Scourge Messenger

Chapter 269 Steel Death Penalty
Fighting monsters 20 levels higher isn't actually difficult. Although you can only use the "Seven Steps of Reciting Buddha's Name" to escape the Demon King, which has lower output, every game has a simple and intuitive way of playing: as long as your health regeneration speed can keep up with the enemy's damage, you can still beat Fusheng Xuanhuang Tianzun to death even with the lowest level wooden stick.

Most ordinary players play like this: numerical values ​​are the only reason to be king. After a long day of work, people finally have time to play games. Knowing how to use skills and consume some spirit jade is already quite an achievement. If the difficulty is increased further, how can a time-based subscription PC game like "The Messenger" compete with anime-style mobile games, short videos, and online novels? High-difficulty dungeons are for hardcore players and are not within the scope of this discussion.

Unfortunately, while the recovery method in "The Messenger" is not like that of Souls-like games or Monster Hunter games, which has a very vulnerable potion-drinking action, the speed of spirit power recovery during combat has a limit. Even if Yan Qing holds down the mana recovery button, the alt account can only recover a maximum of 20 points of spirit power per second.

The Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror withstood the Demon King Spider Silk Woman's attack, causing two or three layers of its barrier to drop, which was almost 40 points of spiritual power!

However, this is to be expected. Although only two people entered the secret realm, 'Night Four' is a genuine third-tier character, and the Spider Silk Girl has naturally been upgraded to the third-tier Demon King of the 20-player dungeon. According to the official recommended team configuration, there should be at least four MT players responsible for tanking damage and four healers responsible for healing. Only this configuration has the tolerance to clear the dungeon even if half of the team is wiped out.

'Yan Shiyi' was taking all the damage alone; it's no wonder he got beaten to a pulp.

Keep in mind that the Spider Silk Woman is currently only using normal attacks. According to the rules of the Secret Realm, the third-tier Demon King will definitely have a powerful move. Moreover, the Spider Silk Woman's karma bar has been triggered by Yan Qing. It will probably upgrade from a normal dungeon boss to a difficult dungeon boss, just like the Corpse King Long You. It wouldn't be surprising if it had a death-dealing ultimate move.

But that's okay. Single-player gamers are not afraid of challenging levels. As long as the rewards are good enough, they'll even use bugs to get through! There are still at least six hours until dawn, plenty of time, and he already has a plan. Now is the time to put it into practice.

The Spider-Woman wasn't particularly fast. Although her entire body was made of spider silk, she looked more like a young girl in a long palace dress. As she moved, the spiderweb on the ground rippled, as if white waves were pushing her forward. After taking two attacks from her, 'Yan Shiyi' successfully escaped the white web clearing before the defensive barrier collapsed. At this point, the Spider-Woman's next move could have three possibilities:
The first possibility is that it continues to hunt down 'Yan Shiyi', which is the worst-case scenario. Although the operation will not fail, 'Ye Si' will be needed to free the demon king, thus preventing the maximization of benefits.

The second possibility is that it loses its aggro and returns to the open ground, which is the best-case scenario. This means that Yan Qing can kite it and slowly whittle down its health. However, if the Demon King is that stupid, it wouldn't be a problem for Tombstone Army Town to conquer this secret realm thirty times a day.

And a third possibility—

After 'Yan Shiyi' escaped far away, Spider Woman did not continue to pursue him, but turned to look at 'Ye Si' hiding on the tombstone.

The hatred has shifted!
Sure enough, when the main target of aggro moves too far from the battle stage, the Demon King will shift its aggro to the nearest target! Kiting is out of the question; the Demon King will definitely chase after the target and attack!

But if Night Four climbs up the tombstone tree, unless the Spider Woman has long-range attack capabilities, there's absolutely no way she can hurt Night Four. So, is Night Four safe?

how is this possible.

With a casual flick of her right hand, the Spiderwoman moved like a maid splashing ink, emanating no danger whatsoever. Yet, the spider silk she flung out was like steel bars compressed to their limit, snapping the white tombstone tree in two with a single blow, emitting a chilling whistling sound!
Yan Qing's eyelids twitched uncontrollably, as if the spider silk were striking him directly. No wonder the Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror could only block three hits at most; the Spider Silk Woman was like a ghoul—slow in movement and attack speed, but with terrifyingly high single-hit damage!

The white tombstone collapsed with a crash, but 'Night Four' did not fall; he remained standing in mid-air. If you looked closely, you could see that he was standing on a rope, with the two ends of the rope tied to two nearby tombstone trees. The collapse of the tombstone trees beneath his feet had no effect on 'Night Four'; he was like Spider-Man standing on a spider web.

If it were a living person, the Spider Woman would be attacking the other two tombstone trees right now. However, no matter how intelligent the Spider Woman is, it is still just a program. How could it possibly have a pre-planned strategy for a situation like 'the player is hanging on a rope'? It can only circle around 'Night Four' and keep attacking the air.

Become!

Yan Qing breathed a sigh of relief.

This wasn't a sudden flash of inspiration; he learned a trick from watching the video "Climbing to the Ceiling to Pee on a Sixth-Tier Boss." That content creator was a die-hard Spider-Man fan who loved climbing to places the boss couldn't reach, using his position to stay in the boss's path and eventually kill it. This "suspended on a wire" technique is one of the common solutions; as long as there's a tall object nearby, you can create a wire to stay on.

Theoretically, any player can use this move, but only players who have mastered the Spider Walk technique can stand on the suspended wire to attack. Now, if you give 'Night Four' a bow, he can probably shoot the Demon King to death in a few hours, and in the process, he can also max out his basic and advanced archery skills.

But the use of 'Night Four' ends here; the time for 'Banquet Eleven' will continue.

Yan Qing wiped the sweat from his hands, gently pushed the joystick, and controlled 'Yan Eleven' to slowly approach the Spider Silk Woman from the side. Fortunately, although the Spider Silk Woman kept spinning, her field of vision remained relatively fixed, creating blind spots.

This game is quite realistic in terms of enemy detection. With proper use of techniques like silence and invisibility, you can approach enemies silently. Everyone agrees that Si Wuxie in the Corpse Forest must have used an invisibility item to pass through the demon horde. However, stealth gameplay is time-consuming. For example, Yan Qing took a full thirty seconds to get close to the Spider Woman from behind. "You despicable outsider, you've launched a backstab!"
Seven Steps of Reciting Buddha's Name thrust in fiercely, greedily taking two sword strikes before turning to flee. As expected, he was too slow, and the Spider Silk Woman immediately shifted her aggro and lashed him out. But after chasing him for a dozen steps, the Spider Silk Woman turned back to continue attacking Night Four, who was suspended on the silk, looking dazed and even a little cute.

What followed was a boring, pointless session. 'Yan Shiyi' would sneak up and backstab, the Spider Silk Woman would chase him for a dozen steps and then return, repeating this cycle over and over. Yan Qing became more and more skilled, and in about half an hour, the Spider Silk Woman's health and karma bar had dropped to 50%.

If the people of Tombstone Town saw this scene, their jaws would probably drop—they could probably not even whittle down this much health in half an hour when they were fighting a Spider-Woman at level two!

This is to be expected. The Seven Steps of Reciting Buddha's Name has lower output compared to Bingzi Jiaolin, but it has both the sealing effect of Bingzi Jiaolin and the true damage of 15 points of Heavenly Calamity Karma. More importantly, Yan Qing often greedily attacks because he can withstand three hits with the Mountain Heart Protection Mirror. When attacking a BOSS in a military town, the strategy is usually to build fortifications and whittle down the BOSS's health with heavy crossbows first. The goal is to be stable rather than fast, so the efficiency is naturally surprisingly slow.

When her health dropped to 50%, the Spider Woman suddenly slashed her hands, her ten fingers drawing ten deadly arcs. The character "Extinguish" appeared on the tip of each finger, resembling a burning candle flame, dealing five instances of damage to an area within ten steps around her!

"Destroy!" The Spider Silk Woman uttered a voice that was not human at all, but rather a tremor that sounded like the power of the heavens... This was the divine might of a Dao Foundation Divine Power!

Although Yan Qing knew that things would definitely change once he crossed the 50% health threshold, he still couldn't avoid it. The Spider Silk Woman's attack had such a short wind-up that 'Yan Shiyi' simply didn't have time to escape!
Six of the seven layers of the Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror's barrier vanished instantly, startling Yan Qing so much that he broke out in a cold sweat. It should be noted that 'Yan Eleven' simultaneously wore the Yaksha Mask, the Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror, and the Bodhisattva Pendant. With these three tokens, even at the third level, he could easily serve as a shield-bearer, capable of contending with all demon kings below the Foundation Establishment stage. Yet, he was almost destroyed.

This is fucking steel execution!
Unlike the "shared death penalty" of the Corpse King Dragon's Journey, the "Iron Death Penalty" is an area-of-effect attack targeting melee players. If you don't get away in time, you'll be severely injured even if you don't die. Although the damage of the Iron Death Penalty is not as high as the shared death penalty, it is still not something a normal player can withstand. If "Yan Shiyi" hadn't maxed out his defensive tokens, he might have died instantly.

After fully recovering, 'Yan Shiyi' cautiously approached again, but when he successfully backstabbed her, the Spider Silk Woman didn't turn around. Instead, she launched Iron Death Sentence again! 'Yan Shiyi' was now within three steps of the Spider Silk Woman, his defensive barrier was completely shattered, and he had lost a third of his health!

Clearly, this steel execution is also related to distance; the closer the distance, the greater the damage. If the Spider Woman's hands directly touch it with the word "annihilation," even a third-tier messenger with maxed-out defense would probably melt instantly!
Although it's barely manageable, the risks are too great.

However, Yan Qing noticed that the Spider Silk Woman did not pursue him and stopped attacking the air. Instead, she hovered below Night Four. He had a sudden thought and took out a steel crossbow from the warehouse to fire.

Hit by the crossbow bolt, the Spider Woman remained unchanged, continuing to circle below 'Night Four'. Yan Qing thought for a moment, switched to the 'Night Four' account, and slashed at thin air.

"Destroy!"

Although there was no one within range, the Spider Woman still activated the Iron Death Sentence! Moreover, after activating it, the Spider Woman froze for three seconds. Even if 'Night Four' swung it in the air again during those three seconds, it did not react. Only after three seconds did she activate the Iron Death Sentence again.

Yan Qing suddenly understood and fully comprehended the second phase mechanism of the Spider Silk Woman. It clearly treated the Steel Death Sentence as a normal attack. Based on this alone, it was undoubtedly a difficult-level BOSS. Melee players could easily be wiped out by it. However, it also had a huge weakness. After the Steel Death Sentence was activated, it would enter a three-second cooldown period during which it could not perform any other actions.

However, to trigger its Steel Death Sentence, the player must attack it within its melee range. For example, if 'Yan Shiyi' stands far away and shoots, it will not trigger. Only 'Ye Si' has a height bug that makes Spider Woman think that 'Ye Si' is also within melee range. When 'Ye Si' attacks, Spider Woman immediately takes advantage of its recovery animation to trigger Steel Death Sentence.

Simply put, it's reading instructions!
What followed was naturally simple: 'Night Four' kept attacking the air, and in the three-second gap when the Spider Woman activated Steel Death Sentence, 'Banquet Eleven' immediately rushed over and slashed it a few times. Even if she was greedy for a few hits, she had time to retreat and not have her defensive barrier broken by Steel Death Sentence.

Originally intended to annoy players by reading commands, it can become a loophole for players to bully bosses if used properly.

The Spider Woman's health and karma bars steadily decreased: 30%...20%...10%...1%!

After depleting the Spider Silk Woman's karma bar, Yan Qing did not hesitate at all and immediately controlled 'Yan Eleven' to take out the Bingzi Pepper Forest and activate the Overturning Heaven!
At the same time, the Spider Woman curled up like a baby, and endless white silk poured out of her body, weaving it into a cocoon. A word appeared in the cocoon: "End!" At the same time, her health suddenly recovered to 25%, and was still rising rapidly at a rate of 5% per second!

Without a doubt, once her health returns to 100%, the Spider Woman will return in full force, with a small chance of entering the third stage, but more likely she will go berserk and unleash an indiscriminate death sentence on the entire field! However, under Bingzi Jiaolin's Heaven-Covering Blade, her health is like a rope in a tug-of-war, slowly but unstoppably dropping until it finally reaches zero!
In the moment before death, the girl's cries echoed from within the cocoon: "Fu Xiang... Fu Xiang..."

(End of this chapter)