Chapter 54: Peerless!
After browsing through the map for a while, Lin Zheng decided that the gloomy forest past the Blazing Prairie would be a suitable spot. The monsters there were all of the undead type, which meant a nice experience bonus when using the Demonic Martial Artist title! Yang Qi had been leveling up right here previously; otherwise, she probably would have needed a bit more time to reach her second tier advancement!
Having chosen his leveling area, Lin Zheng didn't hesitate and sprinted over without stopping. Crossing the Blazing Prairie, he could soon see a stretch of gloomy woods in the distance. The trees in this forest had been corrupted by a dead aura, making them appear completely lifeless. Even parts of the grassland at the edge of the woods were affected, losing their fiery red color as they swayed in the wind, giving off a somewhat eerie vibe!
As Lin Zheng approached the gloomy forest, a chilling gust of wind blew by, sending a cold shriction down the back of his neck and making him shiver involuntarily!
"Damn it! Is it really necessary to make the atmosphere this spooky?" Lin Zheng grumbled in frustration about the map's environment. Just then, a monster from the gloomy forest appeared before him—a swaying skeleton, holding a blade in one hand and a shield in the other, wandering aimlessly through the woods. Lin Zheng immediately put on his mask and checked the skeleton's stats:
Stray Ancient Soldier: Level 55, Physical Attack 1850-2440, Physical Defense 750, Magical Defense 680, HP 16500. Skill—Charge. The skeletal remains of ancient soldiers buried beneath the gloomy forest, resurrected by the erosion of undead power. These restless souls with incomplete memories are filled with confusion about the future and harbor deep hatred for all living beings!
A Level 55 monster's attack power was certainly no joke, having already reached 2,440 points. However, given Lin Zheng's defense, although such attacks would consume a fair bit of health, they weren't fatal! Switching his title to Demonic Martial Artist, Lin Zheng began to hunt.
Against melee-type monsters, ranged attacks were a great option. Lin Zheng drew his dagger and loosed an arrow straight at the Stray Ancient Soldier. "Thwack!" A damage figure of -1780 popped up above the Stray Ancient Soldier's head. The instant it was hit, a bloodthirsty red light ignited within the skeleton's eye sockets. With a "Whoosh," leaving a trail of afterimages, it charged straight at Lin Zheng. Caught off guard, Lin Zheng took the impact head-on, and a -1663 damage number flashed above his head. To make matters worse, the stun effect of the charge triggered as well. Lin Zheng was left frozen in place, treated like a target by the Stray Ancient Soldier, which hacked at him twice, each blow chipping away over 1,500 HP. By the time the three-second stun wore off, Lin Zheng had lost sixty percent of his health!
Crying out that this was deadly, Lin Zheng immediately launched a counterattack. A low kick and a stomp shaved over 7,000 HP off the Stray Ancient Soldier. Splitting the Crescent Moon into dual daggers, he slashed twice in rapid succession, though this earned him another slash from the monster, costing him another 1,400-plus HP. Killing a regular monster and yet taking four hits in the process left Lin Zheng quite depressed! He leaped backward, reassembled the Crescent Moon into its bow form, and began to kite the enemy. After firing four consecutive arrows, he finally whittled the Stray Ancient Soldier down to a pile of shattered bones.
Though difficult to kill, the monster's experience yield was genuinely generous. After dispatching a single Stray Ancient Soldier, Lin Zheng noticed his experience bar had jumped by 0.1%, which immediately brought a smile to his face. It seemed choosing this place as a grinding spot was indeed the right decision! He set off to find more Stray Ancient Soldiers to hunt. This time, however, Lin Zheng had wised up. Every time he fired a single arrow to draw a monster's agro, he immediately moved backward in a Z-pattern. The chance of dodging the Charge skill this way was as high as 99%. Free from the threat of being stunned, hunting the Stray Ancient Soldiers cost him far less health, and his efficiency improved significantly. He could eliminate a Stray Ancient Soldier in roughly ten seconds. After an hour, Lin Zheng's experience had risen by about 32%, a growth rate that was quite delightful! Checking the time, it was already 2:30. Since he wouldn't hit level 50 anytime soon anyway, Lin Zheng decided to log off and go to sleep, continuing his leveling journey after waking up tomorrow!
Early the next morning, at just 8:00, Lin Zheng was already awake. After spending about half an hour washing his face, brushing his teeth, and eating, he logged back into the game and began a new day of the leveling grind! The moment he logged in, however, Lin Zheng heard a crisp, fierce shout, startling him. Aside from himself and Yang Qi, someone actually dared to越级 (challenge monsters of a higher tier) tackle second-tier monsters, and judging by the voice, it was even a woman! Could it be Chongchong, the number two player on the heavenly ranking list? The thought crossed Lin Zheng's mind, and driven by intense curiosity, he followed the sound to investigate.
Cutting through a patch of bushes, Lin Zheng finally caught sight of the female player daring to grind in this gloomy forest, but the moment he laid eyes on her, he froze in astonishment! This person was definitely not Chongchong, the second-ranked player on the heavenly list! Because Chongchong was a swordsman clad in metal armor! Yet the person before Lin Zheng was wearing a fiery red, sexy set of leather armor! What stunned Lin Zheng even more was that this female player, who should logically have been an archer, was currently engaging a Stray Ancient Soldier in close combat with a rapier! This was even more unorthodox than Lin Zheng using daggers as a brawler-type swordsman! More importantly, this dashing, spirited female leather-clad swordsman was someone Lin Zheng knew. Perhaps everyone had already guessed it—yes, this high-swordsmanship female archer was none other than Rose Knight Xiao Mo!
When Lin Zheng appeared, Xiao Mo had just begun dealing with a Stray Ancient Soldier. He saw Xiao Mo slice cleanly across the Stray Ancient Soldier's ribs, dealing over 600 damage. The exact moment the skeleton's eyes turned red and it prepared to unleash its Charge skill, Xiao Mo thrust her rapier with lightning speed, piercing straight through the monster's breastbone and forcibly interrupting its Charge skill! This slash and thrust were as smooth as flowing water, completed in an instant with absolute perfection, leaving Lin Zheng in a daze of admiration!
After withdrawing her sword, Xiao Mo immediately stepped back, effortlessly dodging a slash from the Stray Ancient Soldier. Then, stepping forward, her rapier instantly stabbed outward, erupting into a flurry of sword images that left Lin Zheng utterly dumbfounded! Those overlapping sword shadows enveloped the Stray Ancient Soldier, and in a fraction of a second, dense clusters of damage numbers popped up over the monster's head. Although each hit dealt only around 600 damage, in the blink of an eye, more than half of the Stray Ancient Soldier's health bar had vanished!!
Lin Zheng wore a look as if he had seen a ghost. This chick Xiao Mo was far beyond just ordinarily strong! The blindingly fast flurry of instant thrusts actually reached 14 hits! Fourteen hits! Who among ordinary people could pull that off?! No wonder she was hailed as the world's top master of Western fencing! At that frequency of attacks, very few players in this game could match her under equal-level conditions. Fourteen consecutive hits in a single instant meant absolute instant death against anyone with comparable gear! Only someone as physically tough as Yang Qi could possibly survive Xiao Mo's consecutive stabs!
Watching further, Lin Zheng saw that right after her flurry of stabs, Xiao Mo performed a light, graceful hop like a mystical fox, sliding to the side of the Stray Ancient Soldier and successfully dodging another attack. Just when Lin Zheng thought she was about to unleash another flurry of stabs, she instead delivered a precise thrust with her sword, throwing the Stray Ancient Soldier off balance. In that exact instant, Xiao Mo assumed a very dashing pose with her left hand on her hip and her right hand swinging her rapier, unleashing another whirlwind of crisscrossing slashes. This time, those slashes directly hacked the off-balance Stray Ancient Soldier into a pile of shattered bones! Lin Zheng's jaw dropped, with only a single thought echoing in his mind: "This girl... is insanely overpowered!"