Chapter 144: Routed and forced to retreat!

###NOTICE###

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Author

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Early morning in the middle region of the Blastwinter desert before..

"ATTACKKK!!"

BOOMM!! BOOMM!!

The Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Subjugation Squads jointly made their surprise attack on the pack of monsters simultaneously. The ambush was largely successful as the monsters had overslept due to being fatigued after staying up all night on their toes guarding for a sudden enemy attack.

ROOAARRR!!

Their surprise element made use of the same trick that Duan Li had executed before, which the leaders from the three squads had analyzed last night.

Since the monster's intellect were limited, and their confidence in numbers had them careless, they didn't notice that they were led towards the same kind of trap that annihilated 8,000 of them yesterday.

"HAHA! As expected of these dumb monsters, they fell for our trap so easily!" Mo Shinfeng laughed out.

Once again, the monsters were separated into three groups, left, right and the main group. The left and right groups roughly had 5,000 monsters each, and were handled by the Fifth and Sixth squads respectively.

Meanwhile, the strongest Seventh Squad were holding out against the Main group of the monsters themselves.

"We should be done in a short while.." Xu Liyu said to herself absent-mindedly as she beheaded 12 monsters gracefully with her sword in almost an instant.

BOOMM!!

"AAHHHHHHH!!" a member of the Seventh Squad screamed after he got blowned off by a sudden attack.

"What?" Zhuge Liang narrowed his eyes warrily as he looked towards the direction of the person that got blowned away.

Thankfully, the person was only slightly injured but the monster that appeared had him feeling unsettled.

A 3 Star monster?

Being the Seventh Squad, they were more than capable in dealing with a 3 Star monster. Thus, Zhuge Liang's figure fluttered before disappearing and reappearing in front of the monster.

Pshhhh!!

With a swift chopping motion, the head of that monster got loped off from its body and died instantly.

"The scouts had not informed us that a 3 Star monster has appeared among the monster stampede.."

Feeling concerned that perhaps something was amiss, he sent out messages through everyone's jade slip and warned them to be wary of any 3 Star monster suddenly appearing amidst the 1 Star monsters.

I hope this is only me overthinking, but..

Only just a few moments after he thought along that line, he heard a shout from one of his member.

"Leader, 3 Star monsters.. about 10 of them!"

"There are a few of them here too!"

"Here as well!"

Hearing this, Zhuge Liang's expression turned grim as he quickly instructed out;

"Ignore the 1 Star monsters and eliminate the 3 Star monsters first!"

What is going on here?!

One has to know that, if a 1 Star monster was roughly at the Foundation establishment realm, a 3 Star monster was only a half step away from reaching the Golden core realm!

Furthermore, a monster's build were far more superior in terms of battle prowess when compared to a human's. To put it into a perspective, a single 1 Star monster would require at least 3 or more people on the same cultivation level to slay it.

These gap would only increase exponentially as the monster's Star rank increases!

This was specifically the reason why the Subjugation Squads were formed - to select the best among the best of the students, that could slay multiple of these Star ranked monsters instantly, all in order to level out the playing field.

After all, the Subjugation Squad's main objective was to combat against monster stampede, and these would come at them like waves. Thus, they must possess the capability to stand their ground even when outnumbered of 10 to 1!

The other two squads had also received this message as well, and they were equally surprised.

"What?! There are 3 Star monsters among them? Sh*t! Everyone, quickly finish your job! We have to leave soon!" Mo Shinfeng instructed out as he could predict things were going to turn out for the worst from here on.

"This is bad.. 3 Star monsters appearing from out of nowhere would meant that our scouts had failed to relay this crucial information.. or that these monsters had hidden themselves deeply among their ranks!" Xu Liyu remarked as her expression became serious.

Her Fifth Squad was only capable of handling 2 Star monsters at most and the Sixth Squad could fight against 3 Star monsters to a certain degree, but in this chaotic situation, it would be extremely dangerous to focus solely on either monsters!

Pshhh!!

"AAAAHHHHH!" another person screamed out tragically, but this time, his body was pierced by the claws of a 3 Star monsters due to the 1 Star monsters that surrounded him were obstructing his field of vision!

How could he possibly expect that a 3 Star monster had suddenly stab directly at its fellow monsters in the stomach from the back and pierced them all the way through his too?

Just the thought of it was inconceivable for him!

"Urrghhh!"

The first victim of being overwhelmed and caught off-guard spatted out a mouthful of blood, before his entire face slowly lost its color and finally, his life.

Dead.

When Zhuge Liang saw this, his entire face darkened as he let out a furious bellow along with his strongest moveset on the loose.

Sky Slaughtering Half-Moon!

Pshhh!! Pshhh!! Pshhh!!

A beautiful white arc formed around him as they shot out towards the monsters, slicing everything in half from the waist.

"Retreat now!"

The Fifth and Sixth squads had also received their orders to retreat, and as the Fifth was the weakest, they were the first to go, followed by the Sixth and finally the Seventh squad.

"Those who are confident enough to take out 3 Star monsters, come with me, we will support the rear while we retreat! The rest will continue to move and don't stop no matter what!" Mo Shinfeng shouted out.

ROAARRRR!!

BOOMM!! BOOMM!!

...

After a long chase, the three squads were finally able to escape the pursuit behind them after the monsters gave up chasing and retreated back to their main group.

All in all, the three squads were only able to eliminate roughly 10,000 of the monsters, a short of 5,000 from their initial objective.

Not only was that bad, they had also taken in some heavy casualties during the retreat, all because of the unaccounted 3 Star monsters.

"Sh*t! I'm gonna wipe the floor with those motherf*ckers one day!!" Mo Shinfeng bellowed out to the skies as his blood raged furiously.

Out of all the three squads, his Sixth squad was the one with the heaviest losses! 5 of his members got sneaked attacked and killed on the spot, while several others were heavily injured - all these were during the retreat alone!

The Seventh squad lost another member as well, a female that happened to be the fiancee of the first victim. She had decided to sacrifice herself in order to cover everyone's retreat.

Zhuge Liang's face was dark as well, and his usual calm and amiable look was now replaced with a bitter and grim expression.

"We need to report this to the higher ups.. they need to change their plans.. otherwise.. I fear that the whole 6,000 students would be annihilated tomorrow!"

If that were to be the case, then practically the entire future of the Jiu Empire would be at stake!

...

"What?!" the Principal stood up from his seat, shocked after he listened to the report from Zhuge Liang through the communication jade slip.

To think that the 3 Star monster that they had killed last night was not alone, but instead, a bunch of them has appeared in the morning!

And to top it off, several members from the three squads was killed in action with others sustaining severe injuries!

With a grim expression, he turned towards the Vice-Principal beside him as the latter nodded.

Holding out a special token on his hand, the Principal sent out his message;

"Eighth Squad and Ninth Squad, prepare to move out!"

...

Amidst the monster stampede, was a person with a black robe and a new moon symbol on it, seemingly to remain unnoticed as he walked around them.

Tap!

With a light tap of his finger onto the back of the head of one of the 1 Star monster, a black tentacle wriggled out from the tip of his finger.

Huuu!!

The black tentacle bored through the head quickly as the monster screamed out.

ROOAAAARRRRRR!!

The body of the monster convulsed rapidly, before its entire appearance and strength slowly changed to those of the 3 Star monsters!

"Hmm.. the success rate of this forced evolution is still quite low.. seems like I need to do more research on it.."

...