45: Chapter 45 Kill the King

Life Gift!

Lin Yan's right hand shot out toward Shen Bing, his palm aimed at her chest. The moment the skill activated, he felt as if his heart had been gripped by someone.

A massive surge of power was drained from his body; 30% of his current health, over ten thousand HP, poured out of him like water from an opened floodgate.

A pale golden light shot from Lin Yan's palm and landed precisely on Shen Bing.

The light exploded across her body, forming a translucent golden shield that wrapped around her like armor cast from light. Fine runes flowed along the edges of the shield—the additional 20% max health shield granted by Life Gift, a protective layer of over seven thousand HP.

The bone axe came crashing down.

The axe blade slammed into the golden shield with a dull, thunderous boom. The shield flickered violently, and cracks spread from the point of impact, but it did not shatter. With the Tyrant's 2000 points of physical attack power plus skill bonuses, this axe strike was enough to cleave an ordinary person in two, but the shield from Life Gift held firm.

The massive impact sent Shen Bing flying, her body tracing an arc through the air like a kite with a broken string. The shield shattered the moment she was sent flying, golden fragments scattering in the air like a swarm of glowing butterflies.

Lin Yan rushed forward and caught her.

He wrapped his left arm around her waist and supported her back with his right, spinning once to stabilize them against the force of the impact.

Shen Bing rested her head on his shoulder, her face pressed against his neck. Her body was trembling—an instinctive reaction as the adrenaline faded. Her fingers gripped his collar tightly, her knuckles turning white.

"It's over," Lin Yan said.

Shen Bing didn't speak; she simply buried her face in his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut. She could hear his heartbeat—steady and strong, beat by beat, as if telling her that they were still alive, that they were both still alive.

Lin Yan set Shen Bing down and had her lean against a pillar in the corner.

"Don't move," Lin Yan said, then turned to face the Tyrant.

The Tyrant stood in the center of the large open space, its dark red slit pupils fixed on Lin Yan, a low, guttural growl rumbling in its throat.

It did not understand what that light was, nor did it understand why the woman hadn't died. But it knew that the speed and strength of the prey before it were constantly climbing, and it smelled a dangerous aura coming from Lin Yan.

Lin Yan walked over.

No running, no sprinting; he just walked over, step by step. His boots crunched on the gravel and broken glass, each step steady—so steady that the Tyrant's slit pupils narrowed bit by bit with each of his strides.

The Tyrant gripped its bone axe, dark red light igniting on the blade once more. It opened its mouth, let out a low roar, and charged toward Lin Yan.

The bone axe swept horizontally with a piercing whistle, the blade's trajectory leaving a dark red afterimage in the air.

Lin Yan didn't dodge. He crouched slightly, clenched his right fist, and extended his bone spurs, the dark red light of Blood Burning Strike igniting on his knuckles. On the surface of the blood rage ring, the intricate web of blood-red veins had already been fully charged during the previous battle.

Every one of the Tyrant's counterattacks had dealt damage to Lin Yan, and all that lost health had been stored by the ring.

Ten thousand points, not a single drop less.

The moment the axe came down, Lin Yan's body tilted sharply to the right, and the blade slammed into the ground, grazing his left shoulder.

The earth cracked, and gravel erupted like a volcanic explosion. The floor of the entire open space split down the middle, and fissures spread crazily in all directions.

A load-bearing pillar snapped.

Under the Tyrant's axe, the last load-bearing pillar completely snapped, and the entire building let out a teeth-grinding sound of twisting metal. The ceiling collapsed like a waterfall, floor after floor caving in, filling the entire space with dust and debris.

The ground beneath Lin Yan's feet gave way.

He and the Tyrant plummeted from the twentieth floor, passing through the fifteenth and tenth floors, crashing toward the ground amidst a torrent of gravel and concrete blocks.

In the moment of the fall, Lin Yan saw the Tyrant's eyes.

There was no fear in those dark red slit pupils, only madness. Even while falling, it still tried to raise its axe to strike Lin Yan, but Lin Yan was faster.

He adjusted his posture in mid-air, pushed off a falling concrete slab with both feet, and launched himself at the Tyrant.

All the bone spurs on his right fist extended, and the intricate blood-red veins on the surface of the blood rage ring glowed to the extreme. The ten thousand points of stored additional damage were all poured into this single punch.

Blood Burning Strike activated simultaneously, and dark red light ignited on his fist.

The two forces combined and slammed into the center of the Tyrant's chest.

"Bang!"

The bone spurs pierced through the Tyrant's skin, muscle, and ribs, erupting out of its back. Dark red bodily fluids gushed from both the front and back wounds, splattering all over Lin Yan.

[Erosion Effect: 25 stacks, target's dual defense -500]

The Tyrant's body stiffened abruptly in the fall.

Its slit pupils contracted sharply, then dilated just as sharply, and for the first time, an expression other than rage appeared on its gray-white face.

Lin Yan and the Tyrant crashed onto the ruins together.

Gravel and dust spread outward like a tsunami, creating a crater several meters deep in the ground. The Tyrant's body lay at the bottom of the pit, blood gushing from the fist-sized hole in its chest, the dark red fluid pooling among the rubble.

Its fingers were still twitching slightly, and its dark red slit pupils slowly lost their luster.

[Ding! Successfully killed Level 12 BOSS Tyrant, gained 1200 EXP!]

[Current EXP: 10700/20000]

[Dungeon system notification: Killed Dungeon BOSS, obtained additional reward—Free Attribute Points +5.]

[hextech system notification: Killed Dungeon BOSS, permanently increased Prismatic-rank hextech refresh probability by +0.5%]

[Current Prismatic-rank hextech refresh probability: 1.5% → 2%]

Lin Yan rolled off the Tyrant's corpse and lay on the gravel at the bottom of the pit, panting heavily. His left arm was still numb, the web of his hand was still bleeding, and he was covered from head to toe in dust and the Tyrant's bodily fluids, looking as if he had just crawled out of a trash heap.

Shen Bing slid down from the ruins, ran to his side, and asked with concern.

"Are you okay?"

Lin Yan lay still, looking up at the gray-yellow sky, breathing heavily.

The ruins of the building piled up into a small hill around them, dust still floating in the air, and sunlight leaked through the cracks, casting long, thin beams of light onto his face.

"As long as I'm not dead," he said, gasping for air.

Shen Bing crouched down, reached out to pull his arm, and tried to drag him up from the bottom of the pit. Lin Yan used her help to sit up and exercised his numb left arm; the bones were fine, just soft tissue contusions.

The Special Grade Health Potion was restoring his health at a rate of nearly one thousand points per second, and he would be back to full health in a moment.

He stood up, walked over to the Tyrant's corpse, and bent down to loot the drops.

Three hundred low-rank dimensional crystals were piled into a small heap, shimmering with a dim light against the rubble.

A skill book glowed with blue light, the pattern on its cover depicting a giant axe cleaving the earth.

[Obtained passive skill book: Tyrants Body]

[Quality: Blue Rare]

[Skill Effect: Enter Berserk state when HP is below 30%; Attack Power +20%, Attack Speed +30%, Movement Speed +20%; restore 1% of Max HP every 3 seconds; possess great resistance to control effects like stun, knock-up, and slow]

[Learning Requirement: Level > 15, Strength ≥ 60]

A dark gray chest plate with rugged bone textures on its surface, identical to the armor the Tyrant had been wearing. The chest plate was heavy, and holding it, one could feel a thick, bloody power flowing within it.

[Obtained equipment: Tyrant Armor · Level 15]

[Quality: Purple Epic]

[Effect: Max HP +10000, Physical Defense +500, Magic Defense +500. When attacked, there is a 20% chance to trigger the "Tyrant's Wrath" effect, reducing the target's overall Attack Speed and Movement Speed by 25% for 6 seconds]

[Equip Requirement: Level ≥ 15, Constitution ≥ 100]

There was one more thing.

A fist-sized, dark red crystal core rolled out of the Tyrant's shattered chest cavity, landing on the rubble with a crisp sound.

Dark red light flowed slowly inside the crystal core, like a flame sealed in amber.

[Obtained item: Tyrant Crystal Core · Rare Material]

[Description: Core material of the Level 12 BOSS Tyrant; can be used to craft high-level equipment or as an evolution material for abilities.]

Lin Yan put the items into his carapace belt one by one. Looking at his skills and equipment, he felt that he was becoming more and more like a humanoid monster.

Lin Yan climbed out of the pit, with Shen Bing following behind.

"Let's go," Lin Yan said.