Volume 1: The Arrival of the Apocalypse Chapter 51: Fruitful Results, Vegetable Freedom

Just as Xiang Chenguang's voice faded, the Cyan Wind Wolf initiated the first attack. A pale cyan, crescent-shaped wind blade materialized out of thin air, whistling as it shot directly toward Xiang Xiaoxiao.

Following closely behind, the wolf itself was shrouded in a gust of breeze, lunging at Xiang Xiaoxiao with lightning speed. Its bowl-sized claws gleamed with pale cyan wind energy.

Xiang Xiaoxiao raised her shield to block the incoming wind blade. The tremendous impact made it impossible for her to steady her footing, causing her to stagger back two steps.

Having been thrown off balance by the wind blade, she would undoubtedly find it extremely difficult to fend off the charging Cyan Wind Wolf that followed right after.

Fortunately, she was not fighting alone. He Wan, who had already loaded her steel-ball crossbow, fired a steel bead straight at the wolf's eyes.

The Cyan Wind Wolf paused only briefly, shaking its head to dodge the projectile.

It was precisely this momentary pause that allowed an earthen humanoid to rise abruptly from the ground right in front of Xiang Xiaoxiao, spreading its arms to embrace the lunging beast.

The Cyan Wind Wolf's massive paw, crackling with pale cyan wind energy, slammed viciously into the head of the earth construct, shattering its head and half of its upper body into a shower of debris.

Yet this halted the wolf's charge, temporarily lifting the crisis for Xiang Xiaoxiao.

Immediately afterward, a tapered flame whistled through the air, hurtling toward the wolf's head.

The Cyan Wind Wolf ducked its body to evade the flame spike, only for the empty projectile to detonate suddenly, forming a massive fireball that engulfed half of the beast, including its head.

Following an angry howl, a strong gale materialized out of nowhere, dispersing the flames.

The Cyan Wind Wolf's once sleek, glossy, and somewhat ornate pale cyan fur was scorched in numerous places, making it look thoroughly disheveled.

It turned its glare toward the culprit, He Jie, but before it could make a move, a crackling lightning whip wrapped tightly around its body.

At the same time, the earth construct—previously shattered by the wolf's paw—had completely regenerated. It opened its arms to hug the Cyan Wind Wolf tightly, pressing the beast's head against its shoulder.

Another steel bead struck silently. Bound by the lightning whip and paralyzed all over, the Cyan Wind Wolf was completely immobilized in the embrace of the earth construct, and its right eye was instantly blown apart by the steel bead.

Before a miserable screech could even escape its throat, a rapidly spinning wheel of fire cleanly severed its massive wolf head.

Watching the entire spectacle from the sidelines, Xiang Chenguang felt a sense of profound gratification. The Cyan Wind Wolf, whose individual combat capability slightly surpassed that of a gnoll, had been effortlessly slain under the four-person coordinated assault without causing any real trouble.

Aside from himself, their camp finally had others capable of dealing with the incursions of Tier 1 otherworldly entities.

The reason why the abilities of Xiang Xiaoxiao and the other three had undergone such drastic transformations and exhibited such formidable might was, of course, not merely the result of having mental attributes exceeding 10 points.

Having blocked the dimensional rift for half a day, all four of them, including He Wan, had advanced to Tier 1 and obtained evolution points.

It was precisely due to the effect of these evolution points that their abilities manifested a qualitative shift; both their methods of application and their displayed power were vastly superior to before.

As for He Wan, after upgrading her spatial ability to intermediate rank using evolution points, although it still lacked offensive capabilities, she had become the one who brought the greatest surprise among the four.

First, the capacity of her portable space expanded significantly once again, reaching approximately ten cubic meters.

The biggest surprise came from her enhanced spatial perception, which now allowed her perceptive awareness to detect spatial folds and gaps present within the current domain and utilize them to achieve cross-distance movement.

This was the system's description of the skill after the spatial ability advanced to the intermediate rank.

He Wan had tested it; guided by her spatial perception, she took a single step across a spatial fold and instantly bridged a distance of over ten meters.

From the perspective of Xiang Chenguang and the others, He Wan simply stepped forward, vanished from her spot, and instantly reappeared more than ten meters away.

Was this not teleportation?

This left Xiang Chenguang, He Jie, and Wei Wei filled with envy. The skill was simply too practical; it served as a divine technique for both offense and escape, and above all, it looked effortlessly cool!

With this, the primary objectives of the five-person exploration team's excursion had been successfully accomplished.

Through nearly two hours of observation, it became clear that the strange insects appearing earlier had all invaded their world from the first layer of space.

However, the sole Cyan Wind Wolf, according to He Wan's perception, had invaded from the second layer of space.

Therefore, it could be basically concluded that the invading monsters originated from different worlds, and the deeper the world's layer in He Wan's perception, the stronger the monsters within it would be.

The entities emerging from the first otherworldly layer were all strange insects, whose current maximum strength was at most peak Tier 0, though it remained uncertain whether Tier 1 or even higher-level monsters existed there.

Although they had only witnessed firsthand the Cyan Wind Wolf emerging from the second spatial layer, it could be deduced that yesterday's gnoll and this morning's vampire bat both hailed from the second layer.

Crucially, in He Wan's perception, this dimensional rift was also connected to a third layer of space. Although currently only a few cracks had appeared on its spatial barrier, preventing the monsters of that world from invading Earth just yet.

Since the cracks had already formed, the creation of a dimensional rift was merely a matter of time.

Judging by the strength of the monsters that appeared in the first two spatial layers, the third layer would most likely produce monsters of Tier 3 or above.

With Xiang Chenguang's current strength, he felt relatively confident dealing with Tier 2 monsters, but Tier 3 monsters were harder to gauge.

According to the introductory catalog of otherworldly creatures rewarded by the anti-trope system, monsters from Tier 3 to Tier 5 were classified as intermediate entities.

It was entirely possible that even though there was only a one-tier difference between Tier 2 and Tier 3 monsters, the disparity in actual strength would be immense.

Of course, this was merely a conjecture, as the introductory catalog only recorded creatures from Tier 0 to Tier 2. The specific traits and prowess of Tier 3 monsters remained completely unknown to him.

After harvesting the Cyan Wind Wolf's energy core, the five-person exploration team began their return journey.

The energy core of the Cyan Wind Wolf matched the color of its fur: a pale cyan.

Previously, the energy cores of both the gnoll and the vampire bat had been blood-red, varying only in size.

Xiang Chenguang had initially assumed that all energy cores were red. It now appeared that the color of an energy core was closely related to the monster's elemental affinity.

During their trek back to the camp, the five-person exploration team still traversed the mountain forests, keeping an eye out for any lingering stragglers.

However, the entire return route was exceptionally quiet, and they did not encounter a single additional monster.

It was not until they returned to the wasteland from which they had set out that morning that the surroundings began to grow lively—or rather, extraordinarily vibrant.

The wasteland from the morning had vanished, replaced by nine dirt ridges, each thirty to forty centimeters wide and over ten meters long.

They were densely planted with various melons, fruits, and vegetables. Some had already matured and were ready for harvest, others were just bearing fruit, some were still in the flowering stage, and a few were nothing more than newly sprouted seedlings.

Across this tiny patch of land, every single stage of the life cycle of various crops was on display, resembling a veritable vegetable exhibition park.

Xiang Dongliang was patrolling back and forth between the soil ridges like a delighted old farmer. Seeing Xiang Chenguang and his group return, he called out from afar with obvious joy: "The experiment of using monster carcasses as fertilizer has been a resounding success! From now on, we won't have to worry about vegetables anymore!"