Ye Tianxie’s steps stopped dead, and he whipped his head toward the source of the sound. Even he felt his heart give a jolt at it.
Behind him, the lid of the silver coffin nearest the passage was moving slowly, as though a hand inside were pushing it along little by little. Amid that horrifying scrape of coffin wood the lid slid open, and a pallid white hand reached out from within.
An environment like this, an atmosphere like this, a sound like this… was enough to leave anyone short on nerve ashen-faced and shrieking. Without question, this System Quest made high demands on a player’s courage; whoever came here had to be a brave soul with nerve enough for it.
Thud!
Thud!
Two heavy landing sounds struck against the heart. Ye Tianxie’s nerves drew taut, his eyes narrowed, and the pendant at his throat transformed into the Hour of Fate, gripped in his hand.
That was the sound of the one climbing out of the coffin setting both feet on the ground.
Tall in build, stern of face, the eyes fixed on Ye Tianxie giving off a sharp cold light… His outstanding presence alone had already betrayed how far from ordinary he was, and the ashen grey of his eyeballs and complexion lent him several extra degrees of horrifying death-air. Heavy silver war boots on his feet, heavy silver armor on his body, a heavy silver helmet on his head, silver bracers on his arms and a silver longsword in his hand… an imposing swordsman giving off the air of a hundred battles!
Yun Jianxi: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 7,500. The “Sword Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing consummate swordsmanship and formidable close-quarters combat ability. 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: Moon-Severing Slash, Sky-Severing Slash, Sword Soul Slash, Broken Void Rolling Cloud Rend. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
Heavy sword in hand and clad in silver armor, the sword-warrior advanced on him at a slow walk, raising the heavy silver blade as he came. This warrior who had climbed out of the coffin was in fact the corpse of a Heaven Soul mercenary corps member from a century ago, in which the influence of demonic energy had bred a new consciousness capable of operating the body and of using a small portion of the abilities that had once been his.
A Level 20 3-star Elite. To an ordinary twelve-player party this would have felt like facing a formidable enemy; to Ye Tianxie it was no real threat. What did catch his attention was… the thing had a full four skills, which no normal Level 20 3-star Elite could possibly have. Which meant that this Elite, carrying a portion of the Sword Soul’s will and power, was superior to a normal 3-star Elite.
Finding his pace far too slow, Ye Tianxie simply strode forward to meet him and brought the Hour of Fate down overhead in a Dragon Rend Slash. As he closed, the Sword Soul — who had kept to slow movements until then — raised his sword with sudden lightning speed; that enormous silver greatsword was as nimble as a twig in his hand, sweeping upward to meet Ye Tianxie’s body, and where the blade passed it traced a clean full-moon arc… unmistakably one of his sword techniques — Moon-Severing Slash!
Ye Tianxie didn’t evade. From the moment he committed himself to a mid-air downward chop he had never intended to avoid it, and both attacks landed on their targets at the same instant…
-1300.
-320.
Amid the muffled burst the Dragon Rend Slash set off, the Sword Soul’s body was driven back two steps by the shock. The Sword Soul’s defense wasn’t high, but the damage he had dealt Ye Tianxie drew a private frown. He still remembered that back in the novice village, the Level 20 Lord BOSS Amethyst War Tiger, before it went berserk, had done over 400 with an ordinary attack — and at the time he had almost no defense at all… Now, with a full set of equipment and the Body of the Evil Dragon, he had lost more than three hundred HP to an attack from a Level 20 3-star Elite… The Sword Soul deserved his name; even at 3-star grade, his most basic sword technique gave him attack power no weaker than a Lord BOSS of the same level!
Then how strong had the real Sword Soul, Yun Jianxi, been?
Without drinking a potion to restore health, Ye Tianxie pressed in, ignoring the Sword Soul’s attacks entirely and hammering Dragon Rend Slash after Dragon Rend Slash into him. After six attacks the Sword Soul’s HP was emptied; his sword-swing froze mid-motion, his body tipped backward and fell, and the heavy silver armor set up a muffled clatter as it hit the ground.
There was no experience prompt and no item drop. Ye Tianxie walked over to the Sword Soul’s corpse and tried Gathering on him as an experiment, but got nothing at all… It seemed the fighting here yielded neither experience nor spoils. What it yielded was the defeat itself and nothing more.
As he straightened up, two coffin-lids sounded at exactly the same frequency at once. The two silver coffins flanking the Sword Soul’s opened, and two more men in silver armor with ashen, grim faces climbed out — one of medium build gripping a large silver chopping saber, the other comparatively thickset, a silver spear held upright with its point skyward and its butt planted on the ground.
Feng Yidao: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 7,500. The “Blade Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing consummate saber technique and formidable close-quarters combat ability. 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: Earth-Rending Slash, Rising Sun Blade, Chained Rending Strikes, Heaven-Startling Blade. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
Long Poyun: Level 20 3-star Elite, HP: 7,500. The “Spear Soul” of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, possessing consummate spearmanship and the strongest physical attack power in the Heaven Soul corps. 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: Chaotic Cloud Spear, Soul-Startling Thrust, Dragon Spear Cloud-Breaker, Whirlwind Reincarnation Throw. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
The same level, the same grade, the same HP; apart from weapons and skills, even the descriptions were nearly identical. And this time there were two… two 3-star Elites, both melee classes… two 3-star Elites each carrying a full four powerful skills. The Spear Soul Long Poyun in particular — the descriptions of his four attack skills gave Ye Tianxie a genuine chill. The spear: of all weapons at the same level and grade, the strongest in attack attribute, with the greatest reach of any melee weapon; its only obvious drawbacks were the slowest attack speed of any class and comparatively low accuracy.
Ye Tianxie locked the Spear Soul Long Poyun as his first target, drew a light breath, and charged. Facing two enemies at once was never, in difficulty, as simple as one plus one.
Close in, twist aside from an attack, spin back in, two Dragon Rend Slashes in succession, turn and slip out again while dodging the Spear Soul’s and the Blade Soul’s attacks at once, then turn back in through the seam the moment one opened, land two more attacks on the Spear Soul, jump clear… all of it in one unbroken flow, and in the blink of an eye more than half the Spear Soul’s HP was gone.
Having missed repeatedly and taken heavy hits in return, a frightening cold light flashed through the Spear Soul’s ash-grey eyes. Just as Ye Tianxie leapt backward to avoid the Blade Soul’s attack, the Spear Soul’s body spun abruptly, whirling the long spear around with it — and then a cold gleam shot out like a silver meteor, driving straight at the chest of the just-landed Ye Tianxie.
Whirlwind Reincarnation Throw: a terrifying skill that hurls the wielder’s weapon, dealing a fixed 700 damage to enemies in a straight line ahead. What did 700 damage mean? A Level 25 Lord BOSS’s ordinary attack did only a little over 600 to Ye Tianxie, and here a Level 20 3-star Elite’s ultimate exceeded that… 700 damage was a terrifying blow, enough to one-shot every player of every non-Guardian class at present. It was also a blow of desperation, because the consequences of failing to kill the enemy with it were dreadful — the wielder lost the weapon in his hands, his attack power collapsed, and he became very nearly meat for the slaughter.
The throwing speed of Whirlwind Reincarnation Throw was terrifyingly fast. By the time Ye Tianxie saw the cold light flare, the silver spearpoint was already swelling in his pupils… fast enough that a normal person would have had no reaction time at all. And in that instant his reflexes, far beyond superhuman, pulled his body into a violently sudden lean… and the silver light shrieked past, grazing his tilted body as it went.
He gave himself no time to breathe out; almost in the same instant the silver spear passed him he broke into a run, a Dragon Shadow Slash bowling over the Blade Soul charging at him, and drove in a straight line to the now-harmless Spear Soul, bringing two Dragon Rend Slashes down overhead.
-1312, -2600!
The yellow critical damage emptied the Spear Soul’s health bar, and he fell still holding the posture of the throw. Ye Tianxie spun back at once, dodging the Blade Soul’s ever more vicious blade-edges without the slightest strain while comfortably greeting him with Dragon Rend Slashes… The Blade Soul’s attacks were as fast as gale and thunder and every cut was savage, but every one of them only sheared past Ye Tianxie’s body, while Ye Tianxie’s own attacks arrived precisely in the instant an opening showed, sealing off every direction he might have dodged in… Though with the purely aggressive awareness he currently possessed, he had no instinct to dodge at all.
Six Dragon Rend Slashes, and the Blade Soul fell dead — again with no spoils dropped and no experience granted.
Without looking again at the bodies on the ground, Ye Tianxie turned his gaze to the other silver coffins. Sure enough, another overlapping round of coffin-lids sounded… and this time there were three.
(End of Chapter 170)