Dark Blood Age

Chu Yunsheng cast ‘ talisman’ hurriedly onto the crossbow. He then used his spirit to sense ‘Yuan Qi’ in the fourth dimension.

Through it, a mysterious channel between him and the crossbow was created.

He pulled the string and loaded an arrow into the crossbow. He then took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down, but he failed.

However, he did not have much time left. So he quickly aimed the arrow at a running Red-shelled insect nervously, through a hole that he had made on the window. He was a little familiar with crossbows since he had been practicing with it for a while now. But he wasn’t very experienced.

Despite that, Chu Yunsheng still failed at his first shot. Not only did he miss the target, but the arrow didn’t even activate its frost damage effect.

He was just too nervous. His arrow was simply ignored by his target. These Red-shelled insects were way too fast compared to humans. Within moments, they had already reached the crowd and started grabbing people with their deadly claws.

Chu Yunsheng had a hard time reloading his crossbow with his shaking hands. When the crowd reached the building, he noticed that there were only eleven or twelve people left. Five people had probably been caught and killed by the Red-shelled insects on the way to his building.

One of the people that was still alive, was the person who lived on the 10th floor. The person tried to open the security door with his trembling hands, but he failed every time.

While they were attempting to open the door, the Red-shelled insects had already approached them. One of them used its sharp foot to pierce through a fat man. Then, as if it was playing with its prey, it held the man up and threw him in mid-air.

Chu Yunsheng wasn’t confident in hitting a moving target, but when the monsters stopped moving, and with a distance of fewer than 30 meters, he believed that he could now hit it.

Taking another deep breath, he aimed the arrow at the one that was playing with a dead body.

*Whoosh*

The arrow’s frost effect was instantly activated, it caused the temperature surrounding the arrow to quickly drop. The sound of an arrow piercing through air alerted the Red-shelled insect. It quickly glanced at the window where the sound came from, but that was all it could do.

The arrow immediately arrived at its target and struck it with the power of the ice element. Not only the arrow slowed the monster but it also broke the insect’s protection, allowing the arrow to easily penetrate the shell and go straight into the monster’s body.

With the frost arrow’s effect, the Red-shelled insect screeched in great pain.

As this happened, the other two, that were busy sucking human brains, suddenly stopped and looked at the dying one. They were confused.

But it was not finished yet. The frost arrow soon unleashed its full power. Even though the fire element inside the Red-shelled insect’s body tried to fight back, it still could not withstand the frost arrow’s power. The Red-shelled insect was frozen instantly and became an ice statue.

“Is it dead?” Chu Yunsheng had no idea how powerful the frost arrow was, since he never tested it before. Even though the Red-shelled insect was frozen, he was still not sure if it was really dead.

So, he loaded his crossbow with his third arrow. Now, based on the experience he had gained from his previous two arrows, he wasn’t as nervous as before.

When the despair-filled group saw the turn of events, their desire to survive instantly replaced all the fears inside them. A middle-aged man took the key forcibly from the still trembling tenth-floor neighbor and then opened the gate calmly.

The group quickly pushed each other into the building. Some of them slumped themselves onto the stairs in the hallway while staring blankly at the frozen Red-shelled insect and the few dismembered bodies.

In the dim light, they were looking at each other, not knowing what to do next. Eventually, the calm middle-aged man, or at least he looked like it, spoke.

“Let’s go upstairs. Quick, there are still two of them outside.”

“Yeah, you are right, someone living upstairs knows how to kill those monsters. As long as that person is here we are safe.”

“Did you notice which floor?”

“Who the hell got time for that?!”

“No, I also didn’t notice.”

While talking to each other, they ran upstairs.

…

Chu Yunsheng aimed his third arrow at the second Red-shelled insect. When he was just about to pull the trigger, he noticed that the frozen monster started to jiggle.

‘It didn’t die and it’s going to break out soon. Must not give it an opportunity to recover!’ he thought.

The fewer they were, the less dangerous it would be. Moreover, the other two had already started moving and he did not want to shoot a moving target again, so he decided that he might as well put another arrow to the immobile one.

Not hesitating any longer, the third arrow flew towards the frozen monster, it made a hole in the ice statue instantly. In less than a second, it exploded into countless ice pieces. This time it was definitely dead.

Seeing one of them was killed, the other two roared in fury. They threw away the head they were eating and ran towards the building immediately. One of them tried to break down the security door with its claw, while the other began to climb up the building, heading straight to the sixth floor where the arrow came from.

“Did they notice where I am?” Chu Yunsheng thought. His desperation evoked anger deep inside his heart.

“So you want to kill me? Then let me end your lives first…”

With the dim lights from the vehicles outside the building, as well as the fire from the rocket explosions from the places further away, Chu Yunsheng could clearly see the two furious monsters through his crossbow’s infrared sight.

The fourth arrow flew out and hit the one that was climbing the wall, freezing it instantly.

Chu Yunsheng’s plan was to freeze both of them first, then kill them during the time when they tried to break out of the ice.

Reloading his crossbow quickly, he tried to find the third one, but it was gone from the security door.

Unfortunately, in his current position, he couldn’t see if the security door was broken or not. So he did not know where it went.

However, the time was precious. The third monster was gone, but the frozen one was still here. So he immediately killed it and then went back to the living room.

The windows weren’t safe anymore. He did not know from where the last one would come out. Therefore, he loaded his crossbow and waited patiently in a corner.

Killing one red-shelled insect with just two arrows. If the military knew what he could do, they would definitely force him to join them. Because it was very difficult to penetrate the Red-shelled insect’s armor with just ordinary bullets.

Chu Yunsheng felt that he didn’t have much ‘Yuan Qi’ left in his body. Every single frost arrow, that shot out of his crossbow, consumed a lot of ‘Yuan Qi’, except for the first one, which didn’t activate. During his short break, he was shocked to discover that he could only trigger one more frost arrow.

After that, his ‘Yuan Qi’ would be completely exhausted. It seemed that to kill three Red-shelled insects, he would need to use at least six frost arrows.

The problem was that he was only able to trigger five frost arrows! So he basically had no chance of winning if the Red-shelled insects recovered faster than him.

Knowing this, he immediately decided to restore his ‘Yuan Qi’ first. Since the last one was still outside, he believed that when it arrived, his reinforced door and windows could hold its attack for some time.

He believed that if he could just hit it with the arrow and freeze it, he could kill it with his pistol or ‘Li Huo talisman’.

The room now seemed empty with just a few pieces of furniture left. Chu Yunsheng had already stored everything he needed in his ‘storage talisman’. He was now simply sitting on top of the living room table while restoring his ‘Yuan Qi’ hurriedly, and catching any movement in the surroundings.

“Monster!!! The monster is coming up!” someone screamed on the stairs.

Chu Yunsheng immediately jumped off the table. As he expected, the last one got into the building and climbed up from the stairs.

Now the problem he was facing, was that should he go out and kill the monster on the stairs, or should he wait until the insect broke in and kill it at the door?

However, he wasn’t a military strategist or a combat specialist. He could not quickly find the pros and cons of those two options. He needed time to think, but the Red-shelled insect didn’t give him time.

While he was still deciding, he could hear footsteps of someone running upstairs. It was almost outside his flat! Due to the blackout, the elevator had stopped working, so the people had to use the stairs.

At this moment, Chu Yunsheng made the boldest decision in his life. He opened the door and hooked his crossbow onto the table, where he had originally been sitting to reduce recoil, and then waited patiently while facing the now opened door.

When the monster appeared, he must pull the trigger and hit it first to freeze it. This was his only chance of survival.