Deep within the dense primeval forest, a demon player party watched from a distance as their demon patrol squad lay strewn across the ground, converted into a massive flood of experience points. The sight left them utterly dumbfounded.
"Who on earth are those people?"
Every member of the demon player party was now filled with both curiosity and shock toward Shi Feng and his group.
The demon patrol squad served as a formidable defensive barrier on the road to the Demon City — entities akin to city NPCs. They possessed numerous powerful magical skills and could execute coordinated team tactics, making them completely different from ordinary demon monsters.
Yet before Shi Feng and his group, they had been slaughtered as casually as common trash mobs…
If not for the pile of items the patrol squad had dropped on the ground, and the purple-gold glow of leveling-up that had risen from several of the Hell Legion's experts, they would have suspected that the demon patrol squad before them was some kind of illusion.
"Captain, should we still wait for those large adventure parties?" A Level 105 Tier 2 Ranger couldn't help but ask the Tier 3 Assassin leading their squad.
The ability to wipe out an entire demon patrol squad so effortlessly — just that level of combat power alone would give even those major adventure parties a hard time. By the time they arrived, whatever credit there was to split would be negligible at best, and they'd have taken a huge risk following Shi Feng's group all that time just to wait for those parties to show up.
They were demon players, so their detection range for human players was unusually far — but one could never guarantee an accident. If they were spotted, the consequences would be unthinkable.
"We wait!" The Tier 3 Assassin captain said with firm conviction. "The bounty the Heart of the Demon is offering this time is enormous. For every player we kill, even if our cut is only ten percent, we'd still get one Demon Crystal. Once we've collected a hundred and twenty, we can head straight into the city to apply for a title challenge. If we tried to farm that many Demon Crystals on our own, who knows how long it would take." He paused, then added more cautiously, "Of course, we need to be careful. We'll keep our distance from these people. We don't have to follow them directly — just track the traces they leave behind."
The rest of the demon squad nodded silently in agreement. It was a solid plan.
As demon players, their ability to track human players was far beyond the norm. As long as they only followed the traces Shi Feng's group left behind, it didn't matter how powerful those people were — there was no way they'd be detected.
However, the moment the Tier 3 Assassin finished speaking, a cold, razor-sharp short sword burst from his chest. A critical hit of over nine hundred thousand damage erupted above his head.
Before the captain could even utter a word, a gleaming dagger swept across his throat, draining every last shred of his remaining health. He died instantly.
"Captain?!"
The remaining five Tier 2 members stared in disbelief.
What just happened?
One second he was alive and kicking, talking about their bright future — the next, he was dead…
He was a Tier 3 Assassin. Even within the Demon City, he was a recognized and respected expert. And now he had just been killed without warning.
As the captain's body crumpled to the ground, the demon squad members finally caught sight of a voluptuous woman materializing from behind him.
"An Assassin?!"
"No good, we've been spotted!"
"Run!"
The instant the remaining five demon players reacted, the voluptuous woman vanished like a phantom.
When she reappeared, she was already standing among the five of them. A flash of white light blinked and vanished in an instant, sweeping across all five demon players. A chain of million-plus damage figures erupted, wiping out every last point of their health…
"How utterly foolish. The amount of mana radiating from you people is practically a beacon in the darkness — and you still dare to trail someone?" Fire Dance glanced at the demon squad members sprawled on the ground, their faces frozen in bewilderment, and couldn't help but shake her head. She felt like these demon players were practically joking with her.
What Fire Dance didn't know was that at a time when even Tier 3 Classes were rare, most people were still in the process of figuring out how to use Tier 3 magical skills, let alone mastering the far more advanced art of personal mana manipulation.
"Guild Leader, all demon players in the surrounding area have been cleared out." After confirming that there were no longer any mana signatures from other players in the vicinity, Fire Dance reported to Shi Feng.