Chapter 34

Five days passed in the blink of an eye.

During those five days, the Divine Arrow Squad rested by day and hunted by night. Their gains were substantial, and nearly everyone's backpacks had been stuffed full.

Advanced Beast Soldiers made up the majority, of course.

But what pleased Cao Bing and the Divine Arrow Squad most was Cao Bing's growth over the past few days, as well as the team's improved coordination.

Cao Bing could now expertly patrol the squad's perimeter and create opportunities for Guan Yong to charge into the heart of a beast pack and support his assassinations.

Cao Bing's movement speed had reached the limits of the Micro-level. With just a little more insight, he might reach the Perfect-level. Of course, taking that step was extraordinarily difficult, but Cao Bing was in no hurry. Luo Feng himself had needed half a year of life-and-death battles before breaking through to the Perfect-level at the Elite Training Camp. Cao Bing was already close to the threshold—more than half a year ahead of Luo Feng—so there was no need to rush.

His blade technique, on the other hand, had improved tremendously. With a single swing of the Phantom Blade Technique, two blade phantoms crossed as they attacked, their real and illusory forms impossible to predict. Yet the Nine Layered Thunder Saber alone progressed painfully slowly. Despite practicing it for so long, he had failed to master even its first layer.

Cao Bing had also wanted to imitate Luo Feng and seek enlightenment and improvement by observing lightning.

The result was that it only dazzled his eyes and did absolutely nothing else.

Did he really have to give up the Nine Layered Thunder Saber? Cao Bing could not help feeling unwilling. Though the Phantom Blade Technique suited him well, its strength did not lie in force generation, but in the shifts between illusory and real phantoms. Even if he truly cultivated all seven phantom layers, each phantom would only possess six-tenths of his own power.

Even all seven combined would only amount to 4.8 times the force, and that was not how it worked anyway. The Phantom Blade Technique did not concentrate force; every phantom carried its own force.

That scattered the power. In a truly full-force strike, eight blade phantoms could at most produce around four times the power.

Even the powerful expert who created this blade technique had admitted that his fist force was only 4.6 times normal. What he truly excelled at was combat and killing, and Cao Bing guessed that expert had likely been an existence beyond even a God of War.

Forget it. I'll leave it at that for now. The Nine Layered Thunder Saber was created by Lei Shen, after all. How could it be so easy to master? I'll devote a little more time to it.

Splat!

As Cao Bing calculated inwardly, two flashes of blade light instantly severed the heads of two leopard-like beasts as large as yaks.

"Two Advanced Beast Soldiers thought they could ambush me?" Cao Bing chuckled.

Before entering the wilderness, Cao Bing would never have dared to be so arrogant. But now, it was no longer arrogance—it was confidence.

"Cao Bing, time to go!"

After killing the two Beast Soldiers, Cao Bing heard Guan Yong's voice through his earpiece.

"Received!"

Cao Bing answered immediately, his hands swiftly removing useful materials from the two monster corpses.

Five minutes later, Cao Bing appeared on the roof of a residential building more than twenty stories high.

Every member of the Divine Arrow Squad had gathered there.

"Everyone has done well these past few days. Your backpacks are nearly full too, so we'll return to the supply base today." Yan Ying swept her gaze over the group, lingering especially on Cao Bing, who had returned last. She nodded in satisfaction.

"Alright, Captain." Song Shengnan nodded. Though she was used to fighting in the wilderness, she was still a woman with her own aversion to grime. Going days without bathing or even washing her face had already made her miserable.

"Haha, when we get back, I'm going to have a proper meal. Those compressed biscuits have made my mouth greasy." An excited grin spread across Xie Hongxin's flushed face.

"All you know is eating." Song Shengnan glared at Xie Hongxin and snapped at him.

"Sheng Nan, don't pick on Old Xie. I want to go back and get a good night's sleep too." Guan Yong said with a smile, a blade of grass between his lips.

"You're all getting lazier and lazier!" Yan Ying sighed softly and shot her team members a glare before continuing.

"Haha, Captain, proper rest lets us fight better! Besides, we haven't let down our guard in the wilderness!" Guan Yong said with a laugh.

"Enough, you lot. You don't even know how to set an example for Little Cao." Yan Ying shook her head helplessly, while the others merely chuckled.

Even Fang Ye, an old wilderness hand, leaned against a crumbling wall and watched everyone with a smile.

"Alright, time to go. Zheng Ke, the route." Yan Ying turned to Zheng Ke, who had not joined the conversation.

"Captain, I've finished scouting. The route we used to enter still has not been occupied by too many monsters, so we can withdraw quickly. The only thing to watch out for is a small supermarket not far along that route. It has been occupied again by a lone Advanced Beast General. Judging by its build, it should be a Flame Crystal Leopard," Zheng Ke reported.

"A Flame Crystal Leopard?" Everyone except Captain Yan Ying's eyes lit up.

"Old Yan, how about we pull one last job before leaving? An Advanced Beast General-level Flame Crystal Leopard is valuable. If we sell it well, it could fetch over nine hundred million," Xie Hongxin said greedily.

"We detour," Yan Ying said without room for argument.

"It's too dangerous. The Flame Crystal Leopard's strength already approaches that of weaker Low-level Lords. Even Old Guan's speed absolutely cannot keep up with that thing. You're only an Advanced Warrior; you simply cannot withstand attacks of that level," Yan Ying explained.

"Fine." Xie Hongxin was unwilling, but he chose to compromise.

In truth, as Yan Ying said, the Flame Crystal Leopard was even more dangerous than the Silver Moon Wolf King Luo Feng had encountered in the original story. Its Flame Crystal scales could not necessarily be cut through even by a Warrior General level expert wielding an A7-series battle saber, and those scales covered nearly its entire body.

More terrifyingly, it was no slower than the Silver Moon Wolf King. In terms of instantaneous bursts of speed, it was even much faster.

"We'll take the eastern route and leave along the abandoned highway by City 132's southeastern exit." Based on the reconnaissance information Zheng Ke had reported, Yan Ying quickly mapped out a relatively safe retreat route.

Although the Divine Arrow Squad had seemed to slaughter monsters without restraint throughout the city, every hunt had in fact been carefully planned. If they had truly gone on a mindless killing spree, they would have been surrounded by countless monsters long ago.

Moreover, retreating was different from hurrying in. Several days of fighting had drained much of everyone's energy, and when they had first arrived, they carried little besides their weapons. But after days of hunting, everyone's backpacks were full.

If they truly encountered danger, the load would greatly hinder their speed. Unless they threw away their backpacks—but then all their work over the past few days would have been for nothing.

Therefore, squads were generally even more cautious when leaving a ruined city. After all, no one wanted to endure days of exhausting, life-and-death combat only to come away with nothing in the end.