Chapter 368 Crystalline Granules, The Final Location

As the party's vanguard, the dwarf Thordin performed his duty perfectly.

Even when they had faced the Armored Lurker, he had boldly charged forward to draw the monster's attention for his teammates.

Now, it went without saying.

He slammed his Faceted Hammer against his shield. Accompanied by his ferocious roar, faint ripples of distorted sound waves became visible in the air. Constrained to a relatively narrow area, the sonic blast swept straight over the blacksmith.

The moment the sound wave washed over the blacksmith, his eyes—swimming with an eerie pink light—glazed over for a split second.

Then, they snapped into sharp focus!

As his pupils focused, his line of sight locked dead onto Thordin.

The [Taunt] took effect!

Bang—

He explosively pushed off the ground!

The bulging muscles of his calves tore his pant legs apart. The sudden burst of strength from beneath his feet crushed the soles of his own boots, leaving them dragging from his heels as a dense web of cracks spread across the ground.

Originally just a somewhat sturdy ordinary man, the blacksmith now possessed the explosive power and sheer strength of a Class Grade expert.

As the Pastel Gemstone on his chest flashed, his entire body turned into a pink blur, charging madly at the dwarf.

Rich in combat experience, Thordin had braced for defense long before he even activated his taunt-type combat technique.

He raised his round shield. Its surface wasn't large, yet it gave off an exceptionally solid presence, creating the illusion that it could completely envelop and shelter his entire body behind it.

A pair of thick, stout legs planted firmly into the earth, making him seem like an extension of the ground itself in that moment, entirely fused with the earth beneath his feet.

At the same time, a silvery-white metallic luster surfaced across his skin, rendering his already stocky frame even tougher. A single glance was enough to convey the dwarf's formidable defensive prowess.

The blacksmith's speed was terrifyingly fast.

From an ordinary person's perspective, they would probably only feel a stinging gust of wind scraping past their ears. In the next second, the burly figure that had just been standing in the smithy was already right in front of the dwarf.

Clang, boom—

The heavy forging hammer smashed onto the round shield. The collision of immense forces sent sparks flying. Centered on the point of impact, the surrounding air warped for a split second. A sharp, ear-piercing screech of colliding metal, wrapped in an invisible shockwave, exploded across the empty street.

Gleaming with a metallic sheen, his stout, iron-stake-like body didn't budge an inch. Shield in hand, Thordin didn't take a single step back from the explosive attack.

On the contrary, it was the attacker—the bare-chested blacksmith with the Pastel Gemstone embedded in his chest—who staggered from the massive recoil. His center of gravity fell backward, and he nearly tumbled to the ground.

A single, fleeting exchange was enough to expose the gap in their strength.

One was a proper Class Holder who had steadily climbed his way up to Level 4; the other was an ordinary man whose mind had been rewritten by a Pastel Gemstone, granting him sudden, unearned power.

Facing the taunt and defense of the [Shield Warrior] Thordin, the blacksmith had almost no ability to resist. He attacked like a moth flying into the flame, only to be easily blocked by the dwarf.

They were veteran teammates. Having rapidly flanked to the side right after the blacksmith initiated his attack, the lurking Margaret was never going to waste this opportunity.

[Straight Lunge Thrust]!

Swish—

A razor-sharp longsword, glinting with cold light, thrust out from the blacksmith's blind spot diagonally behind him.

Trained to the "Mastery" tier of proficiency, the female Swordsman's strike was incredibly fast and precise.

With the physical constitution of a Level 4 Class Holder, her instantaneous explosive power made her confident that even if she weren't facing a body of flesh and blood, but a solid steel wall, she could still gouge a pit into it.

But a moment later, the sight unfolding before her filled her with astonishment.

The tip of the sword, which should have pierced straight through the side of his neck, didn't impale his flesh as she had expected. It didn't even touch bone. After sinking barely an inch into his skin, it became completely wedged in place.

"That's..."

Margaret's expression froze.

She could clearly see that as her blade landed, the Pastel Gemstone granules—spreading like a patchy moss across the skin of the blacksmith's neck—displayed a terrifyingly high defensive capability.

The innkeeper from before had easily smashed them with a random dagger, yet now, against a Level 4 [Swordsman] like herself, those tiny gemstone granules suddenly seemed tougher than steel, completely obstructing her fatal strike.

Fortunately, although the piercing damage had been mostly blocked, the kinetic impact carried by Margaret's momentum during the [Straight Lunge Thrust] still transferred fully into the enemy's body.

This caused the blacksmith, already stun-locked from his collision with Thordin, to be sent flying by the sword strike, his neck twisting slightly as his toes left the ground.

Awooo—

A high, resonant wolf's howl echoed eerily from the depths of the night.

With its mane swaying, a massive, profoundly cold and fierce black wolf padded out from the shadows.

Xia Nan had observed everything very carefully.

His acute Perception allowed him to clearly capture the hidden details beneath the clash, even in the midst of an intense and nerve-wracking battle.

From the blacksmith charging forward to drop his hammer, to being launched backward by Margaret, it had only taken a few seconds—a hasty two exchanges.

Yet, he had already gathered all the information he needed.

Hum—

An invisible gravitational force rippled like water. It didn't freeze the airborne, plummeting enemy in midair. Instead, it executed a clever, subtle pull, slightly altering the blacksmith's falling trajectory and posture. His head jerked upward, exposing the vital weak point of his neck.

"Tap, tap."

The black wolf phantom's movements seemed elegant and slow, but its actual speed was even faster than Margaret's had been just moments ago. In the blink of an eye, it flashed over to where the blacksmith was about to land.

His breathing drew out, long and steady.

Xia Nan stood firmly in place. The grayish-black blade of the [Ember Fall] straight sword in his hand seemed to melt completely into the surrounding darkness, leaving only a blurry silhouette faintly illuminated by the moonlight.

"Whoosh!"

A sharp, fleeting whistle tore through the freezing air.

The straight blade swept past, seeming to drag the ambient moonlight along with it, leaving a full, silvery-gray arc in front of Xia Nan.

[Spinning Slash]!

It was already maxed out; its power went without saying.

His timing was absolutely impeccable, and his strike location was peerlessly precise. Drawing on the experience of his recent observations, he perfectly bypassed the moss-like gemstone granules covering the sides and back of the blacksmith's neck.

Borrowing the momentum of his falling, airborne opponent, Xia Nan controlled his straight sword and cleaved diagonally upward.

"Squelch."

Accompanied by a familiar tactile sensation in his hands—a momentary resistance followed by a smooth glide—what echoed in his ears was a pleasant sound he had heard countless times before: the sound of a sharp object tearing through flesh and a blade severing bone and sinew.

Thud—

The blacksmith's burly, muscular body crashed heavily to the ground, but his head remained hovering in the air.

Amidst the geyser of spraying blood, it wasn't until the black wolf phantom behind Xia Nan slowly dissipated that the severed head, carried by the sword's momentum, finally bounced to a stop on the ground like a rubber ball.

The battle was over in an instant.

Casually flicking off the residual blood beads clinging to his blade, Xia Nan pulled a piece of gauze from his waist pouch and wiped down the bloody stains on his straight sword.

On the other side, the dwarf and the female Swordsman had already regrouped and walked over.

"This thing had quite a bit of strength. I reckon it was at the level of a Level 1 or 2 Warrior."

Thordin picked up the blacksmith's forging hammer and scrutinized it for a moment. Discovering that it was just an ordinary tool and not an enchanted weapon, he curled his lip and tossed it back onto the ground.

Margaret, meanwhile, frowned deeply.

She first glanced at the tip of her own longsword, running her fingers over the faint scratch marks on its surface, before turning her gaze back to the blacksmith's corpse on the ground.

Her eyes lingered specifically on the severed stump of his neck, which was still pumping blood.

"This thing... its toughness isn't right."

Margaret refused to believe that an ordinary person like him could rely on his bare flesh to block a combat technique she had trained all the way to the "Mastery" tier.

It was those tiny crystalline granules—spreading out like moss from the Pastel Gemstone on the blacksmith's chest to cover various parts of his body—that had granted him such formidable physical defense.

Even Xia Nan himself, recalling the sheer force behind the female Swordsman's thrust and how it had fared against the blacksmith... didn't dare claim he could have easily broken through that defense either.

If the blacksmith's entire body had been covered in those highly defensive gemstone granules, he really might not have been able to end the battle as effortlessly as he just did.

As a minor trump card, his [Gravity Etching]—which still had two uses remaining—might have been saved, but a prolonged dogfight would have been inevitable.

Suddenly, as if recalling something, Xia Nan took two steps forward and approached the corpse.

First, he inspected the crystalline granules on other parts of the man's body.

Since they possessed such outstanding physical defense, he wondered if he could scrape some off to potentially use for forging armor.

Unfortunately, following the blacksmith's death, the crystalline granules on his skin had softened. With just a gentle scrape of a dagger, they flaked off like dead skin, completely stripped of their original defensive properties.

Feeling a twinge of disappointment, Xia Nan shifted his target to the Pastel Gemstone embedded in the man's chest and gently tapped it with his fingertip.

"Ding!"

The familiar mechanical tone chimed in his mind.

As the [Dream Weaving Corridor] Silver Ring vibrated slightly, another 0.0005% of energy was deposited into its reserves.

Glancing at the [Dream Weaving Corridor]'s charging progress, Xia Nan suddenly had a thought. If he had closed in directly during the battle just now and absorbed the energy from the Pastel Gemstone in the blacksmith's body, would the man have broken free from his mind-controlled state and ceased being hostile, just like those few townsfolk from before?

To some extent, it seemed like he could have spared the man's life.

Of course, this was just belated hindsight.

In that situation just now, an enemy lunging at them from the darkness had launched a sudden attack, with every strike aimed to kill.

His two teammates had worked hard to create an opening for an all-out strike; how could he possibly let them down and hold back for a passerby he had only met twice, who was blatantly displaying killing intent toward him?

Furthermore, setting aside the sheer danger of actively reaching out to touch the gemstone on the opponent's chest while the man retained consciousness and combat capability—what if he guessed wrong? If he couldn't absorb the gemstone's energy while the target was still alive, he would have completely wasted his window to attack, and the ensuing variables would have been impossible to predict.

Xia Nan certainly had a conscience, but he was by no means a Holy Mother.

In his heart, he at most considered that if he encountered a similar enemy later, he might test this theory depending on the situation. He wasn't going to drown in guilt or self-blame over it.

"I suspect that being mind-controlled while still retaining bodily mobility and a certain degree of consciousness—like the blacksmith and the innkeeper—is highly likely a manifestation of being more deeply corrupted by the gemstones."

Margaret retrieved the blacksmith's head from nearby, showing zero disgust at the bloody water staining her hands. She carefully inspected it as she voiced her logical deduction.

"That's going to be a problem."

Xia Nan frowned slightly.

With Sheep Horn Town's entire population of two to three thousand, even if only a tenth of the residents retained their consciousness, that was still a triple-digit number of enemies.

On a practical level, it was enough to temporarily flood the street right in front of them.

Judging by the blacksmith's performance in combat just now, their individual strength might be relatively mediocre.

Although their physical constitution—empowered by the gemstone—reached the Class Grade level in terms of Strength and explosive power, they were still at an ordinary person's level in every other aspect.

Their performance was exceptionally abysmal when it came to combat experience and technique in particular.

A proper Level 1 Class Holder who had fought their way up from the bottom would easily be able to defeat one of them in a one-on-one fight.

It was even easier for Xia Nan and his group. Despite moving so cautiously during their initial encounter, it had only taken three exchanges. They ended the battle in less than a few seconds.

But if that number swelled to two or three hundred... they would probably have to temporarily retreat to avoid the brunt of the assault, kiting and counterattacking while doing their utmost to avoid getting surrounded.

Not to mention, with such a massive accumulation of numbers, there was no guarantee that even more deeply corrupted individuals wouldn't appear.

If their Strength and explosive power were enhanced even further, and those highly defensive gemstone granules were allowed to cover their entire bodies... they really would be a headache to deal with.

"Let's be a bit more careful."

Xia Nan looked up at the dazzling pillar of light rising from the direction of the Church in the distance, connecting heaven and earth, and gave the two of them a reminder.

"Prepare for battle."

...

...

For the rest of the journey, the group of three maintained an attitude of extreme caution regarding any enemies that might launch an attack on them.

They were careful every step of the way. Even Thordin—who had previously been cracking jokes to ease the tension in the party—consciously kept his mouth shut.

They spent nearly twice as much time as usual to cover the same distance.

Strangely, however, they didn't encounter a single enemy taking the initiative to attack them like the blacksmith did, all the way until they reached the plaza at the center of the town.

Still, this overly breezy trek didn't put Xia Nan at ease in the slightest. Instead, it made him even more vigilant; he suspected that something huge was brewing.

"It really was that old bastard's doing!"

Thordin didn't think nearly as much about it.

As the group arrived at the plaza, the bottom of the pillar of light—previously hidden among the dense cluster of buildings—was finally exposed to their eyes without any obstruction.

Just as they had guessed.

A massive, dazzling pink beam was surging straight up from the dome of the Church, piercing into the heavens.

This was its source.

The main doors remained tightly shut. The excessively blinding light made the Rose Holy Symbol engraved on the wooden doors seem as though it had been dyed with a demonic smear of pink.

With his pitch-black eyes reflecting the towering Church shrouded in the beam of light ahead, Xia Nan lowered his head slightly.

"Is everyone ready?"

"This... should be the final location."