Chapter 136: Deterrence

Crack!

Underneath the tower, my sword fell on two low-level skeletal soldiers. These mobs were only Level 60 with very low Defense and HP. It barely took any effort to kill all of them.

Inside the tower, the two Blood Dance Alliance soldiers were pleasantly surprised by my timely assistance. When they saw the emblem on my shoulder, they laughed heartily and said, “Princess Sophia didn’t give up on us after all! This is wonderful. The flag of the undead will flutter forever on this continent!”

I didn’t expect the two skeletons to react this excitedly, so I kept quiet and let them enjoy the moment.

A few minutes later, a low-level undead priest walked up to us with empty eyes. Her name was “Priest Lassi”.

…...

The undead archer was apparently the commanding officer of the sentinel tower. He laughed heartily when he saw the priest. “Oh, beloved Lassi, you’re finally here! I guess our Man-eater Flower Sentinel Tower is finally safe now!”

The priest nodded before replying in a chilly tone, “Captain Weiss, I had been rushing over since I received the message from Raleigh Town. However, it looks like I still underestimated the ferocity of these monsters!”

The archer said, “Yeah. If it wasn’t for the help of this traveling warrior, we might have lost the tower already.”

The priest NPC nodded again. “There are three human towns behind this tower, so we absolutely cannot lose control of it. If the Night Creatures break our defenses, the innocent people living in those towns will be slaughtered without question. Princess Sophia would never want this to happen!”

I was a bit surprised by her reaction, so I asked, “Why is the Blood Dance Alliance protecting the towns of humans?”

The female priest stared at me with her empty eye sockets until I felt a chill crawling up my spine. Finally, she said in a quiet and bitter tone, “The Blood Dance Alliance is the home of the undead, but we were all humans before we became this way. It is precisely this attachment and our unwillingness to see our kin be slaughtered that led us to creating the Blood Dance Alliance. No matter what the nobles of Floating Ice City think of us, we are willing to fight to our last breath to ensure humanity’s survival!”

I nodded and felt growing respect toward the Blood Dance Alliance’s goal. It looked like I had joined the right faction. Those alive should always be aiming to protect something, or they were no different from walking corpses.

…...

An unpleasant screech suddenly came from the distance. The caws soon joined into one shrilly melody.

The archer Weiss exclaimed in shock, “Heavens, are these the Flying Shadows?”

I turned around and questioned him. “Flying Shadows? What are those?”

NPCs weren’t too smart, but a quick database query was definitely within their abilities. A short pause later, Weiss started explaining, “Flying Shadow is a kind of undead devil that serves the Night Creatures’ army as a low-level soldier. It is a terrible flying creature with bony wings. Although Flying Shadows aren’t too powerful on their own, they normally live and move together as a flock. There are at least thousands of them every time they launch an attack!”

“Fuck…”

I groaned on the inside. How am I going to defend this place from a couple thousand mobs?

More screeches came from the distant forest while I was thinking of a way. Then, a black mass of things started flying our way. They looked like birds, but were much bigger than any bird that I knew of. A closer look revealed that they were in fact a bunch of rotten corpses with wings behind their backs. They could probably be mistaken as fallen angels, but in the end they were just rotten corpses who were blessed with a good name—Flying Shadows!

I swept my gaze across the incoming wave and successfully read the stats of the first few Flying Shadows at the forefront—

Dried-up Flying Shadow

Level: 62

Attack: 250~375

Defense: 240

HP: 2400

Skills: Thrust

Introduction: When a lightweight human dies, the devils take their bodies and transform them into flying monsters. These creatures are known as “Flying Shadows”, and can be encountered everywhere on the Heavenblessed Continent. Their name alone strikes fear into the hearts of countless humans.

…...

As Weiss mentioned, their attack power was incredibly low. In fact, it was low enough that it probably wouldn't be able to pierce my Defense at all!

I checked my own stats again. I had 402 base Defense and 100 extra Defense from the skill Enhanced Bones, so they added up to a total of 502 Defense. At Rank 6, Ghost Deity Armor further boosted my Defense by 18%, so my effective Defense stat was at about 592. I wasn’t completely invulnerable, but I was sure that they couldn’t pierce my Defense, no matter what!

Full of confidence, I turned to face the undead NPCs behind me. “I’ll stop them. Priest, can you heal me while I keep these Flying Shadows at bay?”

The female priest nodded. “No problem. Be careful!”

“Mn!”

I sighed. If Murong Mingyue was here, I wouldn’t need to worry about my safety. Her healing was out of the world after all.

A few seconds later, a huge amount of Flying Shadows descended from the sky and flooded the sentinel tower in an instant!

I couldn’t help but shiver when a rotting stench entered my nose. Standing in front of the entrance with the Dark Wasp at my left and Xinran to my right, I raised the Ghost Ice Soul slightly before yelling, “Thousand Mirage Slash!”

Swhoosh!

The metal sang as an intimidating glow suddenly exploded from the tip of my sword. A moment later, four dazzling sword beams flew toward the sky and enveloped everything within 6 yards of me! It was the Rank 6 Thousand Mirage Slash!

Boom!

My sword beams hit a horde of Flying Shadows, causing a ton of numbers to appear above their heads.

1274!

1183!

1287!

2512!

……

Not only did Thousand Mirage Slash utterly ravage the enemies, I even got a couple lucky crits in and one-shot some of the Flying Shadows outright. At Rank 6 the skill was plenty powerful already, but these Level 62 mobs with low HP and Defense made it look even more fearsome!

An entire horde of Flying Shadows had lost more than half their HP after just one Thousand Mirage Slash, but of course these sinister-looking flying corpses weren’t going to stand around and wait for me to kill them. They swung their bony spears and stabbed me from every corner, but their attack power was so low that they rattled my Ghost Deity Armor, but failed to pierce it at all. The column of numbers rising above my head only added to the hilarity of the moment.

13!

14!

11!

Not one of the attacks managed to deal over 20 damage, but this was a 3D space, and the spears were literally raining on me from nearly every direction. It only took a moment for me to lose over hundreds of HP.

Swhoosh!

The beautiful NPC priest behind my back finally started healing me. Although the numbers weren’t exactly impressive, I had potions to heal myself if necessary and Regeneration of the Undead. It wasn’t an impossible battle of attrition.

Thousand Mirage Slash was an OP skill, but not because it had incredible range and power, but because its cooldown was only 15 seconds. 15 seconds later, I unleashed Thousand Mirage Slash again and sent an entire horde of Flying Shadows plunging to the ground. Hell, it felt I was wielding a goddamned flamethrower. A ton of EXP started flying my way and filling up my experience bar at a visible rate!

I was overjoyed. It was like farming free EXP. Although the Flying Shadows didn’t drop anything impressive—it was mostly Big Magic Stones that weren’t worth a lot these days—it was incredibly exhilarating to watch my experience climb upward like a rocket. Plus, I had a High-grade Army Pouch now. I might as well make good use of my new item space.

The attacking Flying Shadows numbered around 1500, and it took me over an hour to finally kill all of them. The intense battle caused all of my equipment to drop below 50% durability, especially the Ghost Ice Soul. Thousand Mirage Slash was an extremely costly skill both in terms of MP and durability, and after the battle my weapon was down to 27% durability, and I had almost run out of high-rank Magic Consumables!

Damn. I wasn’t expecting 10 stacks of high-level Magic Consumables to be insufficient. Normally, I didn’t carry any Magic Consumables on my person at all. There was still one hour left before the quest was complete, and I prayed that the third and hopefully final wave wouldn’t be another horde of enemies like the Flying Shadows. Even if I somehow managed to make my potions last until the end of the battle, my weapon was definitely not going to last the whole fight.

In Heavenblessed, weapons lost their Attack once their durability dropped to zero. It would be as if I was fighting bare-handed. I would be more useful watching the Dark Wasp fighting on its own if that happened.

After nearly two hours of intense battle, I had reached Level 63, 98% full. Moreover, I had finally surpassed Lin Yixin.

Name	Level	Class
Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand	63	Undead Swordsman
Wind Fantasy	63	Light Wanderer
Dominating Heaven Blade	62	Warrior
Purple Marquis	61	Warrior
Gui Guzi	60	Undead Knight
Beiming Xue	60	Dark Archer
Clear Perfume	60	Archer
Dominating Warrior God	60	Warrior
Shadow Chanel	60	Mage
Light Cloudmoon	59	Mage

……

Lin Yixin was the same level as me, but her experience percentage was lower than mine. This ranking had never looked so beautiful to me as in this moment!

I needed to work hard so that Lin Yixin wouldn’t have a chance to snatch the throne from me again. At the very least, I didn’t want the same disaster to happen again, climbing to the top only to be kicked down before I managed to warm the seat with my butt.

I suddenly heard the sound of horse hooves galloping our way. Behind me, the archer Weiss exclaimed in shock and terror again, “Oh no! Are… are these the Violet Knights? Heavens, I can’t believe that the elite warriors of the Violet Empire had all been turned into the puppets of the undead…”

I squinted at the horizon and saw a group of horsemen galloping our way. There were about a hundred of them, and they were all Level 70 or so. This wasn’t the first time I encountered this type of mob. They had average attack but good Defense and HP, meaning that they were tanky enough to be annoying to kill. Thankfully, their numbers were still manageable.

“What should we do?” the archer NPC asked dumbly. “These horsemen were all former elites of the Violet Empire, but now they have been transformed into the vanguard of the evil undead. This is terrible!”

But I ignored his lamentations and focused on absorbing all the undead soul sparks on the ground. There were Flying Shadows all over the place, and I could feel the spark inside of me growing stronger and stronger. I could deal with the undead knights after I absorbed everything!

Suddenly, I felt a warmth spreading from inside my heart. My energy started howling, and my muscles started twitching like crazy. In that moment, I felt a powerful aura building inside of me. I think… I think I’m about to undergo an evolution!

Swhoosh!

A red light burst into the sky, and I was overflowing with energy. The ground was shaking from the commotion!

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have evolved into an Asura. You have gained the unique skill of the Asura—Deterrence!

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