novelraw Chapter 165-1: The Ten Monster Slaughter Formation (1)
Chapter 165-1: The Ten Monster Slaughter Formation (1)
[Under the starlight, the endless mists continued to fill your vision. In the distance, towering shadows loomed, and through the fog you could vaguely see nearly ten colossal behemoths encircling an even more enormous silhouette that blotted out the sky.]
[It was precisely the Veiled Aberration Overlord you were so familiar with!]
[A fierce battle had taken place here. The ground was covered with severed tentacles and wide patches of fetid blood. Off to the side of the encirclement lay the slumped corpses of two behemoths…]
[Before you had trailed over and approached, apart from the heavy footsteps of the behemoths, you had heard no other sounds.]
[You judged that after an intense clash, more and more behemoths were somehow drawn here one after another, rushing over to join the fight. The slaughter that had once been one-sided had become a deadlocked standoff.]
[With the new arrival of the behemoth you had been tracking, this delicate balance seemed on the verge of breaking…]
[The encircled Veiled Aberration Overlord began to let out a sky-shaking roar. The nearly ten behemoths surrounding it also shifted restlessly, bellowing in chorus…]
[None of them paid any heed to your tiny figure, or perhaps they sensed your presence but were simply too occupied to bother with you.]
It turned out that the reason Lin Xun had been running all over the map and encountering behemoths much less frequently was because nearly all of them had gathered here.
“Gathered together like this suits me just fine. Saves me quite a bit of effort.”[Faced with a battle that could break out at any moment, what will you do?]
[1. Help the Knowledge-Seeking Veiled Aberration and contribute your strength to bring down that once-unapproachable powerful entity. Once the strongest overlord dies, you will become the overlord of Sophia City yourself.]
[2. Help the Veiled Aberration Overlord. These behemoths were shamelessly ganging up on the strong with their Three Dogs Slaughtering the Firewood Formation. There is no honor in this. The strong have their dignity, and you are urgently needed to defend that dignity for the behemoth overlord.]
[3. Aid neither side and reap the spoils like a fisherman. Let them fight to the death, and then step forward to reap the harvest. Of course, while they’re fighting, you’ll first go rummage through the behemoth corpses. That has always been your style.]
Lin Xun’s eyes lit up, and he decisively chose the third option.
[While both sides were too busy to care about you, you and the Battle Angel – Valkyrie stealthily crept up beside the battlefield, surrounded on all sides by the roaring behemoths…]
[You walked up to the corpse of one of the behemoths, towering like a small mountain.]
[You looked at the mountainous body before you…]
[Knowledge-Seeking Veiled Aberration – …it had perished in the fierce slaughter of fratricidal strife. Compatibility 46% (+45%)]
[You spotted a tiny, glimmering object upon the massive corpse…]
[Do you want to climb onto the behemoth’s corpse to retrieve the item?]
Was there even any need to think about this? He decisively clicked ‘Yes.’
[Using both hands and feet, you began climbing up the behemoth’s corpse…]
[Climbing…]
He waited for quite a while, but no follow-up text appeared.
Lin Xun refrained from having the Valkyrie pick him up and fly to retrieve the item.
Right now, the two sides hadn’t started fighting, and the corpse was right beside the encirclement. It was best to just play it safe and stay unnoticeable for now.
If he started flying around, he’d inevitably draw the attention of both factions of behemoths, and the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
[You finally managed to climb atop the behemoth’s corpse and picked up the glimmering item, stowing it away in your bag…]
[You have obtained Crystalline Core of the Veiled Aberration (Rare+ Grade Item)]
[Having secured your loot, you cautiously climbed back down the behemoth’s corpse and moved on toward the next behemoth corpse…]
Lin Xun repeated the process, stuffing another rare+ grade divine item into his pack.
His inventory already held two intact divine items, and now he had scavenged two more damaged ones.
All he had to do was wait for the behemoths to slaughter each other, and he could keep picking up the spoils.
[You have obtained your loot and cautiously climbed down the behemoth’s corpse again…]
[You looked around at the colossal shadows locked in their standoff within the mist. They kept roaring, seemingly ready to attack at any moment, yet still refrained from striking.]
[In the encirclement, the Veiled Aberration Overlord aside from occasionally emitting earth-shaking roars, made no move to launch an assault either.]
[Perhaps a single newly-arrived behemoth wasn’t enough to tip the balance of victory.]
“So it’s going to stay stuck like this?”
Lin Xun frowned, silently waiting.
He had followed one behemoth here after it was drawn in. If he just waited longer, perhaps more behemoths would join the fray.
However…
He waited a full half an hour, during which only lines of text about the two sides roaring provocatively appeared.
No new behemoths came to join the battle at all.
“Don’t tell me… every behemoth in Sophia City is already here?”
“Is it possible… there were still a few behemoths on their way, but I mercilessly slaughtered them before they could arrive…?”
Back when Lin Xun encountered those few behemoths, he had left the carriage door wide open and activated the eyeball chest.
Even when the behemoths were hurrying along under that inexplicable summoning, they would still stop to fight him first, trying to seize fresh eyeballs.
This had prevented Lin Xun from realizing that the behemoths were on their way to this very battlefield.
“Looks like… it really is possible that every behemoth in Sophia City has gathered here…”
He felt momentarily awkward.
The two factions of behemoths stubbornly refused to start fighting, and with no fresh arrivals, this stalemate could drag on indefinitely.
His plan to profit as the fisherman… was stymied.
Lin Xun had no choice but to proceed with Plan B.
“If the behemoths won’t start fighting, then I’ll be the spark to set it off.”
[You raised your staff, and a pure white Knowledge Barrier erupted from the ground, enveloping you in its protective glow!]
[You lifted your staff high, chanting an incantation under your breath…]
[…]
[Beside you, the Battle Angel – Valkyrie drew an arrow and nocked it to her bowstring, slowly closing her dark-golden eyes…]
[The loosed arrow turned into a meteor streaking through the darkness, shooting straight at the encircled giant shadow!]
[Endless starlight burst forth, and in an instant, a surging tide of starlight engulfed the Veiled Aberration Overlord!]
[A piercing shriek that stabbed at your eardrums erupted from the mists. The Veiled Aberration Overlord seemed to have suffered some injuries…]
[You sensed countless pairs of monstrous eyes fixing upon you from all directions…]
Lin Xun’s heart clenched.