His pupils contracted, and, with long-left-unused instinct buried still in his muscles, drew and notched a poisoned arrow(or really, just a normal arrow at this point for him), and fired directly into the center of the blur of mass moving towards him right now at speeds he wouldn't be able to reach in quite a while.
The arrow shattered.
Already halfway through another motion, Yi Qiang managed to fire two more Arrow Pierces, which also shattered against the rapidly approaching animal.
Now left with no other options, Yi Qiang, after going through a few calculations in his head, waited until the last safe moment(actually, that had passed a few seconds ago, so he had to improvise) before leaping into the air, feeling the intense wind current brought on by the slicing speed of... whatever it was charging him. Despite the relatively small size of the animal, Yi Qiang could only place his bets on the incredible inertia of the beast stopping it from turning around and attacking him while he landed.
In the air, Yi Qiang used his high Dexterity to whirl around midair, sending two remarkably accurate Arrow Pierces at his still-charging attacker.
They were far more successful now, with his new angle allowing the attack not to be shattered by pure speed and force. They still didn't sink too deep, but Yi Qiang was really just relieved to see that a repeat of the goliath situation didn't happen.
This was possible.
Unfortunately, Yi Qiang didn't get an opportunity to fire any more arrows, since the beast turned around with remarkable agility and snarled at Yi Qiang, giving him a chance to see what he was facing. He shuddered.
What crouched down in front of Yi Qiang was a disturbing combination of a leopard, a fox, and death itself. Patches of skin were missing on the small, furry, muscled animal's body and face, and its skin sagged off its muscles and bones like a loose, wrinkled jacket. This was, easily, the animal most heavily impacted by the plague going around. A quick Analyze managed to be finished before Yi Qiang had to redirect his attention to the battle:
Plagued Woodracer
Level 60
Rare
HP 30,000/40,000
The woodracer took to its terrestrial flight once again, gliding across the ground at speeds Yi Qiang could barely perceive. Unaware of whether the beast was intelligent or not, Yi Qiang changed up his strategy - a side hop instead of an upwards one, and Yi Qiang was in the clear again.
Already more accustomed to this style of fighting, three arrows found their mark inside the beast's hind leg - perhaps, if Yi Qiang targeted the limb, the Woodracer's speed would slow to more manageable levels.
He completed the cycle twice more before the Woodracer's speed began to visibly slow. Once it did, however, the wound was aggravated more and more quickly. Soon, even Yi Qiang was faster.
Death came for the Plagued Woodracer soon after, granting Yi Qiang enough experience to almost move up to the next level.
However, if the rest of the beasts Yi Qiang encountered were going to be at the level of the Plagued Woodracer, Yi Qiang was in trouble. He might be fine with just one, but against a pack of beasts with the same battle power as the monster Yi Qiang had struggled against just then, death was all but guaranteed.
And unfortunately Yi Qiang couldn't take to the trees again, which would allow him to get the drop on opponents that he sorely needed it on, because the track of the plague tiger was so convoluted that Yi Qiang still hadn't found a general direction that the trail went in.
So, Yi Qiang, who was hesitant to give the source of the infection more time than he had to, could really only continue on and wait until one stat reached 300, then dump the points he had been waiting to use into it.
Yi Qang was starting to believe 300 was too high a standard. As it was, his stats would only increase once an hour, during extremely strenuous activity, and the difficulty of progressing further would only increase exponentially over time.. The time that would require was something Yi Qiang just didn't have.
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So now, the archer found himself confronted between two choices: hold on for far, far longer, and just let his stats grow naturally for a few months before he used those stat points, or lower the requirement.
He supposed, after deliberation, the best response was obvious - once a stat reached 250, instead, he would consider it open to free points.
Looking at his character sheet, he reaffirmed that only one of his stats reached the mark so far, his Constitution. Agility and Strength were almost there, but Yi Qiang held back.
Considering his 265 free stat points, Yi Qiang had quite a few stat points to spend. So, given that Constitution would be one of his most important stats, if the current trend of him using skills upon skills to greatly empower attacks continued, he immediately placed 85 points into. He smiled wildly, seeing his Stamina and Health regeneration shoot through the roof.
He had 180 left, but he wanted to save a bulk of them for placement, in order of amount, into Strength, Agility, and Dexterity.
Yi Qiang continued on, slightly more confident in his ability to handle conflict now - the Constitution boost may not have directly impacted his fighting prowess, but his ability to fight prolonged battles and, if necessary, stall to find a solution, had increased enough to make Yi Qiang more comfortable with moving on.
And move on he did, as silently as he could, through the ground.
Luckily, not all of the infected animals were as strong as the Woodracer, and Yi Qiang managed to finish them all off fairly quickly. But it wasn't all that easy.
Rarely, around every ten minutes of advancing or so, Yi Qiang would encoutner a different plagued beast. Rather than the annoyingly fast Woodracer, the second powerful plague beast. a bear-like, lumbering creature called an Axoth, focused on defense instead - currently a counter to Yi Qiang. It was relatively slow, thankfully, so it was actually possible for him to strike the vital spots of the bear. He had actually given up on that particular location of attack - the beasts, now, were on average far too fast for him to target the eyes. He had the skill and ability to do so, but it would result in him taking a lot longer for every fight to wait for openings. And, since the average plague beast's defenses were, well, average, there was little point.
The Axoth was a different case, though - it was, surprisingly, slower than the average plague beast, and there was really no choice other than targeting the vital areas(eyes were particularly easy targets, but the Axoth seemed to wise up after one shot - all it needed to do was close its eyes, and it was protected completely. It attacked slightly more wildly after that, but the beast was tanky enough for that not to matter).
So, he conquered the second Rare plague beast.
The third was just as troublesome, and used its speed differently than the first. The tattered bird resembling a cross between eagle and vulture, called a Vileth, was remarkably hard to hit. It would remain in the skies above Yi Qiang, dodging the arrows easily(that was facilitated by the fact that they had lost most of their momentum by the time they reached that high up - Yi Qiang really needed a better attack skill than Arrow Pierce). Then, when it wanted to, it would swoop down, diving like a hawk at incredible speeds. Yi Qiang would just barely managed to roll out of the way, often incurring a small scratch in the process, and the cycle would repeat.
Eventually, Yi Qiang adapted enough to this that he managed to clip the Vileth in the wing while it dove, the tattered feathers crumpling like paper with the beast's momentum and the natural frailty of the area.
Crippled, it had fallen to the ground, now a sitting duck(or Vileth, in this case) for Yi Qiang's ranged onslaught.
And so, Yi Qiang continued on, slowly advancing throughout the sickly forest.
Suddenly, he crouched down.
What's that? Suddenly, the stench of disease has mutliplied by over ten times.
Something Yi Qiang had suddenly grown accustomed to was the scent of death pervading the air nearer to the source of infection, a disgusting, revolting smell. He assumed it emanated from the source itself, so the new intensity of the stench increasing by this much could only mean one thing.
The source is close. Very close.
Yi Qiang, trying his best to conceal his presence and drawing on the maximum potential of his Sneak skill, looked around. He spotted, to his left, a dense wall of trees. In an ordinary context, Yi Qiang would find nothing out of the ordinary with it - a random natural feature of the terrain - but in this case, nothing was excluded as hiding the source of the infection.
Slowly, he approuched the dense foliage. He couldn't see anything while peeking through the leaves, so he would have to move them slightly to observe the interior.
With a ginger touch, mustering all of his Dexterity, Yi Qiang drew open two leaves at eye level ever-so-slightly, just enough to allow his keen eyes to penetrate the shrubbery.
That explains it.
In front of Yi Qiang, nine figures shrouded in black-and-grey robes moved their arms slowly, in profound patterns, drawing black lines in the air that interconnected with the magic of the other eight. The formation created a pattern of black cracks in the air, reeking of death as it slowly rotated around the center of the formation.
An aura that signified death and unholiness, that personified it, encroached upon a glistening white-and-gold egg, which was covered in a brilliant translucent casing. It was, just barely, trembling, as if its powers were shirnking and it was struggling to keep the death aura at bay.
With every new movement, a new line of death layered onto the original formation, thickening it. The attacking formation strengthened, but the defenses waned.
Yi Qiang, not an agent of darkness or of death, knew he had to stop this. However necessary. This belief was exacerbated when he heard a kind and gentle motherly voice in his head, the pure warmth contained within it like honey.
Hello, kin. Are you here to help him?