Chapter 96:

Under the “BUG” tactic developed by Meow King, the “dangerous” constructs constantly pouring out from the second hall were being slaughtered in batches with the mighty assistance of Lord Murphy.

The coordination between the two sides was so seamless, that even the Witch Hunters idling in the rear thought this must have been a tactic prepared in advance by the cunning vampires. It had to be said that luring the strong enemies by letting the weak attract their attention and lead them near one’s own strong forces was indeed a simple but effective battle strategy.

Moreover, the players’ snake-like movements and occasional erratic actions also left quite an impression on this group of Witch Hunters.

However,

“They’re just ordinary guard constructs, why go to such great lengths?”

Among the Witch Hunters, the scout Amber adjusted her eye patch and said softly to the squad leader Natalie:

“It seems Lord Murphy’s warriors are not concealing their weakness, they really are just weak! Only slightly stronger than regular soldiers, although these guys have indeed grown much stronger compared to when we first met them.

Their growth rate is surprising.”

“However, you forget how we were defeated in an ambush by this group? I admit there was an element of luck involved and we were too careless back then.

But you have to acknowledge that when they’re desperate, they don’t hold back at all. That fearlessness towards death is their greatest advantage.”

Natalie shook her head and said:

“Stay vigilant, Amber! Insulting the enemy is insulting yourself, especially when they’ve defeated us before.”

“Alright, the monkey show is over!”

The old knight Finoch Lawson took the ornately engraved metal kite shield and emerald holy wood one-handed mace passed to him by a Witch Hunter, and said to his squad members:

“There’s a large unstable dark spirit flux up ahead, those maddened vampires are hiding beyond the second hall. Move forward, prepare to take over the battle! We can’t rely on these vampire underlings, I knew these kinds of troubles always have to be resolved by ourselves!”

The little players were unaware of what lay ahead.

While following the immensely powerful Lord Murphy forward, they also took the opportunity to scavenge some “loot” from those constructs, even managing to find a few “Unrepairable Gargoyle Cores”.

Identified as construct cores, these spirit items could be used to create new constructs – clearly a rare material that only drops in dungeons, making the players who obtained them overjoyed.

But they soon realized this was a raid dungeon!

Although there were no set distribution rules, it was obvious these spoils would have to be distributed collectively after the battle.

Before the fight began, everyone had agreed that for such large dungeon activities in the future, they would adopt the DKP system to distribute loot, which was the fairest and most reasonable method.

So the diligent and oldest Dump Truck Iaido, who everyone trusted, was nominated to keep track of the DKP records.

“How come we’ve only been fighting small fries and haven’t seen the BOSS yet?”

The confused Pigeon in the crowd asked while grasping his staff. As soon as he finished speaking, Lord Murphy, who had been leading the charge, suddenly stopped in his tracks and adopted a perplexed yet wary expression, saying:

“Something’s not right! I smell a terrifying dark aura...be careful!”

He shouted while also giving orders through voice imitation to Young Lady, who was on standby in the guard room above:

“Now! Drop it down!”

“To be honest, sometimes I really don’t understand what goes through Murphy’s mind.”

Young Lady murmured a complaint to Maxim and Adele beside her. Then the three of them nodded at each other and used their combined strength to hurl the core gargoyle construct bound by spirit energy down below.

“Woosh”

The faint spirit bindings burst open in mid-air, allowing the black gargoyle commander statue to break free.

Its gigantic stone wings emblazoned with bloody gems spread open, and its body twice the size of a regular construct smashed down onto the floor of the second hall in a ferocious, brutal posture, creating a resounding crash.

The beating of its massive wings stirred up howling dust clouds, forcing the players in front to raise their hands to shield their eyes.

Once the dust was dispersed by Murphy’s spirit blast, the chandeliers in the second hall lit up, allowing the players to see the BOSS that had appeared before them.

Entirely blackened, with a pair of horns on its head.

Though sharing the gargoyle appearance, its metal armor and the radiance surrounding its body clearly marked it as extraordinary. Most importantly, this guy was huge, ugly and ferocious enough to undoubtedly be the gate guardian BOSS of the Blood Vulture Halls dungeon.

“Ah! I’ve been severely injured, I must retreat immediately.”

Murphy clutched his chest and feebly cried out, then unfurled his massive blood wings and disappeared from the hall in a flash, leaving behind a group of bewildered players and the equally dumbfounded gargoyle leader that had been dropped in front of them.

The scene fell silent for a moment.

“Dammit! I knew it! Every BOSS fight has to have this kind of drama, these NPCs are such goddamn actors! Acting their asses off! You’re the leader NPC, how could you possibly get injured by some petty guard? You were a raging beast mowing down those small fries earlier, nothing like this supposed weakness!”

Meow King harshly criticized with a sneer.

But the other little players showed stable emotions.

Hey, it’s just the NPCs acting, what’s the big deal? Look at the super holy knights like Guangwei holding divine artifacts, wouldn’t they also get CC and pretend to slack off?

Our NPC is a cunning vampire, so it’s normal for him to tactically retreat when the situation looks unfavorable, right?

Even putting that aside, Lord Murphy didn’t say you’re invincible, did he?

“Shielders forward! Ranged to the rear, mages prepare, BOSS in 10 seconds!”

The overall commander Joy Stick shouted, and the players immediately perked up in spirit.

Just like when the old knight previously invited Murphy and others to open the door, the vampire made a polite “invitation” gesture in the dim light.

Old Finoch stepped forward and touched the luxurious wall, his natural spirit perception quickly allowing him to sense the hollow space behind it. But this wall was three to four meters thick, not something that could normally be broken through by human power alone.

However, such obstacles meant little before the golden-tier old knight.

“The power of nature, be my vanguard.”

He placed a metallic-lustered oak seed into a crevice in the wall, then stepped back and chanted a spell.

The seed quickly germinated and grew, its sharp vines piercing into the crack and steadily advancing inward. With a teeth-grinding cracking sound, merely ten-odd seconds later, the thick wall was brought crumbling down by the relentlessly growing ironwood tree.

A putrid stench wafted out from the ancient cavern before them. The old knight’s eyes narrowed beneath his barrel helm as he gripped his one-handed mace and shield, entering with Murphy following closely behind with sword in hand.

As the sound of trickling water echoed from the darkness, old Finoch suddenly twitched his nose, then said in a low voice:

“Seems I’ve accidentally dug us into quite a predicament.”

“Oh? How so?”

Murphy leaned on his sword and asked.

Old Finoch shrugged, pointing at the emerald green firelight now illuminating from the abnormally large cavern ahead, and drawled:

“Remember how I told you the spiral passage was occupied by an Astral Manticore before we came in? The one driven out by the flames is right up ahead now, and it seems to have recognized us.

Hmm, it’s really furious and ferocious, reminds me of the royal winged lions from the northern part of Greenleaf Island.

But these old bones of mine are suddenly feeling rather weary.

So Sir Murphy...

Please!”

“Shraaa!”

Having just put on an act for the little players, Murphy turned to find himself being performed at by this “true NPC”. Hearing the deep roars resounding from the cavern and the rapidly approaching ferocious aura, Murphy sighed and leveled his longsword.

Alas, it’s best not to cause too much trouble.

“Those who act will always be acted upon” is probably the reasoning here.

——

“Hurry! We should be into the execution phase now! Watch out for enraged low health!”

In the second hall, Joy Stick fired his gun while commanding his teammates over voice comms to pour on the damage output.

The large black gargoyle leader’s armor had been peeled away by the relentless attacks, its stony body now riddled with cracks.

To endure nearly five minutes under the concentrated fire of nearly 40 large-caliber hunting rifles showed just how ridiculously durable this thing was.

Under Joy Stick’s coordination, any boulders thrown by the gargoyle were agilely dodged by the surrounding players, their snake-like movements drawing great satisfaction from Young Lady observing on the second floor.

Young Lady watched intently for a full five minutes!

She had never realized how bored she could get, but now she vaguely understood why those human nobles always enjoyed watching gladiatorial battles.

This spectacle of the weak battling the strong was truly interesting.

Especially seeing the 60 players forming an ingenious cohesive unit under command, operating with mechanical smoothness to utterly batter the superior gargoyle that would have been unbeatable for them one-on-one, the whole process gave Femis deeper insight into Murphy’s otherworld warriors.

Their individual combat abilities were very poor.

But their grasp and understanding of teamwork was far beyond that of ordinary soldiers.

“Now there are 60 of them, if you had 600...”

Young Lady narrowed her eyes watching the little players “perform” below. She couldn’t help thinking, no wonder Murphy never recruited his blood servants from the survivor camps, he truly looked down on ordinary people. His warriors were indeed far superior to regular blood servants in every aspect.

More terrifyingly, these guys all obeyed Murphy’s commands!

This meant that once their numbers breached a certain threshold, the destructive power of Murphy’s organization would increase exponentially.

So this was the source of Murphy’s fearlessness?

As Femis pondered this, Khaki Tony Tai roared and swung his greataxe down on the battered arms of the gargoyle leader below, shattering the stone with a thunderous boom.

“Victory is decided!”

Young Lady stood up and casually tapped the control core beside her, following Murphy’s instructions.

Amid Joy Stick’s enraged roars, the final six gargoyles took flight from their pedestals, flapping their wings to join the fray like one last “surprise” trial for the victors.

“Maxim and Tris, even Adele, have all taken a liking to certain warriors.”

Young Lady murmured as she quietly took flight, leaving the guard room towards the deeper hallway:

“Perhaps I should also pick out some warriors for myself from among Murphy’s, following his wishes. If I plan to remain in Murphy’s new clan, then it may be time for me to learn their way of doing things.

I’ll have to carefully choose the warriors I favor.”