To be on the safe side, Ethan allocated his remaining 10 attribute points into Endurance, raising his Physical Defense to 256 and Magical Defense to 226.
With everything prepared, he cautiously approached the stronghold again. Just as he reached the enemy's attack range, he crushed the Petrified Skin Scroll in his hand. Instantly, his Defense doubled, bringing his Physical Defense to 512 and Magical Defense to 452, while also reducing nearby enemies' Physical Damage by 50%. Without hesitation, he activated Rapid Speed and charged straight into the bandit horde.
The bandits quickly noticed the intruder. Arrows rained down on Ethan, but each hit only displayed a -1, unable to break through his defense. Before he could feel relieved, however, a barrage of Fireballs streaked toward him.
-124 -124
"Damn it! I forgot about spell damage scaling!" Ethan cursed.
Unlike archers, mages rely entirely on skills for damage. Each Fireball dealt 120% Magic Attack damage—essentially their version of a basic attack. In just one wave, Ethan lost over 1,000 HP.
There was no turning back. Ethan gritted his teeth and downed a Large Health Potion, restoring 100 HP per second for 10 seconds. Unfortunately, this was his only reliable healing item—better potions were available in the city, but he had neglected to buy them out of overconfidence.
Knowing he needed to act fast, Ethan chugged a bottle of Instant Recovery Potion to restore his HP to full, then pressed forward. Thankfully, Fireball had a 3-second cooldown—if it had the same attack speed as archers, he'd already be dead.
The bandit warriors and shield bearers charged at him, attempting to intercept his advance. Ethan pushed his speed to the limit, weaving past melee attackers and making a beeline for the archers and mages. Though the melee enemies struck at him, their hits only dealt 1 damage due to his extreme defense. Even the warriors' skills, which should have broken through his armor, were neutralized by the Petrified Skin Scroll's 50% damage reduction.
However, Ethan underestimated how dangerous a fully armed force could be. Just as he reached the middle of the battlefield, a shield bearer bashed him with Shield Slam, stunning him for 2 seconds.
"Are you kidding me?!" Ethan cursed. Right at that moment, the mages unleashed a second wave of spells—and this time, it wasn't Fireball. It was Frostbolt.
"They have two spells?! What the hell!" Ethan panicked as the Frostbolts closed in.
With no choice left, he activated Void, entering an intangible state that immediately canceled the stun. The incoming Frostbolts passed harmlessly through him.
Using his brief invulnerability, Ethan dashed forward and closed in on the mages.
Sensing danger, the mages tried to retreat, but with Ethan's 300+ Movement Speed, escape was impossible.
Once he reached them, he started slashing furiously. At close range, mages had little room to maneuver, making it difficult for them to land attacks on Ethan's rapidly moving figure. He quickly infected each mage with two layers of poison before moving to the next. Since mages had even lower health than archers, two stacks were more than enough.
Within moments, all 10 mages were poisoned. During this time, Ethan only suffered three Fireballs and one Frostbolt—a massive improvement from before. While Frostbolt reduced his Movement Speed by 30%, it had little impact on someone with 300+ Movement Speed.
With the poison in place, Ethan didn't waste time—he immediately retreated. Taking out archers while mages were still alive was suicide. Even Instant Recovery Potions wouldn't be enough to keep up with the combined magic and physical damage.
After enduring one last wave of Fireballs, Ethan finally escaped the mages' attack range.
"Damn… that was close! I actually had to burn a scroll and a recovery potion just to fight regular enemies? What a rip-off!" he muttered.
One minute later, he returned. Just as expected, all the mages had succumbed to the poison. Now, Ethan was fearless. The Petrified Skin Scroll's effect still had four minutes remaining, and none of the physical attackers could break his defense.
Grinning, Ethan casually strolled back toward the bandits, heading straight for the archers. Though Rapid Speed was still on cooldown, his natural 200+ Movement Speed and 54% Attack Speed allowed him to spread poison quickly.
It took over a minute to apply poison to all archers, mainly because the shield bearers and warriors kept blocking his path. The shield bearers were especially annoying, as their Shield Slam could stun him. After finishing off the archers, he poisoned every melee fighter in sight.
By the time the Petrified Skin Scroll wore off, Ethan realized that he had already infected over half the bandits. The poison had already killed most of them, leaving only about 50 remaining.
"Now this is what real mass grinding looks like!" Ethan grinned.
He led the surviving bandits in a wide circle around the battlefield, checking for loot. Sure enough, two Black Iron items gleamed among the piles of corpses. Delighted, he quickly collected them. Additionally, instead of just copper coins, he found dozens of silver coins.
"Wait, they drop silver coins?!" Ethan's eyes widened. "Suddenly, everything I went through was worth it."
After grabbing the Black Iron gear and silver coins, Ethan ignored the copper coins and White-tier equipment. He had standards now.
However, 22 enemies still remained. The problem was that these bandits couldn't be pulled separately—whenever one was provoked, the whole group would attack together. Being surrounded without the Petrified Skin Scroll was incredibly risky, especially since the shield bearers' stuns could be lethal.
Before engaging, Ethan checked his progress. In just five minutes, he had slain 124 bandits, pushing his Toxic Source Talent to 420 damage per second. His level was still 14, meaning his poison damage had reached 30x his level—exactly what he predicted.
With this massive damage output, every bandit—warriors and shield bearers included—only needed two stacks of poison to die.
"Screw it. I already wiped out over 100 of them. What's another 22?"
Seeing that Rapid Speed and Void had both come off cooldown, Ethan activated Rapid Speed and charged forward.
His sheer speed advantage ensured he'd never be completely surrounded. His Physical Defense of 256 meant he only took about 200 damage from warrior attacks and 140 from shield bearers. The only real threats were their skills—especially Shield Slam.
As he rushed in, he made sure to keep moving. He limited direct confrontations to only 4 enemies at a time—3 warriors and 1 shield bearer. He poisoned the shield bearer first, but it didn't use Shield Slam immediately. Meanwhile, two warriors attacked using skills, dealing over 400 damage each. Ethan tanked the hits and quickly poisoned another warrior.
Glancing at his HP—down to half—Ethan quickly pulled back, ensuring the bandits couldn't encircle him. He feinted to one side, drawing a Shield Slam from a shield bearer. The moment the enemy raised his shield to strike, Ethan sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the stun.
"Hold on… I can actually dodge these? The shield bearers have a distinct wind-up animation before using Shield Slam, and warriors have a noticeable attack pattern too…"
This realization sent a surge of confidence through him.
"This fight just got way easier."