[484] Dimwitted Puppy

The third wave of monsters arrived. This time, the assailants were plant-type monsters. In appearance, they bore a close resemblance to the Great Tree King, yet neither their HP nor their defenses were anywhere near as thick or formidable as his. After shattering a large swath of skeleton soldiers, these plant-type monsters were wiped out by the combined abilities of the Chaos Evil Beast and Xielina, leaving the ground strewn with broken branches, seeds, and mangled roots. By this point, the skeleton soldiers had suffered over fifty percent casualties. Yu Xian felt that the remaining skeletons likely wouldn't last until the fifth wave of the siege. To be on the safe side, it was best to play it safe. He had nine summon slots in total. After several cannon fodder summons were killed by members of the Guoba Legion, and Bolaiye and the Great Tree King were punched to death by Lin Xiaoxiao, he was left with only four summoned beasts: the Mengmeng Fortune Cat, Xielina, the Chaos Evil Beast, and the cannon fodder crocodile he used as a mount. In other words, he still had five empty summon slots. While summons were overwhelmingly likely to end up as cannon fodder, what if luck was on his side and he pulled a second Chaos Evil Beast? Yu Xian simply directed his skill toward the open ground below the city walls. Chaos Divine Summon! Instantly, a magic circle materialized in the clearing beneath the wall. Then, he watched as a puppy slowly emerged from the magic circle—cross-eyed, tongue lolling out, drawn in an extremely sketchy, crude art style. The weirder the art style... The stronger it might be! Yu Xian immediately inspected the cross-eyed puppy's attributes. [Dimwitted Puppy] [Level: 2] [Skills:] [Bites on Sight: Upon spotting any target, it will bite down with a death grip and refuse to let go even in death.] [Note: Perhaps due to being cross-eyed, its behavior is utterly erratic; it will latch onto and bite anyone in reach.] ... *Well, this...* Having read through the puppy's attributes, Yu Xian was temporarily struck speechless. Meanwhile, the Dimwitted Puppy seemed to come to its senses. Shaking its body, it glanced over at the Chaos Evil Beast standing beside it, promptly barked twice, scurried over to the beast's foot, opened its mouth, and bit down. Unsurprisingly, even if it shattered all its teeth, it couldn't pierce the Chaos Evil Beast's skin. Yet weak as it was, it was remarkably stubborn, clamping down hard on the Chaos Evil Beast's foot, refusing to let go even if it died. Watching this, Yu Xian's mouth twitched slightly. He then ordered the Chaos Evil Beast to shift its foot slightly, sending the Dimwitted Puppy straight back to the respawn pool on the spot. Then, he activated the skill once more. The magic circle radiated light again, and a cross-eyed puppy slowly emerged from within... When Yu Xian saw the cross-eyed puppy reappear, he let out an instinctive scoff of laughter. What kind of ghostly nonsense was this? It had clearly been stomped to death by the Chaos Evil Beast—how was it summoned again? He immediately commanded the Chaos Evil Beast to stomp this Dimwitted Puppy to death as well. Then he continued summoning, and yet another cross-eyed puppy stepped out... "..." Yu Xian fell silent, staring at the puppy that was utterly identical to the previous two. "Big Brother, if you can't summon anything good, just forget it. Maybe today's luck is bad. How about summoning next time instead?" Little Nora consoled him. Hearing that, Yu Xian's stubborn streak flared right up. He decisively commanded the Chaos Evil Beast to stomp this Dimwitted Puppy to death and kept summoning. One Dimwitted Puppy after another was summoned, only to dissolve into bursts of white light. For every one that appeared, Yu Xian ordered the Chaos Evil Beast to crush it. He refused to believe this would go on forever. Before long, the fourth wave of monsters arrived. A tremendous roar erupted from the distant woods as massive black serpents appeared one after another. Knocking down surrounding trees, they were outside the city in the blink of an eye, unhinging their jaws to spew pitch-black liquid at the city walls. Xielina instantly drew the State-Guarding Ward Sword, and the Twelve Knights manifested once more. These Twelve Knights were special summons; even if slain countless times, as long as the State-Guarding Ward Sword was not destroyed, they could respawn indefinitely. Moreover, while they were weak before Lin Xiaoxiao—amounting to total pushovers dispatched in a single punch each—in the face of other monsters, they were not weak in the slightest. One shield-bearing knight leapt swiftly from the ramparts, his shield gleaming midair to project an enormous semicircular barrier that effortlessly blocked the black liquid spewed by the countless black serpents. The remaining eleven knights then charged past on either side. One of them, wielding a greatsword, plummeted like a falling meteor and slammed his blade down upon a giant black serpent's head, splitting it in two on the spot. The other ten knights were just as formidable, either landing atop other giant black serpents to hack and slash furiously, or dropping to the ground to grapple with them head-on. Yu Xian, however, didn't spare them a single glance. He was still summoning—summoning through gritted teeth, summoning with a darkening scowl, summoning with blue veins bulging on his forehead. One Dimwitted Puppy after another was summoned. Feeling as though he was being blatantly mocked by this creature, he stubbornly dug in his heels to see just how many times it could show up. Occasionally, other monsters were summoned, but Yu Xian had already seen red and ruthlessly ordered the Chaos Evil Beast to stomp every emerging summon flat. Mount Goats, Flying Bats, Hook-Claw Demonic Apes—every last one died. Under normal circumstances, even if they were cannon fodder, Yu Xian would have kept them around to serve their purpose. But right now, all he wanted was to find out what in the world was going on with this Dimwitted Puppy. After summoning an untold number of Dimwitted Puppies, the magic circle suddenly erupted with dazzling radiance. Even Yu Xian's attention was hooked by the glow. Had he hit the jackpot? Then again, it made sense; he had triggered the skill so many times that he was due for a top-tier summoned beast through sheer numbers. Surely it couldn't still be a Dimwitted Puppy. The thought had barely crossed his mind when he saw a cross-eyed, tongue-lolling puppy slowly emerge from the glow. "Chaos Evil Beast, stomp it to death!" Yu Xian's face warped with rage as he roared out bluntly. The Chaos Evil Beast faithfully stomped down, flattening the Dimwitted Puppy beneath its sole. This time, however, the puppy didn't dissolve into white light. Under the impact, its body popped like a balloon filled with milk, splattering a copious amount of white liquid that rapidly morphed in midair before landing on the ground as two Dimwitted Puppies. "..." Yu Xian's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Staring at the Dimwitted Puppies on the ground, he noticed this one was actually slightly different from the previous ones—it had a crown over its head! The crown was exceedingly tiny, and rather than resting on the puppy's head, it hovered just above it. Because the crown was so minuscule and Yu Xian had been in a blind frenzy earlier, he hadn't noticed its existence. Now, the two Dimwitted Puppies on the ground were quite easy to distinguish: one had a crown, and the other did not. Which was the real body and which was the clone was obvious at a glance. Yu Xian immediately looked toward the crowned puppy and decisively inspected its attributes: [Dimwitted Puppy] [Level: 44] [Skills:] [Hopelessly Dumb: Frequently forgets to breathe, suffocating itself to death.] [Muddleheaded: If it is unaware of being attacked upon taking a hit, the attack is negated.] [Mastermind Bulb: When the Dimwitted Puppy zones out, it occasionally has a spark of inspiration, creating an eternally glowing lightbulb.] [Command of the Hounds: Can issue commands to all Dimwitted Puppies split from itself, though they won't necessarily obey.] [Undying Fission: Upon suffering a fatal attack, its body does not die, but undergoes self-fission to create a Dimwitted Puppy clone to confound the opponent. The clone's level and inherited skills are completely random.] [Dimwit Aura: Centered around the Dimwit Crown upon its head, all enemies within a hundred-meter radius are affected by the aura, causing their intellect to decline into idiocy and making them prone to blunders.] [Size Shift on a Whim: Upon activating the skill, it can freely alter its body size, shrinking to as small as an ant or expanding to as large as a three-hundred-meter colossus. Shrinking grants an explosive boost to speed, while growing grants an explosive boost to defense.] [Patch and Mend: The Dimwitted Puppy can control its clones to patch any defect, with a chance of turning the target into a dimwit.] [Note: The true Dimwitted Puppy... probably.] ... ... Frowning as he looked over the Dimwitted Puppy's attributes, Yu Xian didn't know whether he should be happy or angry. How on earth had he summoned such a bizarre creature?