Guard Captain Rice pointed his iron broadsword to the southeast and said, "Those d.a.m.ned Night Creatures are growing restless again. The h.e.l.lhounds are invading like tidewater, and their numbers are so huge that it"s impossible to kill all of them. Moreover, they"ve surrounded a town at the edge of Sky Forest called Dry Town, and we need to safely escort the townspeople to the temporary supply camp before the imperial army shows up!"

The guard captain shot me a glance and said, "Young warrior, there is about two kilometers of distance between Dry Town and the temporary supply camp, and the h.e.l.lhounds will be attacking you and the people you"re protecting while you"re traveling. You need to make sure that they all survive the journey, alright?"

I nodded. "Got it!"

Ding~!

System Notice: You have accepted the quest [Saving the Townspeople]! (Current Quest Rank: S-)

Description: Head to Dry Town and help the guardsmen escort a group of townspeople to safety. Watch out for the h.e.l.lhounds" attacks! The quest is complete when you"ve successfully transferred 500 civilians. If more than 50 civilians die during the transfer, the quest will fail, and you will be severely punished!

……

It looked like a pretty difficult quest, but I actually felt a bit relieved. This proved that Sky City still cared about its people"s lives, and that it was worthy of my services. I would gladly carry out more quests like these in the future.

I opened the world map and noted that a red area had appeared at the edge of Sky Forest. It represented the h.e.l.lhounds" activity spot. At the center of it was a green dot that represented my destination, Dry Town.

Looks like there"s going to be a huge battle!

I checked my condition before heading out. I had a healthy supply of potions, and all my items were above 97% durability, enough to last me an entire war. Moreover, I had War Crush, a super AoE skill. No matter how brutal the h.e.l.lhounds were, I wouldn"t be completely powerless.

I marked Dry Town as my destination and started marching with my pet. Since this was a S- Rank quest, I was expecting the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf to grow another 10 levels at least. Thankfully, the pets in Heavenblessed leveled up at a rather reasonable rate. It would be infuriating if a pet had to be trained for half a year before they could amount to anything.

I ran across the forest, but I wasn"t in a hurry. I killed any mob we ran into along the way so that the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf could level up as quickly as possible.

I was almost at Dry Town about half an hour later. Suddenly, I heard the sounds of battle from a part of the forest!

I pushed aside the leaves and saw two melee players fighting for their lives on a forest trail. Although they were pretty strong, their opponents were even stronger than they were. It was a pack of Level 95 undead wolves! They were covered in thick red armor, and their jaws were filled with sharp teeth. They kept salivating as they stared hungrily and crazily at the two fighters with red eyes!

The mobs were none other than the h.e.l.lhounds, and they were far stronger than I had initially thought!

h.e.l.lhound (Elite)

Level: 95

Attack: 920~1080

Defense: 650

HP: 17500

Skills: Bite, Roar

Properties: Death Surge, increases attack speed by 50%

Introduction: A group of h.e.l.lhounds are lurking in the darkness just outside Sky City. Their sharp claws that could tear apart any armor, and they cannot be tamed because they are beset by eternal hunger. They act only to hunt, and they have become a primary threat to Sky City due to the manipulations of the undead mages.

……

The h.e.l.lhound was a Level 95 elite mob with a pretty good Attack and even better special trait. That Death Surge instantly increased their attack speed by 50%, and not many people could handle that kind of DPS. However, they did have a fatal flaw, and that was their Defense was paper thin and their HP wasn"t very impressive. They could easily be killed if one was powerful enough!

The two players fighting against the h.e.l.lhounds also carried the emblem of Sky City on their shoulder like I do. The line of text floating above their heads were:

The Iron Palm That Surfs On Milk LV-82

Cla.s.s: Magic Knight

Guild: Warsky Alliance

Commit Suicide LV-81

Cla.s.s: Warrior

Guild: Warsky Alliance

……

I felt a sense of apprehension when I saw their IDs. They were part of the Warsky Alliance?

By now, everyone in Sky City knew that Warsky Alliance was aiming to take down Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, and so far it looked like they had the strength to match their boast. In Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, a Level 80 player would be made a corps commander already. But these two players were only squad leaders in Warsky Alliance!

That being said, I was pretty sure that they couldn"t withstand the h.e.l.lhound pack despite their strength. They were surrounded by almost 20 h.e.l.lhounds, and every hit deleted about 400 HP from their health bars.

418!

387!

412!

……

The attacks weren"t deadly, but they were happening so frequently that even The Iron Palm That Surfs On Milk, a high-level magic knight with almost 6000 HP, couldn"t handle it. In just half a minute"s time, he had lost over two-thirds of his HP. He hastily shouted to his companion, "Suicide, I don"t think we can handle these mobs alone! Their Attack is just too high! Let"s grab a couple of priests and come back later!"

Commit Suicide swung violently at a h.e.l.lhound using Blaze before replying, "No can do, man! The leader himself had ordered us to scout out the leveling grounds around Sky City! If we retreat now, everyone will look down on us! We have to kill at least one h.e.l.lhound so we could get the experience and the monster data!"

"True. Let"s focus on a single h.e.l.lhound and run away after we kill it!"

The Iron Palm That Surfs On Milk swung his spear and struck a half-health h.e.l.lhound with Flame Thrust and Blaze, dealing 2985 and 3456 damage respectively.

It was a respectable amount of damage. Warsky Alliance was definitely not an opponent we could afford to underestimate!

Unfortunately for them, they were a couple seconds too late. They were now completely surrounded with nowhere to escape!

Of course, I had no intentions of saving them. Warsky Alliance was my enemy, so why would I pity someone I was going to kill eventually? Warsky Alliance was no wolf, and I am no Dongguo.

"I can"t hold out any longer! Iron Palm, we"re dead!" Commit Suicide shouted.

The Iron Palm That Surfs On Milk replied angrily, "It"s fine, we"ll grab our men and come back later! I refuse to believe that these h.e.l.lhounds could stump the Warsky Alliance!"

He barely managed to finish his sentence before the h.e.l.lhounds finished both of them.

The second they died, I immediately rushed into the open and charged the foremost h.e.l.lhound. Once I had gotten into position, I immediately launched a Thousand Mirage Slas.h.!.+

Boom!

The h.e.l.lhounds screeched in pain and lost almost all of their HP. When they charged toward me with bloodshot eyes, I immediately followed up with a devastating War Crus.h.!.+

Bang!

A thunderous blow later, all the h.e.l.lhounds had been burned into ashes!

The h.e.l.lhounds dropped a couple of equipment and magic stones. I only grabbed the equipment and used Death Plunder on their corpses to obtain another dozen or so Rank 7 pelts. It was exactly the kind of resources Mamate needed to rank up his Armorsmithing skill and make us even better armors.

……

The souls of The Iron Palm That Surfs On Milk and Commit Suicide appeared not far away from here. I was sure that they would be able to revive very soon. I wondered how they would feel after seeing the floor of dead bodies?

Oh well, who cares? I have a quest to complete!

This time, there were no more distractions as I made a beeline for Dry Town. A couple of NPC guardsmen immediately walked up to me when I arrived, and a middle-aged warrior with a thick beard let out a laugh. "Finally, the adventurer sent by the garrison officer is here! Dry Town is currently being besieged from all directions, and we"ll be evacuating 100 civilians in 5 minutes. Your job is to escort these 100 civilians safely to the temporary supply camp! Brave warrior, we leave Dry Town in your capable hands!"

I nodded. "Got it. Leave it to me!"

"Thank you!"

……

A few minutes later, a group of civilians and eight soldiers appeared at the town entrance. The soldiers were only Level 90, so it was questionable if they could even fight a h.e.l.lhound one on one. Naturally, it was up to me to protect all 100 civilians from danger!

A countdown appeared on the system window, and the civilians took off when it reached 0. Just like before, I set the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf to follow me only because its level was too low to do anything. The good news was that there was almost no chance it might attract any aggro, so I shouldn"t need to protect it unless it got really unlucky.

The townspeople moved slowly, so I could only wander around and wait for something to happen. And it did. Not longer after we took off, the first h.e.l.lhound appeared at a distance and pounced toward the townspeople!

I immediately activated Charge!

Whoos.h.!.+

After that, I followed up with Ice Ray + Desperate Gambit + basic attack!

5489!

6734!

4950!

It was dead after one final attack. The h.e.l.lhound"s Defense and HP were practically non-existent before my insane damage!

The quest continued. With my Attack, protecting these civilians shouldn"t be a problem.

Speaking of which, I had changed my attack mode to "righteous" mode. This meant that my attack would only injure mobs, but not NPCs or players.

Beep!

It was at this moment He Yi sent me a message: "How"s it going, Lu Chen?"

I brought up the chat window and replied, "I"m doing pretty well. I got a quest, and I"m using it to level up my Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf. What about you girls? Do you want to join me on my quest too?"

He Yi giggled. "It"s okay, Beiming Xue, Mingyue and I are actually doing a quest right now. It"s an Rank quest!"

"Oh, I see. By the way, is there something you want to talk with me about?"

"Of course! You should check out the level ranking!"

"Oh? Did they finally update Sky City"s Heavenly Ranking?"

"Mn!"

……

I quickly brought up the level ranking as He Yi asked me too, and I wasn"t disappointed. This was the first time a level ranking was refreshed in Sky City, and I was way ahead of everyone as a matter of course. The rest of the heroes of Sky City were also unveiled for the first time—