Chapter 44: Cleaning Up

Yi Yeyu brought more than 50 people, Bai Yan included, when she left the place. Including Lin Huang, there were 12 of them that stayed. Apart from Lin Huang, everyone was iron-level rank-3.

"Since you guys have decided to stay, you have to listen to us!" Yi Zheng said to them. "This is now a battlefield. Your personal safety in secondary to the priority today. Today isn't all about you. The lives of your comrades matter too. Therefore, you will have to follow my instructions and move as a unit. Understood!?"

"Yes, sir!" The squad of young men stood at attention and shouted.

"What's your name?" Yi Zheng turned around and looked at Lin Huang.

"Lin Huang."

"Good. You said you want to see 200,000 people survive. Now I'm going to pass these 10 fellas to you. Your mission is simple. Keep them alive. Do you accept this mission?" Yi Zheng asked and smiled at Lin Huang.

The reason why he gave him this mission was to prevent him from going to battle.

He knew Lin Huang was smart, and with these 10 men, he will not do anything that would put them in harm's way.

"Mission accepted, Sir," Lin Huang replied.

Lin Huang nodded and agreed. He knew what Yi Zheng was up to, but he had a plan of his own.

If these young men were to be with the other hunters, they might have weighed them down too.

Professional hunters would never rely on a bunch of young men who were not even registered as Reserve Hunters.

Meanwhile, leading 10 iron-level rank-3 men to clear a level-1 foothold would not be a problem for Lin Huang.

The young men had witness what Lin Huang was capable of as two of them had suffered severe beatings by Tyrant before. The wounds on their faces were still recovering so they obeyed him without question.

Although Yi Zheng did not know that Lin Huang was an Imperial Censor, seeing that nobody objected him being their leader, Yi Zheng knew Lin Huang must either be powerful or a young man with an interesting background.

Just when they agreed on the proposed arrangement, Yi Yeyu brought 300 professional hunters back with her.

Most of them were Silver Hunters. There were 30 Copper Hunters and five Gold Hunters.

Most of them knew who Yi Zheng was. They all showed him a great deal of respect, even the other Gold Hunters too.

Yi Yeyu left right after she sent the hunters through while Yi Zheng started to make other strategies and arrangements.

All 300 hunters spread out quickly to their assigned post. The 20 Copper Hunters were sent to clear the canyon. The Silver Hunters were clearing the foothold on the alps while the Gold Hunters were responsible for cutting the giant rock at the bottom of the alps.

Yi Yeyu made four trips from the medium foothold and brought back 1,200 professional hunters in total. Almost a thousand of them were Silver Hunters, with 20 Gold Hunters while the rest were either Copper Hunters or hunters with terrifying powers or unique abilities.

Before the monster outbreak, Yi Zheng followed the plan suggested by Lin Huang and sent the 1,000 hunters out to clear the mountains and canyons.

In the meantime, the giant rocks there are cut by the Gold Hunters while the smaller boulders were moved by 10 thousand able-bodied adult residents of the foothold to block the mouth of the canyon.

Lin Huang and the rest were sent into the canyon to clear up the monsters. There were two or three of them in a team of Bronze Hunters but there were 11 of them altogether.

There were not many monsters in the canyon. With the involvement of the other professional hunters, the team led by Lin Huang did not even encounter a complete monster in the first hour.

"These professional hunters are so competitive. We have been searching for so long and have changed a couple of routes. All we could find were some monster body parts and trails of blood on the ground," a tall and strong man in the team complained.

His name was Zhou Le. He was one of the guys who picked a fight with Lin Huang a few days back. The scars that he got from Tyrant were still fresh on his face.

"They're efficient, and that's a good thing. It would be perfect if we did not even have to fight during the monster outbreak. That would mean the foothold is completely safe," Lin Huang replied after much thought.

"Lin Huang, do you really think we can save the foothold?" Zhou Le asked.

"If we manage to cordon off the canyon mouth, guarding it for two days shouldn't be a problem. The only thing is..." Lin Huang trailed off with a frown on his face.

"What is that?" Zhou Le asked.

"The canyon mouth is too big. I'm worried that before they can barricade and protect it, the outbreak would happen before we're ready," Lin Huang voiced out his concern.

"Lin Huang, don't you jinx it! I still want to leave in one piece and become a transcendent one day!" A short guy named Yu Guang said. He was also one of the guys who picked a fight with Lin Huang and he too had scars on his face to prove it.

"Don't worry, as long as I am alive, I will bring you all out of here in one piece!" Lin Huang gave them his word.

"There were people here before us moving in this direction. The monsters ahead must already be dead. Let's take another route," Zhou Le said as he bent down and studied the tracks on the ground. He had investigative skills. Although his level was not that high, coming up with such detailed estimations was not a problem to him.

"Sure, which direction should we go?" Lin Huang asked as he trusted Zhou Le's observations.

"Let's head in a two o'clock direction from this point," Zhou Le said to Lin Huang after some thought."

"Damn it! Zhou Le, can we really trust you? We have been following your route for more than an hour, we haven't even seen a single monster's hair." Yu Guang teased.

"Can you really blame me? We have more hunters than monsters now," Zhou Le shouted back. He felt helpless that his skills did not bring them any action this whole time.

"You are no help, Lin Huang, please take the lead," Yu Guang suggested.

"I'm not good at investigating. Let's follow Zhou Le's route. If any of you think that your investigative abilities are stronger than Zhou Le, please go ahead and lead the way," Lin Huang turned and said to the group.

Lin Huang rejected Yu Guang's suggestion as he knew himself very well.

Although he learned a lot about the basics of investigation, when it came to practical use, he was far from being able to compete with Zhou Le's capabilities.

He thought there was no need for him to lead in something that he was not good at. If something went wrong, he would just embarrass himself.

Hearing what Lin Huang said, nobody dared step up. They then followed Zhou Le's route in silence.

After walking for almost 20 minutes, Lin Huang and the gang finally saw a horde of monsters.

They then moved away and hid. It was a group of Ox Devils. There were more than 20 of them. The tallest one stood at a height of five meters and the shortest one was about three meters tall.

Compared to a human, they were considered giants.

However, they did not belong to the giant family but were part of the mutated monster family.

Being different from the giants, their body sizes did not reflect their abilities.

They were similar to humans as they walked on two feet, grabbed things with their hands, and used weapons to attack and protect themselves.

What differentiated them from the humans was that their ox-like heads as well as their hooves and tail.

The Ox Devils were much smarter than iron-level monsters. They even had their own religion and they could make their own totems to strengthen their abilities.

Lin Huang and the gang saw the five-meter tall totem that was guarded by an Ox Devil.

"There are 26 of them and a religious totem. If I'm not mistaken, that totem gives them 10% extra strength. How do we fight that?" Zhou Le asked softly.

"Go set some traps now. I'll destroy the totem later to attract their attention, and they will definitely come rushing at me like the bulls they are. We will wait here for them to fall into our traps," Lin Huang said. He then took out his GrayEagle17 and loaded them with armored bullets...