Chapter 22: Group Combat
The eerie screeches and snapping branches came sooner than expected.
As everyone held their breath and tightened their grips on their weapons, a mottled humanoid figure emerged in their line of sight. Moving with feline grace, the figure zigzagged wildly while advancing, its hunting bow releasing rhythmic twangs. The dull thuds of arrows piercing tree trunks followed closely behind.
Liu Xiao was putting on an impromptu demonstration—not intentionally, but simply maximizing enemy casualties before the main engagement. He'd scouted the lizardmen settlement to find forty guards constructing a crude barricade of stones and timber, clearly having learned from the arrow-pierced corpses of their last encounter.
After briefing Li Tianjia, Liu Xiao returned to harass the enemy. Three headshots and two lethal body strikes later, the settlement erupted in panicked cries of "Help! Help!" in the lizardmen tongue—which Liu Xiao now understood.
Like kicking a hornet's nest, over a hundred enraged lizardmen swarmed out.
"Damn, a quarter of their total force here?" Liu Xiao muttered as the confused reptilians milled about their barricade.
He ended their confusion with another volley—arrows piercing through two targets before embedding in a third. When the mob finally spotted him camouflaged among trees, their bloodcurdling threats filled the air:
"There! Kill him!"
"I'll eat his brains!"
"He must've murdered the chieftain—sacrifice him alive!"
Liu Xiao kited the charging horde, his dynamic archery allowing precise shots while moving. Just as he grew confident about soloing the entire group, several javelin-armed lizardmen snapped him back to reality.
"Take cover! Watch for thrown spears!" he shouted while retreating in zigzags.
The warning came just in time. Four spearmen were impaled before they could react, followed by dozens of charging lizardmen resembling enraged rhinos. Even veterans of the Qixiao massacre felt their knees tremble at the sight.
Li Tianjia's rallying cry cut through the fear:
"Remember—this is humanity's first battle in the Origin, not our last! After today, we become true warriors!"
His words and Liu Xiao's lethal barrage—two headshots per second from his vantage point—ignited the group's fighting spirit.
"Kill them all!"
"Come at me, beasts!"
The collision of species was brutal. Lizardmen vanguard crashed into spear formations, snapping shafts but taking abdominal wounds from antler-tipped poles. Liu Xiao's arrows eliminated a dozen frontliners before javelins came flying—three aimed squarely at him.
Though he dodged, several spearmen fell. Remarkably, none cried out, earning Liu Xiao's respect.
As medics dragged casualties back, the true battle commenced. Dozens of lizardmen bulldozed through lines, their clawed gauntlets reaping lives like harvesters. Flanking spearmen barely stabilized the crumbling formation.
Li Tianjia dueled a brute, his 10+ Strength no match for the creature's raw power. A desperate stab to its soft underbelly only enraged it further until two teammates finished the job with gut-ripping slashes.
"Drag the corpses back! Now!" Liu Xiao shouted, recognizing these were metamorphosed specimens—their lingering spirits couldn't be wasted.
Within minutes, the 133-strong spear team had dwindled dangerously. Liu Xiao prioritized eliminating the eight remaining javelin throwers, allowing his 28 archers to unleash their full barrage.
From his perch, Liu Xiao became a machine—each arrow a headshot, each shot bought with a comrade's blood. A female assistant kept him supplied, boosting his firing rate.
The bowstring burned his fingers. Silence fell.
Heaving breaths replaced battle cries. Then—
"WE WON!!!!"
The euphoric roar shook the battlefield. Before them lay the corpses of creatures who'd seemed invincible—far deadlier than the Qixiao, yet felled by "weak" humans.
"Priority list—consume the spirits now!" Liu Xiao's command cut short celebrations.
As designated members began harvesting, medics scrambled. Three ER doctors worked feverishly, their white coats now crimson. Search teams scavenged red and white pellets from lizardmen corpses—precious healing items in this resource-starved environment.
Liu Xiao spotted a young man desperately pressing hands against a gushing abdominal wound on a middle-aged comrade—the same man who'd steadied him earlier.
"Big bro, stay awake! Look at me!"
The fading man smiled weakly, squeezed the boy's hand, and closed his eyes.
"He just went home," someone whispered.
The tearful boy looked up to see Liu Xiao. "I never got his name."
"He was your comrade. They all are."
With the battle concluded, Liu Xiao left the cleanup to others. He returned to the settlement where eight un-metamorphosed lizardmen remained.
Strolling past corpses, he finally sat before the cliffside stone structure, ignoring his glowing merit notifications. Instead, he splurged points on a luxury—his favorite brand of cigarettes.
Ripping open the pack, he lit one with slow deliberation.
The southern lizardmen outpost was theirs.
Nearly an hour later, human figures appeared beyond the barricade.
The reorganized team entered the extraterrestrial-built settlement, Li Tianjia plopping down beside Liu Xiao. When offered a cigarette, he declined.
"Seventy-nine dead. Fourteen severely disabled. The rest have mostly recovered," Li Tianjia reported quietly.
Liu Xiao nodded impassively—the casualty rate was lower than expected.
"Fifty-four completed metamorphosis, including Ye Shan's group of four."
"That number's off," Liu Xiao noted.
"Some probably exceeded the spirit retention window," Li Tianjia speculated.
"Can we estimate the duration?"
"Ye Shan thinks about five minutes."
Liu Xiao exhaled smoke without comment.
"The red pellets don't regenerate limbs," Li Tianjia added grimly.
"Expected."
"So actual losses: ninety-three."
"You'll get used to it."
"We only moved some lizardmen corpses. What about the rest?"
"I'll handle them."
"Right."
"Tianjia... I might leave the team." Liu Xiao stubbed out his cigarette.
"What? Why?" Li Tianjia gaped at him.
"My presence stifles your growth." Liu Xiao's gaze grew distant. "Seventy-seven kills were mine alone today. No cross-tier rewards either—means lizardmen are now my peers."
"But without you, we—"
"With me, you'll always be support roles. Most resources flow to me. Without me? You'll grow—painfully, but surely." Liu Xiao lit another cigarette amidst a graveyard of butts. "I keep wondering—why did the Origin bring us here? Just interspecies slaughter? No. Slaughter's the means, not the goal."
"Then what is?"
"To forge the strong through crucibles of war."
"Survival of the fittest?" Li Tianjia murmured.
"Exactly. Like when Homo sapiens first appeared."
"That... makes sense."
"Ready for it?" Liu Xiao met his eyes.
"Think so." Li Tianjia held the stare.
They burst out laughing simultaneously.
"By the way—that thing calling you. Which direction?"
"Behind you."
Liu Xiao whirled toward the stone structure. "Inside?"
Li Tianjia shook his head, standing to point at the cliffside monolith.
"...That?" Liu Xiao's eye twitched at the carved pillar.
"It's calling me." Li Tianjia approached solemnly, kneeling before the weathered statue atop the pillar. As he whispered prayers, sunlight haloed the effigy—an eerie silence descended, thick with sanctity.
Liu Xiao waited, arms crossed.
The ritual concluded swiftly. Li Tianjia returned, eyes gleaming with newfound vitality.
"Divine patronage?" Liu Xiao guessed.
"God of War. A primordial Origin deity."
"Confirmed my suspicions." Liu Xiao checked Li Tianjia's updated stats:
[War Emissary]
"Get Power Release?" Liu Xiao asked, recalling the potent buff.
"No. Three choices—took Battle Cry instead. Temporarily boosts allies' Strength/Fortitude while weakening enemies."
"Solid pick. How's progression?"
"Brutally simple: keep fighting." Li Tianjia grinned wryly.
"Makes sense—patronage mirrors the deity." Liu Xiao extended a hand. "With this, I can leave reassured."
"Already?!"
"Stay as your nanny? Watch you grind levels slowly?"
Their handshake was crushing.
"Stay alive."
"See you at the summit."
After brief goodbyes to the Yang brothers and Ye Shan, Liu Xiao departed.
"Wait—did you tell him about Ye Shan?" Yang Zhe asked Li Tianjia.
"...Shit."
Collective facepalms ensued.
——
At the battlefield, Liu Xiao stuffed lizardmen corpses into [Defective Good]—these were his growth fuel.
The southeastern outpost fell next—twenty butchered reptilians later, Liu Xiao frowned at his mental math. "Still too many..."
Three hours later, he perched atop a canopy, observing a larger settlement. Fifty lizardmen milled below until his arrows rained death. When enraged survivors finally climbed his tree, he'd already swing-vined away, leaving them to die chasing shadows.
"Sixty-seven." The final count satisfied him—enough survivors for Li Tianjia's team to farm cross-tier kills.
Before leaving, he graffiti'd a wall in lizardman blood: "You're welcome."
The nearest core zone marker overlapped with his position. At the cliff's edge, a vine basket served as a makeshift elevator. Testing the ropes' integrity, Liu Xiao began his descent.
Twenty minutes later, white fog thickened into crimson mist reeking of blood. Emerging from the haze, the true Falling Star Sky Eye unveiled itself as the system chimed:
[Discovered Intermediate Danger Zone: Falling Star Sky Eye]