Pale Emblem

Chapter 54 Breakthrough and Sacrifice

Sara waved a heavy stone stick and led Vertok and the others to run wildly to the north of the forest, but they were still surrounded by shadow beasts.

The shadow beast is completely white, crawling on the snow, blending with the surrounding environment, and it is difficult to distinguish it with the naked eye.Vertoc's perception attribute is as high as 19 points, and he can see them clearly with just a glance.

There are about 70 of these monsters.They look like big bats without membrane wings. The back half of their forelimbs are extremely muscular, as if they are about to burst out from under the smooth, hairless skin, but their forearms are skinny and 1.2 meters long, with a pair of forelimbs at the end. The three-toed claws are like three inwardly curved short swords one foot long.In fact, the upper body of the shadow beast is strong, but the lower body is short and thin. A fin-like bone spur grows on the spine of the back, extending to the long tail. The overall appearance is deformed and ugly.They mainly rely on their forelimbs and tail to crawl on the snow. Because of their flat bodies, they will not sink into the snow, but can gain more swift mobility. This is also the main reason why Vertoc and the others are surrounded by shadow beasts.

Shadow beasts are scavengers in the black forest. They are nocturnal and feed on humus, worms, carrion, and even animal feces. Their thin and smooth skin can quickly change color according to the surrounding environment, making them extremely difficult for predators to detect. Sharp claws and tail spines are their weapons against predators.When female shadow lurkers begin to build their nests, the shy and mysterious shadow beasts transform into fierce territorial guardians who will stop at any cost to eliminate threatening intruders in order to protect the female beast and the eggs in the nest.

Shadow beast, second-order monster, medium size, male, with the innate ability of discoloration, hard claws, group attack, and spinning and cutting.

Discoloration: Shadow beasts can quickly change color, including skin, blood, and eyes, to perfectly blend in with the environment.

Hard claws: The claws, bone spurs, and tail spines of the shadow beast are exceptionally hard, comparable to fine iron, and are excellent natural weapons.

Group attack: Shadow beasts know how to fight together, dazzling the enemy by interspersed and traversed, covering each other, dividing the enemy's formation, and it is difficult to be locked, because the color-changing talent makes them all look the same.

Rotary Flying Cut: The shadow beast is light in weight and has a long and powerful tail. It can be ejected into the air with the power of the tail, hold its body into a ball, and then rotate at a high speed, using its sharp claws, bone spurs and tail spines to split enemies within ten meters.Be careful with the Shadow Beast's tail, the power and speed of its ejection, combined with the hard and sharp tail spikes, are enough to pierce high-quality hard leather armor.The good news is that shadow beasts have low defense, and crossbows and spears are good weapons against them.

Listening to Mayor Mayen's introduction to the characteristics of the shadow beast and seeing it with his own eyes are two completely different feelings.Even the eyeballs of the more than 70 deformed monsters were white. They sometimes crawled and growled on the snow, and sometimes moved and jumped sideways.As long as Wiltok stares at a shadow beast for more than three seconds, it will immediately curl its tail, jump sideways sideways with the help of amazing elasticity, its movements are quite flexible, and under the cover of its companions, its snow-white body will cling to The snow seems to have disappeared.

To be honest, Vertok felt that it took a lot of eyes to lock on a shadow beast. If he didn't pay attention, he might be distracted by other shadow beasts and lose the target he initially locked on.

Vertok didn't know how other people's eyesight was, but as long as he imagined more than 70 toads of the same color and size jumping around in front of him, he could understand everyone's feelings. It should be the feeling of wanting to vomit.

The problem is that shadow beasts aren't harmless frogs, they have unusually sharp claws and are second-order monsters.

Vertok was not afraid of the bald butcher, but when he saw the herd of shadow beasts, he felt terrified.There are so many of them that even if Vertoc has seven hands and eight feet, he will surely die if he falls into the herd.

When he just broke through, Max disappeared, and he may have left the team on purpose.Undercover hunters lack the ability to face the enemy head-on, and it is easier to survive by wandering alone, while other professionals cannot.

Everyone can only hold tightly together and form the tightest iron barrel formation, for fear that the shadow beast will divide the team and break them down.The shield guards were responsible for the defense in the front and rear directions, while the professional swordsmen protected the two wings, enclosing the bow warriors and Vertoc in the middle.Sarah cruised around the perimeter alone, killing all shadow beasts that approached the defensive formation.

She charged quickly, her huge body pulled the snow on the ground into two flying snow waves, and the heavy stone sticks swayed from bottom to top, drawing an arc more than ten meters long, sending a shadow beast It exploded with life and life, and even the bones flew out of sight.

Sarah's savage charge was unstoppable and lightning-fast. It was indestructible within ten meters, and it was as fast as teleportation.The terrifying sense of oppression made Vertok stunned.He finally knew why the fat cook was called "Unstoppable Sarah". With this kind of strength and speed, any martial arts were bells and whistles in front of her, only to be crushed.

Virtok thought of the Bald Butcher's full-strength blow from Sarah, but he was injured but not dead, and he couldn't help but feel a little scared for his previous rashness.

Although Sarah is brave, she alone cannot relieve the team's predicament from being surrounded by shadowy herds.The Shadow Beast initially besieged the fat cook who was out of the defensive formation, and she used a stone rolling pin to knock it into meat patties one by one.At the cost of their lives, the shadow beasts learned to be smart, they ran away from the fat cook, and made half-elf professionals and Vertoc their primary targets.

Sarah has to take care of the others, so she can't chase too far. She can only use savage charge to kill those shadow beasts that are trying to sneak up on the defensive formation, but this powerful combat skill will definitely drain her physical strength.

The iron barrel formation under the shield guard Huckab is currently able to protect itself, and the movement speed is very slow.Fortunately, the arrows of the bow warrior can threaten the shadow beast within 60 meters.

A snow-white shadow beast just jumped up and was caught out of the corner of Vertok's eyes.He quickly opened his bow and shot arrows in the crowd, and the three-edged feather arrow rolled up the snowflakes and hit the shadow beast's neck accurately.Immediately afterwards, more than a dozen feathered arrows followed, killing the shadow beast on the spot.

"Vell, well done!" The third-level bow fighter instructor praised Victor's archery skills while hitting another shadow beast with his bow and arrow. The color of the feather arrow marked the target for the other bow fighters.

The second-level bow fighters are all sharp shooters. They are good at rapid shooting, moving shooting, and aiming shooting. However, the shadow beasts are integrated with the environment, and they know how to cover each other.The third-level bow warrior ignites the secret blood, stimulates the blind shooting ability, and uses his keen intuition to hit the enemy in the distance.The color of the arrow feathers is like a conspicuous mark, a shadow beast that helps the second-level bow warriors focus their arrows on fire.

If the bow warrior instructor did not know Vertok, he would think that he was also a third-level bow warrior, otherwise how could he accurately hit the difficult shadow beast with his bow and arrow?
But they all saw with their own eyes that Vertok's strength, speed, physical fitness, fighting skills, and explosiveness were not inferior to the third-level shield guard, the third-level swordsman, the third-level dark hunter, and the third-level bow warrior.He doesn't seem to have expertise, and it seems that he has expertise.

Half-elf professionals don't know how Veltok did it, but they firmly believe that his future is limitless.Boss Bartom is right, the Adventurer's House is led by Vertoc, in order to regroup and recapture the wealth and industry hidden in the city-state.

In fact, everyone trusts and supports Vertoc mainly because they are influenced by his charming qualities, and their views on him are on the positive side.

Veltok also doesn't know anything about his own charming qualities. He has no other idea now, so he does everything he can to kill the shadow beasts that surround him.

However, the lethal effect of the piercing damage of the feather arrow is very poor, and it is far less immediate than the sword slash. Even if the three-edged feather arrow hits the key point of the shadow beast, it does not pull out the arrow, and it will not die for a while.Vertoc would rather wait and let the shadow beast hit by the arrow die slowly, but the second-level bow fighter couldn't find his target, and chasing the shadow beast hit by the arrow was a round of rapid fire.

Shooting a shadow beast with a dozen arrows is really not very efficient.But everyone has no time to waste slowly here, and must kill the shadow beasts quickly and fiercely, forcing the herd to retreat, and then break through as soon as possible.

On the other side of the forest, the excited howl of the orc butcher could be heard from time to time.The Shadow Beast's attack may not have much effect on them, and each time the Butcher kills a Shadow Beast, the blood rage value will increase.If the Shadow Lurker didn't show up, the Orc Butcher would have the advantage in this forest.

Winter is the season when Shadow Lurkers lay their eggs and hatch, and they generally do not leave their nests.Originally, Hullant's dragoons used the characteristics of shadow lurkers to guard their lair, and it would be very easy to first clear out its minions, and then deal with the lonely shadow lurkers.But they didn't come, and the Shadow Forest became the home of the Orc Butchers.

When the Bald-Ear Butcher slaughtered and besieged his herd, he would be free to deal with the half-elf professionals.

Vertok's worries didn't last long.Deep in the forest to the southwest, two sharp stone axes flew out and smashed into the tight formation arranged by the half-elf professionals.

The bald butcher was covered in blood, standing beside a thick pine tree, laughing wildly and threw a heavy stone throwing axe at the iron barrel formation where Vertok was.With the powerful explosive power of the Orcs, the throwing range of his throwing axe reached an exaggerated 150 meters, which was far beyond the effective counter-attack range of bows and javelins.

Vertoc raised his bow and missed two powerful flying axes, scolding angrily: "The bald orc is a piece of shit!"

There is no doubt that the Bald-eared Butcher left his companions behind, stood out alone in the encirclement of the shadow beasts, and ran over to attack the half-elf professional with a long-range flying axe!
Even if the bald-eared flying axe shoots accurately, the half-elf professional can easily dodge it at a distance of more than 150 meters, but while everyone avoids the flying axe, the iron barrel formation inevitably becomes scattered, which immediately causes a chain reaction.

The shadow beasts rushed over desperately from all directions, their long and powerful tails pressed against the ground, and catapulted themselves into the air like a spring, their flat bodies curled into a ball, like a high-speed spinning flywheel, slashing at the half-elves fiercely. top of the head.

With the entry of the shadow beast, the iron barrel formation collapsed in an instant.Vertok's front, back, left, and right were full of deformed and ugly monsters. He immediately discarded the war bow, grabbed the long sword, and used the combat breathing technique. The bodies of the shadow beasts were cut flat, but they did not hurt the surrounding half-elf companions.

The half-elf professionals didn't have time to applaud Vertok's exquisite swordsmanship, and they ignited the secret blood, stimulated their abilities, and fought with the surrounding shadow beasts.

A second-level swordsman had just killed a shadow beast, and the sharp claws of the other shadow beast swept across his calf, the protective gear and muscles rolled over, and blood was flowing.He only snorted for a while before a throwing axe hit him in the head, spattering blood on Vertoc's leather armor.

The shield guard Huck let out a roar, used the rock skin technique to resist the scratching of the shadow beast, and smashed the two monsters to death with the shield axe mounted on his arm.

"Sister Sarah, take Vertok out! The others will spread their cover and break through!"

The fat cook rushed over, startled the herd, grabbed Vertok, turned around and ran away.The shadow beasts were obviously afraid of her rolling pin, and they ducked to both sides, turning their heads to besiege the scattered half-elf professionals.

The scenery of Xuelin quickly regressed, and Vertoc could only watch the scene where the shield guard Huck rushed left and right on Sarah's shoulders, and was finally submerged by the shadow beasts.

The bald butcher grinned silently, grabbed his big axe, and quietly chased Sarah's back from the edge of the battlefield.

Quel Ngra gathered the strength of the ten brothers and the savage fighters, killed the tower cave clan head Gangyan, and was promoted to the sixth-order slaughter.Bald Ear is determined to kill the weakened Sarah independently, only in this way will he have a chance to heal the wounds in his heart and gain greater strength, and then he will seek revenge for the round-eared half-elf who brought him shame.

The fat cook ignored Vertok's objections, carried him through the snowy forest, ran for a few kilometers in one breath, got rid of all the shadow beasts, suddenly stopped, put Vertok down, and said: "Vill , my child, go away."

Vertok had noticed the bald butcher following, and he shook his head and said, "No, let's go together."

The tall, fat body with bald ears stood up from behind the tree, carrying the axe, and stared at Sarah coldly.

The fat cook touched Vertok's head and smiled gently: "Okay, when I kill him, we'll go together again. But don't interfere in this battle, I'm afraid of accidentally hurting you."

Sarah dragged her rolling pin with one hand, one step at a time, toward the bald ear, and the snow collapsed under her feet, leaving a straight trail.She expressed a clear and strong will to her opponent: head to head, no one runs away.

The bald ear is taller and burlier than Sarah, but Sarah gave him the feeling that a mountain was hitting him head-on, and the indomitable momentum put a huge pressure on his mind.

When the strength reaches their level, the battle of spiritual will can often decide the victory or defeat of life and death.

Balder understands that if he chooses to avoid the edge of his opponent, Sarah's spiritual will will directly rush to the peak and launch the most violent attack on himself, and he will be afraid because of the idea of ​​​​avoidance, and he will not be able to give full play to his full strength. Small mistakes are fatal.

If he wants to kill the powerful enemy in front of him and heal the trauma of his soul, he must face the test of his spiritual will!

The fifth-order butcher of the Split Rock Tribe took a deep breath, carried his axe, and walked towards Sarah at the same speed.

The two sides got closer and closer, and they were within reach. At the same time, they stopped and faced each other in silence.Only the non-stop wind and snow flowed.

Sarah was upwind, and the snowflakes fell on her face, and she blinked a little.Bald Ear, who was still motionless just now, took the lead, and the big axe, like a weightless snowflake, instantly slashed towards Sarah's head.The next moment, the seemingly light axe would become so heavy that it could split Sarah's head.

Once you have mastered the heart of the mirror, you can change the strength of your power as you like.

Sarah tilted her head, but was still cut to the shoulder by the Orc Butcher's axe.Bald Ear exploded with strength, but felt as if his axe had hit a rock, cutting Sarah's flesh and blood with strong resistance.

Sarah allowed the bald butcher to chop off her left shoulder. She raised her eyes, and there was a deep cold in them. The gray-white stone rolling pin in her right hand had become crystal clear, and there were several tiny cracks on the surface. A circle of ice crystals.The elemental crystal stone rod stabbed the Orc Butcher's chest and abdomen.

Frost spread over the butcher's naked skin, eating away at the red light that represented the power of blood rage.Bald Ear felt a deep chill running right into his heart, and wanted to freeze himself completely.He let out a fierce killing roar, increasing his blood rage to resist the invasion of frost.

Bald-Ear can clearly withstand the pressure and stand deadlocked with Sarah to see if his axe will split the opponent's body first, or if Sarah's frost power will freeze him into a popsicle first.

However, the power of frost inspired by Sarah is eroding Bald Ear's blood rage power, evoking the shadow of fear deep in his heart.

In the sight of bald ears, Sarah's image at the moment overlapped with a tall half-elf with round ears.Maybe it wasn't a half-elf, but Bald Er would never forget that the monster's fists shone with white-gold brilliance, and with just one punch, he smashed his father, the old chief of the Split Rock Tribe to pieces.Bald Ear roared and rushed towards the murderer who killed his father, but the blood rage power he was proud of was dissipated by the opponent, and his confidence was completely shattered.

Bald Ear was frightened, he threw the axe, and with the help of the thrust of the crystal stick, flew upside down more than ten meters, fell a few somersaults on the snow, got up and fled into the forest in a hurry.

Sarah was unable to catch up, and noticed that in the shadowy forest, Max and a half-orc shaman were fighting silently.She decisively threw away the crystallized stone stick, pulled out the axe that had slashed into her shoulder bone, sealed the terrifying wound with the power of frost, and pulled Vertok who had rushed over to run outside the forest.

"Let's go, there are enemies behind!"

Before long, Vertoc and Sarah rushed out of the shadowy forest to a large snow-covered glade.

The fat cook girl of the Adventurer's House finally couldn't hold on, her huge body slammed down and fell heavily on the snow, the wound on her shoulder burst open again, and the gurgling blood immediately stained a piece of pure white snow.

"Sarah, how are you?" Vertok hugged Sarah's head and asked eagerly.He put his other hand on her shoulder, trying to heal the bleeding wound.

Sarah barely opened her eyes and said in a weak voice: "Vill, my child, thank you... I'm sorry, I can't walk... If you can escape, I hope you can help the adventurer Children of the family. In the future, when you have the opportunity to go to the throne of the Mother Earth, help me ask the ancient guardians if they can forgive me as a sinner..."

Sarah, the fat cook who has been taking care of Vertoc, has finally reached the end of her life.Vertok was silent for a long time, put it close to Sarah's ear, and said softly: "They will definitely forgive you, I promise..."

"Sister Sarah has always regarded you as her son. In fact, she has no son. She should have remembered it at the last moment of her life." The fourth-level undercover hunter staggered over and whispered to Vertok.

Vertok asked without looking up, "What's Sarah's sin?"

Max shook his head and said sadly: "I don't know what sin it is... Sister Sarah was originally a female warrior of the Hemer tribe. During a battle, she absorbed the fetus in her womb... She was not born. The child should be of the Tagu family, and it will be integrated with the elder sister Sarah. Then, the elder sister will become like this."

(End of this chapter)