A sound of incredible heft echoed throughout the entire underground cavern, trembling for a moment.
Zhang Xiaoman’s Dark Energy Shock, containing more than 400 points of energy, as well as his Bounce One Flash magnified by five times the strength, all converged in a massive strike against the monster’s body.
The next instant, a vast figure flew backwards, crashing directly into a nearby wall. Rocks around tumbled down, as a deep, indented hole was created on impact.
From within the wall, the severely deformed monster stared with frightened eyes, looking at the diminutive figure not far away, struggling to break free but to no avail.
Thick, green blood gushed from its throat as its ugly visage displayed unwillingness and fear, soon to be devoid of life.
The commotion here was tremendous, drawing the attention of the last remaining monster.
Seeing the tragic state of its counterpart, it was visibly dazed for a moment, as if it could not comprehend how such an insignificant creature could have struck it dead in one blow.
However, as a summoned puppet, the Holy Knight was not affected by these external factors.
A mere moment of distraction was all it took to seal the tragic fate of the monster.
Two Holy Knights, one on each side, stabbed their long spears into its body, and then one of them, at the signal from Zhang Xiaoman, drew the nearby Mountain and River Sword and swiftly slashed across the monster’s belly, instantly gutting it.
And so, the last monster also collapsed with a thunderous fall, and calm once again returned to the underground cavern.
Zhang Xiaoman surveyed his surroundings, noting that the destruction wrought from fighting these three enormous monsters was far greater than before.
The tomb, already heavily damaged, had collapsed significantly more at this moment.
Fortunately, the two coffins had luckily escaped damage; their occupants had yet to be affected.
"Phew, I hadn’t expected this combination of skills to be even more exaggerated in damage than I imagined..."
Zhang Xiaoman looked at his fist, which was now slightly smeared with green slime, and used a Cleaning Spell to remove the filth while silently marveling at the discovery.
He hadn’t had the time to test the power of Bounce Five Flashes after upgrading his skill, but now that he had used it, it greatly exceeded his expectations.
"At this rate, will I go bald eventually...?"
Zhang Xiaoman shook his head, deciding not to think about these things for now, and started energetically absorbed the essence from the bodies on the ground.
"Ding, absorbed Ghost Bat Essence, points increased by 7."
"Ding, absorbed Red Split Dog Essence, points increased by 1."
"Ding, absorbed Swamp Giant Essence, points increased by 43."
With each system notification, the monsters at the scene were being cleaned up by Zhang Xiaoman’s wide-range and high-efficiency absorption.
Through these notifications, he also learned the name of that kind of monster he had fought; quite simple and descriptive—it was called "Swamp Giant."
"But these Red Split Dogs seem to have all gone to waste..."
Zhang Xiaoman glanced at where the Holy Knights had smashed the dogs with their hammers, feeling a sense of pity.
There was nothing he could do; he could only blame the overly brutal attacks of these two, which had pulverized them into mush, and with the Swamp Giant’s interference, most of the essence had dissipated.
After dealing with these three waves of monsters, no other creatures came running out to meet their doom for the time being.
Having activated his Skill to replenish the few lost Star Guards, Zhang Xiaoman once again walked deeper into the cavern.
It was still constantly descending, and the further back it went, the larger the space above became. It was hard to imagine how such a structure was even formed.
Compared to the ancient tombs with just one path to the end, the area of the underground cave was much larger.
Zhang Xiaoman had no choice but to disperse some Star Guards to search, otherwise, it would be unknown how long it would take to locate those Corpse Demons.
While searching, Zhang Xiaoman suddenly felt the entire cave tremble slightly, and from the sound of it, the origin seemed to be from the ground over there.
"What’s... happening? Could it be that the Azure Dragon Army is fighting with monsters over there?"
He was immensely alarmed.
You see, he was now a hundred meters underground. If the source of the tremor really was from above ground, one could imagine what a scene the battlefield might look like.
With this thought, Zhang Xiaoman projected his consciousness onto the few Star Guards left on the surface, observing one by one the events unfolding around them.
"Brother Hero and Lord Bear, there’s no situation here for now..."
"Ji Xiaoqi and Aaron, also no problems..."
"Eh? It seems like Bena has just finished a battle...?"
Zhang Xiaoman muttered softly, and then heard the System’s notification about absorbing the monster Essence in his mind.
He observed for a moment and then switched his Field of View to the next pair.
"Yang Yangyang and Jannan... Hm? What’s this situation?!"
As soon as his perspective switched, the scene that appeared before his eyes startled him.
He saw dozens of fully armed Azure Dragon Soldiers in front of the Star Guard, wielding MK250 automatic rifles, sweeping fire at wave after wave of monsters.
Not far away, Yang Yangyang’s hands emitted a glow, the Shield Skill developed by Zhang Xiaoman which Brother Hero had used previously to help Chang Hai and others.
In front of them, there were hordes of Red Split Dogs, toad crocodiles, giant owls, Horror Claws, and various other monsters, some seen before and some not.
The soldiers’ firepower was clearly very strong and, with the addition of Yang Yangyang’s shield protection, these creatures couldn’t breach their defense for the moment.
However, as time passed, it became apparent that the boy’s Dark Energy would soon reach its limit.
Once the Shield broke, the situation might turn dire.
"Didn’t expect them to run into the people of the Azure Dragon Army, but why such a large display? Why are these monsters attacking like they have gone mad? It feels like there are even more here than the ones I encountered underground..."
Looking at the scene through the Star Guard’s perspective, Zhang Xiaoman was filled with growing doubt.
He decided to stop and closely monitor the situation on the surface to see if anything unexpected might happen.
Sure enough, as more and more monsters began attacking the Shield, Yang Yangyang’s Dark Energy was completely depleted. Hordes of Alien Species charged forward and started clashing with the soldiers in close quarters combat.
It was at this moment that Zhang Xiaoman received the Star Guard’s alert that they were engaged in large-scale combat.
"Alright, so you don’t call for me unless there’s a direct confrontation, is that it?"
He was somewhat speechless regarding the Star Guard’s rigid protocol, but now wasn’t the time to be concerned about that.
The situation unfolding on the battlefield was not good. Even with the cooperation of the Azure Dragon Army, he was not very familiar with the number of monsters, so he had to be fully prepared.
Without delay, Zhang Xiaoman issued commands to the other Star Guard squads, instructing them to bring their members for reinforcements, aiming to eliminate as many monsters as possible.