Chapter 95: Out of the Lion's Den, Into the Snake's Mouth

"Damn, do they have to chase this hard?" Li Xin gasped and spat, quickly using a large health potion to top off his HP. But the Game King's HP recovery rate was abnormally slow.

After the last version update, a long blue bar had appeared beneath the HP bar. There was no annotation or explanation, but Li Xin understood—it was a combined value of MP and SP.

In conventional games, HP represented magic points, determining how many spells you could cast. SP represented mental strength, meaning how long you could keep playing. Now the Game King had fused the two into one, with no fixed description, just a vague concept.

In theory, as long as the blue bar didn't hit zero, the Game King's many skills could be used continuously on their own. But when it came down to specifics, he only had one skill so far—Universal—which he could indeed use continuously. Yet the various attributes were subject to certain limits. Strength and speed, for example, each had a relative duration, and once the time elapsed, they would enter a brief cooldown period.

Having used it for the past ten or so days, Li Xin had arrived at a rough summary.

After each attribute's duration ended, if the blue bar remained above 50%, the cooldown was 1 minute; if the blue bar was between 20% and 50%, the cooldown was 5 minutes; if the blue bar fell below 20%, the cooldown was 10 minutes.

The Game King was a nearly freakish game chip, powerful enough to let a person dominate both in-game and in reality. But precisely because of that freakishness, it came with a fair share of immature constraints. The blue bar cooldown and the overall Game King chip cooldown had been given a corresponding response.

To put it plainly.

The red HP bar determined the cooldown for Virtual Mirage and the chip's usage.

The combined blue bar determined the effectiveness of the five attributes.

"Luckily, because I killed decisively earlier, the Game Spirit's HP is still at 35 after one death, so it won't drop all the way into Virtual Mirage's cooldown state."

No sooner had Li Xin muttered this than a bullet suddenly struck his left shoulder. The Game Spirit's HP instantly dropped to 28, and on the mechanical panel, he was flashing red continuously.

"Shit." He spat, glanced at his stats—the speed cooldown had ended. Without hesitation, he unleashed his maximum speed, sprinting wildly across the vast, species-diverse reserve terrain.

Through herds of antelope, across a crocodile swamp, through a thicket of brambles—Li Xin was truly dancing on the edge of death.

Ahead there was a pit in the ground.

Without a moment's thought, Li Xin leapt and dove into it. The entrance was hidden fairly deep amidst dense thorny bushes. The pursuing guard squad didn't notice, driving around and searching the vicinity.

The roar of engines and the shouts of the search party gradually faded. Li Xin let out a long breath, intending to take a good look at this earth pit over three meters deep. Suddenly, he heard a hissing sound from his left front. He tensed and looked—and broke out in a cold sweat.

A giant yellow-ringed snake, about seven meters long and half a meter thick, was rearing up half its body, flicking a scarlet forked tongue as it stared at him. Its body was covered in black scales separated by rings of yellow, exuding an imposing, awe-inspiring presence.

Yellow-ringed Snake: A special venomous snake species of the Sandra Reserve, highly lethal.
Level: 33 (Elite)
Skills: Venom Arrow, Fanged Bite, Violent Coil, other unknown abilities.

Sweat droplets the size of beans slid rapidly down his forehead, stinging his eyes and soaking the front of his clothes. Li Xin swallowed hard, not daring to move an inch. A level 33 elite monster posed no difficulty for him whatsoever—what was terrifying was the yellow-ringed snake's venom.

One drop could very likely be fatal.

Above him were pursuers, below him was a venomous serpent. For the moment, he was caught in a true dilemma.

Man and snake remained locked in a standoff.

Frowning deeply and thinking for a long while, Li Xin's head began to ache.

Just earlier, when he'd killed the lioness, the Game Spirit had grown another level. He was now level 8, with 50 leftover attribute points. Even if he poured them all into speed, that would only bring him to 120 points—a speed of 16 m/s.

And the snake? Snakes aren't particularly fast crawlers. The fastest, the black mamba, only reaches about 20 kilometers per hour. That works out to around 5 m/s—far slower than him. But that's over long distances. Over short distances, a snake's maximum burst speed can reach three to five times its ordinary pace.

Now, this pit was over three meters high, with a floor diameter of no more than ten meters. The black-ringed snake looked far more formidable than a black mamba at a glance. The moment it moved to attack, it would be upon Li Xin in an instant.

A single bite, and he couldn't bear to imagine it.

Then there was the sheer size of the snake. A Violent Coil could probably unleash a force of a thousand jin—converted, that was several thousand to nearly ten thousand Newtons. Li Xin only had 2,500 N worth of force. He was no match at all.

The assault rifle, the epic-class Tianlong sniper rifle—forget it. The moment he reached for a gun, the black-ringed snake would surely strike.

Looking at it from all these angles, he had virtually no hope of victory.

As the saying goes, when it rains it pours, and bad luck lands you in the cesspit. Just as Li Xin was racking his brain for a plan, a crisp ding echoed through his mind.

[System Message]: Second quest issued: Kill the Black-ringed Snake King.

[Note 1]: The Black-ringed Snake King has a 30% chance to drop a growth-type orange equipment item.
[Note 2]: This quest stacks with the "Journey" quest's task to obtain the black lion's mane, with a certain chance of triggering a double reward.

Joy mixed with worry. Though there was danger of death, for the reward's sake, he'd go all in.

Universal Transformation—condensed into a set of hidden weapons. This was a covert action. The black-ringed snake, lacking in strength, couldn't see it clearly. While it was swaying its head, observing its enemy, Li Xin suddenly raised his hand and hurled with force.

In an instant, a dense volley of black darts shot forth, nearly filling the entire pit. It was his first time using hidden weapons, and Li Xin lacked experience with the technique. He didn't harbor much illusion of success, though he did dart sharply to the left to dodge.

Ssss—ssssss—

The black-ringed snake flicked its tongue rapidly, letting out a low, suppressed roar. The darts were fast, but its tail was faster. It lashed up with a crack, producing a series of sharp pops as it cut through the air.

Clatter and clang—most of the darts were swept to the ground by the snake's tail. But there were so many of them that some still struck the snake's body, their sharp edges piercing through the scales and sinking into flesh.

The black-ringed snake let out a screech, its body twisting violently several times. The pit, wider at the bottom than the top, immediately shook. The soil overhead rumbled as part of it began to collapse.

Perhaps wary of Li Xin's strength, the black-ringed snake didn't immediately counterattack. Instead, it opened its massive maw, its jaws spreading nearly a full 180 degrees.

Whoosh—

A foot-long venom arrow of black liquid shot forth, moving at terrifying speed. Li Xin didn't dare raise a hand to block it. That was lethal poison—just how lethal, he didn't know, but it had to be potent.

He quickly rummaged through his bag for a few bronze items he'd obtained in the early morning, hurling them out. They were penetrated by the venom arrow in an instant, then visibly sizzled and corroded before his eyes, turning to ash.

"Such vicious venom." Li Xin shook his head with a bitter smile, sidestepping as the flying venom arrow barely grazed past him.