Chapter 389: Tough to Kill

At the critical moment, several Pokémon beside the red-clad rider voluntarily released their moves.

The Obstagoon threw a punch through the air at the ghoul, unleashing 【Shadow Claw】; sharp claws formed of shadow tore straight through the skin on the ghoul's surface.

The Arcanine spewed raging flames, using 【Fire-Lash Deep Abyss】 to wrap tightly around the ghoul.

And the Pokémon universally recognized as the number-one mascot, the Electric Mouse, the yellow little rat, Pikachu, released 【Thunder】, summoning lightning out of thin air to crash down vertically.

"Three days apart from a scholar, and one should look at him with fresh eyes."

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow slightly. The red-clad rider belonged to the 【Thousand-Throated Beast】 guild. Normally, besides completing missions issued by the guild and earning contribution points,

he also partnered with a real-world friend called 【Hundred-Polar Bear】 to actively take jobs from outside, helping people raise and breed magical pets, and filming short videos to earn traffic revenue.

Every penny he earned from hard work went entirely into strengthening his own Pokémon.

Whether it was the Obstagoon, the Arcanine, or the Pikachu, each was a size larger than its peers, with smooth, glossy fur and resolute, sharp eyes.

Three attacks landing simultaneously—even a main battle tank clad in depleted uranium composite alloy armor would be destroyed on the spot.

Thud!

The ghoul, body ablaze and crackling with electricity, did not slow its lunging speed by even half. Its blade-sharp claws plunged straight into the red-clad rider's chest.

Only because the Obstagoon stood in front of the rider, desperately gripping the ghoul's wrists and pushing forward to resist its strength, did that strike fail to pierce and tear the rider apart.

"Damn, can this thing not be killed?!"

Fu Ding Hua Long's hands moved faster than his brain. By instinct, he pulled a steel cable like an aircraft carrier arresting wire from his scroll. Two burly door-gods, one on each side, gripped the cable, looped it around the ghoul's neck, and hauled backward with all their might.

"Pin her down!"

Bai Ma Mu Bei roared, single-handedly hoisting a stone coffin and hurling it skyward. Then he leaped up, caught the coffin midair, and slammed it down with full force, dead-center on the ghoul's head.

The stone coffin, combined with the weight of Bai Ma Mu Bei's full-body armor, crushed the ghoul straight into the cement ground, gouging out a massive crater.

Outside the crater, a gorgeous magic circle lit up, cloaking her fists in blue flames.

As the Eastern European Timely Rain, the Romanian Hubaoyi, one of the most famous lone-wolf players below lv30, Bai Ma Mu Bei had two combat styles,

one was to swing the coffin and smash people, the other was to drive the coffin into the ground, summon a magic circle to buff himself, then pummel demons and monsters with enchanted fists.

Gale Heavy Punch, Extreme Speed Uppercut, Heart-Smasher Straight, Super Heavy Punch—

Various fist techniques came pouring down like a raging storm, cracking the cement road around the ghoul without cease.

Fu Ding Hua Long and Li Cheng couldn't find a chance to step in. The latter, also afraid that the 【Apeman Devolution Gun】's devolution bullets would hit friendlies, simply came over to stand beside the red-clad rider.

The rider's injuries were extremely severe: every rib broken, lungs torn, spine snapped, paralyzed from the neck down.

He used his will to pull a bottle of micro life potion from his backpack slot, holding it in his palm. His Pikachu, tears streaming, took the potion and poured the crimson liquid into his mouth.

【Life Potion】 didn't actually need to be drunk—merely performing the drinking motion was enough. One bottle down, the rider's injuries recovered mostly, except for the spinal damage, which couldn't heal in a short time.

"I'll help you."

Li Cheng ignored the red-clad rider's sudden change of expression and loud refusal, directly activating the effect of 【Assembled Puppet · Modified】, slicing open the rider's back and pulling out the two tailbones at the end of his spine,

then forcibly jamming them into the middle of the spine to fill the gap.

While patching, Li Cheng cheerfully explained: "The tailbone is generally formed in humans aged 30–40 by the fusion of 3–5 coccygeal vertebrae. It's a vestigial leftover from our evolution from apes—the remnant of a tail, with no actual use.

Other useless parts of the human body include wisdom teeth, the appendix, the arrector pili muscles, and the tonsils.

There's an old fellow downstairs from our building who's always muttering about cutting off these useless organs and making them into a pot of stew."

Which old fellow? Hannibal Lecter, is that it?!

The red-clad rider, freed from paralysis, wore a mask of agony—especially after noticing Li Cheng had installed a few zippers on his chest for the convenience of suturing the wound.

"Stop chatting, get out of the way!"

Bai Ma Mu Bei, who had been hammering the ground at full strength, suddenly roared. The others, thinking the situation was already under control, all froze and instinctively stepped back.

They saw the ghoul, at the bottom of the crater, having taken hundreds or thousands of punches, still moving.

Its body surface displayed a rubber-like, tough texture; even though every bone beneath the skin had shattered, it could still hold its shape.

Taking advantage of the brief gap when Bai Ma Mu Bei's old strength had faded and new strength hadn't yet been born, the ghoul suddenly erupted, bursting out of the crater and relentlessly charging toward the red-clad rider.

Fortunately, Tombstone's earlier loud warning had worked.

The red-clad rider instantly swung onto the back of his Fearow. The Fearow beat its wings, kicking up a gale, and rocketed up to a hundred meters in the air, dodging the ghoul's death strike.

Boom!

The ghoul crashed heavily back to the ground, looked up at the red-clad rider now soaring two or three hundred meters in the air, then bent its knees and leaped, rocketing skyward like a cannonball, smashing through skyscraper glass, shattering two floors of concrete,

then using the high-rise as a springboard to continue chasing its target.

The rider, mounted on the Fearow's back, heard the wind howling below, leaned out, saw the ghoul rocketing up like a cannonball, and hurriedly plucked at the Fearow's feathers, directing it to weave nimbly between the skyscrapers,

using the buildings for cover to delay the ghoul's pursuit as much as possible.

If one sentence could describe his current aggrieved, screwed-up mood, it would surely be: "Why are you chasing me?! I don't even have any Jizhi Syrup!!!"

"..."

Fu Ding Hua Long, standing on the ground, stared in stunned disbelief. Wasn't this mobility a bit too overpowered? If the mobs in this building complex were all of this caliber, it would be better to withdraw from the kill zone and abandon this commission.

"... Is the title of Ultimate Tank going to change hands today?"

Grey Rain's expression was equally solemn. Earlier, when Bai Ma Mu Bei threw punches, her fists carried enchanted ghostly-blue flames—not pure physical attacks,

but even so, that ghoul had tanked every bit of damage.

This inevitably gave Grey Rain a sense of crisis at being surpassed in her area of advantage. She secretly resolved that after returning, she would train and strengthen herself,

starting with splitting bricks with her hands, biting fire lighters, and jumping into ice holes,

then gradually progressing to gnawing raw durians, cleaving gas tanks with axes, and observing nuclear explosions up close—tough stuff.

"Strange, why does the ghoul only chase the rider and not attack anyone else?"

Bai Ma Mu Bei frowned tightly and shouted up to the red-clad rider in the sky: "If you can't handle it, just log back to the real world! This isn't a scripted quest, there's no failure penalty."

The sound, weakened by the black snow filling the sky, reached the rider's ears as nothing but a whimpering wind.

Li Cheng, still on the ground, saw the rider could hold out a while longer, suddenly thought of something, and turned to walk into that stilted thatched hut.

The thatched hut was just like the civilian houses of Vietnam during the Vietnam War—bare walls, with nothing of value inside.

In the end, his gaze fell upon the dead infant.

(End of chapter)