297: Chapter 298: Leg Repair

The atmospheric pressure plummeted precipitously in an instant.

A violent gale suddenly surged.

The sand and stones on the ground were whipped up into mid-air out of nowhere.

The air became thin and heavy, and every breath felt as though iron sand was being sucked into the lungs.

The sky changed.

The originally dim and gloomy clouds were completely torn apart.

Within a few seconds, the sky across the entire planet turned into a suffocating blood-red.

The winds and clouds changed color.

Those surviving civilians who had not gone mad in the first instance completely gave up struggling at this moment.

Feeling the terrifying pressure in the air that was enough to crush souls and looking at the apocalyptic blood-red color in the sky,

everyone despairingly closed their eyes.

They no longer prayed or cried, but simply lay quietly on the ground, awaiting the fate of death and having their souls devoured.

This was a Khorne Bloodthirster, a pure generator of despair on the battlefield.

On the other side,

the players stood in place; not only did no one retreat, but instead, they craned their necks and pointed at the ten-meter-tall demon.

Player Pi She, carrying a newly looted epic battleaxe, sidled up to Flame Fist and looked the distant behemoth up and down with a slight frown.

"This Greater Daemon doesn't feel as oppressive as that previous Norn Emissary? What's going on?" Player Pi She rubbed his chin.

Flame Fist did not answer immediately.

He narrowed his eyes and carefully scrutinized the Bloodthirster in the distance.

After a moment, Flame Fist spoke.

"Judging by its appearance, this Khorne Greater Daemon shouldn't be very high-level."

"How so?" Player Pi She became interested.

Flame Fist raised his Warhammer and pointed the hammerhead at the Greater Daemon's body.

"Look at its armor; the brass armor only covers the chestplate, pauldrons, and waist, and the design is very simple, basically focusing purely on practical protection. Look closely—there are hardly any extra decorations or pendants on the surface of the armor, and the luster of the brass is rather dim, not bright enough."

Then, Flame Fist pointed his hammerhead toward the Greater Daemon's head.

"Look at its skull again. It's a beastly face combining a canine and a bull, with only a pair of medium-sized curved horns on its head, relatively short fangs in its mouth, and very sparse mane on its neck. This is the most recognizable and most basic standard Bloodthirster face."

Flame Fist snapped his fingers.

"So I surmise that this guy should be around level forty-five to fifty. At most, it's just an eighth-rank Khorne Greater Daemon."

Player Pi She listened in a daze, then turned his head to look at Flame Fist in surprise.

"Good grief, how do you know all this so clearly? Are you related to it?"

The face beneath Flame Fist's helmet smiled smugly.

"Hehe."

He boasted,

"In real life, I actually have an out-of-print miniature model of Skarbrand the Exalted Greater Daemon. Back then, just to buy that thing, I spent a whole fifty pounds! Furthermore, for painting and tabletop gaming, I happened to flip through the rulebooks and background lore regarding Khorne Greater Daemons until they fell apart, so I still have this much discernment."

Player Pi She rubbed his hands together, his eyes lighting up.

"So what's the verdict? Can we beat it?"

"Of course we can beat it."

Flame Fist's tone was relaxed, even carrying a hint of excitement,

"The ranks of Khorne Greater Daemons are categorized very finely, ranging from the eighth rank to the fourth rank. As long as our numbers are sufficient and our tactics are correct, our current equipment level can still handle them. But those famous Greater Daemons above the third rank are completely heaven-defying."

He paused and casually explained,

"For instance, Ka'bandha of the first rank—that's a monster that can go toe-to-toe with demigod-level Primarchs in the real universe. If something of that level came out, all of us would kick the bucket in this square today."

"Understood. Not a top-tier boss, then it's just a dish on the table." Player Pi She licked his lips.

Flame Fist nodded, then opened up the public communication channel for the entire legion.

"Brothers!"

Flame Fist's booming voice exploded inside every player's helmet.

"The BOSS has appeared!"

"This time, our faction BOSS isn't on the scene. When we encounter a big monster, we can only rely on ourselves!"

Flame Fist laughed heartily,

"This is the first Warp Greater Daemon boss of the entire server! It's our first time fighting one too; we have no experience and no guide. Everyone just improvise! Slash however you want! Empty its health bar!"

A brief silence ensued.

Then,

a deafening roar erupted across the players' channel.

"Awoooo!"

"Snag the first kill! Snag the first kill!"

"Blow up its gear! I've got my eyes on that axe! No one else is taking it from me!"

"Charge, brothers! Snap its horns off to use as decorations!"

The torrent of steel formed by nearly ten thousand players completely filled the ruins of the Pilgrimage Square.

Among this batch of players, veterans made up the vast majority.

Their average levels were generally stable around level thirty-five.

Taken individually, this group's physical attributes had already completely reached the standards of Primaris Space Marines.

To counter high-intensity close combat, most of the veterans had chosen heavy armor.

The price of maxed-out defense was restricted mobility.

The ten-thousand-man charging formation looked somewhat heavy and sluggish.

However, the newbies who had just entered the game didn't have this concern.

Their levels were low, and they were still wearing basic Ranger Power Armor.

Looking at the final boss whose health bar was glowing deep red, these rookies had green lights in their eyes and ran faster than anyone else.

"Charge, charge, charge! Snag the first strike!"

"The credit for the first kill is mine!"

Hundreds of newbies took the lead, howling as they rushed right to the feet of the Khorne Greater Daemon.

However, once they actually stood before the Greater Daemon, they realized the disparity in size.

The average height of the rookie players was close to two meters, which could already be considered stalwart.

But this Bloodthirster that had squeezed out from the Warp was nearly ten meters tall.

Standing before it, the newbies—who were barely two meters tall—couldn't even reach its knees.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Several newbies wielded Chainswords and power axes, hacking fiercely at the calves of the Greater Daemon.

Sparks flew in all directions.

"Holy shit, this armor calculation is way too absurd!"

"Brothers, this isn't fighting a boss—this fucking thing is giving it a pedicure!"

"I can't even cut through its leg hair!"

The newbies hollered in the channel.

This scrapers-like attack did not anger the Greater Daemon; it merely made it feel a wave of irritation.

Lowering its head, the Bloodthirster cast a glance at the tiny bugs at its feet as if looking at mere flies.

It didn't swing the battleaxe in its right hand, but casually flicked its left hand.

"Crack—"

The air was whipped into a sonic boom.

That blood-whip, composed of dark red energy and barbs, whipped up a crimson afterimage in mid-air as it swept horizontally across the ground.

"Splat!"

Without suspense or resistance,

seven or eight newbies charging at the very front didn't even have time to scream before they were brutally cleaved in half at the waist.

Blood spewed forth, and internal organs spilled all over the ground.

Having casually instantly killed a few bugs, the Khorne Greater Daemon felt no excitement whatsoever.

Slaughtering the weak could not please the Blood God; it needed more valuable skulls.

It raised its head.

Those eyes burning with sulfurous flames pierced through the chaotic battlefield, locking directly onto that gleaming set of heavy armor in the distance.

It could sense that the most powerful physical body present was hidden there.

On a high platform not far away,

Chaos Lord Grimal, weakened to the extreme by the sacrifice, watched those gray-armored soldiers drop dead instantly and couldn't help bursting into wild laughter.

"Hahahaha!"

As Grimal laughed, black blood trickled from the corners of his mouth,

"Tremble! Beg! Fear! Before the Blood God's attendant, you lackeys of the False Emperor have only death ahead of you!"

His laughter echoed across the square.

But the players had no time to pay attention to him at all.

Their initial charge having suffered a setback, the newbies instantly recognized reality.

"We can't fight it head-on! This mob has level suppression!"

"Fall back to the edge and observe! Look for chances to land crowd control!"

"Change tactics! Stop feeding kills!"

The newbies instantly scattered in all directions like startled birds.

Refusing to stubbornly try and clip its toenails anymore, they flexibly shuttled around the periphery of the battlefield instead.

Soon, they found a new job.

At the edge of the square, a large number of civilians who had been scared witless by the Greater Daemon's presence were still collapsed on the ground.

"Drag these NPCs away! Don't get in the way here and block the path for us veteran players to charge!"

Several newbies rushed forward, hoisting a civilian each and sprinting toward distant cover as if carrying sacks of grain.

"There might even be hidden escort quest rewards, hurry up and move them!"

The civilians, who had originally closed their eyes to await death, suddenly felt their bodies grow light as they were roughly tucked under someone's armpit and sprinted away.

Opening their eyes, their minds went completely blank as they looked at these extremely bizarre, gibberish-spouting gray-armored giants.

They couldn't tell whether this was a rescue or a kidnapping.

But at least they had escaped that fatal crimson slaughterhouse.

Just as the newbies scattered,

the true core main force arrived.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Uniform, heavy footsteps shattered the stone flags.

The veteran players, standing just over two meters tall, slammed into the Bloodthirster like a dark-gray steel rampart.

Even when it came to clipping its toenails, the damage dealt by the veteran players was completely different from that of the newbies.

"Activate the power fields! Smash it into the gaps of its joints!"

More than a dozen high-frequency oscillating power hammers slammed simultaneously into the Greater Daemon's ankles and knees. Blood burst forth, and the Greater Daemon let out a deafening roar.

It was finally enraged.

"Roar—"

The twin-headed battleaxe in the Bloodthirster's right hand chopped down fiercely.

That axe was no mortal weapon.

Wailing demonic souls coiled around the axe blade; it was a living, terrifying instrument of slaughter in its own right.

"Clang—snap!"

A heavy-armor player holding an adamantium tower shield tried to withstand it head-on.

But when the battleaxe descended, it was like a hot knife through butter.

The adamantium tower shield, along with the player's heavy armor, was instantly cleaved in two.

Without the slightest pause.

Take a hit from that axe, and no matter how thick your armor was, you'd kick the bucket immediately.

Brush against even a fraction of it, and you'd still suffer severe injuries or lost limbs.

This was absolute numerical suppression, a dimensional reduction strike by a plane-level weapon.

Yet,

this group of creatures before the Greater Daemon defied all common sense.

A teammate was cleaved in half, spraying blood all over the face of the player beside him.

Far from retreating, that player instead took advantage of the recovery frames after the Greater Daemon's battleaxe struck the ground, scrambling up the axe handle onto the back of the Greater Daemon's hand, and jammed the plasma grenade in his hand straight into the gap of the Greater Daemon's brass gauntlet.

"Boom!"

The grenade detonated, blowing off a piece of the Greater Daemon's fingernail.

That player was likewise crushed into a pulp by the Greater Daemon's backhand.

But this was only the beginning.

Ten thousand people, covering the skies and earth.