"You're going home to sweep the grave?" Li Chengfeng asked, "But why you? I thought you had an older cousin?"

"Ai, don't even talk to me about him. He spends all day and night hanging out with his horrible friends and gambling with them. Not long ago, he even came over and hounded me until I gave him twenty thousand RMB. My aunt's just about to die from anger…" Chaos Moon said in a helpless tone.

Gui Guzi suggested, "Sounds like a bad egg, that cousin of yours. Do you want us to send a person or two to keep you company? We'll get you there and back home as soon as possible. You know Ancient Sword can't do without you…"

I agreed. "Yes, we need to protect our Chaos Moon…"

Chaos Moon laughed. "Am I that important to you guys? Alright, Lu Chen, I want you to come back with me to Xinjiang. We can hang out in the city for a bit before or after I sweep the grave…"

I felt my eyes roll involuntarily. "How many days would that take? Everyone's busy grinding the quests right now, and the next Nation War can begin at any moment. What if something happens to the guild right after I go to Xinjiang?"

Chaos Moon replied, "It'll be fine! It's not like we're traveling there by car. It'll take three days at most if we take the plane…"

Even He Yi said, "It's fine, Lu Chen. Just treat it like a holiday or something. You're not in a hurry to grind levels anyway, so you might as well focus on bringing Chaos Moon back to us safe and sound."

Well, my guild leader's wish is my command, so...

"Fine, three days is okay, I think…" I thought for a moment before asking for clarification, "Chaos Moon, your cousin won't force you to do something you don't like, will he?"

Chaos Moon answered, "He's just a greedy man who loves gambling. He's also been taking drugs lately. Feel free to beat the s.h.i.+t out of him if he tries anything, just don't kill him."

I gripped my hands into fists and smiled. "Good to hear!"

Ever since Lin Yixin gave me her blood and solved my health problem, my body had been growing stronger day by day. Even I was surprised by how much harder I could punch these days. There was nothing more I liked than helping the weak, especially when it involved beating up jobless leeches.

……

Beep!

Chaos Moon sent me a message: "So, I'm going to book your flight ticket now. Is that okay?"

"Sure, do it!"

"Heehee, wonderful. With you around, I can just bully you if I get bored!"

"Hmph, I am responsible for your safety only. If you want someone you can bully too, then you're better off taking High Fighting Spirits. I'm sure he'll happily oblige."

"Please don't, I don't want to take a gorilla home with me. That'd be so embarra.s.sing!"

"What are you talking about? High Fighting Spirits is as handsome as he is strong!"

"Swear to the heavens that you're telling the truth and repeat that again."

"Ahem, anyway, I'm entering the instance now. See you later!"

"Mn. Come fetch me at the base tomorrow. We'll go to the airport together."

"Got it!"

……

Meanwhile, we had arrived at our destination, Stele Forest of the G.o.d of Death.

There was a tall, faintly glowing stele ahead of us. It was covered in small engravings of words that resembled oracle bone scripts. I tried reading it aloud, "Fish bone light period, a pig monkey has been here for ten thousand years. Souls scatter across the forest umbrella and break through the—"

"OMG, what on earth are you talking about?"

He Yi shot me a look of exasperation and amus.e.m.e.nt before stepping next to me. After she wiped away the cobwebs covering the stele, she read, "A long time ago, a feudal va.s.sal had perished in this land. Ten thousand years later, his soul left its sh.e.l.l and was reborn…"

I exclaimed in shock, "Holy s.h.i.+t, you can read oracle bone scripts, boss? That's amazing! You must've studied archeology in university, haven't you?"

Murong Mingyue pressed a hand to her forehead. "Eve was earning a salary of millions even before she graduated university, so why on earth would she study archeology…"

He Yi also giggled a bit. "This isn't an oracle bone script, it's just traditional Chinese in an unusual font. Who was your language teacher, Lu Chen? Your sports teacher?"

"f.u.c.k…"

I turned as red as an apple. G.o.d, that was so embarra.s.sing. Even He Yi was teasing me this time. Anyway, after we selected the stele and registered our IDs—they appeared on the stele—the instance became open to us. All we needed to do now was wait for two minutes, and we would be able to enter.

……

Swhoos.h.!.+

The scenery before our eyes changed, and we soon discovered that we were standing in the middle of a forest. It was nighttime, and it looked like we were inside a canyon. There were also a couple of wisps of flames that looked like ghostfire in the distance. It was pretty scary.

Erected directly in front of us were rows and rows of steles. I supposed that this was how the forest got its name.

"Where are the mobs?" Lian Xin asked puzzledly while activating her Telekinetic s.h.i.+eld.

I also unsheathed my Purple Ying Sword and used its glow to illuminate our surroundings. As expected of an Archean-grade sword, it was as s.h.i.+ny as it was powerful.

After I spurred the Armored Ice Qilin Horse to one of the steles, I stared at its inscriptions and read aloud, "Eternal glory to the empire's soldiers…"

Mn, I definitely got it right this time. Seriously though, where are the mobs? This can't possibly be a one-boss-and-nothing-else instance, can it?

It was at this moment something shocking happened. A white, bony arm suddenly burst out of the ground beneath me and grabbed the blade of the Purple Ying Sword. f.u.c.k, I should've suspected that the corpses of this graveyard would come to life or something! What a trap!

"Growl growl…"

A warrior with rotten skin and flesh covering their face crawled out of the ground. Even now, the sonuvab.i.t.c.h was still holding on to my weapon. Furious, I swung the weapon mightily while shouting, "p.i.s.s off!"

Pu!

142982!

Universe Break was as powerful as always. This Rotting Warrior was just a Level 200 dread-rank mob, so it wasn't too difficult to deal with. Beiming Xue landed a Shock Arrow that stunned it before it could even launch an attack, and one hit each from He Yi and Lian Xin later, it was dead!

"It's not very strong for a Level 200 dread-rank mob…" I commented while throwing a Phantasmal Magic Stone into my bag. "Every yuan counts…"

Beiming Xue suggested, "This is going to take forever if we aggro them one by one. I'm sure there are a ton more mobs like this at the steles, so why don't you aggro them all before coming back to us? It's way faster to kill them with AoE skills like Skypiercer, Burning Blade Slash and Dimensional Storm. Your Phantom Wolf King will be able to use its Claw of the Storm more efficiently as well."

"Got it. Let's finish A2 in one try and go for A3 later!"

"Mn mn!"

The Armored Ice Qilin Horse let out a long neigh, and I charged right through the rows of steles. The Level 200 dread-rank mobs were no threat to me, and they were so slow that they could never hope to encircle me unless I let them.

By the time I galloped a circle around the graveyard, almost a thousand rotting corpses had crawled out of their holes and chased after me. However, when I returned to the spot where the girls were a moment ago, I discovered that they were nowhere to be seen. It was at this moment I heard Beiming Xue shouting to my right, "Over here, big bro!"

I looked and found her squeezed inside a hole beneath a huge banyan tree. It was about as natural as a choke point could get. I met up with them and a.s.sumed my position. The Phantom Wolf King was growling and ready to go the moment the mobs. .h.i.t us. Murong Mingyue had also landed her Ironwing Dragon on the frontline to use as a meats.h.i.+eld.

"Ugh…"

He Yi groaned a little as she raised her s.h.i.+eld and blocked her own vision. It was because the rotting corpses were super disgusting. She was trying her best to suppress her nausea, but it would be a while before she conquered her reactions completely. She must overcome it eventually though. Heavenblessed was a game that challenged the mind and soul. If your heart wasn't strong enough to endure the challenges, you could never truly be a true expert.

A long time ago, Lin Yixin had trained in Zombie Valley for an entire week to conquer her revulsion toward corpses. She succeeded. Today, movie zombies were as cute as h.e.l.lo kitties to her.

……

I greeted the first line of Rotting Warriors who hit us with Burning Blade Slash. I actually triggered the Broken Blade property—stunning three mobs as a result—and the Mountain Crush effect as well. The more mobs there were, the likelier the weapon's effect was to trigger. In this case, Mountain Crush happened almost 20% of the time. Three hits later, some of the mobs lost their arms, and some, their heads. The loss of body parts drastically reduced their damage dealt and made them incapable of threatening our frontline at all.

Swhoos.h.!.+

He Yi moved her s.h.i.+eld to the side before using her Purgatory of Ice and Magma, clearing out an entire group of mobs. Behind us, Beiming Xue unleashed Spiraling Arrow Blade and Skypiercer, and Lian Xin her Dimensional Storm. If this instance had a mind of its own, it would be sad that it ran into us.

Most of the parties who challenged the A2 instance could only aggro the mobs one by one so that they wouldn't be overwhelmed. However, that method was so slow that they could fight for an entire morning and still not kill a thousand mobs. On the other hand, we could hit that quota in way less than half an hour.

Pop…

The mobs dropped cards that gave our attacks a 10% chance to inflict Poison. Poison was a status effect that dealt continuous damage to a target. Unfortunately, it wasn't really a good card and was way weaker than a card that increased physical DPS like, say, the Ghost Chariot Card. The good news was that both He Yi and I still had a lot of those.

Half an hour later, we cleared out half a canyon's mobs before continuing forward. There was a large tomb with a Level 210 Immortal Rank boss called "Flying Knight General", but he was no match for us at all. With He Yi's Royal Road and the Phantom Wolf King and I as the tanks, we managed to juggle boss's aggro almost perfectly and killed it in less than five minutes.

Pop! The boss dropped a round leather armor helmet—

Stele of the G.o.d of Death Leather Helmet (Earth-grade, Outstanding★★★)

Defense: 1100

Magic Resist: 980

Agility: +195

Stamina: +180

Pa.s.sive: user's Agility is increased by 7%

Outstanding Property: Kiss of Death, 0.9% of damage dealt is absorbed as HP

Property: Stele Forest of the G.o.d of Death Leather Armor Set (A2), Helmet

Level Requirement: 150

……

I picked up the helmet and said, "Wow, can't believe we got an A2 piece of equipment right from the get go. Too bad it's useless to us. I'm gonna take this and sell it at a shop later, okay?"

"Sure. Let's continue!"

"Okay!"

In the end, even the final boss proved to be no great threat to us. The Dragon G.o.d s.h.i.+eld gave me higher Defense than most magic knights out there, and my Attack was powerful enough to keep the boss's attention on me almost all the time. The final boss dropped an Earth-grade sword, but as I had mentioned earlier, it couldn't be traded because it was an instance item that automatically bound itself to the one who picked it up. Oh well, some cards and experience were better than nothing at all.

The Ancient Divine Dragon was now Level 83, but it was still a hatchling and couldn't be mounted. Heaven knows when it would finally grow up into a true dragon.

……

After dinner, we cleared out A3 and obtained its first-time clear Luck reward as well. The girls were all overjoyed. Unfortunately, A4 was a bit harder than A3, and I needed to sleep early because I would be traveling to Xinjiang tomorrow. So, I ended the day there.