Chapter 13: Deathstalker Horde

Chapter 13: Deathstalker Horde

"Ah, Deathstalkers! So many of them!" Grace Wang began to shriek after a moment of stupefied silence.

Indeed, Deathstalkers. Countless Deathstalkers with a violet, crystalline exoskeleton were skittering out of the cave and the greenery surrounding them, fading in and out of existence as though they were ghostly spirits.

They were only palm-sized, but they could move surprisingly quickly. The tips of their stingers were a dark violet, and they were of a breed that even Jonathan Chu didn't recognize. In an instant, the Deathstalkers surrounded Jonathan Chu's team.

Strangely enough, there were also quite a few Deathstalkers by Su Ping's side, but even though they crawled on his body, they showed no signs of attacking him.

"Haha, they're finally here! These Deathstalkers hate fire, so I hope you're all prepared to die!" Su Ping no longer bothered to hide his killing intent.

Ding! Ding! Jonathan Chu's body glowed golden, and he began swinging his blade. Grace Wang, Fang Liu, and the others all took on fighting stances, killing the Deathstalkers, who swarmed toward them from within the cave. Even the Deathstalkers' blood was purple in color, and sprays of purple mist began filling the air.

"Hah, is this all you can do?" Jonathan Chu scoffed, having defeated the first wave of Deathstalkers with ease.

"Oh, we're just getting started," Su Ping called out, laughing. He sat down at the top of the hill, lazing luxuriantly as he watched Jonathan Chu.

As furious as he was, Jonathan Chu and his team were surrounded by a veritable sea of Deathstalkers, and he had no way of attacking him over such a distance.

The Deathstalkers seemed to come at them in an endless tide.

Jonathan Chu bellowed, "Just you wait, you bastard! I'll make you suffer a fate worse than death!"

Then, he immediately began commanding his team. "Fang Liu, use the four-spirit formation we devised!"

Beside him, Fang Liu and three of his other teammates each activated a transformation-type spirit essence and morphed into a lava tiger, a vine asp, a firebird, and a crysturtle, four curious lifeforms.

The tiger howled, the snake hissed, the bird called out, and the turtle bayed. After their transformation, they had lost the agility and techniques of their human form, but their size and strength were magnified.

The combination of the four transformations was devastating.

But although they were able to beat back the tide of Deathstalkers, the Deathstalkers continued swarming at them without any sign of stopping, no matter how many carcasses of their own kind they had to wade through.

The four lifeforms were arrayed at each corner of a square formation, protecting the rest of their teammates within. They tried to rush out of the entrapment, towards the hill Su Ping was on.

Most of the Deathstalkers were only regular-grade lifeforms, with a few mutated-grade ones scattered among them. Even the most advanced Deathstalkers were only advanced-grade. But no matter their level of evolution, all Deathstalkers shared two characteristics:

First, a surprising level of stealth.

Second, venomous poison, of a particularly dangerous sort!

Jonathan Chu's team had already experienced the Deathstalkers' stealth; after all, even Jonathan Chu, who had quite a few advanced gene fragments, hadn't noticed anything amiss upon entering the glade.

The poison was even more frightening and was rightly the characteristic by which these Deathstalkers were named.

The Deathstalkers actually had two types of poison: one from their poison sacs and one released through their stingers, which would quickly induce cell apoptosis and death. Without the antidote or suppression by genetic energy, it could kill a hunter in a matter of seconds.

The second type of poison was from their blood, which rapidly vaporized when exposed to the atmosphere, forming a poison mist. Those who came in contact with the mist would find the poison seeping through their skin, leading to paralysis.

"Be careful, they're poisonous!" As the mist grew more and more dense around Jonathan Chu's team, he shouted out a warning.

A large part of Jonathan Chu's strength was due to his connections and wealth, yes, but he wasn't stupid. Deathstalker-type lifeforms were closely linked to poison, and he had been wary of the possibility since the beginning. However, he had noticed the poisonous mist far too late.

Su Ping had laid out his plan carefully, and he wouldn't have lured them here if he didn't think he could get away with it. Despite the hunters' attempts to flee the sea of Deathstalkers, there were simply so many Deathstalkers that they were stuck no matter what they did.

The problem was especially bad in Fang Liu's corner of the square formation: despite knowing that his body was covered in flames, anathema to the Deathstalkers, they still swarmed him preferentially, choosing to die just to inject their venom into his body through their stingers.

Of course, under the effects of a mutated-grade spirit essence, regular-grade Deathstalkers could do nothing to him. With the four transformation-type spirit essences active, although they couldn't force their way out, neither could the Deathstalkers break through their defenses. Unfortunately, the transformation-type spirit essences consumed so much genetic energy that they couldn't keep it up for long.

"Jonathan, we won't be able to break through this sea of Deathstalkers. We need to retreat; we can't last too long like this!"

"Right, Captain, he's just a rookie! We can nab him whenever we want; there's no need to waste our time here!

In the midst of the formation, Grace Wang and Jonathan Chu's remaining team members tried to persuade him to retreat, especially Grace Wang.

The moment she saw these Deathstalkers, she felt a strange premonition of impending doom, a prickling sensation that grew worse upon seeing Su Ping's bloodthirsty gaze. At the moment, she couldn't think of anything else besides fleeing.

"No, we have to teach him a lesson now! He won't get away with luring us into this trap!" He raised an outstretched hand, and a resplendent golden javelin began to manifest.

"[Demonbreaker Javelin]! Die!" With a yell, the javelin in Jonathan Chu's hand began to glow.

The golden light flashed so quickly toward Su Ping that it reached him in the blink of an eye. However, unexpectedly, a thick, translucent wall popped into existence just as the spear was about to hit him. The javelin, tossed with great strength, shot toward the wall like a comet, only to be trapped halfway into the wall. It exploded in a burst of golden light.

Su Ping didn

't even flinch.

Jonathan Chu's eyes widened in shock. "How—how can this be?! That was a mutated-grade one-use javelin, and it'd be able to break through the defenses of even a regular advanced-grade lifeform! How could the attack have been blocked by that technique?!

"Unless, unless... No, that's impossible! How could a guy like that have gotten his hands on a spirit essence of that caliber? No, something had to have gone wrong!"

"Jonathan, stop muttering to yourself! We need to leave, or we'll die!"

"Captain, look at Donovan Qin's firebird transformation! He's moving a little woodenly, and I think something's wrong!"

While Jonathan Chu continued to gape in shock, Grace Wang and his subordinates continued trying to persuade him to leave. The poison mist was spreading all around them, and Jonathan Chu knew that they would all be in serious danger if they didn't leave now.

He glared at Su Ping and bitterly called out, "Retreat! We'll leave through the cave and get this bastard some other time!"

Of course, the Deathstalkers certainly weren't going to let this crowd of intruders leave so easily. As if sensing that the other party had just called a retreat, the already-furious Deathstalkers swarmed toward Jonathan Chu's team in even greater numbers than before.

Even worse, the mutated-grade Deathstalkers, dispersed within the crowd, had also begun to attack.

Suddenly, whirling winds surrounded the time. As Fang Liu's firebird form flapped its wings furiously, the Deathstalkers surrounding the team were all flung aside. But just as he thought that the coast was clear, a burst of violet light darted toward the teammates behind him.

"Argh!" With a pained yelp, behind the firebird, one of Jonathan Chu's subordinates collapsed.

"He Feng!" Jonathan Chu and another subordinate shouted He Feng's name simultaneously.

However, He Feng didn't respond. He slumped onto the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. On the right side of his neck, a hole about as wide as a finger was leaking purple blood, and the flesh around the wound was quickly necrotizing.

"Be careful! There are mutated-grade Deathstalkers around us!" A hunter on the left flank fortuitously dodged another flash of purple light. Just as he called out, however, the Deathstalker struck again, tearing his ear apart.

Jonathan Chu, scowling fiercely, had a golden sword in his hands, sliced at an incoming blur. "Watch out, there's more than one!"

Even Su Ping had to admit that he wasn't a weakling.

Mutated-grade Deathstalkers wouldn't drop their stealth until the moment right before their attack, and the fact that he was able to notice and respond so quickly meant that he had to have at least twenty advanced gene fragments. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to defeat them with a single blow.

Su Ping was very glad that he hadn't opted for a direct confrontation.

Of course, killing just a single mutated-grade Deathstalker didn't change things; after all, the entire glade was a nest of Deathstalkers. A death or two were meaningless in terms of the number of deathstalkers that were still swarming toward them.

And even if Jonathan Chu was able to handle a mutated-grade Deathstalker, the rest of his teammates and Grace Wang could not. He might be able to save one or two of them, but there were bound to be more casualties.

Shouting in pain, another hunter fell to the ground. Even the four transformed hunters were starting to falter, and the square formation was breaking apart. If Jonathan Chu didn't do something, the team that he had worked so hard to build would all perish in this nightmarish glade.