Hard Mode, Cleared.

The mothership poured out all its energy, deploying every remaining biochemical soldier to the battlefield at once.

The gray-green figures swarmed forward, plunging into a melee with the elite goblins.

But the elites were far stronger than ordinary goblins.

A massive spiked club swept through the air, sending three or four biochemical soldiers flying like torn sacks. They crashed onto the steel floor, twitching uncontrollably.

Li Ming drove the mothership with everything he had. New biochemical soldiers poured out of the barracks, but before they could last even half a minute, the elite monsters smashed them into meat patties.

His face grew paler and paler.

"Li Ming, that's enough." Su Mu's voice came from behind him. "Switch."

Li Ming didn't turn around. His hands clenched into fists as he stared fixedly at the battlefield.

"Let me try again." His voice was a little strained. "I can still go on..."

Su Mu looked at his back and said nothing more.

He knew why Li Ming was pushing himself so hard.

The kid was afraid Su Mu wouldn't be able to hold out after switching in either, so he wanted to whittle down as much of the monsters' health as possible and make things easier for him afterward.

He had actually already reached his limit.

But Su Mu respected his choice.

In the end, Li Ming cleared the fifth wave by throwing lives at it.

But all twelve of his biochemical soldiers had been wiped out, and the mothership's energy had fallen below thirty percent. The barracks' reproduction rate could no longer keep up with their losses.

Both of them reached level five at the same time.

The sixth wave arrived.

This time, there were twenty level-five goblins.

Twenty.

Every last one was a level-five melee monster, and each was stronger than the ones Li Ming had just killed by throwing lives at them.

Li Ming watched the monsters file out of the rift, his face turning completely white.

"Li Ming." Su Mu's voice rang out again, brooking no argument this time. "Switch."

Li Ming hesitated for a moment, but finally gritted his teeth and issued the switch command.

Hum...

The steel battlefield receded like the tide.

In its place came a landscape of gray-brown mountain rock.

Lion Camel Ridge.

Little Drill Wind stood at the mountain pass, a short blade thrust diagonally into his belt, his blue-black skin glinting coldly in the dim daylight. He looked at the twenty goblins charging toward him, his pointed mouth spreading in something like a smile.

Then he vanished.

A gray shadow flashed like lightning, his blade gleaming like snow.

The first goblin's head flew into the sky.

The second was cut in half at the waist.

The third, the fourth, the fifth...

Little Drill Wind darted through the goblins, every slash too fast for the naked eye to follow.

Before the diminutive green-skinned fiend, the twenty level-five goblins were like chunks of meat tossed into a grinder. They fell one after another before they even had a chance to resist.

From the first slash to the last, it took no more than twenty seconds.

The battlefield fell silent.

Li Ming stood open-mouthed, his whole body frozen in place.

"Holy... shit..." He finally managed to force the words out of his throat.

Su Mu smiled and said nothing.

"Brother Mu, your card..." Li Ming swallowed and turned his head with difficulty. "How is it so strong?"

"A-rank," Su Mu said.

Li Ming's eyes went as wide as copper bells. "A-rank? Wasn't the one the school rewarded you E-rank? Where did the A-rank one come from?"

Li Ming paused, as though something had suddenly occurred to him. "Wait, don't tell me you raised that E-rank card to A-rank?"

Su Mu nodded.

"How did you do it?" Li Ming's voice was trembling.

"I gave him a name," Su Mu said.

"A name?" Li Ming's face was full of disbelief. "Just... just gave him a name, and E-rank became A-rank?"

"More or less," Su Mu said. "The main thing was that the compatibility was high. With the right name, the theme would fill in the rest for him."

Li Ming stared at Su Mu for a long while before finally squeezing out, "I know you're great at dungeon design, but that compatibility is just ridiculous! What kind of monster are you?"

He cursed, but there was obvious relief in his eyes.

The relief of being happy for a friend.

After the sixth wave, the seventh arrived on schedule.

A giant goblin lord over three meters tall emerged from the rift, clad in iron armor and wielding a greataxe, with six elite goblins following behind it.

This was the final boss of the hard-mode dungeon, a level-eight elite lord.

Li Ming glanced at the creature's panel and sucked in a cold breath. "Twenty-two thousand health? Eight hundred attack? Brother Mu, this..."

"Just watch," Su Mu said.

Little Drill Wind went to meet them.

The battle that followed completely changed Li Ming's understanding of the word "crushing."

At the peak of A-rank and empowered by Lion Camel Ridge Glory, Little Drill Wind unleashed his attack, defense, and speed in full.

He didn't clash head-on with the goblin lord. Instead, he used his terrifying movement speed to dart back and forth among the monsters, cutting down the elites around the lord one slash at a time.

The six elite goblins didn't last even two minutes against him.

At last, only the goblin lord remained.

It roared and swung its greataxe, every blow whistling through the air and smashing deep craters into the ground.

But Little Drill Wind was like a flickering gray shadow, always slipping to another position the instant the axe blade fell.

One slash, another slash, and another.

The goblin lord's health steadily fell from over twenty thousand to five thousand, then to three thousand. Finally, after Little Drill Wind slid low along the ground and struck upward with a backhand thrust, its massive body crashed to the ground.

Hard mode, cleared.

Su Mu and Li Ming were teleported out of the dungeon at the same time.