Chapter 148 - 148: Three-Eyed Zombie
After Song Jian and his two companions had picked up all the remaining items, a few seconds passed, and their vision blurred, sending them into a feeling of weightlessness.
Soon, the trio found themselves outside the entrance of the boxing gym’s instance. Despite feeling fast within the instance, it was already nightfall, meaning they had been in there for several hours. However, the number of players awaiting outside hadn’t decreased. Seeing the trio emerge, a wave of excitement swept through the waiting players, who promptly surged forward.
“Hey, there they are, there they are! How was the instance, you guys? Was it hard? Did you clear it?” someone shouted.
“Yeah, was the monsters inside tough? What level were they?”
“You can enter at level five, the monsters inside must start at level five too, right? How many bosses were there?”
The instance entrance was jam-packed with dozens of excited and shouting players; this being the first instance in the game, everyone was eager to know how long it would last. The previous “End of the World” supermarket had caused many players to withdraw in tears, and many players still had a task pending- ‘procuring a supermarket membership card’.
Song Jian glanced at Gao Da Nian and Lin Sheng, then upon subtle cue, his body transformed into a dark misty cloud and floated skyward.
This was a special ability from the “Night Slayer” Hexagram Array Diagram on his chest, allowing him to morph into Dark Cloud and fly at night. Song Jian had never used it before, but now it was the perfect means to escape. Otherwise, being surrounded by so many players, it would have required quite some effort to leave without killing everyone.
Lin Sheng chuckled, signalled ‘take care of yourself’ to Gao Da Nian, and instantly vanished into stealth mode, squeezing himself out of the crowd.
“Hey, hey, you guys can’t just run off and leave me here alone,” Gao Da Nian complained, pushing forward but the crowd was too thick. Several players were clinging onto his arms, grinning broadly and refusing to let him leave. Gao Da Nian almost wished he had a wrench to bash in the heads of the players blocking his way.
“Want to know? Why don’t you all go in and see for yourselves? We cleared it, but only the easiest difficulty level. There are still two other difficulty levels – ‘hard’ and ‘real’. There are three bosses inside, the weakest being level five elite and the strongest being level ten elite. Both the bosses and minions in there are much tougher than those outside. We just managed to clear it, barely surviving. Enough, enough, let me go. If you keep holding me up, I’ll get angry!” Gao Da Nian snapped impatiently.
“Hey, what kind of loot did you get in there? Show us what you got!” someone shouted from within the crowd.
“Yeah, show us the gear you got, give us a peek!” someone else chimed in, egging him on.
By this time, Lin Sheng had already squeezed his way out and was watching from afar, chuckling at Gao Da Nian who was still stuck in the crowd. He disappeared into a nearby alley with another chuckle.
“Just a silver chestplate, alright? Now I’m leaving, so move!” Gao Da Nian revealed his silver-grade chestplate, the faint silver glow enveloping his upper body and drawing gasps of awe from the surrounding players.
You should know, getting just a white-quality item is already considered lucky in the current game. If you had a green or blue-quality item, you could show off for a good while, considered top-tier. Many players had only heard of silver gear but have never seen it.
“What attributes does that chestplate have?”
“Yeah, let us see. We just want to learn something.”
Some started instigating in the crowd, but Gao Da Nian’s face turned serious at this point. The attributes of one’s gear were considered a player’s privacy. Even among good friends, it was frowned upon to ask to see each other’s gear attributes. No matter how amiable he was, Gao Da Nian wouldn’t reveal all of his gear attributes in front of so many people.
“Hey, don’t push it!” Annoyance flickered onto Gao Da Nian’s face. He shook off the players gripping him, and a wave of people was knocked backward as if they were standing on cotton, stumbling and falling to the floor.
Even though Gao Da Nian wasn’t as strong as Song Jian, the difference was only marginal. Compared to the average levelling player, his strength was on a whole other level. When he made an effort, no one could stop him. With a wave of both his arms, a narrow path was cleared ahead. Seeing this, he snorted coldly and effortlessly pushed his way through the crowd.
Despite his high strength attribute, Gao Da Nian couldn’t help but break a sweat from the effort of forcing himself out of the crowd. Casting a look back at the stumbling players, he snorted coldly again, put away his chest plate and started to walk down another street.
Meanwhile, Song Jian, having just used his ‘Morphing into Dark Cloud’ ability for the first time, found the experience interesting. He aimlessly floated in the sky. Due to the darkness of the night, he could only make out vague shapes below. He noticed that more monsters, much larger in size, inhabited the city centre. Additionally, on top of almost every tall building, there will be one or several monsters quietly lying there, waiting for the moon to rise.
All of these monsters were at least elite level bosses. Song Jian even noticed on top of the highest skyscraper, a boss of higher level, a Lord-ranked monster lazily lying there. If not for the occasional wagging of its tail, Song Jian would have barely noticed it.
Seeing all these bosses on top of every skyscraper, Song Jian felt his heart pounding. He wondered just how many powerful monsters resided in this city and how difficult it would be for him to survive in the city with his current abilities, much less leaving this city to explore other areas.
Just then, the cloud cover in the sky dissipated slowly, revealing a pale sickle moon. All at once, the entire city erupted with roars.
The monsters perched on the top of the skyscrapers rose to their feet and began to howl at the moon.
Specks of silver radiance descended from the moon. The monsters began to compete for this light, opening their mouths wide and inhaling deeply, each trying to attract more of the light to themselves.
Song Jian, transformed into the dark cloud form, slowly drifted towards his Manor Castle. As he passed by a six-storey building, he noticed that there was even a boss atop this building. This boss looked no different from a human, except for a silver vertical eye in the centre of its forehead.
“Damn, even Erlang Shen has come out!” Song Jian thought to himself.
This boss was called the “Three-Eyed Zombie”, a level ten elite boss. Right now, it was using its central silver vertical eye to absorb the drops of essence from the moonlight.
Song Jian, in the form of a dark cloud, was directly above the Three-Eyed Zombie. All of the moon essence that the Zombie wanted to absorb was instead absorbed by him.
As the moon essence entered his body, Song Jian could feel the “Night Slayer” Hexagram Array warm while a cool sensation seemed to be improving his body. The effect hadn’t resulted in any stat change, but it was gradually shifting factorarily. At the same time, Song Jian felt a sudden surge of murderous desire welled up within him, causing him to feel restless.
At this moment, the Three-Eyed Zombie boss seemed to sense something. It opened all three eyes and looked up at the dark cloud above it. Its sallow face contorted with anger, its body trembling, fists clenched, and let out a low roar at the cloud above.