Chapter 226: Take the Lead
If one is pursuing damage output, it’s not impossible to invest all points into strength.
However, compared to investing fully in agility, the speed will be significantly slower.
As the saying goes, only those who are alive can deal damage. The awkwardness of investing solely in strength is the difficulty in dealing with ranged attacks and ambushes.
It’s easy to become a slow-moving target and the physical defense won’t be as strong as a fully agile build.
Nonetheless, this point distribution isn’t entirely disadvantageous.
At least, under circumstances where the equipment is roughly equal, one can easily suppress the opponent’s weapon. Additionally, with the previous update’s feature, having strength exceed the opponent’s will provide extra armor-breaking effects, ensuring that every hit will be lethal while maintaining accuracy.
At the very least, blocking won’t be quite so easy anymore.
Just as Ziyu was about to pick up the loot, the sound of conversation reached her ears from behind.
“Everyone quiet down! That’s a level 10 boss. With our current strength, whether we can take it down is still up in the air,” said an unfamiliar male voice.
“I’m telling you, Cat Cake, how hard can the monsters in a beginner village be? Their attributes are set based on newbies; we can just swarm them. Six of us is more than enough,” another male voice casually replied.
“…I hope so.”
At Juchan’s hint, Ziyu hurriedly stuffed the dropped items into her backpack, not wanting others to see the boss’s loot, as it might tempt them.
After a few seconds, they drew closer, revealing the appearances of those few people.
Four men and two women.
One of the girls was the one who had called for help earlier, no wonder these people had come here.
Leading the group, “Cat Cake” was a level 9 player, and the others were levels 7, 6, 6, 3, and 1.
Notably, the two girls were levels 3 and 1.
It looked like this was a team of low-level players.
“Slime… Slime…” one of the men looked around. “This is strange; is there really a boss here, or are they just small monsters? Could it be you were mistaken?”
“Impossible… I was clearly swallowed by the boss just now!” the questioned girl emphasized.
“Sigh, who knows if you misidentified a small monster as a boss again.”
“Well… that time I didn’t know; this time, I’m sure!”
“…Cat Cake suddenly stopped and looked at the girl kneeling on the ground, testing the waters by asking, ‘Sister, what are you doing?’”
Ziyu looked up, pretending to be natural and said, “Nothing, just a bit weak from fighting monsters.” She then gently stood up from the ground.
Hahaha.
She dusted off her clothes and turned to leave.
“Wait! Sister, weren’t you here earlier? Where did that Slime boss go?”
Once she was stopped, she couldn’t just keep walking.
“It… has split into these small slimes. Uh, that’s right, just like that.” Ziyu nodded as if convincing herself.
“Split? That girl suddenly said, ‘Do we have to defeat all these small monsters then?’”
“…Cat Cake ignored her and instead stared at Ziyu, his eyes reflecting boundless suspicion. ‘Sister, it’s not a good habit to deceive people.’”
“What’s wrong?” asked the other men in the group.
“Humph, this girl has probably already dealt with the boss. In such a short time… while I don’t really believe it, the only possibility is that she took down the Slime King herself.”
After all, Ziyu was the only level 10 player present.
“What?!” Upon hearing this, the others quickly drew their weapons.
…
After sharing the general plan with the elf players, the adventurer group followed the NPC without any objections.
Due to the small number of elf players, fighting there was far less intense than among the human race.
So they had no objections and were willing to cooperate with the human players.
Aside from the team following the NPC, at least one-third of the players branched off from the main direction.
It seemed they were planning something significant, with Kurei and the others walking side by side, and behind them were the 2,700 soldiers of Yuncheng.
“Miss, those adventurers…”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about them; they won’t do anything foolish.”
“Alright.”
At this pace of travel, it would take nearly an hour; surely those major guilds would send people to prepare in advance.
On the other side, Fenghua was idly kicking pebbles by the roadside, seemingly reaching her limit of patience.
She leaned close to Starry and whispered, “Starry, let’s sneak into Huawucheng?”
“Sneak in…? Wasn’t it the girl who got trampled by undead the last time?”
“That was an accident! An accident! Don’t give me that pitying look.”
Fenghua straightened her index finger to emphasize.
“Okay, got it.”
“Good performance…” she added, “Actually, I feel that those undead and ogres shouldn’t belong to the Shadow Lord’s forces.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because… these monsters are somewhat different from the ones we encountered during the last city defense. First, those bouncing warriors and water lance hunters are not summoned creatures. Second, this team has a boss present. And also, their positioning is off.”
“The Qianyan Army is in front of us, with the elves behind; logically speaking, we shouldn’t be ambushed, but in reality, we got attacked first in the middle. Do they really need to take a detour to hit the Yanshui Army?”
“…What she said makes sense; these are all suspicious points. However, one thing needs correction: we attracted these undead here.”
“Well… that’s not very important. Anyway, should we go over to try? What do you think?” Fenghua smiled, looking eager to give it a go.
You just want to find an excuse to sneak out!
“Um… okay.” In the end, Starry nodded; there wouldn’t be any trouble for the time being, and since the main body was watching, nothing should go wrong.
After briefly explaining to Brother Shiu and the others, Starry and Fenghua gradually vanished from everyone’s sight using their acceleration skills.
Due to the limited number of crystals, they couldn’t take them along.
The journey was slightly tedious, so they made contact with their insider.
“Mo Ran, are you still in Huawucheng?” Juchan sent a private message.
“I’ve been here all along; didn’t you ask for information about the city?” Mo Ran Jihua replied as if it were obvious.
“…This kid really is straightforward.
“Thanks for your hard work; have you noticed any changes?”
“It’s nothing much; just remember to send me to the small stall once this side is done.” He said generously, “I’ve been at the West Gate for two hours; they don’t seem to realize a large army is coming. The city gate is still wide open, the guards aren’t moving, and aside from me, I don’t see any other players.”
“No way? Not a single change?” Is the Shadow Lord this calm?
“Uh… if I had to say, it seems a bit unusually quiet here. This is my first time in Huawucheng, so I’m not sure if it was like this before.”
“How strong are the guards?”
“Level 33 golden small monsters, fewer than 100 of them; even if you multiply it by 4, it’s not that many. With so many of you, it should be easy to deal with them.”
“What is… I understand now; please continue to keep an eye on things.”
“小事，有问题我会第一时间找你的。”
“Ok!”
