4 Chapter 3

"Rooowwll.."

Rushing at Zuyuan with the speed of a cheetah, the Rograst lunged at him from a certain distance, swinging its large claws.

Already in a stance ready to receive it, Zuyuan dodged aside. Guiding the Qigong to his body, his arms moved smoothly and stabbed the Rograst right through its head. 

"Grrr…" growling for the last time, the Rograst's body started to slump and fell to the ground, just like that.  

'That's... surprisingly easy?' mused Zuyuan as he flicked the tip of his bluish-glowing spear to wipe clear of the Rograst's blood. 

[Congratulations! You have finished the side mission!] 

[Reward: Lucky roulette]

[Warning: Because every single Rograst has a link that connects it to the main hive, now The Hive has noticed your presence, beware.] 

'A link?' 

Frowning, Zuyuan was still in the middle of reading the text, until out of nowhere, dozens of howls can be heard from every direction. Surprised, Zuyuan looked around and found out that he was being surrounded by dozens of Rograst similar to the one he had just defeated. 

'In a glance… there's at least fifty of them..' 

Calculating their numbers roughly as he saw them running towards him, Zuyuan gritted his teeth and clenched his grip on the spear, steadying his stance.

The Rograsts came out from every building, as well as from the street, quickly closing up on Zuyuan.

'Come at me, you bastards..'  

************* 

"Huff... Huff..." 

Twenty minutes later, Zuyuan was breathing heavily, as all of his body was covered with scratches and deep wounds. 

"This is easy as they just move like mindless beasts... but… do they know no fear?' 

Throughout the fight, even when Zuyuan had killed at least half of them, they were still charging at him even when all of their comrades' bodies were falling one by one. But weirdly, they didn't rush at him all at once and overpower him, but instead, they attacked in small groups of three or four. 

Thankfully because of that, Zuyuan had a breathing room to dodge and counter-attack at the same time. Not knowing the vital organ of the creature, Zuyuan decided to kill them by stabbing their heads, killing them instantly. 

'It's like... they want to chip away at my stamina and also observe me.' 

Zuyuan got a feeling from this battle that, perhaps, The Hive is observing him by sending some fodders. 

'If not, why wouldn't they attack me all at once?' 

Huffing, Zuyuan clutched at a deep slash on his waist, as well as some on his arm. If one looked carefully, the wound was deep enough for one to see the whiteness of his bone. 

'This is bad... if I don't get treatment soon, I'll faint from the blood loss.' 

Knitting his eyebrows, Zuyuan started to walk away from that place, before there came another wave of Rograsts, attracted to him because of the smell of blood. 

[Hidden mission: cleared!] 

[Hidden mission: fighting against more than twenty lowest Rograst and killing all of them.] 

[Reward: Trait => Objective sense (temporary)] 

[Objective sense: a trait that makes the user able to pinpoint the direction of the mission's objective. (This is a temporary trait that will only work in this world. After the user leaves this world, the trait will be deleted from the user trait list.)] 

'So there's something like a hidden mission too, huh?' 

As Zuyuan finished reading the text, a red arrow suddenly appeared out of nowhere and drifted in the air, pointing into a certain direction. 

'That's convenient.' 

Following the arrow, Zuyuan started walkin towards the path that led deeper into the wriggling vines area. The structure of some buildings seemed bent from how the vines were clutching onto them so tight. At certain time intervals, the vines created a bubbling sound. All of them had holes that puffed out warm air. 

After five minutes of walking, Zuyuan knelt to the ground as he had started to lose strength. He took off his clothes and ripped them apart, tying them as bandage over his wounds. Seeing that the bleeding has stopped, Zuyuan took a deep breath as he made the Qigong from his dantian to flow to his legs. 

Crouching down, Zuyuan started to run with a speed that matched to a car, which is around 40km/h. He became faster as he felt the urgency to finish the mission quick. Strangely, even though he seemed to be running, his footsteps did not make any noise at all, as if he was tiptoeing instead of running. 

'Ghost walk.' 

Ghost walk was the first layer martial art of the Path of the Banshee. This martial art used the user's Qigong to suppress any noise from the user's footsteps, as well as making the user's movements twice more nimble. After mastering this martial art to perfection, the user would be able to have a short burst of speed that would make his movement so fast that it becomes a blur. But the Qigong consumption for that last move was too much to use wastefully. 

And Zuyuan, definitely had mastered the martial art into perfection. 

This martial art alone was one of the major reasons why Zuyuan had been called the Silent Demon. If Zuyuan wanted, he would be able to sneak past all the Rograst monsters and go to the center without being spotted.

'But can I?' 

Doubt started to cloud Zuyuan's mind as he recalled how he had met with the first Rograst. Even though he had been distracted by the blue texts, he shouldn't had been noticed as he had hid his aura and had walked as quietly as possible. But even with that, the Rograst still had sighted him as their eyes met. How? 

'Does the Rograst have the ability of thermal sight or something like that?' 

If so, then, it was quite hard to sneak past them, but it was still possible by the martial art 'Clouding Aura'. A martial art that lets the user hide their existence, even if the other party had a thermal sight. 

Graaaahhhhh

Grrrr

Finally, Zuyuan had arrived at his destination. A big mansion constructed of steel was the place that the arrow pointed to. But unfortunately, a dozen more Rograsts were guarding the place, led by one Rograst that was particularly different from the rest. That Rograst was two heads taller than the others, had much bigger claws, and was covered with blue stripes all over its body. 

At the moment, it was talking to one of the Rograst in their guttural noise like language. As their guttural sounds became louder, the blue striped Rograst suddenly opened its mouth wide. The blue stripes all over its skin shone, and so did its mouth. And in a few seconds, a blue laser beam appeared from its mouth, obliterating the upper part of the ordinary Rograst into ashes. 

'Well... I guess it won't be that easy huh...'