"This is probably considered a self-created ability." YinKong quietly said.

The three teams suffered huge casualties after the battle. Those remaining were injured and exhausted. Most had lost the ability to continue this fight. The elves looked weak after losing much of their life force. This group looked more like a defeated army.

But at last, they protected the One Ring and the four Hobbits. The elves gave the group three green stones as a token to commemorate their glory before heading toward the sea.

The energy stone expert of the group, Gungnir, identified the stones as wood attribute rank C energy stones. They weren’t too valuable but it was better than nothing. Team Northern Ice Land and team Africa split the three stones due to the heavy casualties they suffered.

There was nothing Zheng could say against this decision. Compared to the two teams, no one in team China died, not even the newbies. They attributed this to luck. So while the two teams had negative team scores, team China’s score was still resting at zero. Furthermore, several of them killed the Ringwraiths and obtained their first rewards since entering the movie.

The injured people were treated afterward. Zheng’s left arm was a third away from falling off. The cut sliced through his bones and tendons. Much of the nerves were damaged. He was fortunate the Chaotic Unity Qi was able to suppress the black mist from the Ringwraith so his wound remained good. ChengXiao just needed to join the nerves on his arm and stick a Charm of the Three Pure Ones on it. The arm would heal in a few days.

Richard’s condition was much worse from being wounded by the sword. He didn’t have the Qi to suppress the black mist. When Zheng rushed to the battlefield and sent Qi into his body, he was at the brink of death. Thankfully ChengXiao could stimulate his body with the needles then Zheng’s Qi was powerful enough to suppress the black mist. Even then, the large opening on Richard’s chest revealed his beating heart. The wound on his artery was fatal. He needed to receive treatment within twelve hours.

There were two medics among the three teams. The medic from team Northern Ice Land could use the energy within wood attribute energy stones to heal. However, the girl only had the beginner rank ability. It consumed a lot of energy and its effect was limited. All she could do was maintain the ability and keep Richard alive. ChengXiao was much more professional. The effect from his needles were on par with the girl’s ability. He was also the only one that could conduct surgery on Richard’s artery.

"Let’s perform the surgery in Bree. The environment here isn’t suitable for big surgeries. We need warm water and a disinfected sealed room." ChengXiao said as he pierced needles into Richard.

The rest of the players struck by the Ringwraiths were dead. Their attacks were simply so powerful. You either avoided getting hit or got cut in halves.

Due to Richard’s injury, Xuan piloted the Sky Stick and went ahead with him and the two medics. The rest of the group continued to escort the Hobbits. Zheng finally found the opportunity to secretly ask YinKong on that powerful attack.

The Ringwraith only needed a few seconds to kill Xuan and the Hobbits behind him at the time. Zheng was looking through Xuan’s vision through the Soul Link. He saw the dark sword striking down from above. Then the light around the Ringwraith bended. When the light returned to normal, the Ringwraith and its horse were split into pieces.

Zheng asked. "What kind of attack was that? Why didn’t I see your attack? Was it from using Excalibur?"

Zheng and YinKong were walking on the tail of the group. Zheng sat on his skeleton horse. When the others learned of the Nightmare, they felt so much regret from killing several horses and even left one behind. Zheng went back using the Sky Stick and the horse was nowhere to be seen. It went away once the ice melted. In the end, he was the only one that obtained a mount.

YinKong said. "The Shining can raise my speed by over ten times for a short period of time. However, it’s different from your Explosion and Destruction in that it doesn’t raise my reaction speed. Which means this speed is only a burden to me instead of a powerful skill. This attack mimicked Rankyoku in Destruction. Since The Shining’s speed is faster than your Destruction and I don’t have as much strength and control compared to you, I changed the vacuum blade into an area of vacuum blades."

YinKong flicked her arms then said. "Getting the tenacity of muscles in all parts of the body to the same degree as our fingers is an assassin’s basic training. I think you have such experience. The speed from flicking a finger is faster than swinging your arm. It can even break through the sonic barrier which is impossible to achieve with your arm. Similarly, moving your arm is much faster than moving your whole body. When I am in The Shining, the speed of my body increases by ten times and the speed of my arms increases between fifty to a hundred times."

She entered the unlocked mode. Her arms grew slightly larger. As she entered The Shining, her arms swung at a speed barely visible to Zheng. He could see the light between him and YinKong bending. A force struck him from the front and almost pushed him off the horse. YinKong stopped so he got to stay on the horse. But he was overjoyed.

"That’s the second stage! The second stage! You made a breakthrough." He grabbed her shoulders and said with a surprise.

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

YinKong blushed. She pushed his hands off then tightened her coat. Her clothes were broken during the fight and they were outside the city. So she found a random coat and covered herself. This limited her from making any big movements.

"Swinging your arms like this requires tenacious muscle. My muscles can’t sustain such powerful force. If I use this attack with Excalibur at my full strength, the attack will be extremely destructive but my muscles will become exhausted afterward. Further movement can cause injury at that point. So I can only use it at critical moments. If the enemy escaped it, I will be without any strength to continue the fight." She sounded a little down.

Zheng said. "It doesn’t matter. This is a self-created ability. It doesn’t count in the difficulty rating. You can also use the attack at 100%. So that was why you could kill the Ringwraith in one attack. Practice more and enhance your physical stats. When you can use it multiple times, even I will not be a match for you. Haha. Oh and how many points you got from the Ringwraith?"

YinKong was looking downward. "5000 points and two rank B rewards."

"Really? So the horses really don’t give rewards. It’s unfortunately." Zheng smiled bitterly.

Another person from team China killed two Ringwraiths and that was Heng. Though he killed the earlier level Ringwraiths so the points and rewards weren’t much. Heng was still exhausted from using Charged Shot. A few newbies were half carrying him as they walked.

"Anyway, we passed this stage. It’s also a lesson that we shouldn’t underestimate this world. The movie characters are much stronger than we imagined. How powerful is Sauron when the Ringwraiths are already so strong? The last Ringwraith escaped back to Mordor. He’s the final fusion from nine Ringwraiths. Will we still be able to defeat it the next time he comes?" Zheng was pondering.

He was happy at his comrades growing stronger. YinKong made an improvement and Heng was overcoming his weakness. Team China also became stronger along with the members.

On the other hand, the Ringwraiths’ strike made him worry about their future. Can the alliance of their three teams take on the movie characters, the enemies who were still in the dark, and the two teams that had yet to appear?

They arrived at Bree in the afternoon.