GAMMT - Chapter 33
Chapter 33: Pawns
Fu Chuan ran toward the outer edge of the ditch, now clear of mobs. She had already formulated a plan on the way.
She wouldn't rush down. First, she would listen for any activity below.
Even from a distance, her agility of nearly ten thousand allowed her to hear the sound of chewing. The speed of its chewing betrayed its urgency, a clear sign that it was in desperate need of energy.
It was probably about to evolve.
Fu Chuan knew she didn't have much time. There was the BOSS's impending evolution, and the fact that the Teng Family and Xie Clan would start investigating this area as soon as they stabilized their own situations.
While monitoring the situation, she quickly made preparations. She hadn't had time to sort through the backpacks of those she'd defeated, but after using the potions she'd pulled out without restraint, she still had half left. Her greatest weakness right now was her mental power.
It hadn't been an issue at lower levels, but now she was facing Arcanists over level ten. They had been practicing meditation since childhood, and their mental power foundations were solid. It was a chasm she couldn't cross in a short time. Taking on a bronze-tier BOSS on the verge of evolving to level ten by herself would not be easy.
She stuck to her original idea: a brute-force approach was out of the question. She had to rely on technique.
So, Fu Chuan used her newly cast spider silk to roll over a batch of organic adhesive balls. She quickly stuffed them with poison needles, then tossed them down from above, aiming for the same spot where the locust swarm had made its delivery.
The creature was desperate, devouring everything indiscriminately. Fu Chuan didn't have time to calculate when the poison would take effect; she had no experience with its physiology and knew nothing about its resistance to toxins. Frankly, she had only acquired this poison needle ability tonight.
Though she was unsure of the onset time, she had a way to help it speed up its digestion.
Fu Chuan continued to feed it with her spider silk, but she hadn't yet approached the ditch herself. An inadvertent glance at a nearby spot sparked an idea. Weren't riverbeds mostly made of stone?
With that thought, she abruptly changed course and ran toward it.
There was a small grove of trees ahead. It wasn't as large as the one the Xie Clan party was hiding in, but it had timber.
A thought flashed through Fu Chuan's mind: This grove is also my property, isn't it? It's within the farm's boundaries, so this whole area is my land. That means the trees are my timber. Taking some wouldn't be illegal, would it?
The farmhands had probably planted them for use as building materials. After all, it would be a waste not to plant something on such a large, privately owned plot of land.
But Fu Chuan had noticed long ago that the farm's structures had been established for many years, well past the era of major construction. In a world with such vast lands, there was no shortage of wood, so it wasn't worth much. That meant the grove likely contained plenty of old, dead timber.
Since it was her own property, Fu Chuan felt no guilt. She went straight to picking out old, dead logs, their moisture long gone. They were light, which made them easy to drag, and they would be very useful.
But as she frantically released spider silk to gauge the weight of the large logs and began dragging them away—careful not to overexert herself, yet still consuming both stamina and mental power—she suddenly felt like she'd been transported to another world to be a miserable manual laborer.
Others, like Groundhog, had strength stats over 5,000 and couldn't wait to show off. But her? She hadn't even had a proper fight yet, and here she was, grunting and straining to haul timber.
"A poor commoner, a simple laborer."
Fu Chuan silently consoled herself as she picked up the pace.
Fortunately, the distance was short, only a dozen meters or so. After dragging the logs to the edge of the ditch and estimating her timing, she made two more trips, this time using a spider web to gather a large quantity of dry leaves.
The ditch was, on average, a little over two meters deep, but its depth was inconsistent. The deeper sections reached four or five meters, and the spot where the mini-BOSS was hiding was one such place.
Then, Fu Chuan targeted another deep section of the ditch. She decisively rolled the logs in at specific angles, making them overlap and interlock, wedging them precariously in place, looking as if they could fall at any moment.
Then, she herself moved stealthily through the ditch, rapidly closing in on the BOSS.
She remained hidden at first. Then, when she was about seven or eight meters from the BOSS, she suddenly leaped out and struck it with an Azure Radiance Feather.
The BOSS was in the middle of frantically devouring the organic adhesive balls when the sudden attack startled it. Its first instinct was to dodge. Then, with a flick of its tail and its pupils glowing green, it locked onto Fu Chuan with a buzz. Stun!
In reality, Fu Chuan had already dodged the attack with her superior positioning and high agility, causing the stun to miss. Yet, she deliberately feigned a daze and stood frozen in place. Seeing this, the BOSS followed up with a crimson fireball.
Fu Chuan saw it coming but made a show of dodging it precariously before turning to flee. As she ran, she reflected on her old strategic philosophy: when it came to survivability, agility was superior to constitution. High constitution meant you were hard to kill, but high agility meant the enemy never got the chance to hit you in the first place.
In short, it meant maxed-out escape capability!
The BOSS judged her to be not particularly strong, yet not weak either. It had finished eating the food and corpses and was now on the cusp of evolution. Of course, it would give chase.
Besides, it knew the ditch ahead was a dead end.
Chase her. Eat her. If I eat her, I can evolve.
The mini-BOSS seemed ravenous as it pursued her relentlessly. Its speed was actually incredible; if Fu Chuan hadn't boosted her agility to nearly ten thousand that night, she likely would have been killed instantly.
A true one-shot kill. Even with her current equipment, armor, and constitution, she couldn't have survived one of its major attacks. If not dead, she would have been crippled.
Players could resurrect at a respawn point, but that wasn't an option here.
So Fu Chuan was extremely cautious, her nerves stretched taut. She had to calculate every move to perfection, with no room for error. As she sprinted through the dim, narrow ditch, she once again took stock of the riverbed's terrain.
Just as she thought—all stones.
Moreover, the narrow confines prevented it from fully extending its thin, cicada-like wings. It also didn't dare fly high into the open, where it might be seen.
A BOSS on the verge of evolution was a prize that humans would hunt relentlessly.
It had that much self-awareness, at least.
Back when this river still flowed, thousands of years of rushing water had polished the stones smooth. As Fu Chuan sprinted across them, the BOSS felt itself closing the distance. Closer, and closer... Suddenly, it wreathed its wings in wind element. With a single, powerful flap, its speed exploded, and it lunged through the air, pouncing on Fu Chuan from behind.
Fu Chuan felt a rush of wind behind her. Her feet slipped, and she executed a sudden slide. Just ahead, a log lay askew. She slid into the gap beneath it just as the charging BOSS crashed headlong into the trap.
Bang! One dead log shifted, and the entire pile stacked above it came crashing down.
The BOSS slammed headfirst into the wooden cage, unable to dodge. It was instantly entangled by the dense spider silk within and pinned beneath a thicket of logs and withered branches. Logically, the damned human should have been trapped as well, but the BOSS could only watch as she grabbed a strand of silk and, in the instant before being crushed, was whisked away to safety.
Damn it!
It struggled, trying to break free, but Fu Chuan, now airborne, unleashed the Arcane—Stun!—that she had been preparing.
The instant the BOSS was stunned, Fu Chuan summoned a Flame Blast with her other hand, igniting the tinder-dry leaves. As flames erupted, she followed with another stun, then unleashed a storm of elemental attacks.
She had been meticulously timing her skill cooldowns and managing her mental power consumption. The continuous barrage dropped her mental power from nearly full to just a third. But now, the ditch had become a furnace. Smoke billowed as the logs were quickly consumed by roaring flames.
The flames seared the BOSS, and it let out a howl, its body lurching violently.
Boom! It heaved several burning logs aside, but Fu Chuan, already drinking a potion, quickly hit it with another stun.
She kept it stunned while accelerating the combustion of the logs. The flames raged, and the temperature soared.
Its health bar was dropping at a steady rate.
Even with its high armor and resistance to physical damage, the BOSS couldn't be immune to the intense heat. The ditch was filled with pebbles and large stones that, instead of dissipating the heat, absorbed it, turning the enclosed space into an oven. The BOSS's wings were its most vulnerable part, unprotected by armor, and they quickly ignited in the searing temperatures…
The BOSS was horrified!!!
My wings! My beautiful wings... they're gone!
A red aura erupted from the BOSS's body as its power surged. It threw aside the red-hot, burning logs with a shriek, its scorpion tail lashing out toward Fu Chuan.
Bzz... A poison stinger shot out, tracing a silver line through the air—a dotted line, because in the next instant, it vanished from sight.
In that instant, Fu Chuan almost couldn't dodge.
The stinger was closing in on her chest. Leaping backward in mid-air, Fu Chuan had no time to evade and no time to deploy a silk defense. In a moment of desperation…
In that split second, she used the nearest strand of silk to snag a red-hot, burning branch. With a sharp flick of her wrist, she flung it in front of her.
Bang!
The branch flew through the air, intercepting the stinger's path.
The stinger pierced the glowing, red-hot branch, sending sparks flying. The impact slowed it and reduced its piercing power, but it was still incredibly fast—so fast that…
Swish! Fu Chuan barely managed to avoid a fatal blow to the heart, but the stinger still struck her in the shoulder.
Her clothes flashed with green light as their defense activated, but it was shattered in the same instant. As the green light dissipated, Fu Chuan landed and staggered back two steps. Without hesitation, she ripped off her green jacket and used her blade to swiftly carve out the flesh around the wound on her shoulder.
The piece of flesh fell to the ground. Fu Chuan was terrified the poison had already spread, but thankfully, when she looked down at the excised tissue, she saw the poison stinger embedded within it, having only just pierced her skin after breaking through her armor.
The stinger's potent venom quickly turned the flesh black, but the discoloration was contained to a small circle. The surrounding tissue remained a vivid, bloody red.
Fu Chuan had a sudden realization: when the stinger passed through the core of the superheated log, the intense heat of the charcoal must have denatured the venom, greatly reducing its potency. Otherwise, with her current constitution, she would never have survived such a lethal toxin.
This BOSS's venom was far more potent than her own poison needles.
Fu Chuan's heart pounded in her chest.
Her defenses were now severely weakened, and she had inflicted a wound upon herself. Despite the pain, she didn't flee or stop to treat the injury. Instead, she looked up, her gaze locking onto the scene before her. There was no time for conscious thought; her body seemed to move faster than her mind. In a flash, she swapped her blade for a bow.
Just then, the BOSS, having nearly one-shot Fu Chuan in a show of power, found that its series of explosive actions had only accelerated the spread of the poison within its system.
The poison had taken effect.
It began to howl in agony, thrashing about amidst the scorching logs and embers, sending sparks flying. Now, the real damage-over-time phase began.
Its health bar plummeted. Fu Chuan nocked and fired an arrow, which whizzed through the air and pierced one of its eyes.
After she took out both its eyes, it was left disoriented. Unable to fly, it thrashed about like a caged beast within the prison of flames.
Killing with poison truly was one of the most sophisticated methods of murder.
Fu Chuan began to steadily whittle it down with her bow, occasionally switching to other weapons, including several firearms.
Each time she drew the bow, blood trickled from her shoulder. The intense heat baked her body, and sweat streamed down her face, yet every arrow she loosed flew true.
Until…
She heard movement nearby.
Not good, someone's coming!
Fu Chuan's nerves tightened. She burned through her mental power, and just as the BOSS's body began to glow with a brilliant red light—a last-ditch effort to evolve and kill this damned human—she aimed her final arrow.
Bzz... The arrow flew through the dark air above the ditch, piercing the sea of fire.
The arrow quivered as its tip buried itself in the spot on the BOSS's body that glowed most intensely with red light—its energy core.
Evolution, to put it simply, is an advancement combining genes and energy.
That brilliant flash of light was practically a signpost pointing to its evolutionary core.
Fu Chuan had seized the opportunity. The moment the BOSS fell, she clearly heard the system prompt.
"Killed the evolving Level 9 Peak Bronze BOSS, Scorpion-Tail Locust Chieftain. EXP +25,000."
"Level 10. All attributes +50."
Of course, she also heard the sounds of approach from the distance.
They were here. They had arrived so quickly.
Was it the Xie Clan or the Teng Family?
There were experts among them, more formidable than she'd anticipated. They had wiped out those locust swarms ahead of schedule.
This was tricky. She was certainly no match for them right now.
She had to leave, now!
Fu Chuan's mind was sharp and clear. She felt a wave of mental exhaustion the moment the BOSS fell, but she quickly regained her composure and began to calmly clean up the scene.
Her spider silk sprang into action.
She retracted all traces of the silk.
She looted the corpse for a hefty reward and severed its tail.
A pile of items had to be stored, some had to be destroyed, and others had to be left behind.
Fu Chuan scattered the items she'd collected from the other team onto the ground and into the BOSS's smoldering corpse. Just as she was about to leave, she remembered something. She bent down and quickly picked up the piece of her own flesh she had cut off, now cooked through. Then she leaped out of the ditch, slipped into the tall grass, and vanished. Along the way, she used the last of her mental power to hit it with a Flame Blast, turning it to charcoal before crushing it to dust and scattering it on the barren soil.
As for the blood she'd left behind, it had long since coagulated in the intense heat. Fu Chuan covered the traces with ash from the fire.
Her shoulder throbbed with a dull ache.
Less than five minutes after Fu Chuan left.
A small airship arrived at high speed over the farm's desolate outskirts. After it landed, a figure leaped out and stood at the edge of the ditch, gazing at the glowing embers still burning within.
"Young Master."
The young man turned his head. His handsome but cold, melancholic face was unreadable. He spoke only a single sentence.
"Someone is scheming."
Back in the woods, the members of the Xie Clan had been stunned when the locust swarm inexplicably cornered them, but they had mounted a defense. Most of them, including Xie Yong and his son, believed it was a plot by the Teng Family. How else could it be such a coincidence?
But one person among them disagreed. He reasoned that if the Teng Family had the ability to lure the locust swarm to their location, they wouldn't have sent only the swarm. They would have set an ambush on the perimeter of the woods. These were noble families; if they were going to strike, they would be thorough and leave no survivors. If anyone escaped the dungeon and made an accusation, it would become the catalyst for open conflict between the two families. But if everyone died inside the dungeon, the living would be the ones to tell the tale, and the Teng Family would have no one left to speak against them.
It was the same logic they themselves had followed tonight, confident they could eliminate Teng Yunli and his people.
This was the way of conflict between nobles: they could fight, but never openly.
But the sentries he'd posted had only detected the arrival of the swarm, not the Teng Family. He suspected it wasn't the Teng Family pulling the strings, but rather some other party that had discovered their location and deliberately lured the swarm to eliminate them.
Yet, while the swarm was large, it was also an injured group. Furthermore, whoever lured them here must have known about the Xie Clan's numbers and strength. They should have realized that, in the end, the family could handle this wave of locusts. Why go to all this trouble?
Unless... Xie Guangyu pondered as he fought. The group had readjusted their battle lines and, after the initial panic, had quickly stabilized. They steadily consumed resources, coordinating their attacks to wear down the swarm bit by bit.
Boom!
Xie Guangyu's ears twitched, and he glanced into the distance. The others, caught in the heat of battle, noticed nothing. But his perception was high, and he had sensed it.
A strange glint appeared in his eyes. In a flash of insight…
Damn it!
He knew why!
They were being used to draw away the mobs, so someone else could take on the BOSS!
"I'm going to check it out. You all carry on!"
As Xie Guangyu spoke, he turned to leave, but was blocked by Xie Yong and his son. Xie Yong's expression was grim, and Xie Jun said in a low voice, "Don't make decisions on your own. We finish the mobs first. You're going out alone? Are the rest of us just lackeys here to pull aggro for you?"
His tone was faintly accusatory.
In truth, there weren't many mobs left; they could easily finish them off. Xie Guangyu glanced at him, then suddenly seized Xie Jun by the neck with one hand and slammed him against a tree with enough force to snap the trunk.
Xie Jun coughed up blood. Xie Guangyu's voice was thin, the kind unique to a slow-developing youth, but his words were utterly cold. "I treated you with courtesy, but you've forgotten your place. Even if I am an illegitimate son, I am still the son of the head of the house. The ways of the Xie Clan are known to all, so why play dumb? A branch family is merely a vassal. Does a dog command its master's actions?"
"Do you know why I don't put a leash on you? Because you're not worth the expense."
"Be stupid again, and I won't mind leaving you and your father in some other bastard's pigsty to serve as fertilizer."
With that, he raised his other hand. A black mist shot out, corroding a swath of the locust swarm with a sickening hiss.
Everyone was stunned.
At the edge of the ditch, Xie Guangyu took one look at the charred BOSS corpse and stared at it for a long time. His subordinates had already split into two groups. One team descended into the ditch, expertly surveying the scene. After a while, they returned.
"Young Master, we found these. They're all clues left by the other party. This ammunition, in particular, seems unusual."
Xie Guangyu picked up a bullet. It was blackened by the fire, but a quick rub of his thumb restored its bright, silver sheen. His eyes narrowed.
"Ammunition from the Tianniu Arena market. Model 713TS. Upon entering the body, an alchemical layer on its surface reacts with blood to form a coagulant toxin, causing circulatory failure and rapid death. This ammo isn't cheap, and only registered fighters from the arena have the clearance to purchase it."
As Xie Guangyu toyed with the bullet, the other group made their report.
"Most of the food secretions meant for the queen locust were carried off by one group from the swarm. The rest, however, is missing. We've investigated the scene; it appears someone took it."
In other words, the perpetrators had succeeded perfectly.
In this whole affair, they had been nothing but pawns.
Who was behind this? It was terrifying. The lingering fear left them with a suffocating sense of being completely outmaneuvered.
Xie Guangyu's expression was dark as he continued to rub the bullet between his fingers.
The Tianniu Arena... While Jingyang City had plenty of fighters, someone with this level of clearance who would use such ammunition so casually had to be at least a third-tier combatant.
"Eight people, using five different types of weapons. Cunning tactics, killing the BOSS by turning wood into high-temperature charcoal... Not many freelance squads fit that profile."
He had a suspicion. Looking toward the farm, another thought struck him: the arrival of that half-million-strong locust swarm was probably no coincidence either.
A classic misdirection, a sneaky play.
This group... they've been lying in wait, planning to devour both the locust swarm and the ones fighting it, to emerge as the ultimate winners of this dungeon.
"It can only be them. And with a scheme like this, they were probably planning to wait two or three days, until we and the swarm had worn each other down, and then they'd appear to clean up the mess."
"Heh."
Xie Guangyu let out a cold laugh, a murderous glint in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Fu Chuan had slipped back to the farmhouse, entering through the chimney. The first thing she did was go to the bathroom, strip off her clothes, and examine her wound.
On her pale skin, the gash where she had carved out her own flesh was red and swollen. She lowered her head and began to clean the wound, her mind racing. If that person from the Xie Clan is as formidable as he seems, he should be able to use the family's local influence to quickly identify that squad.
After their narrow escape, Fu Chuan and Groundhog had both agreed that the squad was terrifying—an opponent far beyond their current capabilities.
But Fu Chuan didn't particularly hate them. This was a dog-eat-dog dungeon world. Death could come at anyone's hand, and resources were always transferable.
Getting killed was just part of the game.
So, when had she decided to plot against them?
It was when she saw the dark cloud of half a million locusts descending, and that team was nowhere to be seen at the farm. That was when she first suspected they had something to do with the swarm's strange behavior.
A team that strong, even if they were just grinding mobs, would follow the monsters. Now all the mobs were at the farm, so where were they?
It could only mean there was a greater prize elsewhere.
"What prize could be greater than the one at the farm where the entire swarm is gathered?"
Fu Chuan peered through a crack in the window. She could see the swarm, still relentlessly attacking with fireballs and poison stingers, but through the chaos, she could faintly make out their nest in the distance.
If she wasn't mistaken, that squad was striking directly at the heart of the locusts' nest.
They had, after all, successfully lured their biggest obstacle—the swarm itself—to the farm.
"They're probably fighting the locust queen BOSS…"
"I wonder if they've succeeded."
If they did, everyone else in this dungeon would likely die. That team would become an existence even more terrifying than the queen BOSS.
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