Attack

A hazy, translucent shadow—a phantom nearly impossible to track with the naked eye in the pitch-black night—burst forth from the fallen Wanderer's body, its ghostly form flickering in and out of existence as it rapidly lunged toward Xuan Ye and the others!

The silver moonlight passed straight through its ethereal body without resistance, the Wraith moving through the darkness as freely as a fish through water. Even though Xuan Ye had already connected with his Perception Inner Mansion and his Spiritual Power had broken through to the level of a third-tier Mage Apprentice, he still found himself frequently losing track of the target at this distance!

The arrow, already nocked again, remained stubbornly undrawn! Unlike the slow-moving Wanderer he had aimed at before, this Wraith had no predictable pattern of movement, its ghostly form making it nearly impossible to lock onto!

An ordinary Apprentice Ranger might have fired under pressure, hoping for luck, but Xuan Ye had no such urge. Because he could read the various parameters, he knew that with his current inability to keep the target in sight consistently, given his firing rate and marksmanship, the hit probability was effectively zero!

Attacking would be a pure waste of energy. Better to let it draw closer, ensure he could maintain visual lock, and then consider how to counter it.

"Don't waste your effort! Ordinary arrows can't deal effective damage to a Wraith! Take out the Holy Water the Paladin lady gave us and coat your weapons! Hurry!"

Luo Luoji, having been alerted and now spotting the target himself, issued the order swiftly and decisively.

A Wraith! At minimum, it was a Professional Rank, one-star level—under equal conditions, it could easily overpower a one-star human expert! And based on the traces Dean had identified earlier, this one was at least two-star!

In a direct fight, even with a Holy Water-coated weapon, Luo Luoji couldn't defeat it alone. None of them together stood a chance!

Their only goal now was to stall—to buy time until the four-person team made their move.

Luo Luoji's warning jolted Xuan Ye. He really was too lacking in practical combat experience. When the moment came, he was too tense, even forgetting to apply the Holy Water. Fortunately, he hadn't fired without confidence, or he would have wasted his strength.

Suppressing the flicker of panic, he swiftly pulled out the Holy Water bottle from his pocket and dipped one arrowhead into it. But the Wraith's ghostly speed had already closed to within thirty meters!

At that pace, there was no time to dip a second arrow!

"Spread out! Focus your minds to resist the Mind Scream!"

Luo Luoji smashed the Holy Water bottle directly onto his own blade, continuing to issue commands with calm precision.

'Mind Scream' was the Wraith's signature skill, capable of plunging weak-willed opponents into fear and dizziness. What made it most dreaded was that it was a non-discriminatory area-of-effect attack, growing more powerful closer to the center. Luo Luoji's order to scatter was a necessary move.

"Take this, you bastard!"

Just as Luo Luoji finished speaking, Xuan Ye struck first. The soaked arrow left the bowstring with a trail of silver light!

It flew straight toward an empty point in front of the Wraith—exactly where it would be in the next instant!

The prediction was spot-on, the attack sharp and precise!

But the problem was that only a single arrow was fired. A physical creature, bound by inertia, would have struggled to dodge, but the drifting Wraith had no such limitation. It defied physics with an abrupt mid-air halt, and the Holy Water-coated arrow grazed past just three centimeters in front of its face!

It buried itself into the desert sand.

But in the next moment, a bottle spinning through the air was shattered by a second arrow loosed from the bowstring!

Nearly a full bottle of Holy Water splashed out, covering the entire area where the Wraith was moving!

Sizzle~

A piercing sound, like hot oil poured onto butter, erupted. The intangible Wraith was forced to fully materialize, wrapped in a layer of white light, with even a wisp of smoke rising from it!

"Jii!"

A shrill, ear-splitting scream rang out, stabbing into the minds of all five Scavenger Squad members, including Luo Luoji—the 'Mind Scream'!

But because the Wraith hadn't closed in fully yet, they were only at the edge of its range, recovering quickly—though they lost the chance to press the advantage.

Xuan Ye's three-part combo left the others impressed!

Not only had he wounded the Wraith, but he had also forced it to unleash its most dreaded skill at a position favorable to them. Given the oscillation cycle of the Wraith's internal runic circuits, they could now go all out without worry for a while!

"Nice work! Leave the rest to us!"

Luo Luoji, recovering from the mild dizziness, shouted and charged straight at the Wraith, which had yet to fully escape the Holy Water's coverage. Xuan Ye, having scored a hit, let out a small sigh of relief.

Truth be told, he hadn't expected things to go so smoothly. He had only dipped one arrow and, thinking Holy Water was effective against this thing, went for a blind combo. He hadn't realized how well it would work with his ability to fine-tune based on observed parameters.

Not far away, holy light flickered—the four-person team from Dream Island had set out and was closing in. There shouldn't be much left for him to do. The rapid firing in such a short time had put a lot of strain on his muscles, and now that he relaxed, he felt a dull ache in his arms—probably a slight strain.

But just then, Xuan Ye suddenly felt his pores tighten and his hair stand on end. An indescribable fear and darkness enveloped him, as if it had touched the deepest wound in his heart, dragging him back to the lonely drifting through the cosmos!

Clang~

As if triggered by that memory of drifting through the void, the vast Database deep in his soul gave a slight tremor, instantly dispelling the suffocating fear. Xuan Ye's vision cleared, and his dazed mind snapped back to clarity.

"No good! There's another one!"

The moment he regained awareness, Xuan Ye spotted the problem. Somehow, another Wraith had appeared not far behind him, sending a jolt of alarm through him.

But what happened next left him stunned. That new Wraith, which had tried to ambush him by dragging him into fear, was now flickering in and out of sight, its short little claws clutching its oversized head in what looked like agonizing pain.

Then, starting from its feet, it slowly began to dissolve into phosphorescent powder, vanishing into the void, its face still twisted in a pained expression of grievance.

At first, Xuan Ye thought it was just fading back into the shadows to strike again. But when a surge of rich essence began to pour out, passively drawn into his body, he realized this dim-witted Wraith had already kicked the bucket.

He quickly stepped forward to the center where the Wraith had vanished, adjusting his breathing to greedily absorb the dispersing essence with his improved Basic Breathing Technique.

Streams of cold yet potent energy flooded into his body, strengthening his flesh and inner mansion. Though the essence dissipated completely after just ten breaths, the sheer volume of it left his body aching and sore with strain. Yet the gain was greater than all the effort he had put in since crossing over!

The faintly connected Perception Inner Mansion felt more solid and stable. His newly broken-through Level 7 Knight Attendant was now steadily advancing toward Level 8, nearly reaching the peak of Level 7!

The speed was astonishing. Killing prey really was the fastest way for physical-type professions to level up!

After the essence had almost entirely scattered, Xuan Ye greedily inhaled the lingering traces, savoring the taste of success. Before this, he had only ever shot arrows from a distance, never getting close to the prey—and the prey had mostly been stinking zombies.

This was his first real taste of why physical-type professions topped the ranking for advancement speed. No wonder they said it was the best path for commoners to rise up. That much was certainly true.

Xuan Ye vaguely understood that the reason this effect was so exaggerated likely had much to do with the rank gap between himself and his opponent. As an Advanced Attendant who had yet to step into the Professional Rank, he had directly devoured a portion of the Wraith's essence—one comparable to a two-star Professional Rank expert. Even if what he absorbed was only a small fraction of the overflow, it was still an enormous amount for someone like him.

As for why this Wraith had inexplicably kicked the bucket...

Huh, could it be that when this thing invaded his mind using the Fear Spell, it passively absorbed the influence of his own inner terror? A pure spirit body like a Wraith, facing the impact of that spiritual pollution within the Soul Database—tsk, tsk. Thinking of this, Xuan Ye's face showed an expression of lingering fear mixed with schadenfreude: don't court death, and you won't die.

But amidst his gloating, his heart grew sharply alert. Setting aside his past sparring in the Scavenger Squad and his bullying of Wanderers like picking on kids, this was actually his first real battle.

Though the result was decent, there had been clear mistakes and missteps in the process. From forgetting to apply the Holy Water at the start, leaving him with only one arrow, to letting his guard down while hiding and getting hit by the Fear Spell—if not for his unique ability, he might have been skinned alive or worse!

It didn't matter if he was a bit slow or lacked experience; he wasn't a Saint Seiya who could get away with the same trick twice. Making a mistake once was forgivable, even twice—but a third or fourth time was unacceptable! He had to learn from experience and improve his mindset. Youth allowed for failure, but it couldn't be used as an excuse!

After making a quick summary, Xuan Ye kept his guard up and began observing the four-person team that had entered the battlefield.

Aitiya was wrapped in a layer of holy radiance, her stunning figure and meticulous expression making her look utterly sacred and inviolable. A greatsword as tall as a person, gleaming with silver light, enveloped the first Wraith that Luo Luoji and the others were beating like a drowned dog.

She left only one gap in the defense, and the Wraith, driven only by its instinct to avoid danger, obediently followed her arrangement and darted through that gap—only to slam headfirst into a scroll that suddenly appeared in midair.

From the scroll, several Silver Threads burst forth, wrapping around the Wraith one after another. After breaking free of two threads, the Wraith was finally caught by the third before it could escape, and before it could break loose, the fourth and fifth threads followed in quick succession.

In the end, it was bound up like a zongzi, then dragged into the scroll, which rippled like water.

'Seal.'

With a rustle, the scroll that had absorbed the Wraith rolled up and fell into the hands of Dean, who was seated on Small Carpet. The entire coordination was as smooth as flowing water.

Yet from start to finish, none of them noticed that Xuan Ye, without a word, had quietly taken down the other Wraith...