Chapter 8: Charging into Mu Ren Lane

  The wind against the trend comes from the end of Mù Rén Xiàng, whizzing past and rushing straight to the starting point of Mù Rén Xiàng.

  The great wind rises, clouds fly high!

  Gǔ Chāo was wearing a suit of wooden armor weighing around 20 kilograms, and his current appearance somewhat resembled that of the wooden men. With this wooden man-like appearance, he began to charge forward. As soon as he started charging, several wooden men rushed towards him. Gǔ Chāo didn't even blink, and with a swift motion of his right hand, he threw out three fist-sized stones. The three stones landed at different points, some near, some far, some left, and some right, falling to the ground one after another. The way he threw the stones was also skillful, managing to conserve stones while dispersing the wooden men's attention. Originally, the four wooden men charging towards Gǔ Chāo split into four directions, with a six-foot-tall red wooden man charging towards him like a raging bull.

  However, the wooden men's movements in the strong wind were somewhat slow, so their attack speed was not too fast. Gu Chao quickly advanced forward and escaped this wooden man's attack. But ahead of him, another wooden man launched a pincer movement, one of them reaching Gu Chao's side. Gu Chao raised his left hand to block it, the wooden man's attack landing on Gu Chao's left hand. Gu Chao suddenly felt some pain, but the wooden armor had reduced the impact force by quite a bit; otherwise, it would have been very painful.

  Gu Chao continued to run forward, taking advantage of the wind to run.

  When the strong wind started, Gu Chao suddenly thought that he was indeed like a boy chasing after the wind, and it was simply exhilarating.

  Forward! Forward! Forward again!

  There's a kind of blood burning when making progress, a boiling hot feeling, which is even more exciting than participating in the 100-meter dash at the city sports meeting in my previous life.

  At this time, there were still twenty people in the wooden alley, and the other thirty had been eliminated. Gu Chao was the last to start, naturally ranking twentieth. Gu Chao kept running, occasionally throwing stones to distract the wooden men's attention, as well as being affected by the wind, and occasionally using both hands to block the wooden men's attacks, but still got hit a few punches.

  Gǔ Chāo suddenly discovered that there was a person in the midst of the wooden men's encirclement, Gǔ Chāo quickly ran past that person and ranked nineteenth. After Gǔ Chāo surpassed that person, that person was also heavily injured by the wooden men, barely dodging the wooden man's chest strike, only to be struck again from another direction on his back, instantly losing combat power. A black-clad figure flew down from a crossbeam and rescued the severely injured person, taking him out of the assessment: "Injured and lost combat power, test result determined as failure."

  The black-clad figure who flew down from the beam to save the youth cast a glance at Gu Chao, and his eyes flashed with an unusual light, apparently finding this very interesting.

  Gu Chao is now nineteenth and still advancing non-stop!

  He ran forward for some time and saw three young men working together to resist the attack of a group of wooden men. The three young men looked similar, with the same eyebrows, square faces, and stood back-to-back, swinging their long knives to resist the attack of the wooden men on the side. Although they were still struggling to resist the attack of the wooden men, it was difficult for them to advance forward. These three young men happened to be ranked 18th, 17th, and 16th. The three young men all came from an ordinary family named Guan, and had reached their limit here. Their internal strength was almost exhausted, and they were severely injured all over their bodies, unable to move forward again.

  They themselves were trapped in a predicament and had no time to observe their surroundings, and with Gu Chao's wooden-like appearance, they thought he was a wooden puppet and didn't notice him.

  Gu Chao has surpassed 18th, 17th and 16th places while running and successfully entered the 16th place.

  Gu Chao continued to run, boom! His back was hit by the wooden man, fortunately, the wooden armor reduced a lot of impact. Never mind, continue running, only running will win.

  Run! Run! Run again!

  Gǔ Chāo saw a small, delicate and pretty girl in front of him. The girl was moving nimbly among the wooden men, but a group of wooden men surrounded her, making it difficult for her to move forward. This girl was from an ordinary family named Qiao Jia, known for their agility. Her footwork was called "Qiao Yun Step", which was said to be unpredictable and elusive when mastered, like clouds in the sky that were hard to grasp. However, this Qiao Jia girl's practice of Qiao Yun Step was not refined, and she looked a bit disheveled, it seemed that she would soon be caught by the wooden men.

  The clever girl observed the surroundings, her eyes shining brightly. She inadvertently caught sight of Gu Chao's wooden-like attire and was taken aback, her footsteps momentarily frozen. In that instant, she was struck by the wooden figure. Originally relying on her footwork to dodge, being hit once would be the end for her. Consequently, she was hit repeatedly. The black-clad man flew down from the beam to rescue her, saying in a flat tone: "Injury results in loss of combat ability, test evaluation failed." In fact, even if Gu Chao hadn't distracted her, this clever girl wouldn't have passed the wooden figure alley assessment; her abilities only went that far.

  Gu Chao didn't look around and now it's his turn to run, the remaining time is not much, keep running. After Gu Chao surpassed this clever girl, he ranked 15th.

  At this time, the strong wind said stop and suddenly stopped.

  The strong wind stopped so suddenly that Gu Chao almost couldn't stop his forward momentum, but fortunately he managed to freeze in place just in time. He immediately threw out a few stones, and the wooden men who were originally going to attack Gu Chao before the wind stopped instead went to attack where the stones had landed. With several loud punches, they smashed the stones into pieces and then returned to their original positions, motionless.

  So, now it has become a static ancient super-large eye staring at the static several wooden men, among which several wooden men are not far from the ancient super, and for a while they all stopped, the ancient super almost face to face with a wooden man, this feeling is really strange.

  The old ultra-dark dark relaxed his muscles and bones, exercising the previously injured parts to dissipate some of the blood stasis.

  Time is also slowly passing by.

  It should be almost time for the wind to start, Gu Chao's previous observations of the wind cycle also had some observations, and he thought in his heart that it was basically time for the wind to start, and suddenly a strong gust of wind started, Gu Chao also rushed up instantly when the wind started, continuing to run forward.

  。。。。。。

  Just as the wind started, the three people who were ranked 14th, 13th and 12th in front of them were teaming up to charge forward. The 14th-ranked young man said: "Our team of four has reached the fourth layer of the later stage, but it's still difficult to break through this wooden puppet alley, the difficulty is too high."

  The girl ranked thirteenth thought to herself: "Our coordination is not good, no, it should be said that our coordination is extremely poor. The true combat strength of the four of us has not been brought out at all. If we coordinated well, it should have been easy to rush through some of this. Now we've lost one person and there are only three of us left, and the assessment time shouldn't be much longer than an hour." Two of them were complaining while another was analyzing when suddenly, with a loud crash, the boy ranked fourteenth was hit by a wooden man while he was complaining. He felt a sharp pain, and the other two immediately went to help him out, temporarily holding off the attack. However, their coordination in helping him out was also very poor - both of them went to help at the same time, resulting in forgetting about their own defense. As a result, the girl got hit again, and then went to rescue her. In reality, teamwork is crucial for a team; fighting like this is not much different from fighting individually.

  They coordinated so poorly that they were immediately attacked by the wooden men and became even more disheveled. These three people were already being besieged to the extreme, how could they have time to care about other things? They even treated Gu Chao as a passing wooden man.

  At this time, when the three people were being attacked by the wooden men and were in a very sorry state, Gu Chao was passing by. After resting for a while during the calm period, he now had even more energy, running at an extremely fast speed, sometimes throwing stones to distract the wooden men's attention, and at the same time rushing forward quickly, soon surpassing the three people, at this moment Gu Chao was already in 12th place.

  In the subsequent sprint, Gu exceeded expectations and made a mistake while throwing stones. Three stones were thrown too close together without dispersing the attention of many wooden men, resulting in him being hit by three or four punches and kicks from the wooden men at once, causing the upper half of his wooden armor to shatter with a loud crash.

  This occasional mistake made Gu Chao's back ache, but it was normal for things in the plan to go wrong.

  Gu Chao continued to charge forward, and after running for a while, he discovered that there was a very robust young man in front of him. This young man should also be under the age of thirteen, as this assessment had an age limit, but he looked quite robust, almost like a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy. His whole body was muscular, and all you could see was that he swung his extremely thick long knife with one hand, chopping down a wooden dummy. This young man was from the Hei Tie Ji Shi Jia family, which had a set of exercises called the Xiong Ba Jue to build great strength. The young man relied on this exercise to fight his way here, and with one powerful slash of his knife, he chopped down a wooden dummy, but it didn't suffer much damage and quickly stood up again. However, the robust young man was panting heavily, almost exhausting his last bit of energy.

  This young man from a family of heroes, who has been fighting all the way, has now consumed too much energy, especially after his two teammates dropped out of the assessment, and his pressure is even greater. Now it's even more difficult, being hit by the wooden man one after another on his back and chest, almost losing consciousness, until a black-clad figure fell from the beam above with black sleeves to save him.

  Gu Chao is now ranked eleventh.

  Advance, advance and advance again, never stop advancing!

  This is a journey against the wind and advancing in the face of raging storms, victory lies ahead, this is what Gu Chao firmly believes.

  (This chapter has been revised for some time, so it's updated a bit late. Shout out and ask for collection and recommendation votes.)