Lin Bei took direct remote control and had one Death Avatar in every squad launch a Death Assault on its designated World BOSS!
The rest of the Death Avatars all stayed hidden in the shadows, waiting for the Perfect moment.
Boom—!!!
A deafening explosion.
Ten avatars blew themselves up and died.
At the same instant, ten fearsome rule-based powers descended, blanketing ten bewildered World BOSSes.
Riiip—!!!
A grating sound of space being torn.
In the next moment, a clear blood-line appeared on each of the ten still-stupefied World BOSSes.
Their auras plummeted; every one of them dropped straight from Epic Four-Star to Epic Three-Star.
"Now's our chance!"
"Hit them while they're down!"
Seeing this, Lin Bei curled his lips, then commanded the rest of the avatars hidden in the shadows to swarm the ten World BOSSes whose strength had collapsed.
Caught in this sudden onslaught, the grievously injured BOSSes had no time to defend; they fell amid roars of unwillingness and slowly faded away.
"Looks like... I still underestimated the Death Avatars."
On the Altar, Lin Bei stared at the abruptly ended battle, still a little dazed.
To him, Death Avatars had glaring weaknesses.
Yet once they slipped into the shadows they could evade most Spirit shockwaves, and even summon Shadow Clones to absorb mental damage.
Coupled with their massive HP and the weakening and control from Mark of Death and Grasp of Death, they could unleash terrifying results in Combat!
Add their flawless coordination and the True Damage dealt by Execute on death, and these avatars were nothing less than killing machines!
"As expected, real Combat is the best teacher."
Lin Bei mused, gaining a clearer picture of his own strength.
By now he had activated Absolute Defense to offset the backlash of his skyrocketing stats.
Killing ten Epic Four-Star World BOSSes at once had granted far too many attributes; it was simply a safety measure.
He had no wish to pass out from pain again.
[HP: 4,800 billion (Epic Five-Star)]
[Spirit: 3,800 billion (Epic Five-Star)]
[Combat Power: 4,300 billion (Epic Five-Star)]
"Already Epic Five-Star—so fast."
Lin Bei opened his Attribute Panel, and a satisfied smile appeared when he saw his new stats.
He felt it was time to switch to a new unit of measurement.
A Xue Yi with only 300 million Combat Power was no longer any kind of benchmark for him.
"How about using Blood War from now on?"
"If one Blood War equals a billion Combat Power, I'm now worth 4,300 Blood Wars."
"Hmm... not bad."
Closing the panel, he teleported into the special battle space and casually recalled the Death Avatars.
His gaze fell on the spots where the ten World BOSSes had died, and his eyes lit up.
"Nice—every BOSS dropped ten world origin fragments!"
"Worthy of Epic Four-Star BOSSes, they're far more generous!"
"Looks like I shouldn't summon BOSSes with just one challenge token anymore; using more might call out stronger World BOSSes!"
"Anyway, I'll have plenty of challenge tokens, so no need to hesitate."
Lin Bei collected all the fragments—one hundred in total. Together with his previous haul he now had 119 world origin fragments on him.
He had no real sense of how significant that number was, but it probably wasn't small.
He secretly thought, "Once I'm done here I can talk to Aleria; with so many fragments they should fetch a good price."
Back on the Altar, he pulled out a thousand challenge tokens, wanting to see what calibre of World BOSS he could summon.
The result disappointed him.
This time only 600 of the thousand tokens were consumed.
Black fog filled the Teleportation Array, and six terrifying figures emerged.
Lin Bei focused—each of them boasted well over 300 billion Combat Power!
And they were all Epic Four-Star as well.
Again he didn't fight personally; he simply summoned Death Avatars into the special space to battle the BOSSes.
The ratio was still ten avatars per BOSS.
The difference was that every avatar now possessed 480 billion HP. Ten against one, those 300-billion-Combat Power World BOSSes were in for a world of hurt... In the depths of the darkness, a pair of enormous pupils slowly opened, flickering with astonishment.
"What on earth is going on?"
"My power... it's draining even faster."
"Did that little thief... recruit help?"
The giant pupils looked downward; his massive claws were now covered in cracks, as though they might shatter at any moment.
He finally lost his composure.
Deep in his gaze, a hint of dread surfaced.
Fortunately, while this space sealed him, it also granted him "immortality."
Even with his power draining, he remained undying and indestructible.
Still, the repeated humiliation dealt by that thief was hard to swallow.
"No, I have to come up with another way to deal with him!"
"It's just that today's power transfer has hit the limit; if I want to act again... I'll have to wait until tomorrow."
"Hmph, let the little thief jump around a bit longer!"
"Next time... I'll show you what cruelty truly means!"
A sinister glint flashed across the giant pupils before they slowly shut, plunging the space once more into dead silence... On the Altar, Lin Bei frowned.
"Strange, why isn't the Altar glowing?"
"Could I've hit the BOSS respawn cap?"
Unwilling to give up, he tried several more times; when the Altar remained unresponsive he finally shook his head and sighed.
"Sigh, looks like I really have hit the limit."
He tallied it up: so far he had killed 36 World BOSSes—exactly the same number as the Thirty-Six Main Cities in the Underworld.
Apparently you could challenge at most 36 World BOSSes each cycle. Not many, but still considerable.
At least for someone possessing both the Plunder System and the Critical Hit System, 36 World BOSSes offered tremendous gains.
His stats had soared once again.
Moreover, after slaying six World BOSSes with over 300 billion Combat Power, he had gained several dozen more world origin fragments.
He now carried nearly two hundred fragments in total!
Inside the Golden Palace, Apachi—wearing a silver-white mask—looked at the silent Aleria and gave a cold smile.
He spoke indifferently, "Aleria, you'd better not refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit! Right now I only want two Primal Forces, but once the battle starts, the price will be... an entirely different matter!"
"Hmph."
Aleria merely gave him a sideways glance, snorted coldly, and still refused to yield.
Seeing this, the smile on Apachi's lips grew even colder.
He thought to himself, "Keep pretending! Let's see how long you can keep it up!"
"When the time comes... don't blame me for demanding an arm and a leg. If you won't give me two Primal Forces now, then in the future you'll have to hand over at least one world origin shard!"
"I refuse to believe that your own sister's life is worth less than a single world origin shard!"
Apachi narrowed his eyes slightly, a chilling glint flashing within.
"Hmph, you want to fight me? What could you possibly use against me?"