Years Like a Blade Levels Up
The grayish-white vortex once again engulfed Su Mu.
The Land of Buried Bones Hard difficulty are a completely different world from the Normal difficulty.
The sky seemed to press even lower, the grayish-white fog so thick it was almost impenetrable, the tombstones leaned precariously like a forest, and bone dust covered the ground three feet deep. As soon as Su Mu steadied himself, a dense sound of bones grinding came from afar, as if the entire cemetery was awakening.
The first wave of monsters surged out of the mist.
Su Mu casually cast an Appraisal, and a gray-white information panel unfolded before his eyes.
[Monster Identification]
[Name: Buried Bones Skeleton Soldier]
[Level: 16]
[Blood: 13800/13800]
[Attack: 780]
[Defense: 465]
[Agility: 218]
[Combat Index: 6300]
[Skills: Bone Blade Slash, Undead Shell (Immune to poison and bleeding, takes 50% extra damage from Holy Light)]
[Note: The basic monsters in the Land of Buried Bones are numerous and work in perfect coordination, far surpassing those in the Normal difficulty.]
One hundred and twenty Buried Bones Skeleton Soldiers, level sixteen, with attributes more than 50% higher than those of ordinary dungeons of the same level, and their numbers have increased by 50%.
They were no longer loosely arrayed like ordinary units, but instead split into three groups, flanking from the left and right while advancing in the middle, their bone blades gleaming with a cold, grayish-white light.
Su Mu glanced at the panel, his heart unmoved.
The Little Drill Wind has already started moving.
The dark blue figure slashed through the bone tide like lightning. A short sword was drawn; the first strike shattered the skulls of the three foremost skeletons, and the second, a backhand sweep, snapped five skeletons in half. It didn't even use any skills, relying solely on agility and attack to carve a path of broken bones through the horde of skeletons.
One slash and one kill, occasionally two at once.
Those level 16 skeleton soldiers had an attack of just over 600 and a defense of less than 400. In the face of Little Drill Wind's attack of nearly 20,000, they were no different from paper.
Their bone knives struck the Little Drill Wind scales, leaving not even a white mark.
The first wave, forty seconds. All wiped out.
Su Mu received an experience notification, Momentum Points surged into his Soul Space. He casually fixed a few well-preserved bones and stored them in his Dungeon Space. The bone ground at the foot of Lion Camel Ridge expanded once more.
The second wave consisted of 150 creatures, all level 17. Little Drill Wind took 50 seconds.
The third wave consisted of 180 level 17 monsters, including a dozen or so skeleton archers. Little Drill Wind first targeted the back row, then turned back to deal with the melee units, completing the entire operation in less than a minute.
The fourth wave, the fifth wave, the sixth wave...
The number of monsters is increasing, and their attributes are rising accordingly, but for Little Drill Wind, it's still a harvest.
Its speed did not decrease; on the contrary, due to the level increase, the blade became even sharper.
Su Mu followed behind, his experience bar rapidly increasing, and materials piled up all over the ground. Broken bones, bone fragments, embers of Soul Flames, and damaged bone armor were all swept into his Dungeon Space.
He spent nearly half an hour on the normal difficulty, but he only took less than twenty minutes on the first nine waves of the hard difficulty.
The tenth wave.
The fog churned several times more violently than before. Deep within the tombstone, the sound of bones grinding together became heavy and dense. Su Mu scanned the area with his Appraisal.
[Name: Elite Buried Bones Skeleton Soldier]
[Level: 18]
[Blood: 32000/32000]
[Attack: 1650]
[Defense: 1050]
[Agility: 310]
[Combat Index: 14800]
[Skills: Bone Blade Slash, Undead Shell, Bone Shield Block (Raises Bone Shield Block frontal attacks, reducing damage by 40% for 5 seconds; 15-second cooldown)]
[Note: This is a Hard difficulty elite monster from the Land of Buried Bones. Its bones have been tempered by Soul Flames, making them far stronger than ordinary skeletons. It possesses basic tactical coordination abilities.]
[Monster Identification]
[Name: Skeleton Centurion (Elite)]
[Level: 18]
[Blood: 68000/68000]
[Attack: 2800]
[Defense: 1600]
[Agility: 380]
[Combat Index: 28600]
[Skills: Bone Axe Heavy Slash (Charged attack, deals 2.8x damage, has a chance to shatter the target's armor), Centurion's Command (Increases the attack power and movement speed of surrounding skeletons by 20%), Bone Reassembly (When health is below 30%, absorbs the remains of three surrounding skeletons to restore 25% health), Soul Flame (Attacks are accompanied by dark red Soul Flames, dealing additional burning damage)]
[Note: Hard difficulty level Elite Boss of the Land of Buried Bones. Formed from the remains of hundreds of elite skeletons, possessing intelligence and combat instincts far exceeding those of ordinary skeletons. It will proactively command its skeleton horde to split into smaller units for combat.]
One hundred elite skeleton soldiers, level eighteen, including twenty Skeleton Centurions.
Each centurion is nearly three meters tall, with dark red Soul Flames coiled around their bone axes, and their attributes are several times higher than those of ordinary skeletons.
Little Drill Wind rushed into the fray, his first strike landing on a centurion's ribs, but failing to kill him instantly. The blade cut into the bone, momentarily stopping, before the centurion roared and swung his axe in retaliation. Little Drill Wind dodged to the side, his second strike slicing through the jaw and piercing the skull before finally slaying him.
Two or three strikes, or even several breaths of fighting.
The speed has slowed down.
But the experience gained is also greater. Each elite monster gives three times the experience of a regular skeleton, and the Momentum Points is five times higher.
In Su Mu's Soul Space, the experience bar suddenly spiked.
Time passed, and an hour later...
[Level Up: 12 → 13]
[Soul Power +10]
Little Drill Wind simultaneously leveled up to level thirteen, and its attributes increased across the board once again. Its blade became unstoppable again, and the centurions were reduced from two or three strikes to two or one and a half.
After clearing the tenth wave, Su Mu exhaled a breath of stale air. He glanced at the time; about forty minutes had passed since he entered the difficult dungeon. After the tenth wave, the fog didn't stop; instead, it surged even more violently.
Wave 11, Wave 12, Wave 13, Wave 14...
The monsters' levels slowly climbed to level 19, their numbers stabilizing at around 150, with an increasingly higher proportion of elites. Little Drill Wind could still handle them, but each wave took two to three minutes. Su Mu's experience bar steadily rose to level 13, 70%.
Between these four waves of battle, the Momentum Points kept accumulating.
Each elite skeleton soldier gives five times the Momentum Points of a normal monster, and the Skeleton Centurion gives a whopping thirty points. After four waves, he used Years Like a Blade nearly seven times.
Without hesitation, Su Mu, during the lull between the fourteenth wave of clearing, aimed at the Stone Left Over from Mending Heaven atop Flower-Fruit Mountain and once again unleashed his power.
Years Like a Blade.
A thousand points of momentum evaporated, and invisible fluctuations surged into the Stone Left Over from Mending Heavens.
The patterns on the stone's surface flickered, the iridescent light flashed for a moment, then dimmed. Just like every time before, it looked completely unchanged.
But this time, a new notification popped up in the Soul Space.
[Years Like a Blade - Proficiency Increase: Level 1 → Level 2]
[Effect Improvement: The time-based catalysis duration for non-living units has been increased from "1 year" to "2 years". The catalysis duration for living units has been increased from "10 days" to "20 days". The cooldown time has been reduced from 10 minutes to 8 minutes. Momentum Points unchanged.]