44

Cheng Yang finished fighting half an hour later. He had killed four hundred of the monsters before running out of Mana. The rest of the horde had fragmented. Without their leaders, the innate hatred monsters held for each other caused them to split into different groups.

Cheng Yang didn't pay attention to the remaining monsters and ran to meet up with Yu Kai.

A few minutes later, Cheng Yang met up with Yu Kai.

"Yoko, what's the situation? I heard a lot of noise earlier." Yu Kai said, relieved to see his friend.

"We've pretty much won. We just need to clean up the scattered groups of monsters I couldn't kill." Cheng Yang passed Yu Kai his satchel, "Swap with me, I'm out of potions."

Yu Kai took out the potions he had prepared for Cheng Yang earlier and they swapped bags.

"Quickly patrol your area then meet me in front of the bridge in twenty minutes." Cheng Yang called over his shoulder as he ran into the woods.

Cheng Yang quickly tracked down one of the monster groups that had escaped him earlier. His arrival indicated that their lives were over.

In just ten minutes, Cheng Yang had destroyed three hordes. When he checked his status pane, he had gotten one thousand sixty three Experience Fragments. Seeing this, Cheng Yang felt that all of his struggles were worth it. Truly, the higher the danger, the better the reward.

When the battle was finished, Cheng Yang looked across the field of bloody corpses. Phoenix Village was going to have a food shortage soon so it was a shame they couldn't use any of these monsters. It was too much work to transport them and most of them were inedible or disgusting.

Cheng Yang exited the woods and began to cross the bridge. To his surprise he found a single item glowing softly on the ground

He hadn't heard that there was a treasure on the southern bridge in his past life. It can't be that it appeared because he reincarnated, could it? His luck was too bad for that to happen. Cheng Yang pondered for a moment and thought of an explanation. Perhaps it had been pushed into the abyss along with the corpses of monsters. Or maybe someone had stealthily taken it during the battle then died shortly after. The simplest explanation of course was that the army had hidden its existence.

Cheng Yang strode across the bridge and picked up the item which resembled an ancient scroll.

Cheng Yang had seen dozens of treasures like this in his past life, although they were rare they weren't that hard to find. A scroll meant one of three things: an architectural blueprint, a single-use instance dungeon or a skill scroll.

Cheng Yang desperately hoped it would be a blueprint but when he opened the scroll he found a grouping or arcane symbols and circles. It was a skill scroll. Although it would be useful, Cheng Yang couldn't help but feel disappointed.

When Cheng Yang pulled up the scroll's status pane, that feeling of disappointment completely disappeared. The skill draw into the paper was incredibly powerful!

Sacrificial Blood Cloud

Based off of an ancient forbidden technique that sacrificed a person's life to permanently strengthen another. This version was created by a mad monk. although the power decreased the side effect lessened as well.

Grade: Unique

Requirements: High-Grade Apprentice

Cast Time: 12 seconds

Duration: 10 minutes

Effect: Gift one of the caster's attributes in full to a number of allies dictated by the skill's level base of five

Effect: All of the casters attributes are halved for the duration

Cheng Yang only needed to see its grade, Unique, to know it was something extraordinary. In his last life, Unique skills were incredibly rare, with only a few being publicized. The only downside to these skills was that they were much harder to level up.

After reading through the status pane for the skill, Cheng Yang realized why the speed of the monsters he fought had skyrocketed. It was definitely because the Blood Gehenna commander had mastered this skill. More than likely, the commander had trained the skill beyond level one.

Using the final attack of the commander as a reference, Cheng Yang was able to roughly gauge how powerful the skill had been. Based on the damage it had dealt, the Blood Gehenna's stats had been reduced by no more than 20%. No wonder the skill was Unique!

Cheng Yang began to daydream about a scene where five Mages prepared their spells. Cheng Yang then transferred his Magic Attack stat to them, allowing them to blow a group of powerful monsters to hell in just one attack. It was the ultimate buffing skill!

Too bad it was a skill scroll, not a skill inheritance crystal, otherwise Phoenix Village would have become unstoppable.

In the end, Cheng Yang chose to learn the skill himself. He would be able to use this when leading armies or power up a group of guards when he was about to be defeated.

After a few minutes, Yu Kai and the other team Captains arrived at the bridge. Most of the soldiers wore ripped clothes covered in bloodstains, evidence of a harsh battle. If it wasn't for the rules of god preventing them from dying, they might have had serious casualties.

"Yoko, you look happy, did you find something good?" Liu Hau asked with a goofy grin.

Cheng Yang nodded, "Yep, picked up a decent treasure. What about you? Did you get many Experience Fragments?"

"My team killed nearly five hundred monsters." Liu Hau boasted, puffing up his chest. "The average soldier earned thirty Experience Fragment which is much higher than most days."

Cheng Yang smirked before sharing how many Experience Fragments he had collected, causing Liu Hau to steam with envy.

"My Lord," Old Lee interrupted their banter. "I'm afraid to say I was negligent in my duties. There were casualties within my team due to my inadequacies. Please punish me my Lord." He said with a remorseful expression.

Cheng Yang's laughing face instantly hardened. Although he had been preparing himself for such a report since the first day of the apocalypse it was still a shock to receive it so suddenly. He had been especially careful after collecting a large group of subordinates to protect their lives. After all, any soldier groomed since day one of the apocalypse was an extremely valuable asset.

Even so, Cheng couldn't protect them from war. Even though wars in the apocalypse weren't as bloody as those in the old war, they were still brutal. These weren't wars against people but against remorseless monsters. Prisoners weren't taken in these wars and they didn't end until one side was completely destroyed. In the old world, genocide was considered the most vicious, evil, and brutal form of war but it would soon be considered commonplace. It wouldn't be odd to see whole cities and villages completely wiped off the map.

"How many died?" Cheng Yang asked in a monotone voice.

"Only one person died thankfully." Old Lee said, as if we were reporting the total destruction of his team, "If not for the potions we brought, I'm afraid many more would have followed him to the grave."

Cheng Yang almost laughed when he heard that. Taking a moment to compose himself he cleared those negative thoughts from his mind. "Retrieve the corpse and give the dead a proper burial. We can't let our precious comrade become food for beasts. If the soldier has a family in the village, we'll make sure to take care of them. They will be moved into the first priority for becoming Professionals in the next round of selections. In addition, you will provide them with a large number of Experience Fragments. That will be your punishment! From now on, if a soldier dies, it is their team Captain's responsibility to provide a pension to those they left behind. I won't allow the pensions to be low but the exact amount can be decided on later."