Free Web NovelChapter 469: Snake! I Hate Snakes!
That afternoon, the student party who had already entered the position, along with the new players dependent on them, launched an exploratory attack on the “mini dungeon” at the end of the Western front with “high spirits.”
Thanks to the ridiculous yet useful mortars that had been distributed to every small guild, their probing attack’s firepower was not weak this time.
The first dozen high-explosive fragmentation shells whistled as they crashed into the undead horde. Although the explosive power wasn’t particularly impressive due to manufacturing limitations, the scattered hot fragments were enough to cause the chaos they wanted.
Subsequently, under the leadership of the iron-headed monks, nearly 100 players formed into a skirmish line and organized several small squads to charge forward in grand fashion.
As a mini dungeon outside the team dungeon, the development team didn’t even bother writing specific background stories for this place, only vaguely describing it as ancient undead awakened through malicious methods by Gnoll sorcerers.
However, among them were some who had shone brightly in past eras.
Tsk tsk, just this description was quite “ambiguous.”
They might as well have clearly labeled “Hidden Quest” for players to see.
Add to that the fact that some lucky folks had already obtained clues through contact with controlled Corpse Mages and Netherworld Knights, and many people knew that Governor Murphy was “keeping” a Corpse Mage and Netherworld Knight “couple” beneath the Blood Vulture Halls, what was this?
Wasn’t this just a “preview plot” for the next version?
So in today’s exploration, the individual players ignored those numerous skeleton soldiers, almost everyone bravely targeting those few Netherworld Knights riding on horses directly.
But such attacks without strategy obviously couldn’t achieve much effect. However, Teacher Li, who was in charge of today’s battle, wasn’t planning to bite off more than they could chew anyway.
This was just a probing attack!
On one hand to see the monster strength and AI level in this dungeon, on the other hand to let the increasingly numerous new players experience what dungeon exploration feels like.
In Reality Realm’s setting, dungeon exploration and dungeon runs are two completely different concepts.
The monsters in those trial dungeons preserved through dungeon snapshots are true NPCs with fixed patterns, and players naturally know how to beat them after a few wipes. However, real “dungeons” don’t have such “user-friendly designs.”
Veteran players had long summarized the dungeon patterns in this crazy game – that is, you need to be ten or even nine-tenths alert after entering the dungeon, because anything could happen here.
For example, Three Jin Sweet Potato Wine’s five-person squad was advancing under Old Qin’s command, when “Two Big Cucumbers” who served as the attacker got carried away, pulled out hand grenades and threw them continuously forward, planning to blast open a path.
But under everyone’s dumbfounded gaze, the Netherworld Knight up ahead swung his battle halberd like playing baseball, and whoosh whoosh whoosh in three strikes sent the grenades Big Cucumber Brother threw flying back along their original path.
Watching those smoking things rolling on the ground, Old Qin had a jolt and cursed, kicking Sweet Potato Wine who was carrying the tube several meters away, while he himself agilely flipped and knocked down One Can of Tomato Sauce who was aiming with his gun on the other side.
The bombs then exploded, and the unlucky “Two Big Cucumbers” and their squad’s firepower man “Four Liang Fermented Tofu” were caught in it. The two guys couldn’t even make an “ack” sound before ascending to heaven on the spot.
And at this time, it hadn’t even been 24 hours since they respawned from their last team wipe. Speaking of which, when Old Qin led them in defensive combat earlier, these two guys seemed to have also been taken out instantly by Corpse Mage Baldwin’s flame strike.
Damn!
We’re all art students who didn’t fail the entrance exam, how come your luck is so bad to this extent?
“Retreat retreat retreat!”
Old Qin, who was covered in mud and dust after being affected by the explosion blast, crawled up while picking up his teammates’ dropped Computation Beads and dog tags along with their equipment, shouting to those around him:
“Can’t fight! Can’t fight at all! The power difference between both sides is too big, can’t win in a frontal charge, let’s wait until Goldflower’s fire support arrives before trying again. The situation’s tough, retreat!”
Old Qin had quite some prestige among this batch of newcomers. His heroic deed of leading 10 recruits to intercept a thousand-man unit had already become a famous tale on the forums, causing many newcomers to respectfully call him “Master Qin.”
Of course this wasn’t just a very social way of addressing him.
Mainly because Old Qin himself said his real age was 10 years older than Professor Chen, making him undeniably elderly, so it wasn’t Old Qin deliberately taking advantage when young people called him “Master.”
Now that Old Qin gave the word, the new players who were already being suppressed head-on by the undead army immediately scattered.
Each one greased their feet and ran away howling like startled rabbits, so fast that even the Netherworld Knights and their skeleton armies who were ready to face off against the reportedly “fearless” Transians hadn’t quite reacted.
It was as if in just an instant, these guys had vanished without a trace!
When they tried to pursue, they were blasted head over heels by a volley from a row of tubes set up in the back, so they didn’t dare to continue charging out randomly anymore.
The battlefield that was so lively just now returned to an eerie calm, with only the Shadow Trail Sect monks taking advantage of the chaos to “capture” a Netherworld Knight back. The Eight Demon Elite Group was now studying how to “tame” this powerful undead.
Meanwhile the Netherworld Knight’s handsome armored skeleton warhorse had already been auctioned off as “spoils of war” in the trenches dug by the newcomers.
It must be said, while the new map from the “Shadow of the Swamp” event was terrible, with an environment making everyone complain bitterly, enemies that were numerous, high quality and respawned without rules which was deadly, these cool ground mounts introduced in this version were still very popular among players.
Compared to living warhorses, although skeleton horses couldn’t interact and only understood the simplest commands, their advantage was not needing food preparation or finding stables everywhere for storage. What’s more awesome was these things were tireless!
Before the death spirit energy within them was depleted, they could keep running and ignore various terrain obstacles.
For players who feared trouble and didn’t want to grind reputation or raise a real horse, skeleton horses were almost the best mounts they could find now.
The only pity was that to get one of these, you either had to grind Blood Claw Clan reputation, or only had a small chance of drops after killing Netherworld Knights and Corpse Mages.
In the past month or so, less than 20 skeleton horses had been produced across all three battle lines, truly rare among the rare. However, it was said that last night’s bombardment took out many Corpse Mages and Netherworld Knights, and now many quick-thinking newbies had ideas.
They planned to take a turn around the swamp battle lines after finishing the exploration of the “Land of Rotting Corpses,” maybe they could find rare elites like “Masterless Skeleton Warhorse.”
Hehe, then ownership would have to be decided in adventurer style!
Naturally whoever finds it gets to keep it, everyone relying on their own abilities so there’s nothing to argue about.
While the front line position was conducting probing attacks, the student party who served as important combat forces on the Western front didn’t participate. Instead, they had already secretly slipped past the edge of Plague Town under cover of night, and were now using their advantage of being able to fly to rapidly advance towards the area east of the position.
That was the only direction out of Plague Town’s four that wasn’t heavily defended, and also the destination for the student party’s risky behind-enemy-lines reconnaissance tonight.
At this time Electronic Snail, who had the strongest sense of direction in the student party, was holding a map to check. He led the way in front while flying and saying:
“I specially went to ask in Morland Village, and several old witch hunters there gave me detailed descriptions of the local Transian horrors they heard about from their instructors when training on Greenleaf Island.
The swamp giant snake Ningkinanka!
This legendary beast definitely exists for real. According to those witch hunters’ accounts, they live in this eastern swamp area.
The letters found on the Gnoll undead messenger that Little Rich Brother killed in the sewers beneath Crimson Citadel also proved this point. These Gnoll sorcerers have camped here for several years just to enter the swamp giant snake’s territory to search for the so-called King Gnawbone’s hidden treasures.
I estimate they must be fighting against the swamp giant snakes while opposing us, so if we can take advantage of this point, we might be able to destroy Plague Town in one fell swoop.
Without even needing to fire a single shot.”
“You’re thinking too optimistically.”
Cheche waved his staff to add a concealment spell to everyone, saying:
“If those swamp giant snakes were really that powerful, then these guys should have been wiped out when the Gnoll sorcerers provoked them, but aren’t they living quite comfortably in the swamp? The two sides are very likely evenly matched.
By the way, Miaomiao Shark, you’re a hunter, do you know what these legendary beasts represent?”
“Damn! The strongest beast I’ve seen so far is just Little Rich Brother’s manticore.”
Miaomiao Shark carrying a heavy crossbow complained bitterly:
“And that manticore was just a giant beast elite template, still a tier below the legendary beast leader template. We hunters can’t even tame giant beasts, let alone legendary beasts.
But we can be sure that this natural creature classification system created by the elf druids definitely makes sense, it’s definitely not randomly ranked, so I estimate these legendary beasts must have super strong destructive power.
And Ningkinanka is said to live in groups.
That makes it even more terrifying.
I also think this backup plan of ours would definitely be promising if successful, but the problem is how do we get these legendary beasts to Plague Town.
With our fragile little bodies now, we’d probably be finished just from them glaring at us from afar.”
“Kite them,”
Ah Yuen was quite optimistic.
He kept surveying the terrain and distance between Plague Town and the swamp forbidden zone from high in the air, then stroked his chin saying:
“Take a relay-style guidance approach, stake out our current vampire members, I think we should be able to lead it to Plague Town before we all die. Now the only thing that needs to be confirmed is whether this beast is really powerful enough?
Can it help us break through Plague Town’s defenses with its power alone?
Wait!
Did you guys hear something?”
“Over there!”
Miaomiao Shark with the strongest perception immediately folded his wings and speed-descended towards the area with low growls and strange vibrations in the distance. The other vampire players followed closely behind. As they passed through the strange layers of green smoke hovering above this swamp forbidden zone and approached the ground, they saw the scene they wanted to see.
A large group of Gnoll sorcerers were commanding vast numbers of undead to attack a legendary monster from within some strange building ruins.
That Ningkinanka kept roaring and launching earthquake attacks under the protection of the swamp mud water, crushing large numbers of surrounding undead ruthlessly each time. Its special “ugly-cute yet majestic” appearance and jewel-like skin also made the inexperienced little vampire players exclaim “holy crap.”
“So this is what legendary creatures in this world look like? Damn that appearance is really impressive! Look at its face, it has some similarities to our Eastern dragons, with whiskers like a fish, eyes like a horse, cloudy mane and single horn, so handsome!”
Ah Yuen stared at its 30-meter tower-like neck and exclaimed:
“And this guy is so huge! If thrown into the kaiju universe it could probably have a 1v1 solo with the handsome guy from Skull Island right?”
“If you’re joking, I think that’s funny, if you’re serious, I’ll tell you that the adult height of Skull Island’s handsome guy is 120 meters, he’s undoubtedly a ‘true god of apes.'”
Cheche beside him snorted, emphasizing in the characteristic nitpicking tone of a kaiju enthusiast and spirit mage:
“This swamp monster isn’t worth mentioning in front of the handsome guy, at most it could only bully Storm Tiger and Hell Bull a bit, but considering this thing lives in groups, if its whole family came in a wave, then the handsome guy would probably have to run away.”
“Damn! Is this the time for you guys to chat about this? Is this the time for you to play virtual beast fighting chess? Hurry up and record video!”
Pigeon reached out and knocked on both Ah Yuen and Cheche’s heads, telling them to quickly get to work.
However, after seeing the true appearance of this legendary Ningkinanka with their own eyes, the little vampire players’ doubts from earlier had completely vanished.
Look at its super destructive power!
Just looking at the huge earthquake spell triggered with each of its strikes shows that as long as they could lure it out of this forbidden zone, mere Plague Town would be nothing. This is what a legendary creature’s standard looks like, even their normal attacks have AOE splash damage effects!
But soon, Miaomiao Shark discovered a problem.
He frowned and said:
“Why do I feel like these Gnolls are exploiting a bug?”
“Huh?”
Everyone else looked at him with gazes of caring for an idiot, but Miaomiao Shark furrowed his brows tightly, pointing in midair at the strange ruins’ terrain ahead, then drawing an invisible line before him, saying:
“Look! Every time those Netherworld Knights and Corpse Mages can’t hold on, they quickly retreat behind that line under the Gnolls’ command, and Ningkinanka doesn’t chase after them. Even if it occasionally charges out it quickly returns inside that line.
It’s like a weird ‘combat reset line’!
Just crossing it lets you exit combat state with Ningkinanka. Damn! I know what these Gnolls are doing! These bastards are using this feature to ‘bleed’ this giant snake! Physically bleeding it!
Look!
There are Gnolls going up with containers to refine the giant snake blood spilled in the mud water. They seem to be using this blood as ritual medium to cast curses on the giant snake too. The giant snake’s movement speed seems slower than before.
Are these bastards trying to slowly wear this stupid giant snake to death this way?
Why can’t it cross that line?”
Miaomiao Shark couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he thought.
The other players also stared at each other with big eyes, but just as they couldn’t come up with an answer, suddenly a relaxed and unrestrained voice sounded behind them, saying with a hint of mockery:
“Of course it’s because that’s the boundary drawn by the Creator, just like constraining legendary creatures from entering the mortal world to wreak havoc. Although the Creator’s mighty power has dissipated after thousands of years, ancient inheritance makes this foolish yet loyal giant snake still not dare to cross this line.
It knows that once they cross it they will suffer punishment.
Hmm, the above is my guess, but I think I shouldn’t be wrong.”
“Whoosh”
The student party’s weapons all pointed towards the back in unison.
They saw a guy dressed like a Western cowboy putting a hood on himself while showing off his “new clothes,” saying:
“This set of clothes I took from the Creator’s wardrobe looks quite good, right?
Don’t know if I’m wearing it correctly though, since there wasn’t a guide there. Tch, claiming to be the deity who created the world, but ended up no different from us mortals, equally pursuing pleasure and luxury and unique lifestyles.
How can such a Creator deserve the respect of those who struggle to survive in this erroneous era?”
“Who are you!”
Ah Yuen looked at this mysteriously spawned “NPC” before him, his heart ringing alarm bells, he shouted:
“Why are you appearing here? Reveal your identity!”
“Hmm, your language is quite interesting, translating it through Computation Beads into Transian language tsk tsk, if it were in the past, I would definitely have spent some time to learn about your unique culture from you.”
The explorer pulled his hood, completely disregarding the weapons the vampires pointed at him.
In the instant they launched their attack, the strange metal staff he gripped tightly in his hand once again burst with flowing light, like a halo enveloping all the surrounding vampires within it, then in the next instant throwing them all into the Astral Realm.
The explorer didn’t care about the question he just answered.
Although that was a very important answer, dead men tell no tales, unless these weak Black Iron vampires could survive in the dangerous Astral Realm until they were rescued, but how could that be possible?
The explorer let out a mocking laugh, summoned his magic carpet and took one last look at the Gnolls still fighting with Ningkinanka, he shook his head and turned to leave.
It was time to make the final handover with Flesh Render.
That pathetic old thing still thought he could safely return to the Dark Mountains with King Gnawbone’s remains.
Such foolish Gnolls, Lord Source had already made arrangements near the Barren Mountains, the power they could utilize from a Golden Rank corpse would be too great in their hands.
Hmph, curse this erroneous era!
After the Dusk fire burns, all the filth imposed on this world by the foolish Creator will be purified! Everything will return to orthodoxy, and at that time, the ancient Original Sin will be washed away, and the true era of serenity and prosperity will come.
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“Damn! I’ve been sent to the Astral Realm again, that bastard must be someone important, now listen to me, use your spirit energy to protect yourself. Trust me! This isn’t Cheche’s first time being sent to the Astral Realm.
I have plenty of getting lost experience!”
At this time in the chaotic and bizarre Astral Realm, the vampire players who had been banished here were learning how to survive in the Astral Realm under Cheche’s guidance, but before they could even complete the first step, a terrifying shadow silently descended upon these guys’ heads through the tear in the light purple nebula.
Cheche had a chill run down his spine, turned his head to look and cursed loudly:
“Damn! It’s you again you bastard snake! Weren’t you the one who ate me last time? Motherf**ker you got addicted to it right? Following me here? Watch me give you an electric cannon!”
“Cheche you’re f**king crazy, run quickly! This is obviously not something we can handle, damn, how can this snake’s head alone be as big as a castle! F**k, my gigantophobia is acting up.”
