A human warrior, middle-aged and square-faced, was cutting his way through the endless Rat Tide. No wonder there weren't many rats surrounding Wang Ji—the vast majority were here. Most of the Rat Tide's forces were focused on attacking this warrior!
And that rat, bigger than a water buffalo, was probably a Lord-level Monster. It was hard to tell whether it was a Primary Lord or an Intermediate Lord.
"Ah! I can't accept this!" Every punch and kick the middle-aged warrior threw was accompanied by a gale. He fought barehanded, each strike cracking the air with a sonic boom. Every time he swung the sword in his hand, it cleaved in two every rat in front of him, whether it was the size of a domestic pig or a cat or dog.
He was definitely a War God-level figure too!
"Eee! Eee! Eee!" The Lord-level rat didn't attack him directly. It only made its move when the Beast Generals had completely pinned down the War God and he seemed absolutely safe, then darted in to bite him. Each time, even if it failed to land a bite, it still forced the War God to divide his attention, leaving him open to attacks from countless Beast General-level rats.
Rats packed together in waves three or four meters high, crashing toward the War God one wave after another.
"Ah!" The War God was already exhausted. He roared again.
Wang Ji couldn't help but roar as well, charging toward the spot surrounded by the Rat Tide. At the sound, the War God clearly started, then lit up with joy. But when he saw that Wang Ji was alone and seemed to have only just reached War General level, his hopes sank at once.
He managed to say, "You... you can't save me! Get out of here! If you get caught up in this, you won't escape!"
Wang Ji leaped from a low building and landed steadily on his arm shield. The shield carried him toward the War God.
"Jump! Get up here!" Wang Ji shouted.
The War God bent his knees slightly. Boom! The ground burst open, leaving a crater over a meter deep. He sprang straight up eighty or ninety meters and landed steadily on the shield. Boom! Wang Ji's arm shield nearly gave way under his weight, plunging more than ten meters before it barely stabilized.
"Eee!" A gray blur lunged at Wang Ji's shield. Wang Ji poured every last bit of his Spiritual Force into it. "Dodge! Hurry, dodge!" With a man aboard—and a War God at that—with Wang Ji and the War God standing on the shield, it could barely fly at ten meters per second.
They avoided the Lord-level rat's pounce, but then a whip-like blur lashed toward them. It was the rat's tail!
The rat's tail cracked the air with a sonic boom and seemed to appear in front of them as if by teleportation. The War God had no choice but to swing his sword to block it.
Bang! The shield instantly caved in beneath their feet.
All force came from interaction. Without something to push against, strength was like a rootless duckweed: even a thousand jin of force couldn't be put to use. A War God's strength was terrifying. Even the force from a light sword swing, channeled through his feet, crushed the arm shield beneath him. The two of them plummeted from a hundred meters up.
"Ah..." Wang Ji quickly directed the shield to catch him again. But the War God fell back into the waves of monster rats.
Before Wang Ji could even think of what to do next, Bang! The Lord-level Monster swooped in again. Whoosh! Its gray-black tail struck Wang Ji in half!
"Ding! Instance: Rat Tide. Main quest: Survive. Incomplete!"
"Wang Ji
Age: 17
Strength: 7805 kg
Speed: 75 m/s
Neural Response: Junior War General, Qualified
Essence Source *337"
The moment Wang Ji came to his senses after the terror of death, he grinned. He'd kept 40 Essence Source in reserve, which meant he'd gained 297 this time! He'd thought he would get more, considering he'd killed seven or eight Beast General-level monsters alone.
Still, it wasn't bad!
"Add points! Add 300!"
Boom! An endless rush of pleasure nearly swept Wang Ji away. He fought to keep quiet, his body trembling as though he were coming.
"Whew!" The overwhelming pleasure finally passed. Wang Ji felt like he could punch a bull to death.
"Strength: 10805 kg; Speed: 98 m/s"
"Awesome!! Enter! Enter again! I'm going to smash the Rat Tide!"
Wang Ji stood on the fourteenth floor of a high-rise. Below him lay a ruined county town.
"Run! It's the Rat Tide! The Rat Tide!" someone shouted in alarm.
Wang Ji jumped straight to the ground. Boom!
Rats poured out of the sewers, basements, and houses. The smallest were as big as house cats, and the largest were even bigger than wild boars.
Wang Ji suddenly realized, With my current strength, if I get trapped in the Rat Tide, I'll eventually be killed. If a few Beast Generals show up at once—or an Advanced Beast General comes outright—I'm done for. But I can't just drag this out, either. Once the rats kill that War God-level senior, the next targets will be survivors like me. So I either escape before he dies, or help him escape!
Should he try escaping on his own first?
Wang Ji picked a direction far from where he'd fought last time and charged through the rats.
"Eee! Eee! Eee..." The Rat Tide kept closing in around Wang Ji as he fought his way onward. He could now kill Beast Soldiers with one slash. He used smoke bombs to quickly kill Junior War General-level Beast Generals. He tried killing an Intermediate Beast General, but nearly got completely surrounded by the Rat Tide. It wasn't worth it; Intermediate Beast Generals were too much trouble to kill. He could easily get trapped.
After fighting for a while, Wang Ji quickly used his advantage in Spiritual Force to find leverage in the air and leap out of the encirclement. But even that was extremely dangerous. Wang Ji's flying speed was less than 30 meters per second. At low altitude, he was a sitting duck. Beast Generals could easily jump twenty or thirty meters into the air. If he flew low, they could pounce on him.
But if he flew high, there were Golden Eagles above! Those were even more terrifying.
He could only rely on a warrior's rapid changes of direction, occasionally using his flying shield for leverage as a surprise move.
"Eee! Eee! Eee!..." More and more rats gathered around Wang Ji.
"Eee!" A piercing rat squeal rang out. A large rat with silver-gray fur that gleamed like metal charged toward Wang Ji from a distance.
I can't fight it head-on! Wang Ji realized at once. It was several times faster than him!
Wang Ji raced upward, stepping on the windowsills of a high-rise, but the Beast Generals around him followed closely. The moment Wang Ji tried to fly off on his arm shield, one of the Beast General-level rats pounced and knocked him down.
It seemed these rats were clever. After seeing the same trick a few times, they were prepared for it. He couldn't escape! He was in danger! Junior Beast General-level rats were chasing from behind, while an Advanced Beast General-level rat blocked the way ahead. This was trouble.
Wang Ji simply lifted a manhole cover and jumped down without hesitation.
"Eee! Eee! Eee!" Countless rats poured in after him.
The sewer was pitch-black. Even the rats' vision was badly impaired. But within forty meters of Wang Ji, even a speck of dust appeared in his mind. That was the advantage of Spiritual Force.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..." The Series 8 flying knives reaped the rats' lives without restraint. In this narrow, dark space, it was even harder for them to dodge.
"Eee! Eee! Eee!" The Beast General-level rats followed him in. But Wang Ji didn't meet them head-on; he fled rapidly along the sewer. If one of those rats held him up, he'd be as good as dead.
With the sewer's complex layout and Wang Ji's flying knives constantly slowing them down, the Beast General-level rats could only follow behind, eating his dust.
Run! Kill!
Wang Ji didn't know how far he'd fled or how many rats his flying knives had killed.
"Eee!" The sewer ceiling ahead suddenly collapsed! A large rat with a silver-gray, metallic sheen blocked Wang Ji's path.
Before you continue