The ground was shaking vigorously and it felt as though a thousand army men on horses were charging towards them. Countless mutated beasts were fleeing the bushes while the sky was eclipsed by a huge group of mutated birds. Luo Yuan naturally looked in the direction of the gigantic tree and was shocked by this sight.
There were a lot of high-temperature geysers around with vapor gushing out which shot up to a few hundred meters in the air accompanied by a lot of smoke. The ground tremored with a moderate frequency as a burnt smell quickly filled the air.
"It smells like someone is burning Sulphur." Ning Xiaoran said uncertainly while looking at the mutated beasts moving around frantically on the ground as well as in the sky.
"Sulphur?" Luo Yuan was surprised when he heard the chemical being mentioned.
"Gosh! Could this be a volcano!?" The thought suddenly struck him as he was thinking of where the smell of Sulphur could come from.
Suddenly, the Heaven's Pillar Tree shook vigorously for a few seconds. Luo Yuan looked at the tree and realized that all its leaves had turned yellow.
He thought to himself, "Oh no! Don't tell me it's going to collapse."
"Run!!! Everybody, run!!!" Luo Yuan immediately shouted to his team members.
Upon Luo Yuan's instruction, everyone kept running without looking back. Most of them were still carrying their weapons with them which slowed them down as they were heavy. Wang Xiaguang was still weak and eventually stopped after a few hundred meters. She was quite far behind but fortunately Luo Yuan looked back to check if everyone was alright. He sprinted towards Wang Xiaguang and carried her on his back.
Wang Xiaguang felt ashamed that she needed to be carried. After resting for a few minutes, she felt fit enough to continue running again and said softly, "Put me down please, I can run by myself."
"Stop fooling around." Luo Yuan replied and smacked her buttocks with some force. Wang Xiaguang got shocked by his response and kept quiet after that.
Within a few minutes, everyone managed to escape from Heaven's Pillar Tree. Most of them were holding their knees for support and gasping for air while some of them had already sat down on the ground to rest. Luo Yuan put Wang Xiaguang down and she quickly tried to tidy up her messy hair. At this point, no one paid any attention to her.
"Aurora! This region is not supposed to have an aurora!" Huang Jiahui shouted in surprise. The clouds were moving rapidly accompanied by a few beams of colorful lights.
"The volcano is due to erupt soon! Look! The smoke is getting darker and thicker!" Lin Xiaoji said this while pointing in the direction of the Heaven's Pillar Tree.
"Oh f*ck! The beasts are coming!" Huo Dong was frightened when he looked the other direction.
There were many mutated beasts rushing towards them from the forest in the distance. They knew they could not escape from such a large scale migration.
"Let's head to the outposts!" Luo Yuan instructed them.
Their exhausted bodies instantly felt refreshed under the stress of the life-threatening situation. They tried their very best to run towards the outposts, however, there was a dark blue rank mutated beast running faster than them. More and more beasts started running ahead of them and many were killed by Luo Yuan while some were stepped on by the chameleon.
A minute later, everyone had finally arrived at the outposts. Most of them almost collapsed and Luo Yuan was also seen gasping this time. There were more than 10 mutated beasts killed by Luo Yuan within a minute and one of them was a dark blue mutated beast! Luo Yuan then checked the outposts and killed a few unknown colorful bugs.
There were a few cannons on the second floor and most of them were well maintained with eight boxes of bullets. Luo Yuan glanced through the place and said to the men, "Each of you take a cannon and immediately fire if you see any mutated beasts coming close to us! Use the bullets sparingly. Jiahui, you girls can be their assistants."
"Wang Shishi, you have the most important mission here. Keep a lookout for micro-mutants." Luo Yuan said to Wang Shishi.
Wang Shishi kept nodding her head though her body kept shaking.
"Where are you going?" Huang Jiahui sensed that Luo Yuan had other plans and asked anxiously.
"I'm going out to be the last defense." Luo Yuan replied in a serious tone.
"Be... be careful!" Huang Jiahui knew she could not change his mind no matter what she said.
Luo Yuan nodded and then went down the stairs.
"Current mission: B-Level mission, block the great migration. Mission requirement: Not more than two deaths."
B-Level mission? He had never tried one before. It would seem that if F-Level missions are focused on killing dark blue mutated beasts, then B-Level missions are to kill even scarier beasts! So far Luo Yuan had not encountered any beast stronger than dark blue rank but he has experienced the horrible momentum from them which was extremely scary.
Luo Yuan walked out from the outpost and saw many mutated beasts rushing over the border. He quickly opened his status panel and assigned all five of his technique points to 'knife skill'. As usual, a lot of information and knowledge crept into his mind instantly. He closed his eyes and tried to absorb as much of it as he could.
"Knife Expertise: 19" The system sent him a notification.
He was now just one step away from a higher phase. He slowly opened his eyes as the momentum upon him began to fade. It seemed to have ended more quickly than he expected which made him think that perhaps his new skills could not be fully utilized due to limitations from his other skills. "Does this mean that I can only perform at a level equivalent to having 15 points even though my expertise is 19 points?"
"Boom!" A lot of blood gushed out from the body of a dark blue mutated beast when it got hit by the bullet from a cannon. None of them had used that kind of weapon before and they were mentally stressed at that moment. Unfortunately, their bullets would be depleted soon if they could not overcome their fear.
Luo Yuan frowned and became very serious. A lot of the beasts came out from the forest and rushed towards him. Surprisingly, there were also two gigantic dark blue mutated beasts who emerged from the forest and they kept stomping on low ranked creatures throughout their deadly escape.