Chapter 130: Growing Stronger with Every Battle

Yun Qing possesses divine sense, but the boss does not. Judging by the name "Soul-Deprived Warrior," it lacks not only divine sense but a soul entirely.

Divine sense suppression is out of the question, and Yun Qing does not currently know how to perform it. Her divine sense only grants her a more sensitive and detailed perception of the energy currents in the air, making it easier for her to dodge the monster's axe attacks. In other words, the monster struggles to land a hit on her; ever since the battle began, nearly every one of the boss's strikes has resulted in a "MISS."

While she rarely misses the boss, she finds it difficult to break through its defenses.

As she pondered, the Soul-Deprived Warrior executed dozens of moves. Aside from the occasional gust of wind that grazed Yun Qing and shaved off two health points, every attack was a miss. After dozens of rounds, Yun Qing had grasped the boss's patterns.

As the axe swung toward her once more, Yun Qing’s eyes narrowed. "Damn it," she thought, "I'm going all in."

As it attacked, her divine sense detected a fleeting opportunity. Using her dodge skill, she slipped through a gap in the assault, surging forward against the gale of the axe. For the first time, she got close to the Soul-Deprived Warrior’s body.

Compared to the warrior, which stood over ten meters tall, Yun Qing was a tiny figure barely over a meter tall. Holding her mosquito swatter, she could only reach its knees. Pressing the "sticky" and "internal energy" buttons, she slapped the swatter against the warrior’s calf.

"Clack!" The internal energy made contact with the armor on the warrior's leg, emitting a crisp sound.

-1;
Combat Experience +1;

There was no critical hit. Yun Qing felt a wave of disappointment. She had risked injury to get in close, only to deal one point of damage and gain one point of experience? Why?

The warrior lifted its foot to stomp on Yun Qing’s head. A footplate over a meter long loomed above her. With no time to wonder about the meager damage, she focused all her energy on dealing with the descending giant foot.

Like a dwarf battling a giant, she found a sliver of space just as the foot came down. She leaped onto the giant’s instep, channeled her internal energy, and used the momentum to spring onto its knee. Utilizing her jump skill—a triple jump—she first leaped onto its thigh, used the force to jump onto its stomach, and finally landed on its shoulder.

No damage was dealt—likely because she had only hit the leg earlier. Yun Qing swung her swatter toward its neck.

"Clack!"
-1;
Combat Experience +1;

At the same time, the warrior’s palm, as large as a palm-leaf fan, swiped toward her. The wind arrived before the hand, and with the warrior’s shoulder tilting, Yun Qing lost her footing and tumbled backward.

A ten-meter drop was nothing for a practitioner of the Xiantian realm like Yun Qing. She performed a backflip, pushed off the warrior’s back with her legs to put distance between them, and landed steadily.

The mosquito swatter had failed to land a critical hit again. Yun Qing’s gaze darkened. The Soul-Deprived Warrior was covered in armor from head to toe; clearly, this Xiantian-level weapon was insufficient to penetrate its defenses.

Yun Qing gritted her teeth. "So difficult! Liuliu was right; it’s time for a weapon upgrade."

Striking the axe was useless, and attacking the body required breaking through the armor that covered it tightly, without a single gap. Yun Qing’s thoughts raced; she wondered if this guy, encased in such thick plating, was afraid of the heat.

Recalling the puppets she had burned in the hell-tier secret realm beneath the Han family mines, Yun Qing dodged another assault, took out a torch and some firewood, lit them, and hurled them at the warrior. The torch and wood never reached the warrior; they were swatted away by its axe and fell to the ground, where the wood continued to burn.

Yun Qing held a shred of hope that she might burn it to death. But she was immediately disappointed; the firewood on the ground simply vanished, erased by the system just like the stones and arrows she had thrown earlier.

The two health points she had chipped off the boss had already been automatically recovered; its regeneration rate was much faster than her damage output.

Yun Qing took a deep breath and drew the superior-grade spirit weapon: the Mosquito Queen’s Poison Claw. She had no other choice; she was facing a grueling battle she could not avoid.

She had only managed to get close to it earlier because of its carelessness. Now, the warrior wielded its axe with greater precision, and with her divine sense stretched to the limit, Yun Qing found no more opportunities to approach.

Yun Qing had no good way to deal with it, and it had just as much trouble hitting her. Fortunately, the boss had a sense of "martial honor"—when it couldn't hit Yun Qing, it didn't strike at the surrounding fences but kept chasing her.

With no better options, she gripped the Poison Claw and waited for an opening. After dodging over a hundred attacks, she finally saw a flaw in the warrior’s guard. She lunged forward and struck with all her might.

"Clang!" Sparks flew. As she retreated, the web between her thumb and forefinger tingled. The warrior hadn't lost a single point of health, but a scratch had appeared on the armor of the calf where she had struck.

The battle and dodging continued. Soon, Yun Qing seized another chance to get close. With the precision of her divine sense, she landed her claw strike exactly on the previous scratch.

The boss still didn't lose health, but Yun Qing persisted. This was not a fight she could escape.

Only by seizing every chance to get close and deepening the wound in the same spot over and over again could she hope to break its defense.

Five minutes into the monster siege on the cave, Yun Qing had dodged hundreds of times. She had hit the armor five times, but one strike had missed the previous mark, failing to break the defense.

Ten minutes into the siege, Yun Qing had dodged over a thousand times. She had struck the armor fifteen times, yet the defense remained unbroken.

Fifteen minutes passed. Yun Qing did not dare to relax; she was fighting for her life, and a moment’s lapse could mean perishing under the monster’s giant axe.

The high-intensity combat, while yielding no combat experience, had significantly boosted her "battle experience." This was the training she craved. Always longing to become truly strong, she became immersed in the thrill of the duel, forgetting that she was supposed to be protecting her cave.

She needed to be stronger, faster.

The skin between her thumb and forefinger had split. With every attack, her own health dropped, but she ignored the pain. She wanted this growth born from the pressure of facing death.

The Xiantian-level Yun Qing felt more and more in her element, while the iron-clad warrior of the Houtian level began to show signs of fatigue.

Her health had dropped to 200, while the boss’s health bar remained completely full. Yet, she felt no anxiety; the more she fought, the better she felt.

Upon striking the exact same spot for the fiftieth time, Yun Qing finally used the spirit weapon to pierce the warrior's armor.

It wasn't that the spirit weapon wasn't sharp enough; it was simply because Yun Qing lacked spiritual energy. Without reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, she couldn't drive the spirit weapon. Otherwise, a single swipe of the Mosquito Queen’s Poison Claw would have shattered the Soul-Deprived Warrior’s defense, and within three strikes, the boss-level warrior would surely have fallen.

If it weren't a boss, a single strike would have killed it instantly.

After breaking the defense, Yun Qing closed in on the monster once more.

Full power, claw strike, hit. This time, there was no sound of clashing metal.

Heavy Strike -80;
Combat Experience +240;

The health bar above the warrior dipped by about 1%.
What a massive health pool! Truly a boss.

-30;
Combat Experience +90;

A purple number, -30, floated above the boss. Focusing her gaze, she saw a new negative status effect: Poisoned.

The poison duration was 10 minutes, counting down, dealing 30 damage every 5 seconds.