Chapter 80: 80
Monsters all over the world underwent the first mass evolution yesterday, so Standard-Grade Immature monsters were all over the place. However, compared to Cheng Yang and his group, they were still too weak.
Every time they ran into a monster horde, Cheng Yang would immediately use Sacrificial Blood Cloud, and a human artillery squad would annihilate the horde. It didn't matter if the enemy was a Low-Grade monster, Standard-Grade monster, or even a High-Grade monster. They were blasted into oblivion all the same.
Stepping over countless corpses, the group journeyed to the Easternmost edge of the city. There they found a bridge teeming with monsters.
Cheng Yang visited this bridge five days ago. At that time, he decided to retreat rather than fight a type of monster that could use ranged attacks.
Now, however, things were different. Cheng Yang's natural Physical Defense was 17.3, and the amount of damage he dealt was absurd. He was confident that even if he were to get trapped in the middle of the horde, he'd still be able to fight his way out.
"My Lord, what our plan? Are you going to use Sacrificial Blood Cloud?" Liu Hau asked from behind a wall.
Cheng Yang shook his head, "Not this time. I'll handle it alone while you guys watch."
"Are you going to be okay? You're strong, but there are at least two thousand monsters over there…"
"I'm a Pinnacle-Grade Apprentice while the strongest monster is at the Elite High-Grade level. There's also only one of them, so this horde can't pressure me."
Liu Hau and the other were only able to listen without replying. Cheng Yang showed them a portion of his power when he used Sacrificial Blood Cloud on the way here, so they knew that at the very least, he wouldn't die instantly.
Cheng Yang waited until his subordinates had hidden among the ruins, then, he moved to engage the horde.
A few seconds later, Cheng Yang found himself a mere fifty meters from the first few monsters. At the same time, the monsters noticed him. Led by the Skull Spotted Spiders, whose eight long legs were in constant motion, the horde began to charge.
Cheng Yang continued moving. His only reaction was a casual flick of his staff. Moments later, a large number of icy petals tore through the bodies of seven spiders.
Since none of the monsters were at the Standard-Grade level or above, the whole group died instantly.
At the same time, a vast mass of sticky webbing flew towards Cheng Yang. Even if he hadn't provoked the horde with his attack, the Skull Spotted Spiders wouldn't let juicy prey like him go free.
Cheng Yang's eyes were sharp, so when a Standard-Grade monster tried to sneak up on him, he noticed immediately. Although it was unlikely, that squat blue beast was capable of hurting him.
While Petal Blizzard was on cooldown, Cheng Yang cast Icicle Blast, hitting the blue monster squarely on the head. With over a hundred points of damage, there wasn't a single Standard-Grade monster capable of surviving Cheng Yang's attack. It pierced the monster's skull, killing it.
At that time, the web strands of over ten spiders reached Cheng Yang. However, he just stood there like nothing was happening. Relying on his incredibly high natural Physical Defense, Cheng Yang watched as each of the sticky threads bounced off of him as if they had hit a wall.
Then, the Skull Spotted Spiders were greeted by another wave of razor-sharp petals…
Without a doubt, this was a slaughter. Every single Low-Grade monster near Cheng Yang died without leaving an intact corpse.
After a few minutes of kiting, Cheng Yang spotted the commander of the horde hiding behind a wall of bodies. It would seem that this battle wouldn't end quickly. Once the commander realized it was being watched, it ordered the rest of the horde to attack even more ferociously.
Cheng Yang sneered. "Aren't you smart?" He thought, "Don't you know that unless you can get behind me, you're doomed to fail?"
Cheng Yang had been slowly drawing the horde through the nearby ruins, taking care not to double back and get trapped.
Sometime after killing his hundredth monster, Cheng Yang felt a strong draft from above him. Dodging on instinct, Cheng Yang avoided being hit in the head by the body of a giant creature.
Wasn't that a Skull Spotted Spider? Why did it just fall out of the sky?
Before Cheng Yang figured out what was going on, several more Skull Spotted Spiders fell out of the sky on top of him. If not for his quick reactions, he would have been buried under their flesh.
"Fuck! How did I miss those webs?" Above him, Cheng Yang noticed several strands of web that the spiders had been crawling on. He had assumed the spiders were just missing, but they'd actually been setting up a vicious trap.
Although the spiders trying to land on him weren't really a threat, Cheng Yang wasn't able to just ignore them. However, if he put all of his energy into dodging the spiders, he wouldn't be able to deal with the rest of the horde. Right now, it was just a few spiders trying to jump him, but what if it became hundreds? It would be enough to bury him completely. Even if he killed them, he'd still be trapped. No matter how strong he was, that was a perilous position.
Cheng Yang jumped backward and at the same time, used Petal Blizzard. He was entering a full-scale assault.
Cheng Yang started to plunge through the horde aggressively. Carefully weaving through the ruins, he avoided both the places with webs set up and the location where his subordinates were hiding. If they were found by the horde, the only ending possible was a tragic one.
After a long fight, Cheng Yang had finally killed half of the monsters in the horde. In doing so, he had used up eight Mana Recovery Potions.
Cheng Yang wasn't sure if it was because he killed so many of its minions or if the commander thought he was weak, but the battle entered its final stage. With an entourage consisting of three other High-Grade monsters and more than twenty Standard-Grade ones, the commander went on the attack!
For this stage of the apocalypse, such a team could be considered nearly unbeatable. If it weren't for Cheng Yang's level, he wouldn't dare to face that ensemble of monsters even if all of Phoenix Village's soldiers were with him.
As the other side approached, Cheng Yang sent an icicle flying straight towards the commander. At the same time, a thick wad of webbing flew towards him.
Both sides had a hit-rate of nearly 100%. Cheng Yang had perfected his shooting during his half-year in the apocalypse. The Skull Spotted Spiders, on the other hand, were born with innate accuracy. In fact, the commander was even more accurate than Cheng Yang.
The reason both sides were able to achieve such a high degree of accuracy was that the god's rules made dodging nearly impossible at the first stage of evolution. To avoid an attack, you needed to have a Movement Speed at least ten times higher than the attacker's Attack Speed. For example, since Cheng Yang had 25 Movement Speed, he had a decent chance to dodge the attacks of a Low-Grade Monster.
In comparison, raising one's Physical Defense was much more manageable. Still, being able to dodge an attack had its benefits. For instance, if you were using a Health Recovery Potion, even if you didn't take damage, getting hit would always stop the passive regeneration.
After that first round of attacks, Cheng Yang took thirty damage, but the commander was far worse off. An ordinary High-Grade Skull Spotted Spider would have died in a single hit, so it was on its last few points of Health.
It was Cheng Yang's win from the moment the commander showed itself. Raising his stave, Cheng Yang cast Icicle Blast a second time. With a sickening splurt, the spider's lower carapace was torn open, and Cheng Yang sent the commander to an early death.
With that, any previous suspense the battle had was gone. Even after killing the remaining high-level monsters, Cheng Yang was only thirty Health lower than before killing the commander.
Cheng Yang had thoroughly slaughtered every single monster that posed a threat to him in a horde two thousand strong.
In just seven and a half minutes, he had turned a mighty horde into a few scattered groups with only a hundred or so monsters each.
At this point, Liu Hau and the other grew tired of sitting on the sidelines. With a loud battle cry, all of Cheng Yang subordinates charged out of their hiding spots. Although their battles were just as hard as Cheng Yang's, they were just cleaning up the abandoned soldiers of a defeated army.
Seeing this, Cheng Yang had no choice but to shake his head. They must really be passionate about gathering Experience Fragments. With the number of monsters left here, they would only get nine or ten each. Which Cheng Yang supposed was a decent amount at their level.
Ignoring his treacherous subordinates that were stealing the results of his victory, Cheng Yang walked off in search of treasure.
Cheng Yang walked towards the center of the bridge, oblivious to the massive crevices to either side of him. His eyes were intently focused on the ground.
Just like he had expected, there was an item sitting in the exact center, and it was a big one too. Cheng Yang couldn't tell what it was, but he bent down to pick it up anyways.
"Fuck! Isn't that dishonest?" When Cheng Yang got a good look at the thing in his hands, he realized why he wasn't able to recognize it. The item was caked in a thick layer of dirt. It would have been stranger if he had been able to know what it was.
Cheng Yang carefully peeled away the layer of dirt and reveled the item's true form.
It turned out to be an Alchemy Furnace.
When Cheng Yang read the furnaces system pane, he was taken aback.
Panacea Furnace
This ordinary furnace transcended its limits when an alchemy master used it to brew the legendary medicine, panacea.
Grade: Purple Silver
Profession: Alchemist
Effect: Make potions 30% faster
Effect: Increase the level of all Alchemist skills by 1
It was a great item! A piece of Purple Silver Profession equipment. Profession equipment was incredibly rare, so even a Green Bronze item would sell for hundreds of Experience Fragments in a store, let alone a Purple Silver one.
Most importantly, even up until he died, there wasn't a single person in Cheng Yang's last life who had managed to craft an Alchemy Furnace. It wasn't just that item, no one had managed to craft any of the Profession equipment pieces.
For combat-oriented equipment, as long as you were able to gather high-level materials, you could buy the blueprints for high-quality equipment to make it. Profession equipment, on the other hand, was only available in the stores, as treasures in the wild and as random drops in instance dungeons.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone