Volume 5: Protracted War Chapter 171: Storm is Coming (1)
As an auxiliary artifact, at first glance, the two attributes of "Death Control" have little direct relationship with combat. Obtaining it did not significantly enhance my strength. At least in the short term, it did not show much effect in the battles in the human world. However, if measured from the perspective of long-term development, it has an absolute effect on the improvement of my strength. "The activity area of the undead creatures that can be directly controlled has doubled", which means that I can command the undead creatures under my command to carry out activities in a wider area, and the expanded combat radius makes it easier to carry out long-distance raids or large-scale battles. At the same time, the range of spiritual contact with my subordinates has also doubled. As the area of my activities is getting wider and wider, and many of my subordinates are scattered everywhere, this attribute can make it easier for me to understand the relevant situations in the "Dead Space" in a timely manner. As for "the success rate of 'Soul Contract' increases by 25%", this is the first time I have such an attribute. Although the system does not give a detailed and clear explanation, after many experiments, it seems that my basic mental power will increase by 25% at the moment of performing "Soul Contract", which makes it relatively easy or has a certain probability to subdue those more powerful undead creatures. Combined with the ability of "Blood Transformation" to increase basic mental power by 12%, my benefits should be even greater.
With my current abilities, I no longer need to perform "Blood Transformation" to successfully sign a "Soul Contract" with the Terrifying Land Dragon Knights. I believe that even if I face a more powerful Terrifying Winged Dragon Knight, I will be able to subdue them. Unfortunately, I am currently busy with many things. I am busy with the replacement of the main combat arms, using the Terrifying Land Dragon Knights as the main force in the battle, and subduing as many corpse wizards as possible to prepare for the joint expedition of the Four Witch Kings to the "Valley of the Wind". In addition, I have to collect the souls of the other four sacred beasts required for the "Dead Soul Scepter" to unlock the task in the human world, and I have to pay attention to the situation of Khufu and the others in the "Hell Volcano". I am also worried about the immersion qualification challenge set by the "March Agreement" with Hades, the Nether Dragon King. These have taken up almost all of my time, and I have no time to spare for the time being. Without investing much energy in searching for the Terror Dragon Knights, Xiaobai and a group of Devouring Ghosts can only explore on their own and report any findings in a timely manner in order to determine their approximate range of activities and prepare for future operations to subdue them - Terror Dragon Knights do not have a fixed habitat and usually move around freely in a vast area. They also have strong flying and air combat capabilities. With my current strength, it will take some effort to subdue them, and it will require a lot of time and manpower, which I cannot afford at the moment.
"Death Control" successfully fell into my hands, and I finally had a pair of artifact gloves. It was really worth celebrating. However, after successfully killing Behemoth and the Ultimate Hydra, I encountered considerable trouble in challenging the remaining four sacred beasts, which made my originally optimistic mood fall to the bottom.
The first setback was the action of killing another earth-based sacred beast, Xuanwu. Xuanwu's body is like a big turtle, with a round turtle shell of about seven or eight meters in diameter and more than three meters in height. Its defense ability is the best in the world. With the current strength of the players, if the attack power is a little weak, it is impossible to cause any damage to it. Hitting it is just like tickling it. Use earth-based magic to attack, but the casting speed is slow and the magic damage is not high. Of course, this is only relative to other sacred beasts. After all, sacred beasts are sacred beasts. With our current strength, being hit by its magic will definitely not be too comfortable. Its movement speed is extremely slow, only slightly stronger than the Ultimate Nine-headed Monster, but it has the ability of "Earth Escape", which allows it to hide underground and escape when the battle situation is unfavorable. Although we can attack it from the ground as long as we can determine its location, we can continue to cause damage to it, but we cannot see it, and everything depends on subjective conjecture, so the attack efficiency will inevitably be greatly affected, and it is easy for it to escape. Once it sneaks into the belly of the mountain, we can no longer follow and kill it, and the action can only be declared a failure. Moreover, we cannot invest too many people in challenging the holy beast. If we rely on the "human sea tactics" blindly, or the battle is delayed for too long, there is a great probability that other holy beasts will interfere. Therefore, at this stage, players generally like to deal with those holy beasts with low defense capabilities and easy to attack, regardless of sacrifice, attack against attack, and hope to make a quick decision. There are few "treasure hunting groups" who want to fight against such a difficult "hard bone" as Xuanwu - as a holy beast of the earth system, the success rate of killing Behemoth is definitely higher. If I didn't need to collect Xuanwu's soul just to "kill monsters and get treasure", Xue Wuxia and Afeng would definitely not choose Xuanwu as their target.
Despite careful preparation, the operation to kill Xuanwu failed in the end. It escaped into the belly of the mountain, leaving us with nothing but sighing and frustration. Man proposes, God disposes, success or failure is not under our control. When we challenge a much more powerful sacred beast, no matter what the result is, it will not be a surprise.
It seemed that this battle marked the beginning of my "bad luck period". The subsequent challenge to the Dark Sacred Beast Great Demon also failed. The Great Demon's short-range "teleportation" ability is simply a nightmare for players who cannot fly. Watching it disappear, it may appear next to you the next moment, sneer and wave the long-handled sickle in its hand, delivering a fatal blow. When the battle situation was unfavorable and we wanted to escape, the continuous "teleportation" made it impossible for us to accurately judge the direction of the Great Demon's escape, and we could not organize an effective interception. It successfully escaped and hid in the depths of the mountains and forests. All our efforts and hard work turned into nothing, and we did not get any benefits.
I finally understood what it meant to "Misfortunes never come singly, fortune never comes in pairs". I felt extremely annoyed and frustrated. My subsequent actions to challenge the water sacred beast Golden Dragon and the dark sacred beast Bloodthirsty Demon Emperor also failed one after another. After the initial two successes, what awaited me were four consecutive failures. My heart, which had become more and more fanatical because of the successful acquisition of "Control of Death", was poured with a bucket of ice water. The heat was gone, leaving only the cold. I was extremely depressed, with a tense face every day, and rarely smiled - I clearly had the opportunity to own the third artifact, why torture me like this, after letting me see a glimmer of hope, you gave me such a heavy blow?
