Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 53: Torture, the Inhumane Bone Cage
In the eyes of my companions, the third duel was undoubtedly an overwhelming victory without any suspense. The difference in strength between the two sides was so great that they could not even muster much enthusiasm to cheer after the victory.
From the beginning, the Yangtze River Delta completely took the initiative on the field. As soon as the bell rang, the fat man with wretched movements disappeared into thin air with a sly smile on his face. The huge arena was suddenly left with only the lonely figure of the fallen knight of the vampire clan, I love to bask in the sun. He held the huge sword tightly in both hands, tilted it in front of his chest, and looked around vigilantly and helplessly, trying to find clues of his opponent from the changes in the light and shadow around him.
Although our half-orc fat shadow thief friend has fully demonstrated his lazy and slow instincts as a fat man in many aspects of life, fortunately, he has obviously spent the last bit of diligence buried deep in his thick layer of fat on the training of stealth skills. In stark contrast to the intuitive impression given by his body, his stealth skills are so superb that even as a companion, if it weren't for the two lines of emerald green text above his head that indicated his name and the guild he belonged to, it would be difficult for us to find his shadowy and sneaky figure, not to mention the blood clan fallen knight on the ring who is two levels lower than him.
This was perhaps the most tormenting few seconds in the life of the young blood race fallen knight I love to bask in the sun: he stood alone on the vast empty ring, listening to the footsteps of the enemy approaching in a very slight and extremely cold way, but he could not even see a ghost, let alone take the lead in attacking, and could only stand there and be slaughtered. At this moment, the only thing he could do was to guess where the opponent's first knife would stab him; and the worst thing about this problem was that whether he guessed right or not, it was not good news for him.
Soon, the air behind me suddenly became thick, and then a fat black shadow condensed out of thin air. Taking advantage of the moment when the blood clan fallen knight was unaware, the Yangtze River Delta inserted a sharp butcher knife into his waist from behind. For a moment, blood was everywhere, and the young blood clan who fed on blood seemed to have tasted all the sins of his life with the plasma rushing in his body at this moment.
The blood clan warrior, who had been severely injured from the beginning, showed his last bravery in the despair of famous failure. Unlike the previous battle with Xiange Yayi, he wasted his magic power recklessly, swinging the two-handed giant sword in his hand wildly, and throwing those shadow spells that were not powerful but treacherous and fast at Chang Sanjiao's head without stopping. The blue groove on his head that represented his magic power disappeared into the air inch by inch at an astonishing speed, and along with it, Chang Sanjiao's vitality was also reduced at an embarrassing speed.
No matter if they are assassins, swordsmen or shadow thieves, the most threatening thing about the adventure professionals who are professional wanderers is the insidious, vicious and terrifying huge destructive power that erupts in the first moment of the fight. Among them, the destructive power of the assassin is the most frightening, followed by the swordsman, and the shadow thief who uses various mechanisms and traps as auxiliary attack methods is the worst one - even if it is the worst one, the huge power displayed by an ordinary shadow thief in a moment after seizing the initiative is enough to make a well-equipped high-level warrior envious. Perhaps the berserker can only match it when he uses the most powerful attack skills after entering the berserker state.
However, after the first few seconds passed and the battle entered a stalemate where the only means of blood exchanged was through brute force. Their inherent deficiencies of fragile vitality and thin armor began to slowly reveal themselves - this deficiency was particularly evident in front of the warrior professions wearing thick armor and heavy equipment.
After gaining a huge advantage at the beginning, Chang Sanjiao soon found himself in a very embarrassing dilemma. In front of the opponent's solid and thick heavy armor, the warhammer and dagger in his hands seemed a little powerless in terms of attack power - of course, this was also directly related to the quality of his equipment: until now, he still used the "Corpse Poison Dagger" made for him by Chang Gong She Ri when he was level 30 as his main attack weapon. Although the lethality of this dagger is a top-notch one for its level, it still seemed a little too shabby in the hands of a level 50 fat man; as for the warhammer, it was simply a temporary substitute for his handy weapon after Chang Gong She Ri destroyed it, and there was no need to expect it to play a huge role in the battle.
Compared with the weak attack of Chang Sanjiao, the Shadowfang Greatsword of the Fallen Knight of the Blood Clan fully demonstrated its value on the moldy "solid thunder beast leather armor" on the Orc Shadow Thief: every time it was swung, handfuls of blood were drawn out of Chang Sanjiao's body, and the auxiliary magic with various killing effects further helped to increase the power of this weapon, coupled with the intensive and frequent attack spells... Relying on sophisticated equipment and high-intensity magic power consumption, the damage caused by I Love Sunbathing in a short period of time even exceeded that of the opponent who was higher than himself, and gained a certain degree of advantage in the battle scene - if it weren't for his two-handed greatsword being too heavy and resulting in too low an attack frequency, his advantage might have been even more obvious.
If our half-orc shadow thief friend could be a little calmer at this time, he would be able to see that the blood-fighting Knight's crazy attack was just a spent force and could not last long at all - you know, the little vitality he had left could not sustain for long in such a close combat of blood for blood and life for life, and according to his current attack method, his magic points would be more likely to be exhausted before his vitality reached the bottom. If Chang Sanjiao could wait for another five seconds - or even three seconds, the situation on the ring would be fundamentally reversed, and he would easily win the victory.
However, at this moment, perhaps the reckless and impulsive nature lurking in the blood of the orcs began to boil because of the heavy bleeding in the battle, or perhaps the long-term combat habits overwhelmed the rationality in his mind. No matter what the reason, Chang Sanjiao did a stupid thing:
He raised his hand and sprinkled a piece of bright silver powder, which suddenly sparkled in the air, emitting a dazzling light. After the light, the whereabouts of the Orc Shadow Thief disappeared from the ring again - he once again entered the invisible state of "stealth".
As we all know, assassins and shadow thieves cannot use the "stealth" skill indefinitely. They can only use it twice in a row within a certain period of time, and the second "stealth" requires the help of a flash potion called "disappearing powder". After that, they need at least five minutes to wait for this skill to cool down before they can use it again.
For these dark killers hiding in the shadows, being able to hide their tracks twice means having two chances to launch an assassination. With their instant killing capabilities, these two opportunities often mean the opponent's defeat.
And now, Chang Sanjiao was so foolish as to waste his most important, precious and last stealth opportunity within five minutes in such a battle that he must win - I don’t know what on earth made him make such a stupid decision at this time, but no matter what it is, at least we can be sure that it has nothing to do with reason.
The Fallen Vampire Knight once again lost track of his opponent, but this time I believe he was chuckling in his heart - the wrong decision made by the Yangtze River Delta helped him a lot, allowing him to exceed his task.
Although he couldn't find his opponent, I Love Sunbathing was not idle on the stage. He cast two layers of defense spells on himself, "Dark Force Field" on the left and "Shadow Curtain Wall" on the right, and saved up the last few drops of magic power to cast a first-level magic "Armor Breaking" on himself that could only increase his attack power by less than ten points. He really used up all his magic power, not even wasting a single drop of it.
What happened next was simple: Chang Sanjiao once again launched an assassination attack from behind. A "stun" made the opponent faint for a short time, a "throat cut" caused 370 points of damage, and a "murder" immediately followed, forcing Chang Sanjiao into a critical state. At the last moment, the last two defensive spells cast by the Blood Knight played a crucial role, allowing him to save a single-digit remaining life after being severely injured, giving him the opportunity to make a final counterattack. A bright red "-250" surged from Chang Sanjiao's head, temporarily covering the words on his head and replacing his name - this was simply a huge irony of his stupid victory by the God of War who was watching the battle on the sidelines - then Chang Sanjiao quickly chopped off his fourth knife, and the battle ended.
Chang Sanjiao stayed on the stage with more than three-quarters of his remaining vitality and less than one-third of his fighting spirit. On the surface, his advantage seemed obvious. However, he made his opponent, who was two levels lower than him and had only about one-third of his vitality, successfully use up the last point of magic power, successfully converting more than half of the magic power accumulated from the previous game into damage to him, and also made him foolishly waste his last precious "Stealth" skill, which completely deprived him of the opportunity to take the initiative when facing the next opponent - this was really a shameful victory. Apart from the final result, I really can't see how Chang Sanjiao defeated his opponent.
The Orc Shadow Thief's fatal mistake in tactical choice directly led to his defeat in the next duel.
Replacing the Fallen Knight of the Blood Clan is an Undead Lich, whose name is very consistent with his race and profession - Evil Spirit. Like the Fallen Knight, the Undead Wizard is also an adventure profession unique to the Doomsday Empire. Its greatest uniqueness is that it can only be performed by those corrupted who have awakened from death. They - or should we say "they" - are committed to exploring the dark and desperate death power controlled by the Lord of the Eternal Underworld, Tevri Milans. Therefore, according to the mainstream view popular in the Falvi Continent, the Undead Lich is the most evil and terrifying branch of all magic professions. Compared with them, the demon warlocks who signed a contract with the demons of other worlds with their souls are as pure and kind as a newborn white rabbit.
However, if we can abandon our hostile stance and view the actions of these undead wizards with a more fair and objective attitude, we can understand their thoughts:
We all know that in the world we live in, there are often strange creatures called "philosophers". Sometimes, they may get excited and throw out some profound questions that are self-torturing and others-torturing, trying to drive everyone crazy, including themselves. Some of the most representative questions include: "Why are we alive?", "What are we alive for?", "What does it mean to be alive?", "Are we really living or just experiencing our existence in an illusory dream?", and so on.
In fact, the same is true for necromancers, except that they think from a different perspective than we do. I think they are all wise men among the corrupt, who, through their research on the power of death, explore questions such as "Why do we die?", "What is the purpose of our death?", "What does death itself mean?", "Are we really dead or experiencing a non-existent death in a false dream?", and so on. Sometimes I really want to know how an undead lich views philosophical questions such as "the essence of life". Perhaps, just as we think that studying the power of death is an extremely evil and terrifying thing, they also think that "being alive" is really disgusting...
Therefore, I believe that the so-called "necromancy is evil" is nothing more than an academic disagreement with a certain degree of discrimination among some living experts and scholars regarding the magical research field of the corrupt. It is only because of the war era we live in that this simple academic issue has taken on a strong political color.
Although in essence, the Undead Liches are all profound philosophers, but the biggest difference between them and their living counterparts is that most of the time, these scholars who specialize in the truth of death have enough power to force others to accept their ideas. I guess those philosophers who are lucky enough not to be locked up as lunatics will always be a little envious of their dead counterparts from the bottom of their hearts, although they will never express this envy - you know, if a mentally excited lunatic yells at you at the top of his lungs while waving a magic scroll such as "Burning Soul Ghost Fire" in his hand that can turn you into nothingness at any time, you will definitely think that the heresy such as "the sun is the center of the universe" is actually very reasonable.
The fact is, four hundred years ago, the stupid guy named Bruno was just a first-level magic apprentice. His poor magic level couldn't even burn a chicken to death, so - unfortunately but naturally - he was eventually burned to death by others, and the ridiculous "heliocentric theory" was never mentioned .
I sometimes hear my fellow airmen say the proverb that truth does not lie in the loudest voice - and I think it is so wise. Indeed, many times, the truth does not depend on who has the loudest voice in the argument - it often depends on who has the bigger fist...
Like all other magic professionals, the professional characteristics of the Undead Lich determined that they could only wear thin cloth soft armor, and their weak defense was their fatal weakness that could not be covered up in battle. Once approached by a melee professional, if they could not get rid of them in the first time, they would become a meat target for anyone to ravage, and suffer under the opponent's violent attacks.
Originally, for them, assassins and shadow thieves like Chang Sanjiao, who were good at stealth, were shadows they could never get rid of. Every time, those brutal killers who could disappear suddenly appeared beside them like a nightmare, stabbing their bodies with deadly blades when they were off guard, and ruthlessly snatching their lives in a shuddering moment.
But now, our half-orc shadow thief friend looks in a very bad situation. After wasting two opportunities to hide in the last battle, Chang Sanjiao can only charge forward with his rough skin and thick flesh. As soon as the battle started, he immediately ran away from where he was standing. His speed was so fast that even his own shadow couldn't catch up. We only saw a green fat man with a green face and fangs, dragging a series of vague and fleeting shadows behind him, running forward at a speed that violated all common sense in the world. In my opinion, there is probably nothing in the world that can stop this pile of fat running at an overspeed in a critical state - at least that's what I think at this moment.
However, this undead lich named "Evil Spirit" obviously knows his fatal weakness of not being good at close combat, and has long been on guard against this situation. He may not be able to prevent the sinister back attack after the shadow thief approaches stealthily, but he has many ways to restrain this stupid frontal assault.
As the evil spirit waved the bone staff in his hand, a rotten swamp with a foul smell suddenly emerged on the ground in front of the Yangtze River Delta. The surface of the swamp was a corrupt dark green color, and from time to time a few turbid bubbles exploded, revealing a layer of yellow-white broken bones under the surface of the swamp.
As soon as he stepped on the suddenly appeared bone-crushing quagmire, the broken bones that seemed to be submerged in the quagmire waiting to rust immediately revealed the huge threat they were hiding. The sharp bone stubble pierced the sole of Chang Sanjiao's foot, causing him about 15 points of damage per second. Originally, this level of minor damage was not worth mentioning for the bloody and thick-skinned half-orc shadow thief, but the bad thing was: these insignificant minor injuries caused irreparable negative effects on Chang Sanjiao:
His speed slowed down immediately.
Without anyone reminding him, Chang Sanjiao had already realized that he was in a very bad situation. He dragged his fat body through the mud and struggled hard, trying to get out of this magical quagmire that was only five steps square as soon as possible. In fact, it was not difficult, and he was close to success soon. With just a few steps, he stood on the edge of the quagmire. If he was given another one-third of a second, he would be able to get out of this annoying quagmire.
However, his opponent did not intend to let him escape so easily. While Chang Sanjiao was struggling in the swamp, the evil spirit had already finished the next spell. He chanted in a low voice with the hollow and hoarse voice that was unique to the undead lich, and then raised his hands flat from his chest. As he raised his hands, a bone cage made of several thick white bones rose from the ground on all four sides, trapping Chang Sanjiao inside.
Obviously, this magical creation that appeared out of thin air was definitely not tailor-made for our half-orc friends. The narrow cage made up of four bone walls was definitely not a spacious space even for an ordinary person with a normal body, not to mention that there was such a rare fat man locked inside. It was hard for me to say that Chang Sanjiao was now locked "inside" the cage. Judging from the lumps of fat squeezed out of the gaps between the four giant bone fences, I even felt that he seemed to have more exposed outside.
This is simply the most inhumane torture I know of in the world. The cruelest part about it is that while it locks you in the cage, it also locks another part of you outside the cage...
Generally speaking, people trapped in the bone cage will choose to attack one of the four bone walls fiercely. When your attack force exceeds the limit it can bear, it will be destroyed, and you can escape from this horrible cage as soon as possible. However, the unfortunate thing for Chang Sanjiao is that the four narrow walls bind him so tightly that it is a hopeless luxury for him to raise his arms. According to my observation, with his current posture, the strongest way to destroy this bone cage is to scratch it with fingernails - if this is the case, I believe that based on the lifespan limit of a normal human being, I will not be lucky enough to see him regain his freedom.
Thankfully, in addition to attack damage, the Bone Cage's magical effects are also limited by time...
The entrapment of the Yangtze River Delta left his opponent with plenty of time. Looking at the Orc Shadow Thief who was squeezed in the magic prison in an oversaturated state, the Undead Lich and the Evil Spirit calmly summoned two skeleton guards holding battle axes, and then did not forget to stab the opponent trapped in the cage with a "Bone Arrow".
When Chang Sanjiao was finally released from the cage, everything had lost its meaning. In front of the two undead summoners who were only skeletons, the dagger he relied on was not enough to kill, and the inferior war hammer was also unable to bear the heavy responsibility of the battle. Therefore, the two skeleton guards entangled the half-orc shadow thief tightly, giving the undead lich ample time to cast spells. Although our friend bravely killed a skeleton guard and rushed to the opponent to chop him twice, it was not enough to cover up the shame of his miserable defeat.
In this way, the evil spirit won the fourth duel almost without bloodshed. Unconsciously, our original lead was gradually narrowed...
