"Finally, the subway station!" After wandering through the underground mall for a long time, Zhang Junbao had finally found the subway.
Back then, the mall's designers had twisted the one- or two-kilometer route through nine turns and eighteen bends to make customers walk through the entire mall. Zhang Junbao knew he had walked at least five or six kilometers.
The distance had more than doubled. You couldn't leave until you had walked through the whole mall, and anyone with a poor sense of direction could probably get lost inside.
If he hadn't been worried about alerting the monsters above, he would have smashed straight through the walls without hesitation.
Zhang Junbao looked at the subway map, wiping the dust off the glass covering it before taking a closer look. "Shanghai subway map??
"My god, that damned Sword-Beaked Dragon Eagle actually brought me to old Shanghai, more than two hundred kilometers from Yangzhou City-what's now City 003.
"Even at my speed, it wouldn't take long to get back from here, but the whole way is Wilderness Zone. The monsters won't just let a human strut through the Wilderness Zone as he pleases.
"City 003 isn't a place for rookie martial artists to get a taste of life. Beast General-level monsters are everywhere here, and there are even quite a few Lord-level ones, equivalent to human War God Level fighters.
"The monsters above can't find me, and there's no telling how long it'll take them to settle down. Just in case, I'd better leave quickly.
"If I follow the subway tunnel and come out in the direction closest to Yangzhou City, I should be able to find a highway leading there nearby."
Although Zhang Junbao was confident he could fight an Advanced Beast General one-on-one, when did monsters ever fight human martial artists one-on-one?
Every Beast General had a great many underlings. It didn't need to lift a finger itself; a mob of its underlings charging in was enough to kill an ordinary martial artist.
A major reason Zhang Junbao had managed to escape from the Sword-Beaked Dragon Eagle's nest was that it had driven the other monsters away, worried they might threaten its children.
Yangzhou City and City 003 had both been major cities in the past, and such cities were usually connected by highways. Although this place had now become a Wilderness Zone, the roads were still there. Monsters didn't go out of their way to maintain highways, but few had so little to do that they deliberately destroyed them, either.
As a result, martial artists also usually used the old roads to reach their destinations quickly.
After studying the subway map carefully, Zhang Junbao decided to follow the subway tunnel toward Yangzhou City.
At first, things went quite smoothly. A dozen or so kilometers wasn't far for him, and he easily dealt with the few monsters that appeared along the way.
But he soon noticed something unusual.
"Hm? It sounds like something strange is coming toward me, and there are quite a lot of them. Could it be a monster pack? I can't be unlucky enough to run into one in the tunnel, can I?"
Zhang Junbao's expression grew grave. He realized that whatever was making the sound was flying straight toward him. Without bothering about anything else, he took off running, racing through the darkness.
"Damn it, there are some ahead too! I'm surrounded!"
He skidded to a stop and rapidly extended his Spiritual Force. He wouldn't have known if he hadn't checked: countless small monsters were surging madly toward him like a flood. Clearly, they had discovered him somehow.
"The Sword-Beaked Dragon Eagle is dead. Shouldn't these monsters have no one commanding them? But it's obvious from what's happening that a leader is directing them from behind. Did I accidentally enter another Beast General's territory?"
Zhang Junbao took a deep breath to calm himself. The Wilderness Zone, where countless human martial artists had met their downfall, really wasn't so simple. He had thought he could escape by hiding underground.
"No choice. I'll have to fight my way out! There are too many monsters. If I get trapped here, even as a Spirit Reader, I'll definitely die."
He had already used his Spiritual Force to scout the area. Monsters were gathering from both ends of the tunnel in vast numbers, perhaps several thousand or even tens of thousands of them.
That many could already be considered a small-scale monster tide.
A Spirit Reader's advantage was the ability to fight multiple monsters at once, kill them far faster than ordinary martial artists, and fly by controlling objects. But this area was a gathering place for flying creatures. Flying on an object in front of flying monsters would make him a living target.
"Chirp, chirp..."
As he raced forward, Zhang Junbao finally saw what was surrounding him ahead: a swarm of Beast Soldier-level Long-Fanged Bats.
The Long-Fanged Bats ranged from Primary Beast Soldiers to Advanced Beast Soldiers, with even a few Low-level Beast Generals mixed in. Each had a wingspan of nearly half a meter, and the two crimson fangs on their ratlike heads stood out in particular.
Whether monster or human, anyone they latched onto would have every drop of blood sucked out of them in less than ten minutes.
The spearhead and the Dragon Roar Sword circled constantly around Zhang Junbao as he charged forward without hesitation.
"If I remember correctly, subway stations are generally only a few kilometers apart. I've already traveled some distance from the last exit, which means I'm not far from the next one!"
It wasn't that he hadn't considered turning back to avoid them, but his earlier Spiritual Force scan had revealed that another group of monsters was closing in behind him.
As for using his Spiritual Force to dig his way up, never mind what buildings might be above him, he definitely couldn't dig faster than the monsters could pursue him. If he got trapped in the earth with nothing to brace himself against, he could just wait to be worn down and killed. His only way out now was through the exit.
Once trapped underground, he would definitely be worn down and killed by the endless waves of Long-Fanged Bats.
"As things stand, all I can do is kill!"
Zhang Junbao gritted his teeth, fierce killing intent bursting from his eyes as he slammed into the monster swarm. The Zhang Junbao who had once fought until no one in the entire martial world dared make a sound had returned.
"Two Forms Sword Formation!"
The spearhead and the Dragon Roar Sword became a pair of blurs in an instant, laying out a sword formation around Zhang Junbao. Following the pattern of taiji's two forms, it kept the monsters' attacks outside the formation. Any monster that entered its range was killed at once.
This had originally been a combined technique practiced by two people, but now, relying on his Spiritual Force, Zhang Junbao performed it alone. The coordination was even better, and its power even greater.
Zhang Junbao's gaze was ice-cold. The Taiji Two Forms Sword Formation held within a two-meter radius around him, while the foul stench of beast blood filled the entire tunnel. Beast Soldiers couldn't last a single second before him; against his immense Spiritual Force, their defenses were nothing worth mentioning.
An Intermediate Beast General Long-Fanged Bat tried to rely on its echolocation to figure out the Two Forms Sword Formation's pattern and launch a sneak attack.
But the moment it entered the formation, the Dragon Roar Sword suddenly struck from an unexpected angle. The flying sword shot straight through its head, spraying its brains out at the same time.
Not only that, under the control of Zhang Junbao's Spiritual Force, the Dragon Roar Sword darted back and forth several times, removing both of the Long-Fanged Bat's fangs.
Under Zhang Junbao's control, the two fangs also joined the sword formation. His formation transformed in an instant, becoming the Four Symbols Sword Formation and killing monsters even faster.
"With my current Spiritual Force, I can control four flying swords at once and still maintain the attack power of an Intermediate Warlord. I originally planned to use the sword beaks of the two young Sword-Beaked Dragon Eagles, but unfortunately, they'd only just hatched, and their sword beaks were quite fragile. The sword beaks of Sword-Beaked Dragon Eagles with Intermediate Beast Soldier strength were simply too fragile.
"They could barely even pierce an Advanced Beast Soldier's defenses.
"These two fangs will just about do."
Although the monster swarm couldn't do anything to Zhang Junbao in the short time since they had clashed, his Spiritual Force was also being consumed rapidly. He had to end the fight quickly.
Fortunately, with the addition of the two fangs, he was killing monsters faster and moving faster too.
The four flying swords formed a circular defense around Zhang Junbao. In just a few minutes, he had pierced the heads of more than a hundred monsters.
The monsters farther away couldn't get close because of their positions, so only twenty or thirty could attack him at any one time.
That gave Zhang Junbao room to put his Perfect Level movement technique to use. He knew everything about his surroundings, including the position of every Long-Fanged Bat.
Zhang Junbao didn't simply advance in a straight line. Each time, he looked for the weakest point in the monsters' defenses and broke through there.
Although the monsters had all rushed in to surround him, they weren't equally strong at every point.
Seeking out weak points, Zhang Junbao drove into the monster swarm like a nail, forcing his way forward against it.
"My Spiritual Force is being consumed too quickly at this rate! And these monsters are acting as if they've received orders. That means there's very likely an even higher-level monster waiting for me outside. I have to save some Spiritual Force as a last resort to keep myself alive."