Chapter 20: RescueOperation
All of the people in Cheng Yang’s group rushed into the village. Cheng Yang was thankful that he had left a few people behind otherwise there would have been casualties if a monster or two had been blocking the gates.
The gate had barely closed when the first Hell Pig slammed against it. One by one the massive monsters crashed into the gate causing the entire wall to shudder from the impact. The hearts of Liu Hau and the others shook nearly as hard from fear that the wall would collapse.
Cheng Yang however was like a calm lake. He knew that it was impossible for the wall to be destroyed even if there were a hundred Hell Pigs since they couldn’t deal more than six and a half points of damage and overcome the defense of the wall.
After making it into the village the previously tense atmosphere had completely evaporated. As the monsters on the other side of the wall were systemically exterminated Cheng Yang lectured the group.
“What you see below us are Hell Pigs, a type of Low Grade Immature monster. As long as it has enough space to mount a charge they can even kill Standard Grade Apprentices. Due to their large size they are capable to running directly over Warriors as if their shield never existed. That’s why I told you all to run. Until you are at least High Grade don’t even think about battling a group of Hell Pigs head on and run away as fast as you can to somewhere you can defend.”
Everyone made sure to engrave that advice into their memories since this knowledge would be able to save their lives.
After all the Hell Pigs were killed Cheng Yang’s group once again left towards Huimin. At this point Cheng Yang nearly had 600 Experience Fragments including over a hundred from clearing the Blood Soaked Chapel.
He was now anxiously awaiting when his Experience Fragments would exceed a thousand and he would unlock eight times training speed. Of course he would need to use far more Experience Fragments every night to maintain it.
Although they ran into more monsters on their second trip than their first none of them were as difficult to kill as the Hell Pigs. Even a group of twenty five Graveseekers was killed without any pressure.
The moment Liu Hau and the others entered Huimin their faces became pale and some of them puked. Although Cheng Yang had told them how horrible the apocalypse would be in other places seeing it themselves was still traumatic.
Huimin town covered an area of about two to three square kilometers within which you couldn’t see a single living soul. Only monsters surrounded by bones and dried blood.
Some people with weaker mentalities collapsed to the ground. How could they, who had grown up in a sheltered environment be able to handle the shock of this scene. One particularly frightened man looked as if he were to begin screaming towards the sky in despair.
If it wasn’t for Cheng Yang preparing for such a reaction perhaps he wouldn’t have covered the man’s mouth in time and they would have been swarmed by monsters.
“Don’t scream unless you want us all to die.” Cheng Yang whispered.
The man quickly realized the situation and stopped but he was unable to stop the roiling sensation in his stomach. He quickly bent over and puked along with nearly every other member of the group.
Seeing this scene the thought of ridiculing them for their actions didn’t even cross his mind. When he had first seen the scene in Cloud City he had actually fared a bit worse.
Perhaps they would have nightmares for the next few nights.
After a while Old Lee was the first person to gain control over himself again. “Mr. Cheng it can’t be that all the cities in the world are like this now right?”
“I’m afraid it is.” Cheng Yang nodded sadly, “On the bright side only a fifth of the world population will die over the next week. As long as you’re a little luckier its not too hard to survive the very beginning. After that however you better hope you can get to a safe zone.”
Old Lee looked around the desolate scene, “I understand, in order to survive and save my family I need to become as strong as possible in the next week.”
After a little longer the rest of the group collected themselves.
“Alright,” Cheng Yang said, “our goal for this trip isn’t to kill monsters but rather to rescue some people to bolster our forces. To do this we’re going to go to the places with the fewest monsters and try not to make a sound. Once we’ve found twenty people we’ll return, otherwise we may not be able to protect them.”
The rest of the people immediatly nodded then split into groups to explore the ruins.
While moving, in order to avoid detection by wandering monsters, all of them stayed low to the ground, slowly advancing between crumbled walls. The groups separated, fanning out across the city letting out a soft voice every now and then to attract any hiding survivors.
Of course, even though they were avoiding monsters if they happened to attract one they would kill it without hesitation. Just one provided no threat and even too wasn’t very hard to kill.
This was due to there not being very many solo monsters. Most of the monsters in the city had formed a large horde in the center. All Cheng Yang’s group had to do was avoiding provoking that and they would be able to move around safely.
A few minutes later Liu Hau stopped, “Yoko, look over here!” He whispered excitedly.
Liu Hau pointed to his left at the remains of a high rise building thirty meters away. There were a lot of caves created by the rubble and a person’s head could be seen looking at the party from afar.
Liu Hau was certain that it was a human and not a monster, this wouldn’t always be the case as later monsters would spawn that looked exactly like humans.
Cheng Yang waved at the man giving him an indication that they had seen him. The man grew incomparably excited and waved back worried that they might move on before saving him.
Cheng Yang surveyed the area and found a monster near the man’s hiding spot about twenty meters away. A Lesser Mephit was gnawing on some bones inside a crumbled store. If the man left his hiding spot he would certainly attract the attention of the Lesser Mephit so Cheng Yang would have to kill it before saving him.
His group inched forwards until they were ten meters away, the attack range of Magic Missile, then Cheng Yang unleashed an attack.
The other six people with Cheng Yang unleashed their attacks as well and the Lesser Mephit dropped to the ground, never to rise again.
“Come out!” Cheng Yang hissed towards the hiding man.
The man hesitated, he had just seen them kill a ferocious monster in seconds. Their abilities scared him, especially those of the Mages. “A-are you human?” He croaked.
Cheng Yang immediately frowned, “You’re the one who isn’t human! Your whole family aren’t humans!”
The man wasn’t angry from Cheng Yang’s outburst but instead stumbled out of the cave with excitement. “Thank you, thank you…” He mumbled over and over as he reached Cheng Yang’s group.
“Don’t talk to loudly.” Cheng Yang chastised, “If you attract a large number of monsters we can only leave you to die.”
The man immediately sobered up when he remembered he wasn’t safe yet. “You all, whats with the bow and that beam of light?” He whispered in a low voice.
“Just view it as some special abilities we received.” Cheng Yang said, not wanting to explain more here, “Do you know where any other people are hiding?”
“I know where to find them.” The man nodded, “There’s a lot of people hiding around here. They don’t dare to come out with the monsters around. I was delivering food to them until that monster you killed trapped me in the hotel ruins.”
“If you follow me I can lead you too them.” The man said, “It looks like you can handle a few monsters so I’ll go directly.”
Cheng Yang didn’t refuse and while they moved forwards the man told his story. His name was Zhao Chuan, before the apocalypse he had been a high school math teacher.
Under the guidance of Zhao Chuan they found about a dozen people hidden inside the various ruins around them. Although many of them had heard Cheng Yang earlier they didn’t dare to believe that the person outside could save them. It wasn’t until Zhao Chuan who had fed them earlier vouched for their safety did they dare to come out.
After these people witnessed the power of Cheng Yang’s group to kill monsters did their minds feel at ease. When they realized they could truly be saved they followed after Cheng Yang with gratitude.
As more people joined their team the group moved slower lest they attract the attention of the monsters carelessly. Occasionally they would meet other people sneaking through the ruins looking for food. Cheng Yang would invite brave people like them to join his group immediately.
Many of them didn’t want to join up with a large group, believing they were safer in a small group but once the other survivors described the power Cheng Yang had they instantly agreed.