Chapter 120: Black Sun [100 PS Bonus - ]
Chapter 120: Black Sun [100 PS Bonus Chapter]
Even though he had only known this young woman for a single evening, he had not forgotten her voice.
"Ah..." Uhtred raised his hand and snapped his fingers as he tried to recall her name, though it wasn’t coming to him at all.
The girl let out a low, irritated sigh, even more displeased that Uhtred couldn’t remember her name.
"Amanda," she said, crossing her arms. "You know, the girl whose face you were sucking on right before the integration happened. The same girl you left behind for that fucking asteroid. The girl—"
"Yeah, yeah, I remember you," Uhtred quickly cut her off. A slight look of embarrassment crossed his face before it vanished, and he cleared his throat to regain his composure.
In truth, he knew he had been kind of an asshole to her back then. But he was not as remorseful as he might have otherwise been. They had both been after each other’s bodies that evening and nothing more. They had not even known each other for more than a few hours, and that was not something Uhtred did often.
He could understand why she was still salty about how things ended. Yet the more she spoke, the more her tone shifted into something he did not like, a lecturing, reprimanding one.
Uhtred simply smiled and addressed her with basic cordiality. He had cut her off before she could go further, so it was best to leave it there.
"How did you guys find me?" Uhtred asked, his voice shifting back to business as he looked between Amanda and the young man beside her.
The young man stared at him with undisguised heavy scrutiny. Within that look, Uhtred saw blatant dissatisfaction, as if the guy had formed a specific grand idea of what the number one human should look like and was thoroughly underwhelmed.
Uhtred did not mind the look. He simply turned his gaze back to Amanda.
"Oh wait, don’t tell me you guys also took the bounty on my head?"
The moment he said it, their expressions shifted. He knew he was spot on.
There was no other way they could have identified him from a distance, especially when even his much higher perception had not let him clearly see their faces at first. They had known with certainty that he was Uhtred and had approached carefully so he would not mistake them for enemies.
A quick scan with his inspect skill showed Amanda at Level 8 and the young man at Level 7. There was no way these two had survived this long in the harsh desert on their own without being part of a larger group. And looking at that lone silhouette on the horizon, Uhtred knew his guess was correct.
"Yeah," Amanda sighed, her shoulders relaxing slightly as she spoke more casually now that the initial tension had eased. "We’re part of Black Sun’s group. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you? Lord of the Black Isles, number 5 on the global rankings. Number 58 on the trial rankings."
She said the name with a hint of instinctual pride, but she quickly caught herself, remembering exactly who she was speaking to.
Uhtred carefully noted her body language when she spoke of this Black Sun fellow, and he felt relieved internally. It seemed there was something going on between them, or at least she had some attraction to him.
That immediately eased any lingering discomfort Uhtred felt about her presence. At least she would not try to rekindle anything or act too familiar.
Uhtred nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think I remember the name."
A scoff escaped the lips of the young man next to Amanda, and Uthred’s gaze locked on to him with a raise of a brow.
The young man looked as if he wanted to retort to Uhtred’s nonchalant response about not really recognizing who Black Sun was, but then he quickly realized he was talking to the number one ranked human on the planet.
A slight tremor of trepidation flickered in his eyes, and he quickly put up a false front of bravado as he waited for Uhtred’s response. But Uhtred simply smiled lazily and nodded toward the dark silhouette on the horizon.
"I take it that’s Black Sun?"
"Yes," Amanda said, nodding. "We all saw you on our map radar. We noticed your dot when you entered this area and stopped, so we figured you were probably cultivating. When you started moving again, Black Sun sent us forward to show goodwill. He knows I personally know you."
"Oh?" Uhtred raised a brow, genuinely amused. "And how did you know that the Uhtred with a bounty was the same Uhtred you knew?"
Amanda shrugged. "I mean, I wasn’t entirely sure, but somehow I just felt it was you..."
She paused and looked at him meaningfully, but Uhtred quickly averted his gaze, refusing to let his eyes linger on hers.
Inside, he shivered. What was that look? Wasn’t she just fawning over Black Sun a second ago? He had thought he would be free of this kind of familiarity from her.
He looked back toward the silhouette on the horizon and thought about the name "Black Sun" more carefully, trying to recall what he could.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about the guy from what he remembered. He owned two territories and one dungeon, and he had been sitting at Level 11 the last time Uhtred checked the global leaderboard before entering the trial grounds.
He didn’t know exactly what someone like this wanted with him right now. Perhaps simple curiosity about the number one ranked human on the planet and what he was truly capable of?
Either way, Uhtred badly needed information about the inner workings of this trial. Talking with a fellow top ranker was a good way to get some answers.
The guy currently ranked number 58 in the trials, so he should at least know some useful things about how the points were being scored.
"Well then, what are you waiting for?" Uhtred shrugged, looking between Amanda and the silent young man.
"Lead the way. Take me to meet this Black Sun..."