The Muster of the Mantis Swordsmen

Wang Wu's judgment had undoubtedly been correct.

His choice had also offered the best value for the cost.

Level 3 Stealth could help him avoid the vast majority of dangers.

Although the Gray Rat Knights had been exceptionally enraged and spent the entire morning forming numerous small squads to search the bushes like mad, they had failed to find even a trace of spider silk connected to him.

After all, to ensure his Stealth worked this time, Wang Wu had not even taken the corpses of those two Gray Rat Knights.

As the sun gradually rose and the earth entered roasting mode, as the terrifying daytime instance slowly began, the Gray Rat Knights had no choice but to lie low as well.

The entire valley returned to a deathly silence.

Wang Wu silently noted the direction. After nightfall, he would return to the rock crevice. In any case, he would exploit every bug he could; at his current stage, if he could avoid fighting, he would avoid fighting.

The Giant Eagle had not come today, but the pressure and sense of crisis it had brought Wang Wu never left him. Yesterday, he had been too insignificant for the Giant Eagle to care about, but if he kept growing, one day sooner or later, he would become that Giant Eagle's delicious snack.

The long day passed, and dusk arrived. At last, activity began to stir in the valley. Many Sprite groups tentatively sent out scouts to probe the area, checking whether any unscrupulous Great Demons were lying in wait nearby.

Wang Wu remained unmoved. He was waiting too. Right now, he clung to one hard truth: he had to keep his head down, had to play the coward. To hell with being some Ancient Giant Bear. He didn't give a damn. Staying alive was best!

Finally, the sky grew darker and darker, and the valley at last boiled over with life and bustle. This was the moment.

Without hesitation, Wang Wu charged out of the grass. He did not take any detours, but followed the direction and route he had long since mapped out, sprinting all the way.

Although wandering Gray Rat Knights quickly spotted him, he did not care and did not pause in the slightest.

Naturally, he deliberately avoided those large and small trees. He knew all too well the Spider Sisters' signature tricks.

Even so, by the time he successfully burst out of the bushes and the rock crevice lay ahead of him, more than a dozen Gray Rat Knights had latched onto his tail.

"Squeak squeak squeak!"

An especially strong and valiant Gray Rat Knight suddenly accelerated and unleashed a Fang Thrust at Wang Wu.

In an instant, 10 Health Points vanished.

The damage was high, but it did not knock Wang Wu over.

He had paid special attention to that. The Gray Rat Knights' mass charge was terrifying. Once knocked over, he would be facing a beating from the whole pack.

But as long as he maintained his balance and stability as much as possible, combined with the advantage of his weight and size, it would not be much of a problem.

The only thing he could not avoid was their Fang Thrusts. They were utterly disgusting, taking turns to stab him. Over that short distance, Wang Wu lost a full 70 Health Points.

He had been stabbed seven times!

Fortunately, he finally squeezed into the rock crevice. Those hotheaded Gray Rat Knights still tried to rush in after him.

Little did they know that this was exactly the moment Wang Wu had been waiting for. He had endured for far too long.

Out there on wide, flat ground, you could call me Little Bear. Now that we're somewhere narrow, what should you call me?

He turned around and endured the charging thrusts of two Gray Rat Knights. Even as another 20 Health Points fell away, he feared nothing.

Wang Wu brought down two slaps with his paws, smashing them both dead on the spot.

Their corpses became the best obstacles. The next two Gray Rat Knights crashed into them and immediately lost control, only for Wang Wu to send them off with another two resounding paw strikes.

Only then did the remaining Gray Rat Knights squeak furiously and unwillingly circle outside, no longer daring to advance.

Meanwhile, Wang Wu had already begun stuffing himself.

Speaking of which, the Gray Rat Knights' fur had quite high defense. Even his claws had difficulty tearing it open, while his teeth were neither numerous nor sharp enough. Every bite left him helpless.

But such a minor problem could not stump Wang Wu. He had already worked out an effective eating method: first, like pounding rice cakes, he would hammer them madly from head to tail with his claws. If that did not work, he would pick up small rocks and smash them with those. Once he had pounded them into tender meat paste, he could squeeze it out like jelly and enjoy a marvelous feast.

Wang Wu ate with great relish inside the rock crevice, but the Gray Rat Knights outside completely lost their composure. Their squeaks grew louder, drawing even more Gray Rat Knights over. There looked to be twenty or thirty of them now.

All of a sudden, waves of hissing rang out. Then, in the hazy night, at least twenty Black Snake Sentinels, led by several Black Snake Assassins, charged down the cliff and launched a surprise attack and encirclement against the Gray Rat Knights.

The two sides fought in a tangled melee. The snakes' hisses and the rats' squeaks rang out especially loudly.

Wang Wu had never expected the Black Snake Clan to join the battle at this moment.

This truly was—spectacular.

As they said—no, as the poem went,

Behold the black snakes coil round gray rats, as the king's banner changes atop the city wall.

When your song ends, mine takes the stage; better to hang yourself from the southeast branch.

They fought until heaven and earth darkened, sun and moon lost their light, blood flowed until pestles floated, and corpses piled up like mountains.

Suddenly, a great general burst forth, swift as lightning and loud as thunder. A Three-Pointed, Two-Edged Halberd in hand and a four-legged Squeaking Beast beneath him, he struck with blade raised and blade fallen, cutting down three snakes in formation. Before the end, he even clamped his teeth onto a Black Snake, refusing to let go even when the venom killed him.

Over there, upon the cliff, a pitch-black Great Serpent gazed down over the battlefield with cold eyes and solemn majesty, like an emperor. Just as it discovered a heaven-sent opportunity to commit its entire army, flames and thunder suddenly flashed from the rear cliff. Oh no, their retreat had been cut off—the damned Flame Scorpions had come again.

Eating his meat-paste jelly, Wang Wu had even less expected the Flame Scorpion Clan to launch another sneak attack at this time.

What a pity, what a pity. On this battlefield, the Black Snake Clan had been on the verge of crushing the Gray Rat Knights.

Yet now they had to withdraw in haste.

Wang Wu sincerely supported the Black Snake Clan, because they truly were his close friends, his good neighbors. He desperately wanted to overturn that tyrannical, hooligan Gray Rat faction.

But alas, alas!

The Gray Rats left behind more than a dozen corpses, yet they were still able to retreat in orderly fashion, having long forgotten Wang Wu, the source of this calamity.

The Black Snake Clan had no time to pay attention to him either.

In any case, tonight was destined to be exciting and lively.

Come to think of it, this was actually the norm.

After Wang Wu finished four bags of jelly, his Satiety smoothly soared to 300 points. He also gained four fur blankets and four points of spiritual energy.

Then, with his Level 3 Stealth Talent and Level 1 Self-Healing Talent, he drifted off into dreamland. What did all that fighting and killing outside have to do with him?

The ancients said, I was born kindhearted.

He slept wonderfully that night.

The feeling of not being disturbed was truly wonderful.

His lost Health Points had all been restored. It was just that he had gained no Growth Rate today, because all of it had been used for Self-Healing.

You could not have both fish and bear's paw.

That was understandable.

He just wondered what the outcome of last night's three-way battle had been.

To be fair, Wang Wu rather liked the Black Snake Clan as neighbors.

Mm. He carefully crawled out of the rock crevice and looked outside for a moment, but an ominous feeling suddenly rose in his heart. Directly beneath the bushes facing the rock crevice, there were unexpectedly more than a hundred Wandering Mantis Swordsmen today.

The feeling was impossible to describe.

It was like stepping out of your home one day and finding over a hundred blond-haired punk delinquents gathered outside your front door. If that was normal, then something would be truly strange.

Wang Wu's first thought was that the Black Snake Clan had lost last night. Perhaps they had been driven from the cliff territory, or perhaps their entire clan had been wiped out.

Then he rejected that possibility.

Because if the Black Snake Clan had truly been wiped out, these hundred-plus Mantis Swordsmen could have charged straight in. Under a storm of blades, how could any bear remain whole?

This narrow rock crevice was no obstacle at all to these Mantis Swordsmen.

For a moment, Wang Wu was extremely anxious and somewhat frightened.

What if the Gray Rat Clan had hired the Mantis Swordsmen...

But just as his thoughts ran wild, he saw a Golden Giant Mantis Swordsman emerge from the depths of the bushes. This fellow was enormous, nearly as large as a Gray Rat. Especially those two long blades—they actually radiated a holy glow like gold.

And hanging from one of that Holy Mantis's long blades was a bloody rat head.

What a remarkable Sprite!

Worthy of the saying: Lü Bu among men, mantis among mounts!