I gladly accepted the quest, "Sure! We won’t disappoint you!"

Ding~!

System Notice: Your party has accepted the quest [Fire Earth Dragon Horn]! (Current Quest Rank: A+)

Description: Head into Fire Canyon Dragon, kill Fire Earth Dragons and collect 100 Fire Earth Dragon Horns. Bring them to Thief Silai for the Fire Earth Canyon Treasure Map. Follow the hints on the treasure map to find the source of a great treasure!

……

Wonderful. An A Rank quest was easy peasy for our party. I might even be able to complete this in an hour myself.

After we reentered the part of the canyon where Fire Earth Dragons were everywhere, He Yi said, "Let’s split up. Lu Chen should party with Lian Xin and Pure Love, while I will party with Yiyi, Beiming and Mingyue. Let’s finish this quest and get out of this area as soon as possible. I’m not exactly sure why, but I have this bad, bad feeling that we’ve been tricked by that Thief Silai somehow. His eyes especially remind me of a liar…"

Lin Yixin’s eyes widened. "I knew I wasn’t the only one! In fact, I would go as far as to say that his eyes are very similar to that rich asshole who tricks innocent girls left and right in the university, Flower Room’s Li Le! Hmph! I cannot believe that Little Cheat didn’t notice that!"

I shrugged. "Calm down, you two. I did notice, which is why I’m planning to beat him at his own game. Also, completing this quest will give us the treasure map that’ll lead us to the best treasure of this Fire Dragon Canyon. We can’t leave that to the people of Frostsword City now, can we?"

Lin Yixin accused indignantly, "You just want the treasure, you shameless bastard!"

"You truly know me well, Yiyi…"

"..."

……

Anyway, we split up into two teams as per discussed and started grinding the Fire Earth Dragons. The average level of our party members was almost 220, so the experience of the Level 270 fiend-rank monsters was very good for us. At the very least, we weren’t wasting time here.

We encountered no problems killing the monsters whatsoever. However, the quest item drop rate was poorer than expected, so it wasn’t until past 5 pm that we finally managed to gather 100 Fire Earth Dragon Horns. After that, we met up at the thief’s temporary camp. In fact, Beiming Xue, Murong Mingyue, Lin Yixin and He Yi had arrived before us.

"I’ll turn in the quest, so give me the horns!"

"Okay!"

I walked up to Thief Silai, shot him a polite smile and gave him the 100 Fire Earth Dragon Horns. "I have gathered what you asked for. Can you give me your treasure map now, respected thief?"

Silai’s eyes lit up as he guffawed. "You have surprised me, adventurer. I didn’t think you would be able to help us with our mission. Very well, I’m sure our leader will be very happy when he sees these horns. Come and receive the reward you deserve, young adventurers! May you survive well in this land!"

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have completed the quest [Fire Earth Dragon Horn]. You have gained 40 million EXP, 1000 gold, 6000 Reputation and an item reward: "Taran Dagger"!

……

I opened my bag to check out this Taran Dagger. It was an okay Earth-grade dagger that could be stall-sold at Sky City for around 500 RMB or so. Prices had been depreciating, and gold value had been rising recently, so it wasn’t easy to make money these days. Very few items sold for over 10k RMB unless they were amazing Immortal-grade equipment.

This wasn’t the reward I was promised, however. I extended my hand toward the thief again and asked, "The treasure map, Mr. Silai?"

"Right, right!"

Silai let out an awkward chuckle before fishing out the parchment from his tunic. He then warned me with a heavy expression, "Don’t say I didn’t warn you, but no one has been to this treasure location before. Even if they did, no one—not even the Sword Hero Derek from three hundred years ago—has returned alive with the treasure. It is said that a terrifying devil lives in that place, and that all those who saw it have been slaughtered…"

I grabbed the treasure map and replied, "Don’t worry. We’re no sword heroes, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll die to this devil of yours!"

After that, Silai slowly backed away with an evil smile on his face. "Good luck, my friends!"

As the thief slowly faded into the night, Lin Yixin tugged my arm and said, "Little Cheat, I really feel like we’ve been swindled by the bastard. Are you sure we want to seek out this so-called treasure?"

I nodded affirmatively. "Of course! There’s no point in letting go of an opportunity like this. Don’t worry. Worst-case scenario, we die and lose a level. I’ll pick up all your equipment, so feel free to die as many times as you like!"

He Yi rolled her eyes at me. "You sure are optimistic today!"

……

I grabbed the treasure map and matched it to the map screen. Then, I pointed to the west and said, "Hmm, it looks like the treasure location is slightly south from the center of the map. It should take us 20 minutes at most to get there. Time to get rich, girls!"

Lin Yixin interrupted expressionlessly, "Look again. You’re holding the map upside down…"

"What the fuck? Er, then it’s slightly north from the center of the map…"

"Let’s go already. You sure like to waste your breath sometimes…"

"Okay!"

I climbed up my dragon, pulled Murong Mingyue up and continued acting as the point of the party. Thanks to the Phantom Wolf King and my apparition, I didn’t encounter much difficulty opening up a path for the girls.

Less than twenty minutes later, we arrived at the location of the treasure map. It looked like the flattened crater of a volcano, and not a single Fire Earth Dragon could be seen around the area. Flames and black smoke were shooting out of some holes on the ground. The temperature of this area was much higher than all the locations we had been since coming into this map.

Chiang!

I unsheathed the Chill of the Nine Provinces. It gave us a tinge of coolness that should’ve been non-existent in this place.

Lin Yixin trotted forward until her face suddenly turned deathly pale. "Mm. Look, there are so many skeletons on the ground! I see humans, beastmen and even elves…"

I looked down. She was right. Piles and piles of white bones were littered across the floor. It gave the crater a graveyard-like appearance. There were giant beastmen skeletons and small elf skeletons. Some of the skeletons were wearing rusted armor and gripping broken enchanted weapons as well. There were also long weapons like spears and halberds stuck on the rocks and tattered banners that were too faded away to make out.

Lin Yixin contributed her analysis. "I spot some warhorse carcasses over there too. There are enough soldiers here to form a small battalion, and yet it almost looks like they’ve been defeated instantly by something because I don’t see any signs of struggle at all.”

I activated Fusion Armor and pointed to the obvious lair where heat was gushing out. I said, "Only one way to know the truth. Stay here while I go test the waters. Guanyue, please buff me so I won’t be one-shot instantly!"

"Okay!"

Pure Love waved her scepter repeatedly and dropped all her buffs on me. I also used a Fire War God Card to push my HP to almost 2 million. As of the current stage of the game, there shouldn’t be any boss in the world that could one-shot me as I was.

One couldn’t be too careful though. Dark Pupils had revealed to me a super big red dot directly in front of me. I had no doubt that it was a super boss of sorts. It was exactly where the treasure map was pointing us to go too. The Chill of the Nine Provinces shivered a bit in my grip, and the Phantom Wolf King stayed close to me to protect me.

When I arrived at the edge of the crater, it felt like the flames spewing out of it were brushing against my nose. I forced myself to ignore the discomfort and take a look inside, and what I saw scared the shit out of me. A pair of gigantic red eyes were glaring at me with murder!

Swhoosh!

The ground beneath my feet suddenly shook violently, and the pair of eyes grew much, much bigger. Before I knew it, my leg was trapped between the jaws of a huge, ugly monstrosity!

"Holy shit!"

I smacked the monster’s head with my sword. Despite my caution, I wasn’t able to avoid the sudden attack!

279887!

"Lu Chen watch out!" Lin Yixin screamed behind me.

The giant head belonged to a dragon with an extremely long neck. It looked like the neck of tanystropheus from Jurassic Park. However, this dragon had three sharp horns on its ugly head, and its eyes were nearly identical to the one still glowing inside the crater. It was overflowing with desire and violence.

……

I backed away as quickly as I could while shouting, "Move back, everyone! This is definitely a super boss! Let’s put some distance between it and us for now!"

The earth shook even more violently, and the earth beneath the girls’ feet suddenly swelled unnaturally. Then, three heads burst out of them—one blue, one red and one cyan—opened their mouths, and unleashed their magic at the girls! The blue one was firing icicles, the red one was firing fireballs, and the cyan one was firing wind blades!

"Watch out!"

He Yi raised her shield and used Holy Shield Protection to block the spells. Beiming Xue Leaped away from the spells without hesitation. It was just the beginning, but the boss had managed to catch us off-guard and push us dangerously close to the brink.

……

"What the hell is this monster?!" Lin Yixin shouted.

I looked back at the boss and answered, "It’s an Ancient Immortal Rank boss called ‘Nine-headed Fire Hydra’! Anyway, just get as far back as you can for now! All nine heads can attack independently, and you do NOT want to be trapped at the center while they attack…"

At the same time, I captured the boss's detailed stats with Dark Pupils and shared them within the party channel—

Nine-headed Fire Hydra (Ancient Immortal Rank Boss)

Level: 280

Attack: 45500~58000

Defense: 48500

HP: 50000000

Skills: Bloody Bite, Nine Magic Wind, Earth Seal

Introduction: The Nine-headed Fire Hydra used to be a violent beast that was tasked to guard the Fire Dragon Pond of Dragon Domain. After Dragon Domain was destroyed, the Nine-headed Fire Hydra escaped its seal and entered Fire Dragon Canyon. By submerging its body into a volcanic crater and absorbing the heat of the earth, it was able to cultivate for thousands of years without disturbance and grow stronger. It is naturally violent, and it has devoured countless lives.