Ruminas stood firmly on the ground, breathing heavily after escaping the monsters. The monsters had spread out and surrounded her in the middle, the murderous aura emanating from them was thick, making the air suffocating.
She only had one Slash left now, and she knew that this attack would be for that low-level chaos, and she herself had to calculate carefully while dealing with the lurking parasites.
The chaos roared, the roar shaking the ground, and six parasites charged at once. They moved like black shadows, sharp claws brandishing, aiming for the weak points on Ruminas' body.
Ruminas immediately lowered her center of gravity to avoid the attacks of the two, then she immediately jumped to the side to avoid the two on her left, while swinging her knife forward, stabbing the leg of the nearest one.
A scream rang out but Ruminas flipped over and kicked the other one to the ground before running away.
Not stopping there, she proactively went forward and finished off the one that had just been stabbed.
"One!"
But at this moment, another parasite suddenly jumped up from behind, its claws cutting through the air, leaving a small tear on her shoulder.
Ruminas ignored the wound and immediately turned around and slashed horizontally, destroying the monster's face. She was about to rush forward to finish it off, but the chaos monster's tentacles advanced and blocked her way.
"I almost forgot about you, you fat guy!"
Meanwhile, three parasites attacked at the same time. Ruminas chose a direction and took the initiative to charge forward. She put all her strength into this attack and successfully broke its claws. Just as she was about to stab it in the heart to finish it off, tentacles appeared to stop her.
"You bastard!"
Ruminas decided to switch to attacking the chaos, she charged forward when she was about five meters away then suddenly stopped and in lightning speed, she turned around to give the parasite behind her a fatal blow.
"Two," Ruminas sneered.
But before she could be happy for long, Ruminas had to struggle to dodge because they had switched to attacking with corrosive liquid. The things they sprayed were highly corrosive so she had to choose to absolutely dodge.
"Unreachable!"
The parasites cover each other very well, and the chaos is even more dangerous when it gets close.
"We have to break their formation first."
Ruminas didn't choose to fight anymore and ran away, trying to find something from the surroundings to separate them and then she saw it.
Ruminas charged towards a pile of wrecked vehicles on the side of the road. If she could use the terrain, she could create enough distance to split the monster formation.
But the monsters weren't stupid. Seeing her running, two parasites immediately chased after her, while the remaining two and the chaos maintained their positions, vigilantly watching her every move.
"Not chasing after them all? That would be even more convenient."
Ruminas intended to lure everyone over and then use the terrain to confuse them, but when she saw only two chasing after them, she suddenly turned around and swung her knife away.
The two parasites didn't have time to react, one of them was stabbed through the neck by Ruminas and kicked away. The other immediately shot out corrosive liquid, but she fell backwards and did a somersault to regain her balance.
The other monsters behind saw this and immediately rushed to support, but the distance between the two sides was far enough for Ruminas to quickly deal with these two parasites. The effects of the black blood were still present, so the parasites only needed one or two fatal blows to finish them off.
"Four!"
Ruminas smiled and continued running towards the pile of cars. Once there, she jumped up high to create some distance, a parasite that tried to climb up was immediately kicked back down by Ruminas.
But the chaos didn't let it rest, its four tentacles shot forward, easily destroying the terrain. Ruminas jumped high, taking the opportunity to approach another parasite.
As soon as it raised its head, her foot came, kicked it down, then she quickly bent down and stabbed the knife into its heart.
"Five children"
At this moment, the remaining parasite rushed forward. Ruminas couldn't dodge in time, so she could only raise her knife to block it. She was momentarily entangled by it, giving the chaos creature the opportunity to attack.
One of its tentacles caught her leg at the right moment.
"Damned!"
Ruminas was then lifted up high and thrown back and forth, colliding with the surrounding objects and finally being thrown hard onto the ground, creating a small crack in the road surface.
"Oh, my back…" Ruminas felt like he had broken a few bones after that move.
She struggled to get up but the parasite's sharp claws were waiting, Ruminas barely dodged but still got a graze on her left arm, leaving three scratch marks and bleeding.
Ruminas immediately raised her foot and kicked the parasite away, but immediately tentacles rushed in from four directions. She jumped up high and then pointed her knife down and pinned it to one of the tentacles.
The monster's scream rang out and black blood flowed out again. Ruminas took this opportunity to run to a nearby machine, she used force to force open the saddle and she found it.
It's gasoline!
She hurriedly took out some and then ran to the pinned tentacle to smear gasoline on it.
"Let's see how far you can take it." Ruminas' face showed a sinister smile before she took out a lighter from her item space and lit the gasoline.
The flames immediately flared up and wrapped around the tentacle, and Ruminas also withdrew her knife. The chaos beast frantically waved its tentacle around to put out the fire, but thanks to that, it gave her the chance to get close.
"Slash!"
Ruminas' voice rang out coldly before the knife stabbed straight into the monster's heart. It screamed again but it was all useless as its heart inside was slowly breaking.
Ruminas drew her knife but she continued to attack, a series of slashes appeared and black blood also sprayed out uncontrollably. The remaining three tentacles immediately turned back and attacked her but at this time they were panicking so she was not afraid.
The monster opened its mouth again, about to spit out the corrosive liquid, but Ruminas kicked it away. Then she turned around and slashed at the incoming parasite.
"Six!"
Finally, only the chaos monster remained, the fire from its tentacles had spread and caused it great pain. Ruminas did not continue to attack, but instead went to get more gasoline and poured it on its body, causing the fire to burn fiercely.
"…And seven of them!" Ruminas smirked before delivering the finishing blow.
[Received: 170 EXP, 6 monster skins, 1 low-grade chaos bone]
"Delicious!"
[Wonderful! The Heroic Queen witnessed the battle just now and liked the way you fought so much that she decided to give you another small reward]
[Reward: 5 Random Stat Points]
[+2 to Defense, +1 to Agility, +1 to Endurance, +1 to Luck]
"Oh, and there's a surprise bonus too? Thanks a lot."
Ruminas sat down on the spot and breathed a sigh of relief. This battle was not difficult to say, but it was not easy to say because she had to rely on the help of a large amount of black blood to overcome it.
However, drinking too much at once made her head hurt a bit, and a voice vaguely told her to give up in her mind.
"Is this a side effect…? Looks like I have to limit it."
"Now go back and see how the others are doing."
Ruminas ran in the opposite direction back to the shore, but she didn't show herself in a hurry, just observing from afar. It seemed that after she lured away a group of monsters, the others had already put in their best effort to fight.
The proof was that the monster corpses were everywhere, but she couldn't find the corpse of the lower chaos monster. Besides the one she killed earlier, the other one was missing.
"Not dead? So they were chased away by it?"
Ruminas continued to follow the remaining blood trails along the way and it eventually led her to a nearby shopping mall.
"Maybe they ran in here? I was also wanting to go in here so it seemed like it was on the way."
Ruminas picked up the knife again and slowly walked inside. The shopping mall was huge but now it was extremely desolate and dark because there was no electricity, the devastation was everywhere but luckily she still knew which direction to go.
Since she was already here, Ruminas decided to head straight to the supermarket area to get some food first, and the others could only be considered a coincidence. At least she had helped out, so she wouldn't feel ashamed.
Luckily for Ruminas, the supermarket seemed to be relatively intact this time, most of the items were still intact and she even found quite a few canned foods.
"This place looks like it has a caretaker…" Ruminas thought to himself.
But because she was quite hungry, she opened a box of food and ate it right there.
"Ah, the food tastes fresh and delicious… It's been a long time since I've had it. I've only been eating old or expired food lately…"
"Stand still!"
Suddenly, a voice rang out from behind, full of tension and caution.
Ruminas frowned slightly, but did not turn around immediately. She gently swallowed the food in her mouth, put down the lunch box, and picked up the knife.
"Don't be naughty"
This time, the voice was clearer. It was a man's voice, hoarse and slightly trembling—probably from fatigue or stress.
"Who are you? Human or monster?"
Hearing that question, Ruminas slowly turned around.
Before her stood a man in his thirties, his face covered in dirt and several wounds. He held a pistol in his hand, but his index finger was not on the trigger—a sign that he was not a very experienced gun user.
Behind him, a woman also in her thirties and a young man around Ruminas's age, both were watching her warily. The woman seemed to be the one who had been injured earlier, as her shirt was partially torn at the shoulder, revealing a makeshift bandage.
Ruminas immediately recognized it as the group of people he had helped earlier.
"Human" Ruminas replied briefly.
The man narrowed his eyes, seemingly not entirely convinced. But a second later, his gaze changed slightly, as if he had just realized something.
"Are you... the one who helped us earlier?"
Ruminas just looked at him, neither confirming nor denying.
But her silence seemed to be enough for them to understand. The woman behind her let out a sigh of relief, while the young man remained vigilant.
"Thank you," the man finally lowered his gun.
Ruminas said nothing, just turned back to continue eating. But just as she put the food in her mouth, the woman suddenly spoke up: "Can we come with you?"
The offer made Ruminas pause slightly.
They were fine as temporary help, but she wasn't sure about going with them. After all, they didn't look very strong and might get in her way.
Ruminas was about to refuse outright, but at that moment, a tremor occurred, causing everything to shake. She immediately went into a state of heightened alert, but only saw from afar two men and another woman running into the supermarket.
Their faces were filled with worry.
"Help, block the door!" One of the men shouted.
Hearing that, the other three and Ruminas followed suit. Although she didn't know what was going on, it definitely wasn't something good.
"Hopefully everything will be fine next time…"