The Gnolls

"I'm just curious. I saw that the hyena leader's health was at 2700 points at the beginning of the battle and 1200 when it chased Xiao Yu into the woodland. How did he kill the hyena leader without any healing support?" Feng Ge wondered in bewilderment. He even suspected that Xiao Yu enticed the hyena leader into the woodland on purpose to avoid being seen by them when he finished off the hyena leader. Did he have some kind of a special killing technique?

"I think it's the reversed backstabbing skill," An Yu pointed out this key element.

"Tell us more," said Feng Ge. He had also recalled the reversed backstabbing skill used by Xiao Yu that caused more than 700 points of attack damage. This reversed backstabbing skill was truly formidable.

"Though Xiao Yu's basic attacking skills are slightly higher than Xin Huo's, you can find the apparent difference between Xiao Yu and Xin Huo when looking at how Xiao Yu used those skills. He executed them in such an artful fashion, it was smooth, straightforward, and lethal. Xin Huo's reversed backstabbing can cause more than 100 points of skill damage at most, but Xiao Yu's can reach 700 points of damage, which is proof." An Yu tried to analyze this for the group.

He continued, "I guess that the hyena leader must have been hit by Xiao Yu's reversed backstab before it died. Judging from the formidable strength of his reversed backstabbing, it's understandable that the hyena leader was killed by him. And I guess there are two reasons why his skill damage is so high: First of all, his skill levels are high. I believe his reversed backstabbing skill is at level 3 already.

"Secondly, he completes those skills at a higher success rate. The higher the success rate, the higher the skill damage. When Xin Huo uses his thief skills, he can only complete them at 60%-70%, 80% tops. But judging from the way Xiao Yu uses those skills, I believe he can complete them at a rate of more than 90%. And we don't even know what effects the thief skills have when being used at such a high success rate, and I don't want to speculate."

An Yu's analysis sounded sensible. Feng Ge seemed to have accepted his view and asked, "What success rate can you achieve when you use your skills?"

"Ninety-five percent," replied An Yu. "It only happened once when I struck the fire-eyed wolf leader the other day, causing 358 damage points. After that, I have had about an 80% success rate each time."

During the battle, the demand for successfully completing skills was higher for thieves than it was for soldiers. A strong thief like Xiao Yu was truly rare.

"Speaking of thief skills, who do you think is stronger, Ci Dao or Xiao Yu?" asked Feng Ge when he suddenly thought of a person.

"It's hard to say. When it comes to thief footwork, Ci Dao is definitely better than Xiao Yu, but when considering the explosive power unleashed in the battle against the monster leader, I think Xiao Yu is better than Ci Dao. However, when two thieves PVP, the outcome is difficult to predict because everything can be decided by a slight deviation is skill execution," said An Yu while furrowing his eyebrows.

"Could you guys stop probing at such a complicated issue? My head is starting to hurt now," complained Lei Tin with a troubled expression on his face.

Hearing what Lei Tin said, An Yu and Feng Ge couldn't help but laugh out loud. Indeed, the two of them had thought of this too much.

Xiao Yu was traversing the forest. Rays of the sunlight streamed through the gaps between the tree branches, creating a peculiar world with iridescent colors. According to the coordinates provided by An Yu, the gnoll's camp should be somewhere close by, just in the valley ahead. It would take about 10 minutes to get there by walking along the narrow path.

Whoosh!!! Whoosh!!! Whoosh!!!

It sounded like some creatures were moving through the dense forest at high speed toward Xiao Yu.

He looked in the direction of the sound and saw a creature that had a human body but a dog head with white dots all over. It was by the edge of the woods. The creature held a black chain hammer in its right hand that made a clanking noise whenever it moved, and the iron chains bumped into each other.

"It's a gnoll." Xiao Yu didn't expect to encounter a gnoll so soon since this place was still far away from the gnoll's camp. This gnoll must be a sentinel.

The moment the gnoll discovered Xiao Yu, it charged at him while roaring out a strange sound, and it swung the chain hammer in its hand at Xiao Yu.

He quickly jumped back and dodged the strike from the gnoll. The chain hammer landed heavily on the spot where Xiao Yu had stood with a loud bang. It broke a rock on the ground into pieces and caused many tiny splinters to splash in all directions.

"This strike is so powerful!" Xiao Yu had no intention of testing the attack strength of the gnoll.

After missing its target with the first strike, the gnoll let out a shrill scream and charged toward Xiao Yu again with its chain hammer raised.

The iron chain hammer brushed past Xiao Yu's face and hit a small tree beside him, breaking the tree in half.

"That was such a close call. My face was almost hit by it." The feeling of dread still lingered in his heart after Xiao Yu had dodged the attack from the gnoll.

Although the attacks of the gnoll looked fierce and the chain hammer seemed to inflict formidable damage, there was obviously a weakness with the weapon. There was a long interval of time between each strike because the gnoll had to bring the chain hammer back up before it could use the weapon to strike again. The gnoll couldn't attack effectively in close-range combat even though the chain hammer could reach from afar. As such, the gnoll would lose its weapon advantage in a close-range battle.

After finding out the weakness of the gnoll, Xiao Yu came up with an idea of how to deal with the creature soon after.

"This is a good opportunity." As soon as the gnoll struck with the chain hammer, Xiao Yu suddenly got closer to the creature and thrust the dagger in his right hand into the heart of the gnoll.

Evisceration!

With a loud shout, Xiao Yu sliced a gash between the ribs of the gnoll with the dagger, rendering a heavy blow to the gnoll. It had a 90% success rate and knocked out more than 120 health points.

Windy gnoll: level 10.

The gnoll only had 300 health left and had very poor defense. It was evident that gnolls were a kind of creature that had a powerful attacking ability but weak defense.

The gnoll attempted to bring back the chain hammer with a strange grunt. Xiao Yu took advantage of the moment to come around behind the creature. He used the backstabbing skill to jab the dagger into the shoulder blade of the gnoll.

A damage value of more than 150 points popped up over the head of the gnoll after the completion of the skill.

The escape dagger in his left hand struck the back of the gnoll a few more times, knocking it to the ground.

"There seems to be some commotion over there," Xin Huo told himself. Like Xiao Yu, he was conducting a search in the forest and heard the horrific cry of the gnoll. He quickly ran in the direction of the sound.

By the time Xin Huo, the thief, had arrived, he saw the corpse of a gnoll lying on the ground and Xiao Yu advancing and disappearing into the deepest part of the forest.

"My gosh! It hasn't even been that long!" Xin Huo couldn't help but open his eyes wide in shock. He came over in a hurry as soon as he heard the noise, but he didn't expect the battle to finish so soon.

"Awesome! I'd better ask him for some guidance later on," thought Xin Huo, but he was not sure whether Xiao Yu would be willing to teach him or not.