Although Ying Huaixu was a master of high-level mechanics, beginners running this dungeon still had to spend some time grinding through the snow before reaching the boss's second phase.
Yet now, he had practically pushed the boss into her second phase with just a few sword strikes.
This really was much easier than the game.
After the woman devoured the head in her right hand, her body began to swell, and her height shot up again.
"Roar..."
The woman let out a series of guttural roars as her arms and body twisted and transformed.
Before long, her lower body resembled a lotus formed entirely of flesh and blood, while her upper body had become even more slender.
But patterns had spread across her face, making her look more like a demon.
Fleshy growths began sprouting from her arms.
Those growths completely enveloped the sword in her hand.
It looked as though the sword had fused with her body.
After completing her second-phase transformation, the woman turned her icy gaze on Ying Huaixu again.
"Human, die!"
With that, she swung the sword in her hand straight at Ying Huaixu.
The strike unleashed a blade of sword energy!
"Holy shit!"
Ying Huaixu hurriedly dodged.
This time, he was genuinely stunned.
From the moment the attack indicator appeared to the moment the woman attacked, there was at most half a second.
That was twice as fucking fast as the attack indicators in the normal game.
And that wasn't all.
The woman's aggression was frighteningly high, too.
"Die, die, die, die... just die!"
The woman swung her sword wildly, sending wave after wave of sword energy sweeping toward Ying Huaixu.
Ying Huaixu dodged again and again.
Although the difficulty had increased considerably, he still had the dodge system and attack indicators.
For a top-tier player like him, this still wasn't much of a challenge.
He hadn't adjusted to the boss's attack speed at first, but once he did, Ying Huaixu handled her with ease.
What was more...
Ying Huaixu discovered another feature, an utterly overpowered one.
Dodge invincibility frames!
With this feature intact, Ying Huaixu was once again full of confidence about the future.
Invincibility frames would leave him enormous room for skillful play in later raids.
He was also looking forward even more to the cultivation abilities he would acquire later.
Some of those abilities had invincibility frames and time stops, too.
If all those features were still there, then he, Ying Huaixu, had nothing to fear.
But now wasn't the time to think about that. His immediate priority was to kill the boss in front of him.
Whoosh!
As another blade of sword energy came flying toward him, Ying Huaixu dodged again.
Then he felt a strange power suddenly surge through his body.
He had triggered another dodge counter.
Whoosh!
The instant the dodge counter triggered, Ying Huaixu practically teleported in front of the woman. His sword seemed wreathed in a halo as he slashed viciously at her.
This strike was guaranteed to hit, and it was extremely fast.
The boss had no time to react.
Crack!
Another sound like shattering glass rang out.
That familiar sensation returned: weakness throughout her body, her mind momentarily going blank.
The woman's hands stopped moving again.
"Countless Flying Snow Swords."
Ying Huaixu turned into a streak of white light again, darting around the boss.
Bloody cuts kept appearing across the boss's body, sending blood spraying everywhere.
"Holy shit..."
Ying Huaixu was rattled.
When he played the game, hacking at a boss only produced a heap of numbers.
Even when he had fought the bandits earlier, he had killed almost all of them with a single strike. He had overlooked the fact that this wasn't a game, and that this thing would bleed when cut.
Ying Huaixu was now covered in blood. The waves of foul, bloody stench were so overpowering that he had to stop attacking.
He wanted to throw up.
Once Ying Huaixu stopped, the boss got back up.
But what happened next stunned him again.
The boss ran away!
Ying Huaixu really hadn't expected that.
In the game, bosses and players fought to the death. Either he killed them for loot, or they beat him into the ground.
He was so used to that setup that it had never occurred to him a boss might run away.
Smack!
Ying Huaixu slapped himself.
"This isn't a game anymore, and she isn't just some programmed NPC. She can think, she's intelligent, so of course she'd run. I'm so fucking stupid."
Still, if he let this boss get away today, Ying Huaixu would probably harbor more resentment than she did.
He had to get the sword in her hand. It would give him an extra measure of security in his future endeavors.
"Demon woman, fucking stop!"
Ying Huaixu chased after her, sword in hand.
The female ghost was truly panicking now.
She had absolutely no desire to keep fighting.
The human before her was simply too bizarre.
After fighting him all this time, she hadn't even touched the hem of Ying Huaixu's clothes.
Meanwhile, Ying Huaixu had beaten her so badly that she couldn't fight back at all.
Something was wrong with this human. Very wrong.
If she didn't run now, she would definitely die here.
Seeing Ying Huaixu chasing her, drenched in blood, the boss went pale with fright.
"Young master, young master, we can talk this over! Just spare me, and I'll give you anything you want."
Ying Huaixu remained expressionless, merely tightening his grip on his sword.
The boss understood. This human simply wanted to kill her.
She was dumbfounded.
"Young master, do I really have to die? Is there no room for negotiation?"
Ying Huaixu nodded.
Of course there wasn't.
I'm not just after the sword in your hand. I also want the experience I'll get for killing you.
The woman turned and fled into the courtyard's main hall. The thick fog contracted, and the door slammed shut.
Ying Huaixu launched himself into a flying kick.
Bang!
The door shattered, revealing the female boss huddled in a corner, trembling.
"Found you."
Ying Huaixu smiled.
With blood covering his face, however, he looked genuinely terrifying.
The boss threw away the sword in her hand, then disintegrated right before Ying Huaixu's dumbstruck eyes.
Ying Huaixu: "???"
As the boss disintegrated, the little courtyard began to collapse.
"Shit, the yin soul grass!"
Ying Huaixu hurriedly gathered a few stalks of grass from the courtyard, then rushed to pick up the sword the boss had abandoned.
Once Ying Huaixu had collected everything, a curtain of light enveloped him and pulled him out.
With Ying Huaixu gone, the small dungeon collapsed completely.
But amid the collapsed ruins, a tiny figure poked her head out and looked around, still shaken.
"Thank goodness. If not for the Great Disintegration Art, I really would've been done for today."
The tiny figure couldn't help patting her chest as she spoke, relieved to have survived.
But she didn't dare linger. She turned into a wisp of black smoke, burrowed underground, and fled into the distance.
She didn't dare stay here anymore. Who knew whether that human would come back!
Meanwhile, Ying Huaixu breathed a sigh of relief.
He had obtained both the quest items and the dungeon experience.
Killing the boss had earned him 500 experience. Combined with the earlier mobs, that made 1,500, and fully clearing the dungeon had awarded another 1,000.
This run had netted him a full 2,500 experience.
His plan to accumulate 10,000 experience before heading to the Divine Firmament Sword Sect was nearly complete. Barring any surprises, finishing the chance encounter quest should push his experience past the 10,000 mark, perhaps even further.
Before you continue