The two hundred or so survivors who were gathered by Cai Jingyi and Zhong De were surrounded by the more than one hundred men chosen by Wu Yijun to be part of the armed forces of the Beginning Village.
The hundred men were using machine guns, rifles, and pistols. These were all firearms that Bai Zemin had taken out of the military camp the day before for precisely this purpose.
Of course, while security was a lot higher due to the modern weaponry, in reality none of these hundred men had the ability to take on a large group of mutated creatures. In fact, probably only a dozen Agility-based or especially high defense beasts would be more than enough to decimate them all.
However, this would not stay that way for long as Bai Zemin would not let them get too used to modern weaponry. Modern weaponry would be used by those who did not have the courage to fight enemies face to face.
Due to the large amount of people and Soul Power, it was simply impossible that after entering the forest they would not attract the attention of some creatures; this was something that Bai Zemin was very clear about.
His greatest fear was actually the Elusive Chameleons; these monsters were even lower than level 20 and posed no threat to someone with his power. But to 99% of people present they were fatal creatures, perfect killers.
Swoosh!
Suddenly a silhouette jumped from the top of a tree and swooshed like an unstoppable shadow over the group of survivors. None of them even had time to react.
The creature turned out to be a two-meter tall ape whose fur was completely brown. With bloodshot eyes, the mutated ape raised one of its front legs and slashed down ferociously with the intention of crushing the head of a survivor.
The survivor's eyes filled with fear but his body could not respond in any way so he could only watch as the mutated ape's claw fell closer and closer to his face.
Clang!
A shadow appeared between the survivor and the mutated ape's claw at lightning speed. With a somewhat clumsy but at the same time controlled movement, the pretty Cai Jingyi positioned her Agarth Dagger in a defensive stance and successfully stopped the beast's advance.
Before the mutated ape could even react, Cai Jingyi disappeared from her position and appeared just above its head. With a fierce downward slash the dagger plunged deep into the skull of the beast, collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
As other survivors helped the still frightened one, she reached down and pierced the forehead of the slain mutated ape. After searching for a moment, she looked toward the front of the group and shook her head gently.
Several meters ahead, Bai Zemin saw that everything was resolved with ease and calmly said, "Let's continue moving forward."
Apart from the case of the mutated ape, the group led by Bai Zemin encountered a few other incidents that could be categorized as minor since thanks to the quick intervention of one of the group's evolvers, no lives were lost.
Regardless of whether it was Bai Zemin himself, Shangguan Bing Xue, Wu Yijun, Chen He, Cai Jingyi, or Zhong De; they had all experienced many things since the arrival of the Soul Record on Earth . Combat experience was beginning to grow at astonishing speeds due to the constant danger they faced, and they were all slowly becoming more proficient in their own core skills .
"My God..."
"Look at all this blood..."
"There are thousands of spiders here! They were all slaughtered!"
"Amazing! Even facing so many mutated creatures they came out victorious! The most amazing thing is that they didn't even use firearms!"
...
When the group reached the part of the forest where Bai Zemin had fought the Wolf Spiders, everyone's face paled at the bloody sight.
The normally brown trunks of the trees were now stained red, the green leaves were spotted with dried blood, even the surrounding air still had that notorious iron smell of blood.
Only those more fearless or who had experienced many hardships managed to recover faster and began to comment on the incredible sight of the hellish scene before their eyes.
"Alright!" Bai Zemin called everyone's attention and pointed to the surroundings as he said, "Start searching for the object I showed you earlier. Whoever finds more of these objects will be rewarded with 1 kilogram of mutated meat!"
The eyes of the survivors shone upon hearing Bai Zemin's promise. Mutated meat was extremely precious as its nutrients and the mana it contained could fortify the body; even those who were somewhat malnourished could recover at astonishing speeds if they consumed mutated meat!
Of course, the reason why Bai Zemin was willing to do this was because he currently had a lot of mutated meat at his disposal and if he didn't do something with it, it would end up falling into a bad condition sooner or later. Besides, that way he could slowly start nurturing people under his banner and use them in times of crisis.
He looked at the tall Zhong De and the beautiful Wu Yijun and ordered, "Zhong De, you and Wu Yijun stay here to protect and supervise these people. I will leave behind fifty armed men for both of you to command at will."
Bai Zemin left a total of one hundred survivors to do the work of collecting the Unclassified Soul Stones. Together with Chen He, Shangguan Bing Xue, and Cai Jingyi led the other one hundred survivors and the remaining fifty armed men deeper into the forest.
The reason why Bai Zemin took Shangguan Bing Xue with him even though she was a First Order existence and would be able to provide more support to the first group was for obvious reasons.
After all, the deeper into the forest, the greater the dangers they had to face in case enemies appeared. This had been demonstrated before and Bai Zemin had no doubts about it.
Moreover, somehow he felt apprehensive for some reason. Therefore, under the confused eyes of Chen He and the rest, he began to hunt hostile creatures whenever they appeared.
When the second group of survivors arrived at the battlefield where the ten First Order beasts and over two hundred Unclassified enemies had been slaughtered by Bai Zemin, Shangguan Bing Xue, and Wu Yijun the day before, they all gasped and stagnated in their own steps.
Even Chen He and Cai Jingyi, who had already seen their fair share of First Order beasts, were surprised to see the colossal size of the evolved elephants.
This was the first time they had seen such a large beast. They were even bigger than the Reinforced Iron Boar! Almost twice the size!
Chen He's eyes flashed with competitive light and he clenched his fists tightly. He had currently reached level 25 and was slowly fulfilling his conditions of evolving to First Order, so he hoped that at the very least, that huge gap between him and the man he considered his greatest rival since birth would at least shorten a little.
If Bai Zemin knew Chen He's thoughts he probably wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry.