That faint sound turned Ye Tianxie around on the spot, and his brows drew together again.
The two undead creatures that had gone down on the floor were standing up once more, their life bars full… and their shapes had changed out of all recognition too. If the two corpses on the ground had not vanished, Ye Tianxie would not even have believed these had come out of them.
Phantom Beast Undead — Green-Scaled Beast: Level 25 two-star elite. HP 9,000.
Phantom Beast Undead — Silver-Horn Beast: Level 25 two-star elite. HP 8,950.
This second impossible change left Ye Tianxie briefly dumbfounded. Then his eyes narrowed and he looked steadily at the two undead creatures that had woken again. Their second revival was in no way a simple revival… Rising from the dead was one thing. Coming back with full health was one thing. A large jump in ability was one thing… but even their species had changed.
A unicorn becoming a Silver-Horn Beast — all right, that could be understood as some enraged evolution after resurrection. But a sabertooth tiger becoming a Green-Scaled Beast? These were two creatures with nothing in common at all, not in shape, not in name, not in nature, not in skills. What on earth…
Phantom Beast Undead… phantom, meaning illusion, meaning a thing that shifts and changes. Did that mean…
While Ye Tianxie was thinking it over, Xiaobei had already charged in at speed, going for the one on the left first, and the Meow-Meow Fist was on the Green-Scaled Beast before it had finished taking shape.
−680, −676, −684, −672, −682, −679…
The Green-Scaled Beast’s HP ran as high as 9,000, but Xiaobei had barely landed on it before that unbroken run of attacks had taken well over half of it away in the blink of an eye. By the time the Green-Scaled Beast finally made out the enemy attacking it, it managed one imposing roar with its head thrown back, and then… and then there was no “and then.”
Three seconds… a Level 25 two-star elite had been battered to death by Xiaobei before it could get a single move out. The moment the Green-Scaled Beast went down, the Silver-Horn Beast slammed in hard from behind it. Xiaobei was not flustered in the least. That nimble body twisted round, and just as the silver horn was about to touch it, Xiaobei vanished with a whoosh — and appeared with another whoosh behind the beast. This was Xiaobei’s own strange Meow-Meow Step.
The Silver-Horn Beast’s charge went through empty air, and a fast flurry of Meow-Meow Fist came down on it from behind, its life dropping away in sheets. The instant it turned back, Xiaobei met it with one savage and splendid Meow-Meow Kick…
The Silver-Horn Beast flew a long way off like a football kicked with astonishing force, smashed hard into the wall, and slid slowly down it. Its life was emptied outright.
Xiaobei patted its own cat’s paws together (a habit of long standing), stood at Ye Tianxie’s side looking thoroughly imposing, and regarded the fallen Green-Scaled Beast and Silver-Horn Beast with a look of frank contempt, as though to say: Meow~~ Enemies this feeble don’t need Master to lift a finger.
The two undead monsters still dropped nothing at all, not so much as a single coin… as tight-fisted as the Grey Goat. Ye Tianxie looked at their corpses thoughtfully, and sure enough, in a bare dozen seconds or so, black smoke rose again off those quiet bodies. The Eye of the Evil Dragon fixed hard on the clouds of black mist.
The Dark Power of the Phantom Beasts: In the ruins of the Phantom Beast race there has always been a phantom-beast power left behind from the far past. Over long ages of change this power has grown assimilated to the environment here, and it will attach itself of its own accord to undead creatures, granting them the ability to transform. At the same time, the more often an undead is struck down, the stronger the Dark Power of the Phantom Beasts it takes on, until it reaches the limit of what it can bear.
Ye Tianxie: “……”
In the blink of an eye the two reborn undead beasts stood before him again in entirely new forms.
Red-Eyed Tusk Beast: Level 25 three-star elite. HP 13,520.
Gold-Horn Beast: Level 25 three-star elite. HP 13,000.
This time they had turned into two three-star elites.
Every time they died, they came back one grade higher. Did that mean if this went on, the next revival would make them two Lord BOSSes? And if they were killed again after that, surely they would not…
Three-star elites at Level 25 they might be, but at Ye Tianxie’s present strength they were no strain to handle at all. Xiaobei’s sense and reaction did not match Ye Tianxie’s, but it had the natural advantage of a very small body, and with its agility and the strange Meow-Meow Step besides, taking a Level 25 three-star elite on alone carried no danger for it either.
That Meow-Meow Kick a moment ago had left the two beasts a long way apart. Now man and cat locked on to one each and went in. Ye Tianxie charged the Red-Eyed Tusk Beast, the more striking of the two in appearance, bringing Dragon Rend Slash down again and again, hacking hard into its body while his own body slipped its attacks as easily as a swimming dragon. A three-star elite’s defense was naturally far better than a two-star’s, but with Ye Tianxie’s attack power, each Dragon Rend Slash still raised damage of around 1,500.
Ten seconds later Ye Tianxie cut the Red-Eyed Tusk Beast down and turned to look… only to find that Xiaobei had at some point already come and planted itself neatly behind him, while away in the distance the Gold-Horn Beast’s corpse lay on the ground, not moving.
Ye Tianxie: ╭（╯^╰）╮ (Xiaobei, don’t you know you’re not supposed to steal your master’s thunder?)
Xiaobei: （>_<） (Ooo… Xiaobei didn’t mean to, it just couldn’t take a hit at all.)
Xiaobei’s grade was rated Immortal Spirit, but Ye Tianxie was certain that with attributes that extreme and skills that violently strong, it was in no way weaker than a proper Heaven-Severing-grade pet. Super-high-grade pets above Immortal Spirit were extremely unlikely to appear at all — you could almost say impossible — because if a player had an Immortal Spirit pet at his side, the boost to his own ability was no different from equipping a Divine Mystery artifact, and it would wreck the balance of strength between players far too badly.
In shape, in attributes, in ability… even in its name, Xiaobei was a freak through and through. Take the attributes, for instance. Whatever the class, at the very lowest starting stage none of the four basic attributes could go below 4 points, and a case of zero MP or zero magic attack simply did not arise… and yet on Xiaobei it was there, perfectly real.
As expected, it was still not over. The two undead creatures that had been knocked down stood up off the ground again under the working of the Dark Power of the Phantom Beasts… but unexpectedly, the Red-Eyed Tusk Beast and the Gold-Horn Beast, once up, did not transform. Instead, as though drawn by some force, they walked stiffly toward each other.
Ye Tianxie frowned slightly.
The two beasts’ bodies collided, and the grey smoke on them merged as well… and then wrapped the pair of them completely.
Ye Tianxie: “??”
At once the black smoke had both bodies entirely inside it, and then it began slowly to swell. As it swelled, a low, mournful roar came out of the black mist, and after it a pitch-black claw stepped out of the mist, bringing with it a bloodthirsty air that struck at the heart.
The black mist scattered. The Red-Eyed Tusk Beast and the Gold-Horn Beast were gone, and what stood in front of Ye Tianxie was one beast alone… one enormous pitch-black wolf!
Undying Demon Wolf: Level 30 Lord-tier BOSS. HP: 42,000. A powerful undead formed when two strong undead powers were transformed together by the Dark Power of the Phantom Beasts; its nature is frenzied and bloodthirsty.
Talent: Undead Body.
Skills: Dark Rending Claw, Wolf Howl of Hatred, Shadow Charge.
Hidden skill — Undying Spirit: Has a high probability of activating when its life falls below 20%. On activation it throws back its head and howls, gathering the undead power of its surroundings to restore its own life to full. Cast time 3–4 seconds.
Weakness: fears life-attribute, light-attribute and fire-attribute attacks.
The Undying Demon Wolf… a Level 30 Lord BOSS. And this wolf was plainly formed by the fusion of those two undead beasts…
What a marvelous thing this phantom-beast power was… and just what kind of power was it?
A Level 30 Lord BOSS. Ye Tianxie had no choice but to gather his focus.
Quietly, Yaoyao opened the pure white Wall of Heaven’s Grace, covering Ye Tianxie, Xiaobei and the Undying Demon Wolf together. Ye Tianxie glanced at Yaoyao, and the last trace of pressure went out of him. Against ordinary enemies the wall only supported the caster and his companions, but against undead-type creatures it laid a cruel extra property on the enemy: 50% more damage taken.
With the Wall of Heaven’s Grace up, Yaoyao’s Mystic Spirit Cure followed…
−18900!
Forty-five percent of its life stripped away — it cut the Undying Demon Wolf’s health almost in half in an instant. Ye Tianxie’s body went forward with it, and one Fate’s Seven Kills · Blood Reaper came down hard.
−4200, −862.
Newly born, without a chance to attack yet, the Undying Demon Wolf had already lost well over half its life. It roared in fury and threw that huge wolf’s body forward — and it threw itself, naturally, at Yaoyao, which had taken the most life off it.
Zzzt~~~
The Wall of Heaven’s Barrier opened, holding the Undying Demon Wolf’s attack entirely outside it. Yaoyao lay where it was without moving, letting its furious attacks land heavier and heavier. And Ye Tianxie and Xiaobei took that moment to place themselves on the wolf’s left and right, attacking without restraint. Man’s and cat’s attacks mixed together, and the damage figures springing up thick and fast turned still more confused and unreadable, while the wolf’s blood bar dropped away at a very considerable pace.
The Undying Demon Wolf’s defense was very high, enough to cancel out close to 300 of base damage — but inside Yaoyao’s Wall of Heaven’s Grace, that extra 50% damage nearly equalled everything its defense was cancelling. Under the combined attacks of Ye Tianxie and Xiaobei, the wolf’s life was cleared almost to nothing in a moment.
When its life dropped to about 10%, the Undying Demon Wolf finally stopped attacking Yaoyao, lifted its wolf’s head and howled at the sky… beginning to work that special skill of its which could restore its life to full, Undying Spirit. Under Ye Tianxie’s Eye of the Evil Dragon no hidden skill could stay hidden, and knowing this skill was there, how was he going to give it the chance to land?
What met Undying Spirit was one powerful Meow-Meow Kick from Xiaobei, which could interrupt any skill at all… One kick sent the wolf flying, and the Undying Spirit it was in the middle of casting was cut off with it.
(End of Chapter 237)