Hunter of Mysterious Creature

It seemed like he had some kind of mysterious artifact that could conceal his aura, even Sun Hang hadn't sensed his presence in advance.

"Although it seems you have quite a few prejudices against me, I'm generally a magnanimous person," the grim Hunter said with a faint smile while wearing a cloak. "It's not easy for you to have made it here. To my mind, why not cooperate? We can split the benefits eighty-twenty. What do you think?"

"Eighty-twenty?" Sun Hang glanced at him, "Eighty for me, twenty for you?"

"That's not funny at all." The grim Hunter shook his head. "I don't really like deceitful rhetoric. As newcomers, it's fortunate you can get twenty percent, thanks to those useless good-for-nothings who gave you that chance."

"You mean those Indian hunters?" the Fisherman instinctively asked.

"No, not just them."

"Cooperation is possible, but there must be enough sincerity," Sun Hang said.

"How do you want me to show my sincerity?" The grim Hunter's lips curled into an almost imperceptible smirk as he slowly asked.

"At the very least, how about showing us your real self? Pulling some kind of holographic trick makes it hard for me to trust you," Sun Hang said.

"This is a hologram?" The Fisherman was stupefied. "This is too realistic... It looks just like the real thing, even the direction of the sound is perfectly aligned."

"It's not a hologram, but a piece of artifact left in the ruins. It's one of the things I've gained on this trip," the grim Hunter said. "Compared to the abundant treasure buried underground, this thing is insignificant... If you're interested, I could give it to you—does that show enough of my sincerity?"

"Give it to me? Really?" Sun Hang's eyes revealed a glimmer of delight. "This doesn't count toward the division of the spoils, does it?"

"Of course, I have no reason to deceive you," the grim Hunter nodded. "To be honest, this place is very dangerous. The intelligence provided to you by Dubhe Tower is incomplete. They only want to use you... and me as well, to clear out some of the dangers. Since things have come to this, why continue to work for them?"

"I know this place is dangerous... But the question is, can I trust you?" Sun Hang asked.

"To survive here, we need to cooperate fully. It's not about whether we can trust each other, but we must trust each other," the grim Hunter emphasized repeatedly.

"What you're saying... seems to make some sense," Sun Hang pondered aloud.

Shino approached cautiously, gave Sun Hang's sleeve a gentle tug, and whispered, "I think it's best to be cautious, be wary of deception."

Who would have thought Sun Hang would suddenly smack his hand away and dismissively say, "There are three of us, and only one of him, what are we afraid of?"

"That's right, there are three of you, and I'm just one person. I should be the one worried about being betrayed, not you," the grim Hunter chimed in.

"How about this, can you show me the artifact that can create projections first?" Sun Hang squinted his eyes. "I need to verify... 'your sincerity'."

"No problem."

After saying that, the projection disappeared ten steps away, accompanied by the sound of approaching footsteps. The grim Hunter then emerged from behind a corner at a small distance away.

Before he could speak, Sun Hang suddenly drew a pistol from his waist, firing repeatedly at the rooftop of a building at the nine o'clock direction!

The grim Hunter at the corner vanished, replaced by a shadowy figure standing at the edge of the rooftop.

The figure looked down in disbelief at the bullet holes on its body.

"You..."

Before he could say anything else, Sun Hang fired again.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The shadowy figure plummeted from the rooftop, landing with a "thud" on the street below.

Sun Hang fitted a new magazine into his pistol, approached, and put another bullet each into the figure's head and chest.

"Damn!" The Fisherman finally exclaimed, "How did you know this guy was hiding on the rooftop?"

"Even though his cloak could shield his aura and had optical camouflage abilities, the meme-based fluctuations from the artifact when creating projections would still leak out a bit," Sun Hang explained as he stripped the cloak from the dead man and stuffed it into his pack. "I talked a lot with him just to make him let his guard down... I knew he wouldn't trust me, but as long as he used that artifact to create a second projection, my goal was already achieved."

"Although this guy had ill intentions, wasn't it unnecessary to kill him outright?" Shino walked over, frowning as he looked at the completely lifeless corpse. "He seemed to be the sole survivor of those Angsa hunters. Killing him means those intelligence are now..."

"Yeah," the Fisherman agreed, "we should've captured him alive and tortured for information! I was already planning how to interrogate him, and you just killed him off... what a waste!"

"This guy has the ability to activate and solidify memes within other people," Sun Hang glanced at the Fisherman and Shino. "If we didn't get rid of him immediately, weren't you afraid of becoming some creepy corpse for no reason?"

The two immediately fell into silence.

As for intelligence...

Living people can lie, but dead men tell no tales.

Seizing the opportunity while searching the corpse, Sun Hang discreetly inserted a few strands of mycelium into the body's flesh, greedily extracting the leftover memes within.

Given the short duration since death, most of the memes in the body hadn't yet dissipated... but Sun Hang quickly realized, the man's abilities might not have been as monstrous as he had thought.

Firstly, to activate this ability, there must be direct physical contact with the target; secondly, during the activation of memes within others, the target could distinctly perceive it and could resist the activation using their own willpower.

Meme activation wasn't instantaneous and required a few minutes of "loading." During this process, both physical means (like pushing the opponent away) and mental means (resisting meme activation from a willpower standpoint) could interrupt the process.

This means the ability can only be used smoothly when the target is either entirely willing or has lost all capacity and will to resist.

Sun Hang tried to activate the liquid metal within himself but found the effect was negligible... Artifacts and infected individuals are not the same. Accurately speaking, the infection process in infected individuals is incomplete; they are just in a state of "being anomalously affected." Hence, the activation ability could affect them.

But for "complete" anomalies like liquid metal or Subject 2796, their anomalous processes are at a hundred percent, making the activation minimally impactful.

This ability is useful but leans more towards support than combat.

But Sun Hang wasn't very disappointed, after all, the abilities carried by memes could only be considered a bonus, and his true target was the grim Hunter's memories.

Over ninety percent of the memes within him were absorbed by Sun Hang, and the memory fragments contained within this ninety percent were enough for Sun Hang to reconstruct the entire sequence of events.