Rustle rustle…

The sound of rustling leaves entered my ears. Here they come!

Assassin’s Creed finally appeared when the countdown reached 5 seconds. I saw him and a dozen more assassins dashing toward the castle gate while stealthed. Clearly, he was plotting to lurk within the castle and make some trouble for us.

I stood casually at the entrance with the Chill of the Nine Provinces resting snugly on my shoulder. Falling purple red maple leaves glided past my eyes, landed on my shoulders, and slowly slid down my bloody cloak. I glimpsed a smile on Assassin’s Creed’s face from the corner of my eye. The guy must have thought that I was overconfident, and that my Dark Pupils had failed to pierce his stealth.

Swhoosh!

When the time came, I took one small step to the side. One step was all it took to force Assassin’s Creed into an unavoidable collision with me.

"Fuck!"

Assassin’s Creed raised both arms and prepared to make it past me by force. He activated Dance of Death to massively increase his speed before slashing toward my neck with his daggers.

The corners of my mouth curled into a smirk, and a chill overtook Assassin’s Creed’s heart!

Swhoosh!

A red light appeared right beneath Assassin’s Creed’s feet and trapped his legs. At the same time, four divine arms fell from the sky and immobilized the rest of his body completely. It was the upgraded version of my God Binding Art. As of this patch, the skill, and similar skills of other classes, gained a new casting method. I could now cast it beforehand, making it a trap of sorts. It was invisible and lasted for quite a while too. As for how effective it was, Assassin’s Creed obviously didn’t see it until it was too late.

While my opponent was immobilized, I stabbed the Chill of the Nine Provinces through his torso and executed Burning Blade Slash + Universe Break combo!

398284!

442747!

492100!

612872!

That was 1.94 million damage in total. Even with full buffs, Assassin’s Creed only had a bit over 1.4 million HP. His mouth opened as he collapsed to the ground and flopped like a fish on dry ground. His eyes were full of anger and defiance.

"I told you I was going to kill you!"

I kicked Assassin’s Creed’s corpse away from me while chuckling and jumped backward into the castle. My timing was perfect, and the gate closed the second I was through. Outside the gate, the dozen or so Blood Alliance assassins could only stare at my disappearing figure in shock. Leaf of Autumn even murmured as she lowered her daggers, "He instakilled boss of all people… is he even human?"

……

I pulled my cloak tighter as a particularly cold breeze brushed against my body. I then turned around to face the girls and asked, "Is everyone here? Good. Now that we’re inside the castle, there’s only one thing left to do. We find Frederick’s daughter Serena, find Bloodthirsty Emissary, kill him, and bring his head and Serena back to her father."

Murong Mingyue’s palms shone with holy light. "Not yet. Let’s heal you back to full health first before we do anything!"

Beiming Xue giggled. "That was such an exhilarating battle. The seven of us had kicked Dark Mercenaries and Blood Alliance’s collective butts so hard I would bet that some of them would delete their accounts out of sheer frustration! Amber Pupil and Now and Forever must be so furious right now~"

He Yi asked, "Did you kill Assassin’s Creed before you came in, Lu Chen?"

I nodded. "Yep."

Lin Yixin asked next, "How strong is Assassin’s Creed compared to Farewell Song?"

I looked at the sky for a moment. "I guess he’s around 90% of Farewell Song’s strength? He’s a top-tier assassin alright. He’s the strongest assassin I’ve met besides Farewell Song and Moonkiss."

Moon Dew commented, "Someone said on the forums that Farewell Song bested both you and Moonkiss during the battle of Gold City."

Beiming Xue replied uncaringly, "Farewell Song didn’t really clash against big bro during that fight. Farewell Song would’ve died for sure if big bro was the one who held the City Lord Token, or if Farewell Song’s goal was to assassinate big bro."

I said, "Let’s not talk about Gold City again, okay? It depresses me every time I think about it. The fact is Farewell Song is skilled enough to threaten every one of us, and he’s more dangerous than ever before after obtaining the Seventy-two Ghost Armaments’ Ghost Lake Mirror. It’ll never be a mistake to exercise caution against him. Even Candlelight Shadow only has a 55% chance of beating him, and my own win rate against Farewell Song isn’t that much higher. It all depends if we are in form and in the right mindset at the time of the battle. Take the battle of Gold City for example, one of the main reasons I lost to Farewell Song was because I was distracted by the enemy’s paratroops. No one can be forever undefeated in PvP.

“Anyway, let’s talk about what we should do next. Do you want to continue, or do you want to log out and catch some rest first?"

"I almost forgot that we agreed to take a break after getting to Bloodthirsty Castle. Blood Alliance and Dark Mercenaries will be coming in in just an hour though…"

"Let’s just take a short rest then! Is 20 minutes fine?" I asked, "20 minutes should be enough time to pee, drink some water, and eat some bread before coming back online. We’ll burn the midnight oil to finish this SSS Rank quest. Hopefully, the system will take pity on us and reward us with a Divine Armament or a Seventy-two Ghost Armaments or something…"

Lin Yixin chided me, "Instead of pee, you could’ve said ‘use the toilet’, you know?"

"However I say it, it doesn’t change the fact that you still need to pee…"

"Pooh…"

……

And so we logged out of the game and managed to pee, drink some water and eat some bread all within 20 minutes. There was a bit of a traffic jam when we were using the toilet though, which drove in the point that I really needed to move our workshop to a villa. The royal road here was to have 2 or even 3 toilets on a single floor!

When our 20-minute break was over, we logged back into the game once more!

Swhoosh!

The girls and I all crawled out of the tent in a white flash. After the buffs were properly applied, we officially began our grind at Bloodthirsty Castle.

First, I opened the map screen to see what the place looked like. The castle had four floors, and the ground floor was a blood pool where the corpses of countless animals, humans, elves, succubi and more were submerged. Countless souls were wailing in misery, giving the place an eerie vibe. The blood pools were the source of the undead faction’s power.

I activated Battle Astral Wind and walked to the forefront of our party. Then, I said to the girls, "Everyone should buff themselves with an HP card. This map looks so red it’s practically black on the map screen, and I have no doubt that the mobs’ levels are way higher than ours. Survivability is far more important than DPS here."

"Yeah!"

Everyone took out a Bloodknight Card and buffed their HP by 80%. I didn’t use Undying Berserker Card because it was still too early. Maybe I would use it on the final floor.

Thud...

Bloody ripples spread across the liquid surface as my boots stepped onto the blood pool. I frowned. The smell was unbearable as a matter of course, and I spotted long, maggot-like undead creatures slithering across its surface. The good news was that it wasn’t the type of mob to attack us unless we provoked it first, but the bad news was that the girls still looked like they could vomit at any moment. We needed to get out of here as soon as possible.

I dashed forward for almost a hundred meters before setting foot on the stone stairs leading up to the next floor. I was immediately greeted by a gust of rotten wind and a couple of brawny, blood-colored Corpse Eaters. They were clearly mutated because they were blood-red in color, and they were at least 5 to 7 times larger than your usual Corpse Eater. All full height, they were definitely much taller than I was. Currently, they were too busy feeding on a rotten corpse and to notice me. I scanned them with Dark Pupils and found their stats to be just as astounding as their appearance.

Bloodthirsty Corpse Eater (Fiend)

Level: 303

Attack: 46000~54000

Defense: 55000

HP: 4800000

Skills: Bloody Bite, Undead Toxin, Blood Thirst

Introduction: These Corpse Eaters used to be giant beasts until their souls were stolen from their bodies, and they transformed into puppets with a terrible hunger for rotten flesh. Bloodthirsty Emissary had summoned them to Bloodthirsty Castle to be its low-rank guardians. They have sharp fangs and claws, and their souls may greatly increase their combat capabilities. They are not to be underestimated.

……

"I’m going!" I said to the others.

Murong Mingyue dropped Restore on me and said, "Go, my little hero…"

Me: "..."

I locked onto the closest Corpse Eater and activated Thunderous Charge!

Swhoosh!

After the mob was stunned, I executed Burning Blade Slash + Purple Frost Concentration combo to reduce its Defense. It wasn’t everyday you encountered a Corpse Eater with 55k Defense after all, and it would definitely be easier to defeat after the armor break.

Both my ranged and melee skills greatly wounded the Corpse Eater, but all it managed in retaliation were some powerless swipes that couldn’t inflict even 100k damage per hit. So far, I felt no pressure whatsoever.

However, something unexpected happened when the Corpse Eater’s HP approached the 30% line. It roared. "The great Beast God is about to bestow me with its power! Prepare to die, you lowly adventurers!"

A bloody light enveloped the Corpse Eater and caused its body to swell up like an elephant. It was the Blood Thirst skill buffing its Attack and attack speed by 40%! This was bad!

Bang!

It took a swipe at my Cyan Dragon Shield, and this time my body shook and lost 370k HP. Holy shit! Its DPS was at a whole different level after its Attack had been increased by 40%! I would even say that it was on the same level as Candlelight Shadow, except that the latter was obviously more handsome...

"Keep me healthy! I don’t want to risk it critting me to death!"

I shouted while whaling on the Bloodthirsty Corpse Eater to keep its attention on me.

After the Bloodthirsty Corpse Eater finally died, I wiped away the sweat on my forehead and swore, "Fuck! This is just the first mob on the first floor, and I’m having difficulty killing it already. This Bloodthirsty Emissary is absolutely going to wipe the floor with us."

Lin Yixin didn’t share my opinion, however. "No, it was difficult only because we didn’t have a proper strategy just now. Now that we know that the Blood Thirst triggers at 30% HP, countering it is just a matter of using our strongest skills at the right time. For the next Corpse Eater, you will save your Burning Blade Slash and War Crush, and Sister Eve and I our Stormwind Break and Extreme Break until its HP drops to 35%. I will use Extreme Break, and you will all execute your respective combos and instakill it."

He Yi nodded in agreement. "Yes, Yiyi’s strategy is sound."

……

We fought the second Corpse Eater following Lin Yixin’s plan, and things were much easier as she had said. The Bloodthirsty Corpse Eater only managed to hit me once before it was gobsmacked by our high-burst skills. It even dropped an extremely good card for us—

Bloodthirsty Corpse Eater Card: Increases user's Attack by 30%, and max HP by 60%. When attacking a target, 3% chance to trigger Blood Thirst and increase Attack and attack speed by 40% for 7 seconds. Level Requirement: 220. Luck Requirement: 20. Duration: 180 minutes.

……

Lin Yixin smiled when she saw its stats. "Yo, this is quite the amazing grinding card! Use it, Little Cheat!"

“Yeah!"

I nodded. When I used the card, the Roland Bloodknight Card above my head changed to the Bloodthirsty Corpse Eater Card. I lost 20% max HP as a result, but my Attack was increased by 30%. It was an acceptable trade-off especially because the Bloodthirsty Corpse Eater Card had a chance of triggering the Blood Thirst effect!