Chapter 148: The Trials of Xyl (Part-13)

As the once-trapped elephants, moments away from death, now stood with renewed vigor on the hardened soil, Lin Fang was coughing for breath.

“Damn it…!”

The pressure around Lin Fang’s ribs felt like iron bands crushing inward.

Every time he struggled, the silver-gray trunk coiled tighter, impossible to pry open even with brute force.

“Tch—damn it, it’s like steel!”

He gritted his teeth, his arms trembling as mana surged into his palms. The trunk didn’t even budge, no matter how much force he applied.

The elephant’s three heads glared down with its eyes burning with fury, tightening its grip over Lin Fang’s chest as if punishing a trespasser who dared cause chaos in its home.

“Alpha!” Lin Fang shouted inwardly. “Any ideas before my ribs become paste?

“Use the power of Disintegrate!” Alpha replied calmly. “But once you do it, you will have to speed up your moves…”

Lin Fang didn’t even hesitate or ponder on the matter, whether it was good or not.

“Combat Merge—Activate!”

He unleashed the system’s skill.

The moment he activated the skill, the Pet inventory opened, where, except for Nebula, who was at the store, the remaining were seen hibernating. He selected the mythical grade beast.

“Select Xuan Hei.”

And in the next second, his vision darkened for a split second.

Right then, the third trunk snapped upward, looping around his neck.

“Kh—gghh!”

His eyes bulged, veins throbbing across his face as the monster lifted him clean off the ground.

A choking sound escaped his throat, every breath turning into a struggle.

The silver elephant wasn’t trying to kill him fast. It was crushing him slowly, as if testing how long the intruder would last.

Pain exploded through his chest for a moment while a notification filled the screen.

[You received Xuan Hei’s stats and skill buffs temporarily. Xuan Hei enters hibernation.]

A surge of black-gold aura wrapped around Lin Fang’s body. The choking trunk trembled slightly under the sudden force.

The glow around him intensified, and in a burst of dark light, the air itself shivered.

“Let’s see who breaks first,” Lin Fang rasped, eyes burning with confidence as he poured mana through his hands and grabbed its trunk, and where his fingers touched the trunk’s skin, the skin began to flake, peeling away. Within seconds, the surface of the trunk started to disintegrate — layer after layer vanishing into nothingness.

As the elephant screamed, a deep, trumpeting roar, Lin Fang used the opportunity to use more force to free himself from its grip and dropped to the ground, with his knees hitting the dirt.

He spat once and took a deep breath. “Come.”

Twin Daggers of Xuanwu shimmered into existence, materializing in his hands as he charged forward.

Each slash appeared like a flash of destruction rather than that of a blade. With Xuan Hei’s passive skill applied to his mana, as long as he toggled it on, each shred of his mana carried the power of disintegration, cutting not just through flesh but erasing the point of impact outright. Chunks of the creature’s body disintegrated layer by layer; some went as deep as two or three inches, revealing the bone beneath before the beast jerked away.

Of course, just the disintegration wasn’t enough to kill his targets. Meanwhile, the unique three-headed Elephant monster glared at his back as its skin regenerated by a golden aura, just like how it erased the Quicksand earlier.

Meanwhile, Lin Fang has already left it behind, focusing more on others, as his Combat Merge will only last 3 minutes. Using the power of disintegration in his attacks, he blurred through the battlefield like a streak of black lightning, leaving afterimages in his wake. He slid between the towering legs of the elephant beasts, slashing the daggers and carving through hide and flesh that instantly crumbled into dust on contact.

The earth shook with every stomp, dust and soil exploding upward as elephants trumpeted in fury and protectiveness of their calves.

Meanwhile, the silver-gray elephant, the one with three heads, let out a powerful trumpeting roar and raised its middle trunk that stretched tens of meters to chase after Lin Fang, who was busy killing its kin.

He cut down another beast — seven down now — each one leaving behind a disfigured carcass. But there was no time to rest. Dozens of elephants were trumpeting in anger, trampling over the carcasses of their own kind.

Some slammed their trunks down, summoning earth spikes from below — sharp stone pillars that erupted and tore through the ground. Lin Fang flipped backward, dodging every one of them with impossible precision. The spikes instead tore into the sides of nearby elephants, impaling their legs and causing chaotic confusion.

Lin Fang grinned. “Thanks for saving me the work.”

He dashed again, targeting a young elephant calf that was crying nearby its heavily injured mother.

Just as he was about to strike the calf and gain another kill, the leader of the pack, a Lord Tier elephant, roared and slammed its trunk into the ground. The earth rumbled, and a skill formation lit up in yellow beneath Lin Fang’s feet.

“Earth Prison.”

Walls of stone shot upward all around him, trapping him inside with the Lord Tier and three other Commander Tier elephants, each wall as big as 100 feet. Outside, the silver-gray overlord tried to reach in with its trunk — but the walls blocked it completely. It retracted, stepping back, its six eyes narrowing into glowing slits like a serpent.

Sliding away and maintaining a distance, Lin Fang put a pause to his brakes on and stared at the four massive gray elephants. “I don’t know if you four are intending to kill me or give time for your kin to run away, but you four can only turn into spirits and be absorbed by the system.”

He tightened his grip on the daggers, glancing at the holographic screen floating on the side. “Still 44 seconds left. Should be enough, I guess…”

“Activate, Alpha’s… Hmm…”

Just as he was about to unleash Alpha’s blessing to power up his daggers, he sensed something and raised his head.

Outside the walls, a deep rumble shook the air. The other elephant monsters calmed as the three-headed beast began to expand.

In no time, Lin Fang’s eyes spotted three colossal heads that loomed over him, their six eyes glowing faintly in the dark, like floating orbs of gold watching from the heavens.

The pressure suddenly fell on him like a mountain.

Lin Fang couldn’t help but inspect its details at last.

The system’s holographic interface flickered to life.

[Three-Headed Silver Elephant]

Level: 41 (+10)

Status: Berserk

Grade: Legendary

Element: Divine

“Divine element and a King Tier…” Lin Fang muttered, his face hardening. “I thought there was only one King Tier monster in this savanna, The White Lion King. Damn you, Feng Xiu… You had to conduct the fourth trial in an open dungeon like this? Not even A-rank Hunters will have a 100% chance of survival in a place like this.”

He spun his dagger once and whispered to himself, “Still… I couldn’t fight Infernal Pegasus back then. Now, I get to test my strength against you.”

“If you go all out, you can actually bring it down, kiddo,” Alpha’s voice then cheered inside his head, “You have Undead Summoning. Summon its kin that you just killed and then use my blessing on them, increasing their strength by five times. While they take care of the rest of the herd, you can focus on fighting against the three-headed one. And if things went south, you could still call Cloud, Tempest, and Mimic to support you.”

“Yeah, indeed. Now, I have the means to fight even King Tiers…” As soon as he uttered those words, something clicked right in his head. His eyes drifted to the sky, where he could clearly see through his night vision he got from Xuan Hei. “The drone…” he whispered.

At the same time, when he calculated the winnings so far, Lin Fang could see that his debt was already gone.

He was sure that he couldn’t kill the three-headed elephant in the next 30 seconds. And is exposing his secrets to the military and Feng Xiu worth it?

At that moment, Lin Fang hesitated. He couldn’t risk it. Not here. Not now. He might have gained support from Zhi Yan financially, but this could only increase his being the target of abductions, with everyone wanting his spirit king or trying to pry into his secrets.

He clenched his teeth, feeling the mana within him start to fluctuate due to his emotions. “Damn it,” he hissed, gripping his dagger tight. “No choice.”

“Wait… you are trying to run away?” Alpha sounded out, sensing his thoughts.

Lin Fang didn’t reply and muttered, “Activate, Phase Drift.”

*Ding!

[Phase Drift skill has been activated. You will be teleported 500 meters away in 3, 2…]

Right then… new notifications began to appear.

[Error: External interference detected.]

[Skill malfunction — Phase Drift failed to stabilize.]

[System level is insufficient to override interference.]

“What the hell was that?!” Alpha’s voice rang inside his head, alarmed by the unseen force that suddenly acted on its host

But Lin Fang couldn’t answer, and neither could Alpha stop it. He disappeared from the spot, as per the skill, but not to 500 meters away.

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