Crack… crack...

My war boots crunched against the ice as I slowly walked through the hall while examining my surroundings. Considering that this map was hidden deep beneath the ground, the mobs here could be way beyond our ability to fight. For example, a Level 180 common mob would easily wipe the floor with us. At any rate, we wouldn’t know until we actually encountered one.

……

Lin Yixin was also watching her surroundings with wary eyes. Some time later, she ran up to me and said, "Lu Chen…"

"Hmm?"

"You’d better protect me if a high-level mob pops out..."

"I will, don’t worry!"

I swung the Purgatory Sword to emphasize my point before turning toward the front again. The Arctic Temple wasn’t far away now, and the entrance was a dark, icy cave mostly covered up by wind and snow. When we got close, we saw flights of stairs leading toward the bottom.

……

The moment I planted my foot on the stairs, I immediately received the system notice—

Ding~!

System Notice: You have entered the map of evil spirits—Arctic Temple!

Map Detail: When Dragonbone Mountain Range took form, the crustal movement caused unusually deep ravines and valleys to appear around it, which were later filled with freezing air currents. Tens of thousands of years after its formation, evil spirits and devilish beasts that don’t fear the cold appeared in this natural barrier, occupied it and built the Arctic Temple. Since then, countless adventurers had perished in this place.

……

Here comes the map info. Looks like it’ll be quite challenging to clear this map!

According to the map info, there were two floors to this Arctic Temple. Right now we were at the first floor. Our vision broadened as we walked down the stairs, and we could hear some weird "kekeke" noises from below. When Lin Yixin and I finally reached the bottom, we were shocked by the scene in front of us.

At least a dozen or so giant dogs covered in icy armor were patrolling the wide halls of the temple. They looked as big as my Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf, and both their levels and stats were frighteningly powerful.

Ice Hound (Shadow)

Level: 125

Attack: 1320~1500

Defense: 1200

HP: 65000

Skills: Flurry X, Slayer Slash X, Angry Roar X

Introduction: The guardians of this frozen valley, these Ice Hounds possess incredible attack and defense. After guarding the valley for countless years, they’ve become an incredibly violent creature who only cares about tearing apart any adventurers who came their way.

……

I couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath. "Fuck, this is bad. A Level 125 shadow-rank mob with a max attack of 1500? These stats are practically the same as a boss…"

Lin Yixin nodded. "Well, it is 26 levels higher than you, and it’s a shadow-rank monster, so this is just normal. Let’s fight them one by one. We’ll only die if we try to repeat our earlier tactic."

"Okay!"

Well, we are here, so we might as well fight them. A Level 125 shadow-rank mob should yield a lot of experience and good equipment, right? Also, we were fighting a mob that was 26 levels above us, so logically speaking the drop rate of a top-tier equipment should increase. For example, the base drop rate of Dark Gold–grade equipment was 0.000001%, but here it should be a lot higher. Right now Dark Gold–grade equipment was worth a lot of money, and Outstanding Dark Gold–grade equipment even more so!

My left hand shone with the light of magic as I took aim at the nearest Ice Hound. I cried out quietly, "Dragon Slaying Slash!"

Swhoosh!

A huge cyan clump of energy that was shaped like a sword hit the mob squarely in the head for a huge amount of damage—

3874!

Nice. I’m glad that my Dragon Slaying Slash is as powerful as ever even if the enemy is a Level 125 shadow-rank mob!

The Ice Hound turned berserk and ran toward me like a mad dog. Its speed was incredible!

I hastily retreated a couple of steps until it was exactly 5 yards between me and my target. Then, I activated Thunderous Charge!

Swhoosh!

I left behind a trail of lightning energy and successfully stunned the Ice Hound. Thunderous Charge was now Rank 5, and its stun chance was over 60%, so this was just the natural result.

Lin Yixin had acted even faster than I had. When I stunned the Ice Hound, she was already hitting its head with Moon Gaze and Extreme Break, drastically lowering its Defense with her fruit knife!

When a man’s down, you kick him in the nuts, so I raised my sword and unleashed Pardon and Desperate Gambit!

MISS!

8794!

Heavens, this is awesome. Killing things was so much easier when Lin Yixin was around to supply her defense reduction!

I summoned the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf again to add to the Ice Hound’s misery. One Flurry Dance later, the poor animal took 5 hits in a row and lost a total of 20k HP! What an insane amount of damage!

Even Lin Yixin looked a little distracted. "Wah, your Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf is so powerful… I don’t even want to summon my Fire Blade anymore, it’ll only get one-shot in an instant and embarrass me…"

I nodded understandingly. It was definitely an awkward situation. Low-rank pets were pretty much useless in a map like this, and to this day, over 90% of the average players were still carrying Wasps, Praying Mantises, Treants, Purple Butterflies, Earth Mice, and so on. They might perform well against common mobs at their level, but elite or shadow rank mobs that completely outleveled them? It was a different story altogether. Forget doing damage, they should count themselves blessed if their pets managed to penetrate the enemy’s defense.

The Level 125 shadow-rank mob lost over 50% HP after we all unleashed our combos. Due to Extreme Break, everyone did almost twice as much damage as they normally should.

But the stun only lasted 5 seconds, and the moment the Ice Hound recovered it immediately hit the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf with a devastating Flurry X of its own. Six damage numbers immediately appeared above its head, and each hit dealt over 2000 damage. That one Flurry had torn almost 15k HP from my pet’s health bar! It was insane!

"Fuck, so powerful!"

I ordered the greedy wolf to retreat while using Ice Ray to lower its DPS. Every little counts when facing down a most dangerous enemy!

Lin Yixin pursed her lips before suggesting, "We should try to dodge its Flurry when we fight the next Ice Hound. This Flurry X is just way too powerful!"

"Yeah!"

We weren’t even done talking when the Ice Hound’s claws suddenly glowed with a cyan light. The mob was clearly preparing to use Slayer Slash, the skill that I myself had until I merged it with the Dragon Rock Fireball to make the Dragon Slaying Slash. Right now, all I could do was take the Rank 10 Slayer Slash head on!

I raised my arms and waited. I didn’t use Guard because I wanted to know how much damage the skill would do.

Thud!

I felt like my shoulders were being torn to shreds by the merciless attack. What a "thrilling" sensation it was!

2654!

I frowned. "Fuck, not even a boss should be able to deal this much damage to me. This Ice Hound is a little too powerful..."

Lin Yixin nodded, took two steps backward and launched her Ice Flame Slash. I myself found suitable openings to hit the Ice Hound and kept its attention firmly on me. After the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf’s Flurry Dance was ready, we attacked the Level 125 shadow-rank mob one last time and ended its life!

"Roar roar roar…"

The Ice Hound let out a sorrowful death scream before collapsing to the ground. To our surprise, it dropped a huge Phantasmal Magic Stone and a short bow.

I didn’t pick up the Phantasmal Magic Stone because it wasn’t worth too much gold, but the short bow was definitely something to check out. I took a look at its stats, and it turned out better than I expected!

Ice Spirit Bow (Gold-grade)

Attack: 325~480

Agility: +55

Stamina: +48

Passive: Increases user’s long-range Attack by 12%

Property: Level Requirement reduced by 20

Level Requirement: 115

……

I commented dazedly, "It’s a Gold-grade bow…"

Lin Yixin giggled. "A top-tier Gold-grade bow, no less!"

"Yeah."

She was right. Although this was a Gold-grade bow, it had a special property that reduced its Level Requirement by 20, meaning that it was equippable by any player who was Level 95 or above. With a max Attack of 480 and a passive that boosted its long-range attack power by 12%, this Level 95 Gold-grade bow was only slightly weaker than Beiming Xue’s Milky Way Bow. It was an absolute masterpiece for sure.

I was a self-conscious person, so I tossed the Ice Spirit Bow into Lin Yixin’s hands and said, "Give this to Qingqing. She gave up what could be hers to Beiming Xue last time, so take this as me returning the favor!"

Overjoyed, Lin Yixin accepted the Ice Spirit Bow and smiled. "Ohh, thank you on behalf of Qingqing!"

"You’re welcome. Let’s continue!"

"Mn!"

After the Ice Spirit Bow dropped, our motivation skyrocketed like never before as we ventured deeper into the first floor of the Arctic Temple. Although there weren’t many Ice Hounds in the area, what they lacked in numbers they made up with superior individual strength. As a result, we had no choice but to kill them one by one. It was a difficult battle, but the amazing experience and item drops were definitely worth the cost and hardships.

We also refined our tactic a little using the experience from fighting the first Ice Hound. The fight still started with me using Dragon Slaying Slash to aggro a mob and stunning it with Thunderous Charge. After Lin Yixin lowered its Defense with Extreme Break, I hit it with Pardon and Desperate Gambit, and the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf hit it with a Flurry Dance. Speaking of which, my pet played the role of the main damage dealer this time. One second before the mob broke out of its stun and attacked us, I ordered the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf to retreat while Lin Yixin and I activated our Guard at the same time. As a result, the sextuple combo dealt less than 3000 damage to us, an amount that we could easily heal from with a single health potion.

Lin Yixin was the Fruit Knife Goddess and my personal herbalist, so I didn’t worry about running out of potions at all.

The second Ice Hound dropped dead before our feet, but this time it didn’t drop any equipment. I got a Rank 10 pelt from it using Death Plunder, but it was so high-level that Yamete probably couldn’t use it right now. Oh well, it would be useful in the future, and it only took up one slot anyway, so I tossed it into my bag and continued.

The Ice Hounds gave so much experience that I hit 99% after killing just a dozen or so Ice Hounds or so. I could hardly control the anticipation in my heart!

Beside me, Lin Yixin was wiping the sweat on her forehead and looking a little tired. I felt like giving her a comforting hug.

But the moment was broken when an unusual ringing sound resounded across Sky City, no, all the servers in China—

Ding~!

System Announcement: Player "Candlelight Shadow (Wind City)" has successfully defeated the Purple Gold Rank Boss, Two-headed Eagle, and reached Level 99. They have also met the criteria to become a Famous General and become the first Famous General of China! They have gained Luck +3, Tactics +10, and the exclusive Famous General Skill, "Ghost God Prophecy"!