Chapter 291

Chapter 291: The Blood-Pumping Combination Skill!

The extraordinary beast slammed into the ground like a piercing shell, sending fragments of concrete and rock flying in all directions.

Holy Shield and Disaster Core landed shortly after on the nearby ground. A well-proportioned Middle-aged Man, whose skin looked slightly waxy, stepped out from a large door on the first floor of the spire.

As the smoke cleared, the griffin extraordinary beast reappeared.

It did not attack while the dust filled the air, seemingly adhering to some non-existent rules.

Now that visibility was clear again, the situation on the field became very apparent.

Opposite the griffin, three Middle-aged Men of varying builds had readied themselves.

Their heavy beaks opened slightly, as if they were gasping for breath.

Lin Qingliu looked at the three people across from him and felt as if he had entered a game’s dungeon.

No, it was more than that.

He also sensed something subtly locking onto the area between his eyes.

Sure enough, the woman above was no easy opponent.

A roar announced the start of battle, and the griffin’s three pairs of wings vigorously flapped, sending sharp feathers flying forward in a storm of invisible Gale.

This move was inspired by the Fourth Level giant alligator that had just died below the city wall.

Naturally, due to Holy Shield’s presence, this attack caused no damage.

The opponent merely waved his right arm, causing the Gale and feathers to hit the invisible shield and bounce off.

Seeing the first strike fail, Lin Qingliu felt no discouragement; he still had plenty of tricks to entertain the old things across from him.

At that moment, the yellow-faced man clenched his fist slightly, and the earth seemed to come alive in that instant, firmly locking the griffin’s limbs in a matter of seconds.

Interesting.

Lin Qingliu mimicked the typical behavior of extraordinary beasts, using his scaled beak and wings to try and break apart the material that had softened and hardened in an instant.

However, the first team clearly did not want to grant him that time.

The discomfort in his brow grew stronger; Lin Qingliu realized something had locked onto him.

High above, the superpowered individual Starfall formed a small hole with three fingers, framing the extraordinary beast below.

At the tip of the spire, the pyramid structure that Lin Qingliu had just ridiculed moments ago suddenly expanded in four directions, revealing the nested spaceship weapons below.

Guided by the woman’s aiming actions, a complex-style ray cannon locked onto the ground beneath.

This was the true Starfall.

During the few Fifth Level beast tides in Hope City’s history, this weapon always managed to unleash its destructive power to the fullest.

As long as it could lock onto a target, killing it in one strike was not difficult at all.

This was the combination skill of Starfall and Fortress, with timing for control and output being extremely precise.

But that was where it would stop because today was an exception.

At the location of the extraordinary beast below, there was not only a central mechanism and spire but also the woman’s three teammates.

Clearly, she could not fire with full force, but merely holding them back was not an issue.

Scarlet rays sliced through the silent night sky, accompanied by the distinctive sound effects of a sci-fi attack.

The griffin, immobilized on the ground and unable to take flight, became an easy target. The immense energy carried by the rays caused its skull to shatter, the sound audible to the three people present.

However, a Fifth Level extraordinary beast was no mere pushover, and the one before them was far from ordinary.

Despite being "severely injured" by the rays, the extraordinary beast showed no signs of weakness. Instead, the violent attack seemed to trigger something within it.

Under the moonlight, the tips of the griffin’s three pairs of wings gleamed with a metallic sheen.

Rows of layered feathers transformed into razor-sharp blades, effortlessly cutting through the restraints on the ground.

Just as the griffin let out a piercing scream and prepared to take flight again, the emaciated man, who looked like little more than skin and bones, leapt high into the air, positioning himself above the beast’s head.

This was the final phase of the first team’s Combination Skill. Disaster Core, the entity that controlled Special Energy, could infuse energy into matter to a certain degree.

For living creatures, this was a terrifying ability.

The gaunt man swung his fist downward. Though his body appeared more malnourished than even the poorest in the outer city, his punch seemed to carry the force of a thousand hammers.

Lin Qingliu understood what his opponent intended to do—having just heard the sound of the skull cracking, this strike was meant to completely obliterate the extraordinary beast’s head.

Fortunately, he had used a decoy head.

A brief flicker of smugness crossed Lin Qingliu’s mind, though it lasted only a moment.

Rather than transforming into an extraordinary beast, Lin Qingliu felt more like he was piloting a griffin extraordinary beast armor in his human form.

Unlike Wang Xiao, whose armor was constructed from metal, Lin Qingliu’s armor was a manifestation of his abilities, composed of keratin and bone instead of metal, with nerve fibers serving as the control system and muscles as the power source.

In an instant, Lin Qingliu severed the connection between the griffin’s decoy head and his main body, allowing the devastating punch to land squarely on the decoy.

He had no intention of letting that energy flow into his own body.

A torrent of energy surged into the decoy, causing the massive head to explode into countless fragments that scattered in all directions.

After delivering the punch, a faint shimmer of a shield appeared around Disaster Core. He effortlessly retreated to his two teammates, his face flushed with the adrenaline of close combat.

The first round had ended.

Looking at the headless griffin, the members of the first team knew this was far from over.

The life force of a Fifth Level extraordinary beast was nearly unbreakable; even if they had won this round, the enemy had suffered little real damage.

But they were different. Though each of them wielded powerful abilities granted by the spire, their physical bodies were far from invincible.

In other words, the extraordinary beast could afford to fail many times, but they could only fail once.

Thus, after gaining a slight advantage in this battle, the four members of the first team chose not to press the attack. Instead, they assumed defensive positions and began to observe.

They knew that the intelligence of extraordinary beasts increased with their level. From the Third Level onward, these creatures were capable of simple deceptions, such as playing dead.

Such tactics were usually easy to spot for a reasonably intelligent human.

But on a battlefield where emotions ran high, it was all too easy to deceive some soldiers.

Sure enough, the headless extraordinary beast remained motionless at first. A few seconds later, as if realizing its ruse had failed, the severed neck began to regenerate rapidly.

In the eyes of the onlookers, the outline of a new head was already taking shape.