Universe Infinite Canteen

The pink tumor had a diameter of over 6 meters, which made the small tree sapling on its head, no thicker than a fist, look especially tiny.

That was why Ma Lu didn't notice it at first.

As everyone knows, banyan trees have always had the reputation of growing into a forest all by themselves, with vast canopies.

The aerial roots that grow from their branches hang down from the canopy, piercing into the ground to become pillar roots, and from a distance, they look like a dense forest.

The above-ground part of the Thousand-Faced Konjac was mixed in with the aerial and pillar roots of that huge banyan tree, making it indeed quite difficult to distinguish without looking carefully.

Fortunately, Ma Lu acted swiftly, and immediately planted the Assault Banner beneath his feet into one of the tiles.

At the same time, he said, "Prepare for battle, Bliss Bird, release the enhancement skill [May My Lord Watch Over You]."

"Received." The red-haired girl responded, taking out a magic wand and reciting a complicated spell.

Suddenly, the tip of her staff conjured a transparent doe, which upon touching the ground, pranced lightly around the three witches twice, dipped its head, and turned into specks of stardust, merging into their bodies.

The next moment, a buff bearing the same name as the skill appeared on them, and under this buff, their attack power and defensive power increased by 2 points each.

With the additional 2 points of attack from the Assault Banner, the attack power of the Hellhound, Yun Que, and Bliss Bird had become 16, 12, and 9, respectively.

The strength of this skill was evident, but it was unfortunate that it could only last for 3 minutes and using it once would add 10 points to the Sin Value.

In order not to waste these precious three minutes, Ma Lu had the Hellhound and Yun Que also execute their active skills.

As the Brute Force Arm switched to full power mode, the attack power of the Hellhound soared to an astonishing 21 points!

With attribute advantage as well, even against the Thousand-Faced Konjac with 10 points of defensive power, one strike from her could deal 22 points of damage.

Yun Que was not to be outdone and immediately activated her active skill [Rapid-Fire Cannon].

She increased her attack speed by 100% for 45 seconds, but her damage output was somewhat insignificant compared to that of the Hellhound.

Each attack could only inflict 4 points of damage; fortunately, there was also the bleeding effect that came with her weapon.

Under the relentless attack of the two, the HP of the Thousand-Faced Konjac dropped quickly, and its seemingly solid health bar had nearly one-fifth of it disappear in a moment.

The Thousand-Faced Konjac seemed to realize the danger, and the huge pink tumor also started to quiver.

The outer layer of soil crumbled away, revealing faces woven from roots below.

Ma Lu finally understood where the name Thousand-Faced Konjac came from.

Moreover, those "faces" began to twist, opening their mouths in unison, spewing out a cloud of pink fog.

This fog had a wide range of effect, enveloping 50 tiles in just a few seconds, leaving no chance to evade.

Even Ma Lu, clad in armor, couldn't escape, and he watched as his HP slipped away at a speed of 1 point per second; dropping from 45 to 15 in just half a minute.

Ma Lu felt dizzy and tried to run out of the poisonous fog, but he had no strength in his body, and his eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

Just as he was about to topple over, an ethereal singing voice reached his ears.

The consciousness that had been on the verge of disconnecting gradually became clear again.

Ma Lu broke out in a cold sweat, noticing that the poisoned status on his avatar had vanished, replaced by icons of immunity and self-recovery.

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He had stopped bleeding, and his HP was slowly recovering at a rate of 1 point every 3 seconds.

It was the Bliss Bird! At the critical moment, the Bliss Bird had released her skill, [Blissful Song].

This skill could dispel most negative buffs including poison from teammates while also recovering a certain amount of HP for the team during the song's duration.

—Dispelling and slow healing, these were indeed the classic skills of a healer.

Ma Lu admitted that he had been overconfident this time; he had underestimated the power of a 4-star ingredient and had been dazzled by the attribute suppression. Although he had known in advance that the Thousand-Faced Konjac would release poison, he hadn't expected its toxic effect to be so strong, nor its range so wide, and he had been caught off guard.

Fortunately, the Bliss Bird acted in time, thus averting a tragedy of team wipeout.

The importance of a good healer to a team was self-evident.

Previously, in the warehouse against the Infinite Split Cabbage, if the Bliss Bird hadn't been stunned, they wouldn't have had such a tough and desperate fight.

No sooner had Ma Lu finished reflecting on the strength of the healer than he looked up to see the purple-haired girl had somehow climbed onto the head of the Thousand-Faced Konjac.

And her HP actually looked quite full, having lost only about a dozen points.

At this moment, she was furiously attacking the very same Thousand-Faced Konjac.

Ma Lu quickly figured out what had just happened; the Hellhound must have held her breath during the previous poison fog attack, using the open mouths as footholds to successfully climb to the top.

And at that height, she was less affected by the poison fog.

Though the purple-haired girl always behaved rebelliously, Ma Lu had to admit she possessed a wild beast's keen combat instincts.

The health of the Thousand-Faced Konjac continued to slide down, its health bar had disappeared by a third, and it seemed to have no good way to handle the Hellhound on its crown.

The faces made of roots became even more distorted and furious!

Finally, the ground began to shake again, more violently than before.

Centered around the Thousand-Faced Konjac, the ground cracked open, and corpses began to crawl out, most of them animals, and a small part humans.

It looked like they had been dead for many years, with most reduced to skeletons.

Upon these Skeleton Soldiers' appearance, Yun Que immediately screamed in fright.

Not only because they looked terrifying, but also because there were far too many of them.

As soon as they appeared, they surrounded the three on the ground. Ma Lu glanced briefly and estimated there to be at least three or four hundred.

At first glance, it was easy to feel despair.

But Ma Lu could see from the chessboard map that the number of enemies hadn't changed; in the nearby area, there was still only one red dot.

Moreover, upon closer observation, one could see that the joints of the corpses and skeletons were entwined with roots, and it was these roots that allowed them to move freely.
Your journey continues with empire

Ma Lu said, "Don't attack those corpses; target the roots!"

As he spoke, he had already knocked over an onrushing skeleton, allowing Yun Que and Bliss Bird to launch their attacks; however, as ranged classes, neither the shotgun nor the magic wand could easily damage those roots.

As more and more corpses closed in, Ma Lu suddenly had a flash of inspiration and pulled out the Chef's Knife he carried with him.

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