The next day 7 in the early morning, I was fully awake even though everyone else was still sleeping away the alcohol they had consumed during the mad party last night. It was because I was still on a mission to search for Xinran. This would be the third day I was inside the Purgatory.
I bought breakfast for everyone but didn’t bother waking them up and went online straight away. Time was of the essence right now.
Swhoosh!
Once more, I was greeted by the deathly sceneries of the fifth floor of the Purgatory. Not far away, a couple of Gravediggers could be heard digging into another ancient expert’s grave to plunder their buried treasures.
……
Next to me, Uldan was rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she summoned her bow. She asked, “You’re back.”
“Yeah. Let us continue.”
I crawled out of my tent and put it away. The morning cold of the fifth floor was pretty chilly. After buffing myself with a Hunter Card and Martial God, we began making way toward our immediate destination. It wasn’t close, so I anticipated plenty of battles before we reached it.
As expected, we were constantly harassed by the Purgatory Gravediggers. These sonuvabitches both dug up the graves of the dead and robbed the living, and Uldan and I were both their primary targets. Their ploy went about as well as you might expect. Not only did the Xuanyuan Sword annihilate them all, the Chains of Freedom made them cough up plenty of Perfect Divine Crystals for me. If I wasn’t in a hurry to search for Xinran, I might have hung around to grind as many Divine Crystals as I could.
The amount of mobs blocking away far exceeded my imagination, however. I was forced to grind until nearly 4 pm in the late afternoon—that was 8 hours of non-stop fighting—kill countless Gravediggers, and level up to 259. I was yet another step closer to the mythical Level 275. Of course, I had no idea if I could ever reach that Level. I highly doubted that I would be able to find a map as good as the Purgatory after I left it behind, meaning that I would be back to the days where a single Level would take at least a week of effort. It was definitely possible that grinding after Level 260 would take even longer, and it might even take half a year of grinding to level up once after Level 270…
Finally, we reached what seemed like a necropolis. It was the reddest area of the map and where the spatial rift to the sixth floor of the Purgatory was.
……
I gripped my sword tightly as I asked in a hushed voice, “Who is the guardian of this floor?”
Uldan stayed very close to me as she looked around with fully alert eyes. “The guardian was Penina the Magnificent Fire Dancer when I was imprisoned in the Life Shatter Realm, but it has been a very long time. It is entirely possible that it is someone else now. Regardless, they can only be very powerful. We must be careful.”
“Yeah. Let’s sneak our way in.”
I crouched on the ground and slowly shuffled my way forward. It didn’t take long before we started hearing mournful screams of pain. It was a group of undead being made to kneel on their knees. A bunch of undead generals in silver armor were standing behind them. When the time was right, they raised their blades and beheaded all of the kneeling undead.
“Damn…” I pursed my lips. “Is this place an execution ground or something?”
Uldan grabbed my wrist and said, “That is why we must be extra cautious. These soldiers are called Executioners, and each one of them possesses immense strength. They are one of the most elite units in the Purgatory. I didn’t know that the fifth floor’s guards have been replaced by these monsters…”
I captured the Executioners’ stats with Dark Pupils—
Purgatory Executioner (Ancient Immortal Rank Miniboss)
Level: 329
Attack: 71,000~92,500
Defense: 109,000
HP: 40,000,000
Skills: Killing Blow, Death Cleave, Qilin Slash
Property: Ignores 30% of the user’s Defense
Introduction: The Executioners are a merciless group. They possess extraordinary strength, and they are absolutely loyal to the Purgatory’s cause. They are death squads who will hunt down any traitor of the Purgatory. If the unfortunate unrepentant traitors happen to be captured in the Life Shatter Realm, they receive the supreme penalty from the Executioners themselves. It is said that the Executioners’ blades are capable of cutting through any shield and piercing any defense.
……
“They definitely look as troublesome as you say…”
I sucked in a deep breath after saying that. Not only did the Executioners possess extremely high Attack, they even ignored 30% of their target’s Defense. This was terrible news to say the least. The reason I was able to defeat every mob so far was because I had high HP and high Defense. I dared not say that I could maintain this advantage at all if they could ignore 30% of it.
It was at this moment the group of Executioners suddenly looked up as if they sensed something. One of them pointed their blade straight in my direction and shouted, “Someone’s spying on us! Squad one, head over and bring their head to me!”
The fuck? These Executioners could sense my Dark Pupils?
Uldan grabbed my wrist again and pulled me into a run. “We need to run! There’s no way we can battle 10 Executioners at once!”
I was of the same mind, so I didn’t hesitate to retreat with her.
Thankfully, our movement speed was higher because we were divine experts. Eventually, the 10-Executioner squad became separated from each other, and only 3 of them were close to the forest we had come to a stop. 3 Executioners was way more doable than 10.
“Let’s defeat them one by one!” I said.
“Mn.”
I unsheathed my weapon and activated Thunderous Charge. However, by the time I reached my target, the other two minibosses had already detected my skill usage and were charging toward me. These minibosses were far, far more sensitive than the Molten Worms on the third floor!
“Damned boy! Leave your life behind and be ready to suffer 10,000 years of annihilation in the Purgatory!”
One of the Executioners roared as he brought his blade down using Death Cleave. I couldn’t dodge it, so I blocked it with my shield instead. My arm turned numb, and 457,162 HP vanished from my health bar just like that. The Executioner’s attack ignored 30% of my Defense, so they were definitely capable of doing huge damage to me. That being said, this was hardly an impossible battle. I bound one of the minibosses with the God Binding Art before going to town with the other two. With 50% lifesteal, I had nothing to fear from them.
We managed to take out the three Executioners after nearly ten minutes of fighting. They didn’t drop anything particularly impressive, but the experience they gave was nearly 1% of my current level. Had I had the time to grind at my leisure, I could’ve hit Level 260 in just 3 to 5 hours. I didn’t have that time, however. If possible, I would like to enter the sixth floor of the Purgatory today!
After that, we continued to split up the Executioners and take them out one by one. Less than an hour later, they were all converted into experience in my experience bar. Then, Uldan and I continued to make our way stealthily to the center of the necropolis. The deeper we went though, the fewer greeneries there were. Eventually, there weren’t even enough leaves to keep us fully hidden. It meant that we might have to break through by force.
A far distance away, I saw an army camp that was surrounded by wooden fences. The entrance was guarded by two undead knights, and a bloody banner flew above their heads. They were in the way.
“Gulp…”
I gulped audibly before saying, “There’s an army camp in the Purgatory? Interesting. Let’s force our way in, kill them all and enter the spatial rift to the sixth floor, the Redemption Realm…”
Uldan caught my wrist before I could do anything rash. “Wait. Let’s wait a bit and see what happens first!”
“Okay.”
Half a minute later, a group of noisy Corpse Eaters with severed limbs in their mouths entered the army camp. They were then followed by a company of one hundred Executioners. The moment the entrance opened, I saw at least 10,000 Executioners standing at the military drill ground of the camp. That, I wasn’t expecting at all. What is this bullshit? Forget me, not even Binglan might be able to go up against 10,000 Executioners at the same time!
I sucked in a deep breath and muttered, “There are at least 10,000 Executioners in here… Why is the Purgatory raising an entire army of Executioners on the fifth floor? Are they trying to defy the heavens or something? If these Executioners were to invade Sky City, it’ll probably take them only half a day to annihilate Princess Karinshan’s five ace cavalry legions…”
Uldan was frowning just as deeply. “What on earth is Lin Na planning? This force is equal to nearly 50% of the Purgatory’s elite forces. Also, there are at least 100k Executioners in that fortress. Otherwise, they wouldn’t need to build such a huge necropolis to provide for the Executioners. Ugh, Lin Na must be plotting something big. It’s impossible to raise such an army without years of hard work…”
I rubbed my palms together. “It’s a shame there are no nuclear bombs in this game, or one bomb is all it takes for the Silver Moon Alliance to beat the undead…”
“It’s never that easy…”
Uldan shook her head before asking, “Can you guess why so many troops are being raised on the fifth floor?”
I thought for a moment before answering, “The first, second, third and fourth floor are heavily guarded, but experts from all three realms can still invade them from time to time. However, the fifth floor is deep enough that not many divine experts can make it here at all, and it is close enough to the surface that marching them to the continent won’t take too long. Is Lin Na assembling his troops to prepare a counterattack against the living?”
Uldan smiled. “Not bad. You definitely possess both martial prowess and good wisdom[1]. Your survival thus far definitely isn’t a fluke.”
I asked, “So, what do we do now?”
……
Uldan looked at the sky for a moment before replying, “I don’t know either, but we must pass through this fortress somehow to make it to the sixth floor, and the only way to do so is to destroy it and kill these Executioners…”
I fell silent for a moment. “Are you serious? A group of 10 Executioners could’ve killed us if they attacked us at once, and according to you there are at least 100,000 Executioners in this fortress!”
Uldan shrugged before shooting me a smirk. “So? You’re the one who wants to rescue the Wind Singer, and I’m just the helper. If you decide to give up, I’ll just wander around the floor and raise an army of my own. It’s not the first time I’ve done something like this anyway. I know exactly how to do what I have to do…”
“Fuck!”
I clenched my fists. “How unreliable! These days, even NPCs are utterly shameless!”
1. E/N: OMG LU CHEN ARE YOU SMART, ARMY OF THE DEAD IS TO BE USED AGAINST THE LIVING THEY HAD BEEN AT WAR WITH FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS?! WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!!!!! ☜
