After storing the beast cores of two Vajra Prism Rhinos, Arkhen decided to explore the golden dots on the live map of Ruan while avoiding faint red dots.
Faint red dots means danger. Those most likely indicated peak 8th-grade dire beasts and maybe… peoples.
Half an hour passed as Arkhen killed several 4th and 5th-grade beasts. After feeding their beast cores to Lucius and Blancia, they went into slumber to digest their powers and level up. Arkhen put them back into Mystic Wonderland and continued finding the last Vajra Prism Rhino while visiting a nearby golden dot location.
After Arkhen entered a cave, which likely contained some valuable resources as indicated by the live map, three people also neared the cave very sneakily.
"Damn! Who is that guy? I discovered the Mana Tree first," said a slim guy with vampire fangs and batwings furled behind his back. He had ugly purple short hair.
"Cool down. You came to us since a powerful beast was guarding that Mana Tree, right? How strong is that beast?" asked a woman with thick blond hair. She was also a vampire.
"That beast was a 7th-grade Death Totem Snake," said the slim vampire guy.
"Then worry not. From the aura I sensed from that human who went inside, he is weak. At most, he is a 6th-class powerhouse like us," said the third member of the group. He was actually a person of the stone race!
His skin was made up of light brown stone with a crackly structure! He was 2 meters tall and had shapely muscles made up of a crackly light brown stony structure.
"Heh, then let's go. Two birds with one stone. Get the treasure and kill the scum from Cherry Blossom Sect, hahaha," said the slim vampire guy as he laughed. His mood changed quickly after hearing that Arkhen was weak.
…
Arkhen went deeper into the cave and soon arrived in a passage.
'I sense power and presence,' Arkhen thought as he suppressed his aura to the limit. After walking slowly, he saw the exit of the passage and peeked inside.
A vast hall-like area with a mystical glowing dreamy blue tree at the center and… A terrifying snake guarding the tree!
The snake was three meters thick and fifteen meters long as it stationed itself in a ring shape around the tree. It had faint scaly wooden patterns and eccentric tattoos on its body.
'Velshi. Information.'
|Death Totem Snake|
-> This is a mid 7th-grade dire beast. Its core bloodline ability is summoning a totem that can suck the lifeforce out of the living beings within its range and pass it back to the snake, which can either empower its body or heal its wounds if injured.
[My lord. This beast has Death, Dark, and Wood affinity. Its weakness is its weak defense and totem carvings. If you attack that part in its body, its totem ability of bloodline will have its effect significantly reduced].
'But I guess it will keep that body part safe and defended,' Arkhen replied as he caught the totem carvings on the part below its head part.
[Yes. I think Mayhem Field will be able to disrupt the force releasing from its totem. It won't let life force suck out of you since the force doing that work will be caught up in the Mayhem Field].
'Nice. If that works, then I can finish it off with my supercharged Slaughter Blade,' Arkhen said with a grin as he decided to use the same type of attack he used on that Tree Monster in a corrupted dungeon.
The execution time of that attack was roughly five seconds. Arkhen made a plan to use the <Aegis of Life Conversion>, place the Mayhem Field around him, and create several layers of force fields around him to defend himself before preparing that attack.
[My lord! Wat-]
Arkhen's hairs on his body stood like a sharp arrow as he sensed fatal danger and quickly used the Oblivion Shrine of the <Melfeious Shrine Tree: Jiragen> skill.
<Oblivion Shrine: Conjures a Shrine of Oblivion that erases all incoming attacks within the next three seconds that enters twenty meters radius around you. (It will erase all attacks as long as they are no more than 250% of your EP. If the attack is higher, then it will try to block but won't be able to erase)
The Oblivion Shrine instantly appeared on top of Arkhen as 25% of his soul energy was deducted. A strange space ripple spread around Arkhen after the appearance of Oblivion Shrine as three extremely potent and powerful orbs of crimson red, dark green, and dark gold neared Arkhen!
Although the effective radius of Oblivion Shrine was twenty meters, the orbs were just ten meters away from Arkhen after he finished executing the skill.
As such, those three orbs traveled a bit further and neared several meters more but right after the Oblivion Shrine manifested, the three potent orbs… vanished!
"How?!"
The three people who sneaked attacked Arkhen were shocked! They even used a Class-7 potion, Silent Zone! That potion could create a silent zone around them that could block all energy readings from going out of its zone range!
"That defensive skill… Damn!"
Arkhen turned around with a dark face but also a grim smile on his face. "You assholes. Good job for making me sweat a bit with that."
That was truly a close call!
*Hisss!*
The snake also finally sensed auras since Arkhen used his skill to block the sneak attack!
"Run!" the slim vampire guy said as he quickly turned around left.
The other two with him also turned around and zoomed out of the passage!
"Let that bastard fight against the snake. If he comes out, we will kill him. If he fights the snake, we can fish in the troubled water after they've fought a bit," the slim vampire guy said after coming out of the cave with his teammates.
"What if he kills that snake?" the vampire girl asked with a frown.
"He must have used some item or an ultimate skill to defend our sneak attack because, from the energy readings of his EP, he is a 6th-grade powerhouse," the stone race man said. "Same as us."
"Well then, let's wait and see how this plays out," the vampire girl said with a nod.
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