Chapter 499: Chapter 242: Epic Skills: Demon Light Piercing Kill (2)

Lin Mo eagerly read the message that followed.

"Automatically evolved into a New Skill—Demon Light Piercing Kill!"

"Learned Skill [Demon Light Piercing Kill]! Gained Strength +5!"

[Demon Light Piercing Kill] Level 1 (0/20): Condenses and highly compresses Qi and Blood, forming it into a Sword Qi Beam that pierces through enemies! This Skill can be charged for a maximum of 5 seconds, increasing its power by an additional 10% for every second charged. At full charge, an additional spiral beam will wrap around the Sword Qi Beam, dealing damage equal to 30% of the main beam.

Note: This Skill can also be used by holding the index and middle fingers together.

’A purely offensive skill with no frills—just raw numbers.’

’Generally speaking, there isn’t a massive gap between skills of the same level. Even if some are stronger or weaker, their overall power level is still limited to a certain range.’

’If a skill has powerful utility, its corresponding damage will be lower. For instance, take the [Shadow Splitting] skill. Its utility is immense, but the damage from its "Self-Destruction" effect is significantly weaker than other Epic Skills.’

’Similarly, if a skill has strong area-of-effect damage, its burst power will be weaker compared to a pure single-target damage skill of the same Level and Profession. Or the power will be similar, but the cost will be much, much higher.’

’[Demon Light Piercing Kill] is, without a doubt, an extremely powerful single-target skill.’

’Compared to [Phantom Sword Dance], another Warrior Class Epic Skill, this skill’s destructive power is more focused, and it performs better against powerful opponents.’

’Plus, it’s a skill that can be charged.’

’A max charge time of five seconds is admittedly a bit long, but the payoff for a full charge is also huge.’

’A solid 50% power boost applied to an Epic Skill would have a terrifying effect.’

’On top of that, there’s the extra spiral beam, dealing another 30% of the skill’s base damage—and that 30% is also affected by the 50% power boost.’

’In other words, the skill’s total power after a full charge isn’t 1.5 + 0.3 = 1.8, but 1.5 × 1.3 = 1.95. Almost double the payoff!’

’Generally speaking, though, a five-second charge time is basically impossible to pull off in a real fight.’

’But for Lin Mo, things are different.’

’Between [Invisibility], [Shadow Splitting], and [Flash], he has tons of strategic options.’

’For example, he could charge while invisible. Or, his real body could charge while his Clone pinned down the enemy, then he could swap places with it and unleash a fully charged [Demon Light Piercing Kill]. He could even hide to charge up, then use [Flash] to get right in their face...’

’There were also flexible techniques like using [Flash] while invisible, or Flashing again after swapping positions to adjust his aim and catch the enemy completely off guard.’

’Lin Mo could work all sorts of magic with this skill.’

Then, just like his previous skills, [Demon Light Piercing Kill] also had Evolutionary Paths to choose from.

Please select an Evolutionary Direction—

Evolutionary Path 1: Gathering Strength I: Increases the per-second charging bonus for Demon Light Piercing Kill from 10% to 15%!

Evolutionary Path 2: Spiral Amplification I: The power of the extra spiral beam after a full charge is increased from 30% of the main beam’s power to 50%!

Holy crap!

Lin Mo was stunned.

’Both are so damn strong...’

’One path would make it 1.75 × 1.3 = 2.275, while the other would be 1.5 × 1.5 = 2.25. Both were massive upgrades.’

’Can I just watch an ad and get both?’

’Even though both were strong and he wanted them both, if he really had to choose one, it wasn’t a hard decision. In terms of both the actual boost and the consistency of its benefit, the "Gathering Strength" effect was clearly superior.’

So Lin Mo decisively chose Evolutionary Path 1.

Getting a powerful New Skill gave Lin Mo a strong urge to try it out. Unfortunately, the caravan didn’t encounter any decent Demons on the next leg of their journey. Although Lin Mo was still eager to snatch kills, using an Epic Skill to kill Level 1 or 2 Demons was a bit too much overkill.

’I might as well practice skills like [Rapid Charge Fist], [Whip Kick], and [Grasp] instead.’

After an uneventful stretch of the journey, the caravan was very close to the Royal Capital.

Grim and the members of the Falcon Corps had already parted ways with them before they neared the Royal Capital.

Lin Mo, Deke, and the other members of the Lion Adventurer Group escorted the somewhat disheveled caravan into the Royal Capital under the cover of night.

And Bainlo, naturally, was already sitting in a carriage in the middle of the caravan, playing the role of the "fake Bainlo."

His mother, that Miss Camilla, had never even seen this other son of hers since he was a child. She had never even paid much attention to her first child, Bainlo, and didn’t know him well, so this wasn’t a difficult task.

The caravan entered the commercial stopover area of the Royal Capital as scheduled and rendezvoused with the other party.

After leaving the Blackwater Swamp, Glen had already contacted the other side, informing them that their group had encountered many setbacks and that the Assassin had died as a result, but that they had ultimately completed the mission.

And so, just as they’d expected, the plan proceeded as scheduled.

As for the "Bainlo" who escaped, if he dared to show up later, they could just insist that he was an imposter using a false name, some fraud who dreamed of climbing the social ladder.

’For someone like Lin Mo who was in on the secret, this was, in a sense, a case of the process being a complete mess, but the result turning out perfectly...’

With the matter successfully resolved, the mission was now over for them as Adventurers.

In the report Glen submitted, it stated that the Adventurers had immediately routed and fled when they encountered danger and had thus suffered almost no losses. This, in turn, led to the Assassin sacrificing himself to protect the young master, all to increase the plausibility of the story.

This would also reasonably explain why these Adventurers didn’t know of the young master’s existence and would prevent the Jade Commerce Association from bothering them later.

Of course, this was just the Jade Commerce Association’s private report. Officially, to prevent any hitches in the plan, the Jade Commerce Association would never report this information to the Adventurer’s Association.

Therefore, they wouldn’t lose a single bit of the reward they were due.

However, the Adventurer’s Association was already closed for the day, so that was a matter for tomorrow.

It was getting late; time to find a place to rest.

Since it was already very late, they didn’t spend much time choosing and simply settled in at a random inn.

Although it was late, for Adventurers, a post-mission feast was, of course, a must.

The group went to a nearby tavern of a decent size, ordered a table full of good food and wine, and celebrated heartily.

Meanwhile, during their discussion, they also formally settled the reward distribution for this mission.

Regarding this matter, both sides hadn’t made a clear agreement when they first started cooperating.

Deke felt that the members of his group, including himself, didn’t know Lin Mo well enough yet. If they rashly distributed the rewards, someone would surely be dissatisfied, so he had simply shelved the issue for the time being.

But now that the mission was over, the negotiations over the reward split had a basis in everyone’s performance and contributions along the way.

"Lin Mo, how about this... we take thirty-five percent, you take sixty-five percent?"

Deke thought for a moment. ’If my group took forty percent, it would feel like too much... Our contribution clearly wasn’t at the forty-percent level. But if we only took thirty, it would be a little too little. On an adventure, it’s not just about combat; keeping watch, scouting, and setting traps are also very important, and in those areas, we did a little more.’

"Agreed."

Lin Mo nodded and readily agreed.

"Cheers, then?"

"Cheers!"

The crisp sound of clinking glasses rang out. After a bout of revelry, things finally quieted down.

Back at the inn, everyone returned to their own rooms to rest.

’Tomorrow, I still have to go to the Association and collect the reward...’

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.