BANG! BANG! Two gunshots rang out, piercing the assassin’s skull.

A hole opened in the black-bandaged assassin’s head, his brains splattered, and he collapsed onto the city wall.

At the same time, two more horrified screams echoed from the city wall.

Fang Zhen looked over. Of the four remaining black-bandaged assassins, two had been surrounded and killed by the Curse Sealers.

However, the screams hadn’t come from the assassins themselves. Rather, they came from their victims. As one assassin died, he grabbed a nearby Curse Sealer and dragged the man down with him as he leaped from the city wall.

The other, despite having been run through by more than a dozen swords, used his last moments to fatally stab a Curse Sealer with a short blade, taking him down with him.

Heartless Warriors.

Seeing them, Fang Zhen immediately recalled the "threat unit" he had been warned about in this mission.

Heartless Warriors were originally human masters of Martial Arts who had been captured by aberrations and modified into killing machines devoid of consciousness and fear.

This was the first time Fang Zhen had encountered such a fighting style.

To be honest, he was having trouble adjusting. Against Heartless Warriors and Polluted Soldiers, normal Martial Arts techniques weren’t completely useless, but they were certainly less effective.

This was because many Martial Arts techniques were designed to force an opponent into a defensive posture or to exploit basic human instincts.

But the Heartless Warriors’ instinctive fear of death had been engineered out of them, blunting the effectiveness of such skills.

Anglo was clutching his stomach, panting heavily.

Only then did Fang Zhen see that Anglo’s abdomen had been stabbed several times.

Anglo had been interrupted while trying to cast the Gang Zan Seal. He hadn’t managed to raise the Curse Seal in time and had been repeatedly stabbed and slashed with a dagger. His abdomen was now a bloody, frightening mess.

"How are you?" Fang Zhen asked Anglo.

"I won’t die. I was stabbed in the gut, but it didn’t pierce my intestines or any major organs. Still, the wound’s open and needs to be stitched up," Anglo said through gritted teeth, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

The blood stained Anglo’s snow-white beard red.

"I can’t believe I made such a rookie mistake. Got caught off guard while using my Alchemy Bow," Anglo said bitterly, clearly indignant.

Fang Zhen nodded slightly. "Go get treated. With an Alchemy Potion, it shouldn’t be too dangerous."

Anglo nodded. He didn’t try to act tough and left the city wall, supported by a few Curse Sealers.

Before he left, Anglo turned back and shouted to Fang Zhen, "Fang Zhen, you have to help me take out those Giant Poisonous Cannon Fiends! They’re too great a threat to the wall. I’m leaving my Sun-shooting Bow with you for now!"

"Alright!" Fang Zhen replied.

Anglo was helped down.

Fang Zhen walked over and picked up Anglo’s Alchemy Longbow from the floor of the city wall.

The bow was nearly six feet tall. At full draw, Fang Zhen’s arms were just long enough.

He tested it and could feel it was an incredibly powerful bow; the string was as stiff as a steel bar.

Fang Zhen looked toward the distant Giant Poisonous Cannon Fiends. He had originally planned to snipe the three of them with his AWP, but now that he had this war bow, he was interested in giving it a try. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Fang Zhen saw a quiver of black longbow arrows for the bow nearby. He picked one up and discovered it was a pure iron arrow.

The arrow was forged entirely from iron, from the tip to the shaft. Even the fletching wasn’t made of normal feathers, but of iron.

Fang Zhen understood at once. This bow wasn’t meant to be drawn with normal strength; it required some kind of Extraordinary Power.

He tried nocking an iron arrow onto the longbow.

Then, copying Anglo, he activated the Power Mountain Seal.

A white light flashed from the Power Mountain Seal, and Fang Zhen saw patterns suddenly light up on the Alchemy Longbow.

This was an Alchemy Bow.

’Clearly, Anglo hadn’t been able to unleash this bow’s full power before. Only a third-stage Power Mountain Seal could completely bring forth its strength.’

Fang Zhen had many shooting skills. In an instant, passive abilities like Weakness Perception, Steady Shot, and Critical Shot all triggered.

He barely aimed with his eyes, releasing the string and firing the iron arrow on pure instinct.

A black line streaked through the air. He didn’t know what the Alchemy Bow’s draw weight was, but it was packed with power.

Fang Zhen guessed the bow had to have a draw weight of at least seven hundred pounds, maybe even over a thousand.

The black iron-fletched arrow shot out, covering the three or four hundred meters in the span of a breath before it struck one of the Giant Poisonous Cannon Fiends in the head.

With a POP, as if a balloon had been pierced by an iron skewer, the Giant Poisonous Cannon Fiend’s head exploded.

The Giant Poisonous Cannon Fiend’s body swayed and collapsed. As it fell, the corrosive Poison Cannon on its back fired uncontrollably, striking another Giant Poisonous Cannon Fiend nearby.

The venom was unprecedentedly corrosive; in an instant, the second fiend’s head melted away, leaving only a skull, and it too swayed and collapsed to the ground.

’What great luck.’

Fang Zhen felt a surge of satisfaction. Seeing the result, he drew another iron-fletched arrow and nocked it on the Alchemy War Bow.

’The bow felt comfortable in his hands. He also had a feeling that he hadn’t yet unleashed 100% of the Alchemy War Bow’s power.’

’But his fourth-stage Sky Split Seal didn’t seem suitable for this. Instead, he stuck with his third-stage Hard and Soft Seal Power.’