Fighting the Abomination, Killed with One Blow
Still, Shen Xing didn't press her. Everyone had their secrets. Perhaps she had also had some extraordinary encounter in the game.
After eating and drinking their fill, the three walked out of the restaurant together.
Qin Lang pushed Shen Xing's wheelchair, while Xu Jiayi followed beside them with her head lowered.
"By the way, I visited the Player Association in Jiangcheng yesterday. There were lots of interesting things there. I bought these few unit nests there."
As Qin Lang pressed the elevator button, he asked, "Interested in taking a look?"
Shen Xing thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Better not. We've only been in the game a few days, and we haven't even figured out the mechanics yet. We shouldn't have contact with other players for now."
Xu Jiayi simply shook her head, indicating that she didn't want to go out.
"Forget it, then. I won't go either." Qin Lang shrugged.
Just as they were about to enter the elevator and head down to the basement, they suddenly heard a commotion.
The crowd in the center of the mall, not far away, suddenly erupted into chaos.
Many people ran, shouting for others to call 110 and 120.
The three had intended to leave, but then they heard a burst of crazed laughter.
"If I'm doomed to die, I'll take a whole bunch of you down with me! Hahaha!"
They stopped in their tracks and looked through the crowd at a figure standing in the center of the mall.
He wore a leather jacket and had disheveled hair. It was the middle-aged man who had nearly bumped into Shen Xing earlier.
A sickly smile spread across his face as he pulled open his shirt. Hideous wounds appeared across his skin, and thick gray mist poured out of them.
"Fuck, it's some unlucky bastard who died in the game. He wants to take revenge on society before he dies!"
Qin Lang cursed, instantly realizing what was happening.
They had searched the forums for a lot of information lately and had gained a rough understanding of the game's death mechanics.
After players died in the game, their physical bodies in reality would inevitably die as well, but they wouldn't drop dead immediately.
There was a grace period of two or three hours, or even most of a day.
Some people chose to use that time to leave their last words and put their affairs in order.
Others refused to accept their deaths and, like this middle-aged man, took revenge on society before they died.
"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"
The middle-aged man's body kept tearing apart, gradually becoming a heap of fragments as more mist poured out.
In just a few breaths, it covered the entire first floor of the mall and continued spreading to the higher floors.
Within the mist, ordinary people fell in droves, as if it contained some toxin that knocked them unconscious.
Only Shen Xing, Qin Lang, and Xu Jiayi were unaffected.
"Squish... squish..."
As though some creature were moving through slime, a huge shadow gradually coalesced over the middle-aged man's corpse.
When it slowly walked out, everyone got a clear look at it.
It was an immensely bloated monster, over three meters tall, with rotting flesh hanging from its body like a moving mountain of meat.
With every step, pieces of rotten flesh fell from its body and landed on the mall floor with a splat.
"Holy shit, it's an Abomination! A monster that's at least Elite Three Stars!"
Qin Lang stared at the monster before him, his face deathly pale and his whole body frozen in place.
The other two were no better off. The aura around the monster was too evil, too terrifying!
It felt as if a giant rotting hand had seized their hearts, and their shoulders trembled slightly.
"What do we do now? When monsters from the game appear, they seem to slaughter every living thing around them indiscriminately." Qin Lang swallowed.
"Run. This monster is Elite Three Stars, and it might be above level 5. It's too dangerous!" Xu Jiayi's expression was grave.
"Run... what about these ordinary people?" Qin Lang looked at the people lying around them, unable to bear leaving them.
The mist would knock ordinary people unconscious and erase their memories.
Only the pioneers who had entered the game were unaffected.
But as Qin Lang had said, the monsters that emerged from the mist would go on a killing spree among the people nearby. As a result, accidental deaths had surged over the years.
Even though the Anomaly Handling Bureau had people assigned specifically to handle such incidents, there would probably be many casualties by the time they arrived.
Meanwhile, the Abomination was dragging its rotting body toward a little girl lying on the ground.
Its foul-smelling hand slowly reached out, and the enormous mouth on its belly opened. What would happen next went without saying.
Their pupils contracted sharply as they wrestled with the decision.
"Qin Lang, Jiayi, let's do it."
Shen Xing took a deep breath and said solemnly, "This monster is Elite Three Stars. The gap isn't too big. Let's all summon our strongest units and take it down."
"Follow my lead. Even if we can't beat it, holding it off for a while shouldn't be a problem!"
The other two were momentarily startled, but after only a second, they recovered.
"All right, let's take it down!"
The three raised their right hands at the same time and rolled up their sleeves, revealing the Flower of Mist that existed between the real and the illusory.
The flowers slowly rotated, releasing white mist that quickly gathered before them.
In the mist, they could vaguely make out the outlines of their units, as if they were about to manifest from another world.
But just as they were about to fully take shape, they suddenly stopped.
It was as though a pane of frosted glass stood between them and their units: they could see them but couldn't touch them.
"What's going on? Weren't we supposed to be able to manifest the units in our territories by connecting our consciousness to the Flower of Mist?" Xu Jiayi asked, looking puzzled.
Shen Xing was just as confused. This was their first time manifesting units, after all, and they had no idea this could happen.
"I remember now!"
Qin Lang suddenly realized something. "I read on the forums that besides connecting your consciousness to the Flower of Mist, you also have to shout the unit's name to establish an anchor in reality."
"Only then can they fully manifest!"
Hearing this, Shen Xing and Xu both froze, their expressions somewhat stiff.
"Do we really have to shout it?" Xu Jiayi asked.
"Apparently we have to," Qin Lang replied, his expression complicated.
They hesitated for a moment, but finally made up their minds and shouted:
"Come forth!" ×3
"Hellscream!"
"Angel-Hunting Queen!"
"Master of Shadows!"
Chapter 21: Fighting the Abomination, Killed with One Blow
Shen Xing and the others' voices echoed through the mall. After calling out the names, they exchanged somewhat awkward glances.
If we'd known we had to shout them out, we wouldn't have picked such embarrassing names!
But the awkwardness didn't last long. The Flower of Mist on their wrists began spinning faster.
And in the mist, the half-formed units fully manifested at that moment!
Besides Hellscream, who wore the Berserker Pauldrons and wielded the Steel-Slaying Double-Bladed Axe, two figures of entirely different styles stood beside him.
The archer before Xu Jiayi was tall and slender, with tight leather armor outlining her graceful curves. Her Western face bore a puzzled expression.
The figure before Qin Lang was quite short, only about 1.4 or 1.5 meters tall. He wore a black cloak and held a dagger in a reverse grip in each hand.
The three marveled at the sight. It was their first time seeing creatures from the game descend into reality, and their outfits looked completely out of place among the modern buildings around them.
Hellscream and the others also looked around in bewilderment, clearly not yet having grasped what was happening.
But the situation was urgent, and there was no time to explain.
"I'll handle the frontal assault. Jiayi, provide ranged fire support."
Shen Xing quickly gave his orders. "Qin Lang, get ready to hit it from behind!"
As gaming partners for years, the four of them had often teamed up and played their way through many games, long since developing seamless coordination.
Now, without needing to say much more, they quickly got into the fight.
"Roar!"
Hellscream carried his double-bladed battle axe and activated [Wind Walk], charging forward!
His terrifying explosive power left one huge crater after another in the mall floor.
He rushed up to the Abomination at tremendous speed and brought his axe down hard!
With a wet squelch, fluid splattered everywhere!
The Abomination let out a roar of pain and anger and reached out with its rotting right hand, ready to grab Hellscream.
At that moment, three or four arrows shot out in succession, all striking the Abomination's outstretched right arm.
"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"
The arrows buried themselves deep in its flesh, their tremendous force knocking it off balance.
Taking advantage of the enemy's momentary loss of balance, Hellscream raised his battle axe and chopped fiercely at the monster's bloated belly!
Several consecutive blows opened wounds dozens of centimeters long.
Just then, the Abomination's belly churned violently.
Several slimy tentacles emerged from the wounds and shot out at tremendous speed.
The tentacles instantly wrapped several times around Hellscream's body, and he began struggling with all his might.
But [Flesh Tentacles], the signature skill of a three-star elite creature, wasn't so easy to escape.
No matter how hard Hellscream strained, his muscles swelling as if inflated, he couldn't snap the tentacles.
Worse still, the Abomination kept pulling him closer, the huge mouth on its belly opening as if it meant to swallow him whole!
Just then, a short black figure had somehow crept up behind the monster.
Two flashes of cold light flickered as he stabbed the Abomination wildly.
But he was simply too short. Even with his daggers raised, he could only reach the monster's waist.
Whether intentionally or not, the vast majority of his attacks struck the Abomination's butthole.
"Roar!"