Chapter 386: Act 143 – Erosion (Part 2)
Unease often accompanies restlessness.
After the Howling Fog changed its attack method twice and found it unable to shake off Brendel— that human seemed to know its thoughts, always appearing in its path whenever it wanted to attack that treant spirit— it finally couldn’t hold itself back and lunged straight at Quinelle on the rock bridge, its large maw filled with sharp white teeth.
This was the twentieth second.
Naturally, Brendel wouldn’t let this opportunity slip by; he raised the Earth Sword and clashed it against the Howling Fog’s fangs with two sharp sounds, producing a jarring metallic noise.
The tremendous force pushed Brendel back repeatedly, with a sensation in his hands as if they were about to snap off and fly away from his body. He even saw the Earth Sword nearly bend at a right angle as it clashed against the great dog’s sharp teeth.
Damn, is this strength for real?
Brendel frowned deeply; if not for the Earth’s Sword being so stable, he would have likely already been killed. But things didn’t get any better, as the Howling Fog grew impatient. It leaped back slightly and then pounced directly toward Brendel.
It realized that if it didn’t take care of this human first, it wouldn’t be able to attack Quinelle.
Once the Howling Fog shifted its target, Brendel felt that his good days were over. With a level difference exceeding twenty levels, he couldn’t even see this monster’s exact movements. He only instinctively raised his right hand to block and immediately felt a sharp pain in his body, causing him to fly through the air.
The fire shield surrounding Brendel shattered suddenly, and the defense provided by the resilient trees was pierced in an instant. Fortunately, the crimson blessing was an illusion-level equipment; otherwise, he would likely have met the same fate as his first pair of protective gloves.
In any case, Brendel was slapped away nearly twenty meters, landing directly in a pile of black wolves, even coming to rest beside a black wolf lord.
He was dazed, but fortunately remembered he was still on the battlefield, quickly shaking his head to prop himself up. However, just as he managed to sit up, squinting to look around—his vision tinted dark red from the blood trickling down his forehead—he saw a black wolf lord the size of a carriage staring back at him.
No way!
In his confused state, Brendel at least didn’t get scared to death by those blood-red eyes.
The black wolf seemed to be startled by this ‘outsider’ as well. However, this ferocious beast was clearly quicker to react than the dazed Brendel; it only paused for a moment—then without hesitation, it lunged at Brendel’s shoulder.
With a crunch.
“Lord!”
Xi screamed in terror from a distance—she had just finished off a pack of black wolves and their lord when she turned back to see Brendel being knocked away, facing a deathly wolf kiss.
In that moment, she felt as if the sky was falling and nearly fainted.
But Brendel clearly wasn’t that easy to kill; the red-haired girl soon saw that although the black wolf was almost swallowing half of Brendel’s body— a bloodied arm shot up between the jaws of the black wolf lord, gripping its skull.
“Good dogs don’t block the road, you know?”
Brendel’s voice came from within the wolf’s mouth as he twisted that hand with force.
With a crisp sound of bone cracking.
The black wolf lord was casually twisted, its spine snapped, and it toppled down awkwardly, exposing the blood-soaked Brendel sitting on the ground.
Brendel squinted with one eye, his left eye and face streaming blood. The young lord’s surface remained calm, but getting bitten on half his shoulder by the black wolf had nearly brought him to the brink of death.
Brendel truly thought he was incredibly unlucky, not expecting to land right beside a black wolf lord.
However, his life had already dropped below the limit when he was sent flying by the Howling Fog. At that moment, his Unyielding talent had activated, saving his life. As for the attack from the black wolf lord—it was just extra pain.
Other than that, it had no effect.
But Brendel didn’t have time to lament how unfortunate his circumstances were. He immediately raised his head to look in the direction of the Howling Fog. Through a blood-tinted vision, he saw the Howling Fog retreating—
In fact, the moment Brendel was sent flying, Quinelle had already readied to shoot.
Twenty-fifth second.
Quinelle aimed for a moment and released the bowstring, two arrows shot forth. But even with his battle-hardened experience, the treant spirit leader hesitated, unsure if these two arrows would be effective.
The male wolf’s reaction was simply too fast.
In an instant, the two arrows sliced through the mist like two straight green lines, directly targeting the Howling Fog’s forehead. At this moment, the male wolf had just sent Brendel flying and was preparing to raise its head to deal with that treant on the rock bridge.
What it saw were two beams of green light.
Hit!
Quinelle thought to himself.
The Arrow of Life struck the male wolf’s brow, but the color of the treant spirit leader changed dramatically as he realized the male wolf once again turned to mist, allowing the two Arrows of Life to pass right through its body and embed themselves into the ground at its feet.
The feathers continued to flutter faintly.
The attack was ineffective?
Quinelle could hardly believe it. After all, he was using the Arrow of Life, a sacred object blessed by the Forest Goddess Nia, which was said to be a nemesis to all monsters. Logically, it should be able to dispel all elemental powers wielded by monsters—
But how could this male wolf avoid it so easily?
Quinelle didn’t understand, but that didn’t mean Brendel wasn’t aware. In fact, at this moment, the Howling Fog wasn’t in as good a shape as imagined. It had used a defensive skill to evade that lethal arrow.
Brendel recalled that the skill was called Mist World Projection; when the Howling Fog used it, its body was effectively absent from this world, making it immune to all physical and magical attacks.
Even Sacred Words and Rule Magic could not affect it.
But unfortunately, it could only be used once a day.
And in the game, once the male wolf used this skill, it would be forced into a frenzied state, which Brendel clearly remembered, and he was waiting for this moment.
Indeed, after a brief pause, the Howling Fog suddenly lit up with striking blood-red patterns. This was a surge of magic power, a trick every high-level monster could perform, similar to a berserker’s frenzy, but with virtually no drawbacks other than a massive consumption of internal magic.
This was the killing move of monsters, and they would not use it unless truly pushed to the brink.
Once the magic power erupted.
The monster’s strength was effectively elevated by about 10%, which is roughly five levels. Now the Howling Fog was approaching the level of element transformation at nearly level 70.
At this moment, not just Brendel, even Xi in the distance felt the terrifying power suddenly unleashed.
And Quinelle, who was directly in front of the Howling Fog, turned pale.
Then he saw the Howling Fog open its mouth, a faint red light appearing deep in the beast’s throat. The treant spirit leader instinctively wanted to dodge but realized—everywhere he looked, the white mist surrounded him, weighing down on him like a mountain, rendering him immobile.
Then a beam of red light struck Quinelle’s chest.
The longbow in the treant’s hand fell to the ground, and he let out a terrible scream.
Mist Curse, Life Erosion—
This was a single-target spell, but its terrifying power had made any player participating in the wolf disaster mission for the first time tremble. It reappeared before Brendel’s eyes.
Life Erosion could be considered one of the most terrifying spells in the early game. Yes, it was a spell, not a skill. It’s a form of witchcraft, and the first of such instant-death spells, its effect being to evaporate all liquid within a body.
For most living beings, this meant heading straight for the door to death.
“Hey!” Yet at this moment, Brendel couldn’t help but smile smugly; this was the moment he’d been waiting for. He raised his left hand, revealing a blue card—Energy Loss.
“Sense—”
“Life Erosion, Thunder Ring, Life Protection Spell within sensing range.”
Brendel was momentarily taken aback; the Thunder Ring was obviously Xi’s skill, but this Life Protection seemed to be Quinelle’s spell. However, the creature hit by the Mist Curse couldn’t move or cast spells, so it seemed the spell was likely provided by equipment he wore.
To be able to resist under the influence of a seventh-ring spell like the Mist Curse, it seemed that the treant spirit leader’s equipment was also excellent. It was entirely normal for Brendel not to have heard of the bizarre spells provided by equipment, so he didn’t pay it any mind.
But he quickly placed the card in hand down, responding, “Target spell, Life Erosion.”
“Seized.” The green light net on his retina shifted.
At this point, the Howling Fog let out an incredibly shocked roar, for it realized it couldn’t control its own spell.
And Brendel pointed from a distance, the red light spewing from the Howling Fog’s mouth suddenly turned a corner in mid-air—at that moment, nearly everyone on the battlefield witnessed this scene, seeing the long red beam spiral through the air before striking the Howling Fog itself.
A shrill, chilling scream.
The spell activated first, as patches of red mist erupted from the male wolf; the giant wolf shuddered under immense pain, then collapsed with a thud.
In an instant, the red mist swirling around it spread out to a radius of several tens of feet.
“Hold your breath!” Brendel covered his bleeding eyes with one hand and immediately shouted. He knew that it was the evaporated blood—definitely something you couldn’t touch.
And as the Howling Fog collapsed, the spell was interrupted as the caster lost consciousness, but the disruption of the spell didn’t mean the disaster was over, as the forced interruption caused a backlash of magic power that immediately took over the now tattered corpse.
With a loud crash, the downed male wolf exploded from within, turning into a pile of white, mushy flesh. Even so, the flowing magic power continued to swirl through the shattered innards, with various explosions lasting for several seconds before coming to an end.
It was only when he saw this tragic scene that Brendel truly felt relieved. The young lord, covered in blood, sat on the ground and let out a long breath but soon found his gaze fixated again.
Brendel stared dumbfounded at the pile of flesh representing the Howling Fog, gazing at the black spindle-shaped stone, unable to help but inhale sharply.
“No way, the Heart of Calamity Echis?”
……(To be continued. For more chapters, please log in to support the author and read the official version!)
