If it were only a single Level 3 Witch Doctor, even one whose experience value had reached ninety percent, the official walkers would have been able to kill him using human-wave tactics. Capturing him alive would have been much harder, but still doable.
Now that they faced four powerful enemies, however, the situation was completely different. Who was the hunter and who was the prey was truly hard to say.
Zhang Yuanqing remained secretly vigilant. He sensed how tricky things had become, but he did not panic. He quietly drew closer to Li Dongze and Guan Ya. He had plenty of trump cards at his disposal; if the situation took a sudden turn for the worse, he would prioritize keeping the two of them alive.
Captain Qingteng's pretty face grew grim. Her gaze swept over the four gu beasts, and she said in a heavy voice:
"Bailong, Big Guy, the two of you work together to keep Unbridled occupied. Li Dongze, your evasion is high, so handle that spider woman. I'll take on the insect. Tang Guoqiang, the snake is yours.
"Guan Ya, your marksmanship is good, so handle spot-fire support. Yuanshi, you're on ambush duty—play it by ear. Everyone else, pick a captain to support, and pay attention to team composition.
"Once we deal with the three monsters, we'll join forces to surround and kill Unbridled."
Everyone answered in unison, "Understood."
Da Jiba made the first move. A fireball rose from his palm. Gripping it, he took a step forward and hurled it with all his might.
Unbridled stood where he was and merely tilted his head. The scorching fireball grazed his neck and shattered against the wall behind him.
With a booming crash, sparks sprayed out, but instead of dispersing, they condensed into a burly figure—Da Jiba.
This was the active skill of a Level 3 Fire Master—Fire Walk!
Within a twenty-meter radius, one could travel through fire to achieve an effect similar to teleportation.
Closing the distance with the skill, Da Jiba burst into scorching flames, his aura turning violent in an instant as he unleashed a rapid flurry of strikes right up against Unbridled.
Thud, thud, thud!
Punches rained down on Unbridled's chest, abdomen, and cheeks, striking sparks and sending the Witch Doctor stumbling backward.
Step, step, step... Unbridled regained his footing, shot his hand out to clamp onto Da Jiba's wrist, and grinned.
"Nice boxing! Stings a bit!"
With that, he kicked Da Jiba in the lower abdomen.
Like a soccer ball booted by the national team, Da Jiba went flying diagonally through the air, crashing heavily against the wall at the other end of the corridor and causing the entire structure to shudder violently.
This was not a deficit in technique, but a sheer gap in strength. The gu insect Unbridled had assimilated was characterized by defense and power.
At the same moment Da Jiba was kicked away, Bailong rode a surge of clear water beneath her feet, carried upward by the surging stream to the second floor.
She did not use the long blade strapped to the back of her hand. Instead, she conjured two spheres of water in her palms and slammed them toward Unbridled.
"Courting death!"
To Unbridled, such an attack was full of openings—practically suicide.
He pulled his arm back into a fist, briefly gathering power. Muscles bulged across his body as he drove his fist forward like a spear, thrusting straight toward Bailong's head.
Splash!
Bailong's head burst apart, scattering into sprays of water droplets, only to recondense an instant later.
Her momentum unabated, she shoved the spheres of water against Unbridled's chest.
With a continuous sizzling hiss, the scales that Da Jiba had just burned red-hot erupted in billows of white steam.
Bang, bang! Two gunshots followed immediately.
Unbridled felt a sharp pain in his chest. His nearly impenetrable scales had actually cracked under the bullets.
Subjected to alternating extremes of heat and cold, the scales had turned brittle.
"You damn wench..."
Furious, his amber slit pupils glared down at Guan Ya in the living room.
Guan Ya ignored him. She did not keep shooting either, because the others still needed her spot-fire support.
Down below, the spacious living room was in utter chaos.
The sole Night Wanderer hid in a corner, calmly observing the battle without rushing to act, maintaining the patience befitting an assassin.
To the west of the living room, the spider woman faced Li Dongze, two Earth Monsters, and two Wood Demons.
Supported by four legs, the spider woman reared her upper body high, while her other four legs struck out like lances in rapid thrusts, leaving behind a flurry of afterimages.
Li Dongze held her attention from the front. With parries, swings, and thrusts, he managed to deflect attacks from the four "lances" coming at him from all angles, relying solely on his cane.
He seemed able to anticipate the spider woman's attack trajectories. Whenever parrying became impossible, he relied on nimble footwork to dodge.
Though perilous, he managed to turn danger into safety every time.
The two Wood Demons, renowned for their agility and swiftness, circled the spider woman, shooting at her abdomen and head. Every shot struck true, the bullets tearing into her swollen, pitch-black spider belly and spilling yellow-green fluid.
The spider woman lacked formidable defense, yet she possessed terrifying regenerative abilities as well as remarkable agility. The wounds torn open by the bullets restored themselves in seconds.
The Decurion's close-combat skills are actually this good? Sorry, Decurion, I shouldn't have called you a 75-gold ward... Zhang Yuanqing watched, dumbfounded.
To the south of the living room, Captain Qingteng, a Level 3 Wood Demon, led two Water Ghosts and two Fire Masters in an exceptionally fierce brawl against the insect man. With every punch and kick, tables and chairs splintered and the floor cracked.
This lovely, cheongsam-clad woman possessed frightening brute strength, holding her own in raw power. Teaming up with her squad members, she had even managed to suppress the insect man.
The one making the least noise was Tang Guoqiang, who was locked in combat with the human-headed serpent monster. Wearing his miner's helmet, the middle-aged man held the snake's tail. Planted firmly on the ground, he drew inexhaustible power from the earth, standing unshakeable as a mountain.
The giant snake coiled furiously around him, its body gradually tightening and muscles rippling as it attempted to crush its enemy's bones. Yet the Earth Monster's thick hide and flesh made him like a solid lump of iron.
The serpent tried striking with its venomous fangs, but the miner's helmet created a khaki curtain of light each time, blocking strike after strike.
The two sides were locked in a temporary stalemate.
Guan Ya had her arms spread wide, switching stances continuously to support the entire battlefield, firing alternately at the spider woman and the insect man.
Even with Da Jiba and Bailong teaming up, they're still being suppressed. They won't last long. The three gu beasts must be dealt with as quickly as possible... Zhang Yuanqing observed the enemies' characteristics, weighing which item to use.
The Dream-Traversing Jade Talisman was meant for saving lives, and the entity it summoned was a Sovereign-stage evil profession; unless pushed to the absolute extreme, he could not use it lightly.
The red bridal veil had limited uses, making it another bottom-of-the-trunk trump card.
As for the red dancing shoes, these monsters either had extraordinary defense or possessed self-healing abilities. The shoes could suppress them, but could not kill them in a short time, and using them would expose that he possessed a rule-based item.
Back when he killed Ou Xiangrong, the red dancing shoes had firmly suppressed that Bewitching Demon, gradually grinding him to death.
The most terrifying aspect of that rule-based item was not its destructive power, but its relentless, irresistible pursuit.
None of them seem to be using items yet... Makes sense. Not every Spirit Realm walker gets to own items. Mine were all bought with my life. Xie Lingxi has three items, but she survived an S-rank scenario and is the young miss of a Spirit Realm family...
There's another strange thing. These monsters should all be Spirit Realm walkers, so why haven't they used any skills? Is it an aftereffect of the modification, or because losing their sanity made it hard to control their skills?
As Zhang Yuanqing pondered this, he suddenly saw Li Dongze fall into danger.
Li Dongze noticed the spider woman's abdomen spasm as she raised her head high.
Sensing danger, he instinctively dove to the side. The spot where he had just been standing was instantly smothered by a sticky mass of spiderwebbing.
Li Dongze rolled continuously as clump after clump of spider silk shot past him, but finally, a wad of silk struck his legs, pinning him firmly to the floor.
A blazing crimson light flared in the spider woman's eyes. Two iron-drill-like spider legs rose up and stabbed downward.
Bang, bang!
The two Wood Demons aimed at the spider woman's head and pulled their triggers.
The spider woman's head snapped to the side as if struck hard by a club, causing her entire body to stumble.
This saved Li Dongze's life. Of the two legs, one went wide and grazed his shoulder, while the other stabbed into the floor beside his waist.
"Hiss, hiss!"
Furious, the spider woman followed her vengeful instincts, abandoned Li Dongze, and lunged toward the Wood Demon who had shot her in the head.
The other two Earth Monsters dragged Li Dongze backward.
"Hiss..." Li Dongze sucked in a sharp breath of air. If the shoulder was throbbing with severe pain, his ankles felt as though boiling oil were being poured over them repeatedly.
The spider silk was intensely corrosive, perhaps even venomous.
"Decurion, are you all right!" Zhang Yuanqing rushed over.
Li Dongze glanced at himself. Covered in blood and looking utterly disheveled, he said helplessly, "Of course I'm not. This is very ungraceful.
"I can't fight anymore. Level 2 Earth Monsters can't block her thrusts, and Yuanshi, your evasion is a bit lacking—you can only launch ambushes, not keep her occupied head-on."
By now, the two Wood Demons were already in dire straits. While they possessed exceptional agility, they could not make predictions like Scouts.
That they had lasted this long was entirely thanks to Guan Ya's suppressing fire.
"Go help them, quick." Li Dongze frowned deeply.
The development on this side drew the attention of Tang Guoqiang, Qingteng, and the others, and the hearts of the official walkers sank.
Without Li Dongze, a Level 3 Scout, to tie her down, a few Level 2 walkers would never be able to hold the enemy. The balance would break. Not only would they have to face the foes in front of them, but they would also have to guard against sneak attacks from the spider woman.
Once an ambush succeeded and a few people died, the scales of victory would tip.
Furthermore, the battle on the second floor was fierce, and there was no telling how long Bailong and Da Jiba could hold out.
"Decurion, leave it to me," Zhang Yuanqing said with absolute confidence. "I've already seen through her tricks."
Zhang Yuanqing opened his inventory and drew out a slender yanagiba. Forty centimeters long, the blade gleamed with cold light.
Under Li Dongze's astonished gaze, Zhang Yuanqing reversed his grip and stabbed the knife directly into his own thigh.
In an instant, the item taken from the Bewitching Demon awakened, greedily sucking its master's vitality and blood. Zhang Yuanqing felt himself quickly growing weak...
The spider woman possessed self-healing abilities, so ordinary attacks did limited damage to her.
The bleeding effect of the Bloodthirsty Blade was the perfect counter to self-healing.
"Guan Ya, cover me!" Zhang Yuanqing shouted.
He entered the Night Walk state, his figure fading away inch by inch.
Guan Ya, who had been firing spot shots at Unbridled, pivoted on the ball of her foot. Twisting her waist to bring her arms around, she aligned her gun barrels with the spider woman and decisively pulled the trigger.
Compared to the Wood Demons' hit-or-miss marksmanship, Guan Ya's shooting was sharpshooting at its finest. Bullets slammed one after another into the spider woman's head, shoulders, and chest, sending blood splattering and flesh tearing open.
The barrage sent her stumbling.
The two Wood Demons felt a wave of relief and scrambled away in disarray, having nearly reached their limits.
As they ran, they looked back and fired at the spider woman. Suddenly, the two of them saw the spider woman's fair, slender neck mysteriously split open from one side, as if slit by some razor-sharp weapon.
Thump, thump, thump! Tilting sideways, the spider woman shifted her eight legs with dizzying speed, forcibly displacing herself a dozen centimeters to the side and evading decapitation.
A figure leaping into midair materialized in front of her.
Guan Ya slid her feet, adjusting her angle and preparing to fire to cover Zhang Yuanqing.
Just then, the spider woman, her carotid artery severed, opened her vivid red mouth until it split all the way to her ears, throwing her head back in a shrill screech.
Sound waves rolled out. Inside the villa, everyone—including the other three gu beasts—felt their brains buzz, their expressions freezing and their minds going blank.
The spider woman reared her upper body high, raising two forelegs and driving them down viciously.
Fuck, this woman was originally a Musician! In the nick of time, Zhang Yuanqing transferred the negative dizzying effect to Little Doubi inside him.
The curled-up, slumbering infant spirit kicked its little legs, as if having a nightmare.
Unable to dodge while suspended in midair, Zhang Yuanqing calmly opened his inventory and summoned the Steady One Orb.
The pointed spider legs plunged into him, only to be stopped by the khaki glow radiating from his body.
Using the impact to land, Zhang Yuanqing instantly returned the orb to his inventory, rolled to the side, and vanished, entering the Night Walk state once more.
He had confirmed one thing: these monsters still retained their original skills, but having lost their sanity, they could only rely on instinct to unleash abilities and could not manage delicate maneuvers.
Zhang Yuanqing sprang up and circled behind the spider woman. Thrusting the Bloodthirsty Blade deep into her swollen, fleshy abdomen, he ripped it sideways with all his strength.
The abdomen covered in hideous markings tore wide open. A massive torrent of yellow-green fluid surged out, accompanied by disgusting internal tissues.
Screaming, the spider woman sprang away, throwing her head back once more in a shrill screech as sound waves rolled through the air.
Her artery continued to gush blood. Her abdomen spasmed and wriggled as she tried desperately to regenerate the wound, but the bleeding effect suppressed the repair. She could only despairingly feel her life force slip away.
After a brief, dying frenzy of thrashing about, she collapsed by the window, twitching feebly, and finally died.
Chapter 75