The Era of Gods

Chapter 505: Chapter 505: Killing the First Legion-Style Nightmare Player

Regarding this, Lin Xiao had no choice, “I’ve already denied it, but there’s nothing I can do if they don’t believe me.”

Next, Kazare didn’t continue to inquire about this issue but talked about serious matters instead. Hearing that Lin Xiao was willing to trade with the Star Domain Consortium, he readily agreed and then he was surprised to receive a notification to start with the Star Domain Consortium.

“No quest? Friendly directly?”

This was different from what Biggs had said.

Normally, to initiate reputation with the Star Domain Consortium, you would need to do a quest related to the Star Domain Raiders as a form of initiation, and it would start as just a neutral reputation.

But for him, the quest requirement was waived and he started off with a friendly reputation.

When Lin Xiao left Kazare’s place, he had already taken on two quests. One was a standard trading quest that lasted for a very long time. As long as he traded with the Star Domain Consortium, he would receive an extra 10% in reputation in addition to the normal trade rewards.

The other quest was to kill Star Domain Raiders, another long-term quest where for every Raider killed, he would earn 2 reputation points, with the cumulative reputation maxing out at revered.

With a friendly reputation, he could already use most services at any Star Domain Consortium stronghold, and he could also purchase nearly all basic materials from the Star Domain Consortium with a 5% discount.

Thinking as he walked out, Lin Xiao suddenly lifted his eyelids and saw two humanoid creatures standing not far away looking in his direction.

“Thinking of hunting me down?”

The two humanoids bore traces of Nightmare Creatures, followers of the Children of Nightmare he had just brushed past.

It wasn’t that they could recruit minions from reality into this place, but just as humans could directly recruit other humans, the Children of Nightmare could also directly recruit Nightmare Creatures.

Without any intention to hide, he returned to the open space to meet up with his girlfriend. On the way, he told her about what he had just observed, and his girlfriend laughed and said:

“Well, if that’s what they want, let’s grant them their wish and give them an opportunity.”

She had long since seen the formidable strength of Lin Xiao’s followers. She wasn’t at all concerned about one or two Children of Nightmare.

Although they couldn’t see each other’s followers’ levels and templates due to belonging to different factions, and could only guess, she didn’t think anyone at this stage could match her boyfriend.

With that, the couple pretended to leave the city immediately but stopped at about a kilometer away from the city, in a desolate area. As expected, the group of Children of Nightmare quickly caught up.

Seeing Lin Xiao waiting in place, the Child of Nightmare immediately stopped at a distance, looking around cautiously. This vast wasteland offered no place to hide, with only a few Magic creatures roaming the wasteland, making an ambush unlikely.

“Kill!”

Despite being different species, the word sounded similar. The Child of Nightmare, with a significant advantage in numbers, began the assault.

Watching the quickly deploying army of the Child of Nightmare, Lin Xiao’s eyes moved away from a group of towering beast cavalry and he said to his girlfriend with a smile:

“How long do you think they’ll last?”

“Half an hour?”

“I don’t think that’s possible. I guess they’ll collapse in ten minutes!”

Facing the Child of Nightmare unhidden, the Supreme Naga revealed their True Bodies and charged at the beast cavalry.

“Bang, bang bang…”

A series of barbaric collisions ensued. The beast cavalry was overturned in disarray by the powerful charge of the Supreme Naga, who, without losing momentum, broke through the Child of Nightmare’s forces effortlessly, encountering no equal match.

“Not as strong as I imagined!”

In just one round, the followers of the Child of Nightmare were completely routed, revealing a gap in strength far greater than Lin Xiao and his girlfriend had expected.

His girlfriend shrugged and said:

“You win!”

However, though the Child of Nightmare seemed shocked, he did not order a retreat. It was as if he still had a trump card to play. He cautiously ordered his troops to fight steadily to avoid being overturned.

Just as he had calculated, with a piercing screech from the Child of Nightmare, all the routed troops swiftly gathered towards him, and then…

To Lin Xiao’s surprise, the Child of Nightmare stood tall with arms outstretched, his muscles rapidly expanding. His arms also thickened and burst into chunks of flesh which grew visibly into tendrils. The nearby followers who touched the tendrils were stuck and pulled into the Child of Nightmare.

In just over a dozen seconds, hundreds of creatures were pulled toward the Child of Nightmare, melting and morphing into a flesh mountain over forty meters tall. After intense transformations, it rapidly turned into a Nightmare Giant standing over fifty meters tall.

“A generic Talent of the Children of Nightmare?”

Lin Xiao had seen this move before during a full-scale confrontation with the Children of Nightmare in the Divine Realm. Under the control of a Child of Nightmare, they could merge to create an extremely powerful Flesh Giant, far stronger than the one he was facing now.

While unable to see the template or level, Lin Xiao guessed that this Nightmare Giant was at least a Leader Template and probably close to Level 80. Although it was slightly less formidable than the Fallen Molten Giant King he had slain earlier, it was still very powerful at this stage – definitely a formidable opponent for an ordinary Human Expeditionary Army player…n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Hmm, still manageable with preparation.

“`

This move was the equivalent of gathering the life and strength of all his subordinates into himself. It was powerful, but the means of attack were too monotonous, much like a dungeon’s major boss. Against a prepared human legion’s players with assorted classes, the chance of victory was actually not high.

Thinking about it, it’s normal, as everyone is of the Divine Realm civilization. There’s no reason why the Children of Nightmare’s Talent would be invincibly strong, nor would the Human Overlord agree.

If it’s a boss fight, then it’s easy to handle. A few warriors with Life Values exceeding 1.6 million, serving as tanks, would stand at the front, while the rest would unleash their power from behind with a barrage of Spells, Lin Xiao included, casting various Spells from a distance.

With his subordinates growing stronger, Lin Xiao hadn’t taken action himself for quite some time.

His subordinates were so powerful that his own Talent-boosted Spells seemed rather feeble in comparison, and more often than not, his subordinates could handle the situation without him lifting a finger.

It’s a pity that subordinates can’t be brought into dungeons. No matter how many subordinates legion-style players have, they can’t bring them along, and like other players, they have to enter dungeons alone.

By now, Lin Xiao had started to feel that his specialized focus on Lightning was no longer suitable for him. After establishing a fortress and upgrading it to Level 3 to create a Teleportation Array connected to the Expeditionary Army Fortress, he planned to go back and take on a new specialization or upgrade his Template from a normal player Template to an Elite player Template, much like the distinction between regular and elite creatures.

The Elite Template is not just about enhanced attributes, but a change in the entire class system.

This includes enhanced Skills, enhanced Talents, and most critically, changes to the common Cooldown (CD) for Skills.

Most Skills for normal players have a shared CD of 1.5 seconds, meaning that even instant Skills with no cooldown still have a shared CD of 1.5 seconds and can’t be cast continuously.

Take the Magic Blast Technique, for example. It’s instant with no cooldown, but each use requires a shared CD of 1.5 seconds, the same for all Skills.

After upgrading to an Elite Template, the shared CD is reduced from 1.5 seconds to 1 second.

Without needing to explain in detail, it’s obvious how important this change is. Even without any other enhancements to class or Talent, this one factor could significantly boost any class.

Truth be told, having led the legion style for a while, with his powerful subordinates, Lin Xiao almost forgot that this was a game.

Leveling up, doing quests, clearing dungeons, farming equipment – he hadn’t done these things in a long time.

The difference between legion-style players and regular solo players is just too great.

After the transformation, this Flesh Giant had an attack power surpassing 20,000, approaching that of a Lord Template. It could kill Level 70 elites with two punches, and elites of Level 65 or lower with just one. If Lin Xiao were an ordinary player, he might have actually risked defeat.

At this stage, for most legion-style players, having even one Leader level subordinate is considered strong. To reference Lin Xiao, if he had not cheated with the Creation Rubik’s Cube, he would only have one Leader and five Enhanced Elites, which is more typical for legion-style players.

The Nightmare Giant Incarnation of the Children of Nightmare had up to seven million Life Points, with high defense and even higher regeneration. But under the continuous heavy bombardment of his powerful subordinates, it was still smashed to the ground.

As the Flesh Giant’s vitality was exhausted, its body stiffened, and it split into pieces, its hard, dry chunks of flesh crumbling away. Lin Xiao found the pretending-to-be-dead Child of Nightmare among the flesh fragments and finished it off with over a dozen strikes of Lightning.

“Killed the Child of Nightmare, honor Points +1.”

“Finally seeing some honor Points, not easy!”

Acquiring them was much more difficult than he’d imagined. It had been more than a decade since he entered this world, and he had only just earned a few honor Points.

Casually eliminating the remaining weak, he cleaned up the battlefield and returned to the node of the Star Domain Consortium.

Entering the small town as if nothing had happened, the guards paid him no mind. He took out some of the materials he had collected and exchanged them for twelve Star Realm Group Coins. Spending ten to use the Teleportation Array, he transported his entire troupe to the opposite Floating Land.

Seven months later, having crossed another Floating Land called Du Longer, they reached the outskirts of another Star Domain Consortium node. Using the resources collected along the way and by completing a few tasks en route, he exchanged for twenty-five more Star Realm Group Coins and teleported to another Broken Floating Land.

The new Floating Land was only a few dozen square kilometers, hovering over a vast expanse of the Twisted Void. The nearest Floating Land fragments were hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. The Star Domain Consortium had built a city called a node there, with a super-large Teleportation Platform in the city that could send people to many surrounding nodes, indicating that this node city was a key hub.

And indeed, as soon as Lin Xiao stepped off the platform, he saw a Human and a Child of Nightmare facing off in the square below, with many different Races watching the standoff.

Seeing Lin Xiao come down, the Human’s face brightened and he greeted him from afar.

Much to the Child of Nightmare’s chagrin, he turned and walked away without a word.

Upon seeing this, the Human called out loudly to Lin Xiao:

“Bro, wanna make a move? Let’s kill him?”

Lin Xiao shook his head and said,

“No thanks, I’m new here and not familiar with the place.”

The man watched Lin Xiao for a moment, then laughed and said:

“True, you’re new here and unfamiliar. How about we grab a drink? It’s on me.”

“I’ll treat.”

He gladly accepted, as it would do him good to learn about the place from someone who had arrived earlier.

He wasn’t worried about being tricked; with the Children of Nightmare nearby presenting a united front against outsiders, plus his own caution, as long as he wasn’t greedy or impulsive, he wouldn’t fall for any traps.

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