Strike the First Blow
Page 2
Chapter 122: Got Into A Trouble
The trip had been exceptionally smooth. Due to the fact that the majority part of the city had been cleared up to make it safe. However, it was only limited near the city as the human defense group could only enclose on that small part of the area. Thinking about it, it was such a sad matter.
At the human base, a third-ranked evolver or even a fourth-ranked evolver would be stationed to guard their bases. Nonetheless, they were unable to compete against the evolution rate of the walking dead and the mutated animals. In fact, the reason why humans residing in the city could survive was the power from the era merchants. Without their help and the protection they provided, when these mutated animals slowly gained their intelligence, there would be a king amongst them long ago. Leading their herd to swept out every human base until there were none of them left.
Zhang Mu was adept in making short-term transaction along the way. In this manner, it would be much easier to control the scales of the trade. Hence, he had already cleared out and fixed the pathway he would take within three years. Unless something had happened to the path, Zhang Mu would not change it for no particular reason.
The destination that Zhang Mu had in mind was still Shan Xi city. Recently, he could not figure out the market price so he might as well used a familiar path that he had just traveled to and fro for the past month.
In front of his eye, Zhang Mu saw the mountain that indicated he had reached the final obstacles for Shan Xi city. That were some escapees remained on the peak that had cleared beforehand. That was done by a fourth-ranked evolver to ensure the safety for the city. But when there were about two or three kittens left, the evolver did not bother about them and left them over there.
Although there were mutated animals that were not worthy to one’s eye, for Zhang Mu’s case, it was a massive hurdle to him. He had yet to reach the third rank and was barely at the peak of the second rank only. Hence, even in the human race, he was just a small figure at the bottom. Naturally, he had to be very cautious and kept his body low for him to move ahead.
In a world where terror was steadily growing, even if it was merely a pathway, Zhang Mu had to spend many efforts for the sake of selecting the easiest route for him to take on. One could imagine the cruelty level in the wild.
Half a year ago, Xi An city tried to expand its safe margin and a fourth-ranked fire-type evolver decided to step forward and used his awaken ability to help out. Tremendous fire energy was released, setting the mountain on a raging flame. However, no one had anticipated that a group of fourth-ranked mutated animal would come out, scaring the fire-type evolver back to the city.
Although the group of mutated animals was not afraid of the fire set by the fourth-ranked evolver, none of them were able to extinguish the burning flames.
After that, the mutated animals were terrified to take a step into the city again. Because of the raging flame, there was no way for them to continue and inhabit this piece of land. With a large number of low ranked mutated animals were dead, most of the second-ranked mutated animals and above were taken away by their respective king. Leaving a big piece of burning land and a few scattered second-ranked mutated animal left as they had no one to lead them.
At the same, the people residing at Shan Xi city did not dare to have the thoughts of expanding the city's safety margin again. With the powerful evolvers retreating, what more could the others rank below them going to do about it?
Despite that, there were still a group of desperate people eyeing the burned corpse of the mutated animals and their beast cores on the mountain. Even though several second-ranked mutated animals were roaming around, they rather risk their lives and enter the mountain.
Zhang Mu was also part of the group. With only a little meat for so many wolves, the amount of the corpses were getting lesser and lesser while the location for them was getting deeper and deeper into the mountain. Under the situation where danger was increasing, the craze from the group also went down as they were forced to retreat from the mountain. Seeing that the number of people to search for the corpse was decreasing, this gave a different thought to Zhang Mu. This path could allow him to reach Shan Xi city at the top speed, instead of taking a longer route.
The forest had not recovered from its last cleaned up. With a charred look, everywhere was filled with the collapsed burned woods. It was a mess to look at, as the signs of vegetation were hard to find with the few exceptions of yellowed weeds.
Shuffle! A series of noise rang from the branches on top of Zhang Mu’s head while flashes could be seen around him.
Was it them again? Those four were not the last of them?
Last month, something had stopped him at this spot. Creatures that he never saw before suddenly appeared when he had to walk this path from Luoyang city to Shan Xi city.
This familiar jumping rhythm, it must be them for sure!
Zhang Mu lifted his head abruptly, and he saw the figures above looking down at him on those brown branches. Silvery white fur with abnormal smoothness, paired with a petite appearance that looks harmless.
Indeed, it was them! Second-ranked silver mink!
Previously when Zhang Mu walked down this path, usually a second-ranked creature would automatically sense the bloody smell that leaked from Zhang Mu’s body. Hence, they would stay away from him. Even if there was a fierce animal with no signs of intelligence yet, he could handle them easily.
However, this group of silver mink had only entered this mountain last month and was unfamiliar to the scent leaking from Zhang Mu. Granting that the smell had an ominous scent, but they were not the least fear of him.
These little things were extremely agile, yet their attacks were weak. At that time, Zhang Mu was not surrounded by many of them, merely four silver minks. When Zhang Mu entered their territory proudly, they would launch a lightning-like attack. In the end, they were all struck dead by Zhang Mu in exchange for his injuries.
But now, Zhang Mu took a closer look at his surrounding on the spot. Immediately, it caused him to take in a breath of cold air. Currently, the previous pitch black forest seems to be glowing with dozens of shining gems now. However, Zhang Mu knew that there would not be any gemstones in this broken forest.
In fact, these glistening gems were from the silver mink’s night-vision eye! And there was at least twenty of them!
He tried to take a step forward. As the silver mink had a weak attack, if Zhang Mu could carefully avoid the mistake he made last time, he might be able to slip through under their nose completely. As long as he could walk out of this path, he would be able to reach the safety boundary set up by Shan Xi city.
Although he could not see the silver mink's movement in the forest, it was clear that there was a problem based on those on the tree branch above him. Whenever Zhang Mu moves, their head would follow every movement that Zhang Mu made.
It should be when he went through their defenses last month, which cost them to have such an attitude.
Did they remember his scent?
Indeed, these creatures must have recognized his scent. They must have been waiting for Zhang Mu to enter deep within the forest before making their moves. What an intelligent creature! Those four that died previously had already caused Zhang Mu to use up all of his might to save himself. At first, he thought that those four were the last of them. Never in his mind would he expect that that was only part of a small unit. Now, this was great as the large forces had come together.
With more than twenty second-ranked silver mink, that was a big deal for someone like Zhang Mu who barely reach the peak of the second rank!
He slowly thought of the countermeasure. However, no matter how did he shift slightly, the silver mink would also move together with him.
Looks like moving forward was hopeless now and he could only withdraw back. Count himself unlucky!
Chapter 123: Nowhere To Go
Just when Zhang Mu tried to take a step back, his heart dropped instantly.
Oh no! Just now they were only testing my nerves and bravery, which was the reason why they did not make any direct attack. Now that they saw I had chicken-out, they know that I was just a pushover and for this reason, they did not hesitate to attack me?
At this point, he had no other choice. If he stays in one place for too long, they would see through his tricks.
When the silver minks were about to leap to the front of Zhang Mu’s body, how could he stay still after witnessing this? Straightaway, he ran all the way back where he had come from, without turning his head to look back.
When he heard the shuffling noise increased behind him, an uneasy tension put a strain on Zhang Mu’s heart. Nevertheless, Zhang Mu did not dare to look back. He was afraid that he would be surrounded the moment he paused for a second. Previously, those four silver minks that he dealt with were his limit already. Regardless of the 20 silver minks insight, there must be more hidden in the forest. Summing those up, there must be countless of them. As a result, the resolution to fight them was no longer there as the thought of being torn into pieces terrified him.
Even though he had raised his body to the second-ranked limit, but the agility potions from the era merchant shop were monopolized by the top few sub-merchants. Apart from the first month of the Cataclysm where he spent all of his wealth in exchange for a first-ranked agility potion, he never saw the remaining amount for any related potions were not zero when he began the era general trade.
Therefore, the him now could not compete against the mutated animals which had faster agility than human. Furthermore, these silver minks were unquestionably the best in agility amongst the second-ranked mutated animal that Zhang Mu had ever seen.
Within a few seconds, Zhang Mu felt something lunged at him from the back.
For no particular reason, when Zhang Mu felt the attacks coming, the first reaction was to lift his left arm, as if there was a mighty hidden card under his left arm yet, nothing was there.
The one that caught up to him was one of the fastest silver mink among the group. The speed that it had was even a step faster than its fellow minks. From the side of a tree trunk, it leaped and dashed toward the direction of Zhang Mu. With a flash, one of its claw swept down and caught the back of Zhang Mu’s left arm.
With a swish, flesh and blood were splattered in seconds. Followed by a blood-curdling scream let out by Zhang Mu. The left arm that he had just extended out was torn off a large piece of flesh in an instant. The cut was so deep that bone was visible from the wound. At the same time, it had stimulated Zhang Mu’s nerve. Under pressure, he pushed himself to be faster as he sprang out ahead of them.
He was puzzled in regards to his reaction just now however, he did not have the time to think about it.
Because of the delay, although the one that had thrown itself onto Zhang Mu was slowed down, there were more and more noises chasing behind him. Despite being evenly matched with the speed that Zhang Mu burst out, they continued to take a firm hold of Zhang Mu’s pace with no signs of slowing down.
Zhang Mu’s mind was in a chaotic mess as he scrambled forward. Every cell in his body was telling him that he was extremely exhausted and could not run anymore since he overused his energy.
Despite that, he kept on his last glimmer of sanity, convincing himself that if he did not run, his life would remain there.
The desire to survive helped Zhang Mu to break through the boundary of the burned forest. Feeling the glare from the sun above his head, Zhang Mu seems to see some hope. Immediately, the exhausted body gained strength out of nowhere as he maintained his current speed.
Among the silver minks, the one that had the fastest speed launched another attack on Zhang Mu once again. This time, Zhang Mu became smarter as he brought out a weapon from his merchant ring. Using his right hand, he slashed backhandedly and manage to block the attack. However, the knife edge was somewhat damaged. When Zhang Mu saw that the blade had been slashed with three nicks by the silver mink, he immediately dropped the second-ranked weapon he bought from the era merchant shop. Once he threw it away, he continued to sprint forward regardless of the situation. He did not slack or felt fortunate when he saw the Sun.
Even though he had run out of the boundary of the forest, he could felt clearly that those silver minks behind him had no desire to let him off. That only leaves one possibility, they had engraved the scent on his body when he killed the four silver minks and were confident that he was the murderer.
The spurt of the energy was momentary as he felt the tiredness from his body swelling up again. But it was at that moment, Zhang Mu’s eye lit up as he saw his destination.
It was a large river with a yellowish tide that rushed up and down. It was so deep that one could not see what was under the water.
He was not so oblivious that he had no destination on his mind to escape. He remembered he had walked past and saw a big river along the way earlier. As it would take some time to swim across, in addition to the river current, even though he did not take the risk and swam, the river had left a deep impression on his mind.
Zhang Mu did not hesitate as he dragged his disabled arm and plunged into the river.
As a matter of fact, Zhang Mu was betting that the silver minks would not jump into the big river. With that, he disappeared into the rolling waves and his head did not come up for breath.
At that moment, he did not bother with the dangers of this river. He only knew that if he delayed for just for a moment, he would be dead immediately. However, if he jumped into the big river, there was a possibility of him being alive.
For someone like Zhang Mu, who always pursued stability, he could only fight for his life at this moment.
Sure enough, just like what Zhang Mu had expected, these silver minks hesitated the moment they saw Zhang Mu leaped into the river. They had stopped at the shoreline as fear appeared on their faces while watching the current. They seem to fear something in the river as they were unwilling to take a step further.
The commander of the pack, who disabled Zhang Mu’s left hand, had a complicated emotion on its eye. Although it still had resentment towards Zhang Mu, after a few thoughts, it gave a shrilly howl and turned away immediately.
Hearing the commander’s order, and seeing the commander turning away, these silver minks did not stay there any longer. In a hurry, they retire back to the burned forest.
Everything became quiet once again. Except for the rumbled of the river from time to time.
Chapter 124: The Overlord Underwater
After Zhang Mu plunged into the river, the fatigue on his whole body seems to set free all at once as he fell into a deep slumber, lost to the world. On the other hand, the turbulent of the river kept pounding on his injury, causing the cut to change into a milky color.
With another stream of the water pounded onto Zhang Mu’s bare arm and he sobered up immediately as he felt a stabbing pain on his arm.
Hearing the quiet rumble of waves crashing, that was the moment he realized where he was. Zhang Mu forced himself to maintain a steady balance of his body using his already sore muscles underwater. But things were not as easy as he thought, as he had overdrawn his energy and the fact that he was losing too much blood. Currently, Zhang Mu’s body was one that he could not control anymore.
The air in his lungs was depleted completely, but the desire to survive overcomes Zhang Mu’s deep fatigue. He did not know where he found the strength on his body as his right arm, which was completely fine, began to swipe up. After that, he did not care if his leg would cramp as Zhang Mu use his legs to paddle himself. After much struggles, he finally brok
e through the surface of the river.
When he came out from the surface to pump out all the air he kept on his lungs, he was dragged down by the big wave again, without giving him time to draw a few mouthfuls of oxygen. With the raging waves, Zhang Mu did not know which direction he was going now.
Under the water, the impact he received was lesser. Hence, Zhang Mu tried his best to open his eye and swam towards the direction of the shore based on his memory. Despite that, the process was not successful. Whenever he tried to swim forward, there would always be a stream of water disturbing his position on the water from a different direction, crushing all his effort completely.
All of a sudden, the river current calmed down in an instant. Zhang Mu could hardly hear the roars of the waves anymore. He recovered mentally as he quickly adjusted his direction and headed towards the shore.
However, the silence seems to last for a long time, causing him to feel uneasy.
The river current could not change by itself all of a sudden. So there would only be one possibility, a powerful water-type mutated animal must be heading towards him now.
The alarm on Zhang Mu’s mind was ringing in an instant. Did this river truly have such a powerful mutated animal?
It made no sense though. To have the ability to control such a rapid current, the mutated animal must be the third rank at the minimum. However, with this place being close to Shan Xi city, how could there be any mutated animal with such rank?