The End

When the huge tiger dared to attack him directly with its paw, Wang Zhifan immediately swung his blade, meeting it head-on.

But tigers were cunning beasts, as nimble as wildcats. Before its outstretched paw could touch the weapon coming toward it, it suddenly withdrew it. It had been a premeditated feint!

If a novice Blademaster encountered such a false attack, they would easily send their full-force downward strike through empty air, leaving a fatal opening in front of them.

But Wang Zhifan's blade skill was now Lv. 3, already at the level of a generally recognized skilled swordsman. Naturally, he would not be toyed with so easily by a mere tiger.

Though his previous slash had carried considerable force, he had not put his full strength into it at all. From beginning to end, he had reserved some room to alter his move. The instant the huge tiger retracted its paw, he suddenly stepped forward. At the same time, the Blade of the Wolf Fiend, still descending, traced a graceful arc and instantly swept upward at an extremely tricky angle. It sliced past the base of the paw midway through its retreat, sending a tiger claw as large as a human face flying through the air with a spray of blood! With a single strike, it had cleanly severed the tiger's thick paw as easily as cutting a hemp stalk, fully demonstrating the value of the Blade of the Wolf Fiend as a Rare Tier weapon! However, cutting off one of the tiger's claws could not solve the fundamental problem. Having suffered such a heavy blow, the tiger had not even registered the pain in its body before it furiously twisted around and pounced at Wang Zhifan with the force of a mountain collapsing overhead! At this moment, Wang Zhifan could have relied on his formidable blade skill to confront it head-on, accurately strike its vital point, and kill it in one blow. But in that case, the crazed tiger might crush him to death outright—or, even if it failed to do so, pin him beneath it and tear him to pieces in its dying rage.

So, to stay alive, Wang Zhifan chose to avoid its edge for the moment. He immediately rolled backward to the side, swiftly and precisely shifting behind a large tree and letting its trunk take the desperate pounce of the crazed tiger in his place.

Bang! As the tiger collided with the trunk, Wang Zhifan rose and moved to a new position, roaring, "How much longer are you planning to wait?!"

He was not shouting at anyone else, but at the hooded, cloaked middle-aged man who still had not attacked the tiger even now!

Wang Zhifan had already been somewhat dissatisfied with this man. During the recent struggle between man and tiger, he had not seen the guy show himself even once. Clearly, the man had failed to seize the chance to ambush the tiger earlier. But that did not necessarily mean he had reacted too slowly. It was more likely that he had ulterior motives and wanted to leave Wang Zhifan in danger by slacking off and refusing to contribute!

Before the original Wang Zhifan had become a player, he had already lurked on player forums to gather all kinds of information and had learned about some of the ugly things within the player community.

For example, when players teamed up in an instance to fight monsters, directly attacking or sabotaging one another would certainly trigger the Punishment Instance mechanism. But if a player deliberately slacked off while fighting, intentionally moved a little slower, and shifted more pressure onto their teammates until they were placed in danger, there was not much chance that they would be forcibly dragged into a Punishment Instance! Such behavior did not exist merely because some players had twisted tastes. Some players had discovered that, since they could not directly steal their teammates' equipment, they could find ways to let their teammates die at the hands of monsters. Once a teammate died, the weapons in their hands and armor on their bodies became ownerless. Taking them then carried no fear of triggering the Punishment Instance mechanism. This might be an easier path to getting rich than honestly farming monsters for equipment! Considering the strange feeling the middle-aged player had given Wang Zhifan earlier, he had reason to conclude that the man had intended to harm him from the very start of the instance. His insistence that Wang Zhifan wait there to fight the tiger had likely been meant to get him killed by it, after which the man could take his equipment! Wang Zhifan was not being vain. Though outsiders could not determine the exact quality of the Blade of the Wolf Fiend in his hand or the Wolfhide Armor on his body, anyone with some knowledge of equipment could tell that they were far from ordinary. It was entirely possible that this middle-aged man had developed ill intentions.

Rip! Roar!!! Just after Wang Zhifan's shout, he heard the sound of some sharp weapon piercing flesh from the tiger's direction, followed by the tiger's pained, frenzied howl! He immediately ducked behind a large tree and looked back, only to discover that the hooded, cloaked middle-aged man had finally revealed himself. He was retreating through the woods while reloading a hand crossbow, and the wildly howling tiger before him had a crossbow bolt deeply embedded in one of its eye sockets! Clearly, this had been the middle-aged man's work!

"Little girl, don't just stand there. Reload and fire."

The fierce tiger had lost one paw to Wang Zhifan's blade and one eye to the middle-aged man's bolt. Now reduced to a one-eyed, three-legged big cat, it was far less dangerous. The middle-aged man therefore no longer bothered to hide himself, and even had time to remind the nearby female gunner player, whose expression was still somewhat panicked, to stop running and get to work.

Seeing this, Wang Zhifan immediately felt much more at ease. He had been mentally prepared for the middle-aged player to keep playing dead while he fought and killed the tiger alone, but now it seemed that the man had at least some shame—or perhaps he really was getting old and had simply reacted slowly. One shout from Wang Zhifan had made him finally get serious and do his job.

At this stage, Wang Zhifan practically only needed to be a spectator. The huge tiger was already half-crippled, and it would be difficult for it to chase them through the woods any longer. He could leave the task of killing it to his two teammates, who had ranged attack methods. There was no need for him to rush in for a melee kill and add needless risk for himself.

A few seconds later, accompanied by several gunshots and the whistling of crossbow bolts through the air, the once incomparably fierce tiger met its end on the forest floor. Its corpse rapidly dissipated like smoke, while a treasure chest appeared before each of the three players who had completed the instance.

The hooded, cloaked middle-aged Assassin player moved the fastest. The moment his treasure chest appeared, he stored it in his personal space, then vanished completely.

The female gunner player, perhaps from fear or perhaps because she was overwhelmed with excitement after clearing the instance, opened her treasure chest while wiping away tears.

Only Wang Zhifan did not hurry to open his own chest. He pressed his palms together, faced the sky, and muttered to himself as if praying for heaven to grant him better luck in obtaining good equipment. In reality, he was using this to conceal the fact that he was reading the reward selection screen that had appeared before him.