Chapter 25 : Chapter 25
Chapter 25 Instantly Killing the Corrupted Giant Beast! A Ferocious Beast Hidden in the Dark!
To spot a weakness with just one glance was practically the same as being a human scanner!
Even the most professional scouts in all of history probably had never possessed such an ability.
Ye Ze coughed twice and said without changing expression, "I am an Investigation Specialist. I just have more experience, that is all..."
Though she still felt a little doubtful, once she heard Investigation Specialist, Ruan Xiaoyou accepted the explanation.
Then she asked curiously, "What weakness does the Cursed Knight have?"
In that brief instant just now, Ye Ze had already used Eye of Insight to obtain the detailed information and analyze its weakness.
Ye Ze summarized it simply:
"The weakness lies in its mount!"
"The Corrupted Giant Beast used to be the Cursed Knight's original mount, but after turning into a magical beast, it also lost the memories from its former life."
"In other words, the coordination between mount and rider is nowhere near as seamless as it was when they were alive."
"Oh~"
Ruan Xiaoyou's rosy little mouth parted slightly. She looked adorably serious, like a student attentively listening to a teacher's lecture.
Ye Ze picked up the squirrel and set it on Panda's head, using them to demonstrate the Cursed Knight and the Corrupted Giant Beast.
"Once the battle begins, you and I will split left and right and attack the knight and the mount separately."
"After the knight takes your attack, it will focus on taking revenge on you..."
"And after the Corrupted Giant Beast takes my attack, it will prioritize attacking me..."
"That is the instinctive response of Fiends after they lose their minds."
As Ye Ze spoke, the squirrel and Panda, serving as teaching props, obediently separated and stood apart on the left and right.
Ruan Xiaoyou immediately understood his thinking, and her beautiful eyes lit up.
"Just like that, once the knight and the mount are separated, their combat strength will drop drastically!"
Ye Ze nodded. "When that happens, you deal with the knight, and I will deal with the giant beast. We will break them one by one!"
"No problem!"
Ruan Xiaoyou agreed readily, then looked at Ye Ze suspiciously.
"Wait. Can you really handle a level 25 elite fiend by yourself?"
Ye Ze smiled. "Do not worry."
He had already checked. The Corrupted Giant Beast's skills were all pure Strength-based melee attacks.
And in front of Panda, all Strength-based melee combat was nothing to fear.
Once they had confirmed the plan, Ye Ze and Ruan Xiaoyou stepped onto the staircase together and arrived at the center of the temple.
Around the entire temple grounds, only the Cursed Knight and its mount remained. Not even other Fiends dared approach this place.
The moment they came face to face, the Cursed Knight locked its gaze onto them.
"Any who dare approach further will be killed."
The Cursed Knight's voice was low, but its resolve was unmistakably firm as it leveled its battered spear at them.
Ye Ze let out a sigh and quickly said, "I take the left. You take the right!"
Ruan Xiaoyou nodded. The two split to either side, confronting the Cursed Knight exactly according to plan.
"Come closer, and die!"
The Cursed Knight let out a roar and charged straight at Ruan Xiaoyou, the stronger of the two!
The Corrupted Giant Beast surged forward at high speed, making the ground around the temple tremble as floor tiles cracked and flew everywhere.
Ye Ze hurriedly said, "Move! Keep the attack area narrow. Hit only the mount, not the Cursed Knight!"
Receiving the order, Panda unleashed Twin Peaks Pierce the Ears.
The key to this strategy was that they absolutely could not strike both the knight and the mount at the same time. If they did, they would draw both of their aggro.
At that point, even if their teammate attacked afterward, they still would not be able to pull the aggro away.
With a BOOM, Twin Peaks Pierce the Ears was compressed into a smaller area and struck the Corrupted Giant Beast's tail with perfect accuracy.
As expected, the Corrupted Giant Beast let out a furious roar and tried to turn around.
At that very moment, Ruan Xiaoyou fired three flying daggers in succession, hitting only the Cursed Knight and failing to draw the Corrupted Giant Beast's aggro.
The Cursed Knight immediately wanted to pursue Ruan Xiaoyou!
The knight and giant beast had originally risen as Fiends after death. They had long since lost their reason and acted only on instinct.
That divergence in targets immediately caused conflict between the two.
The Cursed Knight leaped from its mount in fury and began chasing Ruan Xiaoyou alone!
Meanwhile, the Corrupted Giant Beast successfully turned around and launched a fierce charge at Ye Ze.
"It worked, just as expected!"
Ruan Xiaoyou's face lit up with delight. It proved that Ye Ze's plan really was effective!
Without its mount, the Cursed Knight was only equivalent to a lancer.
Now that its movements were slower, she could easily kite it, or even solo kill it, with the high Agility of a Dark Spirit Assassin!
"As long as nothing goes wrong on Ye Ze's side!"
After all, Ye Ze was facing a level 25 elite fiend, while he himself had only just reached level 7!
With the Corrupted Giant Beast's power and size, one direct hit might seriously injure him.
Yet in the very next moment— As Ruan Xiaoyou floated nimbly through the fight, she instinctively glanced toward Ye Ze's side, and her pupils instantly widened!
The Corrupted Giant Beast roared as it charged at Panda, its massive body shaking the earth.
Its claws swung with nearly maximum force, unleashing Shattering Swing!
But Panda neither dodged nor retreated.
Its hands traced a circle in the air, raising an invisible current of Taiji Inner Force, causing the Corrupted Giant Beast's claw to strike what felt like empty air and instantly lose its balance.
【Taiji - Deflect a Thousand Pounds with Four Ounces】!
Borrowing the enemy's power and returning it with even greater force, it was practically the nightmare of all melee enemies!
Panda spun in a blur, borrowing the force and striking back!
Its left palm hit the Corrupted Giant Beast squarely in the chest with lightning speed, and the fierce force of the blow, combined with the power of the beast's own Shattering Swing...
Actually sent the Corrupted Giant Beast flying straight to the ground, where it lay motionless.
"That killed it instantly?!"
At that moment, Ruan Xiaoyou truly felt that she had underestimated Ye Ze.
She had thought that Ye Ze being able to instantly kill level 15 elite fiends was already impressive enough.
Against a level 25 Corrupted Giant Beast, she had assumed he would at least need to drag it out slowly and fight a drawn-out battle of attrition.
Who would have thought that even a level 25 enemy could still be killed instantly?
But Ruan Xiaoyou had, after all, been one of the top hundred examinees in the country in the previous year's exams, and she was also a student of East China Martial University. Her experience was far from ordinary.
She quickly realized what method Ye Ze had used.
"That was not his raw power. It was a special skill!"
A skill like that usually could not be used continuously. It could only serve as a trump card.
But to cross so many levels and still achieve an instant kill, the quality of that skill...
"Was it epic-tier, or... legendary-tier?"
"How does a level 7 Summoner like Ye Ze have so many ultra-high-quality skills?"
Ruan Xiaoyou came from an extremely wealthy family, and as the only daughter in the family, she had never lacked money.
Yet even she only had one skill above epic-tier.
But Ye Ze, by contrast, had already shown at least three that she had seen with her own eyes!
"Is he really just a high school student from the ordinary class?"
At that moment, Ruan Xiaoyou truly wanted to peel away his outer layer and examine his real strength properly.
But the Cursed Knight was still alive, so she could only continue dealing with that Special Elite.
On the other side, Ye Ze let out a long breath.
【Killed Elite Fiend: Corrupted Giant Beast. EXP gained: 625!】
The moment he saw that the Corrupted Giant Beast relied entirely on Strength-based attacks, he had already expected this outcome.
The only slight surprise was that the attack bonus had been so high that it had killed the Corrupted Giant Beast in a single blow.
On the ground, it dropped a level 25 giant axe and a level 25 suit of armor, both Rare-grade.
The level requirement was too high, so they could not be equipped...
But they could be eaten!
Before level 25, the equipment's attributes could not be fully used, but if they were eaten, the attributes would still be gained all the same.
Ye Ze handed them to Panda, and the latter immediately displayed the habits of an Iron-Eater Beast, crunching iron chunks like snack food.
【You Are What You Eat!...】
The two pieces of equipment alone added 8 Strength, 8 Constitution, and 15 Defense.
That was roughly equivalent to gaining the attributes of a Rare-grade piece of equipment.
Not a bad deal!
"Now that the knight's mount has been dealt with, it is no longer much of a threat."
In the distance, Ruan Xiaoyou moved like a swallow, nimble as the wind, weaving gracefully through the Cursed Knight's attacks as if she were dancing.
But the number of wounds appearing on the Cursed Knight's body kept increasing.
"That battle is beautiful as a painting."
Ye Ze could not help sighing. "Watching a beautiful girl fight monsters is a kind of enjoyment in itself..."
Without its mount, the knight naturally posed no real threat to Ruan Xiaoyou anymore.
About five minutes later, Ruan Xiaoyou had secretly placed ten black energy spheres.
Her figure flashed as she moved far into the distance, then snapped her fingers.
BOOM—
A burst of explosive fire shot skyward like a pillar of magma, engulfing and burning the Cursed Knight to death.
"Rest in peace. The supplies you escorted will return to East China."
Seeing that scene, Ye Ze murmured softly.
Ruan Xiaoyou waved to him. "Come here, quickly! Take this corpse back with us!"
Ye Ze stepped forward and stored the Cursed Knight's corpse in one slot of his built-in backpack space.
Ruan Xiaoyou reminded him, "A Special Elite corpse is worth at least 300 Military Merit!"
"That much?"
Ye Ze was shocked.
But he quickly understood.
"They were once East China soldiers. Even in death, they should return to their roots."
Ruan Xiaoyou, meanwhile, began checking the missing supplies, and casually said to Ye Ze,
"Three hundred Military Merit for the corpse, and five hundred Military Merit for recovering the supplies. All of it goes to you."
Ye Ze was stunned. "Huh? Why—"
"Without your tactics, I would have had to use the Distress Talisman..."
Ruan Xiaoyou did not wait for him to finish and continued, "Besides, I do not care about the Demon Suppression Army's little rewards."
"I came here to complete the Academy's task and get these supplies back to Dongwu City."
"The Academy's reward for completing the mission is much better than what the Demon Suppression Army gives!"
Hearing that, Ye Ze understood a lot more. No wonder she had such high attributes yet still came to the Contaminated Land.
So her main objective really had been this shipment of supplies.
That made perfect sense.
It just meant that he had profited by several hundred Military Merit for free, because without Ruan Xiaoyou, there was no way he could have beaten the Cursed Knight.
Ruan Xiaoyou seemed to read what he was thinking and grinned.
"If you feel bad about it, then call me big sister and let me hear it~"
"..."
The corner of Ye Ze's mouth twitched... My dignity is not something I would sell for a mere few hundred Military Merit!
Forget it. I will compensate her some other way in the future.
He decisively changed the subject. "Ahem. Most of these supplies are actually materials for dungeon research and development."
Ruan Xiaoyou said in surprise, "You even recognize these?"
【Superconductive Crystal】, 【Illusion Demon Core】, 【Stardust Sand】...
Of course Ye Ze did not recognize them. Eye of Insight was simply feeding him the information.
In the hands of ordinary people, these things were almost useless. But in the hands of the big shots at the research institute, their value was enormous!
No wonder even East China Martial University had issued a mission to retrieve them.
After looking around for a while, Ye Ze's attention stopped on a fragment.
【Incubation Chamber Fragment — A fragment of the incubation chamber that was used to contain a certain ferocious beast. The chamber is now shattered.】
"Could it be that this shipment was not just research materials?"
When she saw the Incubation Chamber Fragment in Ye Ze's hand, Ruan Xiaoyou's delicate brows drew tightly together, and her expression grew grave.
"It actually escaped!"
Ye Ze asked curiously, "What was originally being contained inside this?"
Ruan Xiaoyou replied, "It was an extremely vicious beast, but it could also be contracted as a summoned beast."
There were two ways to contract a summoned beast: One, by using a skill book. Two, by relying on one's own ability to form a contract with a wild creature.
There were not many beasts that could serve as summoned beasts. Ye Ze had not expected to encounter one today.
Ruan Xiaoyou then added a discouraging note.
"But because its ferocity is too extreme, there is not a single Summoner in the entire East China Region who can contract it."
"So Qingfeng City, which captured it, wanted to send it to East China Martial University in hopes of reducing some of its ferocity."
"Who would have thought it would end up here... and even escape."
There was no one in the entire East China Region who could contract it?
Ye Ze was instantly astonished. He had never heard of a summoned beast that was this difficult to contract.
Then by the same logic, if Qingfeng City was going to such lengths to contract that ferocious beast, its strength must certainly be extraordinary!
What a pity that it had already escaped...
Just as Ye Ze was thinking that, he suddenly sensed something. His expression changed, and he looked in a certain direction.
"Wait, it does not seem to have escaped yet!"
Just then, a notification had popped up before Ye Ze.
【A squirrel Shadow Clone you dispatched has been killed!】
The last two squirrel Shadow Clones had been killed as well!
That ferocious beast was nearby!