Calamity Messenger

Chapter 332 - 268: Steel Death Penalty

Monster battles at 20 levels higher aren’t actually difficult. Although freeing the Demon King can only be done with ’Seven-Step Chanting Buddha’, which has lower output, every game has the simplest and most intuitive gameplay: as long as your healing speed matches the enemy’s damage, you can even knock down the Blessed Profound Yellow Celestial Venerable with the lowest-grade wooden stick.

Most ordinary players play like this, where stats are the reason for reigning supreme. Everyone is busy all day and rarely finds time to play games, so even pressing a skill and consuming a bit of Spiritual Jade is quite an operation. If the difficulty isn’t increased, how can a time-charging PC game like "Messenger" compete with anime mobile games, short videos, and online novels? High-difficulty dungeons are meant for hardcore players and aren’t part of the discussion.

Unfortunately, in the game "Messenger", the recovery method is not like soul-series games or monster-hunt games with a big vulnerability in the potion-drinking action, but there is a limit to the spiritual power recovery speed during battles. Even if Yan Qing holds the blue-button firmly, the alt character can only recover up to 20 points of spiritual power per second.

Yet, the Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror, just taking one attack from the Demon King’s Spider Silk Lady, drops two or three layers of barrier, which is almost 40 points of spiritual power!

However, this is to be expected. Although only two people entered the Secret Realm, ’Ye Si’ is a true Third-Turn, and the Spider Silk Lady naturally upgraded to the twenty-player Third-Turn Demon King difficulty. According to the official team configuration recommendation, there should be at least four MT players to absorb damage and four Nannies to heal. This configuration has the tolerance that even if half the team is wiped out, they can still pass through.

’Yan Shiyi’ solo absorbs the damage; it’s no wonder if he ends up beaten like a dog’s head.

One must know that the Spider Silk Lady is only using normal attacks right now. According to Secret Realm rules, Third-Turn Demon Kings always have ultimate skills. Moreover, the Spider Silk Lady has had its Karmic Force Bar activated by Yan Qing, probably upgrading from a normal dungeon boss to a challenging dungeon boss like the Corpse King Dragon Roaming, so it wouldn’t be surprising to have a major final skill.

But that’s okay. Solo players are least afraid of challenges, as long as the rewards are sufficient. They’ll exploit glitches to get through! Now, there are at least six hours before dawn, time is abundant. He has had a plan long ready, and now it’s time to execute it.

The Spider Silk Lady’s movement speed is not particularly fast. Despite being entirely composed of spider silk, she outwardly resembles a maiden in a long court dress, with the spider silk beneath her resembling a white wave pushing her onward. After taking two hits, ’Yan Shiyi’ successfully ran out of the white web area before the defense barrier collapsed. The Spider Silk Lady’s subsequent actions had three possibilities:

The first possibility is that she continues to chase ’Yan Shiyi’. This is the worst situation, although not enough to fail the action, participation from ’Ye Si’ is necessary next to free this Demon King, and maximizing gains isn’t possible;

The second possibility is she loses the hate and returns to the empty area. This is the best situation, meaning Yan Qing can completely kite her, draining her gradually. But if the Demon King were that unintelligent, Tombstone Military Town could clear this Secret Realm thirty times a day with no problem.

And the third possibility —

After ’Yan Shiyi’ escaped far away, the Spider Silk Lady did not continue her pursuit but instead turned her gaze to the ’Ye Si’ hiding atop the tombstone.

The hatred shifted!

Sure enough, when the primary hate target leaves the final battle stage too far, the Demon King shifts its hate to the nearest target! Kiting is impossible; the Demon King is bound to chase people!

But ’Ye Si’ had climbed up the tombstone tree, and unless the Spider Silk Lady had long-range attack capabilities, there was absolutely no chance of hurting ’Ye Si’, so was ’Ye Si’ safe?

How could it be possible?

The Spider Silk Lady casually waved her right hand like a maid splashing ink, but without any hint of danger. Yet the spider silk she sent off acted like iron rods compressed to their limit, snapping the tombstone tree with ease, emitting a noise that made teeth ache!

Even Yan Qing’s eyelids twitched violently, as if the spider silk had hit him. No wonder the Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror could only block three hits at most. The Spider Silk Lady, like a Corpse Ghost, had slower movement and attack speed but was terrifyingly strong with each single hit!

The white tombstone collapsed loudly, but ’Ye Si’ did not fall. He still stood in mid-air. Looking closely, one could see him standing on a rope, its ends tied to two adjacent tombstone trees. The collapse of the tombstone tree beneath him didn’t affect ’Ye Si’ at all. He resembled Spider-Man standing on spider silk.

If it were a living being, Spider Silk Lady should now attack the other two tombstone trees. However, no matter how intelligent, the Spider Silk Lady is ultimately just a program. No plan exists for the situation of ’player suspended on ropes’; she could only circle around ’Ye Si’, attacking the air endlessly.

It’s a success!

Yan Qing sighed in relief.

This wasn’t a flash of inspiration but rather a small trick learned from watching the video ’Climb to the ceiling and urinate to kill a Sixth-Turn Boss’. That uploader is renowned as a Spider-Man iron fan, loving to climb to places beyond a boss’s reach and exploiting positions to defeat bosses. This ’Suspended Silk in Mid-air’ is one of the universal solutions; as long as a nearby tall object exists, suspended silk can be created to stay up on.

Theoretically, any player can use this trick, but only players mastering the Spider Secret Technique can attack while standing on suspended silk. Now, just providing ’Ye Si’ with a bow and spending a few hours might be enough to shoot the Demon King to death, simultaneously mastering Basic and Advanced Arrow Techniques.

However, ’Ye Si’ is useful until now; next is still ’Yan Shiyi’s time.

Yan Qing wiped off his sweaty palms, gently pushed the joystick, controlling ’Yan Shiyi’ to slowly approach the Spider Silk Lady from the side. Luckily, though the Spider Silk Lady is always turning, her vision range remains relatively fixed, creating blind spots.

This game is quite realistic in terms of enemy searching; using techniques like silencing and invisibility can allow silent approach to an enemy, like Si Wuxie in Corpse Bone Forest, widely believed to have navigated through demon mobs using an invisibility artifact back in the day. But stealth gameplay takes time; just like Yan Qing now, it took thirty full seconds to get close to the Spider Silk Lady’s back.

Despicable outsider, initiating backstab!

The Seven-Step Zen ruthlessly stabbed in, greedily scoring two sword strikes before ’Yan Shiyi’ turned to flee. As expected, he was too slow, and the Spider Silk Lady immediately shifted her hatred, giving him a harsh lashing. But after chasing him for a dozen steps, she turned back to continue her attack on the suspended ’Ye Si’, looking a bit dazed and even cute.

What followed was a boring trash time, with ’Yan Shiyi’ sneaking up to backstab, the Spider Silk Lady chasing a few steps then returning, in a repetitive cycle. Yan Qing became more proficient, and after about half an hour, the Spider Silk Lady’s health and karmic force bar plummeted to 50%.

If the people from Tombstone Military Town saw this, their jaws would probably drop—they couldn’t even chip away so much health fighting a Second-Turn Spider Silk Lady normally in half an hour!

However, this was understandable; the Seven-Step Zen had low output compared to Bingzi Pepper Forest, but it combined the partitioning effects of Bingzi Pepper Forest, dealt 15 points of Celestial Calamity Karmic Force true damage, and, most importantly, Yan Qing could tank three strikes with the Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror, often greedily taking hits. The Military Town’s strategy often involved setting up defensive structures to gradually chip away health with crossbows, prioritizing stability over speed, which was astonishingly inefficient.

When the health dropped to 50%, the Spider Silk Lady suddenly swiped both hands, drawing ten deadly arcs with her ten fingers, with each fingertip showing a ’Destruction’ word that burned like candle sparks, dealing five rounds of damage within ten steps!

"Destruction!" The Spider Silk Lady emitted a voice that wasn’t human, but rather the tremor of heaven’s decree... This was the celestial might of Dao Foundation Divine Techniques!

Although Yan Qing knew a change would likely occur once passing the 50% health threshold, he still couldn’t evade it; the Spider Silk Lady’s attack preparation time was too short, and ’Yan Shiyi’ couldn’t escape in time!

The seven-layered barrier of the Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror vanished in an instant, leaving Yan Qing drenched in cold sweat. ’Yan Shiyi’ was equipped with the Yaksha Mask, Mountain Heart-Protecting Mirror, and Bodhisattva Pendant—items capable of tanking all demon kings below Foundation Establishment even within Third-Turn levels—yet he was nearly shattered.

This was the Steel Death Penalty, darn it!

Unlike the ’shared death penalty’ from Corpse King Dragon Roaming, the ’Steel Death Penalty’ was an area attack directed at melee players; without time to move away, they would at the very least lose a layer of skin. Although the Steel Death Penalty wasn’t as deadly as the shared death penalty, it was still beyond what a typical player could endure. If not for ’Yan Shiyi’ maxing out his defense items, he might have died on the spot.

After replenishing his state, ’Yan Shiyi’ cautiously approached once more. After successfully landing a backstab, the Spider Silk Lady didn’t turn around but instead launched the Steel Death Penalty again! ’Yan Shiyi’ was within three steps of the Spider Silk Lady, his defensive barriers shattered, with a third of his health gone!

Clearly, the Steel Death Penalty also depended on distance—the closer, the higher the damage. If touched directly by the dual ’Destruction’ words of the Spider Silk Lady, even a Third-Turn Messenger with full defense would melt away!

Though barely managing to withstand it, the risk was too great.

Yan Qing noticed the Spider Silk Lady didn’t pursue further, nor did she attack the air, but instead patrolled beneath ’Ye Si’ repeatedly. His heart stirred slightly, and he took out a steel crossbow from the warehouse.

Hit by the crossbow bolt, the Spider Silk Lady showed no reaction, continuing her rounds beneath ’Ye Si’. Yan Qing thought for a while, switched to ’Ye Si’s account, and slashed the air.

"Destruction!"

Although no one was in the area, the Spider Silk Lady still activated the Steel Death Penalty. After activation, she froze for three seconds. Even if ’Ye Si’ swung again without hitting anything, she wouldn’t react until three seconds later when she launched another Steel Death Penalty.

Yan Qing suddenly saw the light, fully understanding the second-phase mechanism of the Spider Silk Lady. She used the Steel Death Penalty as a regular attack; just this attribute placed her unquestionably at the difficult-level BOSS. Melee players would easily suffer a wipe, but her vulnerability was also significant: After casting the Steel Death Penalty, she entered a lengthy three-second cooldown period, during which she couldn’t perform other actions.

To trigger her Steel Death Penalty, players must attack her within melee range, unlike ’Yan Shiyi’, who couldn’t trigger it from afar. Only because ’Ye Si’ exploited a height bug that made the Spider Silk Lady think ’Ye Si’ was in melee range as well, causing her to catch his post-attack delay and initiate the Steel Death Penalty.

Simply put, it’s a command reading!

From here on, it became straightforward: ’Ye Si’ continued attacking the air, and during the three-second gap when the Spider Silk Lady was cooling down after the Steel Death Penalty, ’Yan Shiyi’ rushed to slash her a few times. Even if he occasionally got greedy with strikes, he could retreat in time without being overwhelmed by the Steel Death Penalty.

A command reading, meant to irritate players, instead became a loophole for wanton bullying of the BOSS when properly exploited.

The Spider Silk Lady’s health and karmic force bars steadily dropped, 30%... 20%... 10%... 1%!

After emptying the Spider Silk Lady’s karmic force bar, Yan Qing wasted no time and immediately controlled ’Yan Shiyi’ to take out the Bingzi Pepper Forest to unleash Heaven-Covering!

Simultaneously, the Spider Silk Lady curled up like a baby, with endless white silk pouring out of her body, weaving her into a cocoon. Inside the cocoon appeared a word: "End"! At the same time, her health abruptly recovered to 25% and kept rising at a rapid 5% per second!

Beyond a doubt, if her health returned to 100%, the Spider Silk Lady would come back in full force, likely entering a third phase or worse, going berserk with an indiscriminate global death penalty! However, under the Heaven-Covering Blade Aura of Bingzi Pepper Forest, her health fell like a tug-of-war rope, slowly but inevitably reaching zero!

In the moment before death, a girl’s cry echoed from the cocoon: "Fuxiang... Fuxiang..."