Chapter 99: Mark’s Choice
The Skeleton Knight that everyone had spent so much effort defeating had now, right before their eyes, been reborn with even greater strength.
The places where its bones had been lost quickly recovered; the broken bones immediately fused back together. The greatsword that had been beaten until it was slightly deformed had now returned to its original state... No, it had even been upgraded into something better.
The dark energy swirling around the Skeleton Knight’s body transformed into bone armor covered in skull patterns that reeked of the aura of death, as if it had been forged from the bones of countless unfortunate souls who had fallen.
The Skeleton Knight now completely deserved to be called an A-rank boss. Aside from the weakness that its core was slightly more fragile than that of a normal A-rank, everything else met the standard.
The Skeleton Knight’s bony hand once again touched the sword hilt. With just a slight lift, it raised the heavy greatsword straight into the air.
"Don’t just stand there! Act immediately! We still have a chance to defeat it."
Kael’s shout snapped everyone out of their panicked state. They had no confidence in dealing with an S-rank, but a team of more than ten C-rank and three B-rank hunters still had a chance against an A-rank boss like this, although it was very small.
Everyone simultaneously picked up their hand cannons and continuously fired shells at the Skeleton Knight. They did not use rifles like the first time because those things were far too ineffective against an A-rank boss.
"Aim carefully! As long as we destroy the energy core, it’s over. Don’t try to attack other areas."
Brann roared, his body once again transforming into a metallic state. He did not rush in like before but began waiting for the right opportunity.
The situation now was completely different from earlier. Facing the Skeleton Knight head-on with Brann’s physical strength alone was impossible.
It was quite lucky that monsters like this were not as intelligent as humans. Otherwise, there really would be no chance of defeating this boss.
After a series of deafening explosions, aside from the thick clouds of dust, nothing else could be seen. Based on their combat experience so far, this situation clearly meant that the Skeleton Knight was preparing to use that gigantic energy slash again.
"I have to hide quickly."
Mark gritted his teeth and quickly ran away. He could no longer continue being a burden to everyone. Although he had never fought much and lacked experience, at least Mark knew what he should do at this moment.
The boss had become much more dangerous. If Kael or someone else exposed an opening just because of Mark, his teammates could very likely suffer serious injuries.
Just as expected, from within the thick cloud of dust, a gigantic energy slash flew out. This time it was not ten meters high, but a full fifty meters high.
Wherever the slash went, the ground was destroyed. Its speed was extremely fast, and its terrifying range made even the experienced C-rank hunters struggle to evade it.
Mark had tried his best to run as far away as possible until he was pressed against the cliff, but the energy slash was still heading toward him at an extremely fast speed.
This time, no one had time to save Mark, but luckily, the slash veered slightly off course. Mark felt an extremely powerful gust of wind hit him, almost knocking him to the ground.
The ground around Mark began to collapse, causing him to slip, but with the innate talent granted by his supreme-grade earth spiritual root, the ground was his friend.
Although Mark could not control the ground to the point of restoring it to its original state, he could at least make sure he would not fall.
Seeing that Mark was fine, his teammates immediately focused on the Skeleton Knight. Suddenly, it shot out of the thick cloud of dust at an astonishing speed and appeared in front of a C-rank hunter.
A cold slash as fast as lightning came down, the greatsword carrying such power that it seemed capable of splitting a mountain as it struck straight toward him.
His ability was to erect an energy barrier. Of course, a C-rank barrier was not very effective against an A-rank attack, so it was almost instantly shattered.
But that brief moment was completely enough for him to retreat and dodge the attack. It was just that the hand cannon he was holding did not have time to dodge.
The blade of the Skeleton Knight was huge. The moment it made contact, it smashed the entire head of the hand cannon, but it could not hurt the man because he had thrown the cannon away quickly enough.
The powerful slash did not stop there. The tip of the greatsword slammed into the ground, causing the earth to crack apart, sending large chunks of dirt flying into the air.
A red arrow took advantage of this moment and tore through the air, aiming straight at the Skeleton Knight’s energy core.
Kael’s surprise attack seemed like it would succeed, but the Skeleton Knight’s eye sockets suddenly flashed with an eerie light.
Its power exploded to a terrifying level, instantly canceling out all the momentum of the greatsword and swinging two extremely fast energy slashes.
Although they were not wide-area attacks, these two energy slashes were so terrifyingly fast that Kael could barely dodge them.
Part of Kael’s backpack was hit by an energy slash and sent flying. The box containing the spiritual herbs flew out and rolled toward Mark.
Although Kael had nearly lost a huge amount of money, he had no time to pay attention to it now. Alice quickly approached and treated Kael’s injuries. The others spread out to avoid being wiped out by a single energy slash from the Skeleton Knight.
Seeing the box containing the spiritual herbs roll to his feet, Mark’s mind immediately filled with a crazy thought that he had never even considered before.
A spiritual herb with earth elemental power... If I use it while cultivating, I’ll make progress very quickly, but there is no time now. So what if I extract it and use my spiritual root to forcibly gather the energy into a single attack?
Mark had never read any information about this or learned any similar technique before, but Mark’s intuition told him that his spiritual root could do it. This crazy move would definitely make Mark pay a price, and the price would not be small.
"Forget it. If this keeps going, they’ll all die. If I don’t try, I’m definitely dead. If I try, there’s still hope... Then just do it!"