Death's Hand

Seeing that Shrek Academy had already made its move, Tang Yi had the system issue a quest as well.

[Story quest activated: Death's Hand. Travel to the Mingdou Mountains and wipe out the evil soul master gang known as Death's Hand.]

[Teleportation circle activated. The teleport destination is also the respawn point. This is a time-limited quest. Players, please prepare and head there as soon as possible.]

Invincible Tyrannosaurus Warrior: "The story quest is here. Death's Hand? The Mingdou Mountains? Isn't this the incident that became the shame of Xuan Zi's life?"

Wang Zhongwang: "Here's our chance to change the story. This time, we absolutely can't let the tragedy from the original story happen again."

Primordial One: "If we take out that Death's Hand evil soul master gang ahead of time, won't that mean Huo Yuhao, the protagonist, won't get to shine at the Soul Master Tournament?"

I Am an Angel: "What's that got to do with us? Anyway, I don't like Huo Yuhao as a protagonist. His characterization is way too disconnected between the beginning and the end."

Spirit Hall Eternal: "I agree with that. Early on, he kept talking about revenge, revenge, but what the hell revenge did he get in the end?"

Ten-Year Veteran: "Let's think about how we're going to fight this time. We're facing a gang of evil soul masters, so we definitely can't just use the same simple, brute-force suicide bomber strategy as before."

Ten-Year Veteran: "My suggestion is to start by fighting those evil soul masters the way soul masters normally would, then blow ourselves up with C4 when our HP bottoms out."

Agile Dog in the Mountains: "Easy enough to say. I'm just worried we'll get one-shotted and won't even get the chance to blow ourselves up with C4."

Qian Xixi: "At worst, we'll just have to do a corpse run. No big deal. This evil soul master gang called Death's Hand shouldn't be that strong, right?"

Wang Zhongwang: "In the story, the leader of Death's Hand Gang was called Deathbringer. He caught Shrek Academy off guard with bombs hidden inside corpses, and that's what caused the heavy casualties."

Invincible Tyrannosaurus Warrior: "Right, everyone in Death's Hand Gang has a bomb inside their body. How about this? We find a way to gather them together, then use C4 to blow ourselves up right in the crowd."

Primordial One: "You just want to see a mushroom cloud, don't you?"

Invincible Tyrannosaurus Warrior: "Wouldn't it be great to finish them all in one go?"

Ten-Year Veteran: "That does count as a plan. Anyone good at taunting?"

Agile Dog in the Mountains: "I'm damn good at cussing people out."

Qian Xixi: "All right, everyone, get your combat supplies ready. We leave in ten minutes."

The ten minutes passed quickly. All the players finished their preparations, and the system teleported them straight to the Mingdou Mountains.

The teleport point had even been placed right outside the cave where Death's Hand Gang was hiding. Put simply, they were once again blocking the enemy's door with a respawn point.

Wang Zhongwang: "They're right inside? How thoughtful. Brothers, summon your martial souls and charge!"

Wang Zhongwang summoned his martial soul, the Black-Striped Tiger, and charged straight into the cave.

Quite a few others followed his example and rushed in after him.

Ten-Year Veteran: "Do these guys lose their minds the moment they pop their ults? Respawning has a cooldown now. They can't mess around like they did at the start."

Fortunately, the assault team he had put together wasn't so impulsive. Then, under Ten-Year Veteran's lead, the assault team also charged into the cave.

The cave was much larger than they had imagined, with a whole other world inside.

There were far more people inside than they had imagined, too. Some were evil soul masters, some were ordinary bandits, and others were corpse puppets the evil soul masters had refined into tools.

In the players' eyes, though, all these people were experience points, all of them monsters.

However, Invincible Tyrannosaurus Warrior's earlier idea went up in smoke. These people were spread out too widely, and there was no way to gather them together.

The players could only spread out to wipe out these monsters.

At this point, I Am an Angel discovered that her angel martial soul had a special attack bonus against these evil soul masters, doubling her damage.

While this let her thrive like a fish in water, it also drew the attention of Deathbringer, the leader of Death's Hand.

"An angel martial soul. To think it's the bane of us evil soul masters, an angel martial soul. Even if it's only a two-winged angel, he absolutely cannot be allowed to grow. I have to kill her here."

Deathbringer controlled the corpse puppets, sending them all to attack I Am an Angel.

I Am an Angel: "Second soul skill: Purifying Feather!"

Feathers shot from I Am an Angel's wings. When these feathers landed on teammates, they had a purifying effect, while those that landed on enemies dealt damage.

This move was even more effective against corpse puppets. With this move alone, I Am an Angel instantly killed a large group of them.

Watching her experience points shoot up by a substantial chunk, I Am an Angel was very satisfied.

At this rate, it wouldn't take long for her to reach level 30 as well.

When that happened, she would grit her teeth and top up her account too, then reroll her martial soul. At the very least, it had to become a four-winged angel.

However, I Am an Angel had clearly forgotten the plot Wang Zhongwang had mentioned earlier. Deathbringer's real killing move was the bombs hidden inside the corpses.

After defeating those corpse puppets, I Am an Angel even intended to pass them and attack the boss, Deathbringer, directly.

Instead, Deathbringer immediately detonated those corpse puppets, and the violent explosion swallowed I Am an Angel in an instant.

In the blink of an eye, she was back at the respawn point to respawn.

Seeing the angel-form me blasted into dust by the explosion, Deathbringer couldn't help laughing aloud.

"Hahaha! An angel martial soul is nothing special after all."

Ten-Year Veteran also saw I Am an Angel get blown to death.

Ten-Year Veteran: "Watch out for the corpses. Don't get blown up by them."

As he spoke, Ten-Year Veteran thrust his spear through the heart of another bandit charging toward him. The evolved Formation-Breaking Overlord Spear really was handy. Even without using a soul skill, it was tremendously powerful.

In the original story, Ma Xiaotao had led a team on a rampage, slaughtering in every direction. Although the players couldn't quite do that now, they weren't far off.

The weaker ones also threw their C4 before their HP bars emptied. Each blast likewise took out a whole swath, and could even set off a chain reaction, detonating the bombs inside the corpses as well.

Some people were caught in the chain explosions and blasted back to the respawn point.

Those who had been caught in the blasts and sent back to the respawn point were already cursing in the chat channel.

However, the system had censored those curses. Tang Yi didn't want to see excessively vulgar language either.

At this point, Deathbringer also noticed something was wrong. These people seemed completely unafraid of death.

"Could these people also be puppets someone refined? But they don't look like it at all. Wait, didn't that woman with the angel martial soul die? How has she appeared again?"

Only after observing carefully did Deathbringer discover that it wasn't just I Am an Angel. Many people had reappeared after dying.

"What's going on? Could they be the true undying ones favored by death?"

Deathbringer was a title he had bestowed upon himself. Now that he had seen people who truly couldn't die, he was genuinely afraid.