Chapter 51 – Cat Dad VS Upgraded A.I.

The scene of 5,500 gnoll soldiers rushing in and crawling the tower was a stunning sight. Now, Xiaomao felt like he was in a zombie apocalypse.

Xiaomao dodged the long-ranged fireballs of the elite shamans. He adjusted his crossbow and aimed at them.

GRRR

Suddenly, a team of gnoll soldiers surrounded the shaman and formed a phalanx formation. They raised their shields to cover their leader, expecting an attack from Xiaomao.

Seeing their reaction, Xiaomao clicked his tongue. He knew why they reacted that way.

In the early patches, the regular mobs were stupid. They tended to be robotic and moved in a pattern, such as the previous mob pattern on the first floor. Aside from the boss monsters, they could not react to human players’ tactics and strategies.

But now, they raised their shields and took cover as if they knew what they were up against. Their reaction was too smart for regular mobs in the first version of the game.

From Xiaomao’s perspective, he believed that the developers might have ninja-added a new A.I. to these gnolls.

‘Those devs must have installed the Hegemony Patch A.I. on these monsters. They aren’t supposed to be this smart in the early game. Hell, nobody has triggered the main scenario quest yet! It’s not the time to scare the players away!’

In Xiaomao’s previous life, the patches in this game came in order. When the game was first released in version 1.0, only some crypto farmers joined the game, and no pro-gamers made their appearance yet. Thus, the A.I. of all monsters was a plain copy-and-paste from other games.

The company introduced the Landlord Patch a year after the game had been launched, which upgraded the game to version 1.1. Players could earn noble titles, own lands, and manage local natural resources in their territory. It also came with a guild war feature, which allowed players to wage war to compete for territories. Then, investors and pro-gamers flocked to the game, destroying and conquering every land that the game world had offered.

Shortly after the 1.1 version, a new major update came out to destroy weak crypto farming companies and maintain the balance of the world map._.

The Hegemony Patch was the 1.2 version of the game. The field monsters, dungeon monsters, storyline NPCs, and local NPCs began to mobilize their armies and counterattacked against the player guilds. Players were forced to defend against countless siege attacks from NPC forces and the local monsters while they had to maintain their territories and countries.

In version 1.2, field monsters, mobs, and dungeon monsters acted like human players. They devised tactics and reacted to players’ strategies. Moreover, their aggro radius and detection range became more realistic as they always communicated when they spotted enemies, which usually resulted in team battles.

And now, a simple aggressive action of Xiaomao triggered the hatred of all gnolls in the third-level dungeon. Even the gnoll general began walking toward Xiaomao’s bridge tower.

Since Xiaomao knew that he was spotted and sniping their shamans might not be as effective as shooting at the regular gnolls, he switched his targets. He turned his attention to the gnolls who were climbing the tower.

WHIZZED

BOOM

One direct hit from the bolt was enough to kill a gnoll soldier. As for the explosion’s DOT effect, it was no longer reliable.

A dozen shamans gathered near the tower. They raised their staffs and chanted, casting AOE healing spells and recovering the HP of gnoll soldiers nearby. In addition, the healing power was so broken that their half-depleted HP went back to full.

“OWOWO LOLOLOL”

These shamans’ chanting sound was so obnoxious that Xiaomao wanted to rebuke them if they were the WOLOLO priests from a certain RTS game.

Everything about the shamans was annoying. They could attack, heal, and buff their friends. It was already difficult to kill one of them, but fighting several of them at once was frustrating.

Fortunately, the tower was a hundred meters tall. The heavy gnolls couldn’t climb that fast, and the flame from the explosive bolts hindered their progress.

Fireballs from the shamans kept coming. Xiaomao also changed his rhythm by dodging, firing, and ducking to reload a new bolt.

After repeating the sequence 20 times, the gnolls made it through half of the tower. Several of them were also hanging on the cables, coming at the rooftop of the tower from all sides.

Xiaomao looked around. At this rate, he would be overrun soon.

He glanced at his skill icon in his shortcut menu from the corner of his eyes. The volley skill cooldown was now zero.

Without hesitation, Xiaomao glared at the scattering groups of shamans. He designated the most crowded area with most shamans below the tower and activated the skill!

One Man Thousand Arrows!

A thousand bolts rained upon the crowd of gnolls once again. A thousand explosions followed, killing another team of elite shamans and their protectors.

All annoying gnoll shamans on the bridge were dead at long last. Only the shamans behind the Gnoll General remained.

Meanwhile, the skill’s explosion and its magic damage decreased the bridge’s HP by another 10%. Moreover, several cables that got caught by the explosions snapped. A hundred gnoll soldiers fell to the abyss.

Xiaomao let out a sigh of relief as the gnolls on the cables almost reached his place. Now, he had a bit of room to breathe.

“AWOOOO!!”

It was too soon to celebrate. The Gnoll General suddenly shoved and pushed the other soldiers, making his way closer to the tower. He grabbed the nearest soldier gnoll and hurled him toward Xiaomao’s direction!

“MUNYA?!”

Xiaomao was taken aback when he saw the crying gnoll, flying over the tower’s roof and almost hit him.

For a moment there, Xiaomao and the gnoll’s eyes met. They felt like everything moved in a slow motion. The iconic song “I believe I can fly” was audible in Xiaomao’s mind even though there was no such thing as a soundtrack or music in the game.

After the gnoll waved his hand and bid Xiaomao farewell in tears, the poor monster fell to the ground near the stairs toward the other floor.

SPLASH

Five digits of damage appeared. The soldier gnoll died and left a pile of items on the ground.

This sometimes happened when monsters or NPCs killed each other. As the loot could not enter the NPC’s inventory slots, they were left on the ground where they died.

Two Xiaomao’s tentacles slapped his face and got him back to his senses. He resumed his battle stance, firing another bolt at the climbing gnolls.

RUMBLE

As the cables had been severed, the bridge began to shake after an explosion. Its HP decreased every time Xiaomao’s bolt exploded.

The surface of the bridge began to crack. The gnolls looked down and noticed that the cracks were expanding at a rapid rate.

The boss monster also sensed it. It shouted.

“RUSH TO THE OTHER SIDE! THE ONE BEHIND ME, RETREAT!”

The monsters that had been climbing the tower continued doing so. The teams near Xiaomao’s tower stopped paying attention to the cat and rushed to the firm ground near the stairs. As for the one behind the Gnoll General, they retreated to the front of the gate.

The boss monster grudgingly glared at Xiaomao. He turned around and withdrew along with the majority of his men.

BOOM

The bridge slowly crumbled. A portion of the concrete and stone surface fell into the abyss, and everything collapsed from the middle.

2,000 monsters failed to get back to the cliff. Like before, they fell into the abyss.

As Xiaomao was the one who inflicted the major damages to the constructions, he received the kill EXP from the fallen monsters.

DING

DING

DING

Xiaomao glanced at his EXP and status. It was worth the danger as his level kept going up.

Unfortunately, the gnolls already reached the top of the tower. Xiaomao didn’t have enough time to check his status menu.

Seeing the berserking gnolls, Xiaomao brought out the sword and rode on it. Again, he controlled the sword and flew into the air.

WHOOSH

As if Xiaomao was a protagonist in a zombie apocalypse, the gnolls sprinted toward him. Xiaomao’s sword took off in time and dodged them by a hairbreadth.

But the pursuit didn’t stop. A dozen fireballs came from the bottom of the safe zone tower as the shamans from General Gnoll’s team started attacking him. The cat sweated profusely while navigating the flying sword, rushing it to the safe zone tower and avoiding the fireballs.

BOOM

BOOM

Many fireballs hit the ceiling, causing the entire dungeon to tremble. Several rocks fell, and a few small pieces hit Xiaomao’s head.

Xiaomao entered the safe zone, and countless fireballs hit the invisible barrier. The sword crash-landed on the rooftop, and Xiaomao tumbled, rolling until his body hit the rail guard.

He lay on the ground like a liquid cat, catching his breath.

AWOOOO!

As if the Gnoll General and others were aware of Xiaomao’s location, they howled and climbed the tower, heading toward the safe zone.