Suddenly, a gust of wind howled from the sky behind him. Olivia Smith instinctively ducked under the eaves at the side of the street. In this small city named Yue Family City, most of the buildings resembled the blue-brick, tiled houses of ancient China from his own world. However, the eaves on both sides were built especially wide, enough to shelter dozens of people beneath them. With Olivia Smith's small frame, hiding underneath was more than sufficient. But just as he finished hiding, he saw William Parker had already drawn his massive axe and was standing in front of him.

This made Olivia Smith feel a bit more at ease. Then his gaze passed over William Parker's broad back and landed on the street outside. With a rush of wild wind, a shadow more than ten zhang wide swept rapidly across the street, then soared upward not far away, spreading its wings toward the sky.

Olivia Smith's eyebrows shot up. His eyesight was limited, but he could vaguely make out that it was a not-yet-fully-grown Darkfeather Thunderhawk. This kind of demon beast liked to hunt at night, and all of them had eyes that could spot moving creatures on the ground from three thousand meters up in the night sky. Their jet-black feathers allowed them to circle a thousand meters high at night without being detected. Their massive talons, thick enough for two people to encircle, could easily snatch up humans or livestock. Legend had it that once these creatures reached a certain age, they could even wield the power of thunder, making them one of the most troublesome demon beasts for humans.

But this hungry little fellow probably didn’t realize just how dangerous it was to hunt in this area. Olivia Smith moved to the edge of the eaves, carefully poking his head out to watch the Darkfeather Thunderhawk rapidly ascend into the sky. Then, all of a sudden, he heard several sharp whistles as arrows from multiple directions pierced the night sky, striking the thunderhawk with uncanny precision. Immediately after, Olivia Smith heard a mournful cry as the Darkfeather Thunderhawk tumbled crookedly toward the outskirts of the city, clearly doomed.

“Heh heh! Young master, maybe we’ll get to eat hawk meat tonight.”

Seeing the danger had passed, William Parker slung his giant axe behind him, licked his lips, and gazed hungrily in the direction where the Darkfeather Thunderhawk had disappeared. Only when he saw Olivia Smith brushing dust off himself did he seem to remember something, and clumsily reached out his fan-sized hand to pat the dust off Olivia Smith as well. But after just a couple of pats, Olivia Smith couldn’t help but grimace in pain. This big guy had no sense of his own strength. The movements looked gentle, but the force nearly rattled his bones apart.

This made Olivia Smith feel a wave of sorrow. In his previous life, he had at least been one of the top strongmen in the army, someone who could shatter the most advanced dynamometers with a single punch. Yet after coming to this world, his body had suddenly become so weak?

At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a light come on in the window of the tiled house behind him. Olivia Smith quickly grabbed William Parker's hand and hurriedly ran off into the distance.

The intelligence of the Darkfeather Thunderhawk was not proportional to its strength; as long as you stayed out of its line of sight, it basically couldn’t do anything to humans. However, when the thunderhawk failed to strike just now, it had angrily slapped its wings, causing a large section of the eaves in that direction to collapse.

—Although the city had compensation for such losses, it was easy to imagine that anyone whose sweet dreams were disturbed and whose house was half-collapsed for no reason would be in a foul mood. So, although Olivia Smith felt apologetic, he had no desire to listen to the homeowner’s complaints.

After brushing off the dust from the fallen tiles, the two continued on their way. But this time, they were much more cautious. Thunderhawks were social creatures with a strong sense of vengeance; if they discovered a member of their group had died here, they would surely come in flocks. That was why William Parker had said they might get to eat hawk meat tonight. If too many were killed, the city would distribute the surplus hawk meat that couldn’t be preserved to households for free.

Perhaps still thinking about the evening feast, William Parker, walking ahead, was as excited as ever. But at this moment, Olivia Smith's heart was filled with gloom.

Chapter 0002: A Dangerous World

Since awakening after his rebirth, the two months of life that followed had given Olivia Smith a general impression of his new surroundings.

—Without a doubt, this world, or at least this region, was a bizarre and extremely dangerous place!

At any time, you could look up and see all kinds of demon-powered raptors soaring across the sky. There were also countless strange and man-eating beasts rampaging everywhere, making it nearly impossible for ordinary humans to survive alone in this world.

In fact, aside from this Darkfeather Thunderhawk, just seventeen days ago, Olivia Smith had personally witnessed a tusked demon elephant that had broken into his family’s estate to forage, being besieged and killed by thirty clansmen and nearly a hundred family servants working together. And as he later learned, this giant beast—whose stomp sent shockwaves rolling and stone spears bursting from the ground—was only ranked as a second-tier upper-middle demon beast on the Divine Land Demon Beast List.