She Was a Guide NPC?!

The farther they went toward the outskirts of the city, the stronger the smell of blood grew. Roars shook their eardrums until they ached.

Fallen guards and smashed city defense equipment lay along the way, while the silhouettes of exotic beasts rose and fell among the ruins. When they finally climbed the gatehouse and looked down, even Shen Que sucked in a breath.

Below the city gate, a massive creature was slamming into it.

It stood three stories tall, its body covered in hard, dark gray scales, each the size of a millstone. Its head resembled that of a giant lizard. It opened its enormous mouth and sprayed foul-smelling drool onto the gate, corroding visible dents into the heavy ironwood. With each impact, the entire stretch of wall trembled, sending rubble pattering down.

The guards on the wall fired arrows and hurled flaming oil with all their might, but the arrows bounced off its scales without leaving so much as a white mark.

"A level-four Corrupted Species... a Rock-Armored Beast?"

Shen Que's voice dropped, and his expression turned grim.

He gripped his sword hilt until his knuckles turned white. A peak level-four Corrupted Species was supposed to be the beginner village's main-story boss, which wouldn't appear until stage ten. Why had it shown up here so far ahead of time?

Could it be that the story had unexpectedly placed a guide NPC here, so its difficulty had been raised to keep players from taking the guide NPC away too easily?

Xilaier's usual grin was gone too. His brows knitted tightly. "What do we do, Shen Que? Our mental power is suppressed. Dealing with this thing will probably be... tough. We can't lose, whatever we do. If we get beaten and have to start over in the beginner village, we'll definitely be called out on the campus forum!"

Although the game could be restarted, no sentinel had fallen in the beginner village since it launched. They were military academy students, too. They really couldn't afford the embarrassment!

Yuqing leaned over the battlements and looked down, her heart sinking too.

The Rock-Armored Beast's roars carried intense mental pollution. Many of the ordinary guards on the wall had already gone pale and were swaying on their feet.

The game system's alert sounded urgently in her mind, and the beginner guide Lily's projection appeared again:

[Warning! Level-four Corrupted Species Rock-Armored Beast detected. Mental pollution intensity exceeds safe limits! Current area defense below 30%. The city gate is about to be breached!]

[Emergency side quest triggered: defend the city gate. Quest rewards: one lottery draw, +5,000 points, outfit skins ×5.]

"If the gate falls, not a single citizen inside will survive." Shen Que turned to look at her, his tone solemn. "Miss Aili, stay up on the gatehouse and use your mental power to help keep our minds steady. Xilaier and I will go down and take it on."

"We're going together! The two of you can't handle it alone." Yuqing studied the exotic beast. Every living creature had a weakness, and to find it, she had to fight up close.

"All right, stay behind us, then. We'll scout ahead." Shen Que nodded.

If she had been a real guide, as a sentinel he could never have let her take the risk. But Aili was only an NPC. Even if they failed today and replayed stage two tomorrow, Aili's character would respawn. Besides...

What he was most curious about was how strong this NPC really was for the story to bring out the beginner village's ultimate boss so far ahead of time.

"Don't worry." Yuqing made an OK gesture. For the moment, she left the blade at her waist unused and instead condensed a bow and arrows from her mental power, keeping a moderate distance.

The moment the three came down from the gatehouse, the Rock-Armored Beast sensed living creatures.

It whipped its head around, pointing its three horns at them, and opened its enormous mouth!

"Get out of the way!" Shen Que growled.

Xilaier used the momentum to leap up and slash at the beast with his longsword. With a sharp clang, sparks flew. The impact numbed the web of his sword hand, and he staggered back three steps before regaining his footing. The Rock-Armored Beast, meanwhile, didn't have so much as a white mark on it.

"It's ridiculously tough!" Xilaier spat out blood-tinged saliva. "Those scales are like refined iron. Normal attacks can't get through its defenses!"

Enraged by the sword strike, the Rock-Armored Beast swept its thick tail at them with a howl of wind. Shen Que shoved Yuqing aside and raised his sword to block. He was sent flying backward and slammed into the base of the wall. He grunted, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

"Shen Que!" Yuqing's heart clenched. She raised her hand and fired three mental arrows.

Trailing pale blue specks of light, the arrows flew straight at the Rock-Armored Beast's eyes. The beast snapped them shut, and the arrows struck its thick eyelids. Though they caused no serious injury, the pain drew a deafening roar from it, and the mental pollution around it abruptly intensified.

Guards on the wall clutched their heads and groaned. Even Xilaier shook his head, his mental domain feeling as though it had been pierced by countless needles.

"Don't try to endure it!" Yuqing called sharply. Gentle mental power spread like ripples in water, enveloping Shen Que's and Xilaier's mental domains and instantly suppressing the violent, stabbing pain. "I'll keep its mind in check. Look for a chance to attack its joints!"

With her mental soothing to support them, the two recovered at once.

Shen Que charged forward again, sword raised, targeting the bends of the beast's legs. Xilaier circled around its flank and stabbed his dagger into the gaps between its scales.

Yuqing watched the Rock-Armored Beast's movements closely. When the beast had raised its head and roared earlier, she had seen that the scales from its jaw to its chest were slightly lighter, and that a faint glimpse of soft flesh had appeared as they shifted.

Her eyes lit up, but before she could tell Shen Que and Xilaier about the beast's weak point, a black figure suddenly leaped down from the wall.

The newcomer wore a large black hood that hid most of his face, revealing only the hard lines of his jaw. He moved so quickly that no one saw how he struck; they heard only a soft sound.

The Rock-Armored Beast's roar cut off abruptly. A pitch-black short blade had cleaved through its hard scales and sunk in to the hilt, striking the softest vital spot with precision. The hooded youth turned his wrist slightly, twisting the blade inside its body.

The Rock-Armored Beast's massive body swayed, then crashed heavily to the ground with a thunderous boom. It twitched twice, the light fading completely from its golden vertical pupils, and moved no more.

Dead silence fell over the scene.

Shen Que froze with his sword raised. Xilaier sat on the ground, his longsword still held across the top of his head, unable to come to his senses for a long while.

It was a peak level-four Rock-Armored Beast. They had given it everything they had and couldn't even break through its defenses, yet this person... had finished it in one move?

Yuqing stood stunned for a moment, her gaze falling instinctively on the youth.

He stood beside the beast's corpse, his black hood pulled low, a lingering gloom surrounding him. He seemed to pay no attention to the people present. Eyes lowered, he lightly brushed his fingertips over the blade, his movements eerily slow.

"Boss!" Xilaier slid over on his knees and shouted dramatically, "Thanks for saving my sorry life!"

This person was powerful, and his equipment was all top-of-the-line stuff from the game shop. Xilaier and Shen Que immediately confirmed that he was a player.

To take down the beginner village boss in a few moves, he had either spent enough money or was extremely powerful in his own right, able to instantly kill the boss even with his mental power level suppressed by the game.