It was only the briefest exchange yet four people had died. The others were shocked and furious.

“Dammit! What a tough bastard!” the Slayer cursed. Nie Yan hadn’t logged on in three years. If it were any other player, their skills would’ve reset to factory settings. One could easily imagine how domineering he was during his prime. “Watch him closely. Don’t let him escape!”

𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Two Spectral Thieves circled in on Nie Yan. Meanwhile, the four Necromancers planted detection eyes in a 600-meter wide area to prevent him from escaping.

The Mystic and Slayer pursued Nie Yan relentlessly from behind.

“Annihilation Slash has a long cooldown. He won’t be able to use it again any time soon. Since he’s been grinding all this time in the Dark Demonic Space, he likely hasn’t learned any new skills either. All we have to watch out for are scrolls. Don’t give him any time to use them!” the Mystic shouted. “If we can kill Nirvana Flame, Black Spear will reward us handsomely!”

The other members felt their dwindling confidence reinvigorated. They would kill Nirvana Flame, no matter what! Their levels were all higher than his. They had crossed paths with countless experts before, undaunted. Today wouldn’t be any different!

However, it was still a fact that Nie Yan managed to take out four of their members while being outnumbered 12 to one. His strength wasn’t to be underestimated.

Nie Yan glanced at his skill bar. Most of his skills were still available. However, his high damage ones were on cooldown. He could only rely on his crowd control skills. The enemy was with many, so they could save each other. Thankfully, none of them played a healing class.

Nie Yan’s eyes landed on the Necromancers. “You lot first.” He shot forward with Gale Step.

“Stop him!” a Necromancer shouted.

Bone walls shot up from the ground in front of Nie Yan. He had no choice but to carefully dodge them. Even though these bone walls were relatively weak, shattering in a single hit, they had virtually no cooldown and were instant casts. If a Thief were to be boxed in by them, they would be skewered by countless bone spurs.

Nie Yan leaped into the air, soaring over the bone walls. As he came falling back to the ground, he stabbed toward the Necromancer with his dagger.

The Necromancer was a veteran of many battles. He was no stranger to the erratic attacks of Thieves. Seeing Nie Yan coming down on him, he kept his calm. With a wave of his staff, a golden skeleton appeared in front of him. It was three meters tall and held a large bone shield.

Nie Yan flicked his wrist and summoned Lil’ Gold, whose massive frame rammed into the skeleton, smashing it into pieces.

“It’s his Golden Dragon!” the Necromancer anxiously shouted as he hurriedly retreated back.

“Don’t worry! I have Spirit Awe. It can’t do anything to us!” the Mystic said cooly.

Nie Yan glanced at Lil’ Gold’s status. He was indeed affected by Spirit Awe. He couldn’t move, nor use any long ranged attacks. This skill completely crippled pets!

However, Nie Yan didn’t care much for this. His objective for summoning Lil’ Gold wasn’t to kill anyone, but rather to function as cover while he activated Shadow Clone.

Distracted by the collision between Lil’ Gold and the golden skeleton, the enemy players unknowingly lost track of Nie Yan.

“Wait. Where did Nirvana Flame go?”

“Huh, I don’t know!”

“Be careful guys!” the Mystic shouted. As the words left his mouth, he saw a faint silhouette dashing towards one of the Necromancers. “He’s over there!”

The several melee classes all charged toward the silhouette.

With those players lured away by his shadow clone, Nie Yan activated Gale Step and Extreme Disappear and appeared behind one of the Necromancers.

The Necromancer’s attention was focused on the silhouette in the far distance. He didn’t expect an ambush. By the time he sensed something wrong, his feet were already locked to the ground.

Confirming his Extreme Intimidate was effective, Nie Yan struck the Necromancer in the back of the head with Smothering Strike. Then he followed up with an elbow strike, Backstab, and Lacerate. After completing the 3-hit combo, he fled away.

The melee class players were several dozens of meters away chasing the shadow clone. There were two Necromancers nearby. However, by the time they noticed something was wrong, Nie Yan had already completed his 3-hit combo.

Two spells flew toward Nie Yan. He quickly evaded the attacks with Disappear.

After taking the 3-hit combo, the Necromancer only had 6,000 health left. By the time the stun wore off, two 3,000s from bleed damage floated up above his head. He didn’t even have the time to drink a health potion before collapsing to the ground.

“What happened?” The Mystic frowned.

“He probably used his Shadow Clone skill!” The Slayer glanced at the silhouette they were chasing after. If what they were chasing after was just a clone, they were wasting their time.

“Everyone, regroup!” the Mystic shouted. Nirvana Flame had already summoned his shadow clone. If he wanted to escape, he could’ve easily done so by now. But he was still here. It looked like he wanted to kill them all!

The seven still alive regrouped. Five of their brothers were already dead. Their losses were heavy. The only upside was that they had managed to retrieve all the fallen equipment.

“What do we do?”

“Let’s give up on chasing him. In a bit, we’ll have reinforcements arriving. If he wants to run, there’s nothing we can do about it,” the Mystic said. If they continued on like this, they would only lose more.

Nie Yan recalled Lil’ Gold, then lingered around on the outskirts. Seeing the seven players huddled close together, he guessed they’d had enough.

Nie Yan smirked. If they wanted to kill him, they would have to prove they had the ability first!

Even now when these players were huddled close together, he could still kill a few and escape in one piece. However, it would waste a lot of time, and he would have to brave a certain risk. Looking in the distance, it seemed like some Righteous Faction players were rushing over. He decided to put an end to this bout of fun. He would turn in his Dark Demon Fragments, then continue levelling!

Nie Yan made his way back to the entrance to the Dark Demonic Space.

The seven Evil Faction players stuck closely together in place until they were absolutely certain Nie Yan had left.

“He should have left by now, right?”

“I think so.”

The Mystic was about to have everyone withdraw, when he discovered a large group of Righteous Faction players moving to surround them.

“It’s Asskickers United!” The Mystic’s face paled. Before their reinforcements even arrived, they had alerted the players from Asskickers United. There were 70 players in total. All of them were well over Level 180. They were doomed!

Nie Yan had long since left. Unaware of what was happening to those seven players, he entered the Dark Demonic Space.

“Welcome, brave adventurer. How may I help you?” Angel Gower asked.

“I’d like to turn in my Dark Demonic Fragments.” Nie Yan handed over all the fragments he’d collected over the past couple of weeks.

On the leaderboards for the Dark Demonic Space, the previous rank one person had turned in 370,000 Dark Demonic Fragments. Nie Yan became the new number one after turning in a total of 890,000 Dark Demonic Fragments.

Two crisp notification jingles rang out. Nie Yan directly levelled up from Level 177 to Level 179.

The reward for turning in so many Dark Demonic Fragments was quite generous. Apart from the high mob density, this was another reason the Dark Demonic Space was lauded as the best levelling place. If a powerful Mage were to grind here, their levelling speed would be several dozens of times faster than outside.

Nie Yan wondered what sort of item this Dark Demon Crystal was. He checked his inventory and found a long strip of black crystal. It emitted a faint black glow, its colour was muddled and clouded.

Nie Yan examined the item.

Use: Feed to any pet and transform their attribute to Chaos. All stats +30%. Greatly increases Growth Rate.

Nie Yan couldn’t help but wonder what the Unique on the item meant. Could it be that this was a one of a kind item?

This was the most likely explanation. As for who to use this item on, the Divine Eclipse Dragon came to mind. Nie Yan wondered if it could get even stronger.

At the thought alone, Nie Yan became incredibly excited.

The Divine Eclipse Dragon’s Growth Rate was already quite high. Furthermore, Nie Yan’s Dragon King’s Divine Might skill gave a large stat boost to all dragons, bringing its power to an even more ludicrous level. If it could get even stronger, then no one else could compete!

Nie Yan started realizing something. The Divine Eclipse Dragon was his ticket back to the peak. Even though pets had become mostly irrelevant in PvP and boss fights, their mobbing abilities had been buffed as compensation, and the amount of experience they required for every level up was also greatly reduced. Like this, it was fairly easy to make a powerful pet, allowing them to carry their masters to higher levels. His Divine Eclipse Dragon was undoubtedly the most powerful pet in the game. If he fed it the Dark Demon Crystal and made it even stronger, he wouldn’t have to worry about catching up in level at all. As he progressed to higher level maps, he would naturally have more opportunities to find better equipment!

“Great Prophet, may I ask if you have an item called the Death God’s Edge on your person?” Gower asked.

“I do.” Nie Yan nodded. Why would Gower ask about this now and not earlier? Could it be because he had handed over a certain number of Dark Demonic Fragments?

Nie Yan keenly sensed that he was about to receive a major quest.

“Archangel Tallod has already been waiting for you at the Gates of Hell for a long time,” Gower said.

“How am I supposed to find him?” Nie Yan asked. The topography of the Gates of Hell was extremely complicated. Even up until now, the players levelling there hadn’t discovered so much as a trace of Archangel Tallod. If he went over there, even if he flipped the whole map over, he might not necessarily find Tallod!

“I can teleport you to him right now,” Gower said.