Blade of Tyranny - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Soulcraving Thorns

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Nie Fan looked behind him—the Thief wasn’t pursuing him.

Those three Thieves were powerful enough to kill him, but it was thanks to the three impressive skills he had and their unexpected effect that he could kill two of them.

Even so, the one called Grievous Harm still almost managed to kill him. In other words, he was too lacking in ability, not to mention that he had been dependent on openings. He would definitely have lost terribly if he was fighting real elites in a PK.

Moreover, since they were targeting him specifically, they would not give up just like that. 

His items were too weak, his skills barely enough and hardly experienced in PK.

Having summed up all his flaws, Nie Fan decided that he could solve those problems one by one!

In fact, he had done well in his first Blade of Tyranny PK. Normal players would have been utterly flustered in the same situation, perhaps dying to Grievous Harm’s ambush.

Either way, he was not going back to Tajit for the time being. Glancing at his map, he darted towards his destination.

After running for a dozen minutes, he caught sight of some ruins over distant grasslands. 

It was the Overgrown Ruins—spawn point of the Soul Eaters!

***

The Soul Eaters were wandering spirits, some of them being crusaders in life who died in the battlefield over numerous expeditions. They had long since become undead roaming nearby the Overgrown Ruins, feeding upon anything alive passing by.

Nie Fan felt a sinister dampness hitting him in the face upon his approach to the Overgrown Ruins.

[System: You have discovered the Overgrown Ruins. You gained 1 Insight.]

The gloomy clouds overhead had blocked out the sun, leaving the place especially dark.

“367, 281, 273.” Nie Fan was muttering to himself as he sprinted to the western side. Half a minute later, he checked the coordinates and saw that he was in the area he wanted to be. Although it was a sloped area and he was still on the outskirts of the Overgrown Ruins, several Soul Eaters were wandering the area.

If he was lucky, he could get a good Skill Tome farming monsters here.

Bloodthirsty Vines!

Black Oil!

Mini Fireball!

As one skill was fired after another from Nie Fan’s hands, the Soul Eaters fell one after the other. He would also cast Toxic Miasma from time to time, which leveled up quickly since the Soul Eaters were at least four levels above him.

Moreover, it did not actually take much to level up Toxic Miasma from Level 1 to Level 2, and it took around half an hour as Nie Fan continuously trained his skill.

In fact, it had risen up to Level 3 thanks to the buff from the Ring of Fate.

No one had arrived at this map which was since it was Level 25, and there was no telling what they would think after seeing Nie Fan rapid farming.

After killing a horde of Soul Eaters, Nie Fan collected all their item drops. Aside from the few bronze coins, his eyes sparkled when he found a Skill Tome with a gray cover.

That’s it!

Soulcraving Thorns!

It was not exactly an eye-catching Plant-type skill. Most Druids would prefer not to use it since it did not have any major use aside from summoning a bunch of thorns, not to mention that it had a weak attack and would wither in a short period of time. Furthermore, it was only the number of thorns that increased with every summon, whereas its Attack and Slow effect would still not be much.

[Soulcraving Thorns, Level 1: Summons 5 Soulcraving Thorns over a corpse with Slow effect. 3-5 attack, lasts 3 seconds, cooldown 0 seconds, cast time 0 seconds, 3 mana cost.]

Soulcraving Thorns was not exactly useful whether in PK or farming monsters since the skill had low attack, and it required a corpse even though it had a useful Slow effect. Only low-level players would use that Skill Tome if Nie Fan dumped it in the market, since the low mana consumption meant saving costs, not to mention that it had no cooldown or casting time.

With a wave of his right hand, Nie Fan learned Soulcraving Thorns.

However, he could not use it right away since Soul Eaters left no corpses.

Having gained another skill, Nie Fan did not continue farming monsters there and headed into the ruins instead.

The gray skies overhead felt stifling, with the wandering spirits nearby adding to the horror.

Glancing at his skill bar, Nie Fan found that Cheetahmorph had come off cooldown. 

He cast it and rapidly advanced through the curving corridors within the ruins. The wandering spirits he ran into on the way would all lunge towards him, but his Movement Speed was simply too fast in Cheetahmorph, and he soon pulled away from them. They would eventually give up when he put fifteen yards between them and reverted to their roaming mode.

After swiftly bypassing those spirits, Nie Fan finally entered the heart of the ruins—even the Soul Eaters did not approach this area, seemingly afraid of something.

With ten minutes past, Nie Fan’s Cheetahmorph was over and he reverted to human form.

The wildflowers growing over the corner of the wall caught his attention then. They were Soul Eater Blooms, a plant that only grew in the Overgrown Ruins and could be made into Soul Eater Bane. That poison had a strong paralyzing effect when laced over weapons, although it would be ineffective against undead or spirits.

There were still many such flowers around since Nie Fan was a pioneer of this map. Still, the number of Soul Eater Blooms would plummet soon after more players streamed into this place, becoming rare and expensive.

He dropped to a crouch and started to harvest those flowers.

[System: You have obtained a Soul Eater Bloom. +2 skill proficiency.]

***

After forty minutes of harvesting the Soul Eater Blooms, Nie Fan now had a group and a half of blooms that could be used to brew thirty Soul Eater Bane.

Looking around to find that he had harvested almost every Soul Eater Bloom, he saw that the ruins were covered in towering walls that had been left in utter ruin. Leaping, he got on top one of the lower walls.

As he checked his surroundings, he found a massive spirit at a cluster of debris just ahead. Standing over five meters tall, it resembled a giant wearing huge war crusader armor while wandering around.

It was the Soul Eater Leader, a Level 30 Miniboss and a damage sponge. Anyone would be intimidated by its six thousand HP, and it also possessed Earthsplit Chop, a powerful AoE skill that made it one of the toughest monsters under Level 30.

Under most circumstances, it would take a raid party of thirty Level 30 elites to take it down.

The greatest weakness of the Soul Eater Leader was its size. Moving was inconvenient for it within the many walls in ruins, although Nie Fan was not hoping to kill it yet. After all, when it unleashed Earthsplit Chop once its HP dropped to a certain level, it would instakill Nie Fan despite the protection of the walls.

Nonetheless, Nie Fan turned towards a nearby wall where a treasure chest was shining in cyan radiance.

The Cyan-bronze treasure chest was very rare in the early game—Nie Fan would never have made the long trip otherwise. It had a huge chance of dropping Cyan-bronze items, along with Gem Pieces, maps or Skill Tomes, along with a minor percentage of dropping a top-quality item.

Looking towards that hunk of a monster, Nie Fan’s right hand moved and launched a Mini Fireball at it.

The ball of flame burst over the Soul Eater Leader’s head with a bang, splattering sparks all over the place.

The monster unleashed an ear-shattering roar of rage after being attacked and started to chase after Nie Fan, its red eyes shining in its impulse to consume flesh.

After attacking the Soul Eater Leader, he did not pause for a moment, leaping over several collapsed walls and darting towards the heavily walled zone in the ruins.

The Soul Eater Leader reached a wall over two meters tall, paused and strode over it. It looked around, searching, but was unable to find Nie Fan when a fireball fired at its direction from the distance, hitting it with a loud bang.