Chapter 679: The Gods Exterminate Demons

Ao Yulie's reward was a skill called "Magic Shield".

Upon use, it forms a fully enveloping pale blue transparent magic shield around the body that can block attacks from the outside.

During the Magic Shield's duration, it does not hinder any actions.

One cannot see what relation it has to magic, nor does one know how this name came about.

Added to his previous skills, Ao Yulie now exudes even more of the aura of a mage from those old Western fantasy online games.

Of course, Ao Yulie himself doesn't much like this kind of "getting-hit skill".

Is he, Ao Yulie, a dragon who gets beaten?

If he encounters someone he can't beat, he'll obviously run away at the first moment to hug his senior brothers' and master's thighs.

From this it can be seen that the God-Demon Game doesn't understand him well.

It merely induces and summarizes based on the surface phenomena seen from the skills, and grants corresponding skills.

Without deeply understanding him, it didn't give Ao Yulie the escape skills he needs.

Ideally something like "Summoned Binding" — once this skill is used, one can instantly appear beside the bound person.

Binding a similar skill to Tang Luo, Ao Yulie would have no more worries.

Guaranteed to comprehend and master this skill at the fastest speed.

Zhu Bajie's mission reward was likewise a skill, named — Death's Door Freeze, a one-time passive skill, the kind that's gone once used.

When injured to a certain degree, at death's door, the skill activates automatically.

It condenses thousand-year cold ice on the body to seal the God-Demon Walker.

Keeping them in that state, allowing them to cling to life.

Thousand-year cold ice is very fragile — very sturdy, under normal circumstances.

Back in a certain mission where a guy who looked like a Calabash Brother, thought it was Legend of the White Snake, but was actually a God-Demon Walker pitting a native and getting himself pitted to death, Tang Luo and a group of God-Demon Walkers went to clean up the mess.

Tang Luo met a God-Demon Walker named Gu Suifeng who overthought things; he had this very skill.

He ambush-attacked Tang Luo, was counter-killed by a teammate, and then self-activated it.

Because Junior Sister Wind Li Qing said it was very sturdy, Tang Luo tried it slightly, and accidentally shattered it, causing Gu Suifeng to pass away on the spot.

Under normal circumstances, this skill is still quite useful.

Third-order God-Demon Walkers going all out cannot shatter the cold ice.

Only fourth-order God-Demon Walkers might be able to.

It counts as a meat-shield-type God-Demon Walker's final life-saving measure.

If there are reliable teammates, this skill really can save a life.

But solo, at most it buys a little lingering time.

How long the cold ice lasts without external attack erosion isn't indicated in the skill info either; it can't possibly be a lifetime.

Moreover, in the frozen state, the God-Demon Walker themselves is unconscious.

Can't move at all, can only bet on luck.

For Zhu Bajie, this skill is rather tasteless (useless).

If he's heavily injured to death's door, that bit of thousand-year cold ice is basically equivalent to laying a soaked thin tissue paper on him.

Absolutely cannot block the enemy's finishing blow.

Unless Zhu Bajie has already escaped danger, in which case it can temporarily prolong his last breath for a while.

Adding this skill, Zhu Bajie has five skills total, still not at the full state of six skills.

Additionally, the Earth Fist Strike skill, during that one strike inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace, just happened to be fully comprehended and mastered.

Therefore he still has two skill slots open.

As for Ao Yulie, Shadow Bind, Ice Cone, Five-Strike Combo (requires weapon for max effect), Heavenly Gang Fire, Wind Blade, Magic Shield — six skills already full.

If the next mission reward is still a skill, he'll have to start screening for forgetting or transferring.

After resting at home for two days, Tang Luo and company boarded the Dragon King to go to sea; Zhu Bajie left midway to find a place to refine "Reverse Dragon Roar" into Xuan Transformation.

Also, the few medicinal herbs Tang Luo plucked, after everyone carefully appraised them, had no use.

And they were near death; without some ability they couldn't be kept alive, so they were discarded.

The trash-picking harvest, in the end, was only the Gold-Binding Rope; not happy at all.

The unhappy Tang Luo is still in child form, inconvenient in the real world, so Zhu Bajie cast an illusion technique on him.

Looks no different from before; daily life unaffected.

Chatting with friends, other God-Demon Walkers, days passed bit by bit.

During this period Tang Luo also met An'an twice.

Now An'an is already in the upper-middle tier among God-Demon Walkers.

Still a bit short of fourth-order God-Demon Walker, yet not far off; she has already made a name for herself — Black Whirlwind.

That's right, Black Whirlwind; after all she's a Destiny Holder, she can't escape this hurdle.

In appearance, aside from normal growth from the original high school girl into a capable career woman, she very luckily didn't veer toward the Li Kui direction.

She hasn't obtained many Destiny Fragments afterward; her advancement mainly relies on herself.

Weapons and equipment have also been changed several times.

Yet she still couldn't break out of the axe category.

In An'an's own words, she's used to it so she doesn't switch.

She walks a melee path, still the wide-open "muscle-man type"; what difference is there switching from axe to heavy spear or greatsword?

The previously imagined figures — dashing heroine, elegant female mage — have absolutely nothing to do with An'an when she fights.

Changing paths is also impossible.

Setting aside the matter of Fate Fragment pieces, generally speaking, when Gods and Demons Walkers increase in strength, they form mutually complementary skills.

This isn't based on their own ideas either; whichever path they take is "natural selection."

It doesn't come from preference.

Moreover, even after strength increases, the mortality rate is lower than when they just started.

That doesn't mean Gods and Demons Walkers can rest easy though; once inside a mission world, they still have to fight tooth and nail when it's called for.

Take Tang Luo and his group's missions — looked at closely, none of them are actually simple.

They're only simple for Master and Disciple Tang Luo.

They are bugs in the Gods and Demons Game; they can't be lumped together with ordinary Gods and Demons Walkers.

Additionally, Wen Hanfei has already "gone missing" — unknown whether he disappeared from hitting the mission failure limit or died in a mission world.

After being converted by Tang Luo, Wen Hanfei stopped stirring up trouble; after the team disbanded he operated solo the whole time.

For his sudden disappearance one day, An'an had long been prepared.

The Gods and Demons Game experiences naturally wouldn't let An'an wail and bawl like a little girl.

Instead she comforted her mother and sought help from Tang Yuhan, this super-wealthy tycoon.

Easily weathered the turbulent period at the family enterprise caused by the disappearance of a key figure.

That coquettish little girl from back then is long gone.

Tang Luo, on the other hand, has turned into a little brat.

Recently he's been striving to create a divine ability spell — the Brat's Axe Kick — aiming for a one hundred percent trip-and-enrage effect.

Trying to fuse it into the Mockery skill, obsessed, unable to pull himself away.

Once obsessed, time always flies, especially for "long-lived species" like Tang Luo and company.

Half a year plus passed in a flash.

Zhu Bajie returned with the newly reforged Xuan Bian.

Base form unchanged, still a twenty-centimeter black short staff, with a single-hand gauntlet form added.

Other forms — bow, axe, and such — though used less, weren't "removed" either.

One more or one fewer transformation form makes no difference to Xuan Bian itself.

It's merely a difference in form evolution.

With Tang Luo's strength, even using a sword he could blast out a hammer's effect with one strike.

But coordinating Thousand Hands Cannot Defend to deploy Hundred Weapons Mound, Thousand Weapons Mound, more weapon variety makes it more dangerous and fierce.

Attacks of different weapon forms naturally have different emphases.

It can also confuse the opponent — you think it's a sword, but the slash comes down heavier than a hammer.

Looks like a hammer, but then it's razor-sharp, cleaving a man in two with one cut.

"If there's no problem this time, we'll appear directly in the world where the Eight Trigrams Furnace is located, not inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace."

The mission is about to open, Tang Luo said.

After returning to the real world, since it was a world he'd been to before, he used the Summoning Heart once and successfully located Yang Jian.

Visually speaking, it wasn't split into two "light-spot coordinates" — there was only one.

If he probed deeper, he'd discover the light spot's interior could enter another realm — the Eight Trigrams Furnace's inner world — where he connected with Yang Jian.

But Tang Luo didn't contact Yang Jian.

Myriad Worlds Transmission costs "money."

As the mission opening time drew closer bit by bit, Tang Luo took out the Gold-Binding Rope and directly sacrificed it, changing the mission location.

This world doesn't belong to the mission worlds Tang Luo and company previously experienced.

But as long as they've been there, or have "coordinate information," there's no problem at all; the trip to the world where Sha Wujing was located was the same — never been there, but had coordinates.

This situation is similar.

The Gold-Binding Rope vanished, sacrifice successful, mission location changed.

Tang Luo and company appeared in a deep, secluded alleyway, no fellow travelers.

On both sides and behind, walls five meters high; underfoot, somewhat pitted and uneven flagstones.

The mission surfaced in their minds, four characters total:

Slay Gods, Exterminate Demons.

The killing intent rushing at them was even heavier by a few degrees than the last mission to eliminate living forces.

"This mission — why does it feel like it's all kill, kill, kill?" Ao Yulie said; a peace lover, the tender-hearted Young Master Jade Dragon expressed his dislike for fighting and killing.

Besides, if this world has the Grand Supreme, Tathagata, and them in it — they don't call themselves gods, so who dares call themselves gods?

It makes no sense.

Only the first mission location change raises the difficulty; subsequent ones might have influence but wouldn't jump straight to "fighting Tathagata" level, right?

"Just a mission."

Zhu Bajie took it very lightly, not putting the mission to heart at all.

Their purpose this trip was Five Finger Mountain — to see if an unlucky monkey was pinned underneath.

Missions and such aren't important at all.

With many failure counts, they can be this willful.

"Let's go."

Half a year's time — Tang Luo, who grew from a seven-or-eight-year-old brat into a ten-year-old bald brat — took the lead walking out of the alleyway.

Outside the alley was a spacious street.

Also paved with bluestone slabs, but these slabs were extremely flat, seams tight against each other, practically no gaps.

Not like the flagstones inside the alleyways, just making up the numbers, incidentally serving as a sewer entrance as well.

The streets are all antique-style wood-and-stone houses, quite tall; even the shortest exceed three stories.

A casual sweep reveals five- or six-story buildings are merely commonplace.

Looking into the distance, one can even see "dangerous towers a hundred chi high."

Combined with the dense heaven-and-earth Qi of this place, one can more or less determine that this world belongs to cultivators.

Only, the streets are cold and deserted, not a soul in sight; all doors and windows are shut tight.

Deathly quiet.

Were it not for sounds coming from afar, one would think this an abandoned empty city.