Scourge Messenger

Chapter 351 Always Together
"Double Pair: At the start of battle, duplicate your leftmost puppet."

Watching the phoenix completely turn to ashes and extinguish, Yan Qing quickly browsed the accessory options and chose "Pair" without hesitation.

This accessory is similar to the "True and False Monkey King" from "Ascension to Six Ears," both of which replicate Yan Qing's strongest follower. If Yan Qing has seven followers and trains them evenly, this accessory can only increase his combat power by one-seventh. However, if he only trains one powerful follower, his combat power will double. The range of benefits is very large, but it is very suitable for Yan Qing.

Although "Qiongqi" and "Baize" are currently being developed with equal stats, don't forget that there's the [Accumulated Avalanche] transformation card. On the final day of the battle, Yan Qing can transfer all of "Baize's" stats to "Qiongqi". Once in battle, "Double" and [True and False Monkey King] will copy "Qiongqi's" stats, presenting 300% of its accumulated stats over the past few days.

Needless to say, in terms of offense, it far surpasses the "Disaster Avoidance Guardian" that Yan Qing has seen before in terms of defense. After all, the Disaster Avoidance Guardian can only block one instance of damage, while "Double Strike" directly copies one to block disaster. The upper limit of the "Disaster Avoidance Guardian" is the lower limit of "Double Strike".

Despite acquiring an accessory that nearly doubled the team's combat strength, Yan Qing's expression wasn't particularly relaxed. They all turned to stare at the corner at the end of the street. Through the "Goldfish Goggles," a squad of over forty Imperial Guards was rushing towards them.

However, the other side seemed to have reconnaissance tokens as well. Upon discovering that the battle had stopped, they immediately halted and turned to leave without hesitation.

Yan Qing couldn't help but frown.

He's no longer afraid of the Hundred Guards, and even harbors a subtle desire to hunt them down. Just now, "Qiongqi" was able to instantly kill a 20-unit Hundred Guards unit with two attacks. After choosing the "Heaven and Earth Unparalleled Blade" and "Double Pair" accessories, it could easily take on a 60-unit unit. Not to mention, it has "Ascension Six Ears" and "Bai Ze" to supplement damage; it might even be able to defeat a 100-unit unit.

However, the puppet also has a huge, irreparable drawback: it is not fast.

If the enemy is determined to escape, the puppets have almost no ability to pursue them. Therefore, although Yan Qing wanted to completely eliminate the Hundred Guards, he did not have the idea of ​​taking the initiative to attack. After all, the Hundred Guards were reckless but not stupid. As early as the battle of 'Yan Eleven' against Ying Le, Yan Qing had witnessed the tactical operations that the Hundred Guards could perform, which were comparable to the top-level micro-management of professional StarCraft players.

When Ying Rushi was applying the medicine, she whispered a reminder: For the Hundred Guards, there are nine ways to grind down live targets like puppets with irreparable flaws without taking any damage. Nine ways!
The fact that the Guards don't need to use tactics most of the time doesn't mean they can't.

If the Hundred Guards were to deliberately rush in to their deaths as before, Yan Qing would naturally not need to avoid their sharp edge. He just hadn't expected that after killing a small team of twenty, the Hundred Guards would immediately change their tactics, not only ceasing their pursuit but also hunting down the other eight demons to slow down their development.

It wasn't difficult to guess that Yan Qing and his group could strengthen themselves by hunting the Eight Demons; the difficulty lay in making the decision to deal with them. In the Demon Gathering Land, a secret realm with level restrictions, the Eight Demons, equivalent to fifth-rank cultivators, were at the top of the food chain, second only to true demons. The gap between them and third-rank messengers was like that between an elephant and an ant.

Without his puppets, even as a third-rank messenger wielding both divine and earthly calamities and possessing multiple legendary artifacts, Yan Qing would be unable to handle any of the eight demons. The numerical gap simply cannot be bridged by skill alone.

Unfortunately, the Hundred Guards are just a bunch of monsters with only stats.

Thinking about it carefully, the Demon Gathering Grounds really are the best training ground for the Hundred Guards, because there is no limit to the number of people in the Demon Gathering Grounds, and the Hundred Guards can make full use of their numerical advantage. Thirty Hundred Guards cannot clear the fourth-tier secret realm, but three hundred Hundred Guards can definitely crush the fourth-tier demon king.

They manage to play what is supposed to be an RPG like an RTS.

"The other eight demons should all be dead by now." Murong Hui stood on the rooftop, her tone filled with resentment as if her toy had been snatched away: "Damn it, how could there be such self-destructive and altruistic bastards!"

Ying Rushi also expressed his regret: "If you could kill all eight demons, your Foundation Establishment Pill would definitely be upgraded to the level of precious or even legendary."

Yan Qing didn't feel too much regret. After all, in the official design of the Demon Gathering Land, only a maximum of eight players could get the accessories. It can be seen that most players can snowball even without accessories. He already has three accessories. If he still can't snowball into an avalanche to fatten up his lineup, he should just run into Ying Rushi's chest and suffocate.

He was just a little confused.

Ying Le's elite guards can actually pass through the 'level-restricted dungeon' without any fear. Isn't that a bit too outrageous? In the game, if two hundred elite guards entered, they could wipe out all the high-level demons in the city center area on the first day, and crush all the ordinary players they encountered along the way, taking the lead and dominating the secret realm step by step.

If Ying Le's strategy required too many people, there wouldn't be that many players obeying in the game. However, the fact that He Lan's fake Foundation Establishment and Jie Huang Chao's Golden Armor could grant a third-tier messenger Foundation Establishment level power shows that the advantage of fake Foundation Establishment in 'level-restricted dungeons' is too great. How can ordinary players compete? It's like you're just a mortal cultivating immortality, while everyone else is a reincarnated immortal with a powerful background. In novels and real life, everyone would tolerate that, but this is a game. Who plays a game to be bullied? It's not like playing a mind-bending game.

Yan Qing also didn't think this was part of the game design. If everyone is allowed to use their own unique abilities, what's the point of limiting levels?

Unless... this is indeed not an action allowed by the game.

Although Yan Qing didn't understand [The Heart of the Masses], he didn't think the official team would design a superpower that could control eight hundred people. This wasn't a first-person shooter or strategy game; what would be the point of controlling so many people? At least normally, no player would use it like that, and the system didn't have such an operation.

Therefore, the current "Wan Zhong Xin" is a special version developed and researched by Ying Le on her own. Her use of "Wan Zhong Xin" has exceeded the framework set by the system, so the system cannot restrict her.

The "Golden Armor" technique is similar, more like a unique method employed by Jie Huangchao. As for the Helan family's feigned Foundation Establishment, it likely has various limitations.

……

...

Before midnight, Yan Qing had raised "Qiongqi" to 120,000 strength and "Baize" to 40,000 strength. "Double Pair" and "Heaven and Earth Unparalleled Blade" were too efficient at leveling up. They didn't even need to lift a finger; they could just send their puppets to crush the demon army.

Before the day refreshed, Yan Qing and his group stealthily approached the Bone Plaza in the center of the Demon Gathering Land. Sure enough, they found that all the Hundred Guards were stationed there, keeping a certain distance from the True Demons. They had obviously given up their hunting intentions and planned to wait for Yan Qing and his group to come to them.

Even Ying Rushi and Murong Hui believed that Yan Qing could obtain the Legendary Foundation Establishment Pill as long as the True Demon was killed, so it wasn't surprising that the Hundred Guards had similar speculations. However, abandoning the hunt was tantamount to disobeying Ying Le's orders, and the commander of the Hundred Guards was so decisive and loyal... But Yan Qing glanced at Ying Rushi beside him and felt it wasn't surprising. Ying Le was a tyrant whose morality was indiscriminate, and he had turned his subjects into such a mess that it was normal for him to have loyal subjects.

With Yan Qing's command, the "Copy Qiongqi", "Qiongqi", "Bai Ze", and "Ascension Six Ears" charged towards the Bai Bao Guard army.

When they were about seventy paces away, Bai Bao began to deploy his troops; after fifty paces, the constantly forming swamps slowed the puppets' progress; after thirty paces, a barrage of arrows rained down; and after twenty paces, they leveled houses to build fortifications to hinder the puppets' advance.

Before the battle even officially began, all four puppets, each with tens of thousands of health points, had already perished.

Even if a giant puppet can't dodge and has a high health bar, it will quickly melt under the dense rain of arrows from the Hundred Guards.

Yan Qing turned and left, with Murong Hui and Ying Rushi following closely behind.

"Don't be discouraged. They won't be able to beat you in a few more days," Murong Hui encouraged. "Think about it this way: how long has it been? You've already become a threat to two hundred elite guards. They'll even have to band together to avoid your attacks!"

“The Hundred Guards dare not split up, so we don’t have to worry about their threat now.” Ying Rushi also said, “From now on, we can hunt demons at will without having to be timid. The Demon Gathering Land is already our backyard.”

"I'm so tired today, do you want to continue soaking in the hot springs together?"

“Two days,” Yan Qing turned to look at them and said seriously, “We will completely resolve all the troubles before Ying Rushi leaves.”

The bells rang, and the Gathering Places entered a new day.

Although the Northern Messengers couldn't hear Yan Qing's powerful declaration, just seeing the upgrade of Yan Qing's reward on the skeletal document from 'Rare Foundation Establishment Pill - Monster Enhancement' to 'Precious Foundation Establishment Pill - Monster Enhancement,' and the fact that the Hundred Guards were just now on high alert to fight the puppets, they also strongly realized one thing:
Offense and defense have changed shape!
(End of this chapter)