New Passive: Ominous Spread

The ghostly woman was dragged away into the distance, her figure still visible in the darkness as she struggled desperately.

Faint cries for help could still be heard.

Liu Xuan scratched his head. The ghostly woman really was pitifully beautiful and extremely attractive.

When she had been dragged away by the spiderweb, she had kept gazing at him imploringly, clearly hoping he would come to her rescue.

But…

Liu Xuan glanced around him. The fluorescence on the backs of the dead Sentinel Spiders was gradually fading.

There were so many monsters, and the ground was covered in loot. He couldn’t just leave it all there, could he?

So he shouted in the ghostly woman’s direction, “Hey, bro—uh, I mean, miss. You look like you can hold out for a while, so hang in there! Spiders probably don’t eat ghosts!”

With that, he lowered his head and began picking up the loot.

As he did so, he also took the opportunity to draw his passive skills.

He pulled the slot machine’s lever and drew the first passive skill.

[Reap What You Sow: Every three seconds, removes all negative statuses and damage-over-time effects from yourself, returning them to their original sources and refreshing their duration.]

This passive was pretty good.

It meant that Liu Xuan could now remove debuffs such as reduced armor or reduced attack power, while reflecting them back at his enemies.

But that wasn’t even its most important function.

There were all kinds of strange and extraordinary talents in the world. Who knew whether someone might possess some bizarre debuff?

For example, one that disabled one or two of his skills, or sealed one of his passive abilities.

Those counted as negative statuses too.

At the very least, such abilities existed in the games Liu Xuan had played.

Things like the Demon Shadow Blade and Venomous Dragon Phlegm, right?

There was no telling whether someone or some piece of equipment on this battlefield might have similar abilities.

Now that he had Reap What You Sow, he could reflect debuffs back at their source. To a certain extent, this patched one of the weak points in Liu Xuan’s defenses—his Achilles’ heel.

Setting aside those strange and unusual effects, and considering damage alone, the greatest known threat to Liu Xuan was undoubtedly poison damage.

Many main-story bosses had enormous health pools. Liu Xuan also frequently killed monsters above his level. Take this trip to the city in the north, for example. If there was a boss there, it was entirely possible that its health would exceed Liu Xuan’s.

And if that boss happened to be capable of using poison, the damage could be terrifying.

But now he had nothing to worry about.

You want to poison me?

I’ll just send it right back!

Reap What You Sow activated fairly often—once every three seconds, which was more than enough.

“Hmm. This skill draw was pretty good.”

Liu Xuan had never worried about lacking damage. What he feared was being caught off guard and losing to some strange, unexpected ability.

Now, two of those weaknesses had been covered.

While his luck was still good, he continued and drew his second passive skill.

[Malignant Spread: When an enemy you kill has any negative status or damage-over-time effect on it, those effects will spread to all enemies within a ten-meter radius. The spread occurs simultaneously with the enemy’s death.]

Liu Xuan’s eyes lit up.

He had just been lamenting that his stats were becoming difficult to stack, and now a passive like this had appeared.

This passive meant that once he inflicted monsters with Fear, Poison, or Burn, all those negative effects would immediately spread to every enemy within ten meters as soon as the afflicted monster died.

The passive description was very clear: the moment the target died, its negative effects would spread.

In other words, if Corpse Explosion triggered and killed other monsters, he could stack his stats through them as well.

At the same time, since those other monsters would also be carrying damage-over-time effects spread from the first victim, their deaths from Corpse Explosion would spread those effects even farther.

He could keep stacking his stats.

There was only one exception: monsters killed solely by Thunder Aura still didn’t count.

But that wasn’t a major problem. Nothing in this world could be perfect.

Besides, Thunder Aura could increase its own damage too. He could just treat it as a separate system.

It was just… why did these crucial skills always show up only after he had finished farming a huge wave of monsters?

If he had possessed Malignant Spread just now, wouldn’t wiping out this entire town of spiders have been incredibly satisfying?

Still, a person shouldn’t be too greedy. It was fine that it had arrived a little late. What mattered was that it had arrived at all.

There would be plenty of opportunities to stack his stats later.

As Liu Xuan picked up the Sentinel Spiders’ loot, he was so delighted by his new passive that he gradually forgot about something.

Then, while he was gathering the loot, he suddenly felt as though someone was standing in front of him.

He looked up and saw a glowing figure.

Wasn’t this the ghostly woman?

Only, the pitiful expression she had worn earlier was gone. Now she was glaring at Liu Xuan with a venomous look.

“Could you move your foot? Come on, move it. You’re standing on my money.”

The ghost’s face instantly twisted into something hideous, like an evil spirit, and she lunged at Liu Xuan.

Strangely, she had no health bar in Liu Xuan’s field of vision.

That meant even the Eye of Insight couldn’t reveal her attributes.

This was also why Liu Xuan hadn’t recklessly chased after her to save her earlier. Whether she was a friendly NPC or a monster, she should have had a health bar.

At the very least, she should have had a name.

But this ghost had neither.

The ghostly woman lunged at Liu Xuan, then passed straight through his body. The attack he had expected never came. Instead, she vanished.

Liu Xuan touched himself and found that nothing had happened.

However, he noticed that a new negative status had appeared on his status bar.

[Unease: You feel vaguely uneasy and want to leave this place.]

The next moment, the debuff disappeared.

It seemed Reap What You Sow had taken effect.

At first, Liu Xuan hadn’t paid much attention to this debuff.

In many games, whenever players entered a particularly eerie or terrifying area, the developers liked to add a line like this to enhance the atmosphere and remind the players of where they were.

But when Liu Xuan turned around, he saw a massive health bar hanging directly in front of him.

It was still pitch-black before his eyes, and he couldn’t see who the health bar belonged to.

Then, faint pale-green fluorescent patterns gradually began to glow before him.

The patterns outlined the shape of a gigantic spider.

It was as though someone had taken an enormous brush, dipped it in fluorescent paint, and drawn simple lines across the spider’s legs and back.

Although the spider itself remained fused with the darkness, the glowing lines were enough to reveal just how enormous its body was.

The fluorescent lines marking its legs were planted on the buildings lining both sides of the street.

Like the Sentinel Spiders, it had a human-face pattern on its back—one almost as large as a car.

This thing was right in front of Liu Xuan now. He had no idea when it had arrived.

He had the distinct feeling that the darkness directly ahead was actually the gaping maw of the creature.

If he had truly turned and run after the ghost passed through him and inflicted Unease, he might have run straight into its mouth.

Now that he looked closely, he saw that the Unease debuff was hanging over the giant spider’s own head.

[Dread Nether Spider (Boss)]

Level: 33

Attack: 2,300

Health: 400,000

Armor: 240

Magic Resistance: 260

Tenacity: 70%

Skills:

【Ghostly Bait: Releases a decoy to confuse enemies. The decoy can willingly sacrifice itself, inflicting the “Unease” effect on the enemy.】

【Inescapable Web: Weaves a gigantic web across the battlefield. All enemies within the web’s range suffer a 60% reduction to movement speed. Moving across the web also generates a large amount of aggro, making the affected enemy a target of the Dread Nether Spider.】

【Corrosive Armor: Each attack reduces the enemy’s armor by 40 points and inflicts the “Unease” effect.】

【Terrifying Visage: The luminous patterns on the Dread Nether Spider’s body emit a strange radiance, causing all units affected by “Unease” to become “Frightened.”】

【Bone-Chilling Cold: As the battle continues, the surrounding temperature grows steadily colder, causing all enemies’ attack and casting speeds to decrease over time.】

【Spider Matriarch: When its health falls below 70% and 30%, the Dread Nether Spider will retreat into the darkness and summon a large number of Sentinel Spiders to join the battle. During this time, it restores health equal to 2% of its maximum health every 5 seconds, continuing until all the Sentinel Spiders have been eliminated.】