In the lush forest, the Silverback Gorilla, built like a hulking musclebound ape, charged forward on all fours in a frenzy, pursuing a partially obscured figure glimpsed through gaps in the leaves ahead.
The pursued man ran very fast, far surpassing most humans' speed through a forest. But the creature chasing him was, after all, an animal that lived in the woods, and an especially powerful member of its troop at that. As he fled, the Silverback rapidly closed the distance. It would probably catch him within ten seconds.
Yet the fleeing man, Wang Zhifan, was not the least bit panicked. He even deliberately began slowing down, dashing toward a relatively open area in the forest where the trees were sparse.
About four seconds later, just as he ran through that open stretch, he abruptly raised his leading foot and planted it against a tree trunk. Using the recoil, he came to a quick stop and turned around. At the same time, he raised his left hand, aiming the Fine Tier pistol at the enraged Silverback that had just rushed into the clearing, and shouted the signal he had agreed on with his two teammates.
"Fire!"
At Wang Zhifan's shout, in this forest area more than three hundred meters from the Silverback troop's territory, in this woodland clearing deliberately chosen by the three players, three attacks shot out from two directions almost simultaneously, flying toward the Silverback that had charged into the open!
The first attack to hit the Silverback was naturally the bullet fired from Wang Zhifan's gun, since he was closest to it. After two consecutive days of intense practice at the shooting range, Wang Zhifan's marksmanship had reached a steady beginner level. Against a target as huge as the Silverback, charging directly at him, hitting it was not difficult. Landing a shot in a vital spot such as its eye or heart, however, still depended on luck.
Bang!!! The Fine Tier bullet fired from the Fine Tier pistol instantly struck the Silverback in the chest, blasting a bloody hole nearly as large as an adult's fist into its muscular torso and spraying blood everywhere. The bullet's powerful impact brought the Silverback's forward charge to an abrupt halt! Bang bang bang bang bang! Almost at the same time, several bullets flew in rapid succession from bushes roughly fifteen meters away in another direction. Every one of them struck the Silverback Gorilla's head, knocking its small-vat-sized skull slightly to one side and splattering droplets of blood.
Immediately afterward, a snow-white ice arrow flew from those bushes. It swiftly struck the already wounded Silverback Gorilla, leaving a patch of white at the point of impact and causing faint white vapor to rise from its entire body, like the mist given off by something frozen as it thawed beneath the sun.
The three players' first coordinated volley had all hit their mark. But could an Lv4 Silverback Gorilla really be taken down that easily? The answer was no! For some reason, Wang Zhifan had stopped firing and was merely using the long blade in his right hand to rapidly chop at nearby branches. The gunner in the bushes had emptied his revolver, while the mage was still preparing his next ice arrow. Then the heavily wounded Silverback, still steaming with white vapor, suddenly threw back its head and roared. It explosively pushed off with its hind legs, braced its forelimbs against the ground, and launched its massive, powerful body high into the air, pouncing toward Wang Zhifan several meters ahead!
"An Lv4 monster really does have a lot of health."
Wang Zhifan was not panicked in the slightest. In fact, he had been waiting for the gorilla to attack. The buffs he had stacked by slashing leaves with his blade were all preparation for this moment.
As for why he had not kept shooting, one reason was that he wanted to test the power of a single bullet. The other was that he did not have many bullets left, so there was no need to waste them here.
As the Silverback Gorilla leaped high and pounced at him, Wang Zhifan first dodged sideways with extreme speed, avoiding its crushing mountain-like drop. Then the Fine Tier pistol in his left hand instantly vanished, returning to his personal storage space, and his left hand gripped the hilt of the Blade of the Wolf Fiend.
"Tiger!"
A savage aura belonging to an apex predator suddenly surged from Wang Zhifan's body. He had activated the Tiger Fiend skill attached to the Tiger-Pattern True Mark.
"Die!"
With all his preparations complete, the true attack erupted. This time, Wang Zhifan charged without hesitation behind the Silverback Gorilla, which had just landed and was about to turn around. Then he swung the Blade of the Wolf Fiend with all his strength at the Silverback Gorilla's neck! In an instant, the blade flashed. As a column of blood thicker than a human waist shot skyward, a gorilla head the size of a small vat separated from its body and unwillingly fell onto the forest floor beside it, layered with rotting leaves.
"Sure enough, I can one-shot it."
Only then did Wang Zhifan finally shift his gaze away from the dead Silverback's thick arms. He had been prepared to dodge immediately if the strike failed, and the creature's arm attacks were what he would have needed to avoid most carefully in that situation.
But the Silverback Gorilla was now just a headless corpse. Under Wang Zhifan's gaze, it rapidly faded away, vanishing like smoke just as other dead dungeon bosses did.
"Boss! That slash just now was incredible! You took down the boss with one strike!"
The bespectacled gunner in the black leather jacket, who had just stood up from the nearby bushes, could not contain his excitement. From a distance, he began shouting enthusiastically at Wang Zhifan. The plaid-shirted mage beside him was equally shocked, clearly not expecting Wang Zhifan to kill the boss in a single slash.
Such shock was only natural. During the first wave of attacks, everyone had seen that neither Wang Zhifan's pistol shots nor the gunner's revolver fire could thoroughly damage the Silverback Gorilla's body. The mage's ice arrow was even less effective; aside from slowing it down, it had barely broken through its defenses. That was enough to prove how tough this Lv4 boss's body was. It was certainly not the sort of opponent that could be dealt with easily, yet Wang Zhifan had beheaded it with a single slash.
"Not bad... but it wasn't actually that easy."
As a reward list panel began appearing before him and a treasure chest materialized on the ground, Wang Zhifan replied in an even tone.
He was not being modest. He was simply stating the truth. Killing that physically formidable Silverback with one slash had not been something he could do casually. It was the result of going all out.
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