Chapter 206: The Destroyed Camp And The Gray-clad Demon
Death Valley.
On the B2-grade alloy watch post, two six-person teams took turns. They not only had to guard against outsiders entering Death Valley, but also drive away wandering monsters. They could not relax for even a moment, leaving the garrison teams full of complaints.
“Eva, how much longer do you think we have to stay on this posting?” a middle-aged sub-demon race man in B6-grade battle armor asked while gnawing on synthetic food, glancing at the incoming sub-demon race female captain who had come to take over the shift. “This place is even worse than the frontline. Forget about a proper resting area, there’s not even a chance to make side income. All day long we can only watch those miners mining.”
“Laf, you should know it depends on how fast those miners work. The sooner they finish, the sooner we can leave,” the sub-demon race female captain sat down beside him and also took out a box of synthetic food. “But this task is relatively easy. Even though there’s no real chance to earn resources, the vice leader said that once we complete the task, each of us will get over a hundred kilograms of mithril ore. When we get back, we can trade it to those factions that lack B3-grade primordial ore for quite a lot of good stuff.”
“Those factions are stingy. Being able to trade for some flesh and blood from high-level monsters would already be good,” Laf, also a captain, said indifferently, then added, “I heard the two people Vice Leader Lucis killed earlier were martial artists from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. That hall has a Bone Forging Realm martial artist. Do you think that Bone Forging Realm martial artist might come straight for us? Although Vice Leader Lucis said he would handle it personally, if that Bone Forging Realm martial artist makes a move, this is the wilderness. As long as our two cities don’t go to war, our deaths would be for nothing.”
“Probably not. Before this, that Obsidian Martial Arts Hall claimed they would build a town on Crimson Moon Mountain. The city senior officials were very displeased with it. They felt that this newly advanced Bone Forging Realm martial artist from the City of Light Chasing completely looked down on Wanxing City, so they specifically sent Lord Igor and the others to solve the problem,” Captain Eva said after thinking a moment. “Lord Igor and the others are probably already on the way. Once things turn sour between both sides, that newly advanced Bone Forging Realm martial artist from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall will likely have no energy left to investigate the deaths of those two martial artists.”
Laf felt slightly relieved after hearing this.
Igor, like Lucis, was a top ten graduate of the genius training camp, but Igor was one cohort above Lucis. His strength was no longer at the Bone Forging Realm Beginner Level, but at the Bone Forging Realm Intermediate Level. If he really led a team to destroy Crimson Moon Mountain, a newly advanced Bone Forging Realm martial artist would not be able to resist him at all, let alone worry about two martial artists who died in the wilderness.
Just as Laf was about to say something more, a sudden commotion came from the distant forest, startling everyone on the watch post.
“Captain Laf! Someone seems to be running this way!”
“Their clothing looks like someone from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall!”
The team member observing through a telescope watched the figure darting quickly through the forest and soon saw clearly: a silver-gray long-sleeved coat, identical to what the two martial artists Lucis had killed earlier had been wearing.
“These people from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall are quick,” Laf said, picking up the telescope and confirming the person did indeed belong to the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
“Captain, how should we handle them?” a team member asked as the figure drew closer.
“Give her a warning first. She is not allowed to approach us,” Laf said directly. “If she ignores the warning, then we kill her.”
Following Laf’s order, the other watch post members immediately moved. One intermediate martial artist team member directly shot an arrow at the approaching Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang.
Even though Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang was a kilometer away, the B4-grade compound heavy bow sent the arrow accurately into the ground right in front of her, blowing out a small pit.
“Person in front, listen up. This area has been taken over by Wanxing City. No one is allowed to approach. Whoever dares approach will die!”
The loud human race language broadcast through the loudspeaker carried clearly for over a kilometer. But Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang had no intention of stopping; instead, she used Cloud Mist Step, and her speed suddenly surged.
“Is this person from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall crazy?” Laf watched as Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang sped up instead of slowing down, full of doubt. “Could it be that this person from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall has discovered something?”
“Whether she has or not, anyone who steps into this area only has one outcome: death,” Captain Eva said coldly as she watched Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang close to within one kilometer of Death Valley. “Fire!”
Just as the two teams’ members picked up their B4-grade compound heavy bows, deafening roars erupted from the forest behind Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang, drawing everyone on the watch post to look over.
They saw monsters pouring out of the forest behind Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang, one after another.
Ten… twenty… a hundred…
In less than two seconds, over four hundred monsters had surged out.
As the monsters drew closer, the people on the watch post could feel the ground trembling under their charge.
“Damn it! Where did so many monsters come from?” Laf was stunned by the scalp-numbing sight of the monster horde.
The frontline’s monster-clearing had indeed driven many fleeing monsters toward the city’s surroundings, but those monsters usually moved in groups of three to five dozen at most. That was why Wanxing City had only sent their two hundred-strong garrison members to guard Death Valley.
If this had been a frontline stronghold camp, they would have dispatched at least a thousand people; otherwise, there would be no way to deal with a monster horde of several hundred.
“With this many monsters, that person from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall…” Eva looked at the more than four hundred charging monsters, then at Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang racing madly toward them, and could not help saying, “Could she have lured them here on purpose to get back at us?”
Now that Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang was running toward Death Valley, there was only one road on the mountain. For someone being chased by a horde of monsters, this was a dead end.
They had already issued a warning. If Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang dared approach, they would shoot to kill. Any normal person would have run somewhere else; otherwise they would only end up caught between the monsters and the watch post with no chance to live.
The fact that Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang still chose this path made her intention obvious: she planned to use the monsters she had attracted to deal with them. There was no other explanation.
“Lunatic! She’s a lunatic! She’s willing to throw away her life just to avenge those two!” Laf watched Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang closing in and felt the people from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall were utterly deranged.
“We can’t let her get any closer. Kill her!” Eva ordered directly. “Notify Lord Lucis there is a large number of monsters approaching us. We need support!”
Immediately, ten members from the two teams began volley-firing at Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang, who was seven to eight hundred meters away.
B4-grade arrows shrieked through the air. Each arrow carried more than five tons of force. Although Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang had become a martial artist, her physical fitness had only just approached that of a limit beginner martial artist, and her reactions were extremely fast under the Stellar Explosion Meditation Technique.
But faced with ten arrows at a time, each with over five tons of strength, Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang, even using her self-created area-attack blade technique Boundless New Moon, only managed to block three rounds of rapid volleys. The force carried by the arrows still collided against her, making her cough blood and knocking her off balance.
In the fourth volley, even though she desperately tried to evade and used Boundless New Moon to deflect three arrows, four B4-grade arrows still struck her, killing her less than five hundred meters from the watch post.
Although Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang died, the monster horde did not stop. They surged toward the watch post, and the two teams on it began frenzied shooting, clearing the charging monsters.
Mid-level monsters were strong, but against B4-grade arrows, intermediate martial artists could penetrate their skin and muscles and reach their bones and organs. A single volley could kill one or two mid-level monsters. Their combat power was clearly much higher than the transport defense teams from the City of Light Chasing.
“Good thing we can pull monsters here. If we had to clear this dungeon ourselves, even with a twenty-person intermediate martial artist team, we probably couldn’t take it down,” Fang Zhen said from a distance, tongue-tied at the sight of the Wanxing City Defense Group members swiftly clearing the horde.
With all the garrison members using B4-grade compound heavy bows and B4-grade arrows, their displayed combat strength was not far off from using Desert Eagles to clear mid-level monsters.
However, the number of monsters Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang had drawn was considerable. With only two Wanxing City teams, it was nowhere near enough. In less than thirty seconds, the two teams were surrounded by monsters, the B2-grade alloy watch post smashed apart, and their numbers began to plummet.
Only when the two teams were reduced to the two captains in B6-grade battle armor desperately resisting did other Wanxing City teams and Lucis arrive to clear the monsters.
“These four hundred monsters are far from enough. We need to draw more,” Fang Zhen thought, watching Lucis casually slaughter mid-level monsters, backed by nearly two hundred garrison members. Four hundred-plus mid-level monsters, plus two or three high-level monsters, were only a matter of time to clear. But Fang Zhen’s eyes held excitement.
Even though these monsters could not wipe out Wanxing City’s garrison, the experiment proved that using monsters to clear this advanced dungeon was feasible. Next, they just had to draw more monsters.
Fang Zhen logged off first and sent a message to Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang, telling her that the monster-based dungeon-clearing plan worked. He told her that after resurrection, on the way back to Death Valley she should draw more monsters. Then he logged back on and, following her example, went farther out to lure other monsters.
Over twenty minutes later.
“Damn it! Another wave!”
“Why is someone running over again?”
The Wanxing City Defense Group, who had been resisting the horde inside Death Valley, had just cleared most of the monsters and had no time to celebrate when they saw another wave of monsters charging out of the distant forest. This wave was even larger than the first, and among the trees they also saw a human figure.
“That clothing! Another one from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall?”
“Damn it! Are all those from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall lunatics?”
Laf and Eva, who had been fighting monsters the whole time, nearly broke down when they saw the figure rushing toward them in the distance.
Having one lunatic who pulled monsters was bad enough. Now there was another one.
“These damned ants actually dare use such tricks!” Lucis, as a Bone Forging Realm martial artist, had senses far sharper than Organ Refining Realm martial artists. He identified Fang Zhen almost instantly, then picked up a stone and hurled it at him from less than six hundred meters away.
Bang!
Fang Zhen sensed the stone coming and tried to evade, but it was too fast. In the blink of an eye it was almost upon him, and he could only pour all his internal force into his B2-grade spear to block it.
Reverse Star Hand!
With fourfold strength added, the spear met the stone.
Boom!
The B2-grade spear bent, the stone turned to dust, and Fang Zhen was blasted back more than thirty meters like he had been hit by a shell. His arms were twisted out of shape, and the violent impact force made him feel as if all his bones had shattered.
“The Bone Forging Realm boss really is powerful. A casually thrown stone almost killed me,” Fang Zhen thought, watching Lucis, who no longer paid him any attention and was already killing other monsters. A grin crept to Fang Zhen’s lips. “But taking that hit was worth it. It’s a pity I didn’t start a live stream. Otherwise this battle would definitely have catapulted my popularity to number one.”
Two people clearing an advanced wilderness dungeon—if the outside world learned of it, they would be insanely jealous.
Fang Zhen did not waste more time. He finished off his heavily injured self to respawn faster and start the next monster pull as soon as possible.
This time he was lucky. At a lotus pond, he encountered a group of high-level monsters. Without a word, he threw a stone at them and then used Reverse Star Step to sprint away. Fortunately, those high-level monsters were slower. By relying on Reverse Star Step, he barely made it back here ahead of them.
With that group of high-level monsters plus a large number of mid-level monsters, the Wanxing City Defense Group would not be able to end the battle quickly. During the time it took for him and Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang to resurrect and rush back, there would be ample opportunity to draw even more monsters into the fight.
Everything unfolded as Fang Zhen had expected. Nearly twenty high-level monsters besieged Lucis. Even though Lucis was a Bone Forging Realm martial artist, he was only at the Beginner Level. Dealing with a few at a time would not be a problem, but handling more than ten high-level monsters at once was extremely difficult and prevented him from helping the others. The battle between both sides became completely bogged down.
By the time Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang resurrected and pulled yet another wave of monsters, the battle in Death Valley still had not ended. The many miners on the mountain were used by the garrison as bait to draw the monsters’ attention and relieve pressure. When those miners died, another group was sent out.
By now, over a hundred members of the garrison were still alive, but seventy to eighty percent of the miners forced to dig had died. In comparison, the converging mass of monsters had been more than half wiped out. Lucis had killed ten high-level monsters, and the remaining ones were all badly injured. Lucis himself looked disheveled and clearly heavily drained, but finishing off all the monsters was no problem.
The people of Wanxing City could see victory ahead.
In the midst of battle, Lucis and the others saw yet another person in silver-gray clothing rushing to the foot of the mountain. Their faces all turned deathly dark, while the regular team members and miners fell into despair.
“Why are those lunatics from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall here again?”
“They don’t want their lives but insist on taking ours! Are they demons?”
When they saw the huge commotion not far behind Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang, they realized that this was another mutual-destruction run by someone from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
Even Lucis regretted it now. Why had he bothered killing those two martial artists from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall? He could have just driven them away. Then they would not have provoked these lunatics.
But it was too late for regret. Lucis knew it was useless. He hurled another stone to kill Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang and ordered everyone to retreat.
As a Bone Forging Realm martial artist, he could still hold out, but his subordinates could not. If another two or three hundred monsters came, no one but him and the captains would survive.
Just as Lucis ordered the retreat, the distant forest collapsed in swaths, and a gigantic tiger nearly twenty meters tall with two heads landed at the foot of Death Valley. The moment this two-headed giant tiger appeared, everyone, including Lucis, was stunned.
An intermediate lord-level monster, the Two-headed Blood Flame Tiger.
“How can there be an intermediate lord here?”
“Was it drawn here by the scent of all this blood from the monsters?”
“It’s over! We’re all finished!”
Everyone present looked at the Two-headed Blood Flame Tiger, its four eyes burning with firelight, and knew they were doomed.
At the intermediate lord grade, even a Bone Forging Realm Intermediate Level martial artist could not resist it. Only Advanced Bone Forging Realm martial artists could fight such a monster. With the Two-headed Blood Flame Tiger here, there was no path to survival.
“Run!”
At the very first sight of the Two-headed Blood Flame Tiger, Lucis turned without hesitation, stomped off the ground, and shot away like a shell in the opposite direction.
Roar!
The Two-headed Blood Flame Tiger opened its mouths and spat out a massive fireball. It was so fast that it crossed a kilometer in just one second and reached Lucis.
Faced with the mountain-sized fireball, Lucis did not dare hold back. He thrust with his Azure Bone Spear with all his strength.
Advanced martial artist-level martial skill: Piercing Rainbow.
The azure spear aura collided with the fireball. The fireball was pierced through by the Azure Bone Spear, spraying sparks everywhere. Lucis had no time to be glad before another fireball appeared in front of him and blasted him into the ground, blowing out a pit over ten meters deep. His bone armor was shattered in many places and charred black. Lucis himself vomited blood in great gulps, clearly gravely injured.
As Lucis tried to stand, the Two-headed Blood Flame Tiger landed before him and brought a claw down.
Boom!
The pit, already over ten meters deep, expanded even further under the tiger’s claw. Lucis’s bone armor shattered completely, and he himself was crushed into a pile of pulp.
When Fang Zhen arrived at Death Valley with yet another wave of monsters, he was completely stunned.
It was not just that all the members of Wanxing City’s garrison were dead. The terrain of Death Valley had changed. There were craters and scorch marks everywhere, countless mangled monster corpses. The entire valley had become a sea of blood. There was not a single living being left.
Looking at the many corpses of the sub-demon race and the heaps of broken monster bodies, Fang Zhen could not calm down for a long time.
But after a brief shock and awe, what he felt was wild joy.
All these corpses were drops from an advanced wilderness dungeon. Especially the B4-grade and higher battle armor worn by the Wanxing City NPCs—at this stage, that gear was one version ahead in weapons and equipment. Now, it all belonged to him and Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang.
After shaking off the monsters he had drawn over, Fang Zhen immediately logged off and notified Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang to stop pulling monsters and to hurry over from Crimson Moon Mountain with a large transport vehicle to carry away the dungeon loot.
It was not until the next morning that Fang Zhen and Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang drove the large transport vehicle back to the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. But as they returned, Wanxing City also received shocking news.
The garrison team led by Lucis, including Lucis himself, had all died in Death Valley, suspected to have been involved in a large-scale conflict with the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
