Chapter 177 Stone Nest

The heavy footsteps were more than one; that booming sound and the trembling earth beneath their feet felt familiar to Hao Ren. Sure enough, after everyone braced themselves, some familiar figures ran out of the twisted woodland: the massive stone giants!

"They really came in," Hao Ren inhaled. "I wonder how the town is."

The bearded monk was astonished at the sight of these rock monsters. A layer of faint golden light suddenly appeared on his body, and he muttered incredulously while adopting a fighting stance, "What are these things? Are these the stone giants you were talking about?"

"That's right, these are them," Izhaks, surrounded by a blazing red light, strode towards the stone giants. "Be careful, they can regenerate. You have to get them off the ground to completely destroy them."

"Boom—" Before Izhaks could finish, one of the stone giants attacked. The great demon raised a foot and kicked the stone giant's knee, shattering the stone pillar into pieces despite its size. Then, Izhaks effortlessly smashed the stone giant's limbs and lifted its torso off the ground, easily finishing off the huge monster. Having done this before, these monsters, useless save for their sturdiness and brute strength, were not difficult for the great demon to deal with.

Everyone immediately swarmed forward and engaged the giants. Since it wasn't their first encounter, no one was as flustered as they were the first time they met these monsters. Even Becky, the demon swordsman who wasn't known for her strength, could hold her own without being injured. Roars echoed through the air, and the thundering sounds of exploding rocks and colliding giants reverberated through the open space between the blood lake and the twisted woodland!

Only the four ascetics were seeing these monsters for the first time, and they seemed a bit chaotic at the beginning. However, the ascetics carefully cultivated by the church possessed extraordinary strength. The bearded monk was enveloped in a golden halo, his eyes flashing with golden-red flames. He fought with a unique fighting technique, his punches creating penetrating holes in the stone giants! After confirming the monster's powerful regenerative abilities, he quickly took two steps back and chanted a few hurried syllables. Suddenly, the gravity within a certain range around him changed drastically. Small pebbles on the beach jumped into the air in tremors, but fell slowly as if in slow motion. The stone giants, affected by this strange gravity magic, immediately staggered unsteadily. The monsters had basic combat awareness, but their intelligence was clearly not high.

The bearded monk confirmed that the monster's resistance to gravity magic was average, and immediately lunged forward with a rising dragon fist. The monster, weighing tens of tons, was easily knocked into the air with one blow, followed by a continuous barrage of punches and kicks. The other three ascetics, seeing that this method was effective, immediately followed suit.

These were the ascetics cultivated by the Radiant Church. They used a combat technique similar to martial arts, but with powerful magical assistance. They maintained absolute calm in any battle and were exceptionally strong and skilled in both ranged and melee combat. Under the influence of the strange gravity magic and the continuous aerial beatdown, a stone giant could be kept in the air for several minutes. But the bearded monk didn't know how long these monsters would have to float in the air before completely losing their strength, so he fought while communicating with his companions, "Is this one ready?"

"Looks like it's still moving… keep cooking it for a while."

"Is mine ready yet? I gave it a dozen rising dragon fists."

"Yours should be almost there, it's turning black. I think mine's almost ready too, does this color look right?"

Hao Ren turned back in astonishment: if he hadn't looked back, he wouldn't have known what the Four Great Guardians were doing! The conversation sounded like a cooking class…

At this time, nearly ten stone giants had fallen, and the battlefield was littered with shattered boulders and large craters. However, the pressure on the group hadn't lessened. Hao Ren, while protecting Nangong Wuyue, who had no combat ability, glanced to the side and saw a steady stream of stone giants running out from behind the dark trees of the twisted woodland!

And in the distance, the rumbling footsteps never stopped: it seemed that a large group of monsters was approaching, and the ones in front were just a small fraction!

A blinding flash of lightning burst above their heads, and then a large number of bats scattered from the lightning and plunged into the depths of the forest. After a moment, the bats converged into Vivian's image, and she flew in the air, shouting to Hao Ren, "Another big group is coming! Probably over a hundred! We're surrounded!"

"Did we poke a stone nest?!" Lily swept in like a silver whirlwind, and even with the girl's physique, she was starting to pant. She rubbed her sore wrists and asked Nangong Wuyue to help restore her stamina, while pricking up her ears to listen to the movements in the forest. "No… this is too slow."

Hao Ren also realized the problem of insufficient combat efficiency. Regardless of where these stone giants came from, or why his group was surrounded in the middle of the monster swarm, the biggest problem now was that there were too many monsters to kill! The stone giants' special weakness meant that even if there was a way to deal with them, it would take a lot of effort. To completely destroy a monster, it had to be kept off the ground for a long time. When there were fewer monsters, it was easy to handle, but as they swarmed over, the efficiency problem became apparent. Hao Ren frowned, trying to think of a way to quickly solve this strange problem. Izhaks shouted from a distance, "If it really doesn't work, you guys should get out of the way. I found an asteroid belt twenty astronomical units away, and it's all iron core, it feels great…"

Hao Ren, sweating profusely, told the meteor maniac to calm down. While watching the slow-moving stone giants, he racked his brains for a solution. Suddenly, an idea popped into his mind, illuminating his entire brain like a flash of lightning.

"Leave it to me!" Hao Ren spotted a stone giant not far away entangled with Becky, and with a roar, he rushed up.

Becky was not good at dealing with this kind of monster, and was bitterly fighting the latter. Hearing Hao Ren running to help, she was overjoyed. After forcing the stone giant back with a fire slash, she quickly jumped aside, and Hao Ren took her place, raising his hand and—the stone giant was taken into his personal space.

Everyone was stunned, but Hao Ren didn't stop. He checked the situation in his personal space, and immediately ran around the field excitedly, "Leave it to me! Leave it to me! I'll take this one too! And this… oh, this one's dead…"

Hao Ren ran around the battlefield like the wind, and the lakeside, which had been the scene of fierce fighting, immediately became quiet. Then he found an open place, took out the data terminal, looked at the time, and, estimating that it was about time, waved his hand and opened his personal space.

The lifeless black stones piled up like a mountain…

Vivian fluttered down from the sky, staring at Hao Ren with a dumbfounded look: "…Your thinking is as broad as ever."

"There are no useless skills—it's all about creativity," Hao Ren looked up at the stone giants running out of the woodland, and couldn't help but curl the corners of his mouth up. "The most valuable thing these days is creative talent!"

Before long, more than a hundred stone giants had turned into mountains of black stones under Hao Ren's "creative skills." Piles of stones like mountains filled the open space on the lake beach. Hao Ren clapped his hands and jumped down from the highest stone pile, "I estimate it's enough to build at least two siheyuan." (courtyard houses)

Lily squatted under the pile of stones and poked at them with her claws, then carefully picked out a few beautiful-looking black stones and stuffed them into her pocket. Hao Ren looked at her strangely, "You collect these too?"

"It's just my hobby," Lily seemed very happy. "We ran away in a hurry last time, so this time I have to collect all the stones I missed last time!"

Lily's love of collecting stones of all colors was well known to everyone in the family. It should be said that this was one of the few hobbies of the husky girl that could be slightly related to "art." When she first came, most of the heavy suitcase was filled with various stones. Lily kept those stones like treasures, and usually wouldn't let anyone touch them. Vivian therefore gave those stones a name: Wang's Treasures…

Of course, Lily herself had a lot of opinions about this.

After Lily picked out a few more pretty stones, the group prepared to leave this unsafe and strange beach. Next, they wanted to cross the twisted woodland overnight and go to Layton Town as soon as possible to check the situation, but before they could set off, a noise suddenly came from the nearby forest.

This time, it was human voices.