Chapter 86: The Guardian of the Coffin

Wu Shaochen searched near the stone door for a long time and finally concluded, "There is indeed no switch inside. This stone door can only be opened from the outside."

"There must be another passage since the stone door won't open," Wu Shaochen thought to himself. He then began searching in the hall, knocking on various places. As Wu Shaochen approached a statue, the petrification on its stone body suddenly started to rapidly deteriorate, transforming into a real person before his eyes. Without hesitation, the person stabbed Wu Shaochen with a gun before he could react.

Wu Shaochen was greatly shocked. Such high damage! He quickly retreated and used the Insight skill.

[Guardian of the Coffin] Elite

Level: 30

Health: 200,000

Physical Attack: 1850

Physical Defense: 980

Magic Defense: 850

Movement Speed: 80

Skill 1: Cloud-breaking Spear: Thrusts the long spear forward, dealing 170% physical damage to the target, ignoring 50% defense. Attack range: 3 meters. Cooldown: 30 seconds.

Skill 2: Triple Stab: Stabs the target three times in succession, dealing 140%/160%/180% physical damage. Attack range: 3 meters. Cooldown: 1 minute.

"An elite monster? Aren't they only found in dungeons?" Wu Shaochen exclaimed. "This monster has quite high damage, but it's manageable. I'm not... afraid..."

As Wu Shaochen spoke, a terrified expression appeared on his face. With the revival of the first Guardian of the Coffin, the petrification on all the guardians in the entire hall began to deteriorate. Soon, apart from the four different statues surrounding the coffin, all the other statues in the hall revived. They then collectively turned their gaze towards Wu Shaochen and started walking towards him in an orderly manner.

Wu Shaochen swallowed hard, feeling extremely anxious. These guys have ridiculously high attack power. One stab takes away over 1,600 HP, and with dozens of them, they could easily kill him. What's worse, the hall is completely sealed, leaving him with nowhere to run. These guys seem to have anticipated his escape route, blocking it off completely. They steadily closed in on Wu Shaochen step by step.

As the Guardian of the Coffin moved forward, Wu Shaochen retreated step by step. He quickly reached the wall, and the Guardian of the Coffin caught up in no time, raising their long spears in unison to stab Wu Shaochen.

"Are these guys an army?" Wu Shaochen muttered. He had no more room to retreat, and as he saw the long spears about to stab him, Wu Shaochen activated his Void ability, evading the wave of attacks. Instead of retreating, he charged forward, delivering two strikes to one of the guardians. Just as he was about to poison the next one, they unleashed their second skill, Triple Stab, in perfect synchronization. Wu Shaochen immediately activated his Shadow Seven Kills, evading the damage once again while simultaneously eliminating the guardian, dealing over 18,000 HP of damage and applying 5 stacks of poison.

"Hmph, out of skills now, huh?" Wu Shaochen snorted. But as soon as he finished, he saw the group of guardians that had just attacked him retreat, making way for another batch of guardians to approach. They simultaneously unleashed Cloud-breaking Spears once again.

"What the hell, is this even possible?" Wu Shaochen quickly used Blink to escape to the back, then immediately created distance between him and the guardians. Although the guardians lost their target, there was no disorder among them. About a hundred guardians turned around in unison and continued pursuing Wu Shaochen.

...

"These are definitely a group of well-trained soldiers," Wu Shaochen thought to himself as he searched for openings while retreating. After a few seconds, he managed to disengage from the battle. He quickly activated Stealth, intending to hide and wait for his skills to recharge. Dealing with these creatures would require a slow and careful approach.

However, what troubled Wu Shaochen once again was that although the guardians couldn't see him, it didn't stop them from advancing. Arranged in three rows, a hundred of them filled the left and right sides of the entire hall, steadily walking in Wu Shaochen's direction.

Helplessly, Wu Shaochen continued to retreat step by step. He had used up most of his survival skills, now only left with the evasion skill provided by his boots. But that skill could only dodge the next attack, and it was impossible to dodge the simultaneous stabs from so many individuals. As they got closer and closer, Wu Shaochen sought refuge behind a stone pillar, praying that they wouldn't stab in his direction.

Seemingly, Wu Shaochen's prayer worked. As the guardians passed the stone pillar, they simply went around it, not stabbing behind it. Watching each guardian pass by so closely, Wu Shaochen's nervous heart almost jumped out. If he had been touched, it would have been instant death. He already knew the outcome without needing to think further.

Fortunately, these guardians weren't human and lacked the intelligence for such actions. Seeing the main force pass by without incident, Wu Shaochen breathed a sigh of relief. There was still a chance to deal with them.

Soon, the guardian who had been poisoned with five stacks by Wu Shaochen fell to the ground. To his surprise, the guardian yielded a whopping 10,000 experience points, just like a boss, and it was fixed experience without any level bonus. Since he didn't summon Silver Wolf, Wu Shaochen was able to claim all 10,000 experience points for himself. With a hundred guardians in this area, clearing them would easily allow Wu Shaochen to level up more than once.

The group of guardians made their way back to the coffin, looking around in confusion before settling once again to guard around it. It didn't take long for the second poisoned guardian to also fall to the ground, while Wu Shaochen continued to hide and wait for his skills to cooldown.

Once all his skills were ready, Wu Shaochen silently approached, activating Rapid Poisoning as he got closer. The guardians, however, were quick to react. As soon as Wu Shaochen revealed himself, they immediately surrounded him. Wu Shaochen managed to poison the third guardian, but over a dozen long spears swiftly came at him. He activated Shadow Seven Kills, evading the first wave of attacks.

Before their second wave of attacks arrived, Wu Shaochen poisoned two more guardians. The speed at which he applied poison, four strikes in one second, was quite fast. One or two layers of poison were enough. As the second wave of attacks approached, Wu Shaochen activated Void to evade, poisoning two more guardians before using Blink to escape.

After disengaging from the battle, Wu Shaochen once again activated Stealth and hid behind a pillar. Thankfully, these guardians seemed to have been petrified for too long, resulting in surprisingly slow movement speed. Moreover, they moved in formation, allowing Wu Shaochen some time to hide and wait while staying out of combat.

And so, Wu Shaochen engaged in a protracted battle with these guardians. Due to the long cooldowns of many of his skills, some lasting up to 5 minutes, he could only attack every five minutes. On average, he managed to poison 4-6 guardians per attack. It took over an hour, but Wu Shaochen finally managed to poison and kill all one hundred guardians, gaining 1 million experience points and leveling up to lv26: 377,662/900,000.

What surprised Wu Shaochen even more was that these creatures dropped silver equipment, and the drop rate was not low. Out of the hundred guardians, he obtained 3 pieces of silver and 9 pieces of bronze equipment, but no iron equipment.

When Wu Shaochen tried to open the auction house, he received a notification that it couldn't be accessed in the special map. He had to leave it for now; the most important thing at the moment was figuring out how to get out of there.