Chapter 104: I’m a Fan of Blaze

**Chapter 104: I'm a Fan of the Blaze**

Wu Yue and Shen Que had just reached the discharge area when they noticed body-bagged corpses crawling toward them from the staging area.

As the body bags were torn open by sharp claws, the corpses immediately attacked the cat monsters in the canned food factory.

Watching their cloudy sclera and vacant pupils, and seeing their jawing maws devouring the cat monsters' bodies, Skinny Monkey shivered like a leaf. "What do we do now...? We can't even go back to the entrance."

Tsk.

Wu Yue curled her lips. "What's the alternative?"

Skinny Monkey despaired, "Are we just cannon fodder now?"

With a swift motion, Wu Yue switched Frostmoon Icicle to a greatsword stance, her tone calm and composed.

"If they won't let us leave, then it's time to show these walking meatbags who really calls the shots in this dungeon."

The next second,

Skinny Monkey watched in shock as Wu Yue and Shen Que—who had just been outpacing him—cleared steel and charged straight at the corpses without hesitation.

Their movements were sharp, fast like greased lightning.

In the blink of an eye,

every single corpse in the discharge area had been reduced to pulpified remains, lying motionless.

Wu Yue swiftly scooped the loot, and the two continued forward.

Suddenly, they heard Skinny Monkey's puzzled voice from behind.

"This aureate trident... I think I've seen it before."

Shen Que stiffened instantly, exchanging a sidelong look with Wu Yue.

Wu Yue studied the middle distance. "Really? Must be a coincidence."

Skinny Monkey nodded. "Yeah, yeah, now I remember!

I saw the number-one Blaze squad’s captain using it in the last major dungeon!

It was incredible when he split the Siphon Falls in one strike—I went absolutely nuts!

You guys don’t know, but I’m actually a huge fan of the Blaze!

Too bad I was stuck in the mining zone with spotty reception, so I kept losing the stream. What a shame."

Shen Que exhaled through his nose, hiking up his balaclava as if trying to hide his entire face, hemming and hawing,

"Yeah, yeah, you're right."

At the mention of the Blaze, Skinny Monkey couldn’t contain his excitement:

"You have no idea how much I admire them—they’re the cream of the crop!"

"My greatest wish in life is to collect the signatures of all the top experts in Blaze and treasure them under my pillow."

Skinny Monkey’s tone was so earnest that Shen Que couldn’t help but laugh.

"Ahem!"

Wu Yue fake-coughed loudly, snapping Shen Que’s attention toward her.

To his shock, he saw Wu Yue had already pulled out a gas mask and covered her entire face with it.

Shen Que’s lip twitched. "We should probably run."

Skinny Monkey nodded. "Right, right. I get carried away when I talk about Blaze. Hope I didn’t rub you guys the wrong way?"

Wu Yue shook her head. "No."

Relieved, Skinny Monkey finally sighed:

"True, I thought about it.

Blaze is so strong—they’ve hoarded tons of resources from major dungeons. Their leader’s ranked fourth in the alliance’s power rankings!

No way they’d stoop to competing with randos like us for some B+ dungeon first clear, right?

They’d probably ignore a noob dungeon like this—too lame for them, don’tcha think?"

Shen Que silently looked at Wu Yue, who just as silently looked away.

She shot Skinny Monkey a deadpan look. "Ever heard this saying?"

Skinny Monkey blinked. "What?"

Wu Yue: "If you shut up, no one’ll think you’re mute."

Skinny Monkey nodded repeatedly. "Right, right."

Wu Yue whispered, "Captain, if we end up fighting later, hold back.

Just hand the first clear to your fanboy."

Shen Que: "Mm, mm."

For the first time, Shen Que suddenly found his golden trident burning a hole in his hand.

After passing through the disinfection zone and stepping outside the factory, they could see the cannery gates in the distance—the instance exit.

Even without the first clear, everyone still gets a clear reward.

Skinny Monkey seemed happy enough. Gratefully, he said, "Thanks for helping me clear this. My bad, dude, for calling you a twig earlier.

I was being a dumbass. Don’t take it personally."

Shen Que smirked. "Don’t sweat it."

Skinny Monkey added enthusiastically, "Not many people are down for story runs these days. Wanna swap friend codes? If another run like this pops up, we can squad up!"

"So what’s your tags?"

Wu Yue and Shen Que exchanged a glance...

Two people—one questioning, the other silent.

What could they possibly say?

Hey, our gamer tags are Blaze Shen Que and Blaze Wu Yue.

You know, the idols who just finished clearing the league’s major dungeon but still came to a minor dungeon to compete with regular players for the first kill.

Seeing Wu Yue and Shen Que remain motionless, Skinny Monkey didn’t seem to mind. He naturally put away his comm unit and scratched his head.

“Whoops, my bad—getting ahead of myself here.

No worries, a chance meeting must be fate. See you around, you two.”

With that, Skinny Monkey turned and walked toward the dungeon exit.

But—

then, completely unexpectedly—

before he could reach the exit, a gigantic stone zombie plummeted from the sky.

It landed exactly where he stood.

In an instant, it would have flattened him into a smear.

Skinny Monkey looked up in terror at the sudden shadow overhead, as death came crashing down.

Just as he braced for impact, his squinting eyes caught a streak of golden light—a shooting star—flashing past.

A gold trident shot through the air, spearing the corpse mid-air before it could reach him.

Countless chunks of zombie flesh rained down around him, and at the same time—

a system message flashed across server chat:

"Congratulations to Blaze Team’s Shen Que for achieving the first kill of *Moving Meat Cans*.

First Kill Reward: Feline Form—transform completely into a cat for 30 minutes, freely moving in feline form."

Wu Yue, "...I told you to hold back. Now everyone knows who we are."

Shen Que shrugged, "Then he'd be dead instead."

Standing amidst the scattered remains, Skinny Monkey read the message three times over, his face blank with disbelief.

He looked up at Wu Yue and Shen Que standing before him.

Wu Yue smiled and held out her comm device. “Since fate’s involved, let’s exchange contacts.

My tag: Blaze Wu Yue.”

Shen Que did the same. “Blaze Shen Que.”

Even after adding them, Skinny Monkey pinched himself to check if he was dreaming.

Watching the two walk off toward the exit, he leapt to his feet and shouted:

“Hey!! You're my heroes!!

I'm Liu Quan!!”

“Ding.”

Liu Quan looked down at his comm device:

“Blaze Shen Que: Liu Quan, Blaze recruits new members every year at the end of December. We’d love to see you try out.”