35: Choose a good place

"To kill monsters efficiently, every attack must be aimed at the monster's weaknesses. Of course, monsters aren't brainless; they won't just expose their weaknesses."

"So, if there are no weaknesses, you must create them!"

"The weaknesses of quadrupedal monsters are generally in areas like the eyes, rear, throat, mouth, and so on..."

"The ultimate goal is to kill the monster, not to show off how fancy your footwork is. You can be fancy against one monster, but what about two? Ten? Do you still have that much energy to handle it?"

The second-in-command, Wei Qing, seeing Luo Feng and Qiao Yu in deep thought, spoke indifferently to explain.

"Understood!"

"Understood!"

Luo Feng and Qiao Yu both nodded in agreement. Seeing this, Wei Qing rarely showed a hint of a smile.

"Continue forward!"

Gao Feng waved his hand, and the group continued along the highway, setting off towards County-level City No. 0201.

After everyone left, the corpse of the Tiger Cat that had been gutted on the ground gradually turned into a pile of black Impurities.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

In the early morning, the Fire Hammer Squad walked along a dilapidated ring road. The end of the road was their destination for this trip—County-level City No. 0201.

"Luo Feng, Qiao Yu, there are two Advanced Beast Soldier Level Lion Mastiffs ahead. One each, take them out!"

"Yes! Captain!"

Captain Gao Feng issued the order, and the two did not hesitate, charging forward at a steady pace.

"Roar!"

The two Lion Mastiffs bared their fangs and charged forward, like two mad dogs with rabies, their eyes filled only with bloodlust and madness.

Qiao Yu and Luo Feng exchanged a glance, both wearing a smile.

Over the past three days, the two had experienced over a dozen joint battles, and their combat rhythm was very harmonious.

Luo Feng thought it was the tacit understanding from years of being together, but in reality, the area within a hundred meters was within the range of Qiao Yu's spore perception.

In other words, as long as they were within this range, Qiao Yu could maintain a harmonious rhythm with whoever he was fighting with.

More importantly, Qiao Yu discovered that through the ability of spore perception, he could replicate Luo Feng's movements one-to-one, or learn his methods of exerting force.

If he could replicate the movements or force-exertion methods of strong individuals, he could save a lot of time on comprehension and practice.

For example, as Luo Feng faced that Lion Mastiff, the strange four steps he took were exactly the 'Streamer' footwork from the Nine-Layered Thunder Blade.

Qiao Yu directly manipulated his body to exert force according to the feedback provided by his spore perception.

Because the enemies they were facing at the scene were different, a literal one-to-one replication would be suicide. However, Qiao Yu had already fully grasped the force-exertion method of Luo Feng's 'Streamer', and he executed it as well.

"Pfft! Pfft!"

The sound of blades entering flesh rang out, and the two killed the two Lion Mastiffs almost simultaneously.

After collecting the Materials from the Lion Mastiffs, Gao Feng reminded them.

"Move quickly, let's head straight into the county town. These Lion Mastiffs are pack-type monsters; the scent of their kind's blood will attract them."

The group nodded and entered the county town's territory.

Qiao Yu, however, was not in a hurry to let the fungal swarm devour the corpses of the two Lion Mastiffs. Since the blood of their kind could attract them, he would set a time bomb here and use the fungal swarm to wipe them all out slowly.

As the Fire Hammer Squad gradually delved deeper into the county town, Qiao Yu could already spot some relatively low-rise bungalow buildings in the surrounding area.

This was his first time in the Wilderness Area, and also his first time building a nest for the fungal swarm, so he planned to wait until the squad found a relatively safe place to rest before building the nest.

"The more densely built the area, the more monsters gather there. Not a single monster that has survived the decades of war between humans and monsters is stupid."

"They all know that without hiding spots, humans can use heavy weapons or dispatch powerful Martial Artists to lock onto them and kill them."

"Nowadays, we Martial Artists can only kill them if we are craftier than they are."

"The higher the intelligence of a monster, the longer it survives, and the easier it is for it to advance to become a Beast General Level monster. Once they reach the Beast General Level, they will summon a large number of Beast Soldier-level Monsters to protect themselves, which is the main reason why Beast General Level monsters are difficult to kill."

Gao Feng explained as they walked along the way.

When they encountered some lairs guarded by Warlord Level monsters, Gao Feng immediately ordered everyone to detour.

The Fire Hammer Squad proceeded with caution and finally arrived at the first stop in County-level City No. 0201—the 'Blue Sky Residential Area'.

There were three 21-story residential buildings here, which were excellent vantage points.

Once they entered the residential building, the group stopped speaking, using hand signals to communicate as they continued along the safety stairs.

Fortunately, the fire door of the safety stairs on the first floor had long been trampled flat by monsters. Qiao Yu remembered that opening this type of door usually came with a loud sound that could resonate throughout the entire safety stairwell.

"Roar~"

Waves of low, deep monster roars echoed through the stairwell, passing through the corridors of each floor. Everyone felt their hearts jump into their throats, their nerves strained.

Along the way, they also encountered four or five monsters, all of which were dealt with cleanly and without hesitation by Wei Tie, Wei Qing, and Zhang Ke, keeping the noise to a minimum.

The group did not stop and headed straight for the roof.

The safety door to the roof was open. After walking out of the stairwell, Gao Feng ordered Qiao Yu and Luo Feng to shut and seal the safety door to prevent monsters from downstairs from following their scent up.

It wasn't until the safety door was completely sealed that the seven of them breathed a sigh of relief.

One by one, they either sat directly on the ground or on the drainage pipes.

Everyone took out high-energy food and purified water from their backpacks, and Captain Gao Feng ordered everyone to rest for ten minutes.

Qiao Yu sat on a drainage pipe, eating dry rations while deep in thought.

'This Blue Sky Residential Area isn't in the center of the county town, nor is it guarded by any Beast General Level monsters. The distance between the buildings isn't large, and the floors aren't particularly drafty. It belongs to an old-style residential area, so it's quite suitable for building a nest for the fungal swarm.'

'As expected, the amount of fungal swarm needed to build a nest is exceptionally large. The flesh and blood mycelium devoured over the past three days has been mostly consumed.'

While following the Fire Hammer Squad up earlier, Qiao Yu had secretly released quite a few spores on every floor, and his storage of flesh and blood mycelium had plummeted.

But fortunately, he only needed to release them once; as long as the fungal swarm parasitized external objects, they would no longer need Qiao Yu to provide them with nutrients.

They were not individual life forms, nor did they fear that monsters would clear them away.

Because the entire residential area was built of reinforced concrete and not monster flesh and blood, the speed at which the fungal swarm parasitized this reinforced concrete was greatly slowed down.

But as long as they were parasitized, that reinforced concrete would coexist with the fungal swarm, becoming Qiao Yu's first fungal swarm fortress in the Wilderness Area!

The first step of the fungus Empire had been taken!