Chapter Fifteen: Delving into the Ruins

  "Ah..."

  Staring at the scattered spiritual dust in front of him, Rode wiped the sweat from his forehead and felt a bit exhausted. Along the way, the three of them had encountered quite a few ghosts, a total of fifteen or sixteen. If this were a regular five-man team with a full personnel complement, it wouldn't be a big deal, but now that Rode only had one fighter under him, he couldn't just find an MT to tank and then have everyone output like crazy. On the contrary, he could only carefully lure each opponent over one by one, then have Lijie release positive energy to weaken their defense, and finally kill them as quickly as possible. Since ghosts were at least level 10 elite monsters, even weakened undead creatures were difficult to deal with, and in order to achieve maximum damage, Rode had no choice but to make every sword strike hit the opponent's vitals to inflict maximum harm, aside from utilizing the attribute bonus of his Star Mark.

  But humans are not machines, and such high-intensity attacks will consume a lot of energy, let alone the fact that Rode is using his own body at this moment. In the game, failure can be retried, but here, if he fails, he may face death next.

  The pressure was so great that Rod even felt unbearable, he raised his head and stared at the ruins shrouded in mist in front of him, and only after confirming that there would be no more monsters for the time being did he let out a sigh of relief.

  "Mr. Rodd, would you like to take a temporary break?"

  The girl following closely behind looked at Rode with concern, as a spirit master, she didn't quite understand the meaning of every move Rode made, but still could feel the pressure he was under now.

  "Not...now..."

  Rod shook his head, although he had already cleared the small monsters in this area, but he still felt a faint sense of danger. He vigilantly gazed around, but couldn't figure out where this weak crisis came from deep within his heart. According to distance, they hadn't reached the BOSS's territory yet, so they shouldn't encounter too much danger. Moreover, Rod was quite familiar with the distribution of undead creatures here, and by rights, the monsters in this area should have been cleared already.

  So where does this sense of danger come from?

  Luo De looked around again, but still didn't find anything. Just then, the fat merchant beside him suddenly shouted out loud.

  "Ah!!"

  "What's wrong?"

  Rhode and Lizzie hastily turned around, only to see Mais pale-faced, one hand tightly clutching his travel bag, the other hand slightly trembling as he pointed towards the dense fog behind him.

  "Just now, there was a black shadow over there..."

  "Black Shadow?"

  Lijie looked in the direction of Meisi's pointing finger, but in the thick fog, nothing could be seen except for the dim sunlight.

  "No..."

  "Get down!!"

  At this moment, Rod's mind lit up and he finally understood where the danger came from. So he shouted loudly while pressing down on the girl's head, forcing her to go down.

  "Ah!!"

  Almost at the same time, a black shadow flew quickly across the sky, and Rode could almost feel the cold claws brushing against his scalp, even with a slight numbness.

  Damn it!

  At this moment, Rod's heart had already sunk to the bottom of the valley. He knew where the ominous premonition came from! It was a stone statue!

  In legend, the Misty Ruins were once a bustling and prosperous town, but with the decline of the trade route, it was gradually abandoned. After that, a wizard came here, he chose to study the forbidden death method in this abandoned town to save his beloved lover. However, the study failed, and the wizard also died as a result. But the death method did not stop because of this, which created the dense fog and so many undead creatures.

  But in the entire copy, the most dangerous one is the stone statue left by the mage to guard his own relics, which is a 15th-level rare elite!

  If he were in a team in the game, Luo would be thrilled. Rare elites are hard to come by, and sometimes you don't even get to kill one after several attempts. But now he just feels a chill in his heart, as the opponent is a level 15 rare elite, and also a flying monster. Its movements are agile, and it has a huge difference with those ghostly creatures that rely on negative energy to condense, at least Lige's positive energy can't do anything to it. Moreover, its body made of black jade is extremely hard, and the damage caused by ordinary attacks is very limited, it can be foreseen that this will be a tough battle!

  In the game, Luo De had gone to Misty Ruins over thirty times and still hadn't seen a single Stone Golem, so he subconsciously forgot about it, but unexpectedly encountered one for the first time after coming here?

  Is this good luck or bad luck?

  But now Rodeo doesn't have the mood to entangle with such problems, because danger is approaching.

  Head-on combat is hopeless, after all, I'm not even level 10 yet, challenging a level 15 monster is almost an impossible task, and even with the bonus from Star Mark, my attack power is still limited.

  "Hurry up!"

  Without hesitation, Rod immediately gave the order, pulling Lizzie up with one hand and shouting.

  "Follow me, bow your head, don't look up!"

  It's impossible to retreat now, the only way is to find the control center of the Golem and thoroughly destroy it. Although escaping from its attack range is also an option, Luo De looked at his team configuration, but couldn't find anyone who could easily lure the enemy away - if only there was a Ranger or Rogue around.

  But now is not the time for complaints.

  Under Rode's lead, Lige and Mays lowered their heads and stumbled forward, the dense fog around them began to churn again, it was clear that their movements had attracted the attention of the ghosts, already four or five ghosts emerged from the fog, starting to move in the direction where the three were.

  "Lilith, attack! Don't stop!"

  "Yes!"

  Although it was not easy for the girl to cast spells while running, she gritted her teeth and stretched out her right hand. Soon, three or four consecutive white lights appeared in mid-air and fell on the ghost's body. Immediately afterwards, Lode swung his sword and stabbed, accompanied by a series of miserable cries, and soon those obstructive ghosts disappeared into dust. Just then, a system prompt flashed before Lode's eyes.

  Experience points 1900/1800, can be upgraded, level 8

  However, Rod had no time to care about this system prompt at the moment. The ghosts that appeared around him were getting more and more, although they were hesitant and slow under the illumination of the Holy Light, but the advantage of numbers made up for this difference.

  Unlike the inflexible specters, the golems were completely indifferent to this sacred radiance. Although they were also products of negative energy, as guardians of the mages, the black jade that made up their hard exterior was enough to resist most holy powers' invasion. And after missing its first strike, it immediately identified the crowd as its target and closely followed the three, waiting for the moment to launch a surprise attack——compared to undead creatures that relied on instinct to attack, artificial life forms with some combat wisdom were indeed more troublesome.

  "Oh no!!"

  Just then, Mais suddenly stumbled and fell heavily to the ground. The stone statue ghost, which had been following behind the crowd for a long time, immediately swooped down, its two sharp claws flashing towards the fat merchant who was lying on the ground. When Mais turned around, all he saw was the shadow that almost enveloped his body.

  "Oh heavens..."

  Although the Golem's speed was indeed very fast, and Mais had already cooperated to close his eyes and wait for death, its attack still fell short - a faint, golden light shield appeared out of thin air, blocking the Golem's sharp claws. Then, several snow-white blades shot through the air, heavily striking the Golem's body, accompanied by loud "slapping" sounds. The Golem, which had not yet regained its balance, was knocked flying and crashed into a group of ghosts. At this time, Lisha had already pulled up the fat merchant, who had been prepared to go to the afterlife to reunite with his loved ones, and continued to run forward.

  "Here!"

  Under the siege of the undead, Rod barely managed to shake off most of the undead creatures. He then lifted his head and quickly found his target - an abandoned church that was also where the wizard had conducted experiments before. According to Rod's memory, the central control of the stone golems should be there too.

  But such places are naturally not so easy to get into.

  Just as Lode walked to the church door, he felt a blackness in front of his eyes. He hastily and unconsciously activated Shadow Flash to retreat backwards. Only then did he see a pitch-black stone statue crouching in the place where he had just stood. A hard claw had heavily smashed onto the ground, shattering the originally hard bluestone into powder.

  "It's really deadly."

  Rodney muttered under his breath and quickly scanned around, only to find that the stone statues that were originally used for decoration on both sides of the church gate had vanished. As for where they went, it was easy to guess.

  I unexpectedly ran into two of them today, it seems like I should buy lottery tickets and make some money.

  If I'm lucky.

  "Quickly go in and find the central control device!"

  Roth locked eyes with the stone statue in front of him and gave orders to Liche and Mes.

  "Those ghosts shouldn't bother you, I'll keep these two occupied. You take this chance to get in, find the central control device and destroy it, watch out for traps."

  "But... Mr. Lode, you..."

  "This is an order."

  Roth coldly interrupted Lijie's words, then he grasped the Star Scar and swung it forward, a snow-white light blade bursting out instantly. The stone statue also shrieked and flew up at the same time as Roth's attack, dodging his strike and clearing the way to the church.

  "Hurry up!"