Chapter 164: Ambush

“Ha!”

A loud yell preceded a thunderous explosion. A Vicious Beast was smashed to smithereens with just one punch from Hansach.

He quickly skinned the Vicious Beast and pulled out its bones. After harvesting what he needed to harvest, he arrived in front of a small herb.

“This herb has four leaves with sharp ridges around the edges, and the leaves are linked together by silver threads…… This should be the Life-Opposing Four Leaf Clover,” Hansach muttered as he glanced at the booklet in his hand. He then pulled out a jade box and placed the four-leaf clover inside. He had completed his task.

The Ferocious Race couldn’t identify herbs on their own, but that didn’t mean that they had no way of identifying them at all.

However, relying on a manual to identify these herbs was only possible if those herbs were actually recorded in the manual.

If it wasn’t, then there was no way to recognize it.

But that didn’t really matter. Even if he didn’t know what it was, he wouldn’t let the humans have it.

Hansach unleashed a fierce, energetic punch, flattening the surroundings.

The Ferocious Race always did things this explosively and simply.

Upon seeing that the area had been completely cleaned out by him, Hansach prepared to leave, searching for the next resource location.

But just as he was leaving, he suddenly saw an arrow fly into the air.

“The humans’ emergency arrow.” Hansach smiled darkly.

Hansach would much rather hunt humans than search for resources.

Humans were much better at finding treasures than the Ferocious Race.

He quickly walked towards where the emergency arrow had been shot from, his powerful legs propelling him forward as he left a trail of dust in his wake.

Upon arriving, he found a human fleeing in a panic, a Ferocious Race youth chasing closely behind.

Upon seeing Hansach arrive, panic could be visibly seen on the human’s face. The human suddenly changed directions and ran in another direction.

In the moment of panic, the human ran into a nearby stone forest.

Hansach had searched that stone forest already. He knew that it was a dead end.

At this moment, Hansach smiled in delight when he saw the human run towards a dead end. He began to follow closely as well.

“Hansach, don’t fight with me over this one. This guy is mine!” the other Ferocious Race youth yelled.

“Novi, don’t even think about it. Aren’t I the one who forced him into a dead end?” Hansach frowned and replied.

“Even without you I could have caught him,” the Ferocious Race youth called Novi said with some frustration.

“Forget about it. These humans have no particular skill except running away. Defeating them is quite easy, but killing them isn’t that easy,” Hansach said. “Of course, I can understand the effort you put in as well. I suggest we split the spoils evenly.”

“No, I get 70%. You get 30%.”

“Then his head belongs to me.”

“Fine, you moocher!” Novi harrumphed unhappily. The two of them walked into the stone forest as they argued with each other.

To them, that human was already a dead person.

But upon entering the stone forest, the two Ferocious Race youths were stunned.

Five human students stood blocking the path ahead.

The human who was being chased was also there.

“Come on! Weren’t you just starting to get excited chasing me? Come on!” Jiang Hanfeng, who was responsible for luring them here, laughed loudly.

This guy wasn’t particularly powerful, but he was quite clever and not particularly slow either. He also had a natural talent for acting, much better than most of the other students present.

If He Yuandong were to act as the bait, the Ferocious Race youths probably would’ve figured out that something was up; if they used Cloud Leopard, he probably would start fighting them before even drawing them to the right location.

Four other students stood by his side. It was He Yuandong, the Shen twins, and Pi Yuanhong, who were all smiling coldly at the two Ferocious Race youths.

Hansach and Novi glanced at each other, then instantly turned around and ran.

They had just been talking about how good the humans were at running, but they seemed to be just as good at it.

However, they had only taken a few steps when they saw four more people appear behind them.

It was Ji Hanyan, Gu Qingluo, Yue Longsha, and Feng Yigu.

They knew that they had run into a trap. The Ferocious Race’s bloodthirsty and barbaric nature manifested itself at this point.

Hansach and Novi glanced at each other again, then simultaneously howled, “CHARGE!”

The two of them charged forward simultaneously.

“There’s no escape!” Ji Hanyan said cooly. Two streaks of frost began to race towards the two Ferocious Race youths.

The two of them knew that their situation was dire. They charged forwards with all their might.

When they began to go crazy, their strength really was something else.

Ji Hanyan’s and Gu Qingluo’s frost attacks landed on them; even though the frost quickly began to spread across their bodies, their totemic inscriptions shone brilliantly. An instant later, they broke through the ice and continued to run.

Simultaneously, He Yuandong and the others began to attack them. Thunderous, fiery explosions boomed out right behind them.

The two Ferocious Race youths coughed up a mouthful of blood, but they continued to charge forward, completely ignoring the attacks from behind them.

“Anyone who gets in my way will die!” Hansach yelled barbarically as the battleaxe in his hand cleaved through the air in front of him with a wild momentum.

All of his strength was concentrated on this axe strike. It slammed into Feng Yigu’s Arcane Turtle Shield. Even though it wasn’t able to shatter it, the powerful momentum of the strike forced Feng Yigu back a great distance.

Novi simultaneously leapt forward. He slammed the Arcane Steel Battlehammer he wielded onto the ground, generating massive shockwaves that sent Ji Hanyan, Gu Qingluo, and Yue Longsha flying. They were able to forcefully open a way out.

The two of them rejoiced. They forcefully endured the blows from He Yuandong and the other behind them, successfully escaping the four-man siege. They laughed loudly, “Useless humans!”

Yes, they weren’t able to be contained even after eight students ambushed them. How could they not be happy?

An instant later, however, four more students appeared in front of them.

It was He Niliu, Duan Jiangshan, Ye Qiming, and Cloud Leopard.

The two of them were stunned. At this moment, the eight people behind them had caught up already.

Turning around to fight wasn’t an option. They hardened their hearts and continued to charge.

The battleaxe and battlehammer swung through the air madly as the youths activated the totemic inscriptions covering their bodies to their fullest extent.

The attacks from He Yuandong and the others slammed into them, causing blood to fly everywhere.

The two coughed up another mouthful of blood as they charged forward. Their sole thought at this moment was, Freedom is just on the other side.

Under the all-out, wild attacks and the fierce charge, those four students were also knocked aside.

They had once again forcefully broken their way through the blockade.

The two were both shocked and happy.

They couldn’t help but think to themselves, So what if the humans were tricky? The humans were so weak that even with two lines of reinforcements, they were able to escape just by charging forward relentlessly.

However, they hadn’t taken many steps when they found four more students blocking their way.

Dammit, how many helpers had this guy managed to pull over?

The two of them were completely dumbstruck.

With so many people, why didn’t they show themselves earlier?

Suddenly, they realized something.

Hansach yelled in grief and indignation, “You purposely let us past?”

“Hahaha, it seems you’ve only now realized it,” Jiang Hanfeng laughed, clutching at his belly. “If we give you just a bit of hope of escaping, you won’t want to fight at all, focusing all of your attention on escaping instead. We can attack you without fear from behind. This is called ‘Surrounding the Enemy on Three Sides and Leaving One Side Open’ in ‘The Art of War.’ As long as we give you a way out, you won’t want to fight. Third Senior Brother is truly a master tactician!”

As he spoke, the forest suddenly began to shine brilliantly. Countless stone columns began to emerge from the ground, interlacing with the stone forest to form a complete encirclement.

This stone forest had been filled with Origin Formations in advance.

At this moment, Hansach and Novi had already discovered their plan. There was no need to continue with the battle strategy, so Jiang Hanfeng directly activated the formation, permanently locking them into the stone forest.

Novi stared at the humans with rage. “You deceitful humans; you have so many people, but you still need to rely on these underhanded tactics.”

The only reply he got was a wave of attacks, swallowing the two of them whole.

With so many people, they could all just swarm them with attacks.

However, those who had been selected for this expedition on both sides were all chosen with careful consideration; no side knew what trump cards the other side had brought. In case they ran into a particularly powerful enemy who resorted to mutual destruction, that would be a big issue.

Even if their comrade survived, he could potentially be crippled.

This was why Su Chen had chosen such a roundabout approach. He purposefully allowed them to charge out of the encirclement, allowing the students to determine the strength of the youths they had trapped before unleashing all of their attacks.

By the time the Ferocious Race youths realized that escape was just an impossible fantasy, it would already be too late.

The battle quickly ended.

The stone forest returned to its original condition, but two additional hostages had been secured.

Yes, hostages.

Another reason why the setup had been so complicated was because the students’ goal was to capture their targets alive, not kill them.

This had been one of Su Chen’s requests.

He hadn’t participated in the hunt. Rather, he sat in his research lab waiting for the research specimens to be delivered to him. It was rare for him to have so many enemies that he could perform experiments on.

Of course, he promised everyone that these Ferocious Race youths would eventually die.

“Now, only 31 of them remain,” He Yuandong laughed as he glanced at the two people on the ground.

“Haha, we did well.” Everyone began to applaud and cheer.

“A single Ferocious Race youth has appeared near Spirit Mountain,” a voice suddenly said in everyone’s consciousness.

It was Zhao Xin.

He wasn’t here but perched on a nearby tree closely watching the surroundings, specifically searching for any traces of the Ferocious Race youths. Gan Haoli was also with him to notify everyone as soon as possible.

“Another target has presented itself. Everyone, let’s clean this place up quickly!” Pi Yuanhong yelled, speaking as if he were the boss of a crime sting.