Chapter 596 – Escape
Nie Yan’s web line accurately flew through the air and stuck to the chestpiece. With a hard tug, he pulled it toward him.
Watching the chestpiece flying towards him, Nie Yan’s heartstrings were stretched taut. He extended out his hand and grabbed it. Not bothering to examine it, he directly stuffed it into his bag.
At this moment, Phantom Princess Ina was alerted by the noise. She immediately locked onto Nie Yan.
A malevolent expression warped her face. Her eyes burned red with rage.
Phantom Princess Ina chanted out an incantation in a long lost undead language. With a wave of her staff, a large net of black energy appeared in the air over Nie Yan.
“Got it. Time to go.” Nie Yan attempted to activate his Unknown Transfer Scroll, only to have it fail. He glanced at his status bar. He was under a new status effect—Soul Lock!
Soul Lock was Phantom Princess Ina’s curse. It prevented the target from using any teleportation items.
“Dammit!” Seeing the black energy net about to trap him, Nie Yan leaped out of the way. He disappeared into stealth with Gale Step and fled toward the exit.
Since Nie Yan couldn’t use teleportation items, he had no choice but to escape the underground tomb by foot.
Phantom Princess Ina raised her staff. A black energy sphere flew into the air. Upon finding Nie Yan’s location, she swung her staff down. Immediately, black fireballs started whizzing down towards him.
BANG! BANG! BANG! Flames flew out everywhere.
None of the fireballs landed directly on Nie Yan. However, he was still hit by the splash damage. A damage value of 700 floated up above his head.
Nie Yan quickly drank a Master Speed Potion, causing his movement speed to instantly break past 1,000. As he fled for his life, he quickly inspected Phantom Princess Ina.
Health: 8,000,000/8,000,000
“Shit! She’s a Level 100 Variant Lord now!” Nie Yan didn’t dare to dally. He took advantage of the effects of the Master Speed Potion to bolt out of the hall.
As Nie Yan neared the large stone door, he alerted the Sacrificial Blood Maidens. They conjured up red orbs of light in their palms and fired at him.
With no way to dodge so many projectiles, Nie Yan activated Shadow Waltz. He brushed past the Sacrificial Blood Maidens and fled out of the door.
Phantom Princess Ina charged out of the stone door. In the next moment, she disappeared from her original position and reappeared in front of Nie Yan. With a wave of her staff, the shadows in the vicinity shot up like writhing tentacles and wrapped around him.
“Tsk, she’s really tough to deal with.” Nie Yan ignored the Shadow Bind with Death Exemption and rushed straight at Phantom Princess Ina.
Seeing Nie Yan close in on her, Phantom Princess Ina opened her mouth and let out an ear-piercing shriek.
Howl of Terror!
Nie Yan expected this move. He instantly activated Mind Immune.
The sharp scream swept past Nie Yan. His ears were ringing badly, as if someone sounded an air horn in his face.
Thankfully, he had activated Mind Immune just in time. If the fear from Howl of Terror landed, he would’ve had no hope of escaping alive.
Concussive Blow!
Nie Yan smashed the pommel of his dagger into Phantom Princess Ina’s forehead, causing her to wail out in pain.
Phantom Princess Ina had fairly high Evasion. If it weren’t for the fact she was vulnerable during Howl of Terror, Nie Yan would’ve had a difficult time stunning her.
Nie Yan circled behind Phantom Princess Ina. As he leaned to one side, he pushed off from his waist and channeled all his power into his arm.
Backbreaker!
KRACKK! Zennarde’s Sword was driven directly into Phantom Princess Ina’s spine.
Backbreaker was the most effective against humanoid monsters. Phantom Princess Ina was crippled for five seconds.
Trying to kill Phantom Princess Ina was a fool’s errand. Seeing Backbreaker had successfully CC’d her, Nie Yan didn’t dare to linger and fled for the outside. He was astonishingly fast at maximum speed, but he still felt like he was too slow. As he turned a corner, he spotted a horizontal beam under the ceiling up ahead. He took aim and shot out a web line.
As soon as the web line hit the beam, Nie Yan gave a fierce tug and shot up into the air like a rocket. He instantly covered 10 meters as his silhouette appeared to leave behind afterimages due to his sheer speed. The Dark Maidens who had already respawned didn’t even get a chance to react before he left their attack range. They ended up bunching up together in a chaotic pile-up.
Five seconds later, Phantom Princess Ina finally recovered from the cripple. Gazing around, Nie Yan was nowhere to be found. He had long since fled to who knew where. She immediately went into pursuit, only to discover the corridor was blocked by the Dark Maidens. With no way of chasing him, she could only scream out in anger.
Before long, Nie Yan made it out of the underground tomb. He summoned his Darkwing Dragon and climbed on its back.
With a powerful flap of its wings, the Darkwing Dragon took to the air. It flew into the distance and quickly disappeared behind the clouds.
Nie Yan glanced at his status bar. Soul Lock still hadn’t disappeared, so he couldn’t use Return Scrolls or Unknown Transfer Scrolls.
“Tsk, this is going to be troublesome… She probably has to be killed for this Soul Lock to disappear. If I don’t do anything about this, don’t tell me she’s going to keep chasing me forever? No way, right…?”
Despite knowing what had to be done, Nie Yan knew he wasn’t a match for a Level 100 Variant Lord.
“Hmm… If I return to Calore, she definitely won’t follow me there. Only the most powerful monsters will attack a large city. Maybe I could lure her into a small town or village and have the NPCs kill her like I did with the Guardian of Order?”
Level 100 Variant Lords wouldn’t approach large cities, but instances of them attacking small towns and villages were quite common.
Nie Yan immediately thought of the ideal place. “I’ll lead her to Crassus!”
Crassus was a small town that few players frequented. However, the NPCs there were quite strong. They were all Level 90 or higher. The town had more than 300 NPCs. This force was probably strong enough to deal with Phantom Princess Ina.
“If I can lead her to Crassus, it should be fun.” Nie Yan smirked. Like this, he could simply push aside most of the work to others. Having him deal with Phantom Princess Ina alone was undoubtedly suicidal.
