Chapter 154: Ambushed [POWER STONE BONUS]

Robert looked toward the road through a broken window. They had already scouted the area and knew there were Wild Orcs several streets away, so he only needed to make enough noise to catch their attention before getting out of their path.

Robert took another deep breath, forced himself to stop thinking, thinking was making him scared and unable to move. He pulled the pin from the grenade.

He threw it onto the road outside, where it landed near several abandoned cars, and a few seconds later, the grenade exploded.

The flames quickly caught the leaking petrol from the cars, turning the small explosion into a much larger one that shook the road. Robert ducked behind the desk as heat rushed through the workshop, and he stayed there while pieces of glass and debris fell around him.

Then the Origin Energy arrived.

It slammed into his body and immediately made his muscles stiffen. Robert could no longer move as he listened to the sound of heavy footsteps approaching from the road, each step causing the ground beneath him to tremble.

He closed his eyes and desperately hoped the Wild Orc would not find him. The footsteps stopped outside the workshop, and for several seconds there was nothing but silence while Robert remained frozen behind the desk.

The Wild Orc was outside.

Robert could not move, and even breathing felt dangerous. Then he heard another set of footsteps approaching. A second Wild Orc. His heart began beating so loudly that he was afraid the monster might somehow hear it.

’At least my heart can still move,’ Robert thought, trying to calm himself with the joke. It did not help much, but there was nothing else he could do while the Origin Energy kept his body frozen.

Then, several streets away, another enormous explosion shook the area. Robert immediately knew what had happened because Tina was supposed to create the next distraction, and when the Wild Orcs reached her location, another member of their group would repeat the process even farther ahead.

It was a simple method of slowly dragging the Wild Orcs away from their original position. The plan was also risky and, if Robert was being honest, somewhat stupid because these creatures were not mindless monsters from games that would blindly chase every explosion they heard.

There was no reason to believe the Wild Orcs would not eventually realize that something was wrong. Robert could almost guarantee that something would go wrong before they finished, but this was still the best plan they had managed to create with the people available to them.

The footsteps outside eventually moved away. The heavy Origin Energy covering Robert’s body slowly disappeared, and he finally regained control of his muscles.

He leaned against the desk and took several deep breaths. Sweat dripped from his forehead, sticking his hair to his forehead as he tried to steady himself before leaving the workshop.

’How did Alex, Tina, and Mrs. Ophelia fight those things?’ Robert thought, half scared and half amazed by what they were capable of. He shook his head because this was not the time to think about it, and he still had another explosion to prepare.

The second group had only a limited number of people, so they could not simply remain in one place. Once someone completed their part, they had to move ahead using a roundabout route, hide in a building farther along the Wild Orcs’ path, and prepare another explosion before the monsters reached them.

Robert rushed out through the back door and entered an alley. He ran forward while avoiding piles of trash, broken walls, fallen concrete, and other rubble that covered much of the ruined streets.

He had almost reached the next building when he heard something. Robert stopped immediately and slowly turned his head, only to see a monster standing several meters away.

It was shaped somewhat like a large monkey, but its body was far more muscular, with long arms that reached almost to the ground and thick fingers tipped with curved claws. Its dark eyes remained fixed on Robert while its body stayed strangely still.

Robert could not understand why a monster like this was still in the area. Most humans should have already been killed or kidnapped, while monsters should have fled after the Wild Orcs took control of the streets.

Then he remembered something. Animals did not always avoid the territories of powerful predators, and hyenas, for example, could survive near stronger predators by taking advantage of opportunities left behind by them.

Robert’s expression changed as he understood what was happening. The creature was probably hunting whatever humans or monsters were still hiding in the area, taking advantage of the chaos created by the Wild Orcs, like hyenas.

Before Robert could react, the monster suddenly blurred. Something slammed into his chest, and a crunch came from somewhere inside his body as his feet left the ground.

His back crashed into the wall with tremendous force, and he dropped toward the ground without even having time to understand what had just happened. His vision spun, and he suddenly felt blood rising from his stomach before he puked it onto the ground. He could not move, could barely hear anything, and every attempt to breathe only made the pain in his chest worse.

Robert knew this was it. His ribs had probably broken during the monster’s attack, and some of them must have punctured his lungs because breathing was becoming harder with every passing second. The monster’s feet appeared in his blurred vision as it slowly approached him.

His hand was lifted, and suddenly terrible pain attacked his mind. He could not scream because blood had filled his throat, suffocating him, and when he finally managed to raise his head, he saw the monster eating his arm.

His first thought was to increase his Constitution. Roan had told them that Constitution could help the body recover from injuries, so Robert desperately wanted to spend his saved stat points on it. However, perhaps because of the sheer amount of adrenaline running through his body, he could still think clearly enough to realize that Constitution would not save him from this situation.

His second thought was the grenade. If he could somehow grab it and use it, he might be able to kill the monster, but they were inside a narrow alley, and an explosion at this distance would probably kill him along with it.

..

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