Chapter 86: The Guardian of the Coffin

Wu Shaochen searched around the stone door for a long time, eventually concluding, “There really is no switch; this stone door can only be opened from the outside.”

“The stone door can’t be opened, there must be another way,” Wu Shaochen thought to himself, and began looking around the hall, knocking and tapping on various spots. As he walked past a statue, suddenly the stone surface of the statue began to recede rapidly, and in no time, it transformed into a real person standing in front of him. Without saying a word, the figure thrust the spear in its hand straight into Wu Shaochen, who had not reacted yet.

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Wu Shaochen was startled. “Such high damage?” He quickly retreated, then used his Insight spell.

[Coffin Guardian] Elite
Level: 30
Health: 200,000
Physical Attack: 1850
Physical Defense: 980
Magical Defense: 850
Movement Speed: 80

Skill 1: Cloud Piercing Spear: The spear thrusts forward, dealing 170% physical damage to the target, ignoring 50% of the target’s defense. Attack range: 3 meters, cooldown: 30 seconds.

Skill 2: Triple Thrust: The target is stabbed three times consecutively, causing 140%/160%/180% physical damage. Attack range: 3 meters, cooldown: 1 minute.

“Elite monster? Aren’t these only found in dungeons?” Wu Shaochen exclaimed in surprise. “But the damage is pretty high, though… it’s not like I’m… scared… scared…”

As Wu Shaochen spoke, a terrified look appeared on his face. He watched as, with the revival of the first coffin guardian, all the other statues in the hall began to shed their stone coverings. Soon, all statues except the four distinct ones by the coffin came to life, and they all turned to look at him. Then, they began advancing in unison toward him.

Wu Shaochen swallowed nervously, his heart racing. These creatures had absurdly high attack, and one spear thrust could deal over 1600 damage. A dozen of them would be enough to kill him, not to mention a hundred or more. Worse still, the hall was completely sealed off, with no place to run. These guardians, arranged in formation as if they had been trained, blocked every possible escape route, steadily advancing toward him.

Step by step, the guardians closed in on Wu Shaochen, and he quickly backed up, soon finding himself at the wall. The guardians followed suit, and in perfect unison, raised their spears and thrust them toward him.

“Are these… an army?” Wu Shaochen thought to himself, already running out of retreat options. As the spears were about to impale him, he immediately activated his Void skill to dodge the attack. He then advanced instead of retreating, rushing toward one of the guardians and landing two quick strikes. Just as he was about to poison the next target, the enemy launched a wave of Triple Thrusts, with all the guardians performing the skill simultaneously, a perfectly coordinated assault.

Wu Shaochen used Shadow Step to dodge another wave of attacks, quickly eliminating one of the guardians with over 18,000 health and stacking five layers of poison.

“Ha, no skills left now, right?” Wu Shaochen sneered, but as soon as he finished his sentence, the previous group of guardians stepped back, and a new batch stepped forward, immediately using Cloud Piercing Spear again.

“Whoa, it can do that?” Wu Shaochen quickly blinked away to create some distance. The guardians, however, didn’t scatter. They remained perfectly aligned, turning as a unit and continuing their pursuit.

“These are definitely well-trained soldiers,” Wu Shaochen mused, searching for an opening while retreating. After a few seconds, he realized he had successfully broken combat and quickly activated his Stealth skill to hide. He decided to wait for his cooldowns to finish before taking another few down. This would take time.

However, what troubled Wu Shaochen again was that although the guardians couldn’t see him while hidden, they didn’t stop moving forward. A hundred of them lined up in three rows, gradually filling the entire left side of the hall, methodically advancing toward his location.

Wu Shaochen had no choice but to keep backing up. His life-saving skills were almost exhausted, and only a single dodge from his boots remained, but it could only avoid one attack, not the barrage of spears coming from so many guardians. With nowhere else to retreat, Wu Shaochen took cover behind a stone pillar, silently praying they wouldn’t target his position.

It seemed that Wu Shaochen’s prayers were answered. As the guardians passed by the stone pillar, they veered around it and did not thrust their spears behind it. Watching as the guardians passed so close, Wu Shaochen’s heart nearly leaped out of his chest. If they touched him, he would reveal himself, and the consequences would be disastrous.

Since these guardians weren’t real humans and lacked the intelligence to notice small things like this, they didn’t change their formation. Once most of them had passed, Wu Shaochen let out a sigh of relief, thinking there might still be hope.

Soon, the guardians who had been poisoned by Wu Shaochen collapsed, and he was surprised to see they yielded 10,000 experience points each—fixed experience like a boss fight, with no level bonuses. Without summoning Silver Wolf, Wu Shaochen got to take all the experience for himself. With 100 guardians, clearing them would easily level him up by a full level.

After killing all the guardians, Wu Shaochen gathered the loot, finding 3 silver-grade items and 9 bronze items, but no black iron. Opening the auction house, he was reminded that special maps couldn’t access it. He’d have to leave it for now. The most important task was finding a way out of this place.