The One-Star Fog Corpses were the majority, but leading them was actually a Four-Star Fog Corpse.
"Haven't been to Mist West for half a year, and now this bad luck?" Yu Yunxiao was speechless.
The five men didn't want to provoke the Fog Corpses further and sped up their pace.
Xiao Jinsheng was abruptly carried in a princess hold by Que Zelian.
She trembled in his arms out of fear but still instinctively clung tightly to his neck, biting her lip to suppress her screams to avoid attracting more trouble.
At least being carried by Que Zelian was a lot better than being slung over the shoulders of Yu Yunxiao and Mo Jiao one after the other the day before.
As they fled, the Fog Corpses gave chase for half an hour. Not only did they fail to shake them off, but the numbers pursuing them kept growing.
"We need to deal with them first," Su Ye said gravely. "If we keep running, and they form a Fog Corpse tide, we're all dead."
There were only six of them, and the ones with significant combat capabilities were just Su Ye, Mo Jiao, and Que Zelian.
A quick glance at the horde chasing them showed over three hundred Fog Corpses.
Eventually, the six managed to flee to an abandoned auto repair shop.
Que Zelian rode the wind, effortlessly carrying Xiao Jinsheng up to the rooftop on the fifth floor.
At the same time, Huaiqing activated the overgrown plants around the repair shop, sending several long vines to Que Zelian on the rooftop.
Que Zelian secured the vines tightly to the roof, and the remaining four climbed up the moss-covered walls with ease, using the vines.
The Fog Corpses surrounded the building below and attempted to climb up by grabbing the vegetation on the walls.
Huaiqing immediately drained the life force from the plants on the first floor of the repair shop.
As the vitality faded, the vegetation turned to dried grass; when the Fog Corpses grabbed at it, it crumbled in their claws, causing them to fall and pile on top of each other like tumbling dominoes.
"What's with these Fog Corpses? We've run so far, and they're still chasing us," Yu Yunxiao said, locking the rooftop door and walking to the rail to look down below.
In Mist West, Fog Corpses usually had a specific range of activity. Unless there was fresh blood to lure them, with the speed they'd been running, they should have shaken them off long ago.
"There's no point in dwelling on this now. To avoid more trouble, we have no choice but to kill them," Su Ye said as he unloaded the long, black-cloth-wrapped object that had been strapped to his back.
Xiao Jinsheng had been curious for a while about why he carried around a wooden stick wrapped in cloth, but knowing Su Ye's bad temper, she had held back from asking.
After all, the stick was a daunting 2.2 meters long. What if Su Ye unwrapped it just to smack her over the head with it?
But as the black cloth came off, what emerged was not a stick but a horse-slaying saber.
The handle alone was a meter long, while the blade was 1.2 meters in length.
Xiao Jinsheng's gaze followed Su Ye, her eyes wide in astonishment.
Seeing his 1.86-meter frame wield such a massive weapon, even his back seemed exude an overwhelming sense of oppression.
"How do you even unsheath a blade that long?" Xiao Jinsheng, unable to resist her curiosity, quietly asked Que Zelian.
Su Ye, with sharp hearing, caught her question and glanced back at her.
He threw the weapon into the air, spun around, and delivered a kick. The scabbard was sent flying midair, piercing a Fog Corpse's neck and skewering five of them standing close together like a kebab.
Xiao Jinsheng leaned over the railing to look down, her hand reflexively touching her neck in fear.
She remembered the storyline—those five men had each stabbed her in the end, and Su Ye's blade had been the one to pierce her neck.
Terror-stricken, Xiao Jinsheng quickly stepped back from the railing, bumping into Su Ye, who was walking forward.
She turned to see who she had collided with and found herself staring into Su Ye's icy golden eyes brimming with murderous intent.
"Que… Que Zelian…" Xiao Jinsheng stammered, her mind filled with the image of being skewered alongside Fog Corpses by his 2.2-meter blade. Her body trembled as despair filled her.
Su Ye grabbed her by the cheeks, lowered his gaze, and demanded, "Xiao Jinsheng, did you mistake another man's face for mine, or did you call your man the wrong name?"
"Ah—" Xiao Jinsheng quickly clutched her chest. "My heart hurts! Stop scaring me!"
"If you scare me again, I'll just die of frailty right here for you to see!"
Su Ye had grown numb to Xiao Jinsheng's antics over the past couple of days.
At least she wasn't the crazed, violent woman she used to be, always hitting and yelling at them anymore.
Now she'd switched to mental torment instead.
"Do as you please," Su Ye said as he leapt off the railing with one hand.
As he descended, he stepped on a Fog Corpse's head, using it as a foothold to flip in midair. His long blade swept across, slicing in half the incoming Fog Corpses within a three-meter radius.
Organs and blood splattered across the ground.
From above, the mist thinned slightly. Though visibility was still poor, they could make out silhouettes and smell the blood thick in the air.
On the rooftop, Xiao Jinsheng turned pale but forced herself to lean over the edge, pushing herself to keep watching.
Living in a post-apocalyptic world, bloody scenes like this would be commonplace, and she needed to adapt to them.
Thankfully, the thick mist obscured her view, making everything look pixelated, which lessened the impact of the gore.
Su Ye's offensive marked the start; other than Yu Yunxiao, who stayed behind to protect her, the remaining three jumped down to join the fight.
Unlike Su Ye's brutal approach, the other three men's methods of attack were less bloody.
Mo Jiao summoned black mist, reducing the Fog Corpses to bare bones.
Huaiqing took out a sniper rifle and, using the mist as cover, effortlessly aimed for and shot the Four-Star Fog Corpses in the crowd, one shot per kill.
Que Zelian raised his hand, summoning a rain of red feathers.
The crimson feathers poured down, each piercing directly through the Fog Corpses' temples.
But soon, Que Zelian realized something was wrong.
Hovering in the air, he called back the red feathers, now carrying Star Stones, to his side.
Every single Fog Corpse's brain contained a Star Stone.
"Wait, since when did Que Zelian's luck become this godly?" Yu Yunxiao leaned on the railing, staring in shock at the pile of Star Stones hovering before Que Zelian, held aloft by the wind.
As the two on the roof marveled at Que Zelian's fortune, Mo Jiao's black mist dispersed a group of bones, extracting Star Stones from each skull as well.
Noticing this, Su Ye casually stomped on a Fog Corpse's skull.
Using the tip of his blade, he flipped the fragments, finding yet another Star Stone.
For a moment, the six on-site had varying expressions.
The speed at which they killed Fog Corpses even increased noticeably.
The battle lasted fifteen minutes, with the four of them working together to clear out over three hundred Fog Corpses.
With the fight over, Yu Yunxiao came down to help clean up the battlefield.
Every Task Taker on Mist Continent dreamed of being lucky enough to extract a Star Stone from a Fog Corpse's brain.
Thus, none of them ever wasted the opportunity to crack open a Fog Corpse's skull in search of a Star Stone post-battle.
Unfortunately, the results usually dashed such hopes.
But today, every single Fog Corpse they'd killed contained a Star Stone, leaving the five men cleaning up the battlefield feeling like they were dreaming.
The tally came to ten Four-Star Star Stones, twenty-three Three-Star Star Stones, thirty Two-Star Star Stones, and two hundred and fifty-three One-Star Star Stones.
A perfect 316 Fog Corpses, yielding exactly 316 Star Stones.
"Is it because we haven't done missions in half a year? Has the drop rate for Star Stones from Fog Corpses become 100%?" Yu Yunxiao wondered aloud.
"Last night, none of the Fog Corpses around the villa had Star Stones, except for the one Que Zelian killed," Huaiqing said.
He glanced at Xiao Jinsheng, hesitated, then continued, "Even the Fog Corpses killed by the group next door didn't have any Star Stones."
"Are we seriously this lucky? Chased for half an hour, and every single one we kill drops a Star Stone," Yu Yunxiao exclaimed joyfully.
"The chase…" Que Zelian murmured, a bizarre idea flashing through his mind.
He turned to Xiao Jinsheng, who was curiously inspecting the basin full of Star Stones. "If there's one common thread among the Fog Corpses with Star Stones we've encountered the past two days, it's the pursuit."
"So Fog Corpses that love chasing people have Star Stones?" Yu Yunxiao asked.
Que Zelian shook his head, his gaze landing meaningfully on Xiao Jinsheng. "It's the Fog Corpses chasing her that have Star Stones."
Xiao Jinsheng looked up in astonishment.