Chapter 282: Stat Overwhelm

"Strike first!"

Sharon, poised to strike, launched a triple spell combo at the Great Cultivator.

【Dulac's Glass Transformation】, 【Petrification】, 【Disintegrate】.

The Great Cultivator stiffened; petrification and glassification crawled over his skin simultaneously, but halted within a span of half a palm.

Disintegrate took effect, turning that patch of petrified, glassified muscle into powder.

Splash! A hollow appeared in his abdomen, oozing green blood.

But for the Great Cultivator, this counted as a minor wound; he could simply regenerate using the power of plague.

Regeneration failed.

He looked at the wound in his abdomen, puzzled.

He saw his spiritual power, as if fearing something, shrinking back from this wound.

"Look at me!"

In a flash, Rod had arrived before him.

His right hand held the Golden Sword high; his left hand, the Trembling Soul Blade, activated 【Domain of Fear】—all thirty-six demonic eyes opened!

Then 【Ten Flashes】!

Ten sword lights slashed out in an instant!

Leaving shallow scratches on the Great Cultivator's pale green skin.

"Damn!"

Rod felt a moment of discomfort.

The lingering resentment fire clinging to the wounds exerted force, melting some of the opponent's muscle and bone.

He had grown much stronger during this time, yet striking this fellow now made 【Surging Might】, 【Dragon Heart】, and 【Dragon Power Art】 feel like fakes.

After all, the Great Cultivator followed the physical path of the Spiritual Warrior.

If playing the physical path is like stacking stats, then the mage plays mechanics.

Exquisite, targeted spells emerge endlessly; if stats are high, they play debuffs to suppress you; if defense is strong, they use Glass Transformation to blur the defense; even if attack power is high, a single polymorph makes it hard to act.

Although these can be resisted with sheer resistance, resistance is extremely, extremely difficult to improve unless innate.

This Great Cultivator obviously did not have very high resistance; otherwise Sharon's spell effects would not have been Shi Zhan Cheng Gong.

His body, however, was solidly Tier Nine level.

Rod was indeed a stat monster ranging from peak Tier Six to Tier Seven.

Facing Tier Nine, it didn't work; the stats were not on the same level at all.

Swish!

A large pair of pruning shears swept through.

The force was immense, the speed far beyond his limit.

Without the 【Precise Prediction】 skill, he truly could not have seen it clearly.

Rod vanished in a shadow, escaping to avoid close combat.

But he was still a step too slow.

【Sacrificial Body Sword】 touched it, triggering a sharpness check.

【Sharpness of 'Sacrificial Body Sword': 69】

【Sharpness of 'Great Cultivator's Pruning Shears': 130】

【Result: Failure!】

The gap was quite large.

The sword blade instantly snapped into two pieces.

"The goal is to hinder, not to harm."

Rod sheathed the sword and changed strategy.

He originally just wanted to test how large the gap with Tier Nine was; the result was a bit of a blow.

Ice crystals spread beneath his feet, then rapidly expanded outward with him as the center; where they passed, a wind mixed with ice blades assaulted.

【Yudian's Ice Blade Domain】.

Slowdown and freezing.

Sharon, rising in the sky, finished casting again; nearly ten 【Bing Feng Fa】 spheres floated beside her.

Then, like cannonballs, they shot into the ground, exploding into patches of ice crystals like cannonballs.

Crack!

The ice crystals shattered!

The giant pruning shears whistled through the air, spinning rapidly.

"The speed slowed a bit; freezing has an effect."

He noticed the pruning shears were also heading toward the direction of the casting staff.

Rod frowned, calculated the distance, and stomped hard with one foot.

【Steel Vine Charge】.

Over a dozen massive steel vines shot upward from the ground, exactly propping up beneath that weapon.

Slightly altering the flight arc, it just missed the casting staff.

"Close call."

Sharon breathed a sigh of relief; she also noticed the effect of freezing and immediately continued using freezing spells.

That weapon spun in mid-air, completely unaffected, and returned to the immobile Great Cultivator's hand.

The Great Cultivator cursed foully, then spat out a huge mouthful of blood.

Clearly, he had suffered severe injuries in the battle with the spider legs.

Rod grew somewhat anxious and increased the spiritual power of his Ice Blade Domain.

"No, has this minute gone on a bit too long!?"

He turned to look back.

He saw a wisp of yellow-green poison mist crawling up the base of the running staff, dragging down its rotation speed significantly.

He raised a hand and cast a well-controlled Repulsion Spell.

The force had no effect whatsoever on the poison mist; it didn't even get blown.

Sharon, watching from the side, cursed, "Damn it!"

She landed directly, moved to the side of the running staff, and used her own Plague Domain to repair it.

She then looked at Rod with a bitter smile.

"The running staff has been corroded; its efficiency has slowed greatly. You need at least ten more minutes. Go back to the real dimension using the method I taught you."

Rod frowned.

He created a gravity field on the ground where the Great Cultivator stood.

Boom—purple spiritual power pressed down on him fiercely.

He continued to pour more power into the Ice Blade Domain, rapidly and continuously generating ice crystals and ice blades.

But he could clearly sense that on the other side, the Dark Elves and the Plague Beasts had resumed fighting.

And with the help of the sky spider legs, they were steadily pushing forward.

"What do you intend to do?"

"I'm going to risk it all. Otherwise, Dimia's Magic Class will never advance and will sooner or later die from a magic surge."

"Don't be foolish. There will always be opportunities. No need to—"

Halfway through his words, Rod suddenly remembered the evaluation of the Dog People in the Nu Yi Zhou: 【Dog People usually show extremely high loyalty and protectiveness toward friends and family】.

Sigh.

Another stubborn one.

Crack—

Sensing that the Great Cultivator was about to endure the freezing opening move, Rod turned, stomped hard with one foot, and slammed down a 【War Stomp】.

Boom!

The ground cracked, violently impacting.

He saw the opponent's entire body stiffen, spout another mouthful of blood, and the left hand holding the massive pruning shears go limp and hang down.

The effect was remarkable.

"The effect of the Shared Skill must be even better..."

But this clearly enraged the opponent.

【Rage +106】

"Ahhh!!!"

The Great Cultivator roared fiercely, his eyes bulging with anger.

He saw his eyeballs quickly fill with blood and swell.

Pfft—like a water balloon bursting, a blood arrow broke the sound barrier and instantly pierced through Rod's abdomen.

【Dragon Scale Technique】 breached the defense for the first time.

"Ugh."

Rod groaned in pain.

He could feel the toxicity of the blood arrow fighting wildly against his own poison resistance.

He immediately used 【Plague Domain】 and 【Green Grass Domain】 to suppress it.

Looking up again, his face was already set with grim determination.

Fine, fine, fine.

Before drawing blood, I still had reservations; now that the defense is breached, there is nothing left to discuss.

Rod threw away the 【Soul-Trembling Blade】 in his hand.

"Sharon! Take cover! Don't let me find you!"

"What?"

The Dog People girl thought she had misheard.

"Obey!"

Hearing those two words, Sharon's head buzzed; before her consciousness could react, her magic activated and cast 【Concealment Technique】 on herself.

The next moment.

An overwhelming surge of spiritual power shot violently toward the sky!

The spiritual power wave it raised swept the ice crystals on the ground layer by layer clean; wherever it passed, it destroyed everything in its path.

Rod's entire body swelled up a size.

His skin turned pale red, his eyes were filled with scarlet, and he bared sharp canine teeth!

【Berserk】!

(End of Chapter)