Chapter 204: The Wind-Patterned Fox

As the Six-Headed Twin-Winged Serpent summoned its Grade 8 pet, the Three-Eyed Shadow Serpent, the battle erupted into a new level of chaos. The clash between the Double-Headed Raven King, and Sienna grew increasingly violent, with the Raven King unleashing everything he had without restraint.

He had no choice. The Mythic Artifact, the Black Raven Cloak, had to be reclaimed. The thought of returning to the Demon Clan without it was unbearable, a humiliation that gnawed at him relentlessly. That single obsession consumed his mind, pushing him into a near-hysterical frenzy that brought him dangerously close to tears.

Under the Raven King’s relentless assault, Sienna appeared hard-pressed to hold her ground. Yet the Wind-Dance Heaven-Splitter Fan in her hands allowed her to command the wind with flawless precision, its divine power weaving seamlessly with her extraordinary spatial abilities. She moved with blinding speed, vanishing and reappearing unpredictably, untouchable and mesmerizing. No matter how ferocious the Raven King became, defeating her remained an immensely difficult task.

Earlier, her Cyclone Path had failed to work on Marcus, and she still had not recovered the Water Moon Cult’s Soul-Mist Water Demon Cat. The frustration made her grind her teeth, a fierce urge rising in her to sink them into his arm if she ever got the chance.

But there was no time to dwell on that. She was also facing one of the Demon Clan’s most ruthless elites, the Three-Headed Black Dragon Knight. If he had not been occupied by the Six-Headed Twin-Winged Serpent, her situation would have been far more dire.

She knew she could not remain here. Just as Sienna prepared to activate Cyclone Path and withdraw, her eyes widened as she saw the serpent summon a tracking pet, tear open a spatial rift, and send it after the fleeing knight.

“Wind-Patterned Fox!”

Her heart skipped a beat. Had the knight not returned to the city at all, but instead escaped somewhere else entirely? She could not let such an opportunity slip away. Without hesitation, Sienna summoned her own tracking pet, a Grade 6 Wind-Patterned Fox.

Though classified as Grade 6, the Wind-Patterned Fox possessed attack and defense inferior even to most Grade 5 pets. Its true value lay elsewhere. Its sense of smell was frighteningly sharp, and it could traverse spatial rifts, following lingering traces of scent across fractured space itself. That singular ability was what earned it its rank.

A whirlwind of compressed wind gathered before her, and from within it emerged a slender, nimble fox etched with faint wind patterns along its fur.

The fox sniffed the air once, locking onto Marcus’s scent. In the next instant, it sprang forward, dissolving into a flash of light as it vanished into space, chasing the residual trail he had left behind. Sienna no longer spared the Raven King another glance. Activating Wind Evasion, she instantly teleported a thousand miles away from the Mist Veil Palace and waited calmly for the fox to report back.

“Now that’s what I call perfect timing.”

At the very last second of his invincibility window, Marcus activated Wanderlust and vanished from the boss-packed Mist Veil Palace, reappearing on the third level of the Black Rock Spire.

Although he had not gained much in terms of tangible rewards from that colossal battle, a deep sense of satisfaction swelled within him. He had escaped from under the noses of monsters that could crush entire armies, and the realization left him feeling more than a little smug.

He could not help but wonder what expressions were currently plastered on the two faces of the Dark Arch-Sorcerer. That alone must have been worth seeing. Unfortunately, he would never know.

“What a powerful monster!”

“Hey, quick, kill it! It’s a high-level one! It’s definitely going to drop a Guild Creation Token!”

Marcus had barely finished materializing when a barrage of urgent shouts rang out around him. As he was about to take in his surroundings, a system notification sounded.

Ding!

“Stonehaven, you have been attacked by members of the ’I Love Werewolves’ squad. You may now engage in self-defense.”

At the same moment, a string of miss indicators and damage numbers barely reaching fifty floated above his head. Only then did Marcus notice a dozen or so players staring at him with bloodshot eyes, their gazes burning with greed as if they were looking at a feast laid out before them.

’Seriously?’

They had mistaken him, someone who had just appeared out of thin air, for a boss. The monster they were shouting about was him.

For a moment, Marcus was completely speechless.

Wanderlust allowed him to set one teleportation point every ten levels. At level thirty, he had three anchors established: the third level of the Black Rock Spire, the entrance to the second level of the Elven Path, and the Mist Veil Palace. From anywhere, he could instantly teleport to any of those locations.

Although the Three-Headed Black Dragon Knight’s Death Demon Cleave had freed him from the Black Raven Cloak’s control, Marcus chose to play it safe. He used Wanderlust to escape first, planning to return to Dragon’s Peak Citadel via Town Portal afterward. What he never anticipated was being mistaken for a boss by players camping the third level of the Black Rock Spire, patiently waiting for Werewolf Cabaro to respawn.

Then again, the misunderstanding was not entirely unreasonable. Marcus had arrived in a burst of light, mounted atop a dark Nightmare Dragon Steed, clad head to toe in the unique and fearsome Cabaro’s Set. Between the oppressive aura of battle and his wild, predatory presence, he must have looked like something straight out of a nightmare.

“Damn, only fifty damage!”

“Everyone, be careful! This one’s tough!”

“Knights, get to the front!”

After the first wave of attacks, the players erupted into panicked shouts when they realized how little damage they had dealt. Their excitement turned to alarm almost instantly.

It was inevitable. Most of them were only around level twenty-seven, while Marcus had already reached level thirty-one. The gap in levels alone was significant, not to mention the overwhelming difference in equipment. The fact that they could even scratch him was already impressive.

“Forget it. I won’t fight back.”

Marcus was in a good mood, and seeing the mix of fear and determination on their faces, he decided not to retaliate. They had not attacked him out of malice, and he had no intention of costing them their levels or equipment.

Activating Run for Your Life, he cleanly disengaged from combat and crushed a Town Portal Scroll. In a flash of light, he was gone, reappearing at the bustling teleportation plaza of Dragon’s Peak Citadel.

Marcus’s excursion to the Mist Veil Palace had concluded perfectly. Standing amid the crowd of players, he felt a quiet warmth settle in his chest, a comforting sense of normalcy returning at last.

What he did not know was that his restraint had saved his life. Had he retaliated, he would have left behind enough spatial residue to be tracked and trapped by the Six-Headed Twin-Winged Serpent’s Grade 8 pet, the Three-Eyed Shadow Serpent.

Only a second after Marcus vanished into Dragon’s Peak Citadel, the Three-Eyed Shadow Serpent tore through space and emerged on the third level of the Black Rock Spire, drawn by the faint remnants of energy he had left behind.

“Ah? What’s going on?”

The players there were utterly bewildered. They had been waiting for Werewolf Cabaro to respawn when a terrifying knight had suddenly appeared before them, only to vanish just as abruptly.

That dark mount, with its prismatic horn and hooves wreathed in hellfire, was the envy of all who saw it. And the knight himself was even more unforgettable. His overwhelming presence was palpable, his uniquely styled armor unmistakably top-tier. Everything about him screamed super-boss.

And they had not been wrong. The pitiful damage numbers from their initial attacks still lingered in their minds, leaving them shaken. Even if they wanted to fight, they knew they would be wiped out without question.

“Could that knight have been a Mythic-tier boss?”

The thought crept into their minds as they replayed the scene. Among them, the knight-class players felt the sharpest sting, staring at where the figure had vanished with envy so intense it nearly brought them to tears.

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