Chapter 541 - Terrifying Great Demon King

The Barren Ridge was a wasteland located in the Maple City Region. The land was parched and cracked; not even a blade of grass could grow here. Yellow sand choked the wind as it was lifted into the air all year long. Yet, at this moment, many players could be seen grinding and leveling in this desolate area.

The Barren Ridge was a Level 25 to Level 32 leveling map. Although it was a wasteland, various kinds of Stone Beasts lived there. Stone Beasts were Elemental Creatures made of excellent stone materials. There was a 20% chance to obtain Advanced Stones when killing these monsters, and they even had a small chance of dropping rare ores.

Nowadays, the forging industry was very popular, and many Lifestyle players who disliked combat would learn forging. Hence, all sorts of forging materials were in high demand right now. Even if the Barren Ridge did not contain treasure chests or advanced quests, many players still preferred to grind for Stones and ores here while leveling up.

The various large Guilds had monopolized the high-resource maps surrounding every city, leaving no room or access to ordinary players. If an ordinary player were discovered trespassing into a Guild-run zone, the Guild members would either chase them away or kill them on the spot.

Knowing this, ordinary players naturally avoided these high-resource maps. Instead, they could only explore ordinary maps such as the Barren Ridge.

However, after Shi Feng’s last visit to the Dragon Ridge, Overwhelming Smile’s members avoided the zone at all costs. Instead, they had come to the Barren Ridge to grind and level up. This resulted in ordinary players flooding the Dragon Ridge, and Maple City’s ordinary players came to admire the name Black Flame.

One man was capable of forcing an entire Guild to concede. Black Flame’s strength was inconceivable!

Laughing Heaven, Overwhelming Smile’s Guild Leader, wanted nothing more than to hack Shi Feng into thousands of tiny pieces.

Unfortunately, even Laughing Heaven’s hands were tied.

Based on War Wolf’s report, Shi Feng’s Base Attributes were simply too high. He was far beyond experts like them. If they wanted a fighting chance against him, they needed to upgrade their equipment and Base Attributes first. Before that happened, however, they could only try their best to keep hidden.

Of course, there were other methods they could use such as hunting Shi Feng in large teams. However, a team of several hundred players would not be enough. A single large-scale destruction spell would be more than enough to annihilate most of the team. At the very least, they needed to mobilize armies of over a thousand players. Unfortunately, Shi Feng’s whereabouts were unknown. It was practically impossible to trap him with thousands of players. So, they had no choice but to endure until they possessed a strategic-level expert capable of rivaling Black Flame.

“Damn, just how long do we have to grind here?” a Level 24 Summoner from Overwhelming Smile grumbled. “Since when have Overwhelming Smile members ever suffered such a loss before? We are actually forced to this godforsaken place. Isn’t he just one expert? I don’t believe that we can’t take him out if several hundred of us gang up on him.”

“Shh! Be quiet! What if your big mouth really summons that person?” the Level 25 Elementalist serving as the team’s leader warned the Summoner softly, frowning as he carefully observed his surroundings. “You were lucky that you weren’t out that night. If you experienced that volcanic power, you would know that even a team of hundreds of players would be no different than ants. Moreover, not even the Shield Warriors and Guardian Knights with high HP and Defense survived a single hit from that expert.”

Many among the team nodded their agreement to the Elementalist’s words. Although it was currently daytime, they could still recall the madness of that night as if it had happened yesterday.

“Team Leader, aren’t you overexaggerating? Although our current equipment isn’t top-tier, even someone fully geared with Level 25 Dark-Gold Equipment should not be able to kill our team’s Guardian Knights and Shield Warriors in one hit, right?” the Summoner replied, refusing to believe his team leader’s claim.

Moments after this Summoner finished speaking, a black figure suddenly descended from the sky.

“Don’t believe it?

“Why don’t you experience it yourself, then?”

The person who had flown down from the sky was none other than Shi Feng himself. The Barren Ridge was ridiculously large, and Overwhelming Smile’s members had scattered across the map. For efficiency’s sake, Shi Feng had no choice but to activate Wind Rider to hunt these people. When Shi Feng noticed this 100-man team from Overwhelming Smile, he had immediately flown towards them.

The instant Shi Feng descended, he switched the Aura of Wind to the Aura of Fire and launched a Firestorm from above, covering a radius of 30 yards.

Flames filled the sky, burning everything in its vicinity to ash and dust. Even the Level 27 Stone Beasts, which possessed high Magic Resistance and 5,000 HP, died with the first wave of damage, not to mention players whose HPs were below 5,000 and had zero Magic Resistance.

In the blink of an eye, less than 30 players remained of Overwhelming Smile’s 100-man team.

They’re too spread out. After landing, Shi Feng frowned slightly when he noticed that many had escaped his Firestorm.

However, the massive AOE had dumbfounded Overwhelming Smile’s members.

“Crap! It’s the Great Demon King! Split up and run! Contact the Guild Leader and notify everyone else immediately!” the Elementalist team leader responded quickly as he shouted in the team chat.

“Team Leader, what should we be afraid of? He’s just one person. Watch me take care of him!” Although the Summoner was also stunned by Shi Feng’s Firestorm, he quickly began chanting an incantation and summoned a Flame Beast, ordering it to attack the newcomer.

The Flame Beast was a Fire-type Elemental Creature possessing extremely high flame damage. Moreover, it also had a very powerful Skill.

Self-detonate!

When activated, the Flame Beast would self-destruct and cause 300% damage to all enemies within a radius of 10 yards. It was a considerably powerful AOE Skill. However, upon activating Self-detonate, the Flame Beast could not be summoned again for another four hours. So, Self-detonate was not a Skill that could be used to grind monsters.

“Die!”

The Summoner controlled the Flame Beast to dash towards Shi Feng.

However, when the Flame Beast was only ten yards away from Shi Feng, a streak of black light penetrated the Elemental’s body. The Flame Beast began to dissipate instantly.

“Impossible!” Terror gripped the Summon upon losing control over his Flame Beast.

The Flame Beast was the strongest Summoned Creature he could currently call forth, and it had an HP of 10,000. Yet, before it could even get close to Shi Feng, it was already killed. Even the Summoner had not seen how his Flame Beast had died...

To end the battle quickly, Shi Feng activated Defensive Blade and Purgatory’s Power, increasing his attack range and damage. To Shi Feng, the Flame Beast’s 10,000 HP and attack range of ten yards was nothing.

By the time the Summoner had reacted, he had discovered that he could not move his body. Someone stood right in front of him, and although this person hid his appearance behind a black cloak, his imposing aura and horrifically cold killing intent shattered any thoughts of resistance the Summoner had.

The Summoner was truly and thoroughly terrified.

Is this even a human...?

He finally understood why his team leader had sounded so unsettled. Just mentioning the name “Black Flame” was a huge taboo.

In the blink of an eye, Shi Feng’s figure disappeared.

Am I hallucinating? Before the Summoner could say anything, his vision began to gray. Suddenly, his body fell to the ground. When did he even attack me?

In a short moment, Overwhelming Smile’s 100-man team had been annihilated.

I’ve wasted too much time. They should have already contacted their Guildmates by now. It will probably be more difficult to find other members now. Shi Feng sighed as he looked at the loot scattered across the ground. He still had a long way to go to collect 5,000 Life Force points.

Just as Shi Feng finished gathering the drops and was about to search for the next batch of Life Force points, he received a call from Melancholic Smile.