How Do We Play If This Boss Isn't Nerfed?-Chapter 77 - 75: T-3 Hovering Exoskeleton Armor

Lin Ye took a moment from his fight to glance at Zhang Yuqing.

He quickly offered some advice.

"The boar’s back has a thick, horny layer of skin that will absorb most of your slashes. Your sword is too light to deal any effective damage."

"Attack its snout and eyes. That’s where its nerves are most concentrated, and also its most vulnerable spots."

Before the words had even left his mouth, his spear demonstrated the technique as if straight from a textbook.

He sidestepped a charging boar, and in one fluid motion, swung the butt of his spear to precisely strike the boar’s snout.

THWACK!

A dull thud rang out.

The frenzied boar let out a pained squeal. Its massive body instantly went out of control, and it slammed headfirst into a nearby wall, sending rubble flying.

Lin Ye continued.

"Mutated hyenas. Their spine is a weak point, but they’re fast, making it hard to hit."

"Prioritize attacking the joints in their hind legs to cripple their mobility."

Zhang Yuqing was shaken. She subconsciously followed Lin Ye’s instructions, her Rain Listening Sword tracing an elegant arc.

Instead of aiming for the hyena’s neck, she twisted her blade and precisely sliced through the joint of its hind leg.

SHINK!

The soft sound of a severing tendon followed.

The mutated hyena let out a wretched howl as its hind legs gave out, and it collapsed to the ground.

Before it could struggle, Zhang Yuqing’s sword followed up, cleanly piercing its neck.

The effect was outstanding!

Zhang Yuqing’s eyes were filled with nothing but shock.

Lin Ye was like a walking encyclopedia of mutated beasts.

This knowledge wasn’t in any school textbook. The so-called expert-compiled bestiaries only offered vague descriptions.

’How does he know everything?’

’And in such detail, as if he’d personally dissected thousands of them!’

With Lin Ye acting as a field commander, Zhang Yuqing was no longer just fighting on instinct and the sword techniques she had learned.

Every one of her strikes became more purposeful, and her efficiency soared.

With Zhang Yuqing now a reliable combatant, Lin Ye felt their monster-clearing speed kick up another notch.

Unfortunately...

This artificially induced, small-scale beast tide was, after all, limited in number.

Under their efficient slaughter, the mutated beasts around the square were wiped out in just over ten minutes. The few that remained had long since scattered and fled, disappearing into the deep shadows of the ruins.

Lin Ye glanced at his experience bar.

LV13 (12.8%/100%).

In just those ten-plus minutes, he had gained nearly thirteen percent experience.

That level of efficiency was even higher than a whole night of cautious hunting in the real-world ruined city.

Since he couldn’t currently level up in the real-world ruined city because of those two Fusion Monsters, Lin Ye was determined to make the most of these three days.

’Competition ranking?’

’Prize money?’

’All of that can wait.’

’Leveling up is my most important goal right now!’

With the great battle over, Zhang Yuqing finally couldn’t hold on any longer.

She panted heavily, strands of hair plastered to her sweat-soaked forehead. Her face was flushed from the intense exertion.

Lin Ye, in contrast, was only breathing slightly harder, his expression unchanged.

He held his spear and began rummaging through the pile of mutated beast corpses.

Soon, he dragged the massive corpse of a mutated spider over to Zhang Yuqing.

Then he led her to a high point on a building with a wide field of view.

"Let me borrow your sword."

Lin Ye dropped the millstone-sized spider corpse with its eight menacing legs onto the ground with a dull thud.

"Ah!"

Zhang Yuqing scrambled back several steps in fright, her pretty face instantly turning pale.

She wasn’t afraid of fighting ferocious mutated beasts, but she had a girl’s natural fear and disgust for multi-legged, bizarre-looking creatures like spiders.

Let alone one this huge!

"My spear tip isn’t good for carving up carcasses. Your sword is more suitable," Lin Ye explained.

Zhang Yuqing looked at Lin Ye’s serious expression and bit her lip.

Though extremely reluctant, she still handed over her sword.

Lin Ye took the Rain Listening Sword.

As his hand closed around it, he felt its nimbleness. It was extremely light with perfect balance—truly a Divine Weapon tailor-made for a female or agility-based Martial Artist. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

He wasted no more words, crouching down to start processing the spider’s corpse.

SHINK!

Without even using much force, the tip of the Rain Listening Sword easily pierced the spider’s hard, alloy-like carapace.

’A fine sword.’

He praised it sincerely in his heart.

This gave him a much more direct understanding of the masterworks from the Weapon Workshop.

Lin Ye’s movements were as practiced as a butcher with decades of experience. In a flash of the blade, he cleanly detached the eight spider legs and stacked them neatly to the side.

Next, he sliced open the spider’s abdomen.

An indescribable stench mixed with green fluid gushed out.

With the tip of the sword, Lin Ye precisely picked something out from the slimy pile of viscera.

It was a fist-sized, translucent sac filled with a dark green liquid.

"What... is that?"

Zhang Yuqing asked curiously, forcing down the urge to vomit.

"A poison sac."

As he spoke, Lin Ye carefully punctured the sac with the sword tip and coated the tip of his own spear with the viscous venom.

The once-subtle glint of his spearhead was instantly covered by an eerie layer of dark green.

After doing this, he handed the Rain Listening Sword back to Zhang Yuqing.

"You should coat your blade, too."

Lin Ye had only discovered this after being accidentally bitten by one of these spiders.

Its venom wasn’t lethal, but it acted extremely fast. It was a potent neurotoxin that caused paralysis.

Coated on a weapon, even a shallow cut could cause a target’s movements to slow within seconds, or even induce temporary paralysis.

It would save a lot of effort when dealing with fast mutated beasts.

Watching Lin Ye’s practiced work, Zhang Yuqing first felt waves of nausea.

Then she took a deep breath, suppressed her disgust, and copied him, carefully applying the venom to the blade of her Rain Listening Sword.

After that was done, she saw Lin Ye start to process the spider legs, prying open the hard shells to pick out the snow-white meat inside.

She hesitated for a moment, then walked over to help him, fighting a strong sense of physical revulsion.

Lin Ye paused his work, giving her a somewhat surprised glance.

He couldn’t help but see Zhang Yuqing in a new light.

He had assumed that, given her family background, she would be a spoiled rich girl who had never had to lift a finger in her life.

But he hadn’t expected her to be completely free of a rich girl’s bad habits. On the contrary, she was exceptionally practical and resilient.

’She’s already doing her best to keep up with my pace and help me.’

By now, the sun was at its zenith, the time of day with the best light.

After processing their spoils, Lin Ye stood atop the ruins, his hawk-like gaze sweeping over the ruined city below.

He committed the surrounding terrain, the layout of the buildings, and the positions of the few mutated beasts moving in the distance to memory.

Just then, however...

A few barely perceptible black dots appeared on the horizon, entering his field of vision.

Lin Ye’s expression changed abruptly.

"Hide!"

He hissed, pulling a still-confused Zhang Yuqing with him as he instantly ducked behind the large shadow of a dilapidated wall.

Zhang Yuqing was taken aback by his sudden action, but she instinctively held her breath and followed his line of sight, craning her neck to look up at the sky.

Soon, she also saw the few black dots that were rapidly approaching.

As they drew closer, the outlines of the black dots gradually became clearer.

They... looked like people!

People flying through the air!

Lin Ye’s pupils contracted, his gaze narrowing to a fine line.

When the face of the leader finally came into view, his expression darkened.

’It’s them?’

He recognized the person flying at the very front!

It was the leader of the group that had gathered the most people in the square before and had also been the first to disappear!

’No wonder they were bold enough to trigger a beast tide in the city center.’

’So that’s why. They have the means to fly, allowing them to leave the ground at any time!’

"That’s... a T-3 Hovering Exoskeleton Armor!"

Zhang Yuqing, beside him, let out a suppressed gasp, her voice filled with disbelief.

"Only Ninghai Science and Technology University Affiliated Middle School would be willing to equip their core-seeded contestants with such expensive gear!"

"They’re... people from Ningke University Affiliated Middle School!"