The Soul Eater stared at the fully intact Yiyi and pondered for a long time.
Strange, what I felt is clearly right.
Judging from the quality of her flesh, she should be an ordinary Bronze Rank swordsman.
However, after hearing the shouts of Annan and Salvatore, the intelligent monster immediately realized something:
Yes, the curse comes with a price.
This is especially true for the youth of Bronze Rank.
I understand. She may have used some curse with strict conditions to reverse her own time.
But that’s all futile.
In the dark gray vertical pupils of the Soul Eater, it closed the innermost layer of its three eyelids again.
It turned its head, bit its tail again, and straightened the tension.
I just need to kill you again.
After all, it’s a piece of cake.
At the same time, Annan realized that Salvatore was about to use the Sage’s stone whilst the Soul Eater was making another attempt to assault Yiyi while watching through his Creator’s perspective.
He was a little surprised at Salvatore’s decisiveness.
In Annan’s memory, Salvatore wasn’t someone who was great at execution.
Annan’s original prediction was that Salvatore would hesitate for a while. Then, by the time Yiyi died for the second or third time, he should realize that he could attack both the Soul Eater and Yiyi was being focused.
But, his attack should be ineffective.
While Salvatore’s combo managed to kill Big Fat in seconds, the needle summoning and spell chanting took nearly half a minute.
The attacks directed at the Soul Eater could only be effective if it was swift.
However, Annan was already prepared for this.
The moment the Soul Eater turns its head to change focus from Lin Yiyi to Salvatore, he would inject the Sage’s Stone and launch [Frost Sword] at it.
Due to his curse, Annan’s sense of pain was severely weakened. Thus, even after the effects of the Sage’s Stone disappeared, Annan could retain a certain degree of combat prowess.
This was the reason that Annan had two copies of the stone with him, but the craftsman — Salvatore only had one.
However, if Salvatore is already planning to use the Sage’s Stone now, I have to adjust my plan slightly.
After all, Annan couldn’t just shout to Salvatore, “Hey, pretend to chant a spell. I’ll use my ultimate ability.”
The Soul Eater was a high-ranking summon in the Silent Realm, so it could understand human words.
As the event unfolded, Annan’s role was to create opportunities for Salvatore!
I should trust the senior for the time being.
As long as he uses the Sage’s Stone to gain the combat power of a Gold Rank temporarily and displays combat power comparable to 70% of the Silver Rank Great Wizard Benjamin, it is enough!
If Salvatore was inting [1], Annan would have to use the Sage’s Stone himself to stand in immediately. He would only have one remaining use of the stone left for any later unforeseen events, and would also have to protect the incapacitated Salvatore.
If Salvatore did succeed, however, then Annan could hide his true strength. It would become cost-free for him to continue to act as an NPC until the end of the dungeon instance.
“Yiyi, on your left!”
Immediately before the Soul Eater launched its attack, Annan shouted, “Protect me, Old Goose!”
Perhaps due to the cooperation during the last dungeon instance, Delicious Wind Goose and Yiyi didn’t hesitate to follow Annan’s command.
Lin Yiyi immediately turned slightly to the left, and caught a black, barbed wheel flying towards her.
She raised her wooden staff subconsciously, gripping it tightly.
—Ha.
The Soul Eater was disdainful toward the resistance.
Are you trying to stop me with that wooden stick?
I don’t need to attack deliberately. By just passing it, I can shred it into pieces!
But what the Soul Eater didn’t know was that…
When Lin Yiyi saw it and held the wooden staff with both hands, she activated her curse.
[When holding the weapon with both hands, you can see all the attack trajectories that will hit “you” in the next three seconds. If the parry attempt fails, you will not lose your balance nor be grounded.]
[Do not move when using this ability. The attacker must be within sight.]
The curse [Frontal Parry] granted Lin Yiyi robust strength and the ability to predict the short-term future.
In Lin Yiyi’s vision, her surroundings seemed to slow down, turning gray and white.
In front of her, there was a red phantom image.
Countless black wheels spiralled towards her from the front in unpredictable trajectories, diagonally slicing through her head and heart, tossing her entire left arm and half her ribs from the body.
At this moment, the red images were graying out rapidly.
Lin Yiyi could only make one last decision in this slow world.
I don’t think I can stop it.
But I should be able to survive it.
Lin Yiyi’s legs couldn’t move.
She used all her strength and tried her best to bend her upper body to the right.
In this bullet time-like state, her actions were extremely difficult and slow.
But if the whole process was viewed in real time, it was undoubtedly much faster because she had put her body to the limit in dodging this attack!
Normally it is impossible for a person to dodge instantly and unreservedly in battle!
As the gray tone that represented real time was about to catch up with the red paths, indicating that it almost hit her, Lin Yiyi felt exhaustion assault her mind and she was ejected out of that strange state.
Thankfully, her upper body had already deviated enough from the attacking trajectory.
The attack, which should have split her head and heart into pieces simultaneously, could only shred her wooden staff and the forelimb of her left arm.
According to Annan’s settings, the intense pain would disappear instantly after reaching the maximum pain threshold. So after the limb was severed, Lin Yiyi was surprised to realize that she wasn’t dead!
Indeed, although her left arm flew out, her health was still at 35%!
Does this mean that if it doesn’t sever my limb, I can survive its attacks with more than half of my health points left.
Although she would be instantly killed head-on, Lin Yiyi now had a strong feeling of confidence in her heart.
I can do it!
I can tank it!
“I need a sturdier weapon!”
Lin Yiyi dragged her severed arm and backed up quickly, shouting to Annan and Salvatore at the first opportunity.
Although she didn’t know if it would work, she still wanted to try calling out to them.
The Soul Eater was taken aback when it noticed Lin Yiyi dodged its supposedly unavoidable attack, and then it was enraged.
It hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to turn around and kill the most dangerous human who can see through its stealth, or to execute the weakest human who had already lost her arm.
It finally decided to finish off the human who was arrogantly taunting it even after her limb was severed!
It no longer used the same wheel attack this time.
That was an AoE attack specialized in dealing with large numbers of unarmored units.
The Soul Eater shut two layers of eyelids, straightened its body and lifted its sharp triangular head. Like a speeding javelin, it swiftly launched toward Lin Yiyi!
The Soul Eater’s [Charge] attack was undetectable, unavoidable and without warning.
By the time Lin Yiyi heard the sound, her chest and abdomen were already penetrated.
She was severed into two halves. A large spurt of blood burst out into the air behind her out of momentum.
Fortunately, her back was facing the road and not someone’s house. Even then, the Soul Eater’s attack left a big hole at the T-shaped intersection more than 80 meters behind her!
Then, Lin Yiyi respawned immediately at the same place again.
She called out again, “I need a weapon!”
“Take this!”
Salvatore didn’t hesitate to throw a sturdy alloy steel staff crafted through his alteration techniques toward Lin Yiyi.
The steel staff made a hissing sound in the air. But fortunately, Salvatore was weak in strength, so Lin Yiyi caught it easily from the air.
The moment she caught the staff with both hands, her face froze.
She leaned backwards without hesitation as the Soul Eater darted toward her chest and abdomen again.
The attack failed, and the monster skidded onto the ground, leaving long marks.
Then, the monster closed its three layers of eyelids, and suddenly disappeared, reappearing above Lin Yiyi in an instant.
Its straightened tail slammed directly at her, who was lying on the ground, trying to cut her in half vertically!
Seeing this, Annan breathed a sigh of relief instead.
Yes, the monster finally lost its cool.
What a great MT (main tank)! She really delayed the monster there!
********************************************************************************************************* Dear fans and readers, I would like to thank MindMatrix for editing this chapter. Possibly, we will work together for quite a while. I hope that our best efforts could improve the readability of this novel from this point onwards. Enjoy reading ?