Chapter 37: Superior Defense, Weakness Insight

Inside the pale-white palace gate, the surviving members of the Giant Scorpion Thief Gang were being besieged by four Earth Elementals.

The Earth Elementals' bodies were made of rock; while this provided immense defense, it also greatly increased their weight, making their movements extremely sluggish.

Thus, almost all Earth Elementals mastered the specializations of Charge and Improved Charge to compensate for their lack of mobility.

Earth Elementals possessing these two specializations could provide a +6 Strength check when charging.

This meant the Earth Elementals could launch at higher speeds during a charge and crash into their enemies.

If there were only one Earth Elemental, the Thief Gang members, even if unable to defeat it,

could exploit the Earth Elemental's poor agility in maneuvering to escape the great hall.

But now, with four Earth Elementals, a few charges sealed off the Thief Gang's escape routes.

Then, step by step, they drove them into a corner.

The Thief Gang members were utterly desperate; having lost all space to flee, they could hardly dodge the Earth Elementals' attacks anymore.

If the Earth Elementals launched just one more charge, it would be an instant party wipe.

"You monsters!"

A reluctant bandit roared and rushed at the Earth Elemental, hacking wildly.

Unfortunately, aside from knocking off some stone fragments, it had no effect on the Earth Elemental as a whole.

"Smack!"

With a single slap from the Earth Elemental, the reluctant bandit was swatted away, his internal organs shattered, and he died.

It wasn't that he couldn't dodge the slap, but that he no longer wanted to.

Since escape was hopeless, he was too lazy to drag out his life.

Seeing this scene, the remaining members felt a chill in their hearts and regretted this dragon-slaying expedition.

"It's all that idiot Pate's fault! I said we shouldn't come to slay the dragon, but he insisted we come, using his position as leader to force me."

"Exactly, exactly. Look, that idiot Pate was charging at the front just now. Where is he now? Not even a corpse is visible; he probably ran away."

"Damn it, Pate, I curse you to hell after death."

The remaining Thief Gang members turned their reluctance and resentment into words, cursing Pate.

Strangely, even with all these curses, none of them mentioned the Great Dragon or Fang Shi.

Turs watched all of this and found it very amusing.

"Humans are truly creatures that bully the weak and fear the strong."

"The one giving orders just now was Pate, right?"

"I seem to recall he was killed by a human."

"Running away? That's hilarious."

Turs looked again and found it very boring.

So he ordered the Earth Elementals to finish quickly, wrap up quickly, and go to sleep quickly.

Hmm?

Why has the human who killed Pate returned?

I seem to recall that the humans just started killing each other.

This human with the sword is one of the sides.

And the only side with a single person; his strength is the greatest among this group.

Boring. Whether he is powerful or not, anyone who disturbs my sleep deserves to die.

Then he ordered the Earth Elementals to kill the people and immediately move over.

Fang Shi saw the four Earth Elementals arriving together and noticed not a single thief was still hopping around.

He felt no surprise at all.

Large Earth Elementals have 10 points of natural armor.

What could these bandits, who lacked divine weapons and generally had only Level 1 in their professions, use to break through the defense?

Did they think a Level 5 creature like an Earth Elemental was a vegetarian?

If low-level beings could defeat high-level ones so easily, what meaning would creature levels have?

Fang Shi used these cannon fodder merely to consume some of the Earth Elementals' stamina.

To test the Stone Dragon's methods.

He didn't expect any actual results.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The Earth Elementals' stone fists slammed down heavily,

causing dust to roll across the ground and leaving countless small craters.

Fang Shi darted between the Earth Elementals' fists and feet, just as the bandits had done at the very beginning.

But he was far more agile and flexible than those bandits.

Especially when all four Earth Elementals attacked together, their massive bodies became a hindrance.

Fang Shi used them to block the attacks of the other Earth Elementals, thereby further dismantling their offensive momentum.

As for the Earth Elementals' killing move, the Charge.

"Boom!"

Two Earth Elementals crashed heavily into each other, large chunks of stone falling from their bodies.

This was the most severe injury they had suffered since being summoned.

The reason was simple; they had been lured and manipulated by Fang Shi.

When two Earth Elementals wanted to launch a Charge, one simply needed to align their angles.

This sounds simple, but in practice it's extremely difficult.

First, the Agility attribute has to be high, or you need a corresponding specialty to stack reaction speed.

Only then can you react in time when facing an Earth Elemental's attack.

Second, Strength has to be high enough, so the explosive power is strong.

Only then can you dodge with enough speed when the Earth Elemental charges.

Finally, it also requires rich combat experience and good control over the situation.

Only then can you create small details that work in your favor.

When these three are combined, you can create the result of two Earth Elementals crashing into each other.

To tell the truth, it's not that Fang Shi doesn't want to take the offensive against the Earth Elemental.

There's an awkward reason.

Fang Shi's own attacks, when facing the Earth Elemental, can only barely break through its defense.

Against the Earth Elemental's 68 HP, that's just a drizzle.

Moreover, such an attack requires going all-out, which is also unfavorable for dodging at this moment.

That's why Fang Shi adopted this technique of making the Earth Elementals kill each other.

Otherwise, if every basic swing could easily deal damage, given Fang Shi's agility, these Earth Elementals would have long since been reduced to rubble.

But the Earth Elementals aren't fools either. After the first charging accident occurred,

in the subsequent battles, they basically stopped using the charge.

So much so that Fang Shi never again produced any decent results.

At most the Earth Elementals would rub and bump into each other a little, and that damage could be called negligible.

It seems the next phase of the battle will be a contest of stamina.

Let's see which side can't hold out any longer.

Tulls also saw this point. As a dragon, it originally had the ability to change the situation.

But it really didn't want to move; the arrival of the Dormant Phase left its whole body listless.

It was either sleeping or on the way to sleeping again.

See, just after relaxing for a bit, Tulls had already started getting drowsy.

"Fight, fight, I'll just watch. This human is impressive, sure, but he has no divine weapons."

"He can't break the defense, so he's not much of a threat to the Earth Elementals. If he doesn't run, he'll eventually be worn down to death by them."

"I'll just sit here and watch the show."

In fact, with his rich combat experience, how could Fang Shi possibly forget about a dragon watching the battle on the side?

No matter what happens, he has a contingency plan in mind.

Besides, who says Fang Shi has no way to break through the Earth Elemental's defense?

It's now!

【Weakness Insight】

【Multi-Strike – Double Strike Hand (Incomplete)】

【Multi-Strike – Double Strike Leg (Incomplete)】

A sharp glint seemed to flash through Fang Shi's eyes.

Tremendous power erupted from within his body.

He leaped up and thrust toward the spot on an Earth Elemental corresponding to the seventh human rib.

"Piercing Attack activated."

"You dealt 3 damage to the target."

"Piercing Attack activated."

"You dealt 24 damage to the target's energy core."

"The target received fatal damage."

"The target died."

"Absorbed the target's soul energy. You gained 210 experience points and 21 Survival Points."

Crash, crash, crash!

With Fang Shi's explosive strike, the Earth Elemental before him simply fell apart.

The stones making up the Earth Elemental's body scattered all over the ground.

The reason was that Fang Shi had shattered the Earth Elemental's energy core.

When Earth Elementals descend from the Earth Elemental Plane, they have no physical body.

Instead, an energy core is teleported over, and it uses the environment of the summoning site to coalesce an outer shell.

So no matter how this outer shell is damaged, it doesn't matter.

As long as the energy core isn't damaged, even if the Earth Elemental is defeated, it can safely return to the Earth Elemental Plane.

Unfortunately, Fang Shi is someone who knows this secret.

Since his attacks couldn't deal effective damage, he might as well strike the energy core and kill the Earth Elemental directly.

The implementation of this plan relies on the specialty Weakness Insight.

"【Weakness Insight I】: You have a discerning eye and can easily see through an enemy's openings."

Weakness Insight I was originally the first specialty Fang Shi wanted to comprehend on his own.

If not for the Shi Breathing Method, he had originally wanted to rely on this specialty to claim a reward.

Earlier, when killing the kobolds, after a long battle, Fang Shi finally successfully comprehended this specialty.

It solidified onto the attribute panel, granting the corresponding ability bonuses.

It was also because of this feat that Fang Shi killed Pade and Harris with greater ease.

In the battle just now, through constant probing, Fang Shi finally noticed that this earth elemental always slightly dodged at the same spot.

Logically speaking, an earth elemental's hide is thick and its flesh tough, so it shouldn't care about ordinary attacks.

Even if its body were pierced, it would just be a hole, with little effect on the earth elemental.

Unless that spot was very important.

He then deduced that this might be the location where the earth elemental hid its energy core.

Therefore, through constant repositioning, Fang Shi finally found an opening and went all out, piercing through the earth elemental's outer shell.

For the earth elemental, it was merely the equivalent of a chopstick being thrust into its body—3 points of damage being clear proof.

But it was precisely those 3 points of damage that allowed Fang Shi to successfully drive his longsword into the earth elemental's energy core.

He then shattered the earth elemental's core, causing its death.

"Crack-crack-crack!"

A sound like gravel grinding rang out from the earth elemental, accompanied at the same time by a low rumble.

This was the earth elemental wailing, grieving for its fallen companion.

What followed was a charge like a raging storm.

Tuls was shocked, and no longer drowsy.

"How did this human do it? Is this something a human can do?"

One can't blame Tuls for making a fuss—theory is one thing, actual operation is another.

Even knowing the secret of the earth elemental's energy core, how many people could actually pull it off?

When an earth elemental creates its outer shell, the placement of the energy core depends entirely on its mood.

There's no such thing as a fixed position like a brain.

If Fang Shi hadn't mastered Weakness Insight I, no matter how experienced he was, he absolutely couldn't have found it.

Tuls had already realized that things were taking a very bad turn—this human truly had the ability to kill him.

He himself did not have the ability to kill an earth elemental.

It's said that the dragon race is one of the strongest races in the multiverse.

But this "strongest" refers to overall strength and growth ceiling.

It doesn't mean that at the same biological tier they are necessarily invincible.

Tuls knew it was time for him to make a move; otherwise, if he waited any longer, it would be too late.