’Should I call them Iron-Eating Insects, or Gold-Devouring Insects?’
To Su Chen’s disappointment, none of the beetles he had just struck with his fiery punch possessed Gold Element essence. It seemed the first one he had pinned was an exception.
These beetles didn’t seem to attack people on their own, but if one was attacked, all others in the vicinity would retaliate as a group.
It was like poking a hornet’s nest.
It gave him a deeper understanding of the dangers lurking in the Mysterious Forest.
After retrieving his knife, Su Chen set off again.
「A few minutes later.」
He finally reached the familiar commercial district.
Most of the shops here were shuttered and dark, their owners and employees having long since evacuated.
Only a chain coffee shop and a camping supply store in the distance were brightly lit.
Serving as the guard post for the night, the area was equipped with a generator and stocked with plenty of food and drinks.
Their main job was to guard the two ramp entrances.
A short while ago, seven people, bored to death with guard duty and having seen no sign of monsters, decided to take two cars down to the bridge to block it off and hunt for some action.
And if nothing had gone wrong... then something must have gone terribly wrong.
"Such a classic trope. Splitting up at a critical moment is just asking to be killed off." Many of the others laughed in exasperation.
"Respect their fate; drop the savior complex."
The idea of going down the slope to rescue them was met with a unanimous veto.
Nor was there any Holy Mother present to stand on a moral high ground and call them cold-hearted.
To get the earliest possible warning of anything coming up the slope, and without any searchlights, the group threw a pile of outdoor glow sticks into the darkness below.
The light from each was limited, but there was strength in numbers.
As a precaution, some even tossed glow sticks into the dense woods bordering the slope, hoping to spot any snake-like monsters trying to sneak up through the trees.
It was a good idea.
But they had overlooked the treetops. Ten bizarre-looking Night Monkeys lurked on the high branches. Eerily, when they stood perfectly still, their forms seemed to melt into the night, with only the blowing wind revealing the faintest, blurry outline.
The barricades and other defenses at the ramp entrance were effectively useless against these creatures. They leaped and swung between the branches, making their way up the mountain from the dense forest below.
In the next instant, the Night Monkeys attacked.
The moment they moved, their bodies became fully visible in the dark. Each clutched a dark sphere of light, varying in size, which they hurled downward.
BAM!
A man peering over the barricade to look down the slope took a dark orb straight to the head. Brains and blood splattered everywhere. He collapsed, dead before he could even scream.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. The Night Monkeys’ aim was terrifyingly accurate, and most of their projectiles found a target. Several more people fell, some with shattered limbs.
Their surprise attack a success, seven of the monkeys slid swiftly down the trees and pounced on those who were down and injured.
Some pinned down their victims’ heads, using their sharp, chisel-like claws to pry open their skulls before greedily slurping out the brains within. Others were less eager, simply dragging the bodies off into the dense woods.
In a way, it was a great irony.
The "Eight Mountain Delicacies" of the Manchu-Han Imperial Feast includes monkey brains, a dish infamous for its cruelty, as it was considered a top delicacy only when harvested from a live monkey.
Now, the tables had turned, and human brains had become a delicacy in their eyes.
"HOLY SHIT!!"
The attack sent a shockwave through the group. As people scrambled to react, they realized they were being ambushed by a pack of monkeys.
But the Night Monkeys held the high ground. Seeing them prepare to throw again, some of the survivors, terrified of their unknown attacks, scrambled for the cover of the coffee shop.
The commotion had already attracted attention from elsewhere.
The people at the other ramp at the far end of the commercial street were already shouting, and beams from several flashlights cut through the darkness from their direction.
Su Chen arrived just in time to see it all from thirty meters away: a group of monkeys prying open human skulls and eating the contents like it was a pre-packaged meal.
They ate nothing but the brain and spinal fluid, ignoring the rest of the flesh.
What caught his attention was the strange, ink-black aura swirling around each of them.
’Dark Element?’
’Wait...’
’That’s invisibility!’
Su Chen’s eyes were naturally drawn to the Night Monkeys in the treetops. One second there were three of them, and the next, they had all vanished.
However, the swaying of the branches and the faint, shimmering outlines that appeared with the movement exposed their little trick.
At the same time, some of the Night Monkeys noticed the human figure daring to advance toward them.
The lookouts in the trees grew wary. They began to gather orbs of shadow-light, repeating their earlier attack, and the motion of raising their arms to throw revealed their forms once more.
They moved.
The dark orbs came flying.
And Su Chen moved too.
Instead of retreating, he advanced. The moment he activated the Jingzhe Rune, his figure blurred, accelerating like a phantom. He instantly left the two dark orbs arcing through the air far behind him.
As he rapidly closed the distance, Su Chen, in a state of high focus, threw something. A crimson meteor shot from his hand, instantly striking a Night Monkey that was busy gnawing on its victim.
And that wasn’t all...
The small area-of-effect splash from the Flame Burst also hit another monkey right next to it.
In truth, the Night Monkeys resembled primates. They had black fur and small, stooped bodies that likely wouldn’t even reach a meter tall standing straight. Physically, they weren’t even as strong as a Demon Dog.
A single Flame Burst was enough to vaporize most of its small body, and the splash damage severely wounded the one next to it.
One dead, one maimed.
After a flurry of panicked shrieks, the Night Monkeys on the ground scattered like rats, fleeing instantly into the dense woods. The three in the trees saw his gaze shift to them. He looked like he was about to throw something else. Forgetting all about their wounded comrade, they, too, scrambled away in terror.
’The bluff worked...’
Su Chen’s right hand had actually been empty. He smoothly drew a golf club from his canvas backpack, took three steps forward, and bashed in the limping Night Monkey’s skull.
"Holy crap, you fight like a War God!"
Several figures emerged from the temporary post not far away. They had just gotten a proper look at Su Chen’s deadly side.
He moved so fast it was hard to follow, his trajectory leaving faint afterimages in his wake.
Was that something a human could even do?
"That was Flame Burst, right?"
"The explosive effect from whatever he threw... it must be a Damage Rune. The kind Archers dream of."
"I never thought the Attached Damage Effect would work so well on a thrown object, not just arrows."
That was certainly unexpected.
But that raised a question. You can’t just pick up archery on the fly, so could you really do that with throwing?
"The damage from that Flame Burst seems a little insane," a man in overalls muttered under his breath.
Unsure of Su Chen’s temperament and intimidated by the power he’d just displayed, everyone instinctively lowered their voices. They watched in silence as he picked up two black essences from the corpses.
"Dark Element?"
In that moment, many people cried out in unison. It was an essence none of them had ever seen before.
"Stop gaping and help the wounded!" someone shouted, and a crowd of people rushed forward to check on the victims.
"Is everyone okay?!"
Just then, a group of at least ten people arrived from the other ramp, their flashlights sweeping over the Night Monkey corpses and the edge of the dark forest.
One of them, a security guard, was holding a German Shepherd on a leash. They had just arrived when the large dog suddenly started barking furiously at the empty slope below.

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