Gao Wu: If this BOSS isn't nerfed, is it even playable?

Chapter 177 Leveling Up by Pushing Through the Levels, Terrifying Efficiency!
A thought popped into Lin Ye's mind.

The space inside the Nirvana Tower is vast and boundless, dotted with numerous alien tribes.

It would be too inefficient for him to level up quickly in the remaining days by himself alone.

But now, he has this army.

He had already confirmed that he could also gain full experience points from killing aliens through puppets.

It's no different from him committing suicide.

Although the mycelial energy within the puppet is not inexhaustible, it will eventually run out.

But if the killing continues and new puppets are created from old ones, this process could potentially continue indefinitely!
As for the 150-kilometer control distance limitation, Lin Ye also found a solution.

He recalled the battle he had fought in the Black Silk Forest against the mutated puppet controlled by the Fungal King.

At the edge of the battlefield, there were several puppets that did not take any action and existed only as eyes and ears.

Those puppets are probably more than just spies.

They are also signal sources.

Lin Ye could easily emulate this model, separating a portion of his undead army into puppets, placing them no more than 150 kilometers apart, to form a massive mycelial signal relay network.

In this way, he could expand his control over the entire legion from a limit of 150 kilometers to thousands of kilometers, and even cover the entire space inside the Nirvana Tower!
With this in mind, Lin Ye's thoughts suddenly became clear.

He looked at the undead legion that was beginning to take shape before him and issued new orders.

The massive legion quickly split into dozens of action teams, each consisting of ten puppets, spreading out like a vast black net towards the open world beyond the canyon.

They will become Lin Ye's eyes and ears, extensions of his limbs, bringing him a continuous stream of experience points and new recruits.

After doing all this, Lin Ye withdrew his gaze.

He looked up at the massive doomsday volcano on the distant horizon.

Without further hesitation, Lin Ye transformed into a streak of light and sped headed towards the core area.

……

three days later.

In a rocky ravine.

"Chen Fei, stay calm! Don't lose your temper!"

Wang Lei let out a low roar, and with a precise arc, his longsword deflected a stone spear aimed at his teammate.

The young man he called Chen Fei spat, a hint of impatience on his face: "Captain, he's almost dead, what are you dawdling for? I can take him down in one move!"

Before the three of them, a burly Stone Goblin elite was kneeling on the ground, a huge penetrating wound in its chest from which blood gushed out, clearly at its last gasp.

This is the fifth elite alien species that their team has hunted down together.

"Don't be careless, things are more likely to go wrong at times like these."

Li Xin, the only female member in the group, spoke up to remind them.

Chen Fei pursed his lips, about to retort, when a sharp whooshing sound suddenly came from the sky.

The three of them tensed up and looked up abruptly.

A dark shadow suddenly swooped down at an astonishing speed. It was a Stone Goblin with wings on its back, and its strength seemed to be greater than the one they were attacking!

"not good!"

Wang Lei's expression changed drastically, and he pulled Chen Fei behind him.

"Get ready to meet the enemy!"

With their combined strength, facing a fully-fledged elite Stone Goblin Clan member would be troublesome, but not without the ability to fight back.

However, the anticipated attack did not occur.

The flying Stone Goblin swooped down in mid-air, its claws like hooks, and precisely crushed the head of its already dying kin.

Then, with a flap of its wings, it didn't even glance at the three people on the ground before soaring into the sky again and disappearing into the dark red horizon.

The whole process was lightning fast and incredibly smooth.

In the mountain valley, Wang Lei and his two companions looked at each other in astonishment.

"What...what's going on? Fighting amongst themselves?" Chen Fei's mouth gaped open, and he couldn't close it for a long time.

"Something's wrong."

"The alien race of Tianyuan is chaotic and bloodthirsty. They will definitely attack us humans if they see us. Why did that elite one completely ignore us just now?"

The three discussed it for a long time, but still couldn't come up with a solution.

"Whatever, let's move on to another place and find the next target."

Chen Fei waved his hand somewhat dejectedly.

Just as they were about to leave, Li Xin suddenly stopped, pointed to a gap in a valley ahead, and said in a trembling voice, "Look there..."

The two looked in the direction she pointed and saw countless carrion birds circling in the sky above that area, and the ground was littered with corpses.

As they crept to the edge of the valley and saw the scene inside, a chill ran from the soles of their feet straight to the top of their heads.

The valley was a veritable slaughterhouse.

Dozens of eight-armed and stone goblin tribesmen are frantically slaughtering their own kind.

Their movements are mechanical, their eyes are empty, as if they are simply executing some cold program.

What made the three of them even more horrified was that, in addition to the alien races that were carrying out the slaughter, there were many more corpses lying in the valley.

As they watched, holding their breath and daring not to make a sound, a strange change suddenly occurred.

The corpse of an eight-armed tribesman, which had been cut in half at the waist, suddenly twitched.

Then, with only its upper half remaining, it used its six arms to support itself on the ground and, in an extremely twisted and bizarre posture, got up again.

It landed several meters away on its lower body, where it sprouted dense black mycelium, which miraculously reattached itself to its upper body.

The corpses scattered all over the ground, like puppets lifted by invisible threads, wobbled as they got up.

"Click."

In his excessive tension, Chen Fei accidentally broke a dry branch under his foot.

The sound was incredibly jarring in the deathly silent valley.

The next moment, all the alien races in the valley, whether they were slaughtering or had just been resurrected, stopped what they were doing.

They all turned their heads in unison, hundreds of empty eyes filled with black mycelium, all looking in unison at the location where the three were hiding.

The three of them felt as if they had fallen into an ice cave!
They were lifeless, like walking corpses.

"run!"

Wang Lei only had time to let out a roar before grabbing the two men and turning to flee for his life.

On their escape, they soon discovered that they were not the only victims.

Many students who were also training in the Nirvana Tower fled in panic from all directions, their faces showing the same fear as the others.

They all encountered similar bizarre legions that only slaughtered their own kind but seemed to have little interest in them.

This wave of panic quickly caught the attention of Dongfang Zhen and Zhang Daoxuan, who were also nearby.

"What's going on?" Dongfang Zhen asked, looking at the students in the distance who looked like they had seen a ghost.

Soon, Wang Lei and the others recounted the entire situation.

After hearing their description, Dongfang Zhen frowned, but soon his curiosity took over: "Take me to see it."

Zhang Daoxuan followed behind him.

Their purpose in entering the tower was different from Lin Ye's.

Lin Ye's goal was to level up and complete the mission.

These two simply wanted to hone their combat skills.

When faced with such a powerful and bizarre enemy, their first thought was to test their strength and see who was stronger.

The addition of two top-tier trainees from the training camp gave everyone else present a huge boost of confidence.

That strange army didn't seem so scary after all.

Soon, a "punitive coalition" consisting of more than a dozen students, led by Dongfang Zhen and Zhang Daoxuan, slowly made its way towards that area.

Before long, they encountered a massive puppet army. Looking at this army, composed of nearly a hundred mixed Eight-Armed and Stone Ghost soldiers, both Dongfang Zhen and Zhang Daoxuan wore solemn expressions.

"How can two races that are irreconcilable fight side by side?"

"what is happening?!"

Dongfang was stunned.

Zhang Daoxuan didn't speak, but his hand gripping the sword hilt slowly tightened.

He could sense that although this army had a strange aura, the individual strength of its members seemed to be weaker than that of normal alien races of the same level.

Seeing that two powerful figures were backing him up, Chen Fei, who was in the team, was no longer afraid and became bold again.

He shouted, and a sharp blade of light slashed towards a Stone Goblin puppet at the very front of the legion.

This strike seemed to be a signal.

A flash of black light appeared in the empty eyes of the puppet army, and after a brief pause, they launched a counterattack.

The battle erupted suddenly.

Just as Zhang Daoxuan had predicted, these puppets were indeed not as powerful as they were in life, and their movements were somewhat sluggish.

But there were too many of them, and they were fearless and didn't know how to dodge. They fought by trading blows for blows.

Dongfang Zhen's body crackled with lightning, while Zhang Daoxuan's sword energy surged. The two were like two sharp knives, fiercely piercing into the enemy formation. Wherever they passed, the puppets shattered.

But soon, they discovered the most troublesome aspect of this army.

As long as the core of the shattered puppet is not completely destroyed, its limbs and broken parts will reassemble under the pull of the black threads and rejoin the battle.

At their core is a cluster of white mycelium hidden within them.

Simply using slashing attacks will not be enough to completely eliminate it.

So far, only Dongfang Zhen's thunder can annihilate it.

Dongfang Zhen smashed the chest of an eight-armed puppet with a single punch, completely burning its core mycelium to ashes, but more puppets surged up from all directions.

To protect the other students behind them, he and Zhang Daoxuan were unable to fight freely, and could only unleash 70% of their strength, making the fight extremely frustrating.

The battle gradually shifted from an initial unstoppable momentum to a desperate struggle for survival.

A sense of despair began to spread in the hearts of the trainees.

Just when everyone felt they were about to give up, the frantically attacking puppets seemed to receive some unseen command, their movements suddenly halting and they all stopped attacking.

Then, to everyone's astonishment, they began to evacuate in an extremely bizarre way.

The winged stone golems, like transport planes, were covered with smaller eight-armed golems hanging from their backs, hands, and legs.

They themselves use their claws to grab other flightless members of their kind, forming strange "aerial formations" that wobble and drift away into the distance.

This scene left everyone stunned.

"What...what's going on?"

Just as everyone's minds went blank, a familiar voice came from behind them.

"Wow, it's quite lively here."

Everyone turned around and saw that Yin Liulan had appeared there at some point, watching with great interest the undead air force that was making a strategic transfer in the sky.

Everyone seemed to have finally found their pillar of support.

"Don't attack, let them go."

Yin Liulan waved her hand, stopping several students who were about to give chase.

She looked at the departing puppet army, then at the training camp students whose faces showed signs of relief, and slowly said, "These things were Lin Ye's doing."

One sentence, like a thunderclap from the heavens, exploded in everyone's mind.

The expressions on Dongfang Zhen and Zhang Daoxuan's faces froze instantly.

Lin Ye?

They had just survived a bloody battle with a slim chance of survival, facing an undead army that was almost impossible to defeat.

And now, the head instructor is telling them that this army is Lin Ye's doing!
Dongfang Zhen was horrified.

In his battle against himself, he didn't even use this ability...

He originally thought that although there was a gap between him and Lin Ye, the gap shouldn't be this big.

But only now did Dongfang Zhen realize with horror that what he had seen might only be the tip of the iceberg of Lin Ye's actions...

……

three days later.

Nirvana Tower, the core area of ​​Doomsday Volcano.

A figure slowly crept through the scorching hell.

The ground glowed with an ominous dark red light, and the air was distorted by the high temperature. As far as Lin Ye could see, there was a purgatory composed of molten flow that had not yet completely cooled.

The scorched ground was covered with spiderweb-like cracks and fissures in the lava, with molten lava flowing through it like the earth's veins.

Steam nozzles of varying sizes are intermittently spewing out high-temperature gases containing toxins.

Here, not a blade of grass grows, and all things wither.

Lin Ye took a step, and a faint cracking sound came from the ground beneath his feet.

A sense of unease suddenly arose in his mind, and before his leg had fully landed, he exerted force, attempting to pull it back.

The rock beneath his feet suddenly shattered, and a scorching tongue of fire erupted from below, heading straight for his calves.

At the critical moment, a deep purple crystal wall instantly solidified beneath Lin Ye's feet.

In the instant he used the crystal wall to deflect the flames, he heavily tapped the crystal wall with his toes, using the recoil to propel himself backward seven or eight meters before landing steadily.

The spot where he had just landed collapsed rapidly, revealing a pool of churning lava below.

A day and a half ago, Lin Ye had already arrived at the outer area of ​​Doomsday Volcano.

Unfortunately, the environment here was far harsher than he had imagined.

Just entering this area, the relentless high temperature was constantly depleting his health bar.

Not to mention that these seemingly solid ground surfaces are actually natural traps with only a thin layer of rock shell; if you're not careful, you could fall into the lava and take a bath.

These factors greatly slowed his pace.

But the gains from these three days were unprecedented.

Lin Ye's current level is LV.38.

He was promoted six ranks in three days.

This leveling speed was something Lin Ye wouldn't have dared to dream of before.

He closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into the mental network composed of black mycelium.

In his perception, the number of puppets that could be connected to and controlled at any time had officially exceeded five thousand.

Initially, Lin Ye thought that the puppets he released would likely be destroyed at a rate higher than the rate of new ones being generated.

But he was wrong.

He underestimated how terrifying the snowballing ability of the Silk Puppet skill could be after it was enhanced.

Initially, the size of his puppet army did indeed hover around six or seven hundred, neither too large nor too small.

But when he discovered through the puppet's perspective that he wasn't the only one causing mass slaughter throughout the entire Tianyuan Fragment World, everything changed.

The mycelium would instantly parasitize the corpses caused by the infighting between other students or alien tribes as long as his puppet army passed by.

From that time onward, Lin Ye's Legion of the Dead began its viral expansion.

Even now, system notifications pop up in his mind from time to time, informing him what he has killed and how many experience points he has gained.

The only downside is that targets not killed by him personally cannot trigger the [Gluttony] mechanism to gain attribute points and skills.

There are pros and cons.

If he had done it all himself, he could never have achieved such amazing efficiency.

(End of this chapter)