Killing and Gains

Chen Yuan sprang lightly onto the top of a collapsed ruin, then turned and waited quietly for the Lion Mastiff Leader to arrive.

Soon, the ground rumbled. The massive Lion Mastiff Leader came charging through a cloud of dust and immediately spotted Chen Yuan.

Without a second thought, the Lion Mastiff Leader kept moving and slammed straight at him. Its enormous body was like an unstoppable tank, smashing through every obstacle ahead and forcibly carving a path through the ruins of fallen high-rises.

But Chen Yuan had anticipated this. With a tap of his foot, he leaped backward, lightly evading the Lion Mastiff Leader's charge and landing steadily atop another broken wall.

After smashing through the rubble, the Lion Mastiff Leader's body, which had accelerated to its limit, was forced to stop. It turned around and charged at Chen Yuan again.

Like this, Chen Yuan used nimble leaps to constantly shift positions through the ruins, gradually luring the Lion Mastiff Leader deeper inside. Before it knew it, countless chunks of stone, concrete, and steel rebar had surrounded it, as though it had fallen into a natural cage.

Chen Yuan stood firmly atop the wall, calmly watching the Lion Mastiff Leader's movements gradually slow.

Just as he had expected, speed was the most obvious weakness of such massive Monsters.

Granted, Lion Mastiffs were not particularly slow at full speed. At their peak, they were only thirty meters per second slower than human Martial Artists of the same level. However, they needed a long run and gradual acceleration to reach that speed.

In terms of instantaneous burst speed, the gap between them and humans was even more apparent.

That was why Chen Yuan had deliberately lured the Lion Mastiff Leader into this cluster of ruined buildings, using the complex terrain to hinder its running.

At first, the Lion Mastiff Leader had relied on the immense power granted by its speed to charge recklessly about, even smashing straight through the ruins. But as its movements gradually slowed and it could no longer build up momentum for a charge, it could no longer reproduce its earlier destructive power.

On the contrary, its massive body was obstructed by the ruins, forcing the Lion Mastiff Leader to walk over uneven piles of rubble. Its running speed was severely affected, and it could not sprint at all.

Chen Yuan, meanwhile, could use his smaller size to leap back and forth through the ruins. Though he was not as fast as at his peak, he was still far faster than the hampered Lion Mastiff Leader.

By now, the Lion Mastiff Leader had slowly calmed down. It stomped uneasily back and forth amid the ruins, sensing that something was wrong. In this environment, its body was restricted everywhere, while that hateful human remained incomparably agile.

"This human did it on purpose. He wants to use these rocks to restrict my body and keep me from running, but what is his goal?" The Lion Mastiff Leader pondered with its not-so-clever brain before finally reaching a conclusion that shocked it. "He can't be trying to kill me, can he?!"

At that thought, disbelief appeared in the Lion Mastiff Leader's eyes. In its view, aside from being fast enough, the human before it did not possess much strength and was merely equivalent to an Advanced Beast Soldier. How could he dare try to kill it?

One had to know that they were two levels apart. Their strength differed by more than fourfold, and the other party's weapon could barely break its defense!

Under such circumstances, the Lion Mastiff Leader had never considered the possibility that this human could kill it instead.

Yet judging from the current situation, that possibility did not seem impossible. Although it still believed the other party could not inflict any substantial damage on it, the unease deep in its heart grew stronger and stronger, driving it to leave these dangerous ruins as soon as possible.

Just as the Lion Mastiff Leader turned to leave, Chen Yuan, who had seen everything, narrowed his eyes slightly. "Trying to run? Too late."

"You chased me for so long. Now it's my turn."

"Face the gale!"

Chen Yuan stomped hard, shooting forward like lightning and rapidly closing in on the Lion Mastiff Leader. At the same time, the long sword in his hand thrust out abruptly, empowered by the Double-Force Technique he had concealed for so long!

That was right. During his earlier battle with the beast pack, Chen Yuan had deliberately hidden his strength and never used the Double-Force Technique. His purpose had been to show weakness to the enemy and conceal his true intention of hunting the Lion Mastiff Leader.

Now, his strategy had been perfectly executed. There was no need to hide any longer.

Next came the hunt!

"Whoosh—"

The Streamer Battle Sword closed in on the Lion Mastiff Leader's body like a bolt of lightning. Before it could react, the blade, bolstered by the Double-Force Technique, viciously pierced into its body.

Immediately afterward, Chen Yuan kicked off the Lion Mastiff Leader's body, using the force to pull out his battle sword and fly backward. After several light leaps, he landed steadily dozens of meters away.

"Awooo—!"

The Lion Mastiff Leader let out an earthshaking roar filled with pain and fury. It had never imagined that this human would truly dare to attack—and actually succeed in injuring it!

A bloody hole had appeared on its back, blood gushing continuously from it. It was the result of that earlier strike.

The Lion Mastiff Leader suddenly turned around, its eyes bloodshot as it stared fixedly at the distant human, fury blazing in its chest.

It had been completely enraged and charged at Chen Yuan without regard for anything else.

However, Chen Yuan continued carrying out his "walking the dog" strategy, nimbly dodging through the ruins and running the Lion Mastiff Leader in circles. From time to time, he would suddenly thrust out a sword. Before long, several more bloody holes had appeared on the Lion Mastiff Leader's body.

The loss of blood caused the Lion Mastiff Leader's stamina to plummet. Its movements grew increasingly sluggish, and weakness began to spread through its body.

Am I going to die here? The thought suddenly surfaced in its mind.

"No, I absolutely cannot die! I must kill this human!"

Blood blurred its vision. The Lion Mastiff Leader let out a grief-stricken roar and used the last of its strength to charge at Chen Yuan.

Unfortunately, its movements were already far inferior to before. In Chen Yuan's eyes, they were so slow they seemed like slow motion.

It's time to end this. The thought flashed through Chen Yuan's mind. He then leaped with all his strength, soaring into the air. He stomped heavily against the wall of a high-rise behind him, borrowing the force to shoot toward the Lion Mastiff Leader.

Gripping the long sword tightly, Chen Yuan used all his strength to drive it viciously into the Lion Mastiff Leader's head.

Kill Points +42

The battle was over.

With its head pierced through, the Lion Mastiff Leader could no longer hold on. Its massive body slowly collapsed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Chen Yuan pulled out his long sword and walked up to the Lion Mastiff Leader. Looking at the enormous corpse before him, he finally let out a slight breath of relief. "It's finally over."

If it had not ended soon, he would have had little stamina left as well.

After all, he had first fought the beast pack, then led the Lion Mastiff Leader across an entire city, and finally fought it to the death. Every part of it had consumed an enormous amount of stamina.

So Chen Yuan did not bother with anything else. After confirming that the Lion Mastiff Leader was truly dead, he leaned against its body and entered Deep Sleep to recover.

An hour later, Chen Yuan opened his eyes. His stamina had fully recovered.

He looked at the Lion Mastiff Leader's corpse, took out his tools, and carefully removed the fangs from its mouth—those were the most valuable parts of its body.

After gathering them, Chen Yuan put the fangs into his backpack and headed for the Lion Mastiffs' lair, hoping to find more valuable gains.

Half an hour later, Chen Yuan returned to the pasture. The surviving Lion Mastiffs had unexpectedly not left, apparently believing that once their leader made a move, that human would surely die.

Unfortunately, Chen Yuan was still alive, so now it was the Lion Mastiffs' turn to die.

Without much effort, Chen Yuan killed all the remaining Lion Mastiffs and completely wiped out this Monster pack.

He then strolled across the pasture's grass, his gaze roaming in all directions as he carefully searched for any possible treasures.

Of course, he did not actually hold much hope. He simply followed the principle that a thief never left empty-handed and did not want to overlook any suspicious area.

He followed the direction from which the Lion Mastiff Leader had come and soon reached a forest. The trees here were dense and lush.

Just then, a whip-like attack suddenly struck from behind his head. Fortunately, Chen Yuan's senses were sharp. He flashed aside and swiftly dodged the attack.

He had thought he had encountered a sneak attack from a human Martial Artist. He turned around warily, only to discover that his attacker was not a human Martial Artist wielding a whip, but an enormous willow tree.

The willow tree stood over twenty meters tall, with a trunk nearly a meter thick. Thousands of slender willow branches hung from its crown, swaying in the wind.

He had accidentally approached the range of its branches just now, which had triggered the willow branches to lash at him.

"A willow tree Monster? No, no." Chen Yuan rubbed his eyes, disbelief in his gaze. The willow tree before him looked extremely similar to a certain record from the original work.

"This is... a Spirit of Vegetation!"