White Bone Spirit's Level Rose Rapidly
It was already past midnight.
The night grew deeper, but the entrance to the Land of Buried Bones was even more bustling than before.
A grayish-white vortex spun in the night. On the open ground outside the entrance, a dozen tents were scattered about, and several campfires burned with eerie blue flames, illuminating the surroundings in a dim light.
People gathered in twos and threes around the campfire. Some were organizing their equipment, some were talking in hushed tones, and some, exhausted from just finishing the dungeon, were leaning against the stone tablet, closing their eyes to rest.
As Su Mu walked over, several gazes fell upon him.
"Huh? That level 13 guy is here again?"
"Didn't he just come out? We just finished the Hard Lair, why is he back again?"
"Wait, look at him... is he going to enter the Nightmare Dungeon?"
"Nightmare Dungeon? Are you crazy? He cleared the Hard Lair?"
"I don't know, but even if you beat the hardest difficulty, nightmare and hard difficulty are not the same thing."
"Could there be some kind of cooling device? Normal Lair a twelve-hour cooldown period, and he's only been out for a short time. How could that be?"
"That's not necessarily true. Some scrolls and equipment that clear cooling can ignore this limitation."
"Those things are ridiculously expensive. A scroll that reduces the time by one hour starts at 100,000. Where would a level 10 dungeon raider get the money to buy something like that?"
"Maybe they have connections. Being able to solo Hard Lair at this level means they must have some trump cards."
"Maybe they just don't want to waste their attempts. Nightmare dungeons don't have a cooldown period, so they might as well try one round first."
"Try it? The first wave of the Nightmare difficulty is enough to give him a run for his money."
The discussions rose and fell, but Su Mu paid no heed.
He walked to the entrance and brought up the control panel.
[Trial Nest: Land of Buried Bones]
[Difficulty Options: Normal/Hard/Nightmare/Hell]
[Currently available challenges: Normal/Hard/Nightmare]
The Normal and Hard modes have been activated, and the chain patterns of the Nightmare mode have mostly faded, leaving only a final gray light curtain awaiting confirmation.
Su Mu did not hesitate.
Nightmare.
Confirm.
The grayish-white vortex suddenly accelerated its rotation, its color changing from grayish-white to dark gray, and then from dark gray to dark red. A suction force several times stronger than before surged from the center of the vortex, pulling him in completely.
Outside the entrance, the crowd around the campfire fell silent for a moment, then erupted in chaos.
"We're inside! We've really entered the nightmare!"
"Level 13, soloing Nightmare difficulty, Land of Buried Bones. I've really seen something new today."
"Do you think he's truly capable or just courting death?"
"Let's see how long it takes him to come out. Even a normal level 15 S-rank theme needs to be taken seriously in the first wave of Nightmare difficulty, let alone a level 13 one..."
"Don't jump to conclusions. How long did this person stay in the Hard Lair? What was their condition when they came out? Think about it."
"That's true. He cleared the Hard Lair in such a short time, and he didn't look disheveled at all when he came out."
"We'll see."
Grayish-white mist slowly seeped out from the entrance, condensing into thin wisps of frost in the night breeze.
A dark red light flickered faintly in the depths of the vortex, and every ripple drew the attention of everyone around the campfire.
No one spoke.
Everyone is waiting.
Meanwhile, Land of Buried Bones.
Nightmare-level Land of Buried Bones nests and Hard Lair present a completely different picture.
The sky turned completely black, like a low-lying iron plate, even the grayish-white mist was tinged with dark red, flowing slowly along the ground.
The tombstones were no longer crooked stone slabs, but enormous bone pillars piercing the ground, covered with twisted runes and gleaming with a ghostly green light. The bone dust spread deeper into the ground, sinking half an inch with every step.
As soon as Su Mu steadied himself, a heavy grinding sound of bones came from afar.
It wasn't the dense, fragmented sound of Normal Lair, but a dull, rhythmic vibration, as if something enormous was crawling up from the ground.
The first wave of monsters emerged from the dark red mist.
Su Mu unleashed an Appraisal.
[Monster Identification]
[Name: Nightmare Buried Bones Skeleton Soldier]
[Level: 18]
[Blood: 42000/42000]
[Attack: 2400]
[Defense: 1500]
[Agility: 420]
[Combat Index: 21500]
[Skills: Bone Blade Slash, Undead Shell, Bone Shield Block (reduces damage by 50% for 5 seconds), Will of the Dead (increases attack power by 30% when health is below 30%)]
[Note: Basic monster in the Land of Buried Bones. Formed from the remains of hundreds of elite skeletons, its bones are far harder than those of ordinary skeletons, and it possesses complete tactical coordination capabilities.]
One hundred and fifty.
Level 18, its attributes are more than three times that of the same level in Hard Lair, and its quantity is also 50% greater.
After emerging from the mist, they did not rush forward in a swarm, but quickly split into three streams.
Eighty skeletons advanced from the front, shields raised, while thirty-five from each flank flanked them. Hidden in the rear were twenty skeleton archers, bone arrows nocked, aiming at the possible path Little Drill Wind might take.
Su Mu glanced at it and felt reassured.
The Little Drill Wind has already started moving.
The dark blue figure pierced through the bone tide like a bolt of lightning.
The short sword was drawn, the first strike shattering the skulls of the three foremost skeletons, the second strike sweeping across with a backhand motion, snapping five skeletons in half at the waist.
Those level 18 Nightmare Skeleton Soldiers, with an attack of 2,400 and a defense of 1,500, were still no different from paper in front of Little Drill Wind's base attack of nearly 30,000.
Their bone knives struck the Little Drill Wind scales, leaving not even a white mark.
One slash and one kill, occasionally two at once.
But Su Mu didn't rely solely on the Little Drill Wind.
With a thought, the slender figure of the young girl on White Tiger Ridge transformed into a streak of gray-white light, darting out from the depths of the instance and landing on the open ground between Flower-Fruit Mountain and Lion Camel Ridge.
When the White Bone Spirit landed, she was still in human form, her plain-colored dress fluttering in the cold wind.
She raised her hand and waved, and grayish-white Soul Flames surged from her sleeve, transforming into a fan-shaped curtain of fire that swept away the horde of skeletons charging towards her.
Where the flames passed, cracks instantly spread across the skeleton soldiers' bones, slowing their movements. Little Drill Wind seized the opportunity to cut in, slicing through them one by one, its efficiency skyrocketing.
Su Mu glanced at the White Bone Spirit's stats. The experience from killing skeleton soldiers was continuously flowing into her Soul Space.
[Corpse Demon White Bone Spirit Level Up: 1 → 4]
During the time it took to defeat four waves of monsters, the White Bone Spirit jumped directly from level one to level four. Her stats refreshed...
[Name: Corpse Demon White Bone Spirit]
[Rank: SS]
[Level: 4]
[Blood: 192000/192000]
[Attack: 16400]
[Defense: 9700]
[Agility: 14800]
[Combat Index: 158400]
[Skills: Bone Claw Rend, Command of the Dead, Bone Reassembly, Transformation - Humanoid, Thousand-Faced Transformation]
After the fourth wave was cleared, the White Bone Spirit's level jumped up again.
[Corpse Demon White Bone Spirit Level Up: 4 → 7]
Level 7.
[Name: Corpse Demon White Bone Spirit]
[Rank: SS]
[Level: 7]
[Blood: 216000/216000]
[Attack: 18600]
[Defense: 11000]
[Agility: 16800]
[Combat Index: 179200]
The fifth, sixth, and seventh waves surged forth in succession.
The White Bone Spirit's area-of-effect attacks were on full display in this battle.
With a push of her hands, the grayish-white Soul Flames transformed into a sea of fire, covering an area of dozens of meters in front of her.
The skeletons in the flames became brittle, their defenses plummeted, and Little Drill Wind then cut in, slicing them apart piece by piece, reaping them almost twice as fast as before.
After the eighth wave was cleared, the White Bone Spirit's level stopped at level eight.
[Name: Corpse Demon White Bone Spirit]
[Rank: SS]
[Level: 8]
[Blood: 228000/228000]
[Attack: 19600/19600]
[Defense: 11600]
[Agility: 17800]
[Combat Index: 188800]
[Skills: Bone Claw Rend, Command of the Dead, Bone Reassembly, Transformation - Humanoid, Thousand-Faced Transformation]