Chapter 50: Unstoppable Weight of Gold

Chiyuan's Dao technique resonated with the yin clouds that had long been gathering above Huaigu Village.

With the blessing of the heavens, countless bolts of Lei Guang instantly filled Huaigu Village, the momentum of the thunder vast and seemingly endless.

It looked like an irresistible, majestic heavenly might, but in truth most of the lightning was just for show, streaking across the sky without ever striking the ground.

After all, if Chiyuan could really command that many bolts of lightning, he wouldn't still be stuck in a C-rank instance.

It was called Thousand Thunder Summoning, but in reality it was just one bolt after another lining up to strike.

Even so, it let Wu Chang understand what the great power of heaven and earth truly meant.

Before Chiyuan used Thousand Thunder Summoning, Wu Chang hadn't been too wary of Chiyuan's thunder arts.

He was wearing a Mud Lizard leather armor worth 6,000 Decayed Silver Coins — as the name suggests, the Mud Lizard is of the earth attribute, and is born with extremely high resistance to the lightning attribute.

On top of that, standing on the ground activated the item skill Thick Hide, further boosting his elemental resistance.

Whether the Palm Thunder that could one-shot a Fog Demon could even break his defense was still up in the air.

He had already prepared to deliver a smug line after winning: "Attribute counter, kid!"

But the first bolt of heavenly thunder nearly shocked his soul right out of his body.

Lightning may be formless, but when it struck him, it felt like someone had hit him with a dump truck.

With a boom, his entire body went numb, flesh and soul seeming to separate, and he temporarily lost control of his body.

After the brief numbness came a searing, unspeakable burn, along with an unbearable stinging pain.

He thought of the lamb leg he had roasted earlier.

Not that his current flavor was similar to that time, but rather he now felt like a lamb leg being roasted.

The parts struck by the lightning felt as if being scorched by raging fire, and the stinging pain from the current was like someone driving a giant iron skewer straight through his body.

The pain Wu Chang was enduring right now would be enough to make an ordinary person pass out on the spot, but for him with 64 points of Will, the pain instead made his mind sharper.

He rapidly checked his body condition.

The first bolt hadn't just knocked off half the durability of his Mud Lizard leather armor — it had also pierced through it and cost him thirty percent of his HP.

Right now he was immensely grateful he'd trusted the guide and, before entering the instance, spent all his Decayed Silver Coins to buy the Mud Lizard leather armor, hailed as the new player's guardian.

Without the Mud Lizard leather armor, the damage from that bolt alone would have been enough to one-shot him.

The pain stimulated his adrenaline secretion, making him unusually excited and ferocious. If it were his usual sneaky style, he would definitely have fled the lightning's attack range first, found a way to survive, and made plans only after he was safe.

But under the pressure of a life-and-death crisis, there wasn't a single thought of escape in his heart — only two words: fight to the death.

His own fate was safest only in his own hands.

He didn't know how many more bolts would fall, and rather than hoping Chiyuan would run out of energy, it was better to take Chiyuan out directly and forcibly end his skill.

Even if he died, he'd make sure Chiyuan went first!

While the second bolt hadn't yet fallen, he pulled out a bottle of Healing Type I and took a fierce swig.

Healing Type I took effect quickly, instantly refilling his depleted HP.

Sitting sprawled on the ground, he didn't bother to stand up first, and just scrambled toward Chiyuan on all fours.

At this moment his eyes were wide, his teeth clenched, his face savage — like a beast in its death throes.

The second bolt fell.

The second bolt was a bit thicker than the first.

The lightning instantly pierced through the Mud Lizard leather armor and slammed directly into Wu Chang.

The tremendous force slammed his body into the ground, then sent him bouncing up amid convulsions.

There was one piece of bad news and two pieces of good news.

The bad news: his Mud Lizard leather armor's durability was completely exhausted, entering an unrepairable "Damaged" state.

6,000 Decayed Silver Coins evaporated on the spot.

On top of that, his HP plummeted by eighty percent, and half his body was roasted to medium-rare. In his current state, forget Liu Shan and Liu Wei — any decent hunter could take him out with ease.

The good news: the pain from the first bolt was so intense it gave him resistance to pain, dulling the sensation from the second bolt.

The second piece of good news: when he bounced up from the ground, he didn't fall back down — he flew outward.

Before being hit by the second bolt, he had been close enough to Chiyuan that the Mamba Iron Elbow skill lit up.

A great spirit coursed through his whole body — even a lightning strike couldn't stop this elbow.

Do you understand what unstoppable means?

"Mamba!"

Pulled by his elbow, Wu Chang flew sideways toward Chiyuan. Lei Guang flashed beneath Chiyuan's feet as he retreated three or four meters, trying to dodge Wu Chang's suicidal strike.

But that elbow seemed magnetized to him — no matter how he evaded, no matter how he dodged, it locked on tight.

He could only watch helplessly as the elbow passed through the lightning on his body's surface and slammed hard into his face.

Blindness, dizziness, bleeding, weakness, poison — debuffs came one after another, turning his mind blank in an instant.

Wu Chang seized the chance to shift position, locked Chiyuan in a chokehold, and tucked as much of his body as possible behind Chiyuan.

The next moment, the third bolt fell.

This time, the one struck by lightning wasn't just Wu Chang — it was also Chiyuan, who had been elbowed and then choked by Wu Chang.

The third bolt was another fraction stronger than the second.

Boom! The facts proved that the user of a thunder art isn't insulated while casting it.

Getting struck by your own summoned lightning does hurt.

Chiyuan, already grievously wounded from being hit by Silver Dawn, was struck by the third bolt as well and instantly lost consciousness, passing out cold.

Chiyuan took massive damage, and Wu Chang wasn't doing well either.

Having taken two bolts of lightning in a row, his entire body was scorched black, patches of skin already charred, with tiny sparks still burning on them.

With only 20% HP left, another bolt hit him, driving his HP to nearly zero.

But he stubbornly refused to die, tenaciously clinging to the last sliver of health.

This time was different—he hadn't activated it, nor had he left it off; it was because a lit red palace lantern stood beside him.

"Prop Skill: Year-Fire."

"Skill Description: When the New Year-Exorcism Array in Huaigu Village is activated, lighting the lampwick can kindle the Year-Fire that guards the human world. So long as the Year-Fire does not die out, life shall not cease. While the Year-Fire burns, it can slow the user's life drain and grant immunity to most conventional deaths."

The cost of death immunity was enormous. After converting the Mountain Yao and Tree Demon torsos into lamp oil, the burning time of the Four Directions Year-Fire Lantern reached over fifteen thousand seconds.

Immunity from a single death alone shaved the burning time down to barely over a hundred seconds.

But being alive made every drop of lamp oil worth it! At this moment, Wu Chang really wanted to use Shadow Reflection to summon Liu Shan and give him a hug.

Although that old man was hardly decent, without the New Year-Exorcism Array he had taken the lead in crafting, and this Four Directions Year-Fire Lantern, he really would have crashed and burned.

Besides Liu Shan, he also wanted to thank the instance plane's lenient judgment system.

Anyway, on Blue Star, getting struck by lightning was hard to classify as a conventional death.

Wu Chang exerted all his strength to shove Seeing Chiyuan off himself, then pulled out two bottles of Healing Type I and greedily chugged them.

As a low-grade recovery item, repeated use within a short period caused severe diminishing returns.

Using them consecutively within half an hour meant the healing effect would only be half of the previous bottle; after two bottles, the life recovered was less than what the first bottle alone restored.

By the numbers it was a loss, but it did restore Wu Chang's basic mobility.

He looked at Seeing Chiyuan, who had only a breath left, and slowly loaded bullets into Silver Dawn.

Once Seeing Chiyuan was dealt with, the instance would be completely over.

(End of Chapter)