Ye Tianxie swept his gaze around. Twelve skeletons in all, swinging their hair-raising white bone arms, closing in on him step by step from every direction in a nearly perfect circle.
“Mm… mm… where is this place… mm… what an awful smell… Hm? These strange things… Aaah!!!“
The moment the bleary-eyed Guoguo made out the skeletons around them, she let out a shriek that nearly made Ye Tianxie drop the Hour of Eternal Fate to clap his hands over his ears…
“Waaah!! So scary… so scary… Master… master, master, master, are you there…? They’re so scary… boo-hoo…” Guoguo clung to Ye Tianxie’s neck with both arms, throttling him almost past breathing, and buried her little head deep against his throat, not daring to lift it again, still less to open her eyes.
Like any little girl who loves pure and beautiful things, Guoguo had an innate and enormous revulsion and terror toward creatures this filthy, ugly, and frightful. Ye Tianxie could feel her body trembling clearly… She was so frightened that tears had already welled up.
At last… Ye Tianxie had found something Guoguo was afraid of.
“Mm. Don’t be afraid, Guoguo. Watch master wipe them out.” Being depended on by Guoguo for the first time, Ye Tianxie — who had always been the one led around by the nose — finally found something of the thingness a master ought to feel (what’s the word for that, anyway?). He leveled the Hour of Eternal Fate, picked a direction, and charged the Skeleton Soldiers ahead.
Character: Xietian
Level: 14
Class: None
Renown: 220 Money: 1,023 gold
Hunger: 30/195
Basic Attributes: Strength 95, Constitution 22, Agility 19, Spirit 19
Fixed Attributes: Luck 12, Comprehension 12, Charm 22
HP: 560
MP: 330
Physical Attack: 252
Magic Attack: 38
Physical Defense: 26
Hit: 19
Dodge: 19
Reaction: 72
Perception: 53
Focus: 42
Attack Speed: 100
Movement Speed: 100
HP Regen: 5 per second. MP Regen: 0
Resistances: Fire 3%, Water 3%, Wind 3%, Lightning 8%, Earth 3%, Light 3%, Dark 3%
These were Ye Tianxie’s attributes at Level 14. With the Abyss trial’s attribute rewards and the Ring of Life’s 200 HP, his health had reached 560 — yet that figure only approached that of an ordinary Warrior of the same level, let alone a Guardian. Because of class… take the Guardian: advancing from Apprentice Guardian to a full Guardian granted 300 HP in attributes alone.
Thanks to the Hour of Eternal Fate’s formidable stats, Ye Tianxie’s attack still led the other attacking classes at his level. But overall, his attributes were only modestly ahead of an ordinary same-level player’s. And at the same time, he had no attack skills where other players did — an absolute disadvantage.
But his talent attributes — Reaction 72, Perception 53, Focus 42 — allowed him to wring from those unremarkable stats an effect that was frankly monstrous.
The strong are never strong without reason.
Under the dim green phosphorescence, the Hour of Eternal Fate carved out its first jet-black arc, sweeping three Skeleton Soldiers at once — while their attacks landed on him at the same moment.
-201, -204, -200.
-59, -62, -60!
The Level 17 Skeleton Soldiers had less health than the Level 15 Little Raccoons he had slaughtered before, but their defense was plainly higher; their bodies were nothing but hard bone, after all, and rather good at absorbing punishment. And a single round of attacks from three of them carried off nearly a third of Ye Tianxie’s health. Three exchanges would be enough to leave him dead here — and if the dozen-odd skeletons around him surrounded him together, finishing him would take exactly one.
Ye Tianxie’s expression didn’t change, and his body didn’t move. He met the three skeletons closing on him with another plain, unadorned short-range horizontal sweep, dropping all three below half health.
-60, -62, -93!
Three attacks landed on him again at once, and that last number — a 150% damage proc — sent his health plunging below 100. And by now the skeletons around him, stepping and swaying their bony arms as though dancing, had closed on him as well.
A cold smile hooked at the corner of Ye Tianxie’s mouth and vanished as quickly. His feet shifted, his body pivoted through a right angle, and with the smallest possible movement he evaded every skeleton’s attack. A low growl escaped him:
“Frenzied Battle Intent!!”
A dim radiance burst faintly across his body and was gone in an instant, and that frenzy searching for an outlet flooded his chest once more… Fate‘s simulation was astonishing; a mere skill could influence a person’s emotions this perfectly, this inconceivably. But Ye Tianxie felt no aversion to it. On the contrary, he liked it — even craved it a little. The corner of his mouth split into a slightly warped, cruel smile, and carrying that frenzied air, he leapt into a horizontal cleave at the targets before him.
-275, -270, -552, -271.
His strikes turned vicious, his attacks fierce, his body nimble. There was no feeling more comfortable than this.
And when a man faces an enemy in such a state, that is precisely when he can bring every ounce of his power to perfect fruition. Against Level 17 Skeleton Soldiers, Frenzied Battle Intent would be a death wish for an ordinary player; no one would dare hold that state through a fight merely for the attack and speed. Ye Tianxie was a terrifying exception. When he activated the one skill he could actually fight with, he did not become anxious or cautious. On the contrary… he became excited.
That single blow left three Skeleton Soldiers with emptied health bars, collapsing like scattered building blocks into a heap of loose bones… without dropping a single coin or item. Ye Tianxie whipped around, judged the distance, swung both arms, and carved the widest arc he could manage, sweeping five Skeleton Soldiers at once. Where the Hour of Eternal Fate met their bodies it drew a crack, crack, crack of impacts, as though bone were being chopped to pieces.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
In the blink of an eye, five more Skeleton Soldiers fell beneath a Ye Tianxie who fought as though berserk. Before a man whose reaction and perception were monstrous past all reason, these skeletons — sluggish, trembling three times for every step — had almost no hope of touching him. And against a Ye Tianxie 30% faster, their encirclement failed to catch so much as the hem of his clothes.
In this gloom heavy with yin energy, Ye Tianxie’s weaving figure among the skeletons resembled nothing so much as a true phantom.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Three more Skeleton Soldiers fell under three all but unbroken strikes. Ye Tianxie’s gaze slanted toward the last three. As his eyes flickered, his continuously shifting body actually trailed a faintly discernible afterimage — and under his guidance, the three skeletons drew together, lurching toward him from a single direction. Only then did he turn and, with utter nonchalance, destroy all three in three blows.
The world went quiet, and Ye Tianxie stood ankle-deep in shattered bone. Twelve Skeleton Soldiers, and not one had dropped a thing — not even a single copper… stingier than the townsfolk of Guping.
“Boo-hoo… boo-hoo… So scary, so terribly scary… Master, let’s leave here, all right? Guoguo’s so scared…”
Guoguo had curled her whole body into a tiny ball and hung from his neck. Ye Tianxie scanned his surroundings, and only after confirming no new Skeleton Soldiers had appeared did he cancel Frenzied Battle Intent, his surging heart settling back into calm. And at the same time, a doubt he could not suppress surfaced… The Skeleton Cavern’s first level was vast — so why had only a dozen-odd monsters spawned?
“All right, Guoguo. Your master has wiped out all those scary monsters.” Ye Tianxie poked her lightly and said coolly.
Guoguo carefully raised her head, whipped it left and right, and only once she had confirmed the terrible creatures were truly gone did she relax, carefully settling herself onto his shoulder. Still frightened, she said, “Master, let’s leave here, all right? It’s so dark, so frightening… More scary monsters like those will come out…”
The corner of Ye Tianxie’s mouth quirked. Then he immediately produced a very, very earnest expression. “Don’t worry. Those monsters are all destroyed; they won’t come back… Although… not only are there many more monsters here just as terrifying as those, there are many, many more that are far worse!”
“Ah…” Guoguo drew both hands to her chest, her little teeth chattering violently.
Ye Tianxie’s voice turned sinister, and hearing it, Guoguo shuddered from head to foot. “Those skeletons just now were complete skeletons. Before I came here, they told me there are also many incomplete skeletons here. Their whole bodies are dripping with blood, and they have no heads — but they can stretch a tongue out of their necks to eat people. And they told me the thing these terrible skeletons like to eat most… is little lolis…”
Guoguo trembled all over, her already snow-white little face going deathly pale. Then, with a sudden “waah,” she flung her arms around Ye Tianxie’s neck, nearly throttling him unconscious, letting out one terrified shriek after another.
The effect fully achieved, Ye Tianxie finally dropped the act and burst into triumphant laughter, nearly laughing himself to tears. “Hahahaha… So that’s what Guoguo’s afraid of. I was only teasing — how could such a thing possibly exist? Hahahaha…”
“B-b-b-but… m-m-master… i-it’s right behind you! Aaaaah!!!“
Ye Tianxie: “!@#$%…”
Ye Tianxie whipped his head around, and his face went deathly pale.
(End of Chapter 98)