Naga's Growth

The Murlocs had no power to resist such savage monsters, but their taking the first wave of impact slowed the Abyssal Brutal Boars. The Naga, who had long been ready, launched their charge.

Salted Fish Thrust granted them five times their explosive power. The Naga swayed their bodies rapidly, their thick scales grinding against the rubble-strewn wasteland and throwing up sparks. Trailing sparks and lightning, they plunged into the herd of Abyssal Brutal Boars, smashing the beasts three or four meters away and brutally pinning both boar and spear into the ground.

Yet the abyssal power had granted the Brutal Boars tremendous vitality. Even so, they had not died, grunting as they rolled over and tried to get back up.

The Abyssal Brutal Boars farther away sensed the threat from the Naga. They turned around with irritable shrieks, their tiny bloodshot eyes glaring furiously above tusk-filled maws. They scraped the ground hard with their hooves, lowered their heads, and charged.

The Abyssal Brutal Boars charged quickly, but the Naga were no slower. More importantly, their bodies were exceptionally agile. Having absorbed the lessons of earlier battles, the instant an Abyssal Brutal Boar crashed toward them, they twisted their serpentine bodies sharply aside, nearly flattening themselves against the ground. The boar charged into empty air, while its limbs slammed into the Naga's snake-like tail. It immediately lost its balance and crashed headfirst into the ground, plowing a furrow through the hard earth, stained with blood and broken tusks.

After numerous battles, the Naga had gradually begun to uncover their own talents and develop a unique fighting style.

This sort of stationary dodge was incredibly deceptive. In a battle that moved as fast as lightning, one unexpected dodge could completely produce an unforeseen result.

Even with the Abyssal Brutal Boars' thick hides and flesh, this charging mistake of plowing the ground face-first was extremely painful. Many of them could not get back up for a while after sliding to a stop, allowing the Naga to step in and finish them off with ease.

But this wave of Abyssal Brutal Boars had already lasted more than five minutes. The Portal opened again, and the next wave of invaders arrived—

A total of two hundred Berserk Demons! Perhaps the teleportation point originated from an abyss within some Crystal Wall System, but nearly every monster that had appeared in Endless Mode so far had been an abyssal creature, and each wave was stronger than the last.

Though this wave of Berserk Demons was not numerous, their threat far surpassed that of every previous wave.

As a common cannon-fodder unit of the abyss, Berserk Demons were large, standing just over two meters tall. Thick layers of keratinous armor covered their bodies, which reeked with a nauseating stench. Their combat power was extraordinarily formidable.

The moment they emerged from the Portal, the corpses and slaughter covering the ground made them howl in delight. Excitedly, they pounced toward the Murlocs and Naga.

The Naga were not afraid either. Several leaders raised their spears and roared, and the many Murlocs surged forward under their command.

The two sides rapidly closed in. As they came within nearly fifty meters, the Murlocs burst forward one after another, ramming into the Berserk Demons at blinding speed. Fine Iron Short Spears pierced the demons' armor, but only the spear tips penetrated before getting stuck.

The Berserk Demons paid no attention to their wounds. With vicious grins, they seized the nearby Murlocs with their massive claws and tore hard. In an instant, nearly two hundred Murlocs were killed on the spot.

"Insufficient strength!"

Even multiplied fivefold, the Murlocs' strength was not particularly great. It was insufficient to inflict fatal injuries on armored demons like Berserk Demons.

The gap was utterly crushing. Without weapons, without skills, these mere two hundred Berserk Demons could easily slaughter tens of thousands of Murlocs.

The Naga realized this as well. One Naga waved his Short Spear and loudly ordered the Murlocs to continue attacking, while directing his companions to coordinate their assaults and use the Murlocs as cannon fodder for cover.

A Murloc rammed into a Berserk Demon and was torn in half. Seizing the chance, a Blackscale Naga rushed forward and stabbed the demon in the back. The demon roared in fury and swept a claw backward. The Naga twisted his body aside to evade it, then stabbed again into the demon's neck, leaving a spear hole not much weaker than the one made by a Murloc using Salted Fish Thrust, though slightly shallower.

The Naga's normal attack damage was somewhat lower than the Murlocs' burst damage, but this was only a normal attack. They would not be drained of strength and left waiting to die after using it like the Murlocs.

However, even a Naga would meet a miserable end if caught by a Berserk Demon.

The Berserk Demons' physical attributes far surpassed those of the Naga. Their physiques were at least two points stronger, and their armor provided exceptionally high defense. By the common standards of civilization, Berserk Demons were Tier Two units, among the finest and strongest of their tier.

Blackscale Naga, meanwhile, were among the best Tier One units. The two were separated by an entire tier.

If not for the Naga's speed and high evasion, they would likely have been crushed on the spot.

But there was still a whole tier of difference. Their speed advantage was limited, and no matter how high their evasion was, it was not one hundred percent. Sure enough, as one Naga twisted his body and flattened himself against the ground to dodge, the Berserk Demon roared and pounced, pinning him down. Its sharp claws pierced through the scales and plunged into his body. Its ten fingers curled and ripped hard, tearing his body open and ripping out a huge chunk of flesh along with his organs.

Less than two meters away, two Berserk Demons caught a Naga. One pinned down his upper body and bit savagely into his neck, while the other drove a claw through his snake tail and out the other side. With a violent pull, the sharp claws split the tail into six bloody strips of flesh.

Nearby, three Naga knocked a Berserk Demon to the ground. Six Fine Iron Short Spears stabbed into its face and chest at once, one of them piercing directly through its foul-smelling mouth.

The enraged Berserk Demon flipped over and sprang up, seizing one Naga and brutally tearing his entire head off. But it was also struck by another Naga, who launched himself four or five meters high with a flick of his tail and drove a spear down into the demon's head, killing it with a strike through the brain.

Across the battlefield, it took nearly two or three Naga just to barely hold off one Berserk Demon, and even then victory was not guaranteed. The Murlocs could not get involved at all. Occasionally, they saw a Berserk Demon knocked down and rushed in hoping to take advantage, only to leave a wound on it before dying without even a complete corpse.

And that was only after using the burst from Salted Fish Thrust. Ordinary attacks could not break through their defenses at all.

The Berserk Demons' combat strength was far greater than Lin Xiao had expected. Standing high in the sky and looking down over the battlefield, even from his perspective, he could not immediately tell which side held the advantage.

Unfortunately, Salted Fish Thrust had a cooldown of ten minutes. Most of the Naga had used the skill in the previous wave and could not use it this time. Otherwise, bringing down these Berserk Demons with their burst power would not have been a problem.

While Lin Xiao still maintained a steady expression, Meng Hui, in another plane, was watching the situation in his own plane with an expression that had darkened to the extreme.

Before the Final Exam, he had already accumulated more than two thousand Kobolds and had personally descended in an avatar to train a formal Kobold army of over a thousand.

He had thought he would perform well in the Final Exam. And indeed, things had gone as he expected earlier on. He had performed exceptionally well at the previous Checkpoints, so much so that after hearing about the rewards for the additional Checkpoint from the Class Teacher, he had even fantasized about pushing through to the very end in one go and making a name for himself.

However, after Endless Mode activated its fifth wave, he realized that his dream was about to be shattered.