Chapter 202: Help! There are cows!
Fighting the Twin Blade Knight Balford felt completely different from destroying the Ten Commandments of Mara and the Sun God Kukulkan.
For two leader templates, all their attributes were extremely strong, and their health was extremely high, but they were essentially more like a stationary BOSS unit. The strategy for them was more about memorizing patterns, dodging, and then finding opportunities to output damage to their weak points, repeating the cycle until a fatal blow was delivered.
However, fighting the purely humanoid BOSS Balford gave Cheng Tian a sense of tension akin to playing a sword-and-spear duel against a master, where both sides constantly probed, exchanged skills, and mutually guessed the timing of each other's attacks. This was completely different from the feeling of strategizing against a stationary BOSS.
Even though he had successfully cut four-tenths of the opponent's health—no, counting the self-damage from the Aura Storm, it was closer to five-tenths—and even though the opponent was still in a blind state, he still relied on experience and instinct to make the most appropriate response, successfully surviving what seemed like a certain death trap and regrouping with his subordinates.
At this point, trying to force a kill on a knight unit known for his agility was already a very difficult task... But was it safe just because he had successfully regrouped with his infantry?
Not necessarily!
At this moment, Cheng Tian's mana bar had successfully bottomed out from continuous combat. Blocking the Great Fireball, using the Blessed Blade, resisting the Militia's Call, plus the 14 MP he had just recovered from that brawling sailor, left Cheng Tian with only over 40 MP.
Moreover, because switching instances would cause Cheng Tian's Innocent Souls to be cleared, he only had a total of 20 soul points that he had just collected, which translated to about 40 MP... But, it was enough to cause another stir!
The sun gem fragment on the forehead of the Sun Mask began to glow faintly. A special wavelength, effective only against human units, was directly emitted. The targets were two 'Strength' suffix Minotaur Knight Breakers, who were not good at mounted combat but had higher strength and red armor, and were now shielding the Twin Blade Knight Balford in a defensive stance.
Ten Commandments Lv4! Activate!
After Cheng Tian received extra settlement in Dino Crisis and found that Hundred Demons' Night Parade could not be leveled up to Lv7, he decisively invested 3 skill points into Ten Commandments.
[Ten Commandments: Class C Skill / Lv4, Active Skill, (details omitted).
You can simultaneously cast Ten Commandments Ray on 2 human units. (Originally 1)
For every 10 points of Charm you have, the number of controllable Ghouls increases by 2 (originally 1). The current maximum is 4 (Daytime Charm attribute is 11+9 = 20).
The maximum linear distance for you to issue commands to Ghouls is your Spirit attribute * 20 meters (originally * 10), currently 740 meters.
When the 2 Ghouls you control are no more than 5 meters apart, the transformation effect of 'Hundred Demons' Night Parade' you cast on a single Ghoul will spread to the other Ghoul without additional MP consumption, and without being limited by the number of empowered units you can hold. (Lv4 additional enhancement)]
Cheng Tian's Ten Commandments skill, limited to only affecting humans, exchanged for a powerful judgment effect exceeding that of ordinary Class C skills. The Strength Breakers, whose Spirit was inherently lower than their Speed-suffixed counterparts, were converted by Cheng Tian without resistance. Their dark, rough skin beneath their armor and inner lining had already turned ghoul-like, an ashen blue.
Balford had not immediately noticed anything amiss.
But then, all the Innocent Souls Cheng Tian had just collected were emptied, and his mana bar dropped to single digits. Correspondingly, Hundred Demons' Night Parade simultaneously affected the two Ghoul Minotaur Knights.
The bodies of the two Minotaur Knight Breakers instantly underwent drastic physical changes.
The Ghoul Minotaur Knight, tentatively designated as No. 1, threw away his weapon, dropped to all fours, his joints deformed, his torso became more robust and broad, the horns that were originally just a symbol of status became fixed to his head, and his human face mutated into that of a wild bull. With a twitch of his nostrils, the armored wild bull exhaled a pale gray cursed gas—
Catoblepas! Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Monster Guide No. 29, Boss Template, Demon Unit!
The other Ghoul Minotaur Knight, tentatively designated as No. 2, swelled up dramatically. In the blink of an eye, his height, which was nearly two meters including his horns, surged to almost three meters. Similarly, the horns that were a symbol of status became fixed to his head, and his red plate armor completely merged into his skin, exhibiting a strange crimson color. The mace and shield in his hands twisted and transformed into a long-handled single-edged battle-axe. The Minotaur, whose head had also twisted into that of a wild bull, let out a loud bellow—
Red Minotaur! Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Monster Guide No. 89, Elite Template, Demon Unit!
The sudden transformation of the Minotaur Knights, who were originally allied units, not only startled the NPCs but also astonished the other players mixed in with the Silver Knight infantry.
But under Cheng Tian's mind control, the two bovine-attributed demons, transformed by Hundred Demons' Night Parade, had already launched an attack on Balford.
The Armored Minotaur Catoblepas directly turned around and opened his mouth, spewing a large amount of gray cursed smoke from his mouth at the Twin Blade Knight, who had just been his protected target.
Balford, who had already realized something was wrong with the people around him and was about to make another leap to dodge, felt a sharp pain and an irresistible difficulty in breathing as he inhaled. His movement, which was already prepared to gather strength and leap out, faltered unsteadily, and he involuntarily clutched his chest and stopped in place.
Blood was already gushing from his mouth.
It turned out that Cheng Tian's second stab with the Blessed Blade, although it seemed to have cauterized the chest and prevented bleeding there, had caused a penetrating injury similar to a pneumothorax!
Originally, with the Twin Blade Knight's strength attribute, if he were given a little time to rest and recover, this stab, which had already injured his internal organs, should have been able to self-heal... But Cheng Tian never gave him any chance to breathe.
Continuous dodging and self-damaging with the Aura Storm exacerbated the Twin Blade Knight's injury, which should have had a chance to heal. And this crucial moment of irregular breathing prevented him from dodging the cursed smoke from Catoblepas.
This smoke did not cause damage; instead, it applied a high amount of petrification effect!
Balford only felt a strange stiffness in his body, and then he was completely unable to move.
The Twin Blade Knight's entire body had taken on the gray texture of a stone statue. The power judgment of the petrification cursed smoke passed, and Balford was petrified.
However, it could be seen that the petrified Balford statue was shaking at a high frequency, and stone debris was falling from his body. This meant that he was accelerating the Release of the petrification state by struggling.
Unlike other worldviews where petrification increases defense, the petrification effect in "Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow" actually decreases the defense of the petrified unit, for both allies and enemies.
But at the very same moment, the powerful Minotaur Red Minotaur, standing opposite the petrifying Minotaur, had already raised his long-handled battle-axe high and, with all his might, brought it down on the petrified Balford!
Don't forget, there's another characteristic of being in a statue state: it's more prone to limb breakage when struck by blunt or heavy weapons.
And the Red Minotaur's chosen strike location was... Balford's neck!
With a crisp crack, the petrified head of Balford, the Silver Prince's Chief Knight, the highest commander of the Silver Knight Order, and the Twin Blade Knight, flew into the air under the Red Minotaur's full-force slash, forever frozen in a squinting expression—
Balford, petrified beheading!