Chapter 1 The Beginning
As the first magic missile struck, Chu Tian sidestepped, grabbed the treasure chest, and transformed into a giant bear.
Boom…
Countless magical attacks rained down, most of them hitting the spot where he had just stood.
A few strikes landed on him, and a string of "-1!" floated up from his head like a gushing spring.
After transforming into a giant bear, his health, which was as high as 13090, plummeted.
In an instant, it was reduced to ten percent.
Chu Tian bit down on the high-grade instant health potion he had been holding in his mouth, along with a mid-grade slow recovery potion.
In the system shop, high-grade instant health potions cost seventy-five gold coins each. This one gulp cost over two hundred thousand in real cash!
Shing…
+13000!
The potion took effect just as his health dropped to a mere ninety points, a hair's breadth away from death!
It was still too wasteful for him to use the high-grade instant health potion at this point.
It could have increased his health by 25,000 points, but he only gained 13,000 because of his maximum health limit.
Even after instantly recovering, his health continued to decline.
Finally, after he dodged most of the focused attacks, he had sustained nearly 17,000 points of damage in total.
If he hadn't consumed the potion, he would have been instantly killed. However, the attacks landed sequentially, giving him a chance to use the potion.
Chu Tian knew that the next wave of attacks would be even more ferocious.
After picking up the loot, he would inevitably drop it if killed within ten minutes.
"All shield warriors, form a line and block him! Melee attackers, whoever kills him gets a reward of one hundred gold coins!" the handsome mage in the water-blue robe shouted, his face green with fury.
They had allied with nine Level 4 guilds, setting up more than a dozen checkpoints to strictly guard the only path up the mountain.
Yet, a stealthy Druid had managed to get through. What were the priests stationed at the lower checkpoints doing?
He had explicitly instructed them to maintain constant, coverage-free Holy Light illumination, so how could a stealth class get past them?
While he was fuming here, Chu Tian was also in a perilous situation.
Hundreds of shield warriors charged towards Chu Tian.
Behind the shield warriors were dense ranks of melee classes.
They had all been instantly killed by a single Thunder Stomp after the Snow Ape King's rampage.
After resurrecting, they were assigned to the outer perimeter and not allowed to rush forward to their deaths again.
Now, under the command of their respective guild leaders, they were converging on Chu Tian.
Seeing hundreds of shield warriors and thousands of melee fighters about to encircle him, Chu Tian felt a pang of despair.
He had been too greedy earlier. If he had taken the first item and left, the enemy wouldn't have been able to surround him so quickly.
But his greed for the treasure chest had cost him four seconds, giving the enemy the opportunity to coordinate their forces for an encirclement.
Constantly dodging the dense barrage of ranged attacks, the giant bear's charge collided with three of the enemy shield warriors.
Slam!
Chu Tian relied on his higher level and the superior strength attribute bonus he possessed.
With a mighty slam, he struck the enemy's shield.
Bang…
The shield warrior was sent flying by his blow.
The other two shield warriors moved up, using their shields to pin the giant bear at the waist.
Chu Tian's momentum came to an abrupt halt.
Bang bang bang…
Hundreds of instant cast spells bombarded him.
Chu Tian's health instantly dropped by several hundred points. Although the mid-grade slow recovery potion was still continuously healing him,
he would become a sitting duck if he was pinned down and unable to move.
Moreover, many of the ranged attackers were Frost Mages, and his movement speed was instantly reduced to a mere twenty percent.
Transform into Leopard!
The Druid's transformation could dispel any magic that restricted movement.
The deceleration effect vanished directly. He transformed from a giant bear into a leopard, his body becoming smaller.
The two shield warriors were momentarily caught off guard, leaving Chu Tian an opening.
The shoe skill [Swiftness] was activated.
In Leopard form, his movement speed of 137% instantly became 207%.
A black blur shot out from between the two shields.
Facing him was a Paladin. Seeing Chu Tian lunging at him,
he reacted quickly, unleashing two skills in succession: Shock and Judgment.
With Chu Tian's immense movement speed, there was no way he could be hit.
He dodged the Shock with a sidestep. This Paladin skill could push a person back a step.
In this situation, being hit would mean certain death.
He then endured a Judgment, although Judgment had a stagger effect.
However, Chu Tian's significantly higher level meant that the stagger effect would be reduced.
When it hit Chu Tian, he felt a brief pause, but the effect, which lasted less than 0.1 seconds, disappeared.
Shred!
-696!
A one-hit kill. The Paladin fell to the ground immediately.
This was Chu Tian's first offensive skill use in this battle!
A dual-wielding warrior behind the Paladin saw the damage number above the person in front of him.
He froze for a moment, and before he could react, a rapidly enlarging claw appeared in his pupils.
-648!
Another one-hit kill!
Both of these individuals had focused solely on maximizing their attack power, adding no points to Vitality or Endurance, making them pure DPS characters.
This warrior was two levels lower than the Paladin. Facing someone like Chu Tian, whose maximum attack power had reached 1725 points, coupled with the 200% bonus of Shred.
Combined with the fifty percent skill effect bonus from the God-Tier talent [Concentration].
After strengthening Shred, it could deal 5175 points of attack damage, naturally resulting in a one-hit kill.
For a moment, Chu Tian carved a path through the melee crowd.
Wherever he passed, there was no visual impact of bodies flying everywhere.
This was because anyone who dared to confront him head-on fell directly to the ground, turning into a corpse.
Soon, the duration of [Swiftness] ended, and his movement speed decreased.
However, this did not prevent him from continuing his charge.
"Ranged attackers, fire at him, what are you waiting for?" the blue-robed mage roared.
He had lost all his previous refined demeanor, now resembling a furious lion.
"Boss, there are too many of our people around him, we can't use area-of-effect attacks, and single-target attacks can't hit him!"
Chu Tian advanced towards the outer perimeter while skillfully dodging the enemy's ranged single-target attacks.
At the same time, he had to distinguish and evade the melee attacks from those around him.
He chose to dodge stun and control-type skills.
If it was an attack skill, he would directly tank it.
After all, even in Leopard form, it only dealt a dozen points of damage to him.
As long as he wasn't controlled, he had a chance to break free!
Previously, he had used his speed boost skill to break out of the shield warriors' encirclement. Now, he was surrounded entirely by melee DPS classes.
He had left those shield warriors behind him. Within the melee crowd, they were no match for him.
These melee professionals had also become obstacles for the shield warriors, preventing them from getting close to Chu Tian.
Everyone here remembered what the blue-robed mage had shouted earlier.
Kill this Druid, and you'll get one hundred gold coins, which translates to over three hundred thousand in cash.
The high bounty had driven everyone mad!