The instant his health dropped into double digits, Ye Tianxie — motionless until now — suddenly sprang back a full step with everything he had, evading every attack, and in that same moment a dark radiance burst from his body…
“Frenzied Battle Intent!”
A violent urge to unleash something surged up in his chest, scorching through his body and his blood. In an instant he felt his arms flood with power, his body turn light and nimble. With a cold laugh he charged straight at the Little Raccoons closing in on him, taking the offensive…
-264, -268, -259…
With Frenzied Battle Intent active, each Little Raccoon took only three strikes to cut down — two, if a critical hit landed. But in this state, his HP was… 87. He had also switched off the Ring of Life’s automatic health regeneration, keeping his health hovering at a level that could survive exactly one raccoon’s attack.
Because if his HP rose above 20%, Frenzied Battle Intent would vanish automatically. In his leveling hours, what he pursued was maximum efficiency, maximum speed. But anyone who dared to play Frenzied Battle Intent the way he did would be hard to find a second time.
The 30% attack boost let him empty one raccoon’s health after another; the 30% speed boost let him weave, reposition, and evade with greater agility. The frenzy the skill brought didn’t affect his reflexes in the slightest. There were many Little Raccoons, but their mobility was only 60 — one man against many, and he felt no pressure whatsoever.
The wilderness maps of the Lost Continent were naturally far larger than the novice village’s. The Little Raccoons’ territory could easily accommodate several thousand players leveling at once, and one man could hardly monopolize an entire region the way he had in the novice village. Which meant, of course, that he would never run short of monsters to kill, and his leveling efficiency would never suffer for it.
While the overwhelming majority of players were grouping up to farm Level 10 Lightning Rabbits or Level 11 Black-Furred Rabbits, who could have imagined that someone was out there killing Level 15 monsters single-handed — and with terrifying efficiency? Under Frenzied Battle Intent, the Level 11 Ye Tianxie displayed strength surpassing Level 15.
“Yee-yaa… Master, over there, over there! A whole bunch more came out over there — go that way!”
“Wah! Even more came out over there — let me count them! One, two, three, four… anyway, too many to count! Master, hurry up and wipe them out!”
“Hm? That kitty seems to have dropped something like a hat. Master, hurry and pick it up!”
If he could have, Ye Tianxie would dearly have liked to find some cotton and stuff his ears with it. It was one thing for Guoguo’s voice to chirp away like a little bird, but she carried on like a little princess commanding her servant — pointing this way and that, shouting, issuing orders… Reminding himself that this was a little thing with a child’s temperament, Ye Tianxie endured it.
Time passed amid the ceaseless attacking and Guoguo’s shouting.
Two hours later…
“Ding… Someone is knocking at the door in the real world. Exit game?”
Ye Tianxie swung the Hour of Eternal Fate, dispatched the three Little Raccoons before him in three strokes, then withdrew swiftly to a safe area. Through all that time he had remained in the Frenzied Battle Intent state, his health held below 100 throughout.
Many things others might dream of but never dare do were, for him, utterly routine. Keeping health below 20% to sustain Frenzied Battle Intent was delightful when killing monsters far weaker than yourself, called for extreme care against monsters of your own level, and against anything higher — or a BOSS — was simply suicide. Yet facing Little Raccoons four levels above him, he had come through two full hours unharmed. That skill, with its brutal usage condition, had in his hands become nothing less than a flat +30% to attack and movement speed.
Ye Tianxie had very few friends — only three he truly acknowledged. And those three, being the ones who best understood his temperament, would never come to his door unbidden unless driven to it or faced with something enormous. So ordinarily, no one ever knocked.
Logging out of the World of Fate, Ye Tianxie left his room — only to see Su Feifei already trotting over to fling the door open and call out excitedly, “Hey! You’re so slow, hurry up and come in. This place has to be spotless by this afternoon.”
Ye Tianxie frowned and walked over. Outside stood a large truck, six people unloading equipment from it, and on the truck’s side, in bold, eye-catching characters: CLEANING SERVICES.
“Who told you to call them here?” Ye Tianxie shot Su Feifei a glance and said, expressionless.
“Hmph! You lazy slob, look at the state of this house. This young lady is going to be living here from now on, so of course it has to be cleaned properly. That’s why I called the best cleaning company in all of Jinghua—”
“Send them away!” Ye Tianxie cut her off without ceremony, a low undertone creeping into his voice.
“Huh?” Plainly noticing his tone and the unfriendliness on his face, Su Feifei pursed her lips. “Hey! Why should they leave? They’re a cleaning company, not here to rob you… Besides, your house is so bare there’s nothing worth robbing anyway.”
Ye Tianxie shook his head and said coldly, “Miss Su, if you find my place too filthy and cluttered, you’re free to leave at once, and I’ll transfer back every last yuan of the three hundred million your father sent me. But outsiders are never permitted to set foot in here. Letting in your father and your bodyguards was already my limit. If you want to keep staying here, don’t try to bring anyone else in.”
With that, Ye Tianxie didn’t spare her another glance. He turned coldly, went back to his room, and shut the door heavily behind him, leaving Su Feifei standing there in a blank daze.
Back in the World of Fate, Ye Tianxie activated his only combat skill, Frenzied Battle Intent, and charged the Little Raccoons that had already respawned across the grass. The briefly quiet field rang once more with their dying cries.
Zheng… A yellow flash came from not far to his left, and a raccoon appeared there — noticeably larger than the others, its fur shot through with a dull silver. It seemed to have known of Ye Tianxie’s atrocities in its territory before it was even born, and charged straight at him.
Little Raccoon Chieftain — Level 15 two-star elite. HP: 2,200. A minor chieftain among the Little Raccoons, with a larger frame and greater attack power than an ordinary one.
Skills: Claw, Bite.
(End of Chapter 87)