Chapter 141 Gravity Core

Air currents rushed into his ears, making his eardrums vibrate and hum.

At such high speeds, the air felt as thick and sluggish as a quagmire. His rain-soaked black hair clung to his forehead, and the raindrops striking his skin brought a faint, stinging pain.

The woods, the meadows, and the distant, heavily clouded sky rapidly receded on both sides, stretching into a blurred band of green, gray, and black across his vision.

This was the exaggerated speed granted by [Fang Hunt]—a speed that seemed like teleportation to ordinary people, vanishing from the spot in the blink of an eye.

He was already used to it.

Countless practice sessions had raised his proficiency to Level 3, allowing Xia Nan to gradually adapt to this state where the entire world seemed to freeze.

His highly focused attention, coupled with an Agility that had reached 7, enabled him to tune out irrelevant surroundings and concentrate entirely on his enemy.

This held true even when the rest of his vision was reduced to a jumbled, meaningless mess of colors by his high-speed movement, and his ears were filled with the roar of rushing air.

The Bugbear's burly figure—even the bulging muscles beneath its skin and the swaying of its crimson mane—was perfectly clear in Xia Nan's eyes.

In fact, it was even sharper precisely because he had filtered out all other distractions.

He closed in.

The foul stench of a creature that had dwelled in underground caves flooded into his nose with every breath.

Grasping the distance in an instant, he slowed slightly and twisted his wrist. The Decapitating Longsword, trailing diagonally behind him, carved an iron-gray arc through the air.

Slash!

Blood splattered.

A mangled, bloody wound opened across the Bugbear's thick, mane-covered back.

Unlike his previous probing hit-and-run attacks, this wound was deep enough to make Red-Mane let out a roaring cry of pain.

It spun around, about to smash its rock-shattering fist down on Xia Nan.

But just as it twisted its waist, before it could even raise an arm, the black-haired figure rapidly retreated amidst the howl of a wolf, slipping right out of its attack range.

Had this been earlier, Red-Mane might have given chase regardless of the consequences.

Its formidable physical attributes granted it a margin for error far exceeding Xia Nan's.

It could afford to be slashed countless times; if its opponent made a single careless mistake and took a punch, he would no longer be able to dodge and maneuver so annoyingly.

But right now, the sound of tearing air coming from its flank forced Red-Mane to stay in place and raise its left arm to block.

Thud.

A gleaming metallic One-Handed Hammer struck the back of the Bugbear's hand in a harassing light blow, producing a muffled thud.

Adeline's Armor was still stained with the blood she had spat out earlier, but she had already recovered her mobility and rejoined the battle.

Compared to Xia Nan, who had [Fang Hunt] and could reposition multiple times in a short period, she lacked any gap-closing combat techniques.

However, her decent Constitution allowed her to stick close to the Bugbear, engaging in melee combat to draw its aggro and hold out for a few rounds.

And if she found herself retreating steadily in the face of the Bugbear's torrential onslaught, looking as though she could no longer hold on—just like right now—that familiar, drawn-out wolf howl would ring out once more from Red-Mane's blind spot.

Roar!!!

The tacit, tag-team skirmishing between Xia Nan and Adeline seemed to enrage the Bugbear beyond measure.

The soundwaves of its furious roar rippled through the rain. It whipped its two thick arms around in a wide circle, forcing the pair back.

Under Xia Nan's cover, Adeline retreated several steps, easily dodging the attack, while Xia Nan himself slammed on the brakes and cast [Fang Hunt] once more to pull back.

In the span of a single breath, another round had concluded.

Staring intently at the Bugbear a short distance ahead, Xia Nan panted, taking the opportunity to recover his stamina.

Frequently using combat techniques in this high-intensity battle had placed a considerable burden on his legs and waist, and a sore, numbing sensation permeated deep into his muscles.

It was still within a tolerable range.

To some extent, he was actually much more relaxed now than before.

Having Adeline's help wasn't simply a matter of one plus one equaling two.

In a battle of this caliber, the pressure difference between fighting one-on-one and two-on-one was like night and day.

With a teammate sharing the aggro, Xia Nan no longer needed to focus entirely on dodging; he could afford to be slightly more aggressive to inflict more damage.

The two looked out for each other. Even if one fell into a tight spot, the other could provide timely support.

He glanced in Adeline's direction. Seeing that her condition was still relatively fine, he breathed a small sigh of relief.

Unexpectedly, after being fed an entire Healing Potion with Abi's help, Adeline was not only physically healed—recovering more than half of her combat strength—but her mental state seemed to have recovered as well. Her previously frantic demeanor had calmed, returning her to the utterly reliable leader she had been when they faced the goblins earlier.

She didn't act rashly. Focusing mainly on harassment and support, she helped Xia Nan leave wound after wound on the Bugbear.

The scales of victory seemed to be faintly tipping in their favor.

Yet Xia Nan had no intention of dropping his guard.

Having seen how this Bugbear shattered their defensive line single-handedly, instantly wounding Adeline—whose strength was close to acquiring a Class Level—and easily slaughtering Berg, he knew that seizing victory would be far from as simple as it appeared.

The most dangerous moment of this battle would be when Red-Mane realized its stamina was being whittled down and that it was at risk of defeat.

Just as he was thinking this, the Bugbear suddenly made a move.

It was neither an attack nor a pursuit toward either of them.

Its shrill, eardrum-piercing roar of rage came to an abrupt halt.

Stunned, bewildered, terrified, anxious—a complex, human-like expression abruptly surfaced on that furry face previously filled with rage.

Then, completely ignoring the two people it was facing off against, Red-Mane suddenly turned its head, gazing far into the Deep Forest—the direction it had come from.

Xia Nan had no idea what was happening.

However, seeing the Bugbear's stunned reaction—like someone who had gone out for a fight only to have their home raided—if the creature no longer wished to continue fighting and instead chose to retreat, he would gladly accept it.

A battle of this intensity, against an enemy of this caliber, was never something someone who hadn't even acquired a Class Level should be facing.

However, the area-of-effect Taunt the creature had cast on them earlier seemed to have some sort of side effect. No matter how anxious Red-Mane appeared, it still didn't choose to abandon the two people it was fighting and retreat.

Instead, seeking to end the battle as quickly as possible, it charged straight at Adeline.

Red-Mane had chosen the absolute correct target in its haste.

Less agile and vastly inferior in muscular strength, Adeline's body—though sturdier than a normal adult male's—was undoubtedly at a disadvantage against Red-Mane.

It was practically a complete suppression.

If Adeline were left to face a fully unleashed Bugbear alone, she would likely only be able to rely on her rich experience to barely endure for a few rounds before being defeated.

If it wanted to end the battle quickly, she was the opening Red-Mane needed to shatter the current stalemate.

Naturally, Xia Nan couldn't just watch his teammate suffer severe injuries again.

Almost the instant the Bugbear turned and exposed its back to him, he executed [Fang Hunt] and dashed forward amidst the howl of a Winter Wolf.

The compressed air suddenly stagnated, and the distance between them rapidly closed.

The burly, shaggy figure rapidly magnified in his vision. With his arms drawn back, the Decapitating Longsword was already primed for a sweeping slash.

He was just waiting for the moment the creature launched its attack on Adeline, leaving it no time to mind its rear, to unleash that sharp, biting strike.

But right at that moment, caught between Xia Nan and Adeline, the Bugbear's robust body suddenly jerked to a halt.

Boom—the dark red aura that had allowed it to smash through their defenses and collapse buildings suddenly erupted from the surface of Red-Mane's body.

It detonated like a bomb in a manner they had never seen before.

As the shockwave surged, Xia Nan saw a dangerous flash of dark red light and instinctively raised his Arm Shield in front of his chest.

In the next second, a colossal force transmitted through the Arm Shield.

The phantom Wolf Head enveloping his body was instantly scattered. He was sent flying backward, tumbling several times in the air before finally regaining his balance and landing on his feet.

Bending his knees and gripping the ground with his left hand to stabilize his posture, the intense pain flaring from his chest and abdomen caused him to instinctively glance down.

What met his eyes were the twisted and deformed Chainmail Iron Rings, their surface still lingering with a red glow.

Judging by the extent of the damage and the sensation in his body, he could tell that not only the chainmail but even the leather armor beneath had suffered damage.

The exorbitant price of nearly one hundred gold coins for the two pieces of armor combined flashed through his mind.

There was no time for heartache.

Xia Nan looked ahead, his expression sinking involuntarily.

The good news was that Adeline had already been in an evasive stance with her guard up, so she hadn't taken much damage from the energy impact.

The bad news was that the Bugbear had used the brief window created by its energy burst to rush to the other side of the battlefield and retrieve its weapon.

That Pale Bone Club with hollow carvings along its surface.

Sizzle...

It was the noise of the surging, boiling dark red aura.

Xia Nan's heart instantly sank.

"Careful!" he shouted, his body already launching into motion once more amidst the wolf's howl.

Answering him was the Bugbear's abruptly heightened speed under the empowerment of its aura, and the eerie sound—like the wailing of an infant—produced as the air squeezed through the hollows of the whistling bone club.

Bizarrely, that sound—which had originally just been somewhat uncomfortable—now merged with Red-Mane's low growl and the buzzing hum of the rising aura.

It pierced through his ears and echoed endlessly within his skull.

His consciousness instantly blurred.

"Something's wrong!"

Realizing the bone club's eerie sound seemed to possess a mind-confounding property, Xia Nan immediately reached for his waist pouch before his willpower could completely collapse.

Clenching his fingers, he hurled all three Fire Oil Bombs he was carrying straight at Red-Mane.

Boom! Turbid dust and pitch-black grease abruptly burst outward alongside sparks, and surging flames engulfed the Bugbear in an instant.

Her blurred, distorted consciousness suddenly cleared, and light returned to Adeline's eyes.

Facing the Pale Bone Club smashing toward her chest, she gripped her One-Handed Hammer with both hands, holding it across her body to block.

Clang!!!

The crisp ring of clashing metal echoed across the battlefield.

Blood sprayed unstoppably from Adeline's mouth. Her chest caved in, and she was sent flying backward like a broken ragdoll, tumbling across the ground amidst splattering mud.

'!' Cursing inwardly, Xia Nan's speed didn't decrease in the slightest as he charged toward Red-Mane.

The Bugbear's physical strength was far too formidable, and under the empowerment of the dark red aura, it had gained explosive power far surpassing that of an ordinary adventurer.

Even though Adeline had regained her senses at the critical moment and adopted a defensive posture thanks to the interference of his three Fire Oil Bombs, she was ultimately still struck dead-on by the bone club, severely wounded and forced out of the fight.

And it had only been a few minutes since she drank that Healing Potion.

Xia Nan still had more in his inventory, but in this tense moment where every second determined life and death, there was simply no opportunity to force-feed it to the unconscious woman.

Right now, the only thing he could rely on was the cold iron sword in his hand.

Lots of fur meant a weakness to fire.

The Bugbear was roaring and struggling under the burning flames, its two thick, sapling-like arms flailing wildly and stirring up gusts of air.

However, the endless curtain of rain falling from the sky, combined with the dark red energy on its body, was causing the flames to rapidly extinguish at a visible rate.

At this moment, only a single thought remained in Xia Nan's heart.

'This is it.'

This was his only chance.

Having lost his teammate's pinning efforts, his battle against Red-Mane would revert to the previous situation: exhausting himself just trying to dodge, unable to inflict any effective damage.

In fact, due to the gradual decline of his own stamina and the sudden berserk state the Bugbear had erupted into, it would be even more perilous and desperate, making a comeback nearly impossible.

To turn defeat into victory, to reverse the situation, to survive—this was Xia Nan's final opportunity.

Without the slightest hesitation.

He revealed his final trump card.

Stemming from Halfling Divine Favor, the only Epic (Pink) tier item on Xia Nan's person—a magical artifact known as the Fate Coin—was pinched tightly between his fingertips.

Ting.

He violently tossed the brass-colored coin into the air mid-sprint. It pierced through the curtain of rain, its metallic surface rubbing against the freezing air to produce a faint yet extremely crisp chime.

The phantom Wolf Head, formed of rain droplets and crushed leaves, howled as it rushed forward. Every ounce of his focus and all of his power were converged in an instant, surging to their absolute limits.

Splashing raindrops collided and shattered into crystalline spray. The copper coin flipped upward, alternating between the blurred portrait of a long-haired woman and a cape fluttering in the wind.

His figure abruptly halted. His soil-caked leather boots left deep gouges in the muddy ground. As his knees bent, his muscles and bones cracked and groaned against each other.

He converted the sheer momentum granted by [Fang Hunt] into a ferocious force that drove the twist of his arms.

[Spinning Slash]!

The coin soared to its highest point, briefly hanging in the air.

Caught in gravity's pull, it mapped out its downward trajectory.

A raindrop reflecting the iron-gray sword light drifted lazily downward, landing precisely on the portrait on the face of the coin.

A silver light flickered faintly.

The previously blurred face of the long-haired woman became crystal clear in an instant.

Sitting high within her divine kingdom, the Goddess of Luck lowered her eyes, casting down a bright, curious gaze.

The strings of fate were plucked and trembled, amplifying a miniscule, near-nonexistent probability to infinity.

A "miracle" was thus triggered.

The iron-gray, razor-sharp arc was stretched out into a curved line.

Yet, a split second before it could tear through fur and carve into flesh, it ground to a sudden halt.

Space distorted like a whirlpool.

A silver-white oval sphere materialized out of thin air, like a dolphin surfacing from the river of time to take a breath.

His highly focused attention allowed Xia Nan to capture a few snippets of information in that fleeting blink of an eye:

["Titan Umbilical Cord" Type II - Gravity Core]

Category: Item | Level: /

Description:

Dynamically adjusts curvature parameters via a superconducting ring; it is the hub device for artificial gravity field generation systems.

Note:

"Warning! Curvature anchor is shifting, spacetime continuity coefficient has collapsed to 0.3—" (Static and mechanical shrieking) "—Failed to restart harmonic singularity!"

"Damn it, what the hell is this place!?"

There was no time to digest the information he had just seen, let alone any possibility of pulling back his strength.

In the next second, the Gravity Core—which had been yanked out of the turbulent currents of spacetime by the invisible hand of fate—retracted back into the distorted spatial anomaly.

However, right before the Silver-White Device disappeared, Xia Nan's sword blade landed on its metal surface, which emitted a faint azure glow and was covered in bizarre patterns.

Boom—spacetime froze in this moment.

Formless gravitational turbulence erupted and surged.

The rain abruptly halted in mid-air, then suddenly shot upward toward the sky, as if gravity had instantly been inverted.

Falling raindrops collided with the upward-shooting water droplets, splashing into countless tiny, crystalline blooms. The mid-air space of the entire battlefield was instantly reduced to an expanse of silver-white.

The brass coin flipped and fell, dropping gently into the mud.

The burly body slowly collapsed, revealing the black-haired figure behind it, holding a longsword with a dazed expression.

Xia Nan stood rooted to the spot, waves of boundless energy from an unknown source washing wantonly through his body.

Flashing before his eyes was a massive amount of semi-transparent text—something completely unprecedented since he had transmigrated to this world.