Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 289: The Serpent Knight

Li Wei snapped his head up toward Liang Yuzhi on the rooftop. She was no longer the composed, effortless figure from before — she was down on one knee, gripping her Four-Star Enchanted Sapper Shovel with both hands, using it as a prop to keep herself from collapsing. Blood was seeping from all seven orifices. She was in a terrible state.

And yet she was still maintaining the Light Magic. That was probably the only thing she could do.

Because the Six-Star minus special boss had simply overwhelmed her.

Time seemed to freeze. Li Wei could feel it — a pair of eyes like an abyss, watching him from somewhere beyond the darkness, or perhaps gazing hungrily at the Pioneering Card bound to him.

In that moment, Li Wei felt as though he were being suffocated. He was locked down — unable to move, unable to even want to move.

Perhaps the only thing he could do was switch to the Flame Baron or Tracker title—

"HA!"

Li Yue's battle cry exploded like a thunderclap in spring, shattering the oppressive silence and breaking the suffocating lock on Li Wei's body.

He gasped for breath, drenched in cold sweat, his Stamina plummeting and his Spiritual Power dropping by 3 points.

He lunged toward the nearby Universal Gold Card to restore his condition.But almost simultaneously, a monstrous tentacle — terrifying in speed, moving like a python — shot toward the same card.

Li Wei felt a flash of despair. He could only watch as the serpentine limb swept toward him, powerless to stop it.

Zhao Xuanxuan bared her teeth and tried to charge forward, but speed was her weakness.

Annie the freelancer had no particular motivation to intervene.

At the critical moment, a fireball streaked in. No matter how many times the python-like tentacle twisted and dodged, it couldn't escape the lock — and was struck dead-on.

Boom.

The explosion lit up the sky. The tentacle recoiled — and it truly was a python, hissing and flicking its tongue as it retreated. Li Wei successfully dove to the Universal Gold Card, snatched it up, and used it to restore his condition. As a bonus, it upgraded his Rat Slayer title by half a level.

The specific effects: Life +75, strong immunity to Level 2 Blood Plague, radiation level reduced to 50 in just six hours — and even in an environment capable of causing Level 3 Blood Plague infection, he could safely endure for six hours.

Of course, this was all incidental. The performance was also to avoid tipping anyone off — to keep certain people from growing restless.

Because he was not the main character of this battle.

The real stars were Li Yue and Liang Yuzhi.

If Liang Yuzhi hadn't acted just now, he could have switched to the Flame Baron title in an instant and severed that python's head himself. But this fight required him to follow their rhythm, to dance alongside them — to prevent the aggro from spilling over.

None of this needed to be discussed. It was all unspoken understanding.

Sure enough, the next second, Liang Yuzhi on the rooftop let out a sharp cry — a syllable in some language Li Wei didn't recognize — and her Light Magic surged. The radiance exploded outward, overwhelming the darkness and once again projecting light across a five-hundred-meter radius.

Naturally, this exposed the true form of the special boss, which had pushed to within three hundred meters.

In the darkness, it had been mysterious, unsettling, terrifying, unknowable.

Now, with everything illuminated, that mystique was stripped away entirely.

Everyone saw it clearly for the first time.

No one had expected it to be a person.

A figure like a marble sculpture — roughly two meters tall, powerfully built, with pronounced musculature and bone structure, every muscle group sharply defined. Its entire body was snow-white. Even its eyes were white.

But stranger still: from its back grew five enormous pythons — the same tentacles from before.

Not tentacles. Actual pythons. Five of them, each a different color: flame-red, snow-white, pitch-black, deep green, and sky-blue.

The five serpents reared up one by one, each over fifty meters long — possibly longer — yet they grew from a single human back, creating an impression of extreme distortion and imbalance.

Then the pitch-black python opened its mouth and spat something out.

It hit the ground with a thud.

Li Wei and the others stared — and recoiled as if struck by lightning. Because the thing on the ground was none other than the severed head of Li Wei's beloved great-uncle, Li Guishan.

What?

Hadn't he exploited a bug to leave? Hadn't he slipped out before midnight? By that point he should have had four or five hours — more than enough to flee over a hundred kilometers. Why had the special boss intercepted him?

If Li Guishan had been killed, did that mean Scar Glenn's camp had been destroyed too?

No — unlikely. More probably, Li Guishan had been ambushed on the road.

The Commerce Department's leadership and strategists were either fools, or the information visible to them from headquarters was incomplete. Otherwise, how had they failed to identify this special boss as a curse-type?

Since the curse said "not one family member shall be missing," of course none would be missing. And Li Guishan was a Four-Star lord of a broken-down camp — now he'd just handed over his head for free.

"Wait — what the—"

At that moment, Li Wei felt a sudden weakness wash through his body, as if some of his strength had been drained away.

The next second, a line of text appeared silently.

[Family member Li Guishan has unfortunately encountered the Serpent Knight 30 kilometers from the family camp. He has fallen in battle and dropped three Profession Cards. The curse upon your family has deepened. All family players, including deployed freemen, will now be afflicted by the First Layer of the Blood Curse — all attributes -1. Only by slaying the Serpent Knight can this be lifted. Each time a core family member falls hereafter, the curse will intensify.]

—

So that was it.

In the brief moment of Li Wei's weakness, Liang Yuzhi's Light Magic was struck again. It didn't go out, but it dimmed by roughly seventy percent. The Serpent Knight seized the opportunity to retreat back into the darkness, compressing the illuminated zone to three hundred meters.

Almost simultaneously, Li Guishan's agonized voice tore through the air.

"Li Wei, you little wretch — why wasn't it you who died?!"

With that bizarre curse came a sharp pain in Li Wei's chest. His vision blurred, his mind went sluggish, and he stood frozen in place.

But before he could switch to the Tracker title to break free, a flash of sword-light cut through the air — Li Yue severed one of the great serpent heads, the blue one.

Unfortunately, it was not the life core.

At the same moment, a beam of light descended from above, scattering the nightmare-like state that had gripped Li Wei.

The Serpent Knight had vanished into the darkness again, keeping its distance — but now large numbers of mutant creatures were appearing on the north and east sides, seemingly driven by the boss to assault the walls.

Something was off about this situation.

Li Wei looked at Li Yue. Li Yue looked at Liang Yuzhi. Their eyes exchanged rapid calculations and a new strategy formed — no need to consult Li Wei. He was not the commander of this battle.

"All Four-Star professionals — prepare to sortie. Everyone else, hold the walls!"

Liang Yuzhi's voice rang out again. A small sphere of light appeared above Li Yue's head as she made her decision. Based on the exchanges so far, the Serpent Knight was a hybrid — curse-caster and physical ranged combatant.

It looked terrifying, but if it committed to a frontal assault, Liang Yuzhi was at least seventy percent confident she could kill it.

The problem was that it was too intelligent. It refused to approach the walls, refused to attack directly, and retreated the moment it sensed danger.

Conventional methods wouldn't work. They had to enter the darkness and fight it to the death.

Otherwise, this back-and-forth probing would drag on — and Liang Yuzhi was certain she would be worn down first.

Li Yue knew this clearly. Li Wei could roughly guess it too.

But Liang Yuzhi couldn't join the sortie. The moment she did, the Serpent Knight would refuse to engage under the influence of Light Magic — it would simply roam, driving mutant creatures against the walls, grinding them down through attrition while waiting for the perfect moment to strike. They would be exhausted to death.

Li Yue finally looked at Li Wei — a steady, wordless gaze — then gripped her blue greatsword and charged into the darkness.

Li Wei followed without hesitation. This moment required more than unspoken understanding — it required trust in each other, and the courage to face a powerful enemy.

On that count, both Li Yue and Liang Yuzhi were absolutely certain: Li Wei would not let them down.

Zhao Xuanxuan, however, charged in right behind Li Wei — which was perhaps a bit reckless.

Her gaze was equally resolute. It was the determination of someone willing to die for Li Wei.

Because without Li Wei, she was nothing. If Li Wei lost, her future was nothing too. But if she could shield him from even one critical blow at the right moment — her future could still be brilliant.

The name "gambler" was well-earned.

Annie the freelancer hesitated briefly, then followed. She didn't quite understand where Zhao Xuanxuan found that kind of courage — but it didn't seem to have anything to do with her.

From a distance, Zhao Guozhu and Old John — both Four-Star professionals — came sprinting over, showing no sign of holding back. There was no reason to. Fighting with full effort meant that as long as Liang Yuzhi survived, even if Li Wei died and they died after him, they'd only lose their lowest-tier Profession Cards. Nothing catastrophic.

But if they slacked off and coasted, given their respective positions, there would be consequences when they returned.

Thomas and Leon also wanted to charge forward — their thinking matched Zhao Xuanxuan's — but Liang Yuzhi stopped them immediately.

Because a fresh wave of mutant creatures was surging in from the north.

Two battlefronts had to be maintained simultaneously. There was no choice.

Honestly, at this moment, even Liang Yuzhi was feeling a creeping unease. She genuinely hadn't expected the special boss to be this difficult to deal with.

And now, as Li Yue, Li Wei, Zhao Xuanxuan, Annie, and the newly arrived Zhao Guozhu and Old John — six fighters in total — were swallowed by the darkness outside, the mutant creatures surged in from every direction like a tide once more.

The pressure mounted sharply.