Chapter 851
Back when Shen staggered backwards earlier, the lock on the surrounding space also lost its effect. Without hesitating, Chen Xiaolian swiftly put some tens of metres between them. Once again, he held the Flash Bow of Ketu-Rahu and aimed it at Shen, who was still holding his head and growling.
Power gathered upon Chen Xiaolian’s body once again and the surrounding streams of energy swirled furiously towards him before melding into the bow.
Naturally, this time, he would not be using the Matchless Skyfall move.
Rather, it was another move that Du Wei had taught him.
Star Drop!
“Chen… Xiaolian!”
Shen forced himself to stand straight and stared right at Chen Xiaolian, who was aiming the bow his way. His handsome face had become contorted due to the pain.
“Regardless of what you just did, did you think… that you can defeat me with just this?”
Suddenly, he stretched his right hand and his fingers closed up, seemingly grabbing something.
As Shen’s fingers were closing up, a quaint-looking bronze sword appeared in his grasp.
Spots of greenish-copper patina covered the blade of the bronze sword while there were grain-sized nicks all over the edges of the sword. It looked as though it had drunk its fill of blood in the battlefield.
Unlike its outward appearance, however, the moment the sword appeared, it radiated an intensely frightful, soul-shattering power.
Chen Xiaolian’s heart skipped a beat.
He had witnessed Shen fight more than once. But in every one of them, Shen would fight his enemies barehanded. Even when facing Du Wei and the others, he had never utilized any weapon.
At this very moment, however, he had pulled out this bronze sword.
This meant-
Shen slashed at Chen Xiaolian with the bronze sword. Unlike Chen Xiaolian, he did not need a long power-gathering period before making his move.
Despite a distance of tens of metres between them, the edges of the sword left a trail of five-coloured radiance in its wake, which then rippled towards Chen Xiaolian.
Star Drop was one of the Flash Bow of Ketu-Rahu’s two ultimate skills. Although Chen Xiaolian’s power had drastically improved compared to before, he was still not able to instantly unleash the move.
He had yet to fully charge up for the move but the five-coloured radiance that Shen released had already arrived. Seeing no other options, he released the bowstring.
A meteor suddenly flashed into existence and flew towards the five-coloured light.
Arrow of Flash Bow of Ketu-Rahu · Star Drop!
Boom!
Two outstandingly formidable force collided, shaking the lands. The surrounding houses and trees were swept away to who knows where while the terrain itself, stretching up to a radius of hundreds of metres, was flattened by the collision.
Even the hill where the Acropolis was situated shook due to the collision.
In the face of the collision, Chen Xiaolian had to exert his all so as to maintain balance and to not be blown away by the shockwaves. Just as he was able to steady himself, however, another five-coloured radiance flew towards him.
Damn it! So fast?
Shouldn’t he be in a weakened state?
Chen Xiaolian did not even get the opportunity to pull the bow before the five-coloured radiance arrived before him. Thus, he braced himself, held the Flash Bow of Ketu-Rahu with both hands in front and curled his body.
Hopefully, the Flash Bow of Ketu-Rahu and the Moonless Fivefold Light Armour can stop this move.
Boom!
Chen Xiaolian’s body took a violent impact while a loud sound came from the Flash Bow of Ketu-Rahu in his hands. It sounded as though it was about to break.
Additionally, the five-coloured radiance also bombarded the Moonless Fivefold Light Armour to the point where it became damaged all over, leaving only around two thirds of it still attached to Chen Xiaolian’s body.
As for Chen Xiaolian, his body became like a cannonball, blasted backwards into the distant rocky hill where the twelve temples were situated.
Despite the distance of several kilometres, Chen Xiaolian practically flew in a straight line and smashed straight into the entrance of the first temple.
He smashed through the centre part of an entire row of durable marble pillars as though they were bowling pins and half the temple collapsed as a result.
Gritting his teeth, Chen Xiaolian flipped himself up. Before he could steady himself, a mouthful of blood found its way out from his mouth.
After coughing out blood, Chen Xiaolian staggered in an attempt to straighten himself. Suddenly, a smile appeared on his face.
Run!
Chen Xiaolian kicked away the huge rubble in front of him and dashed into the temple.
Right now, the most important thing to him was time.
Despite not turning his head to look back, he could clearly sense the terrifying force belonging to Shen coming after him.
But… as long as he could buy enough time, there was hope for defeating Shen.
Earlier, Shen had swung at him with a sword. He was already resorting to using a weapon. Even so, it was only on the same level as an incomplete Star Drop.
As for the second sword move, Chen Xiaolian did not have the time to fire out another Star Drop. Thus, he had to depend on the two sacred artifacts to take on the attack head on.
By using the first sword move as reference, Chen Xiaolian had been prepared to end up grievously wounded from the second sword move. But while the Flash Bow of Ketu-Rahu and Moonless Fivefold Light Armour sustained severe damage from the move, the damage to his own body was not as severe as he had expected.
This meant that… Shen’s second sword move was no longer as strong as the first one.
When Osgiliath was teaching him, he had once said that the effect of the virus code will be slow. It needed time to achieve its maximum effect.
However, just like with viruses in the real world, the human body would automatically produce antibodies to fight it off.
Due to that, its line graph was U-shaped. It needed a certain amount of time for Shen’s strength to reach its lowest possible point, but he would slowly recover after that.
Earlier, the virus had only just taken effect. With every passing second and minute, the effect of the virus would accumulate and Shen’s strength would further weaken.
At this moment, what Chen Xiaolian needed was to buy time until Shen’s strength reached the lowest point.
The previous impact from the five-coloured radiance had shattered the wings of the Moonless Fivefold Light Armour. But its core part was not damaged, allowing it to repair itself by regulating its source of power. That said, time was required for that. At present, all Chen Xiaolian could do was to give it his all to run towards the top of the hill.
There was only one way for him to go and that was to head to the twelve temples.
Keep going up!
Naturally, the best outcome would be for the virus code to weaken Shen to the point where he could defeat him.
However, should that fail, he would at least have another option. And that was to quickly complete the quest and escape from the instance dungeon through the usual process.
The temple in front was entirely carved out from marble, both tall and titanic. There was a flat empty space surrounded by giant pillars.
At that very moment, there was a corpse lying at the centre of the temple.
Chen Xiaolian had no time to take a closer look at the corpse. All he could tell was that it was an adult male wearing a – gash-covered – skin-tight suit.
Traces of battle could be seen all over the ground and the pillars beside the corpse.
It seemed to be quite the fierce battle. Many of the surrounding pillars had become badly damaged while some were downright broken.
Judging by the looks of the corpse, it should have been wearing something akin to armour, but the armour had been stripped off him.
Could it really be the Saint Cloth?
Chen Xiaolian thought to himself as he ran forward.
Although he could not – like Qiao Qiao – check up all the quest lines and branch quests of an instance dungeon, this one appeared fairly simple. It was obvious. There was nothing convoluted here… just break through the twelve temples.
The only question Chen Xiaolian had was.
Are the temple guardians really going to be those Twelve Gold Saints?
…
Numerous flames began gathering upon the tip of the spear in Tempest’s hand. It burned non-stop, growing increasingly intense.
In front of him was the guardian of the fourth temple, the Temple of Cancer. He was clad entirely in gold armour and his body shone with a dazzling golden light.
At this very moment, however, the guardian was utterly incapable of moving.
Both his legs were being entangled by the countless black strands of hair emerging from the ground. As for his upper body, it was enveloped by a thick layer of ice.
“Now… die!”
When the flames were finally condensed to its highest point, Tempest abruptly stabbed forward and his whole body seemingly transformed into a meteor, which shot forward.
The flames at the tip of the spear easily melted a hole through the layer of ice before melting even the golden armour on the guardian’s body. Next, it stabbed right through his chest.
With a near-imperceptible sigh, a white beam of light rose up from the body of the guardian. Making its way through the ceiling of the temple, it then flew to the hilltop.
“The fourth temple is done!”
Tempest kept his spear. After taking a few breaths, he clapped his hands.
“How relaxing and enjoyable. This instance dungeon’s difficulty level is not high. From what I can see so far, the strength of the guardians of each temple does not increase. If every fight is like this, there won’t be any dangers involved in passing through the twelve temples.”
The layer of ice that was encasing the guardian’s corpse that was now lying on the floor slowly melted while the highly resilient long black hair quickly shrank back.
“It’s not too low though.” The owner of the long black hair was a sexily-dressed woman in revealing leather armour. She swiftly moved forward until she was standing before the guardian’s corpse. Then, she began taking the golden armour off the guardian’s corpse. “At the very least, we are incapable of killing them off by disregarding their holy constellation armour. And the ones we obtain are all damaged. We either have to spend points to repair them or recast them through some other means.”
“Swift Swallow, you need to learn to be satisfied with what you get.” The two men standing behind Swift Swallow snickered. “Even if they’re damaged, they’re still [B+] class equipment. Adding the loot from all twelve guardians together makes it quite the haul. Moreover, the final one, the Pope… there might be even better items on him. All in all, we’re making a good profit off this instance dungeon.”
“Alright, let’s go.” Swift Swallow kept the holy constellation armour into her storage gear. Then, she turned and moved towards the exit.
The four of them had only just taken a step forward when a look of disbelief appeared on their faces.
“You guys… did you all receive it as well?”
Tempest’s eyes were wide open as he stared at his three teammates behind him. “Swift Swallow, Moonlight, Shockbolt, am I hallucinating right now?”
“… … no, I received it as well.” Swift Swallow was panting heavily, causing her already voluptuous breasts to become even more eye-catching. However, none of them were paying any attention to her breasts.
Just now, the four of them had received a notification from the system.
[Additional quest: Eliminate the two Awakened ones inside this instance dungeon.]
[Unlimited redemption privilege will be temporarily activated within this instance dungeon. You may select any item you want from the shop and redeem it for free.]
“I’ll be damned! What’s going on here? Did the system go crazy? Did the Development Team go crazy? Unlimited redemption privilege?” Tempest’s face grew so flushed it seemed as though he would spray out blood at any moment. “Go check it out!”
There was no need for Tempest to tell them. The other three had simultaneously brought up their personal systems and opened the shop menu.
From the lowest class Healing Beast Blood to the [S] class equipment and skill enhancements, all the points required that were originally placed behind each option had suddenly been replaced with 0.
Originally, there were many equipment and props that could not be redeemed through the shop using points. Instead, they can only be obtained by completing certain storylines within certain instance dungeons.
Outrageously, all those things have appeared as redeemable options in the shop menu.
Never in their wildest dreams did they imagine something like this.
“This… is this a joke?”
Tempest tried to choose an [S] class skill. Without delay, a beam of light appeared upon his palm.
A small copper bell, no bigger than an egg, appeared in his palm. He could faintly see clouds floating across its surface.
“East… the East Emperor’s Bell! This is the real deal!” Tempest’s heart nearly froze. Even without checking the item description through his personal system, he could feel the terrifying power contained within the item.
This was a sacred artifact that he had only heard of through word of mouth from other Players. There was no price tag on this item as it could never be obtained through points.
At that very moment, however, it had appeared on his palm.
“We… we’re not dreaming right now, are we?” Swift Swallow murmured, seemingly in a trance as she extended her right hand.
A stream of black energy flew out from her palm and swiftly circled around her once. All the rubble from the temple that made contact with it disappeared into thin air, as though they never existed.
“The Fog of Annihilation? An [S] class skill?” Shockbolt panted furiously. “I’ll be damned! Just what kind of instance dungeon storyline did we trigger just now?”
“How would I know?” Tempest almost went crazy with joy. “Is that important? Is that important? Now that it’s come to this, are you still in the mood to analyse things? Hurry up and grab em! Who knows if this is a sudden BUG with the system? Redeem however many items you can redeem! Hurry!”
Even as he spoke, Tempest quickly browsed through the shop menu.
All that mattered was that it was an [S] class equipment. The description mattered not. Just buy it up.
As for skill enhancements, they would first ignore those that they were unfamiliar with and those that they do not understand. As for those that they had some knowledge of, so long as no conflict would arise from buying them, they would buy them all.
In but a short moment, all four of them had already maxed out their basic attributes. Moreover, all their storage gear were filled to the brim with top-grade equipment, ranging from cultivation-type to technology-type.
Only then did the four of them – panting heavily – stopped what they were doing. They exchanged glances.
It was not due to exhaustion. Rather, it was due to shock and excitement.
“All of this… is real?” Tempest pinched his thigh forcefully, feeling somewhat absentminded still.
“It’s true!” Shockbolt swung his head skywards excitedly. He was already on the verge of bursting into tears.
The four of them were members of Tempest Assault Squad, a somewhat well-known elite guild amongst the Players. Although their number of members was small, all of them were at [A] class and above.
That was especially true of their Guild Leader, Tempest, who was an [A+] class expert.
They’ve always had great confidence in their own strength.
But… looking back now, their former selves were simply too weak.
From this very moment, every member of Tempest Assault Squad had gained absolute confidence… that they could conquer even the entire Player world.
There was no way that anyone could go against them.
This was invincibility!
“It’s showing up. Someone is indeed coming over.” Swift Swallow was the calmest one amongst them. By now, she had managed to somewhat subdue herself from the frenzy state of joy that she was in earlier. One of the items she redeemed earlier included a portable battlefield detector. At present, she had it placed over her left eye. Stretching her hand, she pointed at the third temple. “Very fast. They’ll be arriving very soon.”
“Very good.” Tempest grinned.
“Then.. let us test our newfound powers and see just how strong they are!”
Note: Saint Cloth here refers to the suit of armour worn by mystical warriors from the manga/anime Saint Seiya. Each of the 12 temples is guarded by a Gold Saint, each corresponding to the 12 zodiac signs. The Gold Saints are led by a Pope. Together, the Saints are supposed to defend the human incarnation of the Olympian Goddess Athena.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om