Going All In!

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

Several kilometers away from the teleportation gate.

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

The lightning mage in the team swung his staff, and streaks of scorching lightning chains leaped among the Lizardmen.

But it only made them stiffen for a few seconds before they quickly shook their heads and recovered their ferocity.

Ice cones and fireballs whistled out, striking the gray, rough skin, but only leaving shallow scorch marks or negligible frost. The damage was extremely limited.

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

Only the giant axe wielder and another warrior wielding a greatsword could leave wounds deep enough to see bone with every powerful slash.

But there were only two of them, facing Lizardmen pouring out from all directions, from the swamps and the treetops.

This was undoubtedly a drop in the bucket.

Not long after they left the teleportation gate, they were targeted by these terrifying hunters.

One wave had barely subsided before another rose.

The consequence of not clearing them out quickly was that the Lizardmen gathered in ever-increasing numbers, like a school of piranhas that had smelled blood.

Fortunately, Jin Chang'en's "Life Chain" was still active, evenly distributing the impact and claw wounds received by each person among the eight of them, so there were no fatal injuries for the time being.

But Jin Chang'en's expression was even uglier than the muddy water of the swamp.

He stared at another C-class magic stone in his hand that had lost its luster, his eye twitching fiercely.

Three of them!

A full three hundred thousand!

They had turned into fuel for maintaining the Life Chain, consumed in resisting these endless Lizardmen!

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

One ice mage's voice trembled.

"Me too! My magic power is almost depleted!"

The fire mage's forehead bulged with veins, sweat mixed with blood trickling down.

Jin Chang'en remained silent, his gaze fixed forward.

There, the source of the magic power fluctuations, the coveted Magic Stone Mine, was less than two kilometers away!

Wealth within reach had turned into a desperate gamble.

No child cries every day!

No gambler loses every day!

He gritted his teeth and took out an arrow from his personal backpack. It was crystal clear like blue crystal, inscribed with complex frost runes.

[Arrow of Freezing]

A one-time C-class magic item, with a market price of a full three million!

It was his trump card, his life-saving item!

With his other hand, he took out the remaining five C-class magic stones, the muscles in his face contorting with heartache.

"Concentrate your magic power and guide it for me!"

He roared, and his teammates immediately understood. Gritting their teeth, they transferred their dwindling magic power through the Life Chain to Jin Chang'en from a distance.

Jin Chang'en, acting as the center, poured the surging magic power from the five magic stones, along with the gathered magic power, into the blue arrow with all his might!

The arrow suddenly erupted with a dazzling ice-blue light. Its tail vibrated at high frequency, emitting a sharp hum. It detached from Jin Chang'en's hand and hovered in mid-air!

Hum--!!!!

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

Where it passed, extreme cold descended!

Ice crystals condensed in the air, and the surface of the swamp instantly froze.

The ferocious Lizardmen that lunged forward were rapidly frozen from the outside in before they could even let out a scream, turning into ice sculptures of various poses, densely covering the path ahead for nearly a kilometer!

The chilling air was palpable, and a passage formed by ice sculptures appeared!

"Charge!!!"

Jin Chang'en's voice was hoarse as he led the charge along the ice path bought at an exorbitant price.

His teammates followed closely, not daring to pause for breath, sprinting with all their might.

As they advanced to within about a kilometer of the Magic Stone Mine, a change occurred!

The Lizardmen who had been relentlessly pursuing them from behind suddenly stopped as if they had hit an invisible wall.

They still stared at the intruders with their scarlet eyes, emitting threatening growls from their throats, their claws scraping, but they did not dare to step forward another half-step.

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

This situation could only mean one thing!

They had entered the territory of the true ruler of this underground city!

It was the leader's oppressive aura that made these fearless Lizardmen halt in their tracks.

Ahead, a noticeably elevated rocky hill, starkly out of place in the surrounding flat swamp, appeared in their vision.

The concentration and activity of magic power in the air reached its peak, like boiling water, furiously gushing outwards from within the hill, restless.

"The leader... must be here."

Jin Chang'en's eyes were grave as he signaled his team to slow down and form a tighter defensive circle.

Everyone held their breath, their attention heightened to the extreme.

"Scout! Find the leader's location!"

He commanded in a low voice.

However, the Scout's face was pale, his forehead covered in cold sweat. The blue halo in his eyes flickered unstably, and his voice trembled slightly:

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

My senses feel like they've fallen into a vortex, completely unable to discern a specific target!

It... it could be anywhere!"

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

The worst-case scenario had occurred.

A leader skilled at hiding, perhaps even possessing abilities like invisibility or extremely high environmental mimicry, was a perfect assassin in this chaotic magic power.

But they had no retreat.

Behind them was the stagnant but not yet dispersed army of Lizardmen.

At the summit of the hill ahead, those clusters of crystals emitting an alluring pale blue glow amidst the turbulent magic power.

Magic stone ore!

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

The mine was within reach, practically within their grasp!

However, the fatal attack came without a sound.

Without any warning, the Scout on the flank, responsible for vigilance, suddenly stiffened.

He looked down blankly, only to see a sharp, bone-like claw, shimmering with a cold, dark green light, piercing through his chest.

He didn't even have time to issue a warning before the light in his eyes rapidly dimmed, his life force vanishing instantly.

"Enemy attack!!"

Jin Chang'en's eyes were about to split open, but he couldn't pinpoint the attacker's figure at all!

The Life Chain sent a violent feedback wave, signaling the death of a teammate, making his chest feel heavy.

Next, it was the fire mage at the rear of the team!

He was attempting to conjure a fireball for illumination when he suddenly felt a cold touch at his neck.

The next second, his head separated from his body, blood spraying several feet high!

"Back to back! Quickly!"

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

The third, then the fourth team member fell consecutively.

All were killed with a single, precise, and ruthless strike.

They hadn't seen the enemy's appearance even in death.

Jin Chang'en frantically tried to maintain the Life Chain, but his remaining magic power poured out like an opened floodgate, and the magic stones in his pouch were long depleted.

When the last elemental mage's throat was slit by a blurry shadow with an expression of despair, the light of the Life Chain completely extinguished.

In less than a minute.

Of the eight-person expedition team, only Jin Chang'en, the burly man wielding an axe, and the taciturn greatsword warrior remained, standing back to back, forming a trembling triangle.

At their feet lay the rapidly cooling corpses of five comrades, their blood soaking into the land below the hill.

An invisible fear gripped their hearts.

The unseen killer, like a specter of death, roamed within the violent magic power, ready to deliver the next 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 so close, yet it had become an unreachable shore.

The three cautiously, step by step, retreated in the direction they came from, towards the boundary where the Lizardman army had halted.

Every step felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, their minds stretched to their limits, guarding against attacks that could come from any angle at any moment.

However, as they retreated to the border, an even more desperate scene met their eyes.

Outside, a dense, countless horde of Lizardmen had completely blocked the path they had taken!

They were layered upon each other, their scarlet eyes like a red ocean in the dim light, their chilling killing intent almost solidifying.

An invisible god of death in front, and a hopeless siege behind.

Jin Chang'en's face turned ashen, his last shred of hope utterly crushed.

He glanced at the giant axe-wielding man beside him. The latter was using a trembling hand to tightly grip an old pocket watch, its cover open. Inside, a small photograph was pasted.

It was a little girl with a smile as bright as the sun, her hand held tightly by his.

"Xiao Ya... Daddy's sorry..."

The man choked back sobs, hot tears mingling with the bloodstains on his face as they trickled down.

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

Jin Chang'en also slowly closed his eyes, as if he could already hear the sound of air being torn apart by whistling blades striking again.

This time, who would be their target?

It was over.

The expected sharp pain did not come.

Instead, piercing screams suddenly erupted from the Lizardman tide behind them!

And... a heavy, brutal, earth-shattering impact and shattering sound!

The noise was so violent that it drowned out all the clamor of the Lizardmen!

Jin Chang'en and the other two's eyes snapped open, and they looked back in horror!

Behind them, the impenetrable wall of flesh and blood formed by the Lizardmen had been torn open by a gaping hole!

Limbs and broken bodies flew everywhere like violently scattered garbage, dark red blood mist rising!

And in the center of the mist and corpses stood a figure, two and a half meters tall, clad in ferocious dark red biological armor, like a demon god stepping out from a sea of blood in hell.

He was slowly retracting his fist, which had just been swung and was still dripping with viscous blood.

The armored face, a pair of scarlet pupils, glanced at them indifferently through the light red visor.

A terrifying aura, wild and ferocious like an ancient beast, spread from the figure in the scarlet armor.

In an instant, it shocked the surrounding Lizardmen, causing their offensive to falter!

Xu Feng stood like a stabilizing pillar before the three trapped individuals.

He tilted his keratin-covered head slightly, his crimson-gold pupils locking onto the depths of the raging magic power turbulence ahead.

There, a distorted silhouette seemed to blend almost perfectly with the environment.

This silhouette seemed to reveal a trace of surprise and uncertainty due to his sudden intervention.