A Gatekeeper Boss

"Pfft—cough, cough!" Mai Xiao Wen, who was drinking water beside them, heard that and nearly spat it out.

She quickly covered her mouth. Her beautiful eyes curved into crescents, and her shoulders trembled slightly as she tried to stifle her laughter.

"Keep pretending, kid! Go on, keep pretending!"

Jin Shan stared wide-eyed at Xu Feng, who was eating slowly and savoring every bite, his expression utterly harmless. Then he glanced at Mai Xiao Wen, who was smiling behind pursed lips, her gaze drifting unconsciously toward Xu Feng.

His teeth began to itch.

He curled his lip and muttered sourly, "Tch, you're just relying on being a little better-looking, aren't you?

"When I was your age, the girls chasing after me could've lined up from the Association entrance all the way to the training grounds!"

"Oh? Really?" a teasing voice cut in from beside him. "So, our dashing Jin Shan, just how many girlfriends did you have back then? Go on, tell us so we can be envious!"

"Hmph, at least this many!" Jin Shan lifted his chin, holding up both hands to demonstrate, his face full of pride.

But the next second, his expression froze. His neck stiffened as he slowly turned toward the source of the voice.

Luna had somehow appeared just behind him to the side. She held up her phone, its screen clearly displaying a [Recording] icon.

A deeply mischievous smile spread across her face as she waggled the phone.

"Goodness, more than ten? Jin Shan, what a storied romantic history you have.

"Tell me, what fun do you think would happen if I 'accidentally' sent this recording to your Yahan?"

"Don't! Sister Na! Please, I was wrong! I made it up! I was young and foolish—I was bragging! Don't let that shrew—uh, don't let Yahan hear it!"

Jin Shan panicked at once. Sweat was nearly running down his forehead as he clasped his hands together and repeatedly begged for mercy.

"Oh? A shrew, was it?" Luna's eyes lit up as her fingers flew across the screen. "I'll have to record that too. The full version will be even more entertaining."

"Argh! Sister Na! Have mercy!"

Jin Shan wailed and tried to snatch her phone, but Luna nimbly dodged him.

Piao Zhi Yong watched his teammates fool around with a cheerful smile and didn't stop them.

Dungeon raids were stressful. A little relaxation and joking around helped ease frayed nerves and maintain the team's morale.

Of course, as team leader, his mental senses remained spread over the surrounding area, alert to any danger that might arise.

Xu Feng's performance had truly exceeded his expectations.

Generally speaking, no matter how much potential a newly awakened hunter had, they needed time—sometimes more, sometimes less—to adapt to their sudden new powers and the mana surging through their bodies.

During this period, they often couldn't bring out their full strength and were liable to lose their nerve when facing monsters due to a lack of experience.

Even hunters with physical abilities who adapted quickly needed time to get used to them in actual combat.

But Xu Feng... he seemed to have skipped that stage.

He showed not the slightest discomfort or fear in the face of bloody combat. Instead, he quickly immersed himself in it, displaying an almost instinctive excitement for battle and a knack for killing efficiently.

He's practically born to be a warrior. Piao Zhi Yong felt a stir of admiration as he looked at Xu Feng.

Seeing that the team had rested enough, and that the support staff had finished harvesting and packing the valuable monster materials from the battlefield, he watched as they departed through the portal with their large bundles.

Piao Zhi Yong's smile faded as he looked at Luna.

"Luna, how's the area scouting? Are there any other Wild Bull herds nearby?"

Luna quickly switched from joking around to professional mode and answered seriously:

"Captain, according to the Vision Eye's feedback, we've cleared out all the scattered Wild Bull herds in this area.

"The only one left is the Bull Leader in the center of the dungeon.

"It should be a typical territorial boss monster. Our scouting shows no sign of other Wild Bulls within a fairly wide area around it. It's probably solitary."

Xu Feng listened quietly nearby, understanding at once.

That afternoon, at the raiding team's office, he'd already crammed in a lot of basic knowledge about dungeons.

Every fully formed dungeon had a "boss" at its core, also known as a "gatekeeper boss."

Only by defeating the boss could they destabilize the dungeon's core energy structure, sever its connection to the present world, and complete the raid.

Dungeon bosses were usually the undisputed kings of their species in the area, or unique mutated individuals.

They were often much larger, with far greater defenses, attack power, and mana reserves than ordinary monsters.

Their mana rank might still fall within the same major grade, but their actual combat power could often exceed it by several grades.

For example, a D-Rank Low-grade dungeon boss might have an overall strength equivalent to D-Rank High-grade or even C-class Lower Rank.

That was why the Hunter Association strictly required hunters to form teams of a certain size before challenging a dungeon.

Clearing out the minions might not be difficult, but defeating an enhanced boss often required precise teamwork and enough firepower.

"It's still asleep, Captain. We can set things up first."

Luna fired another scouting arrow, its tip flickering with red light. The arrow slipped soundlessly into the shadows in the distance.

Calmly, she reported what she saw through the arrow's feedback.

"Good. Then we'll stick to the original plan."

Piao Zhi Yong nodded slightly, then made a series of concise hand signals.

The team members understood at once. They quickly and quietly spread out to prepare for the battle.

The seven advanced slowly and cautiously toward the central area where the Bull Leader was, maintaining their tactical formation.

Xu Feng and Jin Shan remained at the front, muscles tensed and ready to respond if the boss sensed danger and suddenly attacked.

But when they had closed to about a hundred meters, the team stopped.

At that distance, Xu Feng finally got a clear look at the Bull Leader. He couldn't help feeling a chill.

It was practically a prehistoric beast brought back to life!

Even crouched on the ground, curled up in rest,

its shoulders stood an estimated five meters high, and its massive body was probably over ten meters long from head to tail.

It looked like a mountain of flesh covered in thick, dark-brown hide and jagged bone spurs!

With every breath, thick, scorching white vapor blasted from nostrils as large as human heads, forming small columns of steam and making a deep, snorting sound.

Even asleep, it radiated an invisible pressure born of its superior lifeform and immense energy, spreading outward like a tide.

The air itself seemed sluggish and heavy.

Piao Zhi Yong turned his gaze to Li Ze Yuan, who understood and gave a slight nod.

He pointed the tip of the ocher-colored staff in his hand toward the ground, moving it in a certain rhythm.

In an instant, clumps of moist, uniform soil, each about the size of a fist, silently rose from the flat ground ahead and floated in midair, slowly turning.

Piao Zhi Yong stepped forward and flicked his fingers. Tiny seeds, each radiating a soft green glow, fell into every hovering clump of soil.

The moment the seeds touched the earth, the green light flickered faintly, as if they had been activated.

The seed-filled clumps then sank into the ground as silently as if they were alive, leaving behind only tiny bumps that were almost impossible to notice.

The bumps began to move and spread toward the sleeping Bull Leader at an extremely slow pace, causing almost no disturbance.

At last, they formed a concealed encirclement around both it and the raiding team.

Meanwhile, Kuang Lei had quietly withdrawn to the predetermined sniping position two hundred meters away.

He sat cross-legged and rested the staff, set with a crimson gemstone, across his knees. His eyes were closed, his lips moving rapidly as he recited a long and complicated incantation.

As the chant went on, fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, while the fire-element aura surrounding him grew increasingly fierce and scorching.

The red gem at the top of his staff shone brighter and brighter, as though lava churned within it.

When the incantation reached a crucial point, the gem suddenly blazed with brilliant red light.

A scarlet fireball, only the size of a fist but condensed to the utmost, appeared above the gem.

It didn't launch at once, but hovered motionless.

As Kuang Lei continued to pour his mana into it,

the fireball began to expand and grow at a visible pace, its inner energy fluctuations enough to make one's heart tremble.

Luna and Mai Xiao Wen were busy as well.

Luna drew several arrows from her custom quiver. They were dark purple, their arrowheads crackling with unstable arcs of electricity. She carefully nocked them on her bowstring.

She didn't draw the bow, but stood ready to fire at any moment.

Mai Xiao Wen waved her gleaming white staff, continuously casting gentle but lasting halos of light over her teammates.

As the front line, Xu Feng and Jin Shan received the strongest buffs. Thick white light almost enveloped their upper bodies.

Ongoing healing and buffs?

Xu Feng carefully felt the flow of holy power through his body, understanding what it did.

It could quickly heal minor injuries and also seemed to ease fatigue and improve the body's ability to recover.

Like the rest of the team, he held his breath and kept his eyes fixed on the sleeping Bull Leader in the distance, waiting quietly as Kuang Lei gathered power.

The air seemed frozen.

Only the Bull Leader's heavy breathing and the faint hum of energy from the ever-growing fireball before Kuang Lei disturbed the silence.

But it didn't last long.

The mana fluctuations in the surrounding air, made unusually volatile by the team's preparations and gathering strength,

finally roused the sleeping behemoth.

The Bull Leader irritably tossed its enormous head, its heavy breathing growing faster.

Then its huge eyes, like blood-red lanterns, snapped open!

The instant its scarlet gaze caught sight of the humans a hundred meters away—