Xiaobei and Ye Tianxie were about to charge in when Yaoyao got to the Undying Demon Wolf a step ahead of them both. Its movement speed ran as high as 180 — never mind Ye Tianxie, even Xiaobei could not come near it.

That kick of Xiaobei’s had sent the Undying Demon Wolf flying more than twenty meters. Yaoyao ran to within ten meters of it and loosed a Mystic Spirit Restoration that had only just come off cooldown.

−18900!

The Blood Reaper effect of Ye Tianxie’s Hour of Fate could not be stacked. But Mystic Spirit Restoration was a different thing altogether — a different nature, an effect more startling still against undead creatures, and it could be stacked. The Undying Demon Wolf, only just back on its feet out of that brief stun, had no more than a sliver of blood left, and there was no possible way it could stand a life strip on that terrible scale, a full forty-five percent. Inside a small ball of holy white light wrapped around its body, the wolf let out one long, wailing howl and went down limp.

This time, although its corpse still dropped nothing at all, it did not lie there on the ground as before. Instead it turned suddenly to mist… became a ball of pitch-black smoke and dispersed slowly, until there was no trace of it left anywhere.

A Lord BOSS. An enemy so strong that an ordinary player had no chance whatever of taking it alone. He thought back to how carefully he had faced one by himself in the old days, and how near death it had brought him — and then looked at this. With Yaoyao and Xiaobei working together, a Lord BOSS a full ten levels above him had gone down that easily, with hardly any resistance at all.

Yaoyao’s attributes were not high, but its skills were each more startling than the last. Xiaobei was extreme attributes and violently strong skills — its one flaw being that casting those skills cost it life. With the two of them combined, Ye Tianxie’s fighting power had beyond question multiplied several times over.

Rrrumble…

A faint tremor came from ahead, and at the moment the black mist scattered, a hidden door opened slowly in that flat wall.

Could beating the undead creatures here be the condition for reaching the next area? Looking at the stone door swinging slowly wide, Ye Tianxie did not hesitate. He raised his guard and slipped through.

Ahead of him was another pitch-dark passage running deep. After perhaps three minutes’ walk, another open space appeared before him, larger than the last.

Perhaps because it was simply so ancient, the layout of the Phantom Beast Ruins was full of a strangeness that Ye Tianxie, a modern man, could not follow. The place seemed to be one passage after another linking one empty hall to another… and this area was several times the size of the one before, and just as empty, with nothing whatever in it. Straight ahead of him, that far wall stood a good fifty meters away. Looking hard at it, he could make out the shape of a door printed faintly on the wall. And less than ten meters to the door’s left stood a human figure carved in stone. The statue was a deep, unbroken black, and the man it depicted stood in a formal, upright posture holding a bow of the same pitch-black color. His face could not be made out.

At that distance the Eye of the Evil Dragon could not draw any detailed information. Ye Tianxie ran his eyes over his surroundings and then walked forward.

Fifty meters… forty meters… thirty meters…

Just as Ye Tianxie had gone twenty meters forward, with thirty still between him and that door, a powerful warning of danger jolted hard through his nerves. Reading the source of it and the line the hard wind was coming in on, Ye Tianxie slipped his body very slightly to the left, then hopped back a step.

Whoosh…

A pitch-black arrow flew past Ye Tianxie’s ear on a hard gust that split the air behind it, and the wind of its passing tore at his cheek with fierce pain. The arrow vanished the moment it had grazed past him — plainly its attack range ran to about thirty meters.

He fell back fast, and once he was outside thirty meters no second arrow came, exactly as expected. Looking up, he saw the archer in unbroken black beside the hidden door slowly lower the bow in his hands and settle back into the posture of a statue.

With thirty meters between them, Ye Tianxie gathered his focus and looked at that pitch-black archer.

Undead Guardian God of Archery: ????

The information the Eye of the Evil Dragon returned drew Ye Tianxie’s brows together… “Undead Guardian God of Archery.” A bare name and nothing else, and yet it already carried a great deal. Plainly that pitch-black archer was no simple sculpture but an undead standing guard before the door. And its class — God of Archery! The class an Archer may take only on reaching level eighty and passing the class-change trial. Which meant that this Undead Guardian God of Archery had to be level eighty at the very least.

No wonder that arrow had set off so enormous a warning in him… An arrow loosed by a God of Archery above level eighty could kill him outright without the least difficulty.

And on the face of it, this Undead Guardian God of Archery seemed to hold that one position always, without moving. Otherwise he would only have needed a few paces forward to bring Ye Tianxie inside his range.

Thirty meters… and the moment he stepped inside it, he would face the Undead Guardian God of Archery, whose death-arrows could kill him at any instant. Ye Tianxie withdrew Yaoyao and Xiaobei, paused briefly, and then charged straight in… He was confident that with his own reflexes he certainly had the ability to get through here safely.

As he charged, the Undead Guardian God of Archery’s hand came up, the movement fierce and impossibly fast. As the hand rose the bowstring was drawn with it, and a pitch-black arrow condensed out of dark energy braced on the string and shot out on the instant.

Ssss~~~

Ye Tianxie’s eyes narrowed, his body half turned, shifting through a very small arc, and he slipped that arrow past him with an easy grace. And at that moment the sound of wind came near again, which startled Ye Tianxie deeply… in the game world of Slaying Gods, the class he had used was the Archer, and he knew exactly how much time you had to leave between loosing a first arrow and getting a second one away… and this second arrow had come this fast.

Whoosh!

It brushed past him, and once again failed to touch his body.

The third arrow did not follow hard on the second the way that one had followed the first. There was a clear pause. Ye Tianxie went forward fast with it, and as he had expected, the Undead Guardian God of Archery really did seem to have no ability to move at all; he never stirred.

Three pitch-black lights kindled on the Undead Guardian God of Archery’s bow… the bowstring sang, and Ye Tianxie’s step checked as well. Reading the position by sound, he turned side-on and slipped the first… but in the very instant the first arrow had grazed past him, the second was suddenly on him…

Two-Star Chain Arrow!?

The sense of death came close. The second arrow’s point of fall was exactly the spot he had stopped in after twisting aside, and with his body briefly locked there was simply no way to shift position again inside so short a time… He set his teeth, kept the momentum of his charge unchanged, gathered every ounce of strength into his feet, drove down hard, and leapt high in a badly unbalanced posture.

Whoosh… The second arrow shot past all but scraping the soles of his feet. Had he been so much as 0.01 seconds later, that one arrow would have been enough to take him.

Before the hair’s breadth between life and death could raise a cold sweat on him, the third arrow was already closing on a wind of pure despair, coming down exactly on the spot he must inevitably touch as he fell…

Three-Star Chain Arrow!

There was no purchase in midair, and Ye Tianxie had no power of flight whatever. The moment he landed would be the moment he died.

In a hopeless situation like that one, anybody at all would instinctively bring out his strongest protective skill to save his life — Ye Tianxie’s Soul of the Evil Dragon, for instance. But no invisible shield of light opened. Instead a ball of grey mist appeared beneath Ye Tianxie’s feet.

“Netherfog!”

Clang!

Buoyed by the Netherfog, Ye Tianxie’s naturally falling body came down light as cotton wool, and he brought himself back into balance quickly in the air. And the third arrow, which by rights should have taken Ye Tianxie’s body, struck the ground beneath his feet instead, letting out a splitting crack that deafened the ear.

The Three-Star Chain Arrow, broken by the barest margin. Once he was down, Ye Tianxie fell back at his fastest speed and got clear of the thirty-meter range before the next arrow could come.

Only then did the cold sweat break out on his forehead, and he let out a light breath. A God of Archery indeed… he had completely underestimated how terrible a God of Archery’s arrows were. A triple shot, or three arrows loosed at once — neither of those would have frightened him. But a Three-Star Chain Arrow… as a veteran Archer player himself, he knew deeply how hard it was to loose a Three-Star Chain Arrow, and how very much harder still to dodge one.

It also left him no choice but to pull back out of the Undead Guardian God of Archery’s attack range. Because coming close a moment ago, he had already seen that the door was shut fast — which meant that he not only had to reach the door, he would have to spend a stretch of time getting it open… and that whole stretch of time would be spent under attack. The Undead Guardian God of Archery had the strength to loose a Three-Star Chain Arrow, and perhaps more than that, and that alone decided it.

…How do I get across?

The Soul of the Evil Dragon? Nine seconds of invincibility might just be enough — but what about afterward? The Soul of the Evil Dragon had a very long interval between uses. If he spent it here, and what lay beyond was an enemy too strong to stand against, how would he get out?

He was an undead creature… kill him with repeated Mystic Spirit Restorations from Yaoyao? Even less possible. Never mind that it would mean coming within ten meters of him every single time, Yaoyao’s Mystic Spirit Restoration had a short cast and a short recovery, and at the Undead Guardian God of Archery’s rate of shooting, that much time would be more than enough for him to put an arrow through Yaoyao…

How do I get across?!

Looking at that great door thirty meters ahead of him, Ye Tianxie’s brows drew tighter and tighter.

(End of Chapter 238)