Chapter 48: Who Doesn't Have a Summoned Creature?

Wu Chang shook his head and said, "On the contrary, you have given me a reason to kill you."

As the mastermind behind all the arrangements, Chi Yuan is clearly the hidden boss, and whether or not to defeat him is tied to the completion rating.

Everything Chi Yuan did was, after all, out of revenge for his friends and family; if he were to lay down his butcher's knife and become a Buddha the moment his great revenge was fulfilled, willingly bearing all consequences, that would undoubtedly be the perfect ending.

The dungeon exploration progress belonging to Chi Yuan's part will not be affected, and he will not force a fight for the sake of potential loot, but will instead choose to complete the dungeon.

But if Chi Yuan remains obsessed and wants to kill him to hide his secrets, then he is more than happy to have a go with Chi Yuan and see what good loot this hidden boss can drop.

Chi Yuan pinched a spell gesture, causing the three demonic creatures to lock onto Wu Chang, then said loudly, "Since that is the case, let us each rely on our own abilities."

Facing four enemies alone, Wu Chang, who lacks offensive means, has no chance of winning.

To deal with Chi Yuan, he must create enough space to pick them off one by one.

He took out the Four Directions Year-Fire Lamp; the wick flickered, and the bonfire roasting the lamb leg exploded, turning into fire snakes that charged toward Chi Yuan and his three demonic subordinates.

Chi Yuan manipulated the mountain demon to block the Year-Fire; the Year-Fire, which restrains demonic creatures, could not advance an inch when it met the yellow light on the mountain demon's body.

However, Wu Chang did not intend to gain any advantage from this sneak attack.

By the time the flames dissipated, he had already opened up a distance of thirty to forty meters from Chi Yuan.

"Four against one can hardly be called skill; I, Wu, shall take my leave first!"

"Pursue!"

Seeing Wu Chang about to flee, Chi Yuan immediately drove the demonic beasts to give chase.

Wu Chang arrived at the place where he had pre-arranged his horse and rode toward Huai Valley Village. At the same time, he observed the situation behind him, and seeing the three demonic beasts separate from Chi Yuan, he turned and fired a shot.

Chi Yuan had seen the power of the Silver Dawn; seeing Wu Chang raise his hand, he immediately leaned backward and tumbled off the black donkey. At the same time, he used the momentum to pull the reins, causing the black donkey to rear up and act as a shield in front of him.

"Bang!"

The bullet pierced through the black donkey's body, and blood sprayed all over Chi Yuan's face.

Wu Chang secretly thought it a pity, then said loudly, "Daoist Priest, if you continue to pursue me, you may not have such good luck next time."

Looking at the egg-sized through-and-through wound on the black donkey, Chi Yuan felt a lingering fear. Although he was a cultivator, cultivators were still flesh and blood; it would be hard to survive being hit by such a shot.

"Young Master Wu's hidden weapon is indeed extraordinary, but I wonder if it can harm demons as well as it harms people."

Having said that, Chi Yuan kept the iron-armored snake demon by his side and let the mountain demon and the tree demon continue to hunt down Wu Chang.

This was exactly what Wu Chang wanted: first force Chi Yuan to separate from the three demons, then defeat them one by one.

He first circled the mountains a few times to increase the distance between the mountain demon, the tree demon, and Chi Yuan. Confirming that Chi Yuan could not provide support in the short term, he followed the mountain road back to Huai Valley Village.

As the core of the dungeon, everything started at Huai Valley Village, and everything should end at Huai Valley Village.

Huai Valley Village, having been ravaged by the demonic creatures, was in a mess; looking around, the ground was covered in mosaics.

A gentleman, having seen them live, cannot bear to see them die.

The villagers who were full of life yesterday were now lying on the ground in twisted shapes today. Even knowing they were the bandits of Black Mountain, Wu Chang still felt some reluctance.

But that was as far as it went.

Everyone must be responsible for their own actions and bear the corresponding price.

When they slaughtered the original villagers of Huai Valley Village, not even sparing their corpses, piling them into the hollow mountain as consumables for evil arts, and praying for favorable weather by turning resentment into spiritual energy, every one of them had participated.

When they caught the village guardian boy in the forest, kept him like livestock, bullied and abused him at will, and used him to ward off disasters for the village, everyone had participated as well.

So when Chi Yuan came seeking revenge, if someone were missing or left out, wouldn't that be very unfair? Wu Chang stood still by the huge bonfire of the Year-Removal Festival, watching the mountain demon and tree demon closing in, and covered his face with the two halves of the mask.

In this day and age, who doesn't know how to summon a lackey?

Item skill—Shadow Projection, activate.

The space in front of Wu Chang distorted, and two figures appeared before him.

One was Liu Shan, and the other was the Mist Demon.

Relying on a lifetime of movement techniques and claw arts, Liu Shan's strength was extremely formidable. However, his strength came from years of hard-practiced techniques, and coupled with the fact that aging had lowered his physical attributes, his actual level did not exceed the upper limit of the Shadow Projection mask by much.

The Mist Demon was able to wreak havoc in Chen Village by relying on its bizarre and unpredictable abilities; in terms of attributes, its true strength was only level 11.

The figures summoned by the Shadow Projection mask, boosted by the skill, were even slightly stronger than the originals.

Liu Shan and the Mist Demon's strength were not bad, but compared to the mountain demon and the tree monster, they were still a bit lacking.

If strength is insufficient, make up for it with equipment.

Wu Chang threw the iron claws he had taken from Liu Shan to the Liu Shan projection. The Liu Shan projection caught the iron claws and skillfully put them on his hands.

With his habitual weapon, Liu Shan's strength increased by a few points.

He threw the damaged demon-transforming short blade to the Mist Demon. After the Mist Demon's body fused with the short blade, it became more solid, and its aura became significantly stronger. Although there was still a gap compared to the two demons summoned by Chi Yuan, it was not to the point of having no power to fight back.

Without Chi Yuan's control, the two pursuing demons acted entirely on instinct.

Seeing Liu Shan appear again, the mountain demon roared and charged toward him.

But before it could get close, its vision blurred, and the surrounding world turned into a misty expanse.

The mountain demon had thick skin and flesh, positioning it as a tank, which strictly countered the assassin-positioned Liu Shan.

Wu Chang currently had no projections that could go head-to-head with the mountain demon; defeating it was difficult, but stalling it was not.

Just as tanks hard-counter assassins, control-type mages also hard-counter clumsy tanks.

The Mist Demon summoned ice mist to shroud the mountain demon; the cold slowed the mountain demon's movements. The ability to evoke fear, while unable to crush the artifact-transformed mountain demon, could make its CPU load too high and its reactions slower.

Conversely, the Mist Demon, whose body could turn into mist at any time, was not afraid of the mountain demon's fists.

Relying on the Mist Demon to stall the mountain demon, Liu Shan took the initiative to attack the tree demon.

Compared to the mountain demon and the snake demon, the tree demon was better at group battles.

The hundreds and thousands of branches hanging from its top were each like a sharp sword; placed in a crowd, it only needed to shake its body to be like a blade storm.

Anyone grazed or touched by the branches would suffer torn skin and flesh at best, or severed limbs at worst.

The tree demon was not afraid of human-wave tactics; when facing many enemies alone, even if more people filled in with their lives, they might not be able to get close to the tree demon's main body.

But when facing a flexible single target, its attacks seemed somewhat powerless.

The sword formation it unleashed by shaking its body was full of holes in front of Liu Shan, who was skilled in movement techniques and nicknamed the Flying Cloud Eagle.

Placed among the thousands of branches, Liu Shan walked as if in a leisurely courtyard, easily dodging every attack.

At the same time, his offensive did not stop; taking advantage of the moment when the branches swung and their momentum was spent before new force could be generated, he would strike with a steady, accurate, and ruthless claw, easily twisting and tearing off branches that could withstand sword slashes and axe chops.

Liu Shan transformed into a barber on the spot, trimming the tree demon's hairstyle. In just two or three minutes, he had twisted off all the branches on top of the tree demon, leaving not a single one.

Wu Chang, waiting on the side, raised the Silver Dawn and joined the battlefield.

The tree trunk, having lost its offensive capability, became a moving punching bag and was quickly finished off under their pincer attack.

After Wu Chang hit the tree demon's core with one shot, the tree demon's body disintegrated and turned back into a wooden dharma sword broken in two.

Having dealt with the tree demon, Wu Chang and Liu Shan turned to surround the mountain demon.

Wu Chang took out the Soul-Cleansing Command Flag and activated the flag's suppression ability against demonic creatures, making the mountain demon, already slowed by the Mist Demon, move even more sluggishly.

The mountain demon was indeed thick-skinned, but it could not withstand the pincer attack of one person and two projections.

Especially since Wu Chang and Liu Shan fully adopted the tactics of the hyenas of the grasslands, using whatever underhanded methods they could.

Poking eyes and stabbing ears was one thing, but their attacks were specifically aimed at the lower three paths.

It was always the monkey stealing the peach, but the mountain demon, this oversized ape, was being targeted by two people holding sharp weapons, and who could stand that?

Under the pincer attack, the mountain demon's protective spiritual energy was quickly exhausted, and its lower three paths were breached.

Accompanied by Liu Shan stabbing a claw into a certain large peach and landing a fatal critical hit, the mountain demon wailed and turned into a copper dharma bell, falling to the ground.

The bell core, shattered into several pieces, broke and fell out, signifying that this handbell would be difficult to ring again.

After dealing with the two demons, another three or four minutes passed before the slow-moving snake demon finally arrived at the scene carrying Chi Yuan.

Before Chi Yuan could even open his mouth, he saw Wu Chang raise the Four Directions Year-Fire Lamp.

During the time Chi Yuan was arriving, Wu Chang had buried the broken branches and the broken sword from the tree demon into the bonfire.

Wood generates fire; with the help of the tree demon's wood power, the Year-Removal bonfire soared into the sky, shaped like a pillar of fire reaching the heavens.

Using the Four Directions Year-Fire Lamp as a guide, it connected to the Year-Removal Great Array, causing the sky-reaching fire pillar to turn into a fire dragon, charging straight at Chi Yuan.

Chi Yuan leaped away, but the iron-armored snake demon under his feet could not escape in time.

Fire overcomes metal.

Under the scorching of the massive Year-Fire, the iron armor on the snake demon's body instantly turned into molten iron. The snake demon, having lost its armor, struggled in the Year-Fire like a leech sprinkled with salt.

The snake demon did not last more than a few breaths before it turned back into an iron mirror, melting into molten iron in the sea of fire, leaving not even a remnant behind, dying completely.

Wu Chang stood with Liu Shan on his left and the Mist Demon floating on his right, while he pointed the Silver Dawn at Chi Yuan.

Having survived the villain's evil pincer attack, it was now the protagonist's turn to carry out a righteous pincer attack.

(End of chapter)