Every contestant in the Hunter Skills Competition gets assigned a livestream room, in addition to a dedicated main livestream room for the competition.
The main livestream room’s perspective isn’t fixed on any one person; it only shifts when a contestant is doing something meaningful, like commentary or hunting.
At the start of the competition, the main livestream room’s perspective sweeps over each contestant, introducing them to the audience.
While other contestants were still dawdling, trying to showcase themselves on camera, Yan Luo had already started moving.
He decisively leaped out of the aircraft without deploying the parachute, letting his body fall straight downwards.
A plain exoskeleton wrapped around his whole body, without any memorable markings, and because it was well-maintained, it looked brand new as if just off the production line.
This undoubtedly disappointed the audience somewhat.
But to Yan Luo, the adornments like horns, spikes, and reliefs on other contestants’ exoskeletons were genuinely pointless things. Wearing such gear while entering the Abyss would only lower a Hunter’s survival odds.
[You idiots! Yan Luo has already landed, and you’re still posing here!]
The angry scolding echoed in all the contestants’ headphones, except Yan Luo’s, leaving them dumbfounded.
The competition had just started; even if Yan Luo acted immediately, he shouldn’t have landed at this point.
——At least if calculated according to the safety line given by the show’s official parachute deployment guidelines, that was the case.
Yan Luo let himself move past the safety line until the treetops were nearly in front of him, then he deployed the parachute.
The parachute almost tore apart the instant it was opened, but thankfully, it cushioned enough gravitational potential energy for Yan Luo to curl up and use the dense tree canopy to reduce the remaining kinetic energy and inertia.
With a loud crash, Yan Luo landed on the ground.
The ground formed a pit due to his impact, but Yan Luo ignored it, pulling his feet out, drawing out a long knife, and suddenly slashing at a tree beside him.
As the tree was chopped, it suddenly pulled out several thick roots from the ground, like iron whips swinging towards Yan Luo.
Yan Luo let the roots strike him, carved a pit in the tree trunk with the long knife, took out a landmine and stuffed it inside, and walked away directly.
Ten seconds later, flames exploded behind Yan Luo, and a towering tree collapsed mightily.
Hot wind blew from behind, yet Yan Luo felt nothing except for the [+1 point] notification appearing in the upper right corner of his view.
The Hunter Skills Competition retained the simple and brutal scoring rules from its inaugural event — a standard mutant creature was worth 1 point, dangerous ones worth 10 points, lethal ones 100 points, and city-breaking level ones 5000 points.
Theoretically, to win, just hunting a single city-breaking level mutant creature would be enough.
However, the Hunter Skills Competition adheres to the principle of ’simulating Abyss hunting’ and doesn’t allow contestants to carry too many weapons, with a limit of one rocket launcher.
So hunting city-breaking level mutant creatures is basically impossible.
Even though mutant creatures don’t have the skewed shields of Demons, as long as they reach city-breaking level, they are genuine ’behemoths,’ shielded or not.
Mutant creatures can reproduce naturally and outnumber Demons, and right after Yan Luo landed, having just eliminated a tree, he encountered three more mutant creatures.
Those were three felines originally supposed to be lynxes, moving very nimbly; yet in Yan Luo’s eyes, their actions seemed rather showy. It took little effort for him to slay all three.
The Hunter Skills Competition lasts twelve days, during which Yan Luo won’t receive any supplies, so he has to conserve his ammo.
Other contestants hurried to land, with one assigned to closely monitor Yan Luo rushing towards his location.
He originally intended to observe Yan Luo’s location through Yan Luo’s livestream footage, but once he landed, the livestream footage was cut off.
The contestant immediately understood.
Not only were their sponsors exerting influence over the competition, but the Hunter’s Guild was also secretly intervening.
All Hunters lose external communication signals upon entering the hunting ground. Besides distress signals, they can’t send or receive any signals from the outside world—supposedly.
The meaning of rules is to be broken. The contestants’ sponsors are also the Hunter Skills Competition’s patrons. They can alter the competition rules at will, or provide convenience to their contestant without changing the rules.
However, since the Hunter’s Guild intervened in this competition, they couldn’t fully showcase their abilities or provide significant help to their contestants.
Yan Luo, unaware his actions were unsettling others, wouldn’t care even if he knew.
He was wholeheartedly slaughtering mutant creatures, any that appeared before him would be killed.
Unlike the deliberate performances of other contestants, Yan Luo’s every kill was efficient and precise, with angles and strength refined to the extreme.
Even dangerous-level mutant creatures, after battling Yan Luo for over thirty seconds, he’d figure out their weaknesses and flaws.
The next time he encounters the same kind of mutant creature, Yan Luo can defeat it in less than a minute.
With each consecutive kill of the same mutant creature type, the kill time gradually shortens.
Yan Luo seemed like an inexhaustible machine, slaughtering mutant creatures from morning till dusk, pausing briefly for lunch and water amid relentless tracking and killing.
On the very first day, Yan Luo’s score soared to 547 points, breaking the previous contestants’ records.
No one could slaughter mutant creatures tirelessly and without mental issues like him—many felt irritation upon killing the fiftieth mutant creature, and disgusted at the hundredth.
Yet Yan Luo was different. No matter how many he killed, his actions never faltered, and he never missed tracking mutant creatures.
Those assigned to monitor him did steal some points from Yan Luo, but Yan Luo’s scoring pace was faster.
In every battle, Yan Luo discovered the most precise hunting method, distributing stamina almost flawlessly, often recovering the depleted energy between hunts, while those monitoring him couldn’t find a single flaw in his actions; to steal prey, they’d have to compete harshly, thus consuming more energy.
By the end of the day, most other contestants lingered around 120 points, while Yan Luo’s score was more than four times theirs.
If their external contacts weren’t severed, they would definitely despair.
Countless viewers were astounded by Yan Luo’s performance, recalling what he said in the interview livestream.
He claimed all contestants in the Hunter Skills Competition were clowns with excessive exhibitionism. Many disagreed at the time, but with the undeniable facts before them, they realized Yan Luo might be right...
Was this the ’real Hunter’?
The night enveloped the earth; Yan Luo illuminated the beast-repelling lamp, sat on a large rock, eating tasteless energy gel, maintaining silence.
The Blue Star Wilderness was livelier at night than the Abyss, with insect chirps, bird calls, eagle cries, and beast roars echoing in his ears; the light from the beast-repelling lamp shielded him with a seemingly safer small area. Sitting in this solitude, Yan Luo was still contemplating the day’s battles in his mind.
The northern hemisphere had entered winter, yet driven by Magic Power, beasts defied nature, still rampaging wildly across the wilderness.
Amid ceaseless calls, Yan Luo closed his eyes, beginning to rest.
The next day, before the sun rose, Yan Luo opened his eyes, turned off the beast-repelling lamp, placed it in his backpack, and set off again.
He had watched a few episodes of the Hunter Skills Competition as a child, knowing approximately the level of the contestants. Given his score, resting two days before continuing would still be fine.
But Yan Luo had no plans to rest. He aimed to crush those clowns with absolute superiority, showing the world how much stronger a true Hunter walking in the Abyss was compared to those entertainers!