allendalepharm Chapter 65 Cats, Dogs, and Zeus
Chapter 65 Cats, Dogs, and Zeus
There is no way to avoid it; a fierce battle is inevitable.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh—"
Even though they were still some distance apart, Luo Lan launched the first attack, and several sharp whooshing sounds tore through the heavy air.
[Bone Spur Burst Shot Lv.2]!
The inverted bone spike, enchanted with pale holy light, was flung directly from his left hand, leaving several pale afterimages in mid-air before accurately piercing the approaching aggregate of evil thoughts.
Three white bone spikes pierced the dark red body of the evil thought aggregate, burning three fist-sized charred holes at the contact points. White smoke billowed out from the edges of the holes, and the pungent smell of burning instantly filled the battlefield.
Holy light does work.
But that's about it.
too big.
The evil thought slime aggregate is too large.
A few bone spurs, each as thick as a normal person's fist, embedded themselves in this mountain of flesh, which was over twenty meters in diameter, much like throwing a few pebbles into a lake. A drop in the ocean.
Moreover, the thin layer of holy light attached to the bone spurs didn't even penetrate halfway into the dark red mountain of flesh before being enveloped.
The holy light and the slime's flesh dissolved into each other, making a hissing sound. It lasted for less than three seconds before the white light was swallowed by the dark red. The bone spikes got stuck in it, becoming another undigested snack in the aggregate's belly.
[Tsk... like pricking an elephant with needles]
Luo Lan's attacks had little effect, and the attacks from the evil thought slime aggregate followed one after another.
Several skeleton priest heads that had not yet been fully digested were once again squeezed onto the surface of the slime.
The skull's eye sockets glowed brightly red, and multiple jawbones opened and closed simultaneously, unleashing a visible ring of sound waves towards Luo Lan's location:
"Pain, suffering, sorrow...feel the pain!"
[Painful Howl Lv.3] strikes again!
Faced with this kind of mental impact that could ignore physical armor and penetrate directly into the brain for the second time, Luo Lan didn't even have the thought of resisting it.
"Thump, thump, thump!"
Luo Lan's two hearts beat simultaneously. The Holy Light Heart pumped out a pale white light, while the Demon Heart squeezed out dark red energy. The two forces collided in his blood vessels, pumping out scalding blood far hotter than that of an ordinary person.
[Rage Lv.2] Instantly activated!
The bulging of his muscles in his berserk state caused Luo Lan's speed to increase dramatically.
With a powerful push from his feet, Luo Lan's combat boots shattered the stone ground, propelling him backward like a cannonball, forcefully extending the maximum lethal radius of the shrill sonic wave impact.
And in mid-air as he retreated, his chest bulged high, and he rapidly gathered momentum in his mouth.
"Buzz—"
The [Sonic Shock lv.2], enhanced by a berserk buff, burst forth from the gaps in the helmet's visor.
"Bang!"
Two invisible sound waves with completely different properties collided violently in mid-air, compressing the air into distorted ripples. After violently colliding with each other, they annihilated into a muffled explosion.
Luo Lan had just managed to deflect one attack when the Evil Slime Aggregate launched its next strike.
In the lingering echoes of the dissipating sound waves, the skull heads clinging to the surface of the evil slime opened and closed their jaws once more, and a series of extremely difficult ancient syllables reverberated out:
"Flesh returns to the mud... spirit falls into the abyss... soul is devoured..."
Just a second ago, Luo Lan, who was in a berserk state preparing to attack, suddenly felt a chill in his chest.
It's not a physical feeling of coldness, but a sense of "loss" that spreads outward from the center of the chest.
It felt as if something inside my body was being gnawed away bit by bit. With each bite, my limbs felt lighter and my vision darkened.
A glimmer of light appeared in his azure eyes as he gazed at the aggregate of evil thoughts slimes with [True Sight lv.1].
【Soul Absorption lv.3】—A skill that continuously “devours” souls.
The feeling of exhaustion, as if his soul was being "devoured" bit by bit, made Luo Lan's legs go weak, his hand holding the sword began to tremble, and his armor became several times heavier than usual.
"Ah Gou, interrupt it!"
His own condition was already extremely poor, but fortunately he had a skeleton dog by his side.
Unable to stand steadily, Luo Lan struggled to maintain her balance, reaching into the storage space of the cross pendant with her left hand and prying out a large, extremely unstable, bursting crystal, which she then flung out towards the open area to her left.
The skeleton hounds, which had been roaming the edge of the battle line, demonstrated extremely reliable mobility thanks to their [Precision Maneuvering] feat.
It pushed off the ground with its hind legs, stepping on a protruding piece of rubble, and leaped directly into the air, more than ten meters high.
The metal dog's jaws precisely caught the shattered crystal that was still in mid-air.
"Click."
The sharp canines applied just the right amount of bite force. The eerie blue necromantic flames flowing within the skeleton dog seeped in through the cracks, instantly activating the extremely unstable explosive.
Immediately afterwards, the dog turned its head and flung the large, bursting crystal towards the slime aggregate.
The crystal traced an arc and landed precisely inside the evil slime, right next to the priest's head as he chanted the incantation.
"Bang!"
A deafening thud erupted from within the evil slime.
The explosion tore open a cavity two meters in diameter from the inside, scattering dark red chunks of flesh everywhere. The remaining heads of several skeletal priests were also blasted into powder, and the chanting abruptly stopped.
The suction force of [Soul Absorption] instantly broke.
Luo Lan took a couple of deep breaths, pulled a potion bottle from her storage space, flicked the stopper with her thumb, and poured a standard life potion into her mouth.
The bitter taste went down my throat. I didn't know if the life potion could heal the damage to my soul, but I'd just have to drink it anyway.
Having lost the skull of the priest floating within its body, the evil slime aggregate also lost its bizarre mental attack methods.
But the mountain of flesh did not stop. It crawled closer, deciding to deal with its prey by physical means.
The surface of the evil slime bulged, and its humanoid upper body and blood bubble body pressed down together. Dozens of dark red tentacles emerged from all angles, some thick and some thin, with the thickest one being even stronger than Luo Lan's body.
The tentacle slammed down with a whooshing sound, and Luo Lan blocked it with his sword, splashing a cloud of sticky blood foam onto the surface of his heavy armor.
Pure physical crushing.
The tentacle slammed into the breastplate. Although it couldn't break through the defense of the [Holy Kingdom Standard Heavy Armor] for the time being, the force still made Luo Lan take two steps back.
Another tentacle lashed out from the side. Luo Lan dodged it, but almost slipped—the stone bricks beneath her feet had been soaked and made extremely slippery by the continuous rain of blood.
Throughout the battle, the corrupting blood rain never ceased for even a second.
As Luo Lan fought and retreated, the thin film of holy light covering his entire armor surface visibly darkened under the continuous washing of the corrupting blood rain, shifting from pale white to gray.
"boom!"
A muffled thud suddenly came from behind.
Luo Lan glanced back out of the corner of her eye.
Swan.
The black-haired, spiky-haired Shadow Assassin thief had fallen into a pile of rubble around a distant corner, unresponsive, his fate unknown.
There were still many things scattered on the ground: several broken potion bottles, several pieces of props that were mostly corroded, and burnt crystal residue—clearly, they had used up all the available trump cards.
The culprit behind all this—the smaller, split-off evil slime—after dealing with Swann, also moved towards Roland.
They surrounded each other from both the front and back.
Even Luo Lan began to feel cold sweat breaking out on her brow.
The monster in front of him, larger than a mountain, was already extremely difficult to deal with. If he were to be attacked from both ends by the smaller split monster behind him while his stamina was being rapidly depleted, he would be in a similar situation.
Forget about saving their lives, even getting a complete corpse might be a luxury.
[Is there any way...?]
Luo Lan gripped the sword hilt with both hands, rapidly analyzing the current predicament.
[Current Chaotic Essence: 300]
[Condensation] is Luo Lan's foundation, and he still has 300 points of Chaos Essence left. 300 points is enough for a moderate enhancement.
Even if he chooses to enhance one of his demonic organs by one level, or reinforces his heavy armor by another layer, how long can he hold out against the attack from both sides by two mountains of flesh?
Five minutes? Ten minutes?
Ultimately, they will be worn down and die in the damp, cold, and rotten third level of the Rift Ruins.
The only way to break the deadlock is through assembly.
What can it be assembled into?
I had no extra monster materials on me, and my backpack only contained potions and crystals. The passage was filled with nothing but rubble and blood rain.
Aside from the cats and dogs, and two approaching evil slimes, there were no other living creatures around.
[Wait a minute... any cat or dog!]
After two seconds of rapid thought, a bizarre and crazy idea immediately took shape in Luo Lan's mind.
Using Victor's expertise in psionic communication, Roland didn't waste even half a second explaining himself, instantly transmitting his insane plan to Victor.
Immediately, Luo Lan took a deep breath and let out a roar:
"Cats and dogs, stacked in excessive quantities—"
The two undead creatures abandoned all defensive postures and rushed towards Luo Lan at full speed.
During the sprint, their entire skeletal torsos began to disintegrate on their own without any reservations.
All the bone fragments swirled around Luo Lan, forming a high-speed rotating vortex of bone fragments.
"Assembled corpses... codename: Azeus!"