Chapter Forty-Four: Together on the Road

“I’m so powerful!”
“But the reputation points are rather meager!”
After all, an entire centaur tribe of nearly two hundred, with a chieftain at level twenty-seven, wiped out to the last, and yet the reward was only two hundred reputation points.
It was clear how difficult it would be to reach the status of ‘Exalted’ through grinding.
Still, if it was this hard to claim all the reputation for himself, it would be even harder for others.
Besides, the boss at least dropped some loot, so it wasn’t a complete loss.
The whole tribe yielded just three loot chests: one blue, two white.
Chu Cheng hadn’t set his hopes high. He opened them casually.
A handful of coins and sundries, and a finely made longbow of decent quality—worth about thirty silver at least.
After a brief rest, Chu Cheng left the devastated tribe, washed the blood off in the Embroidered River, and continued upstream.
A wide path ran along the river, likely trodden out by the various non-human tribes inhabiting the region.
Following the river for two or three kilometers, he soon spotted another centaur settlement nestled between two low ridges.
This tribe was slightly larger than the last, but not by much. Their response to Chu Cheng’s assault was the same, and so was their fate.
Five minutes later, Chu Cheng was again rinsing blood from his body by the riverbank.
Half an hour after that, he appeared near yet another centaur tribe, five kilometers away.
This time, however, he did not attack. Instead, he observed from a distance a fierce battle unfolding within the settlement.
Another team was attacking the centaur tribe, having already breached the encampment.
The team numbered sixteen, each with a clear role: two shield-bearing tanks at the front, four power-based melee fighters supporting from the sides, two agile melee fighters flanking left and right, and seven ranged fighters with a single mage at the rear unleashing spells.
Seeing the corpses littered outside the settlement, Chu Cheng deduced their initial tactic was to lure the centaurs out and kill a portion before storming the tribe.
The team’s only mage was formidable, wielding a Blizzard spell capable of summoning a rain of ice spikes over a wide area—highly effective for crowd control and slowing enemies.
A brief glance was all Chu Cheng needed to conclude the centaur tribe was doomed. He quickly lost interest and quietly departed without drawing attention.
However, he hadn’t concealed his presence earlier, and several archers on the watchtower at the gate had spotted him.
After the battle, one archer approached the mage, who was resting, and whispered,
“Captain, I just saw Chu Cheng from Team Five pass by.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“He’s pretty fast.”
Yu Hong finished meditating and stood up, raising his voice,
“Recover as we go, we move to the next site now.”
He formed a seal with his hands, casting a spell. A magic circle shimmered into existence, and with a flash of arcane light, a warhorse clad in armor materialized. He swung into the saddle.

Following the river for another half hour, the group arrived at a different centaur settlement along the bank, only to find it already annihilated.
They entered the ruined camp with grave expressions, surveying the bodies strewn about. One crouched down, touched a corpse, and said in a muted, astonished voice,
“Killed not long ago; the bodies are still warm.”
“How is that possible?”
“He set off barely ten minutes before us, didn’t he? You’re saying he wiped out a two or three hundred-strong tribe in ten minutes?”
Yu Hong frowned, pinching his chin, and said in a low voice,
“Let’s catch up and see.”
This time, the whole team moved with pent-up urgency—and they did indeed catch up with Chu Cheng.
Standing atop a massive boulder, Chu Cheng was surveying the next centaur tribe ahead. He turned as the group arrived, leapt lightly down, and took the initiative:
“Since you’ve caught up, let’s settle who goes in first to avoid any disputes.”
“If you want to take it, I’ll step aside.”
Yu Hong regarded him suspiciously but didn’t refuse.
“Agreed.”
Chu Cheng gestured invitingly.
“Then it’s yours. I’ll move on to the next one.”
With that, he turned and left, without hesitation.
He Yunyu sidled up, puzzled and surprised,
“He’s that generous?”
Another laughed,
“Isn’t it obvious? He’s alone, we’re a whole squad. Even if he wanted to compete…he couldn’t possibly—”
“Damn!”
A startled shout interrupted him; a teammate behind the boulder called out,
“Captain, come look at this!”
The group immediately scrambled over, and two hundred meters beyond, they saw a centaur settlement several times larger than the previous one.
“There must be at least a thousand in there!”
“So that’s why he was so eager to let us have it. Makes sense now.”
Everyone looked at Yu Hong. Under their stares, he twitched his mouth and said,
“Forget this one, let’s find another.”
The others quickly agreed.
“That Chu Cheng isn’t far off—we can still catch up.”
But as they moved off, Chu Cheng suddenly stepped out from behind a rock, beaming,
“What’s this? Have you changed your minds?”
Yu Hong was speechless, shaking his head.
“No, it’s yours if you want it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Good, then I’ll take over.”
Now Yu Hong was genuinely surprised. He couldn’t help asking,
“By yourself?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
Yu Hong was silent…
“Boss, are we going or not?”
“No, I want to see how he handles a thousand-strong tribe alone.”
Chu Cheng was well aware they were watching, but he didn’t care. Let them watch—there was no way to imitate his tactics.
As before, he drew his blade and charged straight for the main gate, drawing the attention of the centaur archers stationed there.
These regular centaur archers were all at least level fifteen, their attacks dealing fifty to sixty points of damage. Yet with talents, gear, and defenses stacking, the damage he suffered was reduced to just three or four points per hit.
A single volley was enough to stack his Blood God’s Body buff over a dozen times, and with his innate fifteen points of health regeneration, he could easily reach thirty points of regeneration per second.
With such high defense and regeneration, he charged the gates without dodging or flinching.
The blare of heavy warhorns echoed; the entire tribe was roused, and a mass of centaurs surged out, swallowing him from sight almost instantly.
Outside the settlement, Yu Hong and the others watched, dumbfounded, from behind their boulder perch.
They’d considered countless possibilities, even put themselves in Chu Cheng’s place to imagine his tactics, but none of them had thought of this approach.
“What kind of talent lets him charge in like that? Isn’t he afraid of dying?”
“Rumor is, he has some extremely powerful damage reduction talent.”
“No matter how strong, you can’t just wade in like that, can you?”
“But he’s doing exactly that!”
“It’s unreal.”
In the midst of the centaur horde, Chu Cheng, with fifty-three strength, forced his way through the centaurs, pushing deeper and deeper into the settlement.
Centaurs clustered tightly around, spears jabbing at him from every side.
Archers reared up, firing a relentless hail of arrows down from above.