Thornthroat

The Ironjaw Ravager clearly possessed a certain degree of intelligence. It wasn’t one of those small monsters that knew nothing but how to charge in mindlessly.

The moment it realized it had been poisoned and saw its health rapidly draining, it understood that it had to kill the human in front of it as quickly as possible.

It immediately activated [Impact].

Liu Xuan was still facing away from it, so the attack slammed into him cleanly and stunned him for two seconds.

The Ironjaw Ravager wheeled around and charged again.

The annoying thing about this skill was that once you got hit, if you had no Tenacity-based crowd-control reduction, you would be stunned over and over.

You would take all five hits for a total of 7,500 damage.

Anyone in their twenties trying to fight this boss would be doomed unless they had enough armor, teammates to protect them, damage reduction, and a healer pumping them full of health.

But to Liu Xuan, that amount of damage was nothing more than a tickle.

He currently had over three hundred thousand HP. The boss could ram him all it wanted.

If he hadn’t been stunned and unable to move, he would have turned his back to the boss every time and humiliated it to death.

The more the Ironjaw Ravager charged, the more it felt that something was wrong. It was still taking a relentless stream of poison damage, and its health couldn’t hold out much longer.

But there was nothing it could do about the poison. It had no way to cleanse itself. All it could do was watch its health drop bit by bit until it finally reached zero.

When it died, its eyes were still wide open. Normally, it was the one poisoning others to death. How could it have imagined that today it would meet someone even more poisonous than itself...

“You have killed Ironjaw Ravager (Boss). Gained 1,000 experience.”

“You have killed a poisoned monster. Base HP +1.”

As the boss fell, Liu Xuan glanced at the Golden Blade Lord in the stands. That fellow still wore an intrigued expression, without the slightest sign of anger.

Fine. So you’re not angry?

Liu Xuan walked over to the Ironjaw Ravager’s corpse and gave it a thumbs-down. Then he slowly turned around, gradually directing the arm making the gesture toward the Golden Blade Lord.

The latter’s expression changed slightly. The flesh on its face even trembled a little. At last, it seemed somewhat annoyed.

It spat something out of its mouth—a skull that had been sucked completely clean.

At that moment, the White Ravager was in the middle of announcing the next opponent from above the arena.

Goldblade suddenly interrupted it with two hissing sounds, then said something else. The White Ravager hurriedly nodded.

It then resumed its introduction.

Liu Xuan frowned. From the looks of it, Goldblade still had no intention of entering the arena personally.

So he still had to keep fighting.

Winning wasn’t a problem, but this was wasting time.

What if someone came up and managed to anger Goldblade immediately? That person would save more time than he did at this stage.

The damn Ascension Mainframe would definitely take that into account too. Wasn’t this effectively lowering his score?

Still, judging from Goldblade’s reaction just now, it was already getting worked up. If he put in a little more effort, he could probably provoke it into coming down.

At that moment, the iron gate opposite him opened—but it wasn’t the one the previous two monsters had emerged from. Instead, another, even larger gate beside it swung open.

The ground began to tremble with the heavy thud of something enormous. Then a massive silhouette leaped out from behind the gate and crashed heavily onto the ground.

Dust billowed everywhere.

Liu Xuan narrowed his eyes. It was a canine creature over three meters tall, its entire body covered in leaves.

[Thornthroat (Boss)]

Level: 26

Attack: 1,400

HP: 150,000

Armor: 160

Magic Resistance: 100

Tenacity: 30%

Skills:

[Thorn Unleashed: During combat, the thorns covering its body will spread open, reflecting 10% of melee damage.]

[Roar: Deals 1,500 damage to enemies within a fan-shaped area directly in front of it and slows them by 50%.]

[Thorn Frenzy: When its HP falls below 40%, Thornthroat enters a berserk state and unleashes the power within its body. Sharp thorn bushes will grow along the path it travels, dealing 200 physical damage per second to enemies who come into contact with them.]

The boss’s level had increased again.

Liu Xuan muttered inwardly, If Goldblade still refuses to come down, will the level keep getting higher?

When Thornthroat appeared, the Golden Blade Lord in the stands became visibly excited.

This beast was its pet. Another powerful Ravager had originally been scheduled to enter the arena, but the Golden Blade Lord wanted to see its own pet tear the arrogant human before it to pieces, so it had made a last-minute substitution.

Now, seeing its pet enter the arena, Goldblade even sat up a little straighter in excitement. It picked up a chunk of bloody meat from the tray in front of it and tossed it toward Thornthroat.

The latter seemed terribly hungry. It wolfed down the meat in a few bites.

Afterward, it licked the blood from the corners of its mouth, still looking unsatisfied.

Considering its enormous body, that little piece of meat had indeed been nowhere near enough.

Goldblade pointed at Liu Xuan and let out a couple of barks. Thornthroat immediately locked its vicious gaze onto Liu Xuan.

It was looking at him the way one looked at food.

But in order to provoke Goldblade, Liu Xuan completely ignored it. Instead, he kept staring at the obese figure in the stands and crooked his finger.

He didn’t even care whether the other party understood him.

“You should come down yourself. Otherwise, I might kill your pet before long.”

Goldblade angrily roared at Thornthroat, signaling it to attack immediately. It still had no intention of entering the arena itself.

Liu Xuan was a little helpless. Looks like I’ll have to keep fighting.

Still, after looking over Thornthroat’s skill set, he came up with an idea that should anger Goldblade as much as possible.

Of its three skills, two were passive, and the only active one was a slowing ability.

Against other people, the combination would be quite nasty.

Melee fighters would take reflected damage whenever they attacked it.

Once it entered its berserk phase, Thornthroat would run all over the arena, covering the ground in thorn bushes and restricting everyone’s movement.

Then, if it followed that up with [Roar] and slowed you down, how miserable would that be?

Unfortunately for it, it had run into Liu Xuan. With only one active skill, this was going to be fun.

Besides, I don’t even use melee attacks. I don’t have a basic attack either. You’ve effectively lost one of your passives already.

Liu Xuan took out the [Heavenly Man] shield again and held it in front of himself.

Thornthroat had long since been driven mad by hunger. With a low growl, it sprang forward like a leopard.

That single leap carried it across nearly half the arena.

If this had been the old Liu Xuan, avoiding it would have been difficult. But with [Body of Lightness], his movement speed had become so fast that even a boss couldn’t catch him.

He easily sidestepped Thornthroat’s pounce.

Thornthroat missed and grew irritated.

Why couldn’t its food just lie obediently on the ground and let itself be eaten?

Once combat began, thorns emerged from beneath the leaves covering its body and wrapped around its entire form, making it look even more ferocious.

Seeing that Liu Xuan wasn’t running away and was merely hovering in front of it, Thornthroat swung a claw, trying to tear the detestable human apart.

But Liu Xuan simply darted to the side again and dodged with ease.

Not an inch more, not an inch less.

Thornthroat’s claw landed precisely beside him. From a distance, it looked as if the beast would have hit him if only it had shifted slightly.

“Roar!”

Thornthroat completely lost its temper. It attacked with claws and fangs, chasing Liu Xuan in a furious assault.

Yet not a single attack managed to connect.

To the spectators around them, the stupid beast looked just like a mad dog, being led around in circles by Liu Xuan for pure amusement.

Goldblade on the stands was the most displeased of all. This was its pet, after all, and its humiliation was Goldblade’s humiliation.

“Hiss!”

It couldn’t help but let out an angry curse. 【Thornthroat】 immediately shuddered all over, as if recalling something terrifying.

At last, it calmed down. Gazing at Liu Xuan, who stood not far away, it pawed at the ground with its foreclaws and slowly opened its jaws.

The corners of Liu Xuan’s mouth lifted. Here it comes, huh?

Puppy, do you know you only have one active skill?