"Ancient Ruins?"
The moment Shi Feng heard the words "Ancient Ruins," his interest was immediately piqued.
Ruins were the most commonly found feature within the Divine Realm's secret realms. They were divided into Primordial Ruins and Ancient Ruins depending on their age, with Ancient Ruins being extraordinarily rare. Because they had existed for so long, most Ancient Ruins had been thoroughly plundered back in the Primordial Era. Any that survived into the modern age were as scarce as Legendary items.
And the Ancient Era — that was the age when gods flourished and the Ancient Gods still walked the world. With a bit of luck, it was entirely possible to discover something left behind by an Ancient God within these ruins.
"Where are you?" Shi Feng asked through the party chat.
"A stream canyon to the south. There are quite a few Evil Blood Beast Warriors patrolling the area — over three thousand of them, it seems. They appear to be guarding this Ancient Ruins," Huo Wu whispered, scanning the patrols circling the perimeter. "And besides the Evil Blood Beast Warriors, I suspect that the Ancient Ruins may be a ritual site for the Evil Blood monsters. I saw several High-tier Legendary Evil Blood Priests, all above level 160, entering the ruins — they looked like they were about to perform some kind of ceremony. The defenses inside must be extremely tight. Sneaking in would be nearly impossible. We'd have to break through head-on…"
"Over three thousand Evil Blood Beast Warriors?" Shi Feng frowned.
If it were only a few hundred Legendary Evil Blood Beast Warriors, he could have led the team into a fight. But with over three thousand of them, plus High-tier Legendary Evil Blood monsters — even if he could tank the damage, the rest of the party couldn't. After all, these Evil Blood Beast Warriors weren't mindless; they would attack in waves and coordinate with each other.
Three thousand Evil Blood Beast Warriors all using fourth-tier skills at once would force even him to dodge and weave, fighting on the move. A fourth-tier attack that connected would still deal damage even to a fifth-tier Class holder.
A fifth-tier Class granted reaction speed and movement speed far beyond the fourth tier, allowing one to evade and parry. But for a fourth-tier Class holder to dodge and block a barrage of fourth-tier skills — that was pure fantasy. Even with the help of Instantaneous World, it was impossible, because fourth-tier Legendary monsters could track a fourth-tier player's speed and land precise hits. You didn't need hundreds — even a few dozen Evil Blood Beast Warriors attacking at once would be enough to wipe out a fourth-tier main tank, let alone any other fourth-tier Class.
Going head-on against more than three thousand Legendary Evil Blood Beast Warriors would require at least three or four fifth-tier Class holders working in tandem. A single fifth-tier Class holder, forget about killing the Beast Warriors, would exhaust themselves just dodging fourth-tier magic.
In short, survival was possible, but killing them head-on was not.
"Guild Leader, what if we split up and pick them off in waves?" Han Guang Shi Ying proposed. "The Evil Blood Beast Warriors are numerous but spread out across a wide area. Gathering them takes time. We could use that window to quickly eliminate some before they consolidate their forces, then retreat. If we repeat this several times, the Evil Blood Beast Warriors won't be able to hold out."
"That is one approach," Shi Feng said after hearing her out, shaking his head. "But there's a prerequisite — the enemy must not have any healers. Those Evil Blood Priests can all cast healing spells. As High-tier Legendary monsters, their casting range is enormous. If I'm not mistaken, the Evil Blood Beast Warriors' patrol routes likely all fall within the Evil Blood Priests' healing range. The moment we attack a Beast Warrior, the Priests will heal it immediately."
"With High-tier Legendary healing support, unless we can one-shot the Evil Blood Beast Warriors in an instant, there's no way to actually kill them…"
Han Guang Shi Ying fell silent.
Whether they targeted the Evil Blood Beast Warriors first or the Evil Blood Priests first, neither path led anywhere. The Evil Blood Priests possessed powerful healing abilities, and without the strength to simultaneously kill several Priests at once, dealing with these Evil Blood monsters was a dead end. There was no room for tricks — head-on confrontation was the only option.
"Are we really just going to give up?" Yu Bai said anxiously. "Those are Ancient Ruins!"
Even Phantom Myth hadn't encountered a single Ancient Ruins. They had only cleared a handful of Primordial Ruins, and even those had yielded tremendous gains — especially in terms of Mana Body advancement. The old monsters in the guild had progressed so rapidly in their Mana Bodies largely thanks to those Primordial Ruins.
And Ancient Ruins were far more precious than Primordial Ruins. If they could obtain the treasures within, it wouldn't be at all surprising if it enabled them to advance to fifth-tier Class. After all, this was a relic from the era when Ancient Gods still existed — the heritage inside was incomparable to anything from the Primordial Era or the current Divine Realm.
"It's not completely without hope," Shi Feng said suddenly after a moment of thought. "But it would be extremely risky. We could easily get a full party wipe…"
Entering a secret realm came with restrictions. Depending on the realm's tier, the cooldown period for players varied. For a Divine-tier realm, players were only allowed to enter once every ten days. If the party wiped, they would have to revive outside the realm and wait another ten days before re-entering.
Their gains in the Evil God Secret Realm were already substantial. They could hunt more monsters to grow stronger — it wasn't necessary to take such a gamble.
Curious, Han Guang Shi Ying asked, "Guild Leader, how confident are you?"
"Thirty to forty percent," Shi Feng replied after thinking. "Of course, that's assuming nothing goes wrong at the ruins."
"Thirty to forty percent?" Han Guang Shi Ying couldn't help but stare at him. That was actually a fairly high success rate, all things considered — especially when facing over three thousand Evil Blood Beast Warriors and Evil Blood Priests. She quickly added, "I think we should try it. Failing would be a shame, but it's going to be difficult to advance further in the Evil God Secret Realm otherwise. Unless we push deeper into the interior, but there should be plenty of fifth-tier Sacred Domain Legendary monsters roaming there. We don't even know if we could beat them. Might as well take the risk. If we succeed, we'll have hit the jackpot."
Fifth-tier Sacred Domain Legendary monsters were not easy to defeat — just as fourth-tier players struggled to kill fourth-tier Legendary monsters in a one-on-one fight.
And within the Evil God Secret Realm, engaging a fifth-tier Sacred Domain Legendary monster in combat would very likely attract more of the same. If even two appeared, the party would be wiped out without question. The only person present who might escape with his life was Shi Feng.
Hei Zi, Ke Le, and the others all nodded in agreement.
Their weapons and gear had already been upgraded significantly. Making another leap in power would be extremely difficult in the short term, since the next upgrade tier would require either level 180 Epic eight-piece sets or Legendary item fragments. As for upgrading Legendary item fragments into full Legendary items — that came down to luck, since not every fragment could be upgraded with just Divine Crystals, and Divine Crystal drops were completely random.
"Since you're all on board, let's give it a try," Shi Feng said, seeing that everyone was willing to take the gamble. "Getting into the Ancient Ruins is actually straightforward. All we need is for someone to hold the Evil Blood monsters outside. If a large number of them can be drawn out, I can slip into the ruins. But before that, you'll need to keep those drawn-out Evil Blood monsters occupied. Otherwise, once they group up, I'll have no choice but to run — and I won't be able to accomplish anything inside."
"Leave it to us, Guild Leader!" Ke Le thumped his chest confidently. "With the main tanks we have, we can hold the line for five minutes through group taunts and rotating our survival skills. Absolutely no problem."
"Beyond Ke Le and the others, we magic-classes can also use magical barriers to contain those Evil Blood monsters for a while," Zhao Yueru added with a nod.
After hearing everyone's proposals, Shi Feng nodded. "Good. I'll leave it to you. I'll explore the ruins as fast as I possibly can."
With that, Huo Wu, Han Guang Shi Ying, and Yan Tianxing — the three assassins — set off in three different directions to draw the attention of the Evil Blood Beast Warriors, luring as many as possible away from the Ancient Ruins and toward the predetermined position.