"Kah—" After a harrowing growl, another giant beast collapsed to the ground. This was Ruoyu's fifth kill but her face was still as calm as water as if the massacre did nothing to unsettle her inner serenity.
"Qie... this is endless..." Not far away, Soulie grumbled as she reloaded her weapon, "And they are not weak either..."
"Don't let your guard down, there are still many of them." Xiao Tan was still saying these things, it was hard to tell how he knew all these.
"hah... don't worry." When he heard that, Tired Dream answered with a smile, "I can still handle plenty of this."
"Same here." Greedy Wolf added, "Even though the battle tempo is a bit hurried, for now we still have the advantage."
Right at that moment, suddenly...
Bang—a strong vibration came from the corridor below them. This suddenly change caused the ground under the players' feet to crumble like cookies.
"Fuck!" Soulie cursed (it was not muted) as she turned around to grab Xiao Tan's shoulder with one hand. Xiao Tan naturally knew what she meant. Without saying anything, he too used one of his hands to hold Soulie. They were spreading dog food, but this was a tactical response. During the previous scenario, some readers probably would have noticed already that Laughing Soul had a very obvious weakness in game—she had difficulty dealing with fall damage. After all Soulie specialized in marksmanship and the kind who leaned towards heavy artillery. The weight of her weapon and ammo (those outside her inventory) was very high and she did not have any physical skill from the fighting mastery to support them so it was naturally that she would face this problem.
Of course, when she was given time to prepare, she still had a few tricks she could use to cushion a slight fall; but when facing a sudden high drop... she was pretty much powerless. During these moments... there were only two things she could do, one was to pray that the fall damage was not that high and two was to grab hold of Xiao Tan.
"You have to be kidding... We are inside a building, aren't we? How far can this hole fall..." Tired Dream who was falling had his expression darkened. Because when he lowered his head, he realized under his feet was an abyss that seemed to reach down into hell.
"is it possible that..." Greedy Wolf said worriedly. "...when we were fighting, some kind of monster has been busying destroying the structure of the building below us?" When the two spoke, they did not rest easy. They had both used their skill to adjust their posture in the air and used their ability to cushion the fall.
"Xiao Tan." Ruoyu soon said. She did not seem to do anything special but her falling speed was equal to the rest. "Is the bottom dangerous?"
As the six flash bangs fell around in a circle, the howling monster's real appearance was revealed. It was a giant monster about the size of 3 adult African elephants. Its body was like a flat crab that was shining in the dark; the front of its body had 4 v-shaped legs that were symmetrical. The end of the legs did not have fingers or toes, they looked more like hooves. Other than that, this monster had no 'head'. But on the top and bottom of the flat crab shell, there was each a giant maw...
"Kah—Kah—" When the light exploded, the monster roared again with both of its mouth...
By then, the players were around several 10 metres to the bottom of the abyss. Therefore... the monster's howl sounded more shrill and clear... there was also an indescribable stench in the air.
"What the fuck... this looks like a monster at a boss level no matter how you look at it..." When Tired Dream saw the real appearance of the strange creature, he grumbled. Tired Dream was an experienced gamer, so the monster did possess some kind of presence and ability for him to give such a comment.
"Ha ha.... Don't worry, it is nothing that powerful." Suddenly another voice said. His tone was light and sharp... causing one's hair to rise. At that moment, the five players landed onto the ground. Before they had the chance to worry about the loss of Life and Stamina Points from the fall, they needed to pull their focus again.
"So that is why..." After they steadied themselves, Xiao Tan released Soulie immediately and turned to the direction opposite from the giant beast. "The super dangerous thing... is you..."
"Ha ha...'dangerous' is it? I can say the same thing for you." The owner of the voice said as it walked out slowly from the dark. Several seconds later, he appeared in the players' sight. It was a humanoid creature, he had pure white skin and his cheekbones were higher than normal humans and each of his eyes contained two pupils. He was in a black robe with delicate mantle. Each of his movement suggested a calculative and collected composure.
"Let me introduce myself." After he came into the light, he said with his hands behind his back. "I am a proselytizer under the Demon King... Talim."
"Ka—Ka—" The giant monster did not care about their conversation. It was now a puppet under V1- War God's control and it had to abide by his order, therefore, when it sensed the targets were close by, it roared again and crawled towards them.
"Tsk, such noisiness..." Talim's eyes frosted over as he glanced at the beast. "The emptier the tin, the noisier they are..." Then he raised one of his arms and snapped his finger. The next second, the giant beast groaned weakly. Its four limbs were decapitated and its large body collapsed to the ground. Its mouths clamped shut and were unable to make any noise again.
[Jesus Christ...] Seeing this, Tired Dream cursed internally, [I should have not queued up for a team nightmare mode, what the hell is all these... any one of them could have killed me so easily!]
"I don't think we have met, have e?" Xiao Tan did not turn around to look at the giant beast, he kept his eyes on Talim as he slowly approached him. "So what do you mean by, 'I can say the same thing for you'?"
"Indeed, this is the first time we have met." Talim smiled. "But..." His four eyes went in unison towards Xiao Tan's left hand. "When you have entered the monster kingdom, I have already sensed your presence."
"The thing that you have sensed..." Xiao Tan said as he rolled up his left sleeve to expose the front of his left arm, "is this energy, right?" At that moment, Ruoyu, Soulie, Greedy Wolf, Tired Dream all responded directly.
They saw a bright red line on Xiao Tan's left arm. The blood vein started from the centre of his left palm and extended towards his pulse... when it reached the upper part of his arm, it spread out like vines and formed a complicated picture like a tattoo. At that moment, the front of Xiao Tan's left arm was covered in this kind of blood red pattern and the pattern was glowing redly...