Pfft! Blood sprayed through the air as the girls stepped back, keeping the dark red droplets from staining their dresses.
Staring at the enormous monster whose forelimb had been severed, Chu Lian tightened her grip on her blade. Instead of recklessly charging forward, she had Cai Ya spread a thin layer of blue ice crystals around the places where the monster might set its feet.
"Chu Chu, use Thunder Prison to restrain it." Chu Lian turned and gave the order. Chu Chu nodded and spread her hands. Her staff circled around her as she recited a long string of runes, then shouted, "Thunder Prison!"
Rumble! A black cloud more than ten meters wide appeared in the cloudless sky. Purple lightning churned within it, carrying such majesty that it nearly forced everyone to their knees.
Wild blue-violet lightning crashed down and split apart around the monster, forming a cage that trapped it inside.
At the sight, Chu Lian planted her longblade in the ground and took the iron bow from her back. Her slender fingers drew the string, and she fired straight at the monster's eye.
"Awooo!" The monster let out a howl that sounded like both a dog and a wolf. With one forelimb severed, ice covering the ground beneath it, and Thunder Prison surrounding it, it could no longer rely on its speed to evade the girl's arrow.
The arrow pierced its lantern-sized eye, and thick fluid poured out. Its already unsteady body could no longer support itself, and it collapsed heavily to the ground.
"Xiu'er, have one of your summoned beasts move forward and test it. See how it reacts. If it can still attack, we'll have no choice but to kill it." Chu Lian waved to Li Xiu'er, who stood nearby surrounded by several beasts, and asked her to send one of them to probe the enormous monster.
Hearing Chu Lian's words, Li Xiu'er reached out and stroked the head of a blue ice wolf. As it whimpered obediently, she pointed at the monster and said, "Come back if you encounter danger. Don't force yourself."
The ice wolf rubbed against her palm, then its eyes instantly turned dangerous. It padded lightly across the grass and stopped three meters from the monster before spitting an icicle at it.
Clink! The icicle struck its thick fur without causing much damage, but the monster immediately sprang upright from its prone position. Its snake-like tail swept forward and slammed down where the ice wolf stood.
Unfortunately, the ice wolf had already been on guard. The moment the monster rose, its four limbs tensed, allowing it to leap aside just before the tail struck.
The monster's attack was certainly ferocious, but the Thunder Prison surrounding it was no joke. When the tail touched the prison and tried to withdraw, a bolt of lightning severed it.
The flesh was scorched so badly that not even blood could spray from the wound. The monster wailed and roared until, at last, its head sagged to one side and it died.
[Mission to Capture the Dark Beast Failed. The Village's Trust Has Been Lost.]
[The Village's Trust Has Been Lost. Main Quest Failed. 3,000 Reputation Deducted.]
[Main Quest Failed. The Plot Has Collapsed. The King of Dark Beasts Has Discovered Your Actions. An Army of Three Thousand Dark Beasts Will Soon Arrive.]
[Quest: Defeat the Dark Beast Army Led by the Dark Beast Eagle. Completion Reward: 5,000 Reputation. Complete the Main Quest and Earn the Village's Trust.]
"I choose to log out..." After hearing that, Chu Lian said nothing else and immediately chose to leave the game.
Sitting on the bed, she removed her gaming helmet and shook her head. As her long, beautiful hair fluttered around her, the girl seemed to have grown quite a bit.
"Ahhh, why did we fail again? Big Sis, this quest obviously shouldn't be that difficult, so why can't we capture the Dark Beast?" Chu Chu also removed her gaming helmet and scratched her head in frustration, muttering her dissatisfaction.
"It can't be helped. It wouldn't be so difficult if we could defeat the Dark Beast alone, but we're only level ten. There's no way any one of us can defeat a level-fifteen Dark Beast. Even capturing it requires the strength of a four-person team. Sigh..."
Chu Lian picked up the water beside the bed and took a sip. Then she turned toward Li Xiu'er and Cai Ya, who had also removed their helmets, and shrugged to show that they had failed again.
"We failed on our side too." On the other side, Liu Yanran removed her gaming helmet and gave the girls a bitter smile.
"By the way, who designed this quest? Why would anyone make something so damned frustrating? I feel like hitting someone." After scratching her long hair into a mess, Chu Chu remained unwilling to accept defeat and looked up to ask Chu Lian. She definitely was not trying to ask for a strategy or anything.
"Have some backbone." Chu Chu's idea might have been clever, but Chu Lian had no intention of indulging her. She curled a finger and flicked the girl's forehead, making Chu Chu clutch her head in grievance and shrink into a corner, too afraid to speak.
Chu Lian looked at Cai Ya, Li Xiu'er, and Chu Chu on her side, then at Liu Yanran, Inori, Lux, and Nana across from them. After thinking for a moment, she suggested, "How about Inori and Xiu'er switch places? I mean, perhaps changing the composition of the two groups will let us clear it?"
"My class is Ranger, Chu Chu is a Thunder Mage, Xiu'er is a Druid, and Ya is a Frost Mage. All three of them are fragile ranged damage dealers, while I'm the only one who even half qualifies as a melee fighter. On your side, Nana is an Assassin, Lux is a Light Mage, Inori is a Gun Warrior, and you're a Sword Dancer. Aside from you being a proper warrior, Inori and Nana can only be considered half-melee fighters, while Lux's Light Mage class deals pitiful damage at low levels... I don't think a composition like this can bring us victory."
Chu Lian carefully considered all their classes before finally realizing the problem. How could I have been so stupid? Clearing quests often depended on proper class composition. With such haphazard teams, it would have been strange if they had succeeded.
"Lux and I can both be considered crowd-control mages. The difference is that I control the enemy, while she applies buffs to our allies. Would the two of us work better together?" Cai Ya rested her chin on her hand and thought for a moment before suddenly offering the suggestion.
"I think that could work too. Look, Big Sis. Sister Xiu'er has the powers of nature and earth, so she can be considered half a crowd controller. But because Sister Cai Ya is already there, she doesn't bother with crowd control and instead focuses on harassing the enemy with her summoned beasts. Now, if Sister Cai Ya and Sister Inori switch places..."
"Then your team will have Lian and Inori as two melee fighters. They can restrain the Dark Beast and use chains to bind its limbs and body. Xiu'er can support you from the side, while Chu Chu handles damage. Her lightning has a paralysis effect. Although the chance of triggering it against an enemy higher-level than herself is very low, she can repeatedly cast small spells while it's restrained. Once paralysis activates, you can use that instant to bind its tail..."
"Nana is an Assassin who specializes in shadow-type skills and poison. You're an agility-based Sword Dancer and an elf, so you can use some low-level nature magic. The two of you can fight in melee, one harassing it with poison and the other with natural vines. The effects may not be very strong, but you'll buy plenty of time for the two crowd-control mages. Then, when the time comes, you can concentrate your burst damage and may be able to subdue it instantly..."
Liu Yanran and Chu Lian took turns analyzing the other team's class composition. The more they discussed it, the brighter their eyes became. By the end, both of them were excited. This composition could work!
"Then it's decided!" Chu Chu listened and also felt that the plan had a high chance of success. She happily clenched her little fist and made the decision for everyone.
"Ow!" Her forehead suffered another flick. Chu Chu pouted but did not dare say anything else. After all, nothing in heaven or earth mattered more than Big Sis. Making decisions on her behalf was simply asking for trouble.
"I have a question..." After they finished rearranging the teams, Nana and Lux, who had remained silent until then, exchanged a glance before speaking.
"Hm? What question?" Chu Lian looked at her curiously, unable to understand what was bothering the girl.
"Why can't we level up before trying again? Why do we have to complete this quest at level ten? Since we're GMs, we can reset our game data to how it was before we attempted the quest, but there's no need to push ourselves this hard." Li Xiu'er and Lux seemed to share the same thought and nodded together. Only Inori glanced at her without speaking.
"Oh, that. It's because... completing it at level ten will unlock a special quest for us. Finishing that quest comes with a huge reward. Don't you know?" Seeing their confusion, Chu Lian immediately began explaining. "The reward works like this..."
What exactly were they doing? To explain that, everything had to begin with Dreambound, an action role-playing game created to test the market before Infinite World was fully developed.
After the girls' vacation began early, they spent a week reading, chatting, and cultivating as usual. Eventually, they could no longer sit still and wanted something else to do, so one of them proposed an idea.
The world was currently undergoing enormous changes. Some were hidden, while others were clearly visible. The most obvious was that cultivators had begun interfering in the affairs of the ordinary world.
Some cultivators who had long been suppressed wanted to commit terrible acts, while those who followed the path of guardianship stepped forward to stop them.
In any case, the ordinary world increasingly resembled the setting of a superhero film. Heroes, superpowered individuals, and extraordinary beings could now be seen and contacted.
This game had been designed to accommodate those changes. It was a standard fantasy game containing legends from the East and West, tales from countless civilizations, and classic elements such as different races and classes.
The only difference was that its enemies had been replaced with monsters that might appear, or had already appeared, in the real world.
Through this virtual-reality game, whether players chose the single-player mode or the online multiplayer mode, they could personally experience the world's differences and more easily accept the changes taking place around them.
The idea was good, but while the girls could certainly play games, creating one themselves was rather difficult.
Building the models for a virtual-reality game's environments, characters, equipment, weapons, and everything else, along with all the corresponding knowledge, was not something a handful of people could finish in a short time. Even though Chu Lian and the others could design the plot themselves, it still had countless flaws.
Thus, Chu Lian spent most of the Blood Points from the Bloodstained Reward, which she had originally planned to save until later, and summoned a group of girls to help.
Yes, several adorable races. Races so adorable that they nearly turned Chu Lian's home upside down...