The Nine-Tailed Fox

Mohai only knew of one blue fox in all of Origin: one of the nine invincible Bosses of Huaxia, the Nine-Tailed Fox!

Five years later in Huaxia, among all the identified Bosses, the Nine-Tailed Fox was one of the undefeatable Bosses. She was so powerful that the players ranked her the top three among the nine invincible Bosses.

The Nine-Tailed Fox had nine changes of form, and with every activated form, her powers surged.

All the top 10 guilds in the game had tried taking down the Nine-Tailed Fox before, but even the top three guilds were wiped out during her Seventh Tail Form. No one had ever seen her Eighth and Ninth Tail Forms.

While Mohai had never fought her before, he did see the battle from afar. However, at that time, the Nine-Tailed Fox entered its Seventh Tail Form and cast a terrifying AOE skill with a 300-meter radius. A single strike wiped out almost 30,000 offense, support and back-up players from the Huaxia Empire. Mohai almost got killed as well despite the distance.

Even until now, he could not forget that overwhelming scene.

His friend, the Primordial Slime King, had once said that the top three invincible Bosses might not even beat the Nine-Tailed Fox in a fight, hence it further strengthened the powerful image in Mohai's mind.

When he saw the unique blue fox in the game appear before his eyes, Mohai was truly terrified.

If a single skill could kill a player 10,000 times, Mohai would have died 10,000 times with a flick of the Nine-Tailed Fox's finger!

However, why would one of the nine invincible Bosses appear in the Magma Zone, a low-level map? 

On top of that, this blue fox did not seem all that powerful either!

Mohai was an experienced player who had been though tough times, so he realized that something was not right after the initial scare.

If the Nine-Tailed Fox was really that invincible, she could have killed him with a snap of her fingers. The blue fox before his eyes was a higher level than him and stronger but not by much.

She threw herself at him and the Bovella clone was also attacking with his spells.

Both attacks were powerful. Even though Mohai had 7,000 HP, he could not last very long if these two ganged up on him.

Boom!

Mohai moved his body to the side and dodged the blue fox's claw, but he suffered a big [Fireball] strike from the clone.

"Ouch!" 

Although it was just a normal skill, it chipped 700 of Mohai's HP away with a single strike. 

Seizing the moment, Mohai got close to the clone.

[Heavy Bash]! 

The clone raised his staff and wanted to cast another [Fireball] but was stunned by Mohai's [Heavy Bash].

The clone was stunned!

[Snatch]! 

"It failed!? Tsk!"

Mohai's actions were smooth. He basically performed everything in a single breath, and if he could get the Fire Stone, he would be able to complete his task.

However, the clone was three levels higher than him and had a better template. [Snatch]'s 80% success rate was lowered to 50%. 

It was a 50-50 situation, but he failed nevertheless.

If it was not a critical moment, he could just wait for the 30-second cooldown and cast [Heavy Bash] again, but he was being sandwiched by the blue fox and the clone. Even though his skills were better than others, it was impossible for him to last 30 seconds under the combined attacks of the blue fox and the clone.

The Bovella clone was in his flaming form after all, a single skill could decrease his HP by one tenth. If it was the clone alone, he could use the terrain to stall and dodge but with the blue fox on his tail, he could not do it.

He was unclear about the blue fox's attack range, but it must be high.

After the [Snatch] failed, the blue fox jumped over again.

Mohai moved behind the clone's back and used the clone to block her attack. While the blue fox was slightly delayed by hitting the wrong target, Mohai sprinted towards the cathedral to the left of the manor.

"Stop! Bandit, don't you run!" bellowed the blue fox as she chased Mohai.

The clone's level was higher than Mohai, hence he was stunned for less than 2 seconds. After he endured a strike from the blue fox, he recovered and quickly cast [Fire Arrow] at the blue fox as a counterattack.

The blue fox ignored the clone and continued chasing Mohai who could only sprint madly while smiling bitterly when he saw what happened.

Fortunately, he had the [Encourage] skill, thus he could use the charred stumps in the backyard to his advantage. The blue fox might be fast, but the terrain was enough to deter her for a while.

As for the clone, after he entered the flaming state, his body became lighter and his movement speed was anything but slow.

All three monsters with one chasing the other sprinted towards the cathedral on the left.

The players were utterly confused by what they saw. "What happened? Is that guy with the Nightwalker Cloak not a player?"

When Mohai was teleported to the surface, HundredLivesAsMan and his party were already killed. They did not know what caused their death, hence they were not in a hurry to revive themselves. Everyone from the Elemental Tower was just observing things in their soul forms.

They still could not figure out what went wrong, but they realized that the guy in the Nightwalker Cloak from Playboy's party was not a player!

In their soul form, players could see monsters but not other players.

"What will happen in the cathedral?"

HundredLivesAsMan and his men felt curious but helpless in the situation.

Unless they resurrected back at the revival point and sprinted back to their bodies in their soul forms, their souls could not stray far from their dead bodies. They could only float around within a close range.

Despite the situation, HundredLivesAsMan and the others did not choose to revive right away.

There was only a single entrance to the cathedral and either one of the three monsters must come out eventually.

The Elemental Tower's party had blasted the cathedral before, so there was no place for hiding within. Anyone who wanted to hide inside would only come out disappointed.

Although the Elemental Tower was correct, the one being chased one not a common monster.

The interior of the cathedral was empty. Other than the dome and the architecture that resembled a cathedral, it did not resemble one.

Mohai was running around in the empty cathedral while being chased by the blue fox as if he had nowhere else to run. Soon, the blue fox pinned him down.

"Ouch! 500 damage from a single attack?!"

The blue fox's attack speed was ridiculously fast. It had only been a little while since she started chasing Mohai in the cathedral, but she already hit him twice and chipped off more than 1,000 of his HP.

The Bovella clone also arrived in the cathedral and his aggro target returned to Mohai, so the clone attacked Mohai together with the blue fox.

However, Mohai skillfully used the blue fox's figure to block the clone's sight, hence pausing the latter's attack for a while and forcing it to move to the center of the cathedral.

'Now!'

Mohai led the blue fox to the center and tricked her to jump over. It was then that he raised his staff.

El Staff's [Poison Vine]!

Five dark green vines sprung out from the ground. Two of them bound the clone while the rest caught the blue fox.

Both the clone and blue fox did not expect Mohai to launch such an attack. They were bound almost together and were immobilized for a moment.

"It's useless. You can't run from me!" The blue fox was not overly bothered despite being bound by the poison vines.

The [Poison Vines] had six seconds of effect, but it would only work for three seconds on her. Mohai could not run far with only three seconds.

'Useless? Yeah, it is!'

Mohai did not run towards the cathedral exit. Instead, he jumped to the wall and pulled one of the oil lamps embedded in it.

Kakroom!

The empty ceiling of the cathedral suddenly opened and a big black iron cage crashed down, trapping the clone and the blue fox inside!

"Hehe…"

Mohai grinned at them when he successfully captured both his pursuers in the cage. He started to crack his knuckles. 

Everyone knew Bovella as a famous Sorcerer, but only Mohai, who was from the future, knew that the genius Sorcerer had lost his interest in magic and spells. Maybe because Bovella's mind was wrongly wired, he gave up the research on magic and studied traps instead.

This occupation-changing mission was actually a signal and clues to his new research. The clone that he left behind actually could be killed in an easier way.

The players could lure the clone into the cathedral and use the trap that Bovella set to catch the clone. The kill would then be easy from there.

In the future, the cathedral trap was the correct way to kill the clone and any capable party could easily kill the Bovella clone.

Therefore, in Mohai's opinion, the real reward from Bovella's occupation-changing mission was actually the 10 skill points because other than the first few skills, Bovella would not provide players with any more powerful magic spells.

The only difference between this occupation-changing mission and a common one was the 10 skill points reward.

Conversely, if a Thief player could learn the high-tier magic traps from Bovella, the game would welcome a batch of powerful Magic Thieves in the future.