Chapter Sixty-Five: The Might of the Advanced Talent (Please Continue Following)

It was a complete sweep. With the continuous attacks stacking the power of the Centaur’s Blood Talisman to its maximum, Chu Cheng’s strength had surpassed one hundred.

What did that mean?

He was forcing his way through dozens of orcs, pushing them back head-on so fiercely that even the various orc leaders who arrived in response to the commotion couldn’t hold him back.

Orc Chieftain (Elite): Level 34, 5400 HP.

With a deafening roar, a chieftain with deeply tanned skin charged forward, wielding a massive spiked club. The other orcs scattered aside, and the towering figure swung the club straight at Chu Cheng.

Chu Cheng could have easily dodged, but he chose not to. He crossed his twin blades before him.

Clang!

The spiked club crashed into the crossed blades, sparks flying in all directions, yet Chu Cheng stood unshaken.

"His strength... isn’t as high as I expected!"

He couldn't help but marvel that his own strength now outstripped that of the boss.

With a faint smile, he kicked the spiked club aside, marked the boss with a space sigil, and closed in, his twin blades shimmering with light.

"Frenzy!"

The blades flashed in rapid succession, afterimages flickering as blood spurted from the orc chieftain. In just one second, a flurry of twenty-four different damage values appeared:

-45, -100, -35...
-45, -100, -35...
-45, -100, -35...
...

Forty-five was the base physical attack after the skill reduced the chieftain’s defense, one hundred was pure damage from his talent, and thirty-five was shadow damage equal to his intelligence, inflicted by the Void Mark.

The chieftain had no shadow resistance, so all the damage landed in full.

Each round dealt a total of 180 damage, with eight rounds in total—delivering a staggering 1440 net damage in just one second.

He immediately raised his blades for a powerful strike:

"Brutal Smash!"

-340, -100, -35...

In one fell swoop, he dealt 1900 massive damage. Even with the chieftain’s thick hide, he couldn’t last long against such an onslaught.

With overwhelming advantages in constitution, strength, agility, and speed, the chieftain’s only edge was a larger health pool. But against Chu Cheng’s high defense and rapid regeneration, even that advantage was nullified.

Chu Cheng didn’t dodge or retreat; he fought the orc chieftain head-on.

Even without skill use, his twin blades danced in a blur, stabbing relentlessly and leaving bloody holes all over the chieftain.

At this moment, the twin-blade warrior’s class expertise in dual-wielding shone through. Single-handed weapons might lack the power of two-handed weapons, but their speed, agility, and flexibility were superior. Each attack carried an extra 135 damage from talent and Void Mark, and the extra attack per round meant that overall output far surpassed that of a single weapon.

Meanwhile, the chieftain’s attack was only 358. After subtracting 114 from talents and then factoring in defense, his blows barely managed just over one hundred.

At maximum skill stacks, Chu Cheng regenerated 65 health per second. The chieftain’s heavy spiked club was slow, meaning...

Even after taking two direct hits and being stunned for a second by a skill, Chu Cheng parried the third blow upon recovering. As the chieftain swung his club for the fourth time, Chu Cheng’s health was already back to full.

Mastery of single-handed swords.
Expertise in dual-wielding.

Weapon skills might not directly add to attributes, but refined technique could greatly enhance personal strength.

The higher the weapon skill, the more likely he was to strike true and parry incoming attacks.

Had this been an open field—one-on-one—given the chieftain’s strength, speed, and the clumsiness of his weapon, Chu Cheng could have blocked half of the attacks and evaded the rest with agility.

A volley of twin thrusts dealt over four hundred damage.

With damage reflection, each round returned over a thousand pure damage.

No matter how high the chieftain’s health, he couldn’t withstand such explosive force for long. Soon, he was battered and bleeding, barely able to stand.

On a crowded battlefield, there was nowhere to flee.

In less than twenty seconds, the towering orc chieftain crashed heavily to the ground.

With the chieftain dead, the orcs’ morale collapsed, though they didn’t flee outright. Under the command of their remaining leaders, they renewed their assault, only to fall one after another.

Eight minutes later, the last group of orcs fell and the battle was over.

"Whew!"

Chu Cheng let out a quiet breath. It had been easier than he’d imagined.

After the talent upgrade, his power had undergone a qualitative leap—far stronger than before.

He quickly gathered the spoils, rested briefly, and pressed onward.

The previous battle had given Chu Cheng a clear grasp of his current strength.

"So long as I don’t face those top-tier bosses directly, or storm a fortress head-on, no one can threaten me."

Within this instance, only those few terrifying bosses in the forties could endanger him, and those top bosses were either in Gear City or in the main orc and centaur tribes. As long as he avoided those places, he’d be fine.

Alone, he crossed the wilderness.

A day later, following a path trampled outside the orc camp he’d just destroyed, he reached another orc settlement.

In just a dozen minutes, the noisy orc village fell silent.

On the eastern plains by the Blackwater River, the vast majority of non-humans were orcs.

There weren’t many tribes, but each was larger than those west of the Blackwater River—each with at least two or three hundred members, and often as many as five or six hundred, even a thousand in the largest.

Yet after destroying just five tribes, Chu Cheng noticed the next ones were much smaller.

Despite their huge settlements, few orcs remained inside.

Chu Cheng only wiped out two more before, while looting, he found a letter from the Orc King’s court. Reading it revealed the reason.

The first major plot event of the Golden Wilds instance—the Battle of Blackwater River—was about to begin!

The Orc King’s court was summoning all the tribes of the plains, requiring each to send a force of warriors in response.

The tribes he’d encountered after leaving Gear City hadn’t yet received the summons, so their ranks were intact.

But as he ventured deeper into the plains and approached the Orc King’s territory, the tribes there had already received the call and dispatched their best warriors. Most of the chieftains had left, leaving only the old, the weak, and the infirm behind—greatly reducing the threat.

He reckoned by the timeline, the event was indeed imminent. Though there were still more than ten days left, the Orc King’s court needed time to summon and assemble the forces, which would take at least ten days to half a month—just enough time.

"There’s still time. Let’s keep going!"

With that decision, Chu Cheng chose not to return for now.

Going back would only mean preparation—at best, scouting or harassment missions, none of which offered rewards as lucrative as destroying another tribe.

Besides, with so many tribes having sent away their elite warriors and chieftains, those left behind posed little threat.

In any case, he wasn’t relying on rewards from these minor bosses or expecting much experience. As long as he could wipe out several more tribes, the reputation gains would be enough.

There was no way around it. He was already level 25, while most tribal warriors hovered in the teens. The level gap was too great, offering barely any experience now.

Killing ordinary orc warriors at this point gave only a token amount of kill experience.