Chapter Sixty-three: The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Everything that had just unfolded before our eyes was enough to leave even the bravest soul mortified and ashamed—at least, that was precisely how I felt at the moment.

Before the terrifying necromancer “This Person is Dead. Burn Paper if Necessary,” the plump, snow-white lamb, as round and pink as a freshly kneaded dumpling, displayed a martial prowess on par with a professional warrior, pummeling the necromancer into a state of utter disarray—though, of course, he was the sort to exist perpetually between life and death.

Not only did the little lamb use its tiny, adorable horns to ram its foe repeatedly, but it also proved adept with its small, sharp teeth and pointed hooves. Should you underestimate these natural weapons for their size, you need only look at the necromancer’s wretched fate for caution:

“Aaaargh…” wailed the necromancer, his miserable shriek ringing in our ears as he hobbled past us, howling in distress. Clinging to his right foot, the lamb had sunk its teeth into his toe, dangling limply from his foot. Judging by the lamb’s expression, it seemed to find this game of suspending itself by its jaws quite amusing, thoroughly enjoying the texture of the necromancer’s tough appendage.

“Ow!” The necromancer’s frantic struggle finally paid off. With a desperate kick, he sent the lamb flying. The chubby ball of fluff bounced several times on the ground before lazily rolling upright, letting out a disgruntled bleat and spitting something from its mouth.

If I wasn’t mistaken, it looked suspiciously like one of the necromancer’s toe bones. This savage biting force led me to seriously suspect that beneath that dense wool lurked not a lamb, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing—a particularly rare, overweight wolf at that.

Lamby faithfully carried out its master’s command, immediately rolling back into the fray without hesitation. By now, the necromancer fully understood the ferocity of this “battle sheep,” hastily conjuring a storm orb to block its path. The attack shaved a third off the lamb’s health, but unfortunately for him, he had no chance to cast a second spell.

With a resounding thud, the fat battle sheep charged straight into the necromancer’s groin, the force of impact so tremendous that even as a bystander, I felt a sympathetic ache in my thighs. At that moment, I could only thank the gods I wasn’t standing in the necromancer’s place.

A shrill cry, sharp as a kingfisher’s, escaped the necromancer as he doubled over in pain, clutching his legs—though, truthfully, it was a puzzle in itself. What could a skeleton possibly have in his trousers aside from hip bones? By rights, such agony should be impossible.

To an enemy writhing in pain, Lamby showed not a shred of mercy. With fearless valor, it leapt upward, soaring half a man’s height, spinning midair, and delivering three rapid kicks to the necromancer’s face with its hind hooves.

To be fair, Lamby's attacks were not particularly powerful—each strike only shaved off ten or twenty points of health, a mere scratch for the necromancer—if a skeleton could be said to have skin at all. Yet, somehow, the lamb’s attacks seemed to have an astonishingly high chance of stunning its opponent, and its attack speed was nothing short of terrifying, leaving the necromancer scarcely a moment to recover.

Had Lamby been pitted against a warrior or a rogue, its effect would have been negligible. A determined fighter could easily send this fragile ball of fluff back to its magical space with a few solid blows. But as fate would have it, its opponent was a mage, whose offensive abilities depended almost entirely on incantations. I suspect this unlucky necromancer never realized just how long-winded his own spells were, for in the face of this valiant “battle sheep,” he couldn't utter a coherent phrase to save his life—if he even had a tongue left to bite.

This was Lamby’s moment. It rammed, trampled, and tore into the necromancer with wild abandon, leaving nothing undone. Once a creature so timid and adorable, now transformed under the hand of the elven beastmaster into a beast from ancient legend, unleashing all its ferocity and violence onto the hapless necromancer. At one point, it even knocked the fiend to the ground, then leapt high and landed, rump-first, repeatedly onto his face—oh, merciful gods above, this was simply too brutal. I could hardly bear to watch any longer.

Thanks to Lamby, Yen Array’s combat strategy underwent a radical transformation—her opponent was no longer a moving target but a stationary one, helpless as she riddled him with bullets, bone fragments scattering, unable to fight back at all.

Fortunately, this blood-soaked, R-rated scene did not last long. Soon, the battle was over. The necromancer “This Person is Dead. Burn Paper if Necessary” lay in ruin, his remains scattered across the ground—though, to be fair, he never had skin to begin with. I imagined that when he came back to life, it would take him quite some time to reassemble himself.

With no suspense, the hapless foe was dispatched, and Lamby leapt cheerfully onto the broken wall, licking and nuzzling the elven beastmaster Yen Array. By now, the sun had dipped below the horizon and a pale full moon had just risen, hanging above the distant mountain ridges. Lamby stretched its neck, hind legs folded, forelegs planted, half-sitting atop the wall, and howled at the moon:

“Baaaaaa—baaaaaa—”

The more I looked, the more convinced I became that this was a wolf born into a lamb’s body!

“What’s the deal with this fat sheep?” Lamby’s heroic display had dealt a blow to my warrior’s pride unlike any before. It took considerable effort for me to face the bitter truth: a freshly promoted level-twenty lamb seemed far more useful than a battle-hardened level-forty warrior.

“We never expected this either…” Xian Ge Yayi replied, dodging the troll assassin’s attacks. “We just brought it along to level up for fun, but at level five it gained a ‘Charge’ skill with a 10% chance to stun. And then…” The elven sharpshooter blushed, turned, and fired an arrow before continuing, “…it sort of ended up taking us along to level instead…”

Seeing that I wasn’t the only one whose pride had been wounded by this battle sheep, I felt a little better.

Without a powerful battle pet of my own, I could not quickly defeat my opponent, but even so, victory was close at hand. With my superior speed and level, the demon berserker was powerless, reduced to bellowing in rage—alas, his bark was far worse than his bite.

He had once had a chance to defeat me—after entering berserk mode, he landed three critical strikes in quick succession, putting my health in the red. But a single healing wave restored me, shattering his last hopes. Glancing sideways, I saw Sunbow, twirling his nunchaku with a grin, watching me with amusement. The vampire blade dancer “Stammered and Forgot His Lines” was already a corpse, lying quietly nearby.

With a final thrust, I felled the demon berserker, leaving only the troll assassin “Who Dares Be Uglier Than Me” still struggling. Xian Ge Yayi’s guerrilla tactics kept him safe, but also prevented him from mounting a full offense, reducing his effectiveness. Though he held the advantage, he could not land a fatal blow.

Now, however, he faced the four of us closing in from all sides. Yen Array’s gun, Xian Ge Yayi’s bow, Sunbow’s nunchaku, and my sword all left their marks upon him, steadily driving him to desperation. At one point, he scattered a handful of flash powder, employing his stealth skills to evade us, but Xian Ge Yayi’s Wind-Seeking Arrow revealed his position. His last-ditch survival skill failed, and at last, the troll assassin was cornered. With a helpless sigh, he exclaimed:

“I don’t want to wash dishes…”

And with that, Sunbow struck him on the back, sending him sprawling. The battle was over.

“Thank goodness you showed up when you did, or we’d have been in real trouble…” As soon as the fight ended, I hurried over to thank my elven friends.

“Yeah, we almost died here…” Sunbow said carelessly. As a Voidwalker, he clearly didn’t value the life-saving intervention of Xian Ge Yayi and Yen Array as much as I did. Glancing at the four dead Imperial adventurers, he licked his lips with a bloodthirsty grin and asked, “So, what now? Should we guard their bodies and kill them until they log off?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the four corpses suddenly disintegrated into tiny motes, dissolving into blue smoke that drifted into the night sky, vanishing as if they had never been there at all.

This meant our four vanquished foes had chosen to resurrect at the revival point, preferring to lose their gold rather than risk being corpse-camped. Clearly, Sunbow’s plan was foiled. Seeing the disappointment on the bloodthirsty dwarf’s face, we couldn’t help but laugh inwardly.

“We’re running low on arrows and ammo, so we need to restock. Let’s find the nearest town first,” Xian Ge Yayi suggested.

“The town is just over that hill to the east. We’ll take you there,” I said, taking the lead.

With our elven friends guiding the way, we soon left the deserted village behind and headed toward the nearest town, Kaller.

Along the way, Yen Array spoke of her troubles with her giant firearm, “Sera Jiong.” The gun was now too low-level for her, given her current rank as a beastmaster, but its rare attributes made it a shame to abandon. She was torn—this had been evident in the earlier battle when, despite her level advantage, her rifle struggled against the necromancer’s ice spells, largely due to insufficient firepower.

Hearing her distress, Sunbow puffed out his chest. “Leave it to me. My trade is weapon smithing. Once I reach level twenty-four, I can modify weapons to improve their stats.”

Yen Array’s face lit up with joy. “That’s wonderful! What level are you now?”

“Twelve…” Sunbow’s face reddened as he sheepishly tugged his beard.

“At the rate you’re going, that gun will be scrap metal by the time you get to twenty-four,” Xian Ge Yayi scoffed, rolling her eyes. She seemed even more disappointed than Yen Array.

A thought struck me. I quickly unfastened my pack and pulled out a large bundle of “High-Energy Gunpowder,” a level-six alchemical product more powerful than the regular variety. I’d made plenty while practicing alchemy. According to its description, bullets made with it had higher destructive power and penetration.

“Would these help?” I asked.

At the sight of the gunpowder, Sunbow’s eyes lit up. “Hey, I forgot we had an alchemist here! Jeff, you’re a lifesaver! Now I’ve got a solution!”

Sunbow explained that he’d just learned how to craft armor-piercing bullets, having gathered all the materials except for enough high-energy gunpowder—hardly surprising, since so few people studied alchemy.

He promised Yen Array that as soon as they reached Kaller, he’d craft her a batch of armor-piercing ammo. These premium rounds would boost her rifle’s attack to the next tier—perhaps not exceptional, but sufficient for the battles ahead.

Just as spirits were high, Sunbow suddenly frowned and glanced at me, hesitating. “Strange, I feel like I’m forgetting something…”

I hadn’t noticed anything odd while we were hurrying along, but his words made me uneasy, as if something essential was missing.

We checked ourselves: armor, helmets, weapons, boots, packs—everything was in place. Yet, the nagging sense that we’d overlooked something only grew.

Just then, a gust of wind carried an angry roar to our ears: “Jeff, Sunbow, you finished the fight and just up and left, leaving me all alone behind! Sunbow, you beardy little dwarf, what kind of priest are you? You didn’t even cast Resurrection for me! I had to run for ten minutes to find you, and now my corpse is nothing but a pile of bones. You’d better stop right there! If I don’t teach you a lesson, I’ll change my name—though I was never called Ox in the first place!”

Suddenly, we realized—no wonder we couldn’t think of what we’d forgotten. We hadn’t left anything behind—we’d left someone behind… or rather, a rather large dead ox. Niu Baiwan’s corpse had been gnawed to the bone by the necromancer, and after the battle, we’d headed for the town, forgetting him entirely.

As the furious, red-eyed, horned form of Niu Baiwan charged after us, swinging an obsidian pillar thicker than my waist, guilt and remorse flooded my heart. There was only one way to express my sincerest apologies…

“Run for it, don’t let him catch up!” I shouted to Sunbow, bolting away. The dwarf, just as alarmed and regretful, paled and followed, grabbing his thick beard with both hands to keep from tripping.

“Don’t be mad, old Ox! About your corpse being gnawed to bones, I can explain everything over a nice cup of tea—help! Somebody save me!” he yelled as he ran.