Chapter 575 Consecutive Kills

Xia Nan had almost no experience in large-scale combat where the enemy possessed a relatively complete tactical system.

Still, no matter how numerous the sahuagin were, the forces on the field—including those fishman lackeys—barely reached triple digits. It was a far cry from a battlefield of thousands or tens of thousands. With his current individual strength, as long as he found the right entry point, he could still make a decisive impact.

To that end, combining his experience and instincts with a clear understanding of his own capabilities, Xia Nan made the single most effective choice.

The "caster-first principle"—whether applied to allies in his own party or enemies in opposing ranks—was a rule that rarely failed.

Back when the enemy first began casting, he had already used his recently upgraded Perception to lock onto the locations of the three sahuagin priests beneath the sea.

Leveraging his speed and explosive power in the open underwater environment—which offered dynamic freedom akin to deep space—Xia Nan transformed into the phantom silhouette of a pitch-black wolf beast and shot toward his targets.

It had to be said that with a commander directing them, the sahuagin fought with noticeable discipline.

Where previous elite guards had mostly fought as scattered individuals, these units swam in squads from all directions to intercept him.

This layout allowed the sahuagin priests to focus entirely on their spellcasting without having to divide their attention across the battlefield.

The ocean was their domain. Any adventurer accustomed to land combat, regardless of Class Level, would suffer a sharp drop in fighting capacity upon entering the water.

With one side hindered and the other empowered, the gap in raw strength was significantly narrowed.

Unfortunately for the fishman scum, they could never have anticipated one key detail.

For Xia Nan, who had taken up the overpowered class [Meteor Blade Hunter] at the very start of his path as a Class Holder—a class far beyond what anyone at his level should possess—

the sea, with its three-dimensional maneuvering so like outer space, was also his home turf.

"Awooo—"

A deep, muffled howl echoed through the depths.

Like a massive, dark creature churning the currents, his terror-inducing shadow tore through the churning foam, leaving a long, slender wake behind.

Gaining full vertical freedom had dramatically boosted his agility, even if the drag of the sea slightly reduced his forward speed.

Ignoring the elite fishman guards attempting to block his path, Xia Nan kept his attention fixed entirely on the nearby priests.

With a subtle shift in momentum, the dark silhouette that had been charging in a straight line cut a sharp Z-shaped zigzag through the water like lightning.

Before the local fishmen could even react, they watched helplessly as the dark figure, wrapped in pitch-black energy, swept right over their heads.

As critical spellcasters, the priests naturally had guards stationed beside them. Spotting Xia Nan bypass the outer line and charge straight for their charges, the guards immediately formed a wall in front of the priests.

With a casual flick of his blade, Xia Nan shattered a [Magic Missile] drifting toward him from the flank.

Rather than swerving, he accelerated, raising his left Arm Shield in front of him as he slammed directly into the line of guards.

The force of his speed and physical power sent distortion waves rippling through the water. The fishman guards were scattered like bowling pins, while the razor-sharp winds accompanying [Fang Hunt] gouged deep, flensing cuts across their scales.

Buying time behind the sacrifice of their guards, the sahuagin priests—whose mental focus had been rattled by the wolf howl—finally managed to trigger their modified version of [Mage Armor] at the last second.

Amid a flash of magical light in the sea, a translucent barrier encased the priest.

"Thrum!"

The arc of his Gray-Black Straight Sword slammed hard against the translucent barrier, causing the shield to violent shudder.

"Thrum-bang!"

A second strike crashed down, spiderwebbing the surface of the barrier with cracks.

"Shatter."

His assault was relentless as a downpour.

With the diagonal slice of his third strike, a noise like a breaking egg shell rang out through the water.

The overloaded magic barrier shattered completely. He didn't even need to swing a fourth time; the residual momentum of the sharp blade sliced straight through the sahuagin priest's paper-thin skull.

Xia Nan's balanced and extreme physical attributes pushed his attack speed beyond what ordinary eyes could follow.

What appeared to be three distinct sword strikes had unfolded in less than a single breath.

Glancing over the priest as it floated motionlessly as a corpse, Xia Nan noted internally: 'Two left.'

Meanwhile, the remaining two priests stationed in separate formations had no intention of letting Xia Nan attack unchecked.

The moment he drew back his sword, two more spells streaked toward him in quick succession.

They were still persistent. Clearly, these priests had never encountered an opponent with high resistance—and direct reflection—against mind-control magic.

The agony from the earlier [Hold Person] attempt hadn't taught them caution. Though the caster dared not repeat that spell due to the psychic backlash, it immediately swapped to a different control spell instead.

2nd Circle Enchantment School: [Charm Person]!

The outcome was entirely predictable.

The moment the pink light touched Xia Nan, it shattered into harmless specks of light.

The feedback effect from [Gaze into the Abyss] traced the residual mental energy straight back to the casting priest.

Hit by consecutive waves of mental feedback, blood gushed from the priest's mouth and nose as its eyes rolled back, barely keeping consciousness.

By the time the priest recovered its senses, the black-haired adventurer who had been far off a moment ago was already right in front of it, having used his Arm Shield to forcefully deflect the incoming attack of a [Spiritual Weapon] summoned by the other priest.

The elite guards that had shielded it were now nothing more than shredded corpses.

A single slice lopped off the priest's head. Xia Nan instantly channeled [Gravity Etching] onto the surface of his Arm Shield and spun with a heavy bash, colliding head-on with the pursuing [Spiritual Weapon]. A burst of ochre-red force field energy flared like a underwater firework, completely shattering the 2nd Circle evocation spell.

"One left."

His dark eyes seemed to pierce through the seawater, locking onto the final priest trembling behind its guard line in the distance.

Grabbing a floating harpoon nearby with one hand, he swept it out in a wide horizontal arc. The innate effect of his max-level [Heavy Tide] instantly activated. Even without heavy effort behind the blow, the three sahuagin attempting to close in suddenly lost all control of their balance.

Floundering like drowning bodies in the current, they had no time to recover before a follow-up wolf howl tore them into mangled pieces of meat.

Having watched the entire slaughter and seen both fellow casters turned into headless corpses, the last sahuagin priest finally broke under the roar of the approaching beast.

[Night Mother's Gaze] took effect, flooding its mind with overwhelming terror.

Driven by panic, it abandoned its terrified guards and cast the 3rd Circle [Flight Spell], bolting straight for the surface.

Which led to the scene the commander saw on shore: a ferocious wolf beast leaping out of the water to snap the fleeing priest in half with a single bite.

"Ga! Lu!"

With eyes wide, the sahuagin commander let out an enraged roar.

As the leader of this entire force, it knew full well how vital those three priests were to their success.

In terms of strategic value, they were second only to the commander itself, and their magic allowed the unit to handle almost any unexpected variable.

To minimize land casualties, the commander had intentionally left a massive portion of its elite guards in the sea specifically to protect them and intercept any lone flanker.

Yet it couldn't comprehend what had just happened in less than five minutes.

Why?

It had left them a full guard detail, and they didn't even need to worry about the shore—all three casters only had to focus on a single intruder.

Why?

There was no time left to ponder. The sudden shift in the sea sent a massive surge of morale through the adventurers on land, making the melodious strumming of the Lute echo even louder through the air.

Leading a teammate each, Tieg of the Raging Tide Warband and Zephyr of the Windforged closed in on the fishman commander once more.

Feeling the tide of battle turn and seeing its troops demoralized by the carnage in the sea, the commander knew it had to strike back hard to regain control.

With a guttural roar, its massive body swelled by two sizes, making the half-dwarf Tieg look barely tall enough to reach its waist.

A glossy, watery film wrapped around its scales, glowing with the same vibrant blue as its blood.

Recognizing that the commander was activating a buffing state technique, the four adventurers engaging it moved instantly to exploit the activation window.

Tieg led the charge, bringing his heavy warhammer down in a crushing overhead strike. Zephyr trailed half a step behind, thrusting his double-edged rapier like a venomous stinger toward the soft tissue of the creature's flank.

The other two adventurers launched a simultaneous attack at its back.

Just as Tieg's hammer was about to land, his wild, battle-hardened eyes caught a sudden shift in the enemy's posture.

His pupils shrank.

"Watch out!" the stocky half-dwarf yelled.

It was too late.

A surge of fluorescent blue energy exploded outward from the commander's body.

The violent shockwave blew back both the hammer and the rapier inches before impact, throwing the two adventurers attacking from behind completely off balance mid-swing.

They stumbled backward, vulnerable.

"Whoosh!"

A deadly whistle cut through the air.

The fishman commander had feigned an opening to bait them in, and it had no intention of wasting the trap.

Spinning instantly, it swung its deep-blue stone harpoon in a massive arc with both hands.

The timing was ruthless. Caught completely off guard, the two adventurers had no chance to parry or dodge.

The sharp edge of the harpoon sliced diagonally down from one adventurer's shoulder through the other's waist, severing both of their bodies in half.

Blood, organs, and torn flesh spilled across the ground.

Still clinging to brief moments of life, the horrific shrieks of the bisected adventurers rang across the clearing.

"Aaaahhhh!!!"

Devastated by the sudden death of his comrades, Tieg instantly flew into a frenzy.

The Barbarian blood in his veins converted his inner Rage into physical red light, wreathing his body and shifting tattoos. His dense dwarven muscles bulged and stretched, expanding his height to nearly 1.8 meters.

His warhammer flared with flame-like energy, radiating pure fury.

On the other side, though the members of the Windforged weren't as close-knit as the Raging Tide Warband, their captain could not stand by as an elite squad mate was slaughtered.

An invisible gale wrapped around Zephyr's slender frame, making his movements as unpredictable as a falling leaf. Leaving behind a blur of afterimages, he thrust his rapier forward like a gale.

Knowing that the deaths would cripple morale if they didn't act immediately, both captains unleashed their full power, striking from left and right in a coordinated pincer.

Yet having been weakened from their time in the Secret Realm, neither captain was at peak condition.

The commander's sharp Perception picked up on this flaw instantly. With seasoned combat instinct, it realized it could tank one blow, trade an injury for a kill, and take down another leader.

But before it could commit to the trade—

The background music of the Lute suddenly shifted.

The soothing melody snapped into a rapid, urgent tempo.

The adventurers felt their steady stamina recovery hold place, but the fishman commander suffered a sudden freeze of mind and body at the critical moment, barely managing a twitch of instinct at the very end.

The next instant, the massive hammer coated in fiery Rage slammed down with a sickening crush, shattering the commander's thigh and sending bone shards bursting through the skin. Simultaneously, the double-edged rapier ran clean through its torso, entering one flank and exiting the other.

The sheer agony snapped the commander back to reality. Heavily wounded and bleeding out rapidly under the joint attack of two elite adventurers, it let out a desperate roar.

It spread its four arms wide, preparing to bring them down in a final double-sided strike.

Right then, the chilling howl that had been absent since the priest was killed echoed directly behind the commander's head.

A cold, dark shadow fell over it.

A Gray-Black Straight Sword—wreathed in ochre-red force field energy that distorted the surrounding air—stabbed through the back of the commander's skull and burst out from between its teeth.

"Thrum."

The force field energy detonated like a firework, blowing its head to pieces.