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"This boss is really a million times more generous outside than in the instance, having to pull five elite monsters while also being wary of getting flanked—man, it makes my scalp tingle,"
Zhuo Yang summarized like this.
In fact, from the start of the combat, the two of them never stopped bickering.
They seemed not to need to concentrate at all, joking and laughing as they gradually dismantled Hunter's dark abilities that were not known to the public and coped with them.
According to Zhuo Yang, Hunter's most common combo was a powerful knockback followed by a chase attack with virtually no tell. But one needs only to crouch with a shield immediately upon landing to fend off the barrage of attacks, gaining a buffer period.
He also executed this maneuver skillfully.
As for the other person, he dealt with Hunter's backup plan.
Normally, he would summon five corpses, reminiscent of reanimation from impure earth, but in reality, they were all living people hanging by a thread.
The Blood Curse unleashed their final strength, causing them to burn their blood for a "dying flash of brilliance."
But with Zhuo Yang drawing aggro, Teacher Xia circled behind and finished off the unconscious living one by one, eliminating any suspense in the fight.
The Blood Curse is ineffective on the dead, and Hunter simply didn't have time to summon Wandering Souls to lift the four corpses.
Even if he could, these corpses' fighting power couldn't compare with the living ones in their final burst of strength.
Moreover, as the Blood Curse was entirely severed, he fell into a weakened state. Zhuo Yang caught up and slapped him with a shield, sending him flying out like a rag doll for more than three meters.
But that battered old wooden shield also met its final moment.
Heine initially was eager to try, waiting for an ideal moment to jump in.
But when he saw Hunter force back Zhuo Yang, who claimed to have "8 points of strength," with his blood claws creating afterimages, he wisely gave up on the idea.
Better off on the sidelines. In a fight of this scale, not adding to the chaos is a contribution in itself.
With the end of the fight, numerous pale green orbs floated from the four corpses, 'ding ding dang dang' drifted into his body.
This time, the warm current was much stronger than before. He felt a surge of new strength in his body, which hadn't had food or water all night, and his mind also became much clearer.
Teacher Xia walked up to the fallen Hunter and expertly severed the tendons in his hands and feet to prevent any sudden outbursts of violence.
One could tell he had done this many times before.
As Heine tightened the bindings, two skeletons loyally executed the "leave one alive" command.
He approached Hunter, who upon recognizing him, first showed shock and then scoffed, "You disgrace of the Bone Burial Ground! Now, without the Bone Burial Ground, you can't sell your pathetic little trinkets anymore, hahaha cough... cough..."
Heine's expression remained calm, not provoked.
He remembered a strange term that Hunter cried out when he was frightened by Zhuo Yang.
Spirit Puppet.
It surely had something to do with the silvery-white ghostly flames.
He leaned closer to Hunter:
"Mr. Hunter, are these two Spirit Puppets powerful? I summoned them. Surprised, aren't you?"
Hunter's eyes widened in disbelief:
"You, you... No, it can't be you... You couldn't possibly be the Speaker—"
He suddenly shut up, sneering, "You're trying to trick me, right? You couldn't possibly know, or else you wouldn't have been expelled, hahaha..."
Before Heine could question further, Hunter's wounds began to ooze black blood, and his pupils turned pitch black in an instant!
Heine sensed something wrong and pointed his magic wand at Hunter instantly.
A thumb-thick arc of electricity shot out. Hunter's body jerked violently, then went still.
But before that, a sinister black line had already wrapped around Heine's wrist.
No experience orbs appeared, and Heine almost confirmed his initial guess—he could only gain experience through his summons.
Well, that's some sort of cheat…
And then came another issue.
He looked at his wrist, where there was a black, double-ringed mark.
Inside the circle were two vertical lines, like doors being pushed open.
Right now, his body showed no anomalies, but it was hard to be sure of the future.
An idea struck him. Pretending to not see clearly, he rolled up his sleeve and examined the mark carefully in the moonlight.
— He was actually giving his skeletons a good look.
Indeed, Teacher Xia exclaimed softly in a low voice:
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"What the fuck is this? Boss's speech ability from the dead? Brother Yang, have you ever seen this?"
"I haven't, and he's never used it on me..."
"Then it's probably exclusive to NPCs, triggering a plot, right?"
Heine's heart sank.
But he didn't show it, just slightly furrowing his brow before letting go of his sleeve.
He searched Hunter's body and found a set of keys, then returned to the entrance of the cellar.
Opening the sacks one by one under the moonlight, it wasn't hard to make out that they were four teachers from the Bone Burial Ground, two men and two women, including Rugger, the teacher who had angrily given him a zero on the first summoning class.
Rugger was a thin little old man who got along well with Hunter, one of the few who could stomach his rotten meat sausages and bean broth, yet he too ended up in a sack.
Heine activated the Eyes of the Undead, but there were still no lines on the four of them—neither green nor silver.
But he saw a faint deathly aura emanating from the cellar and suddenly remembered there was a fifth sack, urging Zhuo Yang to hoist it up quickly.
Opening the sack, Heine's body trembled as if the gloom of the entire evening had been swept away...
"Teacher Xiya La?"
Heine took her out of the sack and undid the ropes on her hands and feet.
Xiya La was completely knocked out, her face pale, and her breathing as faint as that of a wandering soul.
But in Heine's vision, the deathly aura wasn't coming from her but was being blocked by a faint black light as it tried to invade her body.
"Good, the Lady Speaker of the Dead is still protecting her follower..."
Heine breathed a sigh of relief, carried Xiya La into the cellar, and propped her up in a clean corner.
Zhuo Yang stared at her for a while and suddenly asked, "Teacher Xia, doesn't this person look like the demoness Xiya La?"
"You're asking me? I'm not facing her directly; I've been working around her the whole time..."
"True, I was wondering why the boss was hitting me like it hadn't eaten, turns out it was missing a damage multiplier."
"Had I known, I would have left an elite monster to beef up your difficulty level."
"That's not necessary."
Listening to the pair's banter, Heine continued searching for the source of the deathly aura.
Xiya La would not wake up anytime soon; the priority was to find Principal Gale in the lower levels.
Teacher Xia had mentioned that Gale had become the "Master Baigu" in the dungeon, but he believed there was more to the story.
If anyone besides Xiya La didn't want him expelled from Bone Burial Ground, it could only be Gale.
Although the principal had never publicly supported him, Heine knew that Xiya La's lone determination was not enough to keep him at the school for three years.
Moreover, it was this principal who was key to preventing the Bone Burial Ground from becoming biased and extreme over the many years. Now that the double-crosser was dead, he must inform Gale, possibly changing his fate in the dungeon.
He also remembered every word the two had mentioned, about the "most crucial tomb-robbing task in the early stages" and "a set that can be used up to level 15" and so on.
Three years had passed, and it was finally time for the greedy adventurers to make their move!
"Found it!"
Heine lifted the grass mat used for camouflage, moved the weeds aside, and discovered a locked stone slab.
It was embedded into the ground with no handle or ring, only three dark keyholes.
He took out the set of keys from Hunter—there was a total of twenty-two.
"Damn it," Zhuo Yang said, "with so many keys and three to choose from, the combinations are almost ten thousand. We will be trying until the end of time. How was this dungeon's door originally opened? I always went through the main door when I played."
"It was also the main door originally; earth elementals unearthed the gate buried underground. As for the back door, I'm not sure either, it's my first time here... Damn, this guy was hardcore!"
Amidst his admiration, Heine took out a set of clearly counterfeit keys.
These were naturally his accumulation over three years, the gravesite, the library, the storeroom, the meat vault, the kitchen...
There were quite a few places he had sneaked into.
"I suddenly feel his expulsion wasn't unjust."
"To be fair, indeed."
Heine silently accepted the pair's "compliments" and identified three keys he hadn't seen before.
Now there were only six possible combinations.
He was in luck; on his second attempt at inserting the keys, he heard a "hum."
The stone door slowly opened.