Chapter 141: The First Wave of the Assault

"Use the Immovable Golden Bell to block them!"

Wei Cheng shouted. They absolutely could not let these mutated boars charge to the front lines; that would spell disaster.

In the blink of an eye, the thousands of mutated boars had already closed in to within one hundred and fifty meters.

It was at this precise moment that Wei Cheng, Bai Han, Tang Yuanshan, Yu Liang, and Mei Renli simultaneously and without prior agreement flung out their Immovable Golden Bells.

Wei Cheng threw out fifty-two bells in a single breath, each one trapping a mutated boar. Bai Han tossed out eighteen, hitting his targets with absolute precision.

Tang Yuanshan deployed twelve.

As for Yu Liang and Mei Renli, they each managed a mere six. The disparity was too painful to watch.

Regardless, the five Mountain Movers had indeed unleashed the effect of the berserk Immovable Golden Bell torrent.

Ninety-two Immovable Golden Bells descending simultaneously was quite a spectacular sight.

Instantly, ninety-two mutated boars were trapped underneath.

Whatever thoughts those trapped mutated boars might have harbored were irrelevant; the boars charging from behind completely ignored them and continued their mad dash forward.

As a result, some smashed head-on into the Golden Bells, while others became wedged in the gaps between them, triggering a massive chain-reaction collision of boars.

Over a hundred mutated boars were crushed to death on the spot, while countless others piled up into a mountain of flesh.

In the blink of an eye, a small hill over a hundred meters high had formed.

Meanwhile, Wei Cheng, Bai Han, Tang Yuanshan, Yu Liang, and Mei Renli continued relentlessly hurling their Immovable Golden Bells until the charging formation of the boars was completely paralyzed, turning the horde into something resembling a gigantic pork dam.

Right at that moment, Chen Ce leaped into the air, his left and right hands continuously hurling flame stones backward into the very center of the boar charging cluster. In an instant, over a hundred flaming mutated boars were created right in the middle of the horde, driving the chaotic scene beyond all control.

With the dam of piled-up boars blocking the way ahead, charging forward was impossible. Consequently, they could only roll, crash, and slaughter each other wildly to the left, right, and rear.

Boars crashed into boars, and boars piled upon boars, resembling a boiling pot of meaty dumplings.

All of them were howling, jumping, and writhing frantically in sheer hysteria, utterly unable to break out, while flames continued to ignite all around them, instilling the deepest terror in their hearts.

In a very short span of time, the offensive brought by those thousands of boars was largely neutralized. Even if a few stray boars managed to rush forward, they weren't even enough for Chen Ce to finish off.

That's right, Chen Ce was the only one in Wei Cheng's team permitted to hunt and move about freely, simply because the Agile Swallow internal energy consumption was extremely low unless Dharma treasures were invoked.

And these boars were simply not worthy of that.

At this moment, Chen Ce was killing with great fervor on the outer perimeter, having just casually sliced off the mutated head of a boar, when he was suddenly frozen in place without any warning.

A distinct, bizarre floating head hovered above his skull, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws in triumph.

The +25 Flame Ring on his body failed to activate in time.

Fortunately, Wei Cheng had been paying close attention.

"Hum!"

An Immovable Golden Bell descended at high speed, trapping the paralyzed Chen Ce inside. Almost simultaneously, with a muffled *bang*, a flash of cold light swept past, carving a gash over ten centimeters long into Wei Cheng's Immovable Golden Bell.

Had the Immovable Golden Bell not been replenished in time, Chen Ce would have been decapitated right then and there.

Leveraging that flash of cold light, Wei Cheng clearly saw an unknown target completely shrouded in dark shadows flash by and vanish into the firelight once again.

Yet his spiritual perception was utterly unable to lock onto it!

This was a powerful assassin—one capable of stealth, possessing teleportation-like flashes, and wielding extraordinarily powerful attacks. It was likely a boss-tier entity.

After all, carving such a large gouge into Wei Cheng's Immovable Golden Bell was no easy feat.

"Be careful! There's stealth on the other side, and Chen Ce is being corpse-camped!"

A prickling sensation crawled across Wei Cheng's scalp. What on earth was that shadow?

Yet he still charged toward Chen Ce without the slightest hesitation; if he didn't go, no one else could.

Sure enough, even as Wei Cheng was running, a sudden sense of chilling dread arose in his heart. His Flame Ring seemed to be sealed off as a result. The next moment, a full three binding heads shot out from the surrounding darkness—a classic tactical move of surrounding a point to ambush reinforcements.

Without hesitation, Wei Cheng invoked his Spiritual Barrier.

Between his eyebrows, a flash of golden light erupted, and the three eerie binding heads instantly rotted away, losing their paralyzing effect.

At that very moment, however, a triumphant shriek rang out from the darkness.

The next second, a staggering one hundred and fifty binding heads shrieked as they flew up, hurtling down toward Wei Cheng all at once.

Indeed, the enemy seemed to have known all along that he would use his Spiritual Barrier to nullify the binding heads, yet deliberately waited until he had expended that immunity ability to unleash a devastating trump card!

Little did they know, a cold sneer played in Wei Cheng's heart.

The Spiritual Barrier could not be used frequently; even with his current level 9 spiritual strength, he still needed a cooldown of over a dozen minutes between releases.

Therefore, he had anticipated potential complications from the very beginning. Of course, if the enemy didn't react, it wouldn't matter—a cooldown of ten-odd minutes was something he could afford to wait out.

To his surprise, things played out precisely as he had predicted. A full one hundred and fifty binding heads—not even a Flame Ring with +25 fire resistance could withstand that.

Not to mention, some unknown force had preemptively blocked and frozen the Flame Ring.

The enemy was thoroughly prepared.

Yet in the very next instant.

Wei Cheng abruptly activated the ability attached to the Flame Ring: transforming into a Flame Giant.

That eerie frost power could block the automatic activation of the Flame Ring, but it could not block this card.

Because the ability to transform into a Flame Giant was tied to the Flame Ring, but its activation did not bypass the ring; rather, it required the Mountain Mover's internal energy to trigger.

The next second, a vast surge of Mountain Mover internal energy swept through him, granting Wei Cheng a strength ten times greater than his usual output.

It was precisely this tenfold increase in strength that allowed him to skillfully and flexibly command this body of a Flame Giant.

This body was not physical matter, but rather concentrated flame energy, bound and controlled by layers of talismans, which Wei Cheng operated by consuming his Mountain Mover internal energy.

Of course, none of that mattered.

What mattered was: could binding heads be recalled?

It seemed not.

Thus, the next moment, without needing to dodge at all, Wei Cheng enthusiastically welcomed those one hundred and fifty binding heads with fiery hospitality.

Goodness, the shrieks erupting in that single instant soared into the heavens, sounding precisely like skewers of mutton sizzling and oozing oil over a charcoal grill—a sound exceptionally sweet and delightful.

Wei Cheng let out a roar; the Flame Giant even wore an expression of sheer comfort.

Naturally, his movements were not slow. The next instant, he kicked away the Golden Bell trapping Chen Ce along with the paralyzed Chen Ce himself. In the next second, a massive torrent of fire spewed violently from his mouth as he spun around, turning his surroundings into a sea of flames in all directions!

Boy, let's see where you can run!

As expected, that dark shadow had been lurking right beside Chen Ce, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Never had it anticipated that Wei Cheng would unleash a localized AOE attack. Unable to remain hidden any longer, it instantly transformed into a wisp of blue smoke and fled outward. That proud figure and ethereal temperament strongly resembled the Agile Swallow class.

Even the technique it deployed should be the top-tier matched external skill of the Agile Swallow class: Shadow Clone.

The learning capacity of these fiends was truly astonishing.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"

Seeing that dark shadow about to escape, two large fireballs suddenly materialized in the palms of the Flame Giant that Wei Cheng had transformed into.

Indeed, everything a Magma Giant could do, he could do as well—and even better.

The dark shadow began erratic maneuvers, but Wei Cheng ignored it entirely and casually tossed the fireballs out. Two weren't enough, so he added two more, hurling eighteen in a single breath to completely blanket a five-hundred-meter radius.

Almost simultaneously, the dark shadow executed a blink, reappearing three hundred meters away. However, the rolling shockwave of the explosions—particularly the chaotic, conflicting shockwaves howling outward—tore it to shreds on the spot. Its defenses were astonishingly frail.

Meanwhile, having depleted the flame energy of the Flame Giant, Wei Cheng reverted to his original form and without a second word, turned tail and ran back. If a binding head were to drop at this moment, he would certainly gain no advantage and would be forced to deploy yet another trump card.

That would be highly inefficient.

Fortunately, by the time he ran back to Bai Han's rescue zone, the enemy side remained completely silent.

It was as if they had suddenly lost their backbone.

Wei Cheng paid no mind to that, holding a flame stone in one hand to replenish the Flame Ring's flame energy while pulling out a jar of Great Wilderness Blazing Sun Wine with the other, taking several huge gulps to restore his depleted Mountain Mover internal energy first.

Almost exactly fifteen seconds later, accompanied by another exasperated howl and a rustling sound echoing through the surrounding darkness, things suddenly grew quiet.

What did this mean?

"That means the first wave is over. My sister mentioned before that back in their day, fiends would arrive in a wave every single hour. If they couldn't completely annihilate the wave within that hour, they wouldn't get any time to rest at all."

Chen Ce suddenly smacked his forehead, recalling this crucial detail.

"An hour? The first wave, and it's just this?"

Wei Cheng harbored immense skepticism toward this. Had that last wave even lasted ten minutes?

"Brother Wei, when the P5 Legion reached the sixth checkpoint, they didn't have flame stones as abundant as ours for replenishment, nor did they have Wood-attribute classes to heal and dispel toxins. So just that swarm of black armored beetles alone was enough to give them a hard time, not to mention the subsequent boar swarm charge, supplemented by that elusive shadow assassin and a continuous barrage of binding heads."

"I'd say it's genuinely remarkable that the P5 Legion wasn't completely wiped out,"

Bai Han explained with a bitter smile. In truth, he also found it surreal. *Just this? I haven't even warmed up yet, and the battle's already over.*

"Still, we cannot lower our guard. Who knows what kind of tricks might pop up in the next wave. Oh, right, I suggest everyone pool their flame stones together and hand them over to Brother Wei to use."

"Agreed!"

The others stepped forward one by one, handing their flame stones to Wei Cheng. These things had minimal utility in their hands; it was far better to concentrate them so he could transform into the Flame Giant a few more times. That felt much more satisfying.

"One more thing: the enemy has a force capable of temporarily blocking the Flame Ring, which is how Chen Ce got paralyzed earlier. We need to change our strategy for the next wave."

Wei Cheng quickly conferred with the others; he dared not take anything for granted.