Chapter 943: Chapter 471: Bitter Struggle
"Watch out!!!"
At this moment, time and space seemed to freeze.
The sudden surge of intense crisis in his heart caused his attention to instinctively focus to the maximum, with his keen perception ability subtly unleashed to its fullest.
As Lorin’s loud shout reached his ears from the front of the team, he could even hear the powerful heartbeat of the barbarian Akken and the subtle, hoarse hissing sound that Sasha instinctively made like a feline encountering danger.
His right hand gripping the [Ash Fall] straight sword tightly, the muscles of his forearm bulged, pushing the inner dark shirt to rise high; his right foot lifted, attempting to step forward, completing the [Teeth Hunting] pre-act of releasing energy on the ground.
The reaction ability granted by 11 agility made the flow of time seem to slow down in that instant.
Because of this, he instantly looked towards the source the moment he detected movement from the pond, his gaze locked onto the Shark Beast, capturing its every move in less than a second.
In fact, the Shark Beast did not move its body.
The large figure, filled with exaggerated, steel-like muscles, just stood there quietly, with its rough skin even letting crystal droplets fall, while the pair of icy, abyss-like black eyes devoid of whites stared intently at the group on the scene.
The real action came from the human male integrated within its body.
The originally drooping head suddenly lifted, revealing a pale face devoid of any blood.
The two vacant eyes, devoid of focus and resembling those of a dead body, encompassed the view of the six people in the field in front.
In Xia Nan’s heightened concentration, the perspective seemed slowed to 0.5x speed, where he could even see the contour trajectory of the muscles moving beneath the skin on both sides of the man’s cheeks and the downward move of the mandible bone as they pulled.
The deathly pale lips, slightly adhered due to long closure, but forcibly parted again, exposing the already necrotic oral flesh inside.
Buzz——
The air around the man’s mouth distorted in an instant.
There was simply no time to react.
The next second, as Xia Nan stepped down to release [Teeth Hunting], dark Qi emerged around him simultaneously.
From the other side, the sharp noise emitted by the man also crossed the air, sweeping across everyone’s bodies.
"Buzz hum..."
Although there was no physical form, when the sound wave skated across the skin surface, a certain tangible force could still be felt.
Just like in his previous life when struck with motion sickness, Xia Nan felt an inexplicable dizziness and nausea erupt from his heart, with countless chaotic, malicious thoughts targeting his teammates flooding his mind, stirring up the emotions suppressed by reason during combat, refining and extracting the murderous, malevolent parts in an attempt to control and affect his body.
The passive specialty from the Evil Secret Realm, named [Gaze into the Abyss], took effect in an instant—when resisting charm, fear, hypnosis, and other spiritual control magic, your immunity check gets a bonus (affected by the perception attribute).
Though the outstanding 12-point perception attribute made Xia Nan more sensitive when facing spiritual attacks, it also greatly enhanced [Gaze into the Abyss].
As thoughts circulated, the chaotic thoughts in his mind were completely suppressed shortly after surfacing, clearing his brain immediately.
Then, the second effect of [Gaze into the Abyss] triggered smoothly—when one successfully resists the spiritual control effect, the spellcaster is forced to make an immunity check; upon failure, they fall into a [temporary unconsciousness] state, suffering certain spiritual damage.
Unfortunately, the "spellcaster" suffering the backlash from the specialty wasn’t the main body of the Shark Beast, but the corpse-like human corpse on it.
No feedback, as if stones thrown into the sea.
In the next second, Xia Nan’s right foot lands.
With a wolf howl bursting out, pitch-black virtual shadows gathered around him.
His perception ability was already the most prominent in the team, along with having a specialty against the effects of spiritual control magic, now being the first one to pass the enemy’s immunity check, regaining the ability to act freely.
By this point, less than two seconds had passed since the sound wave propagated.
The pace of professional-level combat was unimaginably fast, leaving no room for thorough thinking; often, combat was executed purely based on muscle memory, past experiences, and occasionally burst combat insights.
However, even though Xia Nan relied on his past accumulation to pass the spiritual control check, he still needed to ascertain the situation of the teammates around him before making any further plans.
So, as his right foot stepped on the ground, he suddenly twisted his ankle, redirecting his body’s center of gravity with the exceptional control over his body honed through countless days and nights of training.
While enveloped in a pitch-black gale charging forward, he spun 360 degrees in an instant, his gaze swiftly sweeping over the people behind him.
His heart sank involuntarily.
The situation was worse than imagined.
After all, not everyone could have a perception attribute in double digits and a resistance specialty by Level 3 like himself; for most adventurers, spiritual attacks were undoubtedly one of the most difficult to handle.
Currently, in the face of the enemy’s howling attack, the only one capable of resisting and completing the check in an instant was himself.
The rest, even the captain Lorin who surpassed Level 5 in terms of professional level, all showed frowning and struggling expressions.
Akken and Sasha reacted even more fiercely, their bodies trembling violently.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the massive Shark Beast, freshly emerged from the pond onto the shore, bent its knees, leaning forward, preparing to dash forward with a charging motion.
