he can allocate more energy to think.

With nearly fourteen hours of journey still ahead, Yan Luo knows he needs to save his strength and mental energy; otherwise, he surely won’t be able to endure.

The bellowing of the wild ox sounded again from behind, prompting Yan Luo’s brain into a thinking mode, searching through memories for surroundings suitable to hinder the giant wild ox.

Then, he thought of a place!

During the lost decade, many cities were abandoned; even to this day, there are still numerous abandoned cities standing on the surface.

Among them, the northern region of the Western Domain, formerly North America, harbors a large number of abandoned cities, even ranking as one of the top areas in Blue Star in terms of abandoned city numbers.

Yan Luo encountered several abandoned towns along his way, but he didn’t enter them since he had better escape routes at the time.

Now, things are different; there’s no suitable environment around to delay the giant wild ox’s steps, aside from the abandoned city ahead, he couldn’t think of other methods to obstruct the beast.

Yan Luo quietly changed his escape route, leading the giant wild ox towards an abandoned city.

The two commentators in the studio sharply noticed his intent through the satellite view and pulled up a map on the left side of the broadcast screen, enlarging the abandoned city not far from Yan Luo.

"Look, everyone, Yan Luo’s target must be here. This abandoned city has many things that can be used to hinder the giant wild ox’s steps, like those buildings."

Although eighty years have passed, the wooden structures in the abandoned city have long been ruined, but there are still quite a few concrete buildings remaining.

Theoretically, these buildings might not be damaged even in a few hundred years, but due to various factors like rain, weathering, steel corrosion, they might spoil earlier.

Fortunately, they still stand firmly on the ground, not completely destroyed.

Trees had extended into the once-steel jungle; Yan Luo entered the abandoned city before running out of the forest.

The once-tall skyscrapers were surrounded by trees, the road cracked open, from which resilient plants grew.

Yan Luo sprinted along these once smooth roads, with the roar from behind getting closer.

He glanced around, noticing that some trees had turned into mutant creatures too, but they couldn’t leave, even if they heard the wild ox’s roar, they could only shrink their body size, trying not to be noticed by the beast.

This won’t work since they’re blocking its path; there’s bound to be some trees getting crushed by the beast.

Not long after, Yan Luo’s target appeared before him.

Yan Luo paused, looked around, aimed his grappling hook at a slightly lower building, using the hook to pull himself onto its roof.

Next to the low building was a high-rise; Yan Luo aimed at the high-rise, shot the hook, gave it a firm tug to ensure it’s secure, then sprinted a couple of steps and jumped over.

The winch of the hook gun turned, swinging Yan Luo’s heavy body across.

The hook landed on the fifth floor, but Yan Luo swung into the third.

The building is already precarious; cracks are visible everywhere, even on the load-bearing columns.

But Yan Luo wanted this; he was afraid the building wouldn’t collapse.

Yan Luo turned, dismantled the nearly ruined hook gun, using its parts to create a simple timed trigger device, then made a slingshot at the window, preparing a shock bomb with the set time to place it.

He completed these actions in five minutes.

He glanced outside, seeing the dust rising in the distance, then he didn’t linger, turned around and ran toward the other side of the building.

As Yan Luo leaped from the other side, the giant wild ox appeared at the end of the street.

Passing by a mutated tree, the ox lowered its head, grabbed and uprooted it.

It chewed while running, gobbling down the whole tree.

After running for so long, the giant wild ox was hungry as well. If not for Yan Luo’s constant provocation, it would’ve stopped to eat for a while before continuing the chase.

Now it’s not only hungry but also somewhat tired.

A high-rise building appeared ahead, even though the red dot representing Yan Luo was behind it, the ox didn’t plan to ram directly.

Though angry, its mind hasn’t completely dulled yet.

At this moment, the slingshot at the third-floor window launched the shock bomb, hitting the ox’s head. In the next second, the bomb exploded, piercing the ox’s ears and eyes with deafening noise and strong light.

The giant wild ox instantly reacted, letting out a furious roar as it started charging.

Its head punctured through the high-rise’s outer wall, the powerful limbs driving its enormous body into the building.

The load-bearing columns snapped under the ox’s vigorous pounding, and the nearly ten-thousand-ton building collapsed with a deafening noise.

Since the columns it broke were all on one side, the collapse tilted towards the rear.

Even so, parts of the debris fell on the ox, almost crippling its hind legs.

The ox grew even angrier!

It locked onto Yan Luo’s position, furiously chasing him.