Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Fall of Yu Xiao

The system’s warning sounded again, and only then did Li Ren realize that there were merely ten minutes left before the siege ended.

But just after discovering the hidden aura’s effect of killing players, he was in no mood to leave this place that felt almost bugged in how quickly it let him slaughter enemies.

As for the players surrounding him, the shock they had first felt had gradually turned into numbness. Some had even begun recording everything continuously with the game’s built-in functions.

Li Ren could not care less. Seeing the situation now, he figured he might as well kill as many as he could.

After all, the aura affected all humanoid targets, which meant not only players but also humanoid monsters had their attributes reduced by five percent within its radius. In high-level zones, humanoid monsters were hardly rare.

What was more, this thing clearly could be upgraded. If it did and ended up reducing the attributes of all units, then he would truly be set for life.

So, ignoring everything else, Li Ren continued his ruthless slaughter, alternating between Rain of Dust and the Poisonous Burst Fist. Players fell in wave after wave, and the stockpile in the Ashen Ring steadily grew.

“Emergency mission. All attacking forces nearest the lord’s manor are hereby ordered: siege the city as the first and highest priority. Destroy the Yu Xiao Crystal in the lord’s manor. Failure will result in immediate annihilation.”

Sure enough, the system was not going to let Li Ren keep farming mindlessly like this. It forcibly issued an emergency mission, and the failure condition had actually become outright eradication. It seemed Li Ren’s large-scale farming spree had really found a loophole.

Fortunately, the lord’s manor was right in front of him, and aside from players there were no other guards nearby. Li Ren decisively gave up the teleportation array, that perfect piece of real estate, activated Flashstep, and charged straight toward the manor, naturally not forgetting to take the lives of any players who blocked his path.

Inside the lord’s manor, the location of the Yu Xiao Crystal was clearly marked in Li Ren’s sight. There was no way for players to reach that place; they simply did not have the authority, nor would they know where the crystal was.

With the convenience of the mission prompt, Li Ren naturally wrecked his way forward all the way. The Yu Xiao Crystal was actually in an inner chamber of the manor. Facing what looked like a thick wall, Li Ren said nothing and raised his purple-gold fist, smashing it straight into the surface. To the astonishment of the players behind him, the wall, which seemed incomparably sturdy, was blasted open with a hole large enough for a person to pass through.

This was only natural, because his punch had struck exactly the hidden door. A door and a wall were not the same in hardness.

Leaving his underlings outside to hold the line and, as a bonus, slaughter every player who dared trail after him, he went in alone.

The chamber was indeed tiny. Aside from a huge crystal, there was nothing else inside. The crystal itself was blazing with dazzling light, making it obvious that the powerful aura buff available to players in Yu Xiao City was inseparable from the crystal before his eyes.

Li Ren did not hesitate. He swung his sword straight at the crystal. With a sharp crack, a fine dust splintered off, and at once every player in Yu Xiao City heard a system announcement in their ears:

The Yu Xiao Crystal is under attack by a monster. If the crystal is protected from destruction for ten minutes, all players will receive a five-level reward. Any player who kills the monster will randomly receive one dark gold item.

The moment the announcement came, the players erupted.

The target of their mission had completely changed. Aside from those still entangled by monsters on the front line and unable to withdraw, every other player began gathering without exception toward the lord’s manor in Yu Xiao City.

At the same time, Li Ren naturally received a similar system notice. Right after delivering that first blow, he knew he had made a big deal of it.

So he summoned thirty of his underlings back to him at once. They packed tightly around the massive crystal, and after ordering them to keep hacking at the crystal no matter what happened, he stepped out of the little chamber.

Since the players were now rushing over like madmen to kill him, if he did not show himself, he would feel a little sorry for these fellows who had come all this way to deliver experience and equipment to him.

The seventy underlings stationed outside were recalled by Li Ren and deployed throughout the lord’s manor. The lord’s hall was the place where ordinary players would go only when turning in certain important quests. As the center of a city, it was naturally enormous. In that vast space, with the skeleton underlings no longer blocking the way, players soon surged in from the entrance.

Li Ren was standing at the very back of the lord’s hall, watching the flood of players pour in. Some of the bolder fools had already begun firing attack skills at him while still running.

Even if they could not kill this fellow, as long as they held him here for ten minutes, they would receive a reward of five levels across the board. How easy was it to gain five levels all at once?

Watching this mob of lunatics coming to throw away their lives, Li Ren smiled too. He had originally felt it would be a pity that, in these ten minutes, he no longer had that supreme farming ground of the teleportation array. But looking at the current situation, this place was at least not much worse than the array, and if handled properly, it might even be stronger.

Thus, the Poisonous Burst Fist thundered out, purple ripples sweeping across the entire hall in an instant. The players in the rear had not even understood what had happened in front of them before the system informed them that they were already dead.

The players outside, of course, did not know what was happening inside. Like passengers entering through a teleportation array, they kept pouring through the gate, only to be divided and slaughtered by the seventy skeleton underlings at a strangely curved angle.

That angle had been chosen with exquisite precision, ensuring that every player entering would be unable to truly see what lay ahead before the players in front of them died. And once they did finally see the scene before them, the pressure from those behind them would leave them no choice but to die under the skeleton underlings’ ferocious attacks.

Li Ren was very satisfied with the results.

Seeing that no one could truly break through the underlings’ obstruction, he felt secure enough to return once more to the vicinity of the crystal and continue wreaking havoc.

It had to be said that the crystal’s hardness was astonishingly high. Under the frenzied assault of thirty underlings, after five whole minutes it had only lost about thirty percent of its durability.

If Li Ren had not come, it really would have been somewhat difficult to destroy the thing within the remaining time.

But once Li Ren joined in, with Five-Star Charge stacking up together with the attack-speed bonus from the Frenzied Mask, the power was truly overwhelming.

At last, with only one minute remaining, the crystal’s durability fell to zero.

With a thunderous crash, it turned into a heap of shattered dust.

The system’s lovely voice sounded in everyone’s ears.