Chapter Ninety: Take It Away Quickly

From the butcher’s cleavers and the Northern Star Wolfblade alone, one could see the enormous gulf in wealth between a Level 3 modulator and a Level 1 one. At the very least, Yanluo’s Coiled Dragon Staff and Mandarin Duck Blades were a far cry from weapons like these.

Porky Rong, besides his pair of blades, had a length of grim black chain wrapped around his waist, with a hooked claw hanging from its end.

As the three cloned Huang Jiangs and the three Martian hounds battered each other into mutual ruin, Du Rong and Liu Xin harvested the heads of the enemy minions. The fallen minions dissolved and vanished, and the nutrients transmitted into the crystal core were converted into points. At that moment, the two men exchanged a glance.

“Kill!”

This was not a real MOBA game, where skills remained locked until you leveled up. What Level 3 modulator lacked offensive means? Du Rong crouched low, and the fat man, weighing over two hundred jin, sprang straight toward the Martian mole. His two seventy-six-jin butcher’s cleavers came crashing down from above.

Leap slash!

A combination of a high leap and an overpowering cleave, enough to split a fat pig clean in three. Yet when those finely forged butcher’s cleavers struck the Martian mole’s body, sparks flew in all directions.

Clearly, the mole was a tank. In truth, its earthy-yellow skin was covered with a layer of stone armor. Of course, such armor did not mean invincibility. Stone was still stone, not diamond. The rock-hardened skin cracked open, and the blades bit into flesh.

“Gurgle, gurgle...”

The Martian mole let out a cry that might have been pain or might not. Its upright, pillar-like body jolted and twisted, and in an instant it rebounded the pair of butcher’s cleavers, a combined force of over one hundred and fifty jin, while the shock tore through Du Rong’s palms and split both of his tiger’s mouths open, blood flowing out.

“Crack!”

Liu Xin stomped hard on the ground, and a wave of biting cold spread across the surface. In an instant, a layer of white frost covered the Martian mole.

He had unlocked the “ice” element and developed a control skill of his own: Frost Seal.

“Aaaah!”

Fat Du Rong raised both butcher’s cleavers high overhead, the heavy flesh on his face twisting into a hideous snarl, like the butcher with twin blades from the second stage of a brutal arcade brawler. The massive cleavers turned into a storm of rage, slashing down wildly. The crisscrossing flashes of steel immediately carved line after line of wounds across the mole’s stone shell.

“Finisher: Frenzied Slaughter!”

The Martian mole’s health bar plummeted. In this polluted zone, Martian creatures, cloned soldiers, and wild monsters all had health bars above their heads, and of course the modulators did as well—life source.

Frenzied Slaughter was Du Rong’s self-created ultimate technique, the “meat-chopping blade art.” Under dozens, even hundreds, of ferocious wild hacks, even the Martian mole with its stone-shell skin had already lost a full third of its life. Beside him, Liu Xin naturally would not stand idle.

He drew a deep breath, his chest swelling high, then blew forward, sending a ribbon of flame streaming from his mouth.

Flame Breath!

This fire-element psychic technique, a sustained stream of searing flame, was nowhere near as formidable as Yanluo’s Breath of Nightmare, yet the scorching blaze still dealt damage surpassing Frenzied Slaughter. In a very short time, the alien creature was reduced to a sliver of health.

“First blood is mine!”

Du Rong channeled the inner force he had trained himself to cultivate into the blade, and the two butcher’s cleavers swept through the void, issuing a dull rumble of wind and thunder.

“Die!!!”

And yet that slash struck nothing but empty air.

The Martian mole had actually burrowed into the ground.

“It’s trying to run!”

Seeing the wounded enemy flee straight underground and emerge more than ten meters away, now already within the range of the defensive tower, Du Rong flung aside his butcher’s cleavers and seized the chain hook at his waist. The meat was right at his mouth; how could he let it escape?

Bloody Hook!

As a butcher who had broken through human limits, Du Rong had taken a great interest in the Bloody Meat Hook move from DOTA. He had spent a considerable price to get a weapon of almost identical design—and at the same time had trained himself to throw with perfect accuracy.

“Clatter, clatter...”

Along with the scrape of metal rings, the hook drew out a dark streak of black light and shot more than ten meters through the air, accurately catching the Martian mole. The creature was a cylinder with nowhere to hook from below, so Du Rong had actually snagged it in the wound he had just opened earlier.

“Come here!”

With enhanced strength, plus the power of two tigers and one chicken, all his might exploded at once. The fat on the man’s arms tightened into muscle as he forcibly dragged the Martian creature, which must have weighed at least a thousand pounds, out from the defensive tower’s range.

“Do it!” he roared.

“Right!”

Liu Xin, who bore the title of Savage Slaughter, had excitement and bloodlust blazing in his eyes. Gripping the Northern Star Wolfblade, he triggered the special effect of the magical weapon. At once, stars lit up across the surface of the ice-soul-forged longsword, glittering with dazzling blue-white brilliance.

Just as the chef was about to unleash his Secret Art: Chef’s Crystal Slash, he suddenly heard a sharp “clip-clop-clop” of rapidly approaching hoofbeats.

“What?”

Under Du Rong and Liu Xin’s astonished gazes, a majestic, high-stepping warhorse burst out from the residential district at the side, charging straight at the Martian mole hooked by the chain with a wild, domineering momentum. At the same time, the rider above it brought his blade down in a single slash.

“Hum...”

Metal cut through the air with a trembling hum, followed by the ringing clang of steel against stone. As a silver blade flash bloomed, countless fragments of flesh and blood exploded into the sky. With one strike, Yanluo had used Netherworld Shatter, the most destructive move besides his finisher in the Staff Technique of the Ten Directions, and the wounded mole burst apart.

“Kill-steal?”

Liu Xin’s fury surged upward, and Du Rong, who had been holding the mole with the chain hook, was so angry his nose almost crooked and his eyes nearly bulged out. After going through so much trouble, after unleashing several ultimate moves and seeing the kill right before their eyes, someone had snatched it away from them.

“Looking for death...”

You feel a strong emotion:

Displeasure +1

Anger +1

But in an instant, the emotion changes again:

Stunned +1

Shocked +1

The two men then realized that mounted on that horse was a young man of towering build, with a face as red as polished cinnabar and a long, flowing beard.

He was far too recognizable.

“Lord Guan?”

In the books, Guan Yu was described as nine feet tall, with a beard two feet long. This young man had the title of Level 1 Zombie Hunter above his head. Could it be Yanluo... but how had he turned into Guan Yu? Could this be spirit possession? Yet spirit possession should only borrow a likeness and descend upon the body, not alter one’s outward appearance.

“I am Yanluo.”

Now his speech was finally smooth.

After the initial surprise passed, anger once again surged in both men’s hearts. One must understand that butchers and cooks were hardly saintly, kindhearted souls. Someone had actually stolen their monster! Snatching the boss kill, even if nothing dropped, was not something they could simply swallow.

“Sorry. I saw fighting in the bottom lane, so I came over to help.”

Yanluo-as-Guan Yu looked at the two men whose fury was burning brightly, still calm and unhurried, as though none of it mattered. Of course, his face was red now, masking any expression.

“A simple sorry is enough?”

Liu Xin’s face was full of ferocity and cruelty.

“Well then...” Yanluo was silent for a few seconds, then suggested, “How about I use this piece of equipment as an apology?”

Smack.

Yanluo-as-Guan Yu tossed a piece of armor onto the scar-faced young man’s head.

“Take it off! Take it off, now!”

You feel a strong emotion:

Panic +3