19

Cloud City was shrouded by a thick haze of despair.

From the time the earthquake began until now it had only been sixteen hours but to the citizens of Cloud City it felt like an eternity.

Not a single person was able to sleep that night. They huddled together in corners of the ruined city vigilantly listening for movement around them. Fearing that they would be eaten every time the wind rustled the grass.

Everyone knew that the rulers of the city were now the monsters prowling just outside their hiding spots. Those monsters that wouldn't just kill people but eat them alive.

Many people believed that numbers or weapons could guarantee their victory but those foolish people were killed just the same. Now there was no way of even distinguishing their bones from the others.

Overnight a fourth of the city population died. Over half a million people were killed, unable to see the sunrise that morning. The streets of Cloud City were painted red by the blood that had flowed freely the night before. It was a nightmare.

Now that the night was over most people were stricken with hunger. Few people had eaten before the earthquake and without even sleep for dinner their hunger had reached an extreme.

Everyone was able to tell that the world was ending. If this was a normal disaster they should have seen rescue helicopters or the military by now. Instead it was rare to even see another person. Over a dozen hours had passed in a major city without them getting a single word from people beyond their refuge so how could it not be the end of the world.

Now the citizens of Cloud City were faced with a dilemma, how would they feed themselves in a city filled with monsters.

A chance had been created for the most desperate and daring however as the spawn rate in the city had reached zero earlier that night as the city had been saturated with monsters. In addition many monsters had entered a deep slumber after engorging themselves on human flesh or were in groups. As long as you could slip past the hordes undetected it was possible to find small amounts of food in the ruins relative safely.

I wasn't uncommon to see fights unravel over caches of food. Although being robbed was common most people were hesitant to seriously hurt or kill others since they had lived in a peaceful society just yesterday.

Robbers could be considered the worst people among the lot. Most people would split into small groups and share any food found among themselves. In times of despair it was better to work together and help others than find yourself alone.

As more and more people came out of hiding the dome of light in the center of the city was noticed. It didn't take much for people to believe it was an opportunity. Such an unnatural phenomena sparked hope within the survivors.

In particular the massive statues in the center elicited a warm feeling in people. They felt that as long as they could reach those statues everything would be okay.

People that climbed up to high places could see that the area under the dome was completely monster free. Around the light curtain however most of the monsters in the city could be seen grouped up. They had separated themselves by species and seemed to be in a nonaggression pact with each others, each group guarding their section of the dome.

Although the monsters seemed peaceful from afar any time a human approached the curtain they would be hunted down by a massive horde and eaten.

News about the safety zone was able to quickly spread since nearly every monster was near the dome of light, giving humans some room to navigate the city. With the immediate threat gone social order returned and large groups of people began to plan how they would enter the safe zone. No one was foolish enough to try and use a trick to get in but they were at a standstill. Without sufficient weapons or special materials like gasoline it seemed like it would be impossible to reach the safe zone.

The earthquake had buried most of the supplies that would have been useful in rubble but at least now the people of Cloud City could effectively feed each other by gathering food from one and two story buildings and grocery stores.

When Cheng Yang's group finished eating breakfast it was a little past nine. The originally stuffed bag of food had been completely emptied, It seemed that they would be having barbecued wolf for lunch.

When Cheng Yang took the group to Huimin he left Yu Kai two Mages and a Fighter behind. The corpses from the monsters they had killed the night before would rot if left alone for much longer thus he needed a group to retrieve the corpses and turn them into jerky.

The journey to Huimin was rather uneventful. Against twenty people monsters that were alone died instantly and even monsters hordes only lasted a bit longer.

The biggest horde they encountered was twelve of a fox like monster called Guardians of Nox but even they were unable to so much as scratch a member of Cheng Yang's party.

When they were about seven hundred meters from Huimin Cheng Yang noticed a small chest glowing with green light a little ways off the path under a large tree.

"What good luck!" He exclaimed and ran to a spot ten meters away from the chest and started to charge a Magic Missile.

After looking around for a few seconds Cheng Yang fired the Magic Missile into the base of the tree. A half-meter long lizard-like monster fell from the trunk, its camouflage wearing off.

When the rest of the group realized that a monster was there it was immediately killed due to the large number of attacks.

Cheng Yang had been able to predict the existence of the monster due the memories of his previous life. He remembered that monsters would always viciously guard anything they found that emitted magical energy.

Although equipment almost never spawned in the wild it wasn't uncommon for other items to do so and whenever one did the strongest monster in the area would become its guardian.

When Cheng Yang opened the chest he pulled out a small sealed jar.

Mana Recovery Potion(Low Grade): Restores 10 Mana instantly and then 2 Mana every second for ten seconds

In conventional online games potions like these were considered rather ordinary since they could be bought in bulk at nearly every locations. In this world however they would come to be seen as the most precious of objects since they were incredibly scarce and could easily mean the difference between life and death.

"Lets keep moving." Cheng Yang ordered with a smile on his face, "Hopefully we'll find some more chests today."

Cheng Yang knew these were empty hopes. Although chests in the wild weren't uncommon they were still hard to find and not that many would spawn a day.

Three hundred meters away they started to see the single family homes on the outskirts of the city. On the journey over they had killed about twenty five monsters.

Huimin hadn't been a big town but it would still have at least one or two tall buildings but now it was hard to even see decently intact three story buildings.

"Yoko," Liu Hau started, "do you know what caused that earthquake to be so weird? So much of the landscape has changed but there are still so many tall trees around."

Cheng Yang smiled bitterly, "Why are you worried about something being weird? Are the monsters not weird? The classes? There's a lot of weird stuff going on so it's better to focus on getting stronger and not worrying about that."

Liu Hau shook his fist at the sky hatefully, "Damn god, you stole my peaceful life!"

Although Liu Hau had said before that he would look forward to the world being a game that thought had completely left his mind now. He would gladly trade this life for the one where he spent his days on a boring college campus.

Old Lee who was walking in front suddenly stopped, "I see something moving!"

Cheng Yang stopped and listened closely. There was indeed something walking towards them.

"Be careful." Cheng Yang said his face dropping, "From what I heard there's almost two dozens monsters approaching."

Right after Cheng Yang finished talking a group of large boars came charging out of the woods towards them. There was no less than twenty and each one seemed more ferocious than a tiger! Although they looked like boars could they even be called that?

"Shit!" Cheng Yang yelled, "Hell Pigs! Everyone back up!" Cheng Yang then rushed to the front of the group to block the monsters.

Everyone had seen the ferocious looking monsters and instantly turned to run down the road. They were no match for twenty monsters that large if they stood still.

Cheng Yang fired off a prepared magic missile hitting a Hell Pig. The monster let out a tragic howl and its eyes turned red.

Having successfully aggro-ed the monster Cheng Yang followed the others in running towards Phoenix Village.

Although the Hell Pigs are faster than the average human they were still slower than the soldiers of Phoenix Village. Using their speed advantage every time the group got a sufficient distance away they would fire off one attack and then keep running.

There were only two outcomes for the Hell Pigs either they would die on the way to Phoenix Village or they would die at Phoenix Village.