Chapter 137: Three Bosses

Thousands of blazing skeletons and bandit evil spirits rushing forward wave after wave were all turned into ashes under Li Yunfei's Palm Divine Thunder.

With no more dungeon monsters rushing forward for the moment, Li Yunfei took the opportunity to check his status.

At this point, both of them had reached level 52. Li Yunfei found that his physical strength had increased by 2 points, while his soul strength had increased by 4 points.

Honghong was just the opposite: her physical strength increased by 4 points, and her soul strength increased by 2 points.

From this, it appeared that every time they leveled up now, they would receive 3 attribute points, which they could then allocate themselves according to their own characteristics.

The Super Skeleton Warrior only gained 2 attribute points per level, with 1 point added to physical strength and 1 point to soul strength respectively.

Dungeon monsters were still somewhat different from targets in reality. Although they had level 55 displayed above their heads, they completely lacked combat prowess corresponding to their level.

The level of minor monsters was only used to determine the amount of experience points generated and the drop rate, and had nothing to do with their actual combat prowess.

The only thing in the dungeon whose combat prowess truly corresponded to its level was the final boss; the dungeon's level setting was inherently based on the boss as the standard.

The classification of target levels in reality was merely judged by Li Yunfei based on his own experience. In reality, targets were not digitized and could not be measured using dungeon monster levels.

For instance, at the ancient battlefield of Changping, the Ghost King Zhao Kuo possessed the combat prowess of the late Golden Core stage, the Ghost Generals possessed the combat prowess of the Yin Spirit stage, the Ghost Commanders possessed the Spiritual Movement stage, and the Yin soldiers and skeleton monsters were at the Qi Opening stage.

Yet if Li Yunfei entered a dungeon, no matter whether it was the Ghost King, Ghost Generals, or Ghost Commanders, their displayed level would certainly be the same.

However, the only one whose combat prowess truly matched that level was the Ghost King Zhao Kuo himself.

Precisely because of this, farming dungeons was faster for leveling up than killing living beings in reality.

Because in reality, a target's combat prowess and level were linked; a target with Yin Spirit stage combat prowess would only be below level 50, while the Spiritual Movement stage would inevitably be below level 40.

Exceeding this level by 3 would yield no experience points.

Yet in the dungeon, the displayed levels of all dungeon monsters were the same as the boss's, and all of them could generate experience points.

Take the blazing skeletons and bandit evil spirits for example; they only possessed the combat prowess of the Spiritual Movement stage. If it were in reality, Li Yunfei would gain no experience at all for killing them.

It was precisely because they were dungeon monsters, bearing the title of level 55 monsters, that they generated experience points, and even provided additional experience bonuses because Li Yunfei was fighting monsters 5 levels above his own.

This was the difference.

Li Yunfei had also long understood that his true opponent in the dungeon was actually just a boss, while the minor monsters were simply tools specifically provided by the system for him to level up and enhance his strength.

In the early stages, the massive number of minor monsters could still pose a threat to him, but in the later stages, numbers held little meaning for him; they were purely tools for him to level up.

The only thing that could pose a threat to him was a single boss.

……

After checking his status, Li Yunfei closed the system panel and looked around. The area ahead had turned into a sea of fire, formed by the shattered bones of the blazing skeletons after they disintegrated.

The duration of this fire's burning was surprisingly long, almost rivaling Honghong's eerie fox fire.

The dropped items were all shrouded within the sea of fire. If not for the protection of the system rules, those items inside that were intolerant of high temperatures would probably have turned to ashes long ago.

Li Yunfei took out a True Fire Talisman drawn with purple ink, held it between his fingertips, and chanted the incantation: "Heaven is pure, earth is spiritual, I beseech the Fire Virtue Star Sovereign to descend, let fire gods and fire spirits hastily retreat to distant lands ten thousand li away, heed this law urgently."

Upon finishing the incantation, he shot the True Fire Talisman toward the sea of fire. The moment the True Fire Talisman vanished, the sea of fire instantly recoiled like a reversed film, rapidly subsiding and extinguishing.

This True Fire Talisman could not only start fires but also extinguish them. This "Fire-Extinguishing Incantation" was specifically used to deal with fire-type spells, requiring the Golden Core stage to wield.

It was rumored that when its power was at its strongest, even high-grade spiritual fires such as the "Samadhi True Fire" and "Five-Mei True Fire" could be extinguished.

Generally speaking, extinguishing fires relied on the principle of the Five Elements restraining one another, using water-type or ice-type spells to counter them.

However, the mutual restraint of the Five Elements was not absolute; its essence ultimately depended on the level of cultivation of the caster.

Vast water and strong ice could extinguish fire, but an overwhelming blaze could boil water dry and melt ice.

The Fire-Extinguishing Incantation, however, did not rely on the principle of the Five Elements restraining fire; rather, it functioned by "extracting fuel from the bottom of the cauldron."

The True Fire Talisman directly reverted the flames within a certain range back to the most primitive Qi of Fire, scattering it into the void, and the fire naturally went out.

After extinguishing the sea of fire, Li Yunfei swept his spiritual sense, and all the items scattered across the ground were gathered back into his system inventory, after which he proceeded to inspect them one by one.

First was currency. In dungeons above level 50, coins were no longer dropped; spiritual stones were dropped directly.

Several thousand ghosts and monsters dropped a total of over 40 grams of spiritual stones, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of coins dropped previously.

This phenomenon greatly satisfied Li Yunfei. Previously, he had always used spiritual stones from the real world to purchase items in the system mall.

These spiritual stones were originally renewable resources that could be recycled, but once spent in the system mall, they abruptly turned into non-renewable resources and vanished once used.

However, he now discovered that once the dungeon level became high enough, spiritual stones would also be dropped, which provided a replenishment for the consumption of real-world spiritual stones.

Although the drops were still few at present, he believed that as the dungeon level increased, more and more would be dropped.

By then, even without relying on real-world spiritual stone mines, he would produce countless spiritual stones.

Next were some silver talisman papers and talisman banners dropped by the bandit evil spirits. Silver talismans required the Nascent Soul stage to wield; although he could not use them yet, it was better to have them just in case.

The blazing skeletons dropped a new type of bone spirit insignia.

Blazing Bone Spirit Insignia: Summons a blazing skeleton to fight for you. The minimum cultivation requirement is the Yin Spirit realm. The number of controllable blazing skeletons depends on the cultivation realm, with the early Yin Spirit realm allowing control of 10 blazing skeletons.

Li Yunfei nodded with satisfaction. The Super Skeleton Warrior belonged to the martial category, whereas this blazing skeleton belonged to the sorcerer category.

It did not need to rely on external equipment or objects to unleash formidable ranged output.

The Super Skeleton Warrior was restricted to melee and mid-range output, and the maximum reach of its blade Qi fell far short of the blazing skeleton's fireballs.

This was an important supplement to the combat prowess under Li Yunfei's command.

At this moment, Li Yunfei's soul strength was 157 (3), having reached 52 times, allowing him to wield one more skeleton.

He took out a completely orange Blazing Bone Spirit Insignia, activated it, and summoned a blazing skeleton.

Following the old routine, he fed it enough four-attribute spiritual pills.

The blazing skeleton began to evolve in front of Li Yunfei, the color of its iron-like bones rapidly deepening: orange, orange-red, crimson, deep red... and finally crystallizing.

Its skeleton transformed into a material resembling red jade, and the soul fire in its eyes changed from a leaping orange flame to a round, fiery-red bead resembling a pupil, completely devoid of any eerie aura.

Like the Super Skeleton Warrior, it looked like a flawless work of art.

The orange flames on its hands also became as bright red as the setting sun, and their power was already very close to Honghong's eerie fox fire.

Moreover, the flames on its hands could be retracted and released freely. In a non-combat state, its hands would not constantly burn like those of ordinary blazing skeletons; the crimson flames could be retracted.

Li Yunfei admiringly looked over the super blazing skeleton, and then equipped it with a set of Qi armor, though without armaments or magical treasures, because it wouldn't know how to wield them anyway.

The blazing skeleton belonged to the sorcerer category and was unversed in martial arts; it might not even accurately hit a target by throwing a purple-gold hammer, so it was better for it to simply concentrate on its fire-type spells.

Honghong tilted her head to examine this super blazing skeleton, giggled, leaped up, and sat on one of its shoulders.

With one hand holding the helmet on the skeleton's head, her slender, lotus-root-like legs swung leisurely in the air.

"From now on, it's my mount."

Li Yunfei chuckled, but let her be. Like the Super Skeleton Warrior, this blazing skeleton stood two point four to five meters tall with shoulder width exceeding eighty centimeters.

For Honghong's petite frame, the super blazing skeleton's shoulder truly felt like a spacious chair.

The combat style of the super blazing skeleton did not require violent movements like that of the Super Skeleton Warrior; it merely involved a flick of the hand, making it quite comfortable as a mount.

After tidying up the spoils of war, Li Yunfei pondered for a moment, recalled one Super Skeleton Warrior, and summoned another super blazing skeleton.

Thus, there were exactly 40 Super Skeleton Warriors, which would feel immensely satisfying even to a perfectionist.

The group continued deeper into the village, and Li Yunfei noticed that the fires slightly further in the distance began to move vigorously.

Looking down from the sky, one would find that those fires were taking Li Yunfei's group as the center and circling to both sides, with their ultimate goal being to encircle Li Yunfei in the center of the village.

Li Yunfei was well aware of this but did not care. When they approached the large open space in the center of the village, they finally encountered the third type of ghost.

These were ghosts with extremely bizarre appearances: their bellies were like that of a pregnant woman eight months along, yet their necks were only as thick as an arm, with ferocious faces and gaping maws of blood.

Through their wide-open mouths, faint flickering fires could be seen inside.

Above these ghosts floated the characters "Hungry Ghost 55".

Indeed, these ghosts were transformed from the villagers who had starved to death in the past.

Hungry ghosts were a very special kind of ghost and monster; their obsession was to eat a full meal, yet they were destined never to be full.

Their bloody maws could swallow a large amount of food at once, yet their slender necks made it very difficult for them to swallow the food down.

Furthermore, as they swallowed food, flames would spew from their throats, burning the food to ashes, and they couldn't even eat the ashes because the ashes would be blown out of their mouths by the surging flames.

Precisely because they could never be filled no matter how much they ate, the resentment of hungry ghosts was extremely heavy—they could even be said to possess the heaviest resentment among resentment-type ghosts.

Therefore, the legendary netherworld specifically had a realm安置 these ghosts, which was the Hungry Ghost Realm among the Six Realms. In other words, they were entities just as terrifying as the Asura of the Asura Realm.

These hungry ghosts were all evil-spirit-grade, yet far more terrifying than ordinary evil spirits. Crucially, they could fly.

The moment they spotted Li Yunfei's group, those hungry ghosts let out terrifying roars, took to the air, and lunged toward Li Yunfei and the others.

Their target was obviously only the flesh-and-blood living beings Li Yunfei and Honghong; they naturally had no interest in those skeleton monsters.

If these creatures were edible, the skeleton monsters in the village would probably have been eaten clean by them long ago.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."

Without needing Li Yunfei's instruction, the two super blazing skeletons directly took action.

Just as those hungry ghosts took flight and were still dozens of zhang away from them, overwhelming crimson fireballs greeted them.

Including Honghong, who sat on the shoulder of the super blazing skeleton, she also began spitting fireballs into the sky—a feeling somewhat akin to anti-aircraft guns firing at airplanes.

As for the Super Skeleton Warriors, because the targets were too far away for their blade Qi to reach, and using the purple-gold hammers was unnecessary, they could only watch helplessly.

The hungry ghosts were not to be outdone either, successively opening their mouths to spew strings of fiery balls whose color was hardly pale, tit for tat against the fireballs flying up from the ground.

"Boom, boom, boom..."

Amidst violent explosions, clusters of crimson fireblooms burst in the sky, dyeing the churning dark clouds above into glowing sunset clouds.

After all, the gap in sheer power was far too wide; the fireballs spewed by the hungry ghosts merely reduced the size of the fireballs shot by Honghong and the super blazing skeletons, consuming a portion of their power.

The slightly shrunk fireballs still continually bombarded them, and on the ground corresponding to those hungry ghosts, items dropped by the dungeon monsters continuously emerged out of thin air.

At that exact moment, fires from all directions surged toward the location of Li Yunfei and his group, as the ghosts of the village had completed their encirclement of Li Yunfei's group and launched an all-out attack.

Li Yunfei's spiritual sense naturally grasped all of this clearly. With a cold sneer, Li Yunfei pointed forward like a sword, and a Bloodthirsty Flying Sword shot out from within his body.

Li Yunfei formed a sword incantation with his fingers, circulating his spiritual power according to specific patterns, which surged crazily into the flying sword through the connection of his primordial spirit.

A breath later, Li Yunfei held his sword finger vertically in front of his chest, and the Bloodthirsty Flying Sword surged into the sky, suffused with an inseparably dense blood-red glow, plunging straight into the dark clouds above.

A few breaths later, just as the hungry ghosts high in the air, the bandit evil spirits at low altitude, and the blazing skeletons on the ground all swarmed close, a terrifying scene unfolded.

A rain of swords—a true rain of swords—descended from the sky. Dense, blood-red sword projections fell from the highest heavens, covering an area a hundred zhang in radius.

"Screech, screech, screech..."

"Aarrghh..."

Piercing ghost roars resounded in the sky. The first to suffer the baptism of the sword rain were naturally those hungry ghosts flying high in the air, followed by the bandit evil spirits at low altitude, and finally the blazing skeletons on the ground.

No fewer than five to six thousand various ghosts and monsters perished under this single Myriad Sword Technique. The area of a hundred zhang in radius was cleared in an instant, and the levels of Li Yunfei and Honghong jumped straight to level 54 in one go.

Meanwhile, the Super Skeleton Warriors and super blazing skeletons advanced to level 51.

Those blood-red sword projections that descended from the sky and stabbed into the ground vanished upon impact, leaving only the main body of Li Yunfei's Bloodthirsty Flying Sword, which flew back to hover and circle around him.

Li Yunfei noticed that within the hundred-zhang radius, three ghosts had not vanished.

High in the air was a hungry ghost larger in size than the other hungry ghosts, with huge ghost claws for hands.

At low altitude was a ghost dressed in fur garments, wearing a fur hat, holding a broadsword in his left hand and a box-cannon in his right, styling himself like a bandit leader.

On the ground was a blazing skeleton nearly three meters tall—taller even than the Super Skeleton Warriors—wielding a blazing sword.

Gazing intently, the names of the three special ghosts entered Li Yunfei's eyes.

Hungry Ghost King, Big Boss, Blazing Skeleton King.

This dungeon actually possessed three bosses.