Zhang Wei stared at him.
"You want me to what?"
"Draw its attention and keep it occupied for three minutes."
"It's a B-rank evolved boss."
"Yes."
"And I'm an E-rank reinforcement build."
"You're not fighting it. You're just going to annoying it. There's a difference." Yuan pulled him back from the corridor bend, far enough that the Blight Aura's edge wasn't reaching them. "It's feeding from the fracture vent, it doesn't want to leave that position. You don't have to pull it far, you just have to keep its attention divided. Hit it from range, fall back, repeat. It won't chase hard."
"How do you know that?"
"Because it didn't chase us when we first encountered it. It withdrew. It's anchored to that vent."
Zhang Wei looked at the bend in the corridor. Looked back at Yuan. The calculation running behind his eyes was the same one it always was, weighing the risk against the alternative, arriving at the uncomfortable conclusion that the alternative was worse.
"Three minutes," he said.
"Less, ideally."
"Reassuring." He rolled his shoulder, activating his reinforcement in a short burst to test the output level, Yuan saw the faint shimmer of it settle across Zhang Wei's forearms. "If I die in there you owe me something significant."
"Name it when we're topside."
Zhang Wei took a breath. Let it out. "Go."
He went around the bend and Yuan went the other way.
The east branch was thirty seconds at a run.
He found the second Fire Salamander mid-patrol, three meters, low-slung, scales cycling through the orange-to-yellow gradient in the faint dungeon light. It registered him immediately, full-body orientation, no hesitation before the ability charged.
The fire came out in a sustained cone, wide-angle, the kind of attack pattern designed for flushing prey from cover rather than precise targeting. Yuan broke left and activated Shadow Step, the intangibility carrying him through the outer edge of the cone where the heat density was lowest. He felt it as a pressure rather than contact, three seconds of intangibility not quite absolute at very high temperatures, his Sense registering the external input even when his body couldn't be reached by it.
He came out behind the Salamander, mid-height, and brought his elbow down on the back of its skull with the full Strength-thirteen behind it.
The Salamander dropped its front half and scrambled, faster recovery than he'd anticipated, the fire-affinity species apparently running accelerated nervous system responses alongside the high body temperature. It got its footing and turned and opened its mouth again.
He was already moving.
Shadow Step to the right flank, strike to the lateral mana cluster along the rib line, the same cluster type he'd identified on the Fire Imp, the shared anatomical trait of fire-affinity species using their sides as secondary mana distribution points. The cluster disrupted. The second cone attempt misfired, the fire coming out wrong, scattered rather than focused, and Yuan took the half-second of disruption to close to grapple range.
He pressed his palm flat against the Salamander's chest.
The extraction pulled the core in one smooth motion, faster than the early extractions, his talent apparently getting efficient with practice the way any repeated process gets efficient. The Salamander's heat signature dropped instantly to ambient and then below, and the form dissipated.
[Ding!]
[C-Rank Fire Salamander defeated. Experience +75]
[Ding!]
[Ability Extracted: Fire Salamander — Flame Breath (C-Rank)]
[New Skill Acquired: Flame Breath]
[Rank: C | Type: Active | Cost: 15 MP]
[Description: Unleashes a cone of fire, dealing moderate fire damage to enemies in front of the user. Inflicts Burn status. Cooldown: 8 seconds.]
Different from Cauterizing Flame — broader, less precise, designed for area coverage rather than targeted purification. The cost was fifteen versus twenty, and the cooldown was eight seconds versus fifteen. He pulled up his status while moving back toward the main corridor.
Name: Yuan Shenzi Rank: F (Hidden: SSS)Level: 2 | EXP: 505/300 (Level up pending calculation)
HP: 90/100 | MP: 27/50
Strength: 13 | Agility: 14 | Sense: 12 Vitality: 13 | Intelligence: 10
Skills: — Basic Punch (E-Rank) — Ability Extraction (SSS-Rank, Passive) — Shadow Step (C-Rank, Lv.2) — Battle Instinct (D-Rank, Passive) — Stone Skin (B-Rank, Passive) — Tremor Sense (B-Rank, Passive) — Ember Shot (C-Rank) — Cauterizing Flame (C-Rank) — Flame Breath (C-Rank)
Twenty-seven MP. Flame Breath at fifteen left him twelve — enough for one Shadow Step, nothing after that. He needed to make the first use count.
He heard Zhang Wei before he reached the bend.
The controlled grunt of someone absorbing an impact they'd known was coming and were trying to stay upright through. Then the specific sound of dungeon stone taking a hit that had been intended for a person, which meant Zhang Wei was moving and the hits were landing where he'd been rather than where he was.
Good, Yuan thought, which was a strange thing to think, and came around the bend.
The Blight Aura hit him at the entrance radius, the mana drag heavier than before, either the Gargoyle King had expanded it or he'd been outside it long enough that re-entry registered more sharply. He pushed through the drag and took the scene in fast.
Zhang Wei was at the chamber's left wall, using the alcove there as a partial barrier, his reinforcement active and visibly straining. The Blight-Touched Gargoyle King was still anchored near the fracture vent, Yuan had been right about that, but it had extended its attack range, the Corrupted Stone Fist reaching across the chamber in overhead arcs that Zhang Wei was barely staying ahead of.
The hit Yuan had heard: a glancing contact across Zhang Wei's right shoulder, reinforcement having absorbed most of it but the Blight component visible as a dark stain spreading from the contact point outward, slow and deliberate.
Blight contamination. Time-sensitive.
He didn't stop moving.
"Down," he said, loud and flat.
Zhang Wei dropped.
Yuan activated Flame Breath.
The cone came out broader than he'd expected, the skill's output scaled to the user's mana density rather than a fixed width, and his twenty-seven MP produced a coverage arc that filled the left third of the chamber. It hit the Blight-Touched Gargoyle King across its left shoulder and chest, and the sound it made was immediate and sharp, nothing like the millstone patience of the original fight.
The Enhanced Stony Skin blackened where the fire touched it.
Not cracking, but the Blight Aura on the affected surface suppressed visibly, the corrupted mana burning off in thin dark wisps, and through the contact area the stone hide lost its deep-black quality and returned to something closer to grey.
It's working.
The Gargoyle King turned from Zhang Wei and oriented on Yuan with the focused aggression of something that had found the priority threat.
He looked at his MP. Twelve. One Shadow Step remaining.
"Get up," he said to Zhang Wei. "The contamination on your shoulder, how bad?"
Zhang Wei was already pushing himself upright with his good arm. "Stiff. Spreading slowly."
"Can you move?"
"I'm moving."
"I need thirty more seconds of distraction."
Zhang Wei looked at him, at the Gargoyle King's redirected focus, at the scorched section of its hide, at the twelve-minute-compressed confidence of someone who had been F-rank this morning and was currently standing in a B-rank monster's Blight Aura without retreating.
"You know," Zhang Wei said, "when this is over, you're going to explain everything."
"Thirty seconds," Yuan said.
Zhang Wei threw a piece of rubble at the Gargoyle King's head and started moving.
The Gargoyle King split its attention again, the thing it had been doing poorly all day, the thing Yuan had been exploiting since the main hall, the thing that was apparently a persistent liability regardless of rank or evolution. Its focus went to Zhang Wei and Yuan activated Flame Breath again.
Two MP. The second cone was weaker than the first, significantly, his mana pool not having enough depth to sustain the same output, but it hit the same contact area, and the blackened stone cracked.
The crack ran six inches.
The Gargoyle King made a sound that was neither the millstone nor the roar.
Something in between. Something that contained, Yuan was reasonably certain, genuine pain.
Then it stopped splitting its attention.
It turned to face Yuan fully, both red eyes fixed, and drew its right arm back with the slow deliberate weight of something that had decided to stop being strategic and start being absolute. The Corrupted Stone Fist charged, the dark mana cycling into the arm visibly, the Blight component wrapping the impact surface in that slow spreading contamination.
The wind from the charging strike reached him before the arm moved.
Zero MP.
[Ding!]
[Warning: MP Critical — 2/50]
Zhang Wei shouted something from the left wall.