Killing Cyclops, Completing the Novice Trial

An Cyclops, blind in one eye and with its sense of smell completely gone, had become a perfect target.

The Cyclops could only jump and roar in place, using its hands and feet to create pit after pit in the solid ground, further restricting its movements.

Then, pain that seemed to damage its very soul began to appear in various parts of its body.

This was the damage inflicted by the Goblin Cleavers imbued with holy damage.

One-Ear and Scab knew their roles very clearly: to be Cheng Tian's humanoid mobile extra inventory.

Because during the campfire rest earlier, Cheng Tian had openly discussed the conditions for using "Knight Throwing" with them. So, when they noticed Cheng Tian shoving his straight sword into the Cyclops's nose and saw that the Cyclops had lost its ability to track, they decisively threw the baseball bat, two-handed hammer, Goblin Cleavers, and one-handed axe from their inventories to positions closer to Cheng Tian. Then, without any hesitation, they retreated back into the relatively safe distance of the bushes.

Clearly, the two bickering college students had completely learned to read situations and protect themselves.

Even a blinded Cyclops was not something the weaklings they were could afford to provoke. And at this critical juncture, self-defense was completely irrelevant. If Cheng Tian still died under these circumstances, they probably wouldn't survive for long either.

Cheng Tian's Knight Throwing required the currently held weapon as a template.

The Gentleman's Cane dealt too little damage, and the Vampire Slayer didn't meet the standards for generating thrown weapons, so the two humanoid inventories were a timely help.

Even though only the Vampire Slayer could maximize holy damage, Cheng Tian, having already taken a wrestling throw, didn't want to engage in close combat with the Cyclops anymore... What was more unbearable than being paralyzed by a beating was the terrifying stench emanating from it.

Thus, with enough mana and the support of the Innocent Souls, Cheng Tian began to circle the Cyclops in a lunar orbit-like pattern. The new thrown weapons, enchanted with holy damage, began to deal damage to the Cyclops.

For the thick-skinned Cyclops, the blunt force of the two-handed hammer and the sharp edge of the Goblin Cleaver were both greatly reduced in effectiveness. Only the added single-digit holy damage could take full effect, making it feel like he was just scraping its skin.

The only true weak point on the Cyclops's entire body was its eyeball, but it was tightly covered by its hand. And after taking a few hits from the thrown two-handed hammer, it also covered the secondary weak point, the back of its head.

Now, the Cyclops no longer moved around randomly. Instead, it curled up on the spot, hugging its head with both hands, looking like it was preparing to defend to the end.

Circling around, Cheng Tian found it hard to imagine how he would defeat this Cyclops with conventional attacks if he hadn't loaded the Vampire Slayer template with the holy whip, or if he wasn't even here.

However, what Cheng was unaware of was that if he wasn't here, the Red Imps and Cyclops in this instance wouldn't be this ridiculously strong...

Ever heard of Capcom's most famous "dynamic difficulty adjustment mechanism"?

If Cheng Tian wasn't here, and the initial dozen or so people were still alive, then the Red Imp in this newbie trial would at most be a boss template, and the Cyclops would at most be an elite template. And the mobs might more frequently drop things like knives, lances, and fireballs with limited throwing quantities that could be used to deal more effective damage to enemies without Arthur's abilities.

Theoretically, as long as there were enough newbies alive and they dared to fight, it couldn't be guaranteed that everyone would survive, but sacrificing less than half to pass this first level shouldn't be a problem.

Of course, the corresponding consequence would be that it would be almost impossible to obtain the "Hundred Demons' Night Parade" skill, and the achievement module would probably be delayed for another one or two instances before being unlocked.

It was thanks to Cheng Tian's accumulation of hundreds of Innocent Souls during the previous journey, and his MP consistently maintained above 100, that he was able to scrape the champion Cyclops down today.

However, in order to maximize single-hit damage, Cheng Tian finally chose the two-handed hammer, which also cost 1 mana, as his main throwing weapon. The throwing rate was indeed slow, but now he was hitting a stationary target, so the rate was not important.

In this way, the Cyclops's health was slowly but steadily scraped down by Cheng Tian, from over nine hundred all the way down to over one hundred, with its total health dropping below 10%... Even like this, it could match Cheng Tian when he first entered the instance.

Although he couldn't see the health bar, Cheng Tian vaguely felt the Cyclops's pain and weakness, estimating that it was on the verge of death.

But Cheng didn't relax at all; instead, he became even more vigilant.

Because there was a basic ability that should have been present in the original work, but this head-hugging, squatting Cyclops had never displayed.

Could it not use it? Or was it waiting for an opportunity?

Suddenly, the Cyclops moved.

It stopped using its hands to protect its head, leaving its front wide open, while its entire head took on an abnormal redness.

Seeing this scene, Cheng Tian unhesitatingly retreated, creating a sufficient distance.

The next second, Cheng Tian saw that the Cyclops had actually opened its blind eyes, raised its neck, and opened its mouth towards the sky. Then, a scorching, enormous fireball was launched into the sky.

The fireball shot straight into the sky, finally exploding in the night sky like a gorgeous fireworks display to mark the end.

Yes, Cheng Tian had always been wary of the Cyclops's fire ability. Although he didn't know that this Cyclops had the characteristic of being a "Flame Titan Descendant," he always remembered that whether it was in Demon Village or Great Demon Village, regardless of the model, the Cyclops could breathe fire.

The Chosen Evolution Space had clearly made reasonable adjustments to the Cyclops based on its race, allowing it to have a one-time-only flame breath that could instantly kill any conventional intruder.

It was just a pity that, with its vision and sense of smell both disabled, it couldn't find Cheng Tian himself, who was randomly circling.

The Cyclops, able to be selected as a demon general, naturally had its unique qualities.

Realizing that it couldn't do anything to the intruder, the Cyclops made the last choice of its demonic life, which was to send its last ripple to the other demons inside the Demon King's Castle—

A new human hero! Has appeared!

Just after spitting out this last fireball to warn its demon colleagues, the Cyclops's original nearly one hundred health points instantly dropped to zero. Then, its body uncontrollably crashed to the ground.

That huge fireball had exceeded the limit that it could withstand, and the paltry 5 MP was not enough to satisfy it. Instead, it simultaneously squeezed the extremely thin Flame Titan bloodline within its body.

The backlash from this squeezing of bloodline power manifested as a sharp drop in vitality.

The Cyclops guarding the entrance to the Demon King's Castle was dead.

At the same time, a dazzling colored light appeared on the chest of the Cyclops lying on the ground. A large metal key, just like the stereotypical European medieval ones, directly burned through its breastplate and floated in mid-air. Then, as if guided by something, it flew directly to Cheng Tian.

The moment Cheng Tian grasped the colored light key, three things happened simultaneously.

First, a complete set of new knight armor was equipped onto Cheng Tian, covering his nakedness with only strawberry underwear.

Then, the tightly closed outer entrance gate of the Demon King's Castle slowly opened.

Finally, the main quest timer was completely frozen at 3 hours, 45 minutes, and 39 seconds remaining.

[Main quest completed, entering the settlement phase.]