The Land of Abandoned Ghosts.
Outside Ghost Domain City, everything was dim and murky.
The area near Ghost Domain City was nothing but Bone-Devouring Beasts, the lowest-level Ghost Beasts in this secret realm, Levels 85 to 86.
Back when he was still wearing the Level 50 Tier 5 Illusory World · Thunder Set, Lin Mo had already tried killing no fewer than a few hundred Bone-Devouring Beasts.
His fastest kill had been 27 seconds!
"Let's see how it plays out in a real fight with this Tier 8 War God Set on."
Lin Mo gripped the Peerless · War God Crossbow.
The instant he activated the set skill [Divine Might],
whoosh!
a golden radiance spread out from Lin Mo's body across a huge area, a 200-yard radius around him.
He gained a 30% boost to all his stats.
Physical Attack +29,640!
Physical Defense +13,260!
Magic Defense +12,090!
Max MP +37,200!
Max HP +110,400!
At the same time, as the Heart of Eternity in Divine Advent Seraph · Siya's right hand glowed, waves of magic light surged.
Four buff effects, all maxed out.
Physical Attack +9,907!
Physical Defense +4,272!
Magic Defense +4,469!
Max HP +31,824!
With every buff maxed out,
Lin Mo was at his peak!
He locked onto a Level 85 Bone-Devouring Beast glaring at him ahead.
Drew the bow and loosed an arrow.
Whoosh!
SSS-Rank Ice Snow · Extreme Cold Grasp!
The air around him dropped to freezing in an instant.
The arrow, glinting with icy cold light, cut through the air and pierced the Bone-Devouring Beast's skull dead on.
Rooooar...
With a howl,
a blood-red damage number jumped above the Bone-Devouring Beast's head.
-3149510 (Critical)!
A Bone-Devouring Beast at full health, with 2 million HP, was killed in one shot by Lin Mo on the spot!
[Ding~ You killed a Level 85 Ghost Beast, a Bone-Devouring Beast. EXP +3.6 million...]
With a wail, the Bone-Devouring Beast crashed to the ground and died.
Looking at the Peerless · War God Crossbow in his hands, Lin Mo said excitedly, "Tier 8 gear really is something else!"
Besides the monstrous base stats,
the effect of the set skill Divine Might was not to be sneered at either!
Because Divine Might didn't just give the wearer a stat boost of up to 30%.
It also weakened monsters.
A weakening based on 10% of his own stats meant that the moment Lin Mo activated Divine Might, every Ghost Beast within 200 yards got a weakening effect.
Attack -13,844!
Physical Defense -6,173!
Magic Defense -5,686!
Max HP -51,022!
Strengthening himself, weakening the enemy.
Put the two together, and Lin Mo's combat power went right off the charts!
And in fact, Divine Might's weakening effect wasn't that noticeable on monsters with high stats.
On players, it would be terrifying!
At this stage, apart from Warriors and Knights, who might have around a hundred thousand HP,
most Mages and Archers only had fifty or sixty thousand HP!
Lin Mo's Divine Might cut max HP by 51,022 points.
The moment Divine Might went up, every hostile Mage and Archer player within 200 yards was instantly scrapped!
At the same time, Divine Might's passive effect triggered.
[Ding~ You killed a Bone-Devouring Beast and gained a 0.01% boost to all stats.
Your Physical Attack permanently increases by 9.88!
Your Physical Defense permanently increases by 4.42!
Your Magic Defense permanently increases by 4.03!
Your Max MP permanently increases by 12.4!
Your Max HP permanently increases by 36.8!]
Divine Might passive: Each time you kill a monster whose level is not lower than your own, gain a permanent 0.01% boost to all stats!
A single 0.01% boost on base stats is next to nothing.
But this passive could stack up to 100%!
Once it was stacked to 100%, all of Lin Mo's stats would double from where they were now!
And to get there, all he needed to do was kill ten thousand monsters in total!
"Perfect. I can use the monsters in the Land of Abandoned Ghosts to level up the Divine Might passive."
Lin Mo said excitedly, "By the time I've killed every monster in the Land of Abandoned Ghosts and cleared the secret realm, the Divine Might passive should be just about maxed out at 100%."
"Then my strength will be twice what it is now!"
At once, Lin Mo's fighting spirit shot through the roof.
He turned his attention back to the battlefield.
After taking down that Bone-Devouring Beast, Lin Mo started the next fight right away.
In these past days, Lin Mo had gotten a full picture of how the Land of Abandoned Ghosts secret realm was laid out.
"The quest in the Land of Abandoned Ghosts secret realm is to wipe out every Ghost Beast inside it."
"And the Ghost Beasts in this realm respawn in a batch every hour, around forty or fifty at a time."
"That meant my earlier pace, about half a minute per lowest-level Ghost Beast on average, was nowhere near fast enough to keep up with their natural respawn, so I could never finish the quest."
Lin Mo kept his thinking clear. "Even now, I have to make sure I kill fast enough to clear the secret realm as quickly as possible!"
Grr, grr, grr...
Inside the Divine Might aura, countless Bone-Devouring Beasts locked onto Lin Mo.
Lin Mo didn't hold back.
He went all out!
SSS-Rank Burning Heavens · Spark Ignites the Plains!
SSS-Rank Judgment · Soul-Devouring Arrow!
SSS-Rank World-Shattering · Annihilation Shot!
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
SSS-Rank single-target burst skills, one after another, landed on different Bone-Devouring Beasts around him.
Sky-high blood-red damage numbers burst above their heads.
-3045878 (Critical)!
-3297864 (Critical)!
-3197864 (Critical)!
...
Steady damage of 3 million and up killed every Bone-Devouring Beast he hit, without exception, in one shot.
Compared with his old best record, 27 seconds to kill a single Bone-Devouring Beast,
Lin Mo's kill efficiency had now gone up 27 times over!
In the five days he'd been trapped in the Land of Abandoned Ghosts, Lin Mo had stayed close to Ghost Domain City and never dared to go far from it.
Because the farther out he went, the higher the Ghost Beasts' levels got, and they were already a lethal threat to him!
And even killing the lowest-level Level 85 Bone-Devouring Beasts outside the city had worn him out.
The anger he'd bottled up for five whole days was finally released in this moment.
Lin Mo began to advance into the distance.
Along the way, every Bone-Devouring Beast he met, Level 85, Level 86 or Level 87, died to a single arrow.
With absolute power,
he went from a cornered beast trapped in the Land of Abandoned Ghosts
to its master in an instant!
Not a single Ghost Beast could stop Lin Mo's advance.
Right now, Lin Mo had only one thought.
Kill Ghost Beasts, level up the Peerless · War God Set skill Divine Might's passive!
Clear the Land of Abandoned Ghosts!
Destroy the Ghost Royal Guard!
Kill the Ghost King!
...
Meanwhile, in the outside world of the Land of Abandoned Ghosts,
at Purgatory City,
outside the south gate, the Ghost Royal Guard rolled in with its black mist, a great army bearing down on the city walls.
The first wave of players to rush out of the city had entered combat range.
Only now did they finally see what the enemy about to attack Purgatory City looked like.
And in that moment,
everyone's confidence was doused at once.
"Ghost Swordsmen... Ghost Soldiers... they're Ghost Race monsters!"
"I checked the official guide. The Ghost Race's ranks go Ghost Beast, Ghost Soldier, Ghost General, Ghost King, Ghost Saint, Ghost Sovereign, Ghost Emperor!"
"Even the lowest-ranking Ghost Beast is more than 30% stronger than a normal monster of the same level! And these are Ghost Soldiers, a rank above Ghost Beasts!"
"And they're Level 100 Ghost Soldiers! And there are so many of them! Damn!"
For a moment, every player was gripped by panic.
After all, before leaving the city, nobody had expected opponents as high as Level 100, and Ghost Race monsters at that!
And their own levels were uniformly only 75 and up.
Normally even Level 80-plus mobs were hard for them.
How could they face Ghost Race monsters at Level 100, the ceiling of a Level 2 Main City?
And while the players stared at one another, hesitating, ahead of them, countless Ghost Swordsmen were already sweeping toward them.