Chapter 1054 - 504: Four-armed Giant Gargoyle

The wilderness at night was exceptionally dark.

Fortunately, as a Professional’s level increased, their eyesight would improve to varying degrees compared to an ordinary person. For Gauss, the world in his eyes was indistinguishable from broad daylight. Furthermore, even if he closed his eyes, he could still smell the foul stench emanating from the monsters.

Gauss flew through the sky. Five hundred threads, completely hidden from outside Detection, connected him to the members of the Red Dragon Team. So, while Gauss appeared to be separated from them, he could actually still use Perception to monitor their situation.

As he flew, he casually threw out Magic Missiles. Before the monsters hiding in the grass could even poke their heads out, their heads were blown off by the attacks raining down from the sky.

When someone did a certain task often enough, they would naturally become increasingly skilled at it; even solving math problems was no exception. Objectively speaking, killing monsters was actually much simpler than solving problems. Its only issue was that it was a tedious, mechanically repetitive chore.

It was no wonder that many high-level Professionals gradually lost interest in subjugating monsters, especially low-level ones. This was especially true since many high-level Professionals did not possess Gauss’s extreme mobility. A large number of them couldn’t even fly and could only rely on their own two legs to walk on the ground or ride on mounts.

Just imagine: after traveling for tens of minutes just to crush a few dozen creatures that were essentially no different from ants to you, doing it once or twice might still hold some amusement. But when this process had to be repeated ten or twenty times, you would inevitably feel physically and mentally exhausted.

Yet, this kind of numbness seemed nonexistent in Gauss.

FWOOSH!

Watching the burrow below being swallowed by the flames released by Burning Hand, Gauss withdrew his gaze. He glanced at the rapidly increasing numbers in his bestiary and revealed a satisfied expression.

Sometimes, Gauss would think about this very phenomenon. At first, he thought it might be some sort of "reward mechanism" similar to a video game at play. After all, who wouldn’t enjoy killing monsters and leveling up? The constant stream of positive feedback would gradually addict him to the process.

However, as time passed and he killed more and more monsters without feeling the slightest bit of slackening from beginning to end, Gauss gradually realized that there must be something abnormal about him. He wondered how a person could possibly maintain 100% enthusiasm for a single task from start to finish. No matter how genuinely someone loved doing something, there would always be moments of boredom and exhaustion, right?

Yet, this bizarre phenomenon had manifested perfectly within him.

Gauss figured this might be a "side effect" brought about by the Adventurer’s Handbook; it seemed to have left some kind of brand on him. Considering that this wasn’t actually harmful to him—and that he hadn’t been brainwashed into a mindless killing machine without any abnormal addiction symptoms, at most just gaining a buff that prevented him from growing tired of it—he decided not to dwell on it too much.

After all, human beings inherently possessed all sorts of quirks.

Gauss let his mind wander, but his hands didn’t slow down in the slightest.

"Damn human! I am—"

A Jackal-Wolf People chieftain roared from below, but its voice was abruptly cut short.

He wondered, "Where did this speed bump come from?"

Gauss glanced at the source of the voice; all that remained on the ground was a puddle of mashed flesh. There was a downside to casting magic too quickly—he had actually wanted to hear what kind of big talk the creature had been about to spew.

Gauss discovered that the monster packs roaming the wilderness could roughly be divided into two waves. Aside from the common monsters seen everywhere, the ones coming from the east were mixed with many arid-land creatures, while those from the west were predominantly forest species.

Suddenly, Gauss saw a flare light up the night sky in the distance. Through his Racial Talent, [Heartstring], he used Perception and quickly locked onto the specific member based on their emotional fluctuations.

Without any hesitation, physical dragon wings rapidly condensed behind his back. Empowered by the high-speed boost of riding the wind, he dashed toward the flare’s direction.

"Watch out for the Gargoyles overhead!" a Ranger warned his teammates while firing an arrow into the night sky.

While he spoke, more and more Gargoyles flew in from the sky. Fortunately, the combat quality of this squad was quite decent. While counterattacking, they quickly sought topographical cover to dodge the rock attacks raining down on them. Facing Demons that vastly outnumbered their squad, they believed that members of other teams would arrive to help soon after seeing the flare, so they had no intention of fighting a pitched battle.

THUD!

THUD!

Just as they were taking shelter in the ruined buildings, the ground beneath them suddenly began to tremble repeatedly, as if some giant creature was on the move. To make matters worse, the source of the noise seemed to be getting closer and closer.

The few people hiding inside the collapsed building felt the commotion and didn’t even dare to breathe too loudly, terrified that the mere sound of their breathing would expose their position to the enemy’s Detection.

Suddenly, the thunderous footsteps came to an abrupt halt. More than ten seconds passed without any new movement; only the howling wind swept through the air. The squad members exchanged bewildered glances, unsure of what had just happened outside.

Just as they were about to stand up and peer through a window hole to gather intel, a deafening explosion erupted overhead. The roof, along with half of the wall, was ripped away by a pair of massive hands.

"Run!" one of them roared.

There was no time for anyone to think; they frantically scattered in all directions.

A massive, ten-foot-tall creature suddenly loomed in the distance. Its entire body was constructed of stone. It had four arms, a ghastly face, and a sharp horn on its head, while a pair of enormous wings sprouted from its back.