Chapter 136
Chapter 136
Guo Lan was still locked in battle with the Faceless Woman.
This dagger was already the best Anomalous Artifact she owned, yet the Faceless Woman was far stronger than any boss she had faced in other S-Rank Instances.
Worse, it was cunning. Knowing it could not confront the power of an Anomalous Artifact head-on, it hid in the fog and played hide-and-seek with her, wearing down her stamina bit by bit.
Guo Lan knew she could not keep reacting passively like this. If she did, she would be the first to collapse from exhaustion.
She fixed her eyes on the figure moving through the fog, planning to deliver a killing blow the instant the Faceless Woman showed itself.
In the dense mist, a black shadow flew toward her.
Now!
Guo Lan leaped into the air and drove the dagger down with precision, aiming straight for the Faceless Woman’s head.
But the moment she pinned that thing into the snow, Guo Lan froze in shock. It wasn’t the Faceless Woman! It was just a piece of clothing!
She hurriedly turned around. In the next second, the Faceless Woman appeared behind her, face-to-face with her.
“You can’t escape.” The Faceless Woman seized Guo Lan’s sword hand and wrenched it backward with force.
There was a sharp crack, followed by Guo Lan’s scream. Her entire right arm was dislocated, and she no longer had the strength to hold the dagger. The short blade fell into the snow.
The Faceless Woman grabbed Guo Lan by the arm, lifted her whole body with ease, and hurled her hard into the fog.
Guo Lan slammed violently into a tree trunk, then collapsed into the snow.
The Faceless Woman gave her no chance to draw another Anomalous Artifact. It appeared before her again, seized both her legs, and smashed her away once more.
“Ah!”
Guo Lan had no chance to fight back at all. Her whole body felt as if it had fallen apart, and she could no longer move.
The Faceless Woman loomed over her from above.
“As long as you don’t resist, it won’t hurt this much.” As the Faceless Woman spoke, it slowly raised its sharp claws, intending to finish Guo Lan off.
Suddenly, it stopped. Its gaze snapped toward another direction in the fog, as if it had sensed something.
The next second, it grabbed Guo Lan’s already dislocated arm and dragged her whole body toward another part of the forest.
…
“What a shame. We won’t be able to achieve a Perfect Clearance.”
In the thick fog, the beams of two flashlights were moving quickly forward.
He Xu held the Anomalous Artifact Compass and said, “Be satisfied. At least we can still leave an S-Rank Instance completely unharmed.”
Zhou Jie glanced at the Compass and said, “It’s all thanks to this Anomalous Artifact pointing us toward the Red Door, and to those cannon fodder for drawing the Faceless Woman away for us.”
“Well, who do you think came up with the plan?” He Xu raised an eyebrow and smiled.
Zhou Jie gave her waist a hard pinch. “As expected of my woman.”
He Xu smiled faintly. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at him and said, “Once you escort me to the Red Door, take this Compass and go find the next one. We’ll meet at Origin Land.”
“No problem.”
He Xu suddenly stopped and looked around warily. “Did you hear something?”
“It’s just the wind. Don’t jump at shadows. The Faceless Woman must be busy hunting down those cannon fodder right now.”
No sooner had Zhou Jie finished speaking than an ethereal voice drifted out from the fog ahead.
“My dear guests, since you’ve come all this way, why leave?”
The Faceless Woman slowly emerged from the dense mist, dragging a dying Guo Lan behind it.
He Xu and Zhou Jie exchanged a glance, both of their eyes filled with shock and fear.
How had it appeared so quickly?
And… Guo Lan was ranked higher than both of them on the Hero Ranking, yet the Faceless Woman had beaten her within an inch of her life. Even if the two of them joined forces, they probably couldn’t defeat it!
Once they realized that, the two turned and ran.
“Split up!” He Xu said.
Zhou Jie frowned and looked at the Compass in her hand. “No!”
The only way to find the Red Door in this vast forest was with that Compass. If they split up, he was basically finished!
He Xu gritted her teeth in secret and glared at Zhou Jie. “Then take out your Anomalous Artifact and get ready to fight!”
“I know!”
Zhou Jie had already pulled out a pistol. It was an Anomalous Artifact he had obtained in a previous Instance, but there was only one bullet left in the gun.
“I found you!” the Faceless Woman’s voice rang out. The next second, a deathly pale face dropped upside down from a tree.
He Xu, who was running at the front, nearly failed to stop in time.
“Careful!” Zhou Jie grabbed her and yanked her back just in time.
The two of them focused their eyes and saw that it was Guo Lan!
Her legs were pinned to the tree by the Eerie Entity’s power, leaving her hanging there. Her arms dangled limply, and her lips trembled as she rasped, “Save… me…”
“Sorry. Nothing we can do.” A trace of cold mockery flashed through He Xu’s eyes. She went around Guo Lan and continued hurrying in the direction indicated by the Compass.
Zhou Jie did not stop for even a second either, following close behind her.
Neither of them looked back as they ran forward. Soon, they burst out of the dense fog, and the Red Door was not far away.
“Thank god! Xu, give me the Compass, quick!” Zhou Jie reached out to He Xu while glancing back into the fog to see whether the Faceless Woman had caught up.
He Xu’s grip on the Compass tightened slightly.
This Anomalous Artifact still had two uses left…
“Kee-hee-hee… Stay here…” the Faceless Woman’s voice sounded behind them again.
He Xu frowned and threw the Compass to Zhou Jie. “Run!”
“None of you are running anywhere!”
As the Faceless Woman’s voice rang out, both of their bodies froze in place. It was as if an invisible force had clamped down hard on their shoulders.
“Use the Anomalous Artifact already!” He Xu said anxiously to Zhou Jie.
Zhou Jie’s hand around the pistol moved with great difficulty, but he still could not break free of the Eerie Entity’s power binding him.
The Faceless Woman appeared silently behind them and poked her head out between the two of them. “Caught you.”
He Xu stared at the bloodied face inches away from her. A rotten stench mixed with the heavy reek of blood rushed straight at her.
Even though she had experienced Instances far more terrifying than this, at this moment, a chill still shot straight to the top of her skull.
He Xu’s mind raced. The power of an Eerie Entity would weaken over time. As long as she could stall and avoid being killed immediately, once the Eerie Entity’s binding force weakened, she could rush straight to the Red Door!
With that thought, she quickly said, “Don’t kill me. I know who your enemy is!”
The Faceless Woman mechanically turned her head to look at her. “Oh? Who is my enemy?”
“It’s your only employee, Meiya. She was the one who killed you back then! You should be going after her for revenge, not us.”
“Kee-hee-hee…”
At the same time, Zhou Jie’s right hand strained so hard that veins bulged out across it. Bit by bit, he was regaining control of his body.
“Or you can let us go, and we’ll avenge you,” He Xu tried to negotiate.
Blood dripped from the Faceless Woman’s face, drop by drop, as she leaned even closer to He Xu. “You really are such good people.”
“Yes. You can trust us. We aren’t your enemies.”
“Kee-hee-hee…” The Faceless Woman circled around to stand in front of them. “Yes, we can even be friends, as long as you’re willing to stay forever.”
Zhou Jie’s right hand suddenly lifted, and he pulled the trigger at the Faceless Woman’s head. “Go to hell!”
With a bang, the Faceless Woman mechanically turned her head to look at Zhou Jie. The bullet was lodged right in the center of her brow, but the flesh and blood slowly swallowed it up.
“Kee-hee-hee…” The Faceless Woman’s shoulders shook, and her tone grew even more sinister. “A mere B-Rank Anomalous Artifact thinks it can hurt me?”
At that moment, He Xu and Zhou Jie both went deathly pale.
How could the BOSS of this S-Rank Instance be this powerful? A B-Rank Anomalous Artifact could not hurt her in the slightest!
And every time before, they had clearly used cannon fodder to hold back the Eerie Entity and cleared the Instance that way. This time, the Red Door was clearly right in front of them too.
So how had the Faceless Woman caught up so quickly?!
Could those people really have died that fast?