The moon gradually sank toward the west as time passed methodically. With the arrival of 4:00 AM, the night entered its second phase!
The person assigned to stall the Cryo Hypostasis was someone who had Dead-bound the Glazed Rock, a rare healing Echo.
Summoning the Glazed Rock restores HP equal to 2.52% of the user's Max HP for nearby units, up to five times, with a fifteen-second cooldown.
This person was named Bai Yingying, and their physical coordination was quite impressive.
The Echo's healing process lasted 7.5 seconds, and the cooldown began counting as soon as the summon started. This meant there was only a 7.5-second gap in coverage!
Give them a shield on top of that, and the margin for error became quite large. They were enough to single-handedly keep the Cryo Hypostasis occupied for a while.
As for the rest of the group, they naturally focused on dealing with the 4:00 AM monster tide first, planning to reinforce Bai Yingying after the battle.
***
“Pour the lava! Finish it quickly!” Watching the first Frostarm Lawachurl enter the battlefield, Wu Yingzhe quickly issued the command.
The melee combatants, who had long since been lying in wait, swiftly placed a bucket of lava at its feet and began to circle the beast.
Although 4:00 AM was a critical juncture, it wasn't an instantaneous transformation of the world.
It was simply the daily monster respawn. Where their spawn points were, that was where they would appear.
Consequently, the distance between each spawned creature and the players' location, as well as the monsters' individual mobility, varied greatly.
On this third night, the monsters clearly lacked the cognitive ability to "attack together." They still fought as individuals.
Perhaps some weaker monsters with pre-existing cooperative relationships or those with higher intelligence might choose to collaborate.
For example, the Fatui soldiers.
However, at this point, Frostarm Lawachurls would not cooperate. They were all "kings"; why would they work together?
The fact that they didn't start fighting each other immediately was already thanks to the divine power of [Chaos]!
The humans naturally had to seize this opportunity to divide and conquer. A group brawl against a single target was always more comfortable than a team fight against an organized front.
***
However, while they hadn't reached the level of team-based intelligence yet, they had clearly evolved quite a bit...
“It jumped out of the lava!”
Just as that shout rang out, the Frostarm Lawachurl leapt out of the lava mere moments after being touched by it!
The observers could even sense a faint hint of mockery in its eyes. Its intelligence had visibly improved!
The instinct for self-preservation—seeking advantage and avoiding harm—was the first bit of "wisdom" gained by these previously NPC-like game creatures!
This meant they would no longer foolishly step into various terrain traps as they had before.
They had even learned to actively evade or block attacks, causing the difficulty of battle to soar!
Fortunately, a single Frostarm Lawachurl was still within their ability to handle; this little surprise was manageable.
Even without the lava, a volley of Flame-enchanted arrows quickly shattered its cryo shield.
Fire remained the gold standard for breaking ice shields.
***
Once the Frostarm Lawachurl's shield was destroyed, it soon fell under the rain of arrows from four hundred people!
Even though it knew how to dodge and would actively try to swat attacks away, the sheer weight of numbers was overwhelming.
This was far beyond the situation of “two fists being no match for four hands.” It simply couldn't block a sky full of arrows.
Moreover, the creature's size was massive, and aiming with Minecraft bows was incredibly convenient!
Even a complete novice could become a marksman—with a crosshair in their field of vision, it was impossible to miss!
However, they couldn't afford to get overconfident. Just because it was easy to fight now didn't mean it would stay that way.
Even setting aside the monsters' rising base stats.
If their intelligence rose just a few more levels, it would allow their wisdom to transcend the limitations of their preset movesets, leading them to develop new skills.
If they started actively using Cryo energy to create massive ice walls for defense, the bows would lose most of their effectiveness!
They could even choose to flank the humans by maneuvering around the mountainside—that would be when the real challenge began!
This was exactly why an actual city was needed as a defensive point.
But that was a concern for the future. The current requirement was surviving the third night.
***
Throughout this entire night, two moments could be called true crises.
One occurred when four Frostarm Lawachurls and two Cryo Abyss Mages appeared on the battlefield in short succession!
Before they could focus fire to kill the first one, the four massive creatures charged in during an extremely brief interval.
The four Frostarm Lawachurls unleashed a barrage of slams, leaps, and lunges, causing the earth to shake and ice shards to fly everywhere.
The damage output of these creatures was truly exaggerated, especially when there were enough of them to create a chain of continuous crowd control.
Even if they didn't have a conscious sense of coordination, the nature of their attacks and their high aggression made it easy for them to lock a target down.
Even if they just kept "spamming" those same few moves, it was easy for them to accidentally "coordinate" at certain moments!
Furthermore, there was the interference from the two Cryo Abyss Mages. Their ice shards and spikes frequently forced the humans out of position.
Several people responsible for kiting in melee were killed by a single combo before they could even regain their footing.
Naturally, Mo Shao didn't join the melee kiting squad.
She had only fought in melee before because she had no other choice. Now that she was an exalted mage, why would she bother with melee combat?
By the way, she had also studied the attack pattern of Tu Sisheng’s Lightning Staff, and she could now fire those same lightning balls herself!
This was likely her innate talent for magic as a Witch and Magical Girl; she could master a spell after just a little research.
Her output efficiency was much higher than her simple discharge of electricity, and even far surpassed Tu Sisheng’s damage.
She single-handedly reduced the group's damage requirement for the night significantly, which made everyone happy—except for Tu Sisheng.
Since her role had essentially been usurped, although Tu Sisheng didn't dare to speak up, she was clearly a bit disgruntled.
***
Ultimately, this wave was resolved by Mo Shao.
She unleashed a burst of long-range damage to pull two of the Frostarm Lawachurls away from the main team, then proceeded to divide and conquer them one by one.
Since her damage and threat level were high enough, the Frostarm Lawachurls naturally prioritized her as the target to be dealt with first.
Furthermore, she could fly. She could simply kite the Frostarm Lawachurls from a distance; the two beasts couldn't touch her at all, aside from throwing Slimes.
While they understood self-preservation, they clearly didn't understand the concepts of "strength in numbers" or "divide and conquer" yet.
One could only say that while the monsters' intelligence had increased, the improvement was one-dimensional, which allowed them to be easily baited by high aggro.
The following operation was simple. Once the team finished off the two Frostarm Lawachurls left behind, she just had to lure hers back.
Of course, she couldn't lure them too far. She had to stay within the battlefield. If she led them too far away, the monsters would give up the chase.
The attack priority for [Chaos] was always the [Order] group over a lone individual!
Rate on N.U.
