All-In!

"Captain! There are more and more of these damned things!"

Several kilometers from the teleportation portal.

Jin Chang'en's team was locked in a bitter struggle.

The team's lightning mage swung his staff, sending blazing chains of lightning leaping through the Lizardman horde.

Yet they could only stiffen the creatures' movements for a few seconds. Soon, they shook their heads and recovered their ferocity.

Ice spikes and fireballs howled through the air, smashing into those dull, rough hides, but only leaving shallow scorch marks or insignificant frost. The damage was extremely limited.

The Lizardmen's resistance to magical damage was despairingly high.

Only the burly man with the giant axe and another warrior wielding a two-handed greatsword could leave deep, bone-revealing wounds on the monsters with every powerful slash.

But there were only two of them, while Lizardmen kept pouring in from all directions—the swamp and the treetops.

It was utterly inadequate.

Not long after they left the portal, these terrifying hunters had set their sights on them.

Just when one wave subsided, another rose.

The consequence of failing to clear them out quickly was that more and more Lizardmen gathered, like piranhas that had caught the scent of blood.

Fortunately, Jin Chang'en's Life Chain remained active, evenly distributing the impact and claw wounds suffered by each person among the eight of them. For the moment, no one had sustained a fatal injury.

But Jin Chang'en's expression looked worse than the swamp water and mud.

He stared at another C-Rank magic stone in his hand that had lost its luster, and the corner of his eye twitched violently.

Three stones!

A full three hundred thousand!

They had been reduced to fuel for maintaining the Life Chain, consumed while resisting these endlessly spawning Lizardmen!

"Captain! I've used up the three D-Rank magic stones I brought!"

An ice mage's voice trembled.

"Mine too! My mana is almost gone!"

The fire mage's forehead bulged with veins as sweat mixed with blood and streamed down his face.

Jin Chang'en remained silent, his gaze fixed firmly ahead.

There, at the source of the mana fluctuations—the tantalizing Magic Stone Mine—they were less than two kilometers away!

Wealth within easy reach had transformed into a mad gamble in this desperate situation.

What child cries every day?

What gambler loses every day?

He gritted his teeth and took a crystalline arrow from the pack strapped close to his body. It was as blue as a sapphire and engraved with intricate frost runes.

[Arrow of Freezing]

A one-use C-Rank magical item, worth a full three million on the market!

His ultimate life-saving trump card!

With his other hand, he pulled out the last five C-Rank magic stones. The muscles on his face twisted with pain.

"Focus your mana and channel it to me!"

He let out a low growl. The team members immediately understood, gritting their teeth as they transmitted their remaining mana to Jin Chang'en through the Life Chain.

As the nexus, Jin Chang'en frantically poured the surging mana from the five magic stones, together with the gathered mana, into the blue arrow!

The arrow suddenly erupted with dazzling ice-blue light. Its fletching began vibrating at high frequency on its own, producing a sharp hum. It broke free of Jin Chang'en's palm and floated in midair!

Vmmm—!!!!

The arrow transformed into an ice-blue meteor that tore through the air and shot forward!

Extreme cold descended wherever it passed!

Ice crystals condensed in the air, and the swamp's surface froze in an instant.

The hideous Lizardmen that pounced toward them did not even have time to scream before they were rapidly frozen from the outside in, becoming ice sculptures in various poses. They densely covered nearly a kilometer of the path ahead!

The biting chill forced its way through the air, and a passage formed entirely from ice sculptures appeared before them!

"Charge!!!"

Jin Chang'en's voice was hoarse as he led the way, sprinting along the icy path purchased with such an exorbitant price.

The team followed close behind, ignoring their gasping breaths as they dashed with all their strength.

When they advanced to within approximately one kilometer of the Magic Stone Mine, something suddenly changed!

The Lizardmen that had been relentlessly pursuing them seemed to run into an invisible wall. They stopped in unison.

They still glared at the intruders with blood-red eyes, growling threateningly in their throats and scraping their claws and teeth together, but they no longer dared take even half a step forward.

The pressure on the team suddenly eased, but Jin Chang'en and the others' hearts sank.

This could only mean one thing!

They had entered the territory of the true ruler of this dungeon!

It was the leader's pressure that had stopped these fearless Lizardmen in their tracks.

Ahead, a rocky hill rose conspicuously from the landscape, completely at odds with the flat swamp around it.

The concentration and activity of mana in the air had reached its peak. Like boiling water, it surged outward from within the hill in a frenzy, seething with restlessness.

"The leader... must be here."

Jin Chang'en's expression was grave. He gestured for the team to slow down and form a tighter defensive circle.

Everyone held their breath, raising their focus to the utmost limit.

"Scout! Find the leader's location!"

He issued the order in a low voice.

However, the scout's face was pale, and cold sweat covered his forehead. The blue glow in his eyes flickered erratically, and his voice carried a hint of tremble.

"Captain... I can't... The mana here is too violent, too chaotic!

"My senses feel like they've fallen into a whirlpool. I can't distinguish any specific target at all!

"It... it could be anywhere!"

Can't find the book by searching its title? Try searching for the author instead. Maybe it was just renamed!

Jin Chang'en's heart sank bit by bit.

The worst-case scenario had appeared.

A leader skilled at concealment—possibly even possessing invisibility or an extremely high level of environmental camouflage—was a perfect assassin within these turbulent mana currents.

But they had no way back.

Behind them was the Lizardman army, stalled but not dispersed.

At the top of the hill ahead, clusters of crystals emitted an alluring pale-blue radiance amid the chaotic glow of mana.

Raw magic stone ore!

Greed and the desire to survive intertwined in everyone's eyes.

The mine was within arm's reach. It was practically theirs!

Yet the fatal attack came silently.

Without the slightest warning, the scout guarding the team's flank suddenly stiffened.

He lowered his head in confusion, only to see a sharp claw that glimmered with a ghostly green chill, bone-like in appearance, protruding from his chest.

He did not even have time to sound an alarm before the light in his eyes rapidly dimmed and his life force vanished in an instant.

"Enemy attack!!"

Jin Chang'en's eyes nearly split with rage, but he could not catch even a glimpse of the attacker!

A violent feedback wave came through the Life Chain, signifying a team member's death, leaving his chest tight.

Next came the fire mage at the rear of the team!

He was trying to condense a ball of fire for illumination when a chill suddenly touched his neck.

The next second, his head separated from his body, and blood sprayed several feet into the air!

"Back to back! Quickly!"

Jin Chang'en roared, but fear had already spread through the team.

The third and fourth team members fell one after another.

Each had been killed with a single blow, their wounds precise and vicious.

None of them had seen the enemy's appearance before they died.

Jin Chang'en desperately tried to maintain the Life Chain, but the remaining mana poured away like a flood released from a dam, and the magic stones in his pockets had long since been exhausted.

When the last elemental mage was killed, his throat slit by a blurred shadow as despair filled his face, the Life Chain's light went out completely.

In less than a minute.

The eight-person expedition team had been reduced to three: Jin Chang'en, the burly axeman, and the taciturn greatsword warrior, standing back to back in a trembling triangle.

At their feet lay the five rapidly cooling bodies of their companions, their blood soaking the ground beneath the hill.

An intangible terror clenched their hearts.

The invisible killer was like a vengeful ghost demanding their lives, drifting through the violent mana currents and ready to strike another fatal blow at any moment.

"Retreat! Fall back!"

Jin Chang'en's voice was hoarse, filled with unwillingness and despair.

The Magic Stone Mine was right before their eyes, yet it had become an unreachable shore.

The three carefully retreated step by step in the direction they had come from, toward the boundary where the Lizardman army had stopped.

Every step felt as heavy as a thousand pounds. Their nerves were stretched to the limit as they guarded against an attack that could come from any angle at any moment.

However, when they reached the boundary, an even more despairing sight entered their view.

Outside, countless densely packed Lizardmen had completely sealed off the passage they had used to leave!

They were piled layer upon layer, their blood-red eyes forming a crimson sea in the dim light. Their icy killing intent had nearly solidified into something tangible.

An invisible god of death stood before them, while a dead end surrounded them from behind.

Jin Chang'en's face was as pale as paper, and his final trace of hope was utterly crushed.

He glanced at the giant axeman beside him. The man was tightly clutching an open old pocket watch in his trembling hand. A tiny photograph was pasted inside the cover.

A little girl with a smile bright as sunlight was holding his hand.

"Xiaoya... Daddy's sorry..."

The burly man choked on his words, hot tears sliding down through the blood and grime on his face.

The greatsword warrior gripped his sword hilt tightly, his knuckles white, silently facing death.

Jin Chang'en slowly closed his eyes as well. Beside his ears, he seemed to hear the sound of something tearing through the air as it attacked once more.

This time, which one of them would be the target?

It was over.

The expected agony did not arrive.

Instead, a shrill scream suddenly erupted from the Lizardman horde behind them!

And... the heavy, savage impact and shattering sounds of something crushing through everything in its path!

The noise was so violent that it drowned out the Lizardmen's entire commotion!

Jin Chang'en and the other two abruptly widened their eyes and looked back in horror!

The impenetrable wall of flesh formed by the Lizardmen behind them had been forcibly torn open, leaving a huge gap!

Severed limbs flew through the air like garbage hurled about by brute force, while dark-red blood mist rose into the sky!

At the center of the blood mist and corpses stood a figure two and a half meters tall, clad in a hideous dark-red biological armor, as though a demon god had stepped out of a sea of blood in hell.

The figure was slowly drawing back the fist it had just swung, viscous blood still dripping from it.

On the armor-covered face, a pair of crimson irises coldly swept over them through the pale-red faceplate.

A violent, savage aura as terrifying as that of an ancient beast spread from the scarlet-armored figure.

In an instant, the remaining Lizardmen's assault was suppressed into a brief halt!

Xu Feng stood before the three people trapped in desperation like a Dinghai needle.

He slightly tilted his chitin-covered head, his red-gold irises locking onto the depths of the violent mana currents ahead.

There, a distorted outline that was nearly one with the surroundings had appeared.

The outline seemed to reveal a trace of uncertainty at his sudden intrusion.