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Countless skeletons hung upside down from the hall's ceiling.
The yellow pillars, each cast from pig iron, were still spattered with blood.
The thick stench of blood filled the air. Under the glow of the eerie blue lights, the hall looked utterly sinister!
At the very end of the hall
stood a massive door.
Before it stood a three-meter-tall figure of bone.
It was this skeletal figure that had made countless viewers outside gasp!
The skeletal figure's arms hung at its sides. A battered bronze helmet covered its skull, and a huge cloak concealed its lower body.
Beside it stood the enormous spike of a poisonous crab!
Under the eerie blue light, the spike gleamed with a terrifying sheen.
When Ling Zhan stepped into the cavern,
the skeletal figure, which had seemed utterly lifeless, suddenly shuddered.
The darkness in its eye sockets suddenly flared with crimson light!
The massive figure jolted, and clouds of dust and sand tumbled from its cloak.
When it had fully risen...
its lower body turned out to be eight legs of a poisonous crab, gleaming a deep black!
And its height shot from three meters to five!
Roar!!
It gripped the enormous poisonous crab spike in its right hand, opened its jaws toward Ling Zhan, and roared.
The entire cavern trembled slightly from the roar!
So this elite monster was actually a gigantic half-man, half-scorpion creature!
Oh?
Ling Zhan saw the elite monster as it awakened, raised his swordlike brows, and showed a deep interest.
Judging by the state of this cavern, countless students had met their end here.
The human skulls hanging upside down from the hall's ceiling were proof enough.
It looked like an exceptionally powerful elite monster.
No wonder he was called King Yama Zhou. The difficulty of his trials never disappointed!
The elite monster's basic information appeared before Ling Zhan as a status panel.
[Monster: General Kevil.]
[Level: Level 15.]
[Skills: ???]
[Health: 2000/2000.]
[Defense: 800/800.]
[Status: Bloodthirsty, Combative.]
[Potential: Purple.]
[Monster Notes: In life, he was a battle-hardened general in a minor kingdom from one of the trials. He was killed by a Sewage Poison Crab, then mutated and reborn as a half-man, half-scorpion monster. He later pledged allegiance to the Sewage Poison Crab Elite.]
A purple-grade monster!
Judging by its stats alone, rushing into battle would certainly make the fight more difficult.
But Ling Zhan didn't think much of it.
Because... this time, he intended to end the fight quickly!
Clang!
A massive, pitch-black greatsword appeared in Ling Zhan's hand.
The tip slammed into the ground, smashing a hole into it.
That showed just how absurdly heavy the greatsword was!
As soon as the greatsword appeared in Ling Zhan's hand,
[Berserk] activated!
[Bloodthirst] activated!
[Elf's Blessing] activated!
[Boiling Fighting Spirit] activated!
Ling Zhan's aura suddenly drew in.
Then it burst forth!
Boom!
He had been as still as an ancient well, yet now he radiated an utterly savage aura!
More astonishingly, a blood-red aura began to coil around him.
At that moment, Ling Zhan seemed like a berserk demon!
Yet his gaze remained so calm, so confident!
Several debuffs stacked together!
Unprecedented.
At the same time, Ling Zhan's aura reached its peak. Several buffs amplified his Berserker attributes, and his fighting spirit continued to stack.
Fighting Spirit: 7 stacks!
Fighting Spirit: 10 stacks!
Fighting Spirit: 20 stacks!
Fighting Spirit: 30 stacks!
As his Fighting Spirit reached its peak, Ling Zhan's muscles swelled. His health burned, and his mana drained rapidly.
For the first time,
Ling Zhan's seemingly bottomless mana was being consumed so fiercely.
Nearly 13% of his mana vanished every second.
"Thirty seconds. That's all it'll take to decide the winner!"
"After thirty seconds, either you die, or I do!"
Ling Zhan's lips curled into a smile.
But it wasn't a crazed grin. It was the smile of someone utterly confident!
In other words,
Ling Zhan had never once considered the possibility of being killed by General Kevil!
He was destined to win this battle!
Outside the trial.
When the fragments of the light screen reassembled to show the lean, tall figure,
all the spectators grew excited.
The city's top-ranked student might very well emerge from this trial!
Naturally, they were thrilled!
"General Kevil! Holy crap! They say that monster has killed more than five hundred students!"
"Half-man, half-crab! It's disgusting just to look at. Ugh!"
"That thing must be about five meters tall. It's like a small mountain—so intimidating!"
When the younger students saw General Kevil in full,
their faces filled with fear.
The bloodstains in the hall, the human skeletons hanging from the ceiling, the eerie blue lights... and the vicious, savage General Kevil!
All those things combined would have been enough to make anyone with weak nerves faint!
"A greatsword! Senior Ling Zhan actually brought out a greatsword!"
"Isn't that a Berserker's weapon?"
"Berserkers have high attack power, but don't they have to sacrifice their own attributes to use their skills?"
"Hah! Against an elite monster like this, you should be extra cautious. Ling Zhan's using a Berserker's fighting style right from the start. He's practically asking to die!"
Quite a few examinees who had withdrawn after failing their trials saw Ling Zhan's actions and couldn't help shaking their heads with a cold laugh.
Some of those examinees had chosen to withdraw as soon as they entered the elite monster's trial!
They'd only needed to glance at the monster's health and defense to know they couldn't win.
Yet this Jobless Freelancer had gone straight for the most reckless approach... Hah! He was asking for trouble!
"Whoa! He stacked thirty layers of Fighting Spirit. That's practically the maximum!"
Suddenly, one of the examinees who had withdrawn cried out.
The spectators around him looked closely and saw that the figure on the light screen was indeed wreathed in the blood-red aura of Fighting Spirit!
The aura swirled around Ling Zhan like a tornado, enveloping him completely and making him look like a berserk god of slaughter!
"A sacrifice build! The various buffs will only last thirty seconds at most. After that, his mana will be drained, his health will be sucked dry, and all his attributes will plummet. Using it right from the start—does Senior really have no fear of dying?"
"How could Senior Ling Zhan do something so foolish?"
The younger students exchanged stunned glances.
From what they'd been taught, the Berserker's role was actually quite complicated.
Although the class could unleash tremendous power for a short time, it would soon falter.
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