The Bull Leader

"Moo—!!!"

A deafening roar, brimming with fury, tore through the air!

The hulking beast, twice the height of a building, sprang upright from its crouch with impossible agility. Its four pillar-thick hooves slammed into the ground, sending dirt and grass flying!

Then, at a startling speed completely at odds with its enormous size, it charged forward with terrifying momentum.

Like a runaway truck, it barreled straight toward Xu Feng and the others!

Even the earth groaned beneath its hooves!

Without needing a reminder, Xu Feng and Jin Shan were already in fighting stance.

Xu Feng gave a low shout, his arm muscles bulging as he planted the two-meter-tall heavy Steel Shield firmly in front of the group.

Jin Shan turned slightly and surged out from the side of the shield. Gripping the door-sized greatsword with both hands, he aimed its blade at the relatively vulnerable side of the Bull Leader's neck and met its charge head-on!

BOOM—!!!

A deafening crash erupted, like two heavy trucks colliding at high speed!

The Bull Leader's massive head, covered in thick bone armor, smashed squarely into Xu Feng's shield!

Beside the beast's gigantic frame, even the two-meter-tall shield looked like a toy.

An overwhelming force, like a flood bursting through a dam, surged through the shield and Xu Feng's arms, slamming into his body!

Driven by that tremendous force, Xu Feng slid backward uncontrollably.

His boots gouged two furrows several inches deep and several meters long into the solid ground!

Dirt churned and grass flew.

But in the end, he had stopped that thunderous charge!

A wave of numbness ran through Xu Feng's arms, and his heart tightened.

What incredible strength! It's definitely beyond D-Class Intermediate, and might even be close to the limit of D-Class Advanced!

Even with a wisp of qi and blood reinforcing both his arms, he still felt outmatched by that sheer, brute force.

Fortunately, his body had been tempered through First Refinement. It withstood the impact, leaving his bones and internal organs unharmed.

The Bull Leader seemed furious that this "little ant" had stopped its charge. It pawed at the ground several times, making the earth tremble.

Just as its blood-red eyes locked onto Xu Feng and it prepared to launch an even more ferocious second charge—

Whoosh!

A sharp whistle cut through the air from its right!

Jin Shan seized the fleeting opening. Bringing the weight of his entire body and the momentum of his charge to bear, he swung his greatsword hard into the side of the Bull Leader's thick neck!

Yet that mighty blow, strong enough to split stone and shatter monuments, only carved a wound roughly half a meter long and less than half an inch deep into the beast's neck, through its layers of thick hide, muscle, and bone plates.

Dark-red blood seeped out, but against the Bull Leader's enormous vitality, the wound was insignificant.

It was barely more than a mosquito bite.

"Moo—!"

The sting in its neck did not seriously injure it. Instead, it only roused its fury!

Eyes bloodshot, it spun around and leveled its gleaming, savage horns at Jin Shan, who stood within arm's reach. Its hind legs tensed, ready to deliver a deadly head-on strike!

"Jin Shan, Xiao Feng, get out of the way!"

Kuang Lei's voice rang out from behind them, urgent but unmistakably clear.

Xu Feng and Jin Shan didn't hesitate. Using the recoil from their block and attack, they sprang apart in opposite directions!

The Bull Leader was just about to surge after them when the situation suddenly changed!

The smooth ground around it exploded!

Thick, dark-green vines, each half a meter in diameter and covered in barbs and tough fibers, burst from the earth in every direction like giant pythons lying in wait. They coiled around the beast at astonishing speed!

In an instant, the Bull Leader's enormous body was bound tight beneath layer upon layer of vines. From a distance, it looked like a huge green cocoon thrashing wildly!

But that wasn't all!

Li Ze Yuan had been preparing for this. He chanted without pause, his staff aimed at the beast trapped in the vines.

Great quantities of soil moved as if alive, quickly climbing through the gaps between the vines, filling them in and hardening.

In the blink of an eye, a thick, sturdy shell of earth formed over the vines, further restricting the Bull Leader's movement and preventing it from building up force!

Now it was like a prisoner inside a tightening cage of rock and thorns.

It possessed terrifying strength, but could barely struggle free. All it could do was roar in ever-greater fury and frustration.

At the sniping position two hundred meters away, the fireball that Kuang Lei had been building up in front of him had already swelled to a terrifying five meters in diameter!

It hovered in midair like a miniature sun. Red and white light churned within it, and the intense heat made the air around it shimmer.

Kuang Lei's face was pale, and sweat soaked through his mage's robes.

Maintaining and channeling such an enormous amount of magic was clearly taking a heavy toll on him, but the excitement and resolve in his eyes had reached their peak.

He stared at the distant "green mound of earth," bound fast, and growled hoarsely:

"Art... is an explosion—!!!"

The moment the words left his mouth, the five-meter sphere of destructive energy streaked through the sky with a shriek that tore through the air and a terrifying wave of heat.

It hurtled toward the Bull Leader at astonishing speed!

Even while bound, the Bull Leader's innate sense of mortal danger drove it into a frenzy of struggle. But the combined restraints of vines and hardened earth were as unbreakable as concrete.

All it could do was watch the "miniature sun," radiating death, rapidly grow larger in its vision, until finally—

BOOM—!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The earth-shaking explosion seemed powerful enough to topple the entire underground city!

Blinding white light and an orange-red fireball engulfed the spot where the Bull Leader stood.

A small mushroom cloud of smoke and flames rose over the grassland!

A ferocious shock wave swept in every direction, carrying flames and shattered rock. A wave of heat rushed over them.

Even from a hundred meters away, Xu Feng and the others could feel the attack's destructive power.

The devastation from that strike was no less than a direct hit from a medium-yield tactical missile!

"Is this the destructive power of elemental Hunters—especially fire mages?"

Staring at the smoke and scorch marks that had yet to clear, Xu Feng was deeply shaken.

He had known that Kuang Lei's long-prepared ultimate attack would be powerful, but witnessing devastation on par with a missile strike still exceeded his expectations.

If he were honest, even as he was now, he would have no chance of surviving a direct hit.

Of course, that assumed he neither interrupted Kuang Lei during the more than ten minutes of exposed casting nor tried to dodge the attack.

The destructive power of a mage... really does live up to its reputation! he marveled inwardly.

With teamwork and thorough protection, a strategic strike that required such a long preparation could indeed unleash terrifying power capable of changing the course of a battle.

He turned his gaze to the center of the explosion. The once-mighty Bull Leader had been reduced to a horrifying state.

Most of its head and part of its neck had been blasted into charred flesh and fragments. Only a small, mangled portion of its body remained, smoking and giving off the pungent smell of burnt protein.

[Breakthrough Points + 20]

As the Bull Leader's life force faded completely, a prompt sounded in Xu Feng's mind.

"How many?"

Xu Feng paused, then quickly glanced at his system panel. The number of [Breakthrough Points] had jumped to 160.

The Bull Leader hadn't even been killed by his own hand.

Just for taking part, he'd received a full 20 points?

That was far more than he'd received from killing ordinary Wild Bulls or sharing in his teammates' kills!

Looks like killing a "leader-class" monster comes with a bonus to the Breakthrough Points, Xu Feng thought.

He still hadn't fully figured out exactly how Breakthrough Points were calculated, but they seemed to depend largely on the target's strength and his contribution to its defeat.

Now it seemed that whether the target was a "leader" was another important factor.

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