Chapter 513 Wrapping Up

[Proficiency +1]

[Heavy Tide lv2 (31/100) → Heavy Tide lv2 (32/100)]

[Proficiency +2]

[Gravity Control lv1 (45/100) → Gravity Control lv1 (47/100)]

Familiar translucent characters flashed before his eyes. Xia Nan glanced at them, then looked away.

Without the Dream Weaving Corridor, gaining combat technique proficiency was a long, steady process.

Those two proficiency points for Gravity Control were a pleasant surprise, but the increase for Heavy Tide was perfectly normal. He saw it every day—he had gained a point just this morning while training alone on the ship.

Experiencing such intense combat, an increase was entirely expected, so he didn't pay it much mind.

Speaking of which, Gerry's actual combat strength was nothing to scoff at.

The deaths of the Shield of Iron Rock Squad proved as much.

Even with numerous helpers, a Level 5 Class Holder slaughtering several adventurers who also possessed Class Levels at such speed was enough to prove his deadliness.

Unfortunately for him, his opponent was Xia Nan.

Gerry's physical attributes—already unimpressive among Class Holders of his level—had been completely crushed in every aspect by Xia Nan, who had been reinforced by multiple Secret Realms. Even crossing swords head-on had proved incredibly difficult; Gerry had relied entirely on his wealth of combat experience just to barely keep up with the rhythm.

The special abilities granted by his niche class were incredibly troublesome for other Class Holders. His corrosive venom, which should have compensated for his physical shortcomings, had been perfectly countered by Xia Nan's Darkscale Coiled Guard. He couldn't unleash the slightest bit of its power.

As a result, the combat technique build centered around his "venom"—the core of his class—was rendered useless.

This left Gerry, the Carrion Vulture, unable to bring out even fifty percent of his combat strength against Xia Nan.

Furthermore, the invisible, formless nature of Gravity Control produced a remarkable effect against enemies unfamiliar with Xia Nan's abilities.

Xia Nan clearly recalled the momentary shock and helplessness on Gerry's face when he applied gravity to him; and the pale despair that washed over the pirate as he realized death was imminent, when Xia Nan suddenly withdrew the pull while the man was struggling to balance himself against Heavy Tide, throwing him completely off balance.

The outcome of this battle had been sealed the moment Gerry the Carrion Vulture chose to personally lead his subordinates and fishman reinforcements to the warehouse.

And it came to a close when that pitch-black arm shield, gleaming with cold light, smashed into his face.

His gaze swept over the pirate leader's shriveled head rolling on the ground.

Xia Nan shifted his attention to his surroundings.

A few seconds had been enough for the remaining fishmen and gang thugs on the field to surround him.

Strangely, though, facing the lone black-haired young man at the center of their encirclement, not a single one of these typically ferocious monsters and gang members dared to attack.

This plunged the entire area into an extremely bizarre standstill.

With a flick of his wrist, scarlet enemy blood flew through the air along with a flash of sword light.

His left foot rested on the chest of the headless corpse on the ground.

Xia Nan stood in place, casually twirling his sword into a flourish, his gaze deep and tranquil.

He had no intention of urging them to surrender, nor any thought of threatening them.

He didn't waste a single word.

The next second, a long, resonant wolf howl accompanied by a biting gale erupted from the center of the field once again.

The battle ended very quickly.

By the time the phantom of the black inland wolf dissipated with the wind under the moonlight, there were no living creatures left on the field other than the figure covered in blood and minced flesh.

Xia Nan's current combat technique system might lack ranged methods, but for "group battles"—especially in a relatively open venue like this—the existence of Fang Hunt and Night Mother's Gaze, which took effect simultaneously with the wolf howl, destined him to become a ruthless meat grinder, reaping lives with terrifying efficiency.

It went without saying for the ordinary thugs and fishman lackeys who had yet to acquire Class Levels. The rest were merely Class Holders hovering around Level 1 who had barely advanced using the most common combat techniques, along with a modest number of elite fishman guards.

Against Xia Nan, who held a crushing advantage in every aspect—from Class Level to Challenge Rating—they couldn't even manage to flee, let alone fight head-on.

Every time the wolf howl rang out, it meant at least five fresh lives had turned into cooling corpses.

In just a few minutes, the furious roars, screams, and wails that had echoed across the field dissipated into nothingness, leaving only the rustling of the evening breeze sweeping through the woods.

Fragmented corpses lay scattered across the ground. Blood seeped into the soil, following the terrain to form large and small pools.

The gnome Rogue, Agu, who had been chopped in half at the waist, hadn't been dead long. His upper body still maintained the agonizing struggle of his final moments; his two hands were positioned one after the other in a crawling posture, mud jammed beneath his fingernails, while his intestines and internal organs spilled out in a trail behind him.

The half-orc Hogk's physical constitution was truly outstanding. Even though his skull had been cleaved in two by a single blade, spilling his brains all over the ground, he still wasn't completely dead; his limbs twitched slightly as he lay in a pool of blood.

Habik's body was relatively intact. However, because his corpse had naturally fallen face-down, the short sword originally thrust into his eye socket had been pushed significantly deeper upon hitting the ground. The tip of the sword pierced straight through the back of his head, causing the dead dwarf's corpse to twitch a few final times.

The human ranger Seli, who had fled at the last minute, had survived the longest among the Shield of Iron Rock Squad, but her end was also the most miserable. Under the siege, she had been reduced to a pile of abstract, mangled flesh where her original limbs could barely be discerned. She couldn't be any more dead.

Xia Nan stood in place, using a piece of gauze to wipe the blood-stained blade of Ember Fall, his chest heaving slightly.

After such a long period of high-intensity combat, even someone with his physical attributes couldn't emerge completely unexhausted. His shark skin lining was already soaked with sweat and blood.

Having just finished a rather intense battle, the expression on his face inevitably relaxed a bit. His gaze subconsciously swept over the corpses of his former teammates, and his look couldn't help but turn slightly subtle.

His smooth cooperation with the Blade of Vengeance Squad had made Xia Nan feel he had already proven that the tragic fates of his past traveling companions had nothing to do with him.

But right now, the entirely wiped-out Shield of Iron Rock Squad seemed to indicate that this point was still up for debate.

However—

Xia Nan didn't think the deaths of these few people had much to do with him.

The Rogue Agu had died from an overly reckless ambush. The half-orc Hogk had been severely injured by a Fireball, and Xia Nan had been executing a decapitation tactic at the time, leaving him absolutely no time to help. The dwarf Habik had first been corroded by Gerry's venom, vastly weakening his defenses, before being besieged by enemies; choosing Seli wouldn't have allowed for backup anyway. As for the ranger Seli, she died from negligence—pierced through the heart by a Rogue hiding behind her while she fled. She had brought it upon herself.

'You really can't blame me for this,' Xia Nan thought to himself as he turned and headed back into the warehouse.

He placed one hand on Auriel's three boxes of cargo, while his other hand reached along the chain into his armor's inner lining and lightly pressed the button next to the White Flask pocket watch.

"Click."

The crisp sound rang through the air, and the watch hands spun rapidly.

Once the hands completed a full clockwise rotation, the three boxes of cargo originally on the ground were stored inside the pocket watch, turning into an icon of three miniature wooden boxes stacked together on the watch face.

According to their original plan, their group would have had to rely on physical strength to move these three boxes of quest items.

Now that those meddlesome teammates were dead, Xia Nan no longer had to worry about exposing his secret. He simply stowed the boxes away in his pocket watch and was done with it, saving him the time and effort of hauling the items back to the coast box by box.

He was about to head out to collect his spoils when he suddenly seemed to remember something.

Xia Nan turned his head, looking toward the window on the other side of the warehouse.

Like a frightened quail, Hogen was huddled deep in the bushes, his body trembling.

When Xia Nan had grabbed him by the collar and thrown him out the window earlier, he had assumed the man wanted to silence him. He had even prepared himself to be hacked to death by a sword.

It wasn't until his body hit the ground, and a sudden burst of orange-red flames erupted from the warehouse window accompanied by a surging wave of heat, that he realized what had happened. He had hurriedly found a nearby bush and hid inside.

Afterward, the furious roars and miserable screams coming from the other side of the wall proved his conjecture.

The Ebb Tide Gang had discovered the adventurers' intrusion.

Speaking of which, Hogen actually had plenty of time and opportunity to escape.

With the intense battle raging on the field, even if someone had noticed him, no one would care about a nameless nobody like him.

But—where could he even run to?

The ships on the island were strictly controlled by the Ebb Tide Gang. By himself, he definitely wouldn't be able to hijack one.

This meant that even if he temporarily fled the battlefield right now, he would only be wandering around Wild Berry Cliff. He wouldn't be able to get off the island at all.

If the Ebb Tide Gang won in the end, it would be hard not to arouse suspicion if he was the sole survivor while all his peers dispatched to guard the warehouse had died.

And based on what he knew of the pirate leader Gerry's personality, he would probably be sent straight to heaven along with his peers.

If the adventurers survived the gang members' siege, it went without saying how they would deal with him if he had run away.

Hogen didn't think he could evade the search of a Class Grade powerhouse within the relatively restricted space of Wild Berry Cliff.

Thus, considering all these aspects, no matter how terrified or panicked this lowly thug was, he never chose to escape. Instead, he just stayed hidden deep in the bushes.

Even when the sounds of combat coming from the other side of the wall gradually subsided, he didn't dare make the slightest noise.

"Thump, thump, thump."

It was the sound of his heart beating violently.

Countless chaotic thoughts tangled and swirled in his mind.

'What should I do? Who exactly won? Am I going to die?'

He didn't know how long had passed.

An unconcealed set of footsteps suddenly interrupted his thoughts.

Hogen didn't even look up. His mind was in a conflicted state where he neither dared to run nor wished to call out.

But clearly, the owner of those footsteps had long since discovered his presence and was walking straight toward the bushes.

What entered Hogen's line of sight was a pair of thick leather boots covered in blood, stepping down one after the other.

A tall shadow cast down from above, enveloping him.

Hogen only felt an irresistible force grab the back of his collar, and he was hauled directly out of the bushes.

Casually tossing the trembling thug onto the ground, Xia Nan's expression remained unchanged, but he felt somewhat surprised inwardly.

He had already assumed the thug would flee, and had been planning how to track him down again so he could guide him to the dungeon on the island where the civilians were locked up.

He hadn't expected this kid to be so sensible, hiding right near the warehouse to wait for his return.

"Get up," Xia Nan said casually. "Think about the exact location of the island's dungeon. You'll take me there in a bit."

Before that, he needed to clean up the battlefield and collect all the valuable items from the fishmen and Ebb Tide Gang members. Selling them once he returned to Barracuda Bay would serve as a sum of extra income.

Thanks to the spatial storage equipment, the White Flask pocket watch, he could carry far more things than before.

Of course, he would also filter out some of the truly worthless, battered armor and weapons to avoid wasting storage space.

It was worth mentioning that Xia Nan had originally considered using the heads of these fishmen and gang members on the field to practice the large-scale ritual he would need for his future class advancement.

At any rate, they added up to a good few dozen—close to triple digits of heads.

If he could stack them all up, it could be considered progress in his craftsmanship.

Furthermore, these heads were much larger than those of ordinary goblins, so they might look a bit more spectacular.

It was just a pity that time was limited.

The merchant ship they had arrived on was waiting out at sea, and there were still many civilians imprisoned in the dungeon waiting to be rescued. He figured that a fair number of Ebb Tide Gang members and fishmen were still scattered across the island; they needed to be cleaned up promptly before they could react, lest they bring about unknown troubles.

Therefore, Xia Nan could only regretfully abandon these precious training materials on the field, waiting for an opportunity in the future to create his artwork and improve his head-stacking proficiency.

He suddenly turned around and asked Hogen, who was shakily getting to his feet with weak legs, "Right, your boss's residence—you should know where it is, right?"

Hearing this, the thug froze for a moment before hurriedly nodding in reply, "I know, I know it!"

"Mm," Xia Nan gave a slight nod. "Take me there later too."

Since he had already killed the Ebb Tide Gang's leader, Gerry the Carrion Vulture, he naturally couldn't let the legacy left behind in his lair slip away.

The reward for his commission on this trip was merely to make Auriel willing to sell him the Proof of Diligence.

Exactly how much it would be sold for was still uncertain.

And even if the collector hadn't completely appraised the bracelet's full effects, based on the parts he had discovered, its selling price definitely wouldn't be low.

Right now, after paying the balance for his Abyssal Current armor, his little treasury had shrunk significantly and urgently needed replenishing.

He only hoped this beheaded pirate leader could help him make up for some of it.