Volume One: The Arrival of the Apocalypse Chapter 49: Ability Breakthrough, Multi-Layered Space

The attribute points the chubby boy had previously upgraded were all allocated to Constitution, while those obtained from leveling up during yesterday's migration were added to Spirit, leaving his Agility completely unenhanced.

Facing this abrupt and ferocious ambush, he was entirely too slow to react.

Fortunately, Xiang Xiaoxiao had been maintaining a vigilant watch for dangers from the canopy layer, and she had previously increased her Agility attribute to 7 points to better handle the steel-bead crossbow.

Holding her shield, she blocked the attack coming from above for Wei Wei while simultaneously thrusting her spear at the assailant.

The attacker's slender raptorial legs lightly tapped against the surface of the shield to gain leverage, and with its wings unfurled, it retreated rapidly, dodging the thrust of the steel spear.

Further back, He Wan had already begun cocking the steel-bead crossbow the moment the giant mantis lunged at Wei Wei.

At this point, the giant mantis had retreated to the branch of a pine tree three or four meters away. It folded its pair of raptorial legs, its compound eyes on its inverted triangular head fixed upon the group, clearly not yet abandoning its intent to hunt them.

Having finished cocking the weapon, He Wan tracked the giant mantis's movement trajectory with the steel-bead crossbow in her hand and pulled the trigger the exact second it landed on the tree branch.

Following a crisp sound, a steel bead one centimeter in diameter flew out silently, shooting straight for the giant mantis's inverted triangular head.

However, the giant mantis possessed formidable dynamic visual capture capabilities and reaction speed. Its pair of raptorial legs snapped forward swiftly, batting the tiny steel bead away.

At the same time, the prey's resistance ignited a fierce aggressive urge in the giant mantis. It spread its wings and lunged toward the front line of the group once more, this time targeting Xiang Xiaoxiao, who had ruined its earlier attempt.

Having missed with her spear thrust just moments before, Xiang Xiaoxiao already knew that, with her Agility attribute at a mere 7, she was entirely helpless against this monstrous bug that Xiang Chenguang had designated as a Tier-Zero peak entity.

Therefore, she immediately began preparing her ultimate killer move.

As the mantis pounced toward her through the air, a lightning orb the size of a ping-pong ball had already materialized in her palm, which she then raised her hand and hurled forward.

The giant mantis placed far too much trust in its pair of raptorial legs. Faced with the oncoming lightning orb, it lashed out with its raptorial legs to slash through it.

After a flash of blinding electric light, the giant mantis plummeted from the sky. Its originally emerald-green raptorial legs had turned somewhat charred, and a burnt odor emanated from its body.

The chubby boy Wei Wei offered his thanks with a slightly embarrassed expression, while He Jie planted his steel spear into the ground, gave a thumbs-up, and praised, "As expected of—"

Meeting Xiang Xiaoxiao's cold, sidelong glare, he wisely snapped his mouth shut.

He Wan said, "The terrain in the woodlands is complex. If some monsters hide in the foliage to launch surprise attacks, it becomes far too dangerous for us. Instead of this, we might as well set up a defensive formation to face the monsters' onslaught. This will actually be much more advantageous for us, given that we have shields and low Agility attributes."

This proposal won the approval of the other three. Consequently, Wei Wei and He Jie simultaneously struck their iron shields with steel spears, creating a clamor to entice the monsters to take the initiative and attack them.

The effect of this tactic was immediately apparent. Soon, a rustling sound echoed through the woods, and several giant centipedes alongside a few spider monsters emerged from the forest, quickly charging toward them.

Whether it was Xiang Xiaoxiao and He Wan, or He Jie and Wei Wei, all of them possessed a thorough understanding of the abilities and traits of these two types of monstrous bugs.

While the three in the front line defended relying on their iron shields and occasionally launched counterattacks with their steel spears, He Wan stood in the rear, continuously cocking and firing her bow.

Whenever the advancement speed of these two monstrous bugs was even slightly hindered, a one-centimeter-diameter steel bead would immediately blast a hole right through their heads.

There was no need for Xiang Chenguang in the rear to make a move; the four of them wiped out the incoming monstrous bugs entirely through tight coordination.

In this fashion, every time the five of them advanced a short distance, they would use the method of striking their iron shields to lure the monsters in the forest into launching proactive charges against them, only for those creatures to perish before the defensive line formed by the three iron shields.

During yesterday's migration journey, He Wan had used the steel-bead crossbow to gun down quite a few monsters, elevating her character tier to Tier-Zero, Level 6.

In today's battle, the three front-line members had focused the vast majority of their energy on defense, only resorting to occasional counterattacks with their steel spears, meaning nearly half of the monsters had fallen to her steel beads.

Very quickly, she elevated her tier to Tier-Zero, Level 7. After once again allocating her gained free attribute points to Spirit, her Spirit attribute reached 9 points, leaving her only a short distance away from transcending into the extraordinary.

As the five of them progressed along the path, the density of monsters in the woods began to increase rapidly, making it completely unnecessary for them to intentionally create noise to lure the bugs.

This made Xiang Chenguang even more certain that there must be a persistent spatial rift located further ahead in the woods.

Otherwise, in this area that had just been cleared out yesterday afternoon, it would be impossible for so many monsters to reappear overnight.

Eventually, Xiang Chenguang was compelled to step in and help them share the pressure, especially after massive quantities of flying monsters began to appear.

The small silver snake coiled around his wrist disassembled into three silver flying wheels, continuously tumbling up and down in mid-air to slaughter all incoming flying monsters outside the defensive line.

Only when the defensive line formed by Xiang Xiaoxiao and the other three struggled to withstand the pressure would the silver flying wheels assist in dispatching some of the giant centipedes and spider monsters.

Thus, they traveled with frequent stops, much like a carbon copy of yesterday's migration procession when exiting the city. However, the commotion created by these five individuals was much smaller, and the number of monsters lured in at any one time was also far lower.

After the exploration team advanced about two thousand meters into the mountainous forest, He Wan became the first to reach Level 9, pushing her Spirit attribute to 11 points.

Sure enough, the exact moment her Spirit attribute attained the extraordinary threshold, the volume of her portable spatial storage expanded noticeably, transitioning from three cubic meters to approximately five cubic meters.

Simultaneously, her sensory perception of space grew much sharper. The very second she completed the attribute allocation, she sensed that a spatial rift existed roughly three to four hundred meters ahead to their front right.

This rift differed from the spatial gap they had previously encountered in the residential compound.

The spatial gap in the residential compound continuously cycled between expanding and repairing itself, whereas this spatial rift showed no signs of being repaired and persisted continuously.

Consequently, the exploration team adjusted their direction of travel in accordance with He Wan's perception.

The closer they got to the spatial rift, the higher the density of monsters became, to the point where Xiang Chenguang had already been forced to wield his golden-hooped staff and join the defensive line.

With Xiang Chenguang's formal entry into the battle, the team's speed in clearing out the monstrous bugs accelerated sharply, and they soon carved a bloody path against the tide of bugs right up to the front of the spatial gap.

Unlike the spatial gaps where spatial ripples were only faintly visible right before monsters emerged, this spatial rift could be continuously observed with the naked eye.

Visually, the spatial rift resembled an elliptical sphere composed of glass fragments hovering a little over a meter above the ground, and these glass fragments were still slowly shifting in an irregular pattern.

After decapitating a giant dragonfly that had just flown out from the spatial rift, the surroundings plunged into a profound silence, with no new monsters emerging.

Under Xiang Chenguang's control, a football-sized stone on the ground floated into the air and swiftly flew toward that cluster of incessantly drifting glass fragments.

The instant it drew close to those glass fragments, the stone continuously fractured and disintegrated, rapidly vanishing until not even dust remained.

Xiang Chenguang looked at He Wan and asked, "Does anything feel different?"

He Wan said with some hesitation, "It feels like this rift doesn't just connect to a single space; it seems to have three distinct layers of space."