Chapter 80: Purple Gold, Oh Purple Gold

Blink! With each flash, another player fell to the ground without dispute, slain in an instant. Li Ren’s relentless Crescent Slash never ceased, serving as a deadly weapon against clusters of enemies—no one could withstand even a moment beneath the razor brilliance of its arc! One hand to kill, the other to loot; it was a rather satisfying feeling.

Though the equipment that dropped was hardly remarkable, it was at least immediately usable and much needed by players at this stage. Such items were in high demand for the exchange quests in Falling Cloud City. Adhering to the principle of mobile warfare—one shot, one shift—Li Ren blinked to a new location every twenty-five seconds, barely restraining his urge to turn these players into blood essence as well.

For now, he intended to keep his most core, heaven-defying skill a secret from this crowd. He certainly had his reasons.

The defensive line of Violet Falling Cloud Pavilion, which Li Ren had just broken through, had returned to a tense calm. Gentle Water stomped her foot in frustration, while Azure Moon tightened the equipment on her body. Only Falling Cloud herself caught a glimpse of the golden flash when Li Ren donned the Gale Mask.

“Isn’t that… the president’s mask?” Doubt flickered in Falling Moon’s heart, but she said nothing. “Perhaps it was just my imagination, that glint of gold could be a trick of the light.” Yet, even to her, such an excuse felt thin.

Facing someone as powerful and elusive as Li Ren, who could teleport at will, Falling Moon would never foolishly abandon their formation to pursue him—that was the behavior of an utter fool. Seeing that he had already left, she ordered her team to maintain their defense and await further developments in the system task. She was certain that the monster siege would not continue indefinitely.

Once he’d left their territory, Li Ren finally breathed easy. At last, he could act freely without fear that anyone would marshal a force large enough to threaten him—not here, since the other two guild bases were nowhere nearby.

That, at least, was welcome news.

Summoning his minions, Li Ren unleashed a ferocious spree of slaughter and looting, leaving chaos in his wake. Now that the pressure had eased, his thoughts drifted to the orb of violet-gold blood essence and the basin-sized, violet-gold fist he’d recently acquired.

To possess such a means to increase his power and not use it would be wasteful indeed.

This blood essence was clearly of far higher quality than the usual pale, luminous kind he’d absorbed in the past—after all, it was the distilled core of a lord-level boss. In essence, he had consumed the Skeleton King; the boost would surely be immense.

The violet-gold blood essence slid down his throat. After successive battles and consuming countless essences, he had reached level seventy-five. Yet, upon swallowing this essence, his experience surged by more than two full levels in an instant!

Given the original owner was a level one hundred fifty Voodoo Lord, the experience it provided was immense compared to his current strength. Even if the system had wished to withhold the bonus, it would have been impossible. That boss’s death had, after all, granted every player in Yuxiao City a level-up reward—it was clear how vast the experience must be.

The benefits didn’t stop at experience. All his attributes increased by one point—meaning this single essence had bestowed him with over a thousand points in total. The base stats of a lord-level boss truly were monstrously high, and Li Ren had reaped the windfall.

Even more gratifying, after absorbing the essence, the system notified him he’d gained an assignable skill point. It had been ages since he’d last seen one of these. There was only one skill he could upgrade this way: Blink!

An unrivaled skill for both offense and defense, and the ultimate means of escape.

Without hesitation, he assigned the point to Blink, raising it from level four—previously a sixty-meter, terrain-ignoring teleport with a twenty-five second cooldown—to level five: a hundred-meter, terrain-ignoring teleport with a fifteen second cooldown!

It was truly a blessing in his hour of need, a stroke of luck upon good fortune. His confidence in the quest soared, though he knew well the challenge would not come merely from the player-filled city. If it did, it would mean there was some serious flaw in the system—or that he himself was the system’s favored child, which was patently absurd.

Having already gained so much from the blood essence, he reckoned the violet-gold bone that appeared alongside it could not be entirely useless.

Amid his minions’ desperate efforts, he fished the bone from his Ashes Ring.

The skeletal structure of a humanoid fist, speckled with violet-gold points of light like a star-studded night, exuding a mysterious, profound power.

“How on earth am I supposed to use this?” Li Ren turned the object over in his hands, studying it from every angle to no avail. The system offered no hints. “Don’t tell me I’m supposed to just throw it like a rock? That would be totally ridiculous!”

He continued examining the strange, violet-gold bone, puzzled not only by its color but also by the fact that it alone remained intact after the Voodoo Lord’s entire body had been transformed. It defied explanation.

“Wait—maybe it’s supposed to be used like this?” Li Ren scratched his head, finding his own idea almost too absurd to believe.

“Screw it, time is short, I’ll just try it!” Determined, he recalled how, in his early days of unrelenting misfortune, he’d become intimately familiar with his own skeleton—when one’s bones fell out so often that you could hardly walk a stretch without having to reassemble yourself, you either learned fast or had your intelligence called into question.

With a crunch, Li Ren’s left hand detached, leaving a pale, bare-boned arm. Gripping the basin-sized, violet-gold fist in his right hand, he lined it up and pressed it against the stump.

Clack!

The violet-gold fist snapped perfectly into place. To his astonishment, despite being several times larger than his own head, the fist flexed with natural dexterity, as if it were his original hand.

Though the spindly little arm behind it looked utterly alien, that was the least of his concerns. No sooner had he affixed the fist than the system’s notification finally arrived—albeit belatedly!