When the three silver-clad dead men stood on the ground, a trace of gravity entered Ye Tianxie’s expression.
Level 20 3-star Elites still — but this time the number had gone up by one again, and their classes were all different as well.
Lü Baili: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 7,000. The “Bow Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing astonishing archery able to take a life from a hundred paces. Died in the Demon-Sealing Battle a hundred years ago; now possessed by demonic energy from the Tower of Fate, which has generated a degree of demonized consciousness, his dead body carrying a small portion of the abilities he held in life. Talent: Undead Body — a body already dead; all death-attribute attacks are entirely ineffective. Skills: Cloud-Splitting Arrow, Flying Swallow Shot, Ultimate Explosive Arrow, Arrow Rain. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
An Wuya: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 6,000. The “Shadow Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing footwork beyond the reckoning of gods or demons and the ability to take a life in an instant. Died in the Demon-Sealing Battle a hundred years ago; now possessed by demonic energy from the Tower of Fate, which has generated a degree of demonized consciousness, his dead body carrying a small portion of the abilities he held in life. Talent: Undead Body — a body already dead; all death-attribute attacks are entirely ineffective. Skills: Stealth, Shadow Blade, Shadow Stitch, Mystic Thrust, Strike from Beyond. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
Ji Zhao: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 5,000. The “Summoning Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing outstanding powers of summoning and command. Died in the Demon-Sealing Battle a hundred years ago; now possessed by demonic energy from the Tower of Fate, which has generated a degree of demonized consciousness, his dead body carrying a small portion of the abilities he held in life. Talent: Undead Body — a body already dead; all death-attribute attacks are entirely ineffective. Skills: Skeleton Summon, Dark Spirit Envoy Summon, Demon Hawk Summon, Eye of Demon-Sealing. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
Three enemies of different classes working together were naturally far more dangerous than three of the same class, because enemies of one class required only one countermeasure… whereas three of different classes would deploy three different modes of attack. The bow’s reach, the assassin’s speed, the summoner’s summons… The moment the three climbed out of their coffins, the Bow Soul’s bow and the Summoning Soul’s hands came up together, and the Shadow Soul’s body vanished abruptly from sight.
A Cloud-Splitting Arrow with fierce tearing and penetrating force came at him head-on, flying faster than any arrow he had seen loosed by any Archer player. He twisted aside and avoided it casually — and just then an abnormal noise sounded behind him, the black earth at his back split open, and three Level 20 skeleton soldiers bearing shields and rusted sabers rose out of the ground and attacked him all at once.
Never give a Summoner enough time to summon. Once the companions he calls up have tangled you, his summoning comes in wave after wave and you will never get a chance to break free and counterattack — that is what makes Summoners frightening.
A Summoner’s attack power is the lowest of any class, and their HP and defense are level with the Mage’s, the lowest there is — but in combat the Summoner is the class that must be killed first. Two short-radius swings from Ye Tianxie cut down all three skeleton soldiers. At his side a pitch-black shadow suddenly manifested, and a silver point of light carrying the breath of death stabbed at his throat like lightning. At the same moment another Cloud-Splitting Arrow came flying in from a distance, aimed straight at his chest.
In the space of a spark, Ye Tianxie’s Dragon Shadow Slash went off abruptly, driving straight at the Shadow Soul. The speed of the charge made the Cloud-Splitting Arrow miss outright, and its angle happened to carry him past the Shadow Soul’s nearly unavoidable strike and slam into the man’s body.
-810!
The impact of Dragon Shadow Slash knocked the Shadow Soul to the ground. Ye Tianxie spun back at once and landed three Dragon Rend Slashes before he could rise:
-1350, MISS, -1348.
Assassins have extremely high agility and speed but low defense; one Dragon Shadow Slash and two Dragon Rend Slashes dropped the Shadow Soul below half health. Freed, his body turned into a swift blur and fled toward the darkness… but Ye Tianxie had read his movement the instant his body began to shift, stepping forward at almost the same moment to land another Dragon Rend Slash on his shoulder.
-1342!
The concussive force carried by Dragon Rend Slash made the Shadow Soul stumble; Ye Tianxie seized the opening, caught up, and brought Dragon Rend Slash down again, emptying his health.
The sound of the ground stirring came again, and three undead leaning on staves, their bodies hidden in cloaks, appeared beside Ye Tianxie. The instant they appeared they summoned dark scythes that cut along the ground toward him, and at the same time a shriek of torn air carrying enormous pressure came flying at him head-on… and landed — not on Ye Tianxie’s body, but at his feet.
Ye Tianxie’s gaze sharpened; his body sprang up and threw itself hard to the right, avoiding all three undead scythes, and the instant he hit the ground that beam of light with its enormous pressure struck home as well…
BOOM!!
The explosion threw up a blinding flare and sent damp earth flying in a small radius. The Bow Soul’s Ultimate Explosive Arrow far exceeded an ordinary Archer’s Explosive Arrow in range, power, and area of effect. Ye Tianxie ignored the three undead envoys, gave a cold laugh, and broke into a sprint, arriving in front of the Summoner in an instant… A space thirty meters across was no advantage to a Summoner or an Archer, since it drastically restricted their movement range, and once the distance had been closed on those two classes, the consequences were severe.
This Summoner had only five thousand HP and was finished by four Dragon Rend Slashes; the three Dark Spirit Envoys he had summoned vanished where they stood at his death. Ye Tianxie then charged the Bow Soul at top speed… For a powerful Archer, attack power is secondary; what matters most is movement speed and the ability to reposition. But the Bow Soul, whose consciousness came from demonization, was not the real Bow Soul. All he did was stand in place and attack with the bow, and even as Ye Tianxie closed on him he showed no intention of pulling back to restore the distance — the consequences were predictable. An Archer who lets you close is nothing but meat for the slaughter.
-1302, -1311, -2601, -1310, -1299.
Five attacks took the Bow Soul from full health to empty, and he fell face-up on the ground.
Three Level 20 3-star Elites — Elites with mature, powerful skills at that — and Ye Tianxie had still dealt with them easily, at almost no cost in effort.
Put beside these BOSSes, Ye Tianxie was the truly unbeatable big BOSS. His attribute values might not be high — set against these BOSSes they were decidedly low — but his talent stats let him draw several times the effect out of the attributes he had, and sometimes more absurd than that.
From one, to two, to three… so what came next would be…
Sure enough, Ye Tianxie wasn’t disappointed. When the sound of coffin lids shifting came again, he heard it perfectly clearly: four sounds overlapping! He had heard it often enough by now, and since these BOSSes posed no great threat to him, the sound no longer gave him the slightest jolt.
This time what appeared before him were no longer men in silver armor but men in silver magic robes, their bodies wreathed in elemental light of different colors… four Mage classes!
Xiao Feng: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 5,000. The “Wind Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing powerful wind magic. Died in the Demon-Sealing Battle a hundred years ago; now possessed by demonic energy from the Tower of Fate, which has generated a degree of demonized consciousness, his dead body carrying a small portion of the abilities he held in life. Talent: Undead Body — a body already dead; all death-attribute attacks are entirely ineffective. Skills: Wind Dance Sky Fang, Gale Incantation, Rending Wind. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
Zhang Yan: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 5,000. The “Flame Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing powerful command of fire. Died in the Demon-Sealing Battle a hundred years ago; now possessed by demonic energy from the Tower of Fate, which has generated a degree of demonized consciousness, his dead body carrying a small portion of the abilities he held in life. Talent: Undead Body — a body already dead; all death-attribute attacks are entirely ineffective. Skills: Fire Rain, Red Lotus, Fire Wall, Flame of the Spirit. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
Diao Lei: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 5,000. The “Thunder Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing powerful command of lightning. Died in the Demon-Sealing Battle a hundred years ago; now possessed by demonic energy from the Tower of Fate, which has generated a degree of demonized consciousness, his dead body carrying a small portion of the abilities he held in life. Talent: Undead Body — a body already dead; all death-attribute attacks are entirely ineffective. Skills: Heavenly Thunder Summon, Thundercloud Shield, Thunderclap Flash. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
Luo Sha: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 5,000. The “Earth Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing powerful command of earth. Died in the Demon-Sealing Battle a hundred years ago; now possessed by demonic energy from the Tower of Fate, which has generated a degree of demonized consciousness, his dead body carrying a small portion of the abilities he held in life. Talent: Undead Body — a body already dead; all death-attribute attacks are entirely ineffective. Skills: Rock Shield, Falling Boulder, Flying Boulder, Earth Spike. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
Four more men who had once belonged to the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, and four Mages across the board… Facing them, what Ye Tianxie showed was a mild smile without a trace of gravity in it — because the class he feared least of all was the Mage.
Mages are frail and lightly defended, but their attack power and attack range are unquestionably the greatest of any class. Yet casting magic demands one thing above all… the incantation. The more powerful the spell, the longer the incantation required, and while that time is merely a matter of cast duration to other players, to Ye Tianxie those brief moments of chanting were more than enough to sense where the spell was aimed and slip clear of it with complete ease.
The four Mages of different elements surrounded him, and after a brief chant a lateral coil of wind, a spreading wall of fire, thunder falling from above and spikes rising from below all struck at Ye Tianxie’s body at once. In that instant four magics of different colors collided at the point where his body had been, throwing off a rather magnificent spray of colored light. But Ye Tianxie had left his original position in the very instant those spells released, charging the fastest-casting Wind Mage and landing two Dragon Rend Slashes in succession.
The four Mages turned as one, locked onto Ye Tianxie’s body and began a second incantation. Among all magic skills of the same level, Thunder and Fire have the strongest attack, Wind is the fastest, Earth has the strongest defense, and Water the strongest control. So of the four, the Wind Mage finished his incantation first — but just as his spell was about to release, Ye Tianxie’s fourth Dragon Rend Slash struck him hard and emptied his health.
Having killed the Wind Mage, Ye Tianxie rolled left in the same moment, and in the space of a second lightning, fire rain and flying boulders slammed one after another into the spot where he had been standing, throwing up scattered thunder-light, sparks and fragments of earth.
Stripped of the intelligence that had once been theirs, creatures Ye Tianxie had never rated highly to begin with posed no threat worth mentioning. Even with him right on top of them they went on chanting without complaint or regret instead of pulling back quickly… Had one of them tied up Ye Tianxie’s movement while the other two attacked together, wiping them out would have cost him considerable effort. As it was, after the Wind Mage, four more Dragon Rend Slashes cut down the Thunder Mage, and then he turned and charged the Fire Mage.
The Heaven Soul mercenary corps of old had been immensely powerful; every member had stood above Level 80, and their abilities in every respect were extraordinary. Their leader, the man called the Mercenary King, had been a peerless powerhouse of formidable strength. These dead bodies borrowed a small measure of the power that had once been theirs, but they were not truly them. The real Heaven Soul corps had held back even the Rakshasa Ghost King for that long — they could hardly have been this easy to handle.
A muffled thud, and the Fire Mage went down; of the four Mages only the last remained. Facing Ye Tianxie’s attacks, the Earth Mage did raise an earth shield, but it held only until the fifth attack before he was destroyed.
The surroundings fell silent once more. Four powerful Mages with mature skills, any one of whom could have kept a full player party on edge and trembling by the second at this stage of the game, had been dealt with in Ye Tianxie’s hands like autumn wind through fallen leaves. Players across the World of Fate were guessing at what strength the mysterious Xietian actually possessed… but not one of them would have believed he had already grown this strong.
(End of Chapter 171)