Chapter 148: Who is the Hunter?

In the dark cell, the door was suddenly pushed open.

The instant the door opened, Scar Wolf snapped awake.

Too many terrifying things had happened to and around Scar Wolf lately, turning him into a frightened bird at the slightest sound. This hyper-vigilance caused him to wake up the very moment the door was breached.

"Who is it? Ye Fei?" Scar Wolf's heart trembled with dread. Lying motionless on his bed, he kept his eyes half-closed to observe the scene.

The others in the room had no idea anyone had entered.

The person who opened the door was indeed Ye Fei. Sensing that Scar Wolf was awake, yet ignoring the fact that he was feigning sleep, Ye Fei walked straight toward a certain bed.

That unfortunate fellow was the Alligator, who was still fast asleep, completely unaware that Ye Fei was standing right beside him.

*Thump-thump... thump-thump...* Scar Wolf's heartbeat quickened.

Suddenly, Ye Fei moved. Standing by the bedside, he simply raised a hand.

The cell was too dim; Scar Wolf could only make out the silhouette of Ye Fei's dark arm lifting, followed by absolute silence. Confusion gripped his heart.

Then, a horrifying scene unfolded.

Ye Fei seemed to put something away, reached down to grab Alligator's bed, and lifted a round, heavy object from which dark liquid continuously dripped.

"Alligator's head!" Scar Wolf's heart skipped a beat, then began hammering wildly like a war drum. Pure terror washed over him.

Scar Wolf was hardly a stranger to murder, having taken perhaps twenty or thirty lives with his own hands. Accustomed to the sight of life and death, he normally wouldn't flinch—death, after all, was just a wound the size of a bowl. But now, cold terror gripped his soul. It was utterly macabre.

A creeping sensation told Scar Wolf that Ye Fei knew he was awake and might walk over to him at any second.

It felt precisely like those scenes in horror movies where characters hide under a bed, awaiting the impending discovery of a killer—a severe test of one's psychological endurance.

Ye Fei turned around, carrying the severed head right up to Scar Wolf's bedside, and suspended it directly above him. Blood began to drip down, landing on Scar Wolf's blanket and his arm.

As the blood continued to fall, Scar Wolf's terror multiplied. He knew Ye Fei was aware he was awake and wanted to jump up, yet at that moment, he was paralyzed by fear. Preferring the ostrich-like defense of self-deception, he chose to keep playing dead.

Shortly after, once the blood had ceased dripping, Ye Fei wiped the remaining fluid onto Scar Wolf's blanket before turning away, taking Alligator's head with him.

Ye Fei had never intended to take Scar Wolf's life just yet. He wanted to spare him until the seventh day after death—when the soul of little Bai returned—to offer solace to the departed. Therefore, he had merely subjected him to a round of psychological torture before leaving.

As for Alligator's head, he had other uses for it.

Throughout it all, Scar Wolf never dared to open his eyes.

"I can understand Ye Fei killing Alligator, since he swore to kill one man every day to avenge his subordinate. But why take Alligator's head?" Scar Wolf wondered, paralyzed by a mixture of shock and suspicion.

Meanwhile, Dalian and Xiaoxue had been lying low for a long time without a trace of Ye Fei, searching for him in growing confusion and secrecy.

"Where on earth could this Ye Fei have gone? He's completely vanished," Xiaoxue said anxiously.

"As assassins, patience is paramount. We must not panic. No matter what Ye Fei's plan is, we will stick to our original schedule. Once he loses his patience, he will show himself," Dalian replied, a gleam of excitement in his eyes. In his view, Ye Fei's performance was nothing extraordinary, seemingly falling short of his formidable reputation.

*Whoosh—*

A faint whistling sound broke the air as something hurtled toward them.

Acting on pure instinct, Xiaoxue flicked the dagger in his hand and thrust it directly at the incoming projectile.

*Puff!*

The sound of a sharp blade piercing an object echoed.

"Wait, the tactile feedback is wrong. It doesn't feel like flesh and blood; it feels like piercing an eyeball," Xiaoxue thought to himself. As an assassin, he was intimately familiar with the sensation of his blade striking various materials, allowing him to instantly analyze what he hit.

A viscous fluid burst forth, covering his entire palm, seeping between his fingers, and even coating the hilt of his dagger.

"Are you alright?" Dalian demanded, alarmed, unaware of Xiaoxue's exact situation.

"I think I hit something," Xiaoxue muttered.

"It's a head—"

With a cry of shock, Xiaoxue hastily dropped the dagger along with the head, quickly wiping his soiled hand.

For seasoned assassins, psychological resilience is typically rock-solid. Taking lives was their profession, making such incidents trivial and insufficient to genuinely rattle someone like Xiaoxue. However, Ye Fei's calculated, step-by-step pressure had first sowed the seeds of fear and apprehension in Xiaoxue's mind. By withdrawing after their initial encounter without giving chase, Ye Fei had left them in a state of agonizing, uncertain waiting, breeding anxiety, nervousness, and unease. This psychological erosion was precisely why Xiaoxue had panicked at the sight of a severed head, dropping his weapon in the process.

Dalian frowned, failing to see what was so startling about a mere head.

"Indeed, just a head. A carefully prepared gift I brought you," a voice called out as Ye Fei stepped forward.

Finally, the two sides stood face to face.

"It seems you two aren't very fond of this gift?" Ye Fei remarked.

He could easily perceive that one of the two assassins had already suffered a fractured psychological defense, harboring the negative emotions forbidden in their profession.

"The Reaper. Impressive," Dalian said in a deep voice.

"Correct, I am the Reaper, and today I've come to harvest your souls," Ye Fei admitted without hesitation.

Xiaoxue's psyche suffered another heavy blow; the mere mention of the title "Reaper" further widened the breach in his mental defenses.

"To think that the internationally renowned king of mercenaries, codenamed the Reaper, has been hiding in a place like Deep Sea," Dalian said. Having shed his initial dread, he had completely discarded fear. In his eyes, Ye Fei was now a mountain of immense bounty.

"Attack—"

Dalian barked the order and lunged forward.

"It's either he dies today, or both of us do. Now that we know the secret of the Reaper, Ye Fei will never let us leave alive," Dalian shouted.

Wielding a dagger in one hand, Xiaoxue followed closely behind, charging into the fray. Fear aside, he had no other choice; as Dalian stated, it was a fight to the death between them and the Reaper.

A bluish, venom-coated dagger flashed toward him. Ye Fei knew that blade was laced with deadly poison—a single scratch would spell his doom.

Twisting his body, Ye Fei evaded Dalian and pivoted toward Xiaoxue.

He calculated that Xiaoxue's hand must be devoid of its poisoned blade, having discarded it along with Alligator's head just moments before.

It was simple logic: human instinct dictates self-defense when danger suddenly appears, and Xiaoxue would naturally have used his poisoned dagger to block, intending not only to parry the threat but also to wound the enemy with the fatal toxin.

Regrettably, Xiaoxue had stabbed a corpse's head and thrown away his own venomous weapon in a panic.

Already terrified of Ye Fei, Xiaoxue found himself facing him alone and disoriented, lashing out blindly with a punch.

Ye Fei reached out, intending to twist Xiaoxue's wrist and easily subdue him.

Sensing this, Xiaoxue flipped his wrist and drove his fist forward into Ye Fei's grip.

With a swift flick of his palm, Ye Fei sneered, "You're quite well-equipped, aren't you? Those spiked rings on your fingers must be poisonous as well!"

Flipping his hand, Ye Fei produced a dagger of his own and slashed toward Xiaoxue.

The two blades collided, and Xiaoxue's weapon was notched with a deep gouge. Shocked, Xiaoxue scrambled backward, shouting, "Watch out! Ye Fei's blade is razor-sharp; mine was almost cut in half!"

Dalian was equally startled. They would have to proceed with extreme caution; if their daggers were severed by Ye Fei, they would be pushed into an even more desperate plight.

Ye Fei sneered, "I can easily deal with the two of you without a weapon."

Despite his words, he had no intention of actually putting his dagger away, especially given how lethal their poisoned weapons remained.

"If you've got the nerve, put your weapon away," Dalian taunted.

"Do you take me for a fool?" Ye Fei scoffed. Playing with his prey brought a certain sense of amusement.

Dalian and Xiaoxue were practically choked with rage, never expecting the legendary Reaper of the mercenary world to resort to such mockery.