Chapter 42: 42
Cheng Yang's attack had the same effect as poking a hornet's nest. Every monster in the vicinity turned to look at him before letting out a battle cry. In an instant, countless monsters stampeded towards Cheng Yang.
Cheng Yang hadn't hidden himself so, unsurprisingly, the monsters found him easily. Seeing the wave of monster led by the Blood Gehenna, Cheng Yang grimaced and ran south. Even under the pressure of a thousand monsters, Cheng Yang didn't miss even one of his shots.
After running a hundred meters, Cheng Yang had managed to kill ten Blood Gehenna. The leader of the Blood Gehenna wasn't like the wolf leader from yesterday, it couldn't stand to see it's underlings massacred. It used its superior speed to break away from the main horde and rush towards Cheng Yang.
Ten other monster leaders rushed out of the horde and joined the Blood Gehenna leader. At a glance, Cheng Yang couldn't tell which monster was the commander for the whole horde since they were all High-Grade monsters, but there was no doubt that these were the best they had.
Cheng Yang smiled, as he had hoped, the leaders of the horde had rushed out to stop him. Although he was at a disadvantage against so many high level monsters, as long as he could kill them the rest of the horde would be easy to take care of. The key to defeating these leaders was that they were separated from their minions and their speed was inferior to his. They were at least twice as fast as the rest of the horde, but that was their limit.
Whether it was before the apocalypse or now, human endurance had its limits. Back in the old world, some athletes were capable of running three or four hundred meters at nearly top speed. Although becoming a Professional gave a person superhuman endurance, there was still a limit. The number of minutes a person could run at top speed was the average of their Physical Attack and Mental Defense.
Monsters often had different algorithm for calculating their endurance that was unique to their race. Although there were some monsters that completely outclassed the rest, most of them were still better than humans. So, although Cheng Yang's speed is about double that of the other monsters, they would catch up to him eventually if he only ran.
After a short period of time, Cheng Yang decided to try and find the commander. If an Elite High-Grade monster caught up to him with a group of other High-Grade monsters when he ran out of endurance, he wasn't sure he'd survive.
Distinguishing an Elite from a group of different monsters at the same level wasn't easy but there was a special trick to it. All of the other monsters would be chasing him with all their might while the Elite would still seem rather leisurely.
Surprisingly, it seemed the Elite monster was the Blood Gehenna from earlier. After making up his mind, Cheng Yang shot a Magic Missile at the commander before accelerating to put some distance between them.
The Blood Gehenna was a smart monster, so after being hit twice, the commander realized it had been discovered. The monster had a great battle sense and immediately deployed a strategy that gave Cheng Yang a headache. Having grasped the rhythm of Cheng Yang's attacks, the Blood Gehenna slowed down and blocked every subsequent attack by pulling another monster leader in front of itself.
Cheng Yang fired off a string of expletives at the commander in anger. If he had been able to learn new Mage skills from a High-Grade statue, these kinds of cheap tactics wouldn't work against him. The chase lasted for nearly a minute, enough time for Cheng Yang to kill five of the leaders. This left the commander with only five meat shields.
The situation was quickly spiraling out of control so he decided to run away. He would have to try to split the leaders into smaller groups or lead them to his soldiers.
Although High-Grade monsters were a threat to Cheng Yang, that was only if they could catch him. All he needed was four Magic Missiles to end their lives, and he didn't need to worry about Mana thanks to his potions. Although he would be able to kill nearly all of them before he ran out of endurance he still chose to run. Seeing how cunning the Blood Gehenna was, Cheng Yang couldn't erase the worry in his heart that the commander was beyond dangerous.
Seeing that Cheng Yang planned to escape, the Blood Gehenna sneered. With a shout it expelled a dense could of blood mist from its pores. This mist then traveled through the air in tendrils invading the bodies of the other leaders. Cheng Yang was able to see a fine red glow cover each of the remaining leaders after a moment.
"Oh fuck…" Cheng Yang's face paled and he suddenly recalled the result of the military's battle to clear the southern bridge.
Cheng Yang hadn't participated in the battle since he wasn't a Professional, but everyone in the safe zone knew what had happened. At the beginning, the human side had an obvious advantage. Although there were several high level monsters, the horde was outnumbered ten to one and the army still had some high munitions weaponry left so humanity was able to somewhat restrain them.
Right as the battle was about to end, the remaining High-Grade monsters all went into a frenzy. Their Physical Defense increased to the point were no one could deal more than a single point of damage. This caused Cloud City to lose hundreds of soldiers. This was one of the reasons the army had such a hard time occupying Phoenix Village.
Why did the leaders suddenly go berserk near the end? It had always been a mystery to those that participated in the war, but many speculated that one of the leaders must have used a powerful skill. Cheng Yang was now able to verify that conjecture, the Blood Gehenna's skill matched the descriptions he had heard!
As this thought flashed through Cheng Yang's mind, the monster behind him accelerated explosively.
Cheng Yang yelped. What was that speed?! Aside from the commander, the other leaders all more than doubled their speed. He wouldn't be able to outrun them anymore! He could only curse god for sending fast monsters at him one after the other.
Cheng Yang didn't have time to lament his bad luck, if he were to get caught by those crazed beasts, he'd die for sure. Cheng Yang turned towards Yu Kai's group praying that his endurance would hold out until he reached them.
As he ran, Cheng Yang finally began to miss. If he slowed down for even a millisecond there was no guarantee he wouldn't die because of that. As such, he was only able to hit one in every five shots that he threw behind him.
As the gap closed between them, Cheng Yang was able to gain a small amount of comfort from learning that only their speed had been boosted. Four Magic Missiles still killed them.
Cheng Yang could feel that his endurance was almost gone. If he continued to run like this, he would soon be penalized by god's rules. Once you used all of your endurance, your speed and endurance stats are halved. It isn't hard to imagine Cheng Yang's situation if that were to happen.
Cheng Yang wanted to directly kill the Blood Gehenna to end the buff effect but the commander's cunning exceeded Cheng Yang's imagination. No matter what Cheng Yang did, he was unable to get a clear shot. Especially while he was running like this.
Cheng Yang was panicking and could only use a temporary measure to last a little longer. He glanced around, hoping to find a tree he could climb. When he spotted one, he dashed towards it fiercely before jumping three meters into the air and catching a branch.
In less than two seconds, Cheng Yang had climbed to the highest point he could, ten meters above the ground. By that time, the monsters had caught up to him. Luckily the only fast climbers had been killed earlier so, although the remaining four were able to forcefully climb up a few meters, Cheng Yang could knock them off with Magic Missiles.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Cheng Yang acted like he was aiming down the trunk but actually fired towards the Blood Gehenna!
*Pfft* Since the attack had come from above and the commander had been slower than its subordinates, it was unable to block the attack. It let out a bloodcurdling scream as its flesh exploded.
After two of the monsters were knocked off of the tree the others realized that they weren't going to be able to climb up to Cheng Yang. Once they realized that, they all attacked the tree itself, quickly eroding the meter thick trunk.
Each of these monsters was powerful in their own right, causing sawdust to fly into the air. They were like five steady chisels, capable of knocking the tree down at any moment.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone