Chapter 308 Combination of Combat Techniques

If the twisted, lobster-like monster before him had been healthy, its body intact and its stamina full...

...it would have been one of the most difficult opponents Xia Nan had faced since his transmigration.

He could already confirm this after their brief, close-quarters clash.

The instantaneous explosive power when it swung its limbs, the absurd force of its crushing pincers, the sturdy defense of its chitinous armor...

If Xia Nan were to fight it at its peak now, he might have a clear mobility advantage by relying on [Fang Hunt] and [Gravity Control], allowing him to skirmish for a while. However, his margin for error would be incredibly low. He would need to precisely locate the gaps in its armor to deliver a fatal strike to its vitals—an extremely difficult feat.

If the terrain imposed further restrictions, it would be even more troublesome.

But right now—it was much easier to handle.

The severed tail and calf restricted the "Lobster Goblin's" movements, drastically reducing its mobility while allowing Xia Nan's high maneuverability to shine.

Being left with only its left pincer slashed its combat capability by more than half. These were rigid, shell-wrapped limbs incapable of rotating three hundred and sixty degrees; missing one meant massive blind spots had opened up on its right side.

The armor torn open from its back to its chest solved Xia Nan's problem of struggling to pierce its defenses without using combat techniques. As long as he targeted the wound, it was no exaggeration to say his strikes would be twice as effective.

Taking all this into account, the heavily wounded monster's actual combat prowess might not have plummeted to a tenth of its peak, but saying it retained a third was a generous estimate.

With that being the case, Xia Nan's next choice was clear.

He was short on money. With a living trove of biological materials delivered right to his doorstep, how could he possibly let it escape?

Maintaining his vigilance, he adjusted his footing to angle his back toward the rear tunnel, ready to retreat at any moment.

Xia Nan gripped his silver-white Custom Greatsword with both hands. His legs abruptly exerted force, leaving a shallow footprint on the cavern floor as a high, resonant wolf howl tore through the air.

Its mane swaying, a massive, pitch-black wolf twisted into shape amid the flowing currents of force around him, lunging fiercely at the enemy.

The Armored Lurker was not low in intelligence.

After generations of evolution, it had long since lost the special abilities of its ancestors from the ancient empire, its behavior gradually skewing toward that of an ignorant beast.

However, the survival instincts deep within its genes still allowed it to keenly sense the danger brought by this pitch-black wolf—or rather, by this human adventurer wielding a longsword.

In the past, before it had suffered such grievous wounds, the Armored Lurker might have retreated if it felt outmatched.

Its shell, harder than rock, could withstand the vast majority of attacks from ordinary metal weapons, and its amphibious nature meant it could fall back deep into the quagmire.

If the enemy dared to pursue, that thick mud would become a spider web to snare its prey, swapping their roles and reversing the situation.

But right now, having faced powerful foes one after another, its body heavily maimed and forced out of the mud, it no longer had that option.

Given the Armored Lurker's current movement speed, trying to squeeze back into the narrow tunnel would only expose its defenseless back to the enemy. It would be equivalent to voluntarily surrendering its final ability to resist—undoubtedly the most foolish choice.

Unless the adventurer backed off on his own, only one of them would leave this place alive.

Truth be told, it was a strange twist of fate. The Armored Lurker from the Underdark had recently lost its original nest due to an anomaly deep underground. It had painstakingly found a new, suitable shelter near the outskirts of the Underdark. This place even had a mud pool connecting to the surface, allowing it to feast on several passing creatures.

Unexpectedly, before it could enjoy this for long, an Adventurer Squad with strength clearly above average shattered its peaceful life.

They had inflicted some minor wounds on it.

Fortunately, they hadn't made any targeted preparations; they likely weren't here specifically for it.

After probing them a little, the Armored Lurker had decisively retreated, intending to hide in its nest until the heat died down before returning to the surface.

Yet for some unknown reason, when it returned to its underground nest, it discovered that someone had already invaded.

And the invader was a lone, ordinary human with a weak aura.

The fury of its severed leg and split tail erupted in that moment. It wanted to tear this intruder to shreds!

As for the result—that was already obvious.

That seemingly weak human adventurer had suddenly erupted with a dark flame that made it feel extremely repulsed, scorching its shell. The bizarre physical prowess he displayed afterward easily evaded its attacks and launched a counteroffensive.

He was incredibly difficult to deal with.

Dragging the fight out, the Armored Lurker ultimately traded one of its pincers and the armor on its back and chest for a chance to escape.

Following the twisting, complex tunnels of the Underdark all the way up, it had finally arrived here, only to run into this black-haired young adventurer.

"Hiss!"

A shrill, piercing insectoid screech echoed continuously between the rock walls. The Armored Lurker raised its sole remaining massive pincer high, anticipating the enemy's path, and smashed it down violently.

The crushing force practically compressed the air until it burst. Amid an explosive roar and flying rubble, a massive, cracked crater formed on the ground.

If someone failed to defend in time and took such a blow head-on, let alone ordinary adventurers who had yet to attain a Class Level, even Class Holders who had walked quite a distance down the professional path—Level 5 and above—would likely suffer grievous harm.

Even Xia Nan, with his extraordinary stats, was no exception.

He knew this very well.

So, the moment the muscle fibers in his opponent's arm stretched and the pincer lifted high to gather power, he had already prepared his response.

Moving at high speed, his body, wrapped in a biting gale, slammed to a sudden halt, his leather boots grating harshly against the ground and kicking up a thin trail of smoke.

The phantom black wolf dissipated slightly, then instantly solidified once more.

Only, this time, its direction had shifted slightly.

Instead of charging straight ahead to close the distance, it veered diagonally upward.

Its mane swaying, the cold, fierce black wolf leaped lightly, nimbly dodging the enemy's attack while bounding onto the Armored Lurker's back.

Its silver fangs plunged down, driving straight through the enemy's soft, unarmored wound.

Xia Nan felt an intermittent, yielding resistance through the hilt of his sword. He realized that even without its shell's defense, this lobster monster's physical resistance was still impressive; finding a vital spot for a one-hit kill wasn't going to be that simple.

His mind racing, he gave his wrist a slight twist, shifting from his initial two-handed reverse grip on the Custom Greatsword to a standard grip, making it easier to wrench the blade out of the monster's body.

"Squelch."

The tip of the sword tore free, dragging out a large splash of glaring blood mixed with slime.

A stinging gale whipped against the side of his face.

He made a split-second decision, stomping heavily on the wound on the monster's back. [Fang Hunt] activated, and he vaulted high into the air.

The next second, that massive pincer struck empty air once again.

The force was the same as before.

Only this time, what lay beneath the pincer wasn't the cold ground, but the Armored Lurker's own body.

Bang! Accompanied by a crisp sound like a shattering egg, the screech echoing in the nest took on a layer of agony.

Underneath the pincer, a web of fine cracks now marred the relatively intact surface of the Armored Lurker's other side.

The force behind a pincer almost the size of its upper body was nothing to scoff at. Even landing on its own body, the blow pounded the Armored Lurker into a moment of paralysis.

His Perception was sharp.

Naturally, Xia Nan wouldn't miss this golden opportunity.

His airborne body carried forward on momentum. Flowing into a flip, he righted himself and planted his feet firmly on the ground.

Pivoting halfway, he found himself standing practically face-to-face with the lobster monster.

His intent flowed. Guiding his mental power through pathways he had practiced countless times, he gave it a slight nudge between his fingers and palm.

The magic particles in the air were disturbed in turn, instantly rearranging and combining.

Ultimately, they transformed into a stroke of condensed energy clinging to the blade—a flickering light shimmering with a crimson-brown luster.

This was [Gravity Etching], which had been leveled up to Lv. 3 during the Petrification Lizard hunt, achieving its first qualitative mutation.

Compared to before, the crimson-brown light symbolizing the force field energy was noticeably more condensed, practically fusing with the Custom Greatsword itself.

It even extended a few inches past the blade's edge, making the entire weapon look a size larger.

At the same time, along with the increase in the combat technique's proficiency, Xia Nan had gained a much deeper understanding and command over it.

It still counted as half a trump card, a killing blow potent enough to decide the battle.

But he no longer used it alone like before. Instead, just as he had fantasized when he first acquired the skill, he combined it with another combat technique—[Spinning Slash] + [Gravity Etching]!

"Vooom!"

It was like he was wielding a lightsaber.

The metal blade covered in crimson-brown energy, accompanied by the high-frequency screech of vibrating power, cleaved a perfect, blood-moon arc through the air.

The force field energy detonated prematurely, and thanks to the exaggerated speed of the swinging sword, the small firework that should have exploded at a single "point" transformed into a violent explosion across a continuous "line."

Vooom-Boom! With pinpoint precision, the crimson-brown energy sword light traced the wound on the Armored Lurker's body, slashing diagonally upward from its chest and finally bursting out its shoulder. The force field energy's trait of ignoring physical defense was displayed to its absolute fullest in this moment.

It was as if the monster had just been savagely bitten by the black wolf phantom looming around Xia Nan.

The pale-white muscle fibers were instantly crushed and scattered, turning into a shapeless, pulverized mush. The main muscle bundles were violently torn apart, and the tendons connecting its joints snapped like taut ropes, curling back on themselves.

Blood vessels burst open. The main artery supplying blood to its head sprayed blue blood rhythmically and futilely into the air. Thick, shiny white nerve cords could be seen drooping limply on either side.

In the deepest depths of the wound, one could even vaguely glimpse a large, shattered mess of delicate, feather-like, lamellar gill remnants.

Xia Nan knew perfectly well just how much destructive power this strike—born from the fusion of two combat techniques—possessed.

Even with the lobster monster's massive, robust body, it immediately froze in place, convulsing and twitching as if mortally wounded.

But ultimately, this was a monster he had never seen before. He didn't know its exact anatomical structure, and he hadn't spotted any familiar vital organs—like a "heart"—within the wound.

Turning his wrist, he wrenched the silver-white Custom Greatsword free, wrapping up the rapidly dissipating force field energy in a cascading crimson-brown glow.

Riding the momentum, he drew back his sword and spun away.

Xia Nan hastily retreated, guarding against any final, dying counterattack.

He hadn't expected that this strike really seemed to have hit the monster's vitals, stripping it of even its final struggle. Its body merely twitched, paralyzed on the spot.

His gaze swept over its massive pincer, noting that it hung limply at its side without any sign of gathering power.

A thought flashed through his mind.

Splitting his focus slightly, he remained ready to trigger his [Deathline] ring's "Deflection Field" to block an attack at any moment.

Simultaneously, he stepped forward decisively.

He thrust his sword upward!

With extreme precision, the sharp edge of the Custom Greatsword slid right into the gap in the armor between the monster's throat and upper chest.

Applying force with both hands, he drove the point out the other side.

[Spinning Slash]!

"Squelch."

The crisp sound, accompanied by an abruptly severed insectoid shriek, echoed eerily through the wide, hollow nest.

The tentacles spilling from its maw tangled and coiled in slime on sheer muscle memory. Its massive head was cleaved clean off, spinning as it hit the ground like a bizarrely shaped nautilus shell.

Thud.

Shifting a few steps to the side, he dodged the lifeless, collapsing corpse.

Xia Nan wasn't in a hurry to collect his loot. Instead, he maintained a safe distance from the monster's corpse, keeping up his guard.

Only when the headless remains completely stopped twitching and lay dead still on the ground did he finally breathe a small sigh of relief.

To be honest, if he could, he would have liked to mangle the corpse a little more thoroughly, just in case the "Stage 2" resurrection incident from the Ash Valley Secret Realm repeated itself.

It was just that he really wasn't familiar with this monster's anatomy. Plus, its entire body was covered in thick armor, making it tough to deal with quickly. He'd have to specifically seek out the gaps at its joints to dismember it efficiently.

On the other hand, he was also afraid that hacking away blindly might ruin some useful material on it.

Such a massive beast—and a Rare type that even he couldn't identify, despite cramming adventurer knowledge for so long—might fetch a high price. It could directly pay off his debt for reforging the Greatsword.

"Hmm... which parts are worth the most?"

Standing to the side, Xia Nan carefully sized it up.

Considering his limited carrying capacity, he couldn't possibly haul the whole thing. He had no choice but to pick out a few parts to bring back.

Based on the experience he'd accumulated over the past year or so, the lobster monster's remaining single eye might be useful, as well as those tentacle-like mouthparts.

That pincer was a bit too big. Hauling it back by force would easily become a burden; he'd see if he could roast and eat it tonight to recover some stamina.

As for its internal organs, he didn't know which ones were still intact enough to—

While Xia Nan was pondering, he suddenly seemed to sense something.

He whipped his head around. His dark, deep eyes, still lingering with icy killing intent, stared straight at a distant tunnel entrance shrouded in shadow.

"It's me, Mr. Xia Nan, don't attack! It's me!"