Chapter 14: NightFight
Originally the Hell-Spinner Spider was going to use a skill to pull Cheng Yang into the trees but when it was attacked the skill was cancelled. With just its strength alone it was unable to pull Cheng Yang closer to it.
“Pfft…” Cheng Yang attacked the spider once more.
At the same time the other ranged Professionals peppered the spider with attacks. This powerful group attack killed it instantly.
“Although that spider is only a Low Grade Immature monster its incredibly dangerous in the woods.” Cheng Yang said cautiously, “It is one of the few monsters below High Grade with a ranged attack and is strong enough to lift an adult into the trees to be devoured.”
Even if Cheng Yang hadn’t warned them who would dare to be careless around a massive spider. No one would want to enter its stomach.
Several people had used mana in their attacks so the Warriors guarded the ranged Professionals while they meditated to recover. It was better to stop and recover to top condition then find yourself powerless in the wilderness.
After walking another forty meters Cheng Yang’s ears twitched. “Be careful, monsters are charging towards us! Prepare to fire!”
Just as Cheng Yang’s voice died down twelve of the green feathered humanoids he had fought earlier, known as Graveseekers in his previous life, charged towards them. The sound of their fight from earlier must have attracted them.
Cheng Yang reacted the fastest nailing one of the Graveseekers with a magic missile. The people behind him were experienced enough to coordinate their attacks to hit after Cheng Yang’s, instantly killing opponents. Of course, most of them had to hit for this to happen.
Since the Graveseekers had come out of the woods next to the road they were only ten meters away causing the monkey leading the charge to become a pincushion and die on the spot.
The ranged Professionals continued to attack as Old Lee and the other Warriors raised their shields to block the charge of the Graveseekers. As for the Summoners, their wolves were used as consumables to slow down the Graveseekers.
Although Summoners had strong bodies they were unable to wield weapons with a damage value nor did they have a skill that could deal damage. Their stats were only useful when applied to their summons.
Even so they were still powerful soldiers as their summons wouldn’t fear death and fight to the last breath.
Three wolves bravely stood between the ten remaining Graveseekers and Cheng Yang’s group. The Graveseekers instantly collided with the wolves turning them into streams of light with their pitchforks.
How could Cheng Yang and the others give up the opportunity created by the wolves? In the time it took the Graveseekers to kill the wolves their numbers were down to six.
Once they had dealt with the wolves the remaining Graveseekers charged towards the group.
“Quickly!” Cheng Yang commanded, “Summon again!”
The Summoners had begun the casting after sending out the first wolves and another wave of summoned creatures appeared. They were too late however as the Graveseekers had already made contact with the Warriors. Aside from Old Lee the other two warriors were knocked to the ground.
The wolves jumped into the fray allowing the fallen warriors to get up and stabilize their footing, preventing the Graveseekers from killing either.
Ten seconds later the Graveseekers were all dead and Cheng Yang’s group each received twelve Experience Fragments.
No one had a Job yet so the monster corpses weren’t harvest able and generally don’t drop equipment so there wasn’t a need to Cheng Yang’s group to clear the battlefield.
Cheng Yang reviewed the battle in his mind and estimated that no one was in fighting condition. Aside from the warriors everyone was out of mana but the Warriors only had around ten HP left so their position was even more precarious. Without the wolves there would definitely have been casualties.
“You all saw the battle,” Cheng Yang announced, “If the number of monsters had been two or three more I fear we may not all have survived. We may have won in the end but death was with us the entire time, this is not the kind of victory we want.”
The group naturally understood. If they had run out of mana everyone but the Warriors would be useless. Without the support of the other classes the Warriors would be quickly killed.
“Now then, rest and recover.” Cheng Yang said sitting down to meditate.
A minute later everyone but the Warriors had stopped meditating. They had only expended Mana which was easy to recover. HP recovered much slower and it would take the Warriors a full ten minutes to recover thirty points.
This was not a safe place and the group might have to face respawned monsters at any moment so Cheng Yang didn’t dare to wander about. He could only patiently wait for the Warriors to recover.
During the time it took to for the Warriors to recover Cheng Yang and the other ranged Professionals killed over a dozen monsters. After determining that there weren’t any groups Cheng Yang hunted down every monster in a hundred meter radius.
When Old Lee and the other Warriors finally recovered they still had lingering fears from the battle. Unlike the ranged Professionals that simply reveled in killing they had been at the front lines with death around every corner. The feeling was completely different.
“Cheng Yang, will we be able to make it to the city?” Old Lee asked.
Cheng Yang looked down the road. It was already night but the full moon overhead provided enough light to operate.
Cheng Yang didn’t give Old Lee a direct answer. “The farther away we move from the village and the longer we take to get to Cloud City the higher the probability that we’ll encounter a large monster horde. As of now we will most likely have to face a horde of at least twenty monsters. If we stay in each area and clear every monster on the way back we will only have to face groups of three of four monster which shouldn’t be a threat.”
When the people heard Cheng Yang’s words they couldn’t help but tremble imagining the danger of such a large monster horde. Seeing this Cheng Yang followed up saying: “I’m confident that we have the strength to reach Cloud city if we leave now but not even mentioning the difficulty of finding someone in the ruins, we will be completely unable to defend normal people on the way back.”
“Fuck!” Old Lee grit his teeth so hard it seemed like they would break, “I’ll stay at the village but as soon as I have the strength I’m going to kill my way to Cloud City! I hope my wife and children can wait for me… Damn apocalypse!”
After Old Lee’s outburst several others took the same vow to return when they gained enough strength. They were able to easily understand what Cheng Yang was saying. How would they even find their families? How can they defend them with their meager strength?
Then, under the leadership of Cheng Yang, they took a shortcut back the village through the woods.
From time to time a monster would peak its head out from behind a tree only to be killed by Cheng Yang and the others. Most monsters didn’t have night vision and with the full moon Cheng Yang’s group wasn’t at that much of a disadvantage at night.
Additionally, since the new world followed strict rules unless a monster was capable of killing them in one shot there was no chance of a monster assassinating one of them. If there was an ambush at most they would lose some HP.
Two and a half hours later they finally returned to the village. In that time they had killed almost four hundred monsters. This was because they needed to spend a lot of time waiting for the Warriors to recover their HP after horde attacks. If not for that they would have returned a lot sooner.
Not a single Standard Order monster appeared in that time causing Cheng Yang to feel thankful. If one had appeared there would have been a few casualties. This was normal, on the first day of the apocalypse it was impossible to find a Standard Order monster. The only reason Cheng Yang had to fight two was the Territory Altar trial.
After three hours of fighting the group was mentally exhausted. Although Cheng Yang was used to this and was able to continue fighting he led the rest of the group back to the safety of the village.
When Cheng Yang arrived at the village he found that aside from the four patrolling the walls everyone else was still meditating. It gave him a sense of hope, it seemed that the people he rescued were more receptive to his words than he thought. After all, they continued to practice into the night instead of sleeping.
This diligence had been drilled into their minds as they realized that without Cheng Yang they would have already perished and been eaten by monsters.
Not even counting the casualties of the earthquake, the monsters alone killed a fifth of the population of Cloud City. If it weren’t for the fact that monsters wouldn’t hunt down human’s when they were full the number killed would be even higher.
When they heard the gates open, the people who were meditating rushed over and surrounded the expedition group. They were eager to hear what happened outside the village.
“Yoko how are you?” Yu Kai immediately asked.
“There were too many monsters outside the village so we had to retreat before reaching the city. We didn’t dare to explore too far and only killed a few monsters in the vicinity. We’ll need to wait a few days until we have more strength to reach Cloud City. Speaking of, how is your training going?” Cheng Yang said.
“I absorbed ten Experience Fragments and now my experience bar is at 2.4%. I should reach Standard Order Apprentice in twenty days.”
Others reported gains identical to Yu Kai. Although not everyone obtained a large amount of Experience Fragments like Cheng Yang everyone had at least ten and absorbed them to use two times training speed for an hour.