Shi Feng put away the Silver Moon Helmet and ventured deeper into the stone forest in search of more Mountain Beast Warriors.
Before, Shi Feng had been so preoccupied with the Moonstone and the horrors of the Moonlight Woods that he had completely forgotten that the Moonlight Woods were still an undeveloped map at this point. The treasures here were incredibly abundant. In his previous life, by the time he arrived, the experts from first-tier and second-tier guilds had already stripped the place clean, leaving nothing but scraps—and even those had to be fought over among numerous guilds.
But even those scraps were out of reach for ordinary players.
By the time ordinary players made their way over, the area would have been ravaged countless times over. Yet they still considered it a treasure trove, which spoke volumes about how tempting an untouched Moonlight Woods truly was.
Now that he had arrived ahead of schedule, it was no longer the turn of those first-tier and second-tier guilds. He would personally explore every corner of it and scrape it clean, then let those guilds savor what it felt like to get second-hand leftovers.
Two hours later, after cutting his way through one Mountain Beast Warrior after another, Shi Feng had gathered three Moonstones along with a fair amount of gold and materials. He finally reached the heart of the stone forest.
By chance, Shi Feng stumbled upon a Mountain Beast Warrior encampment. The camp was guarded by Mountain Beast Warriors on all sides—a rough count put the number at over forty. Not far from the encampment, several patrol squads of Mountain Beast Warriors roamed about. All told, there were well over a hundred.
Mountain Beast Warrior camps were where the creatures hoarded their treasures. Many guilds would regularly dispatch twenty-man elite squads to clear out the various monster camps scattered across the Moonlight Woods, and each run usually yielded decent rewards.
The camp before him, however, had never once been cleared. It absolutely had to contain a massive treasure trove—perhaps enough Moonstones to complete a full set, along with numerous Tier One gemstone equipment pieces.
That said, every camp was far from easy to deal with. If the terrain here weren't so riddled with rock formations, Shi Feng would have simply taken a detour without a second glance. But the rock columns here were even more densely packed—the walkways could fit at most two Mountain Beast Warriors side by side, and in the narrower spots, only one. This was a perfect place to grind Mountain Beast Warriors. Walking away would be a terrible waste.
So Shi Feng picked up a few small stones from the ground and crept closer.
To minimize unpredictable variables, Shi Feng decided to lure them all at once. Otherwise, if he was halfway through kiting and ran into a fresh group of Mountain Beast Warriors, it would be game over.
The key to luring these Mountain Beast Warriors lay in handling their charge. If he mishandled it, they would chain-charge him to death—one stun after another. That was the most infuriating thing possible, and it wasn't as though he hadn't encountered it before. He had once been up against a situation where his strength clearly outclassed the monsters, yet he was still stunlocked by repeated charges and killed.
Although each Mountain Beast Warrior only charged once, a hundred of them meant a hundred charges. The trick was to make them all charge at the same time—an enormously difficult feat.
With his current HP, he wouldn't survive even two solid hits from a Mountain Beast Warrior. He absolutely could not afford a single mistake. He needed every lured Mountain Beast Warrior to charge simultaneously, and then he had to dodge the follow-up damage. Only then would he have a chance to cut them all down.
Getting several waves of Mountain Beast Warriors to charge in together required precise timing of the attack windows. Otherwise, this wouldn't be farming monsters—it would be getting dogpiled. Still, Shi Feng had some confidence in himself. After all, he had once been a Sword King, one of the top-tier experts.
The Mountain Beast Warriors on guard duty stroked their beloved greatswords with their furry paws, standing atop the high walls. Their blood-red eyes constantly swept the surroundings, and the moment they spotted an intruder, they would charge in to let their blades have a feast.
Suddenly, a stone flew through the air and smashed into one Mountain Beast Warrior's head. The creature turned to look and spotted a human not far away, still holding a stone. It rubbed its struck head, and fury erupted within it. How dare a mere ant hurl a stone at it?
Roar! Roar! Roar!
The Mountain Beast Warrior's howl alerted the entire lair. Warriors poured out of the camp one after another, charging straight toward Shi Feng.
At the same time, Shi Feng also pelted the other patrol squads of Mountain Beast Warriors with stones, quickly enraging them as well. They too charged in his direction.
As over a hundred Mountain Beast Warriors charged toward him, Shi Feng remained calm. He activated Phantom Kill, sending his clone dashing into the stone forest while he himself faced the hundred-strong horde head-on.
Facing over a hundred Mountain Beast Warriors at once would be too much even for a twenty-man elite squad, let alone Shi Feng alone.
As more and more Mountain Beast Warriors closed in, Shi Feng's heart pounded wildly. This move of his was insane—one slip meant death. That long-familiar rush of adrenaline coursed through his veins, setting his blood on fire and sharpening his senses to a razor's edge.