CHAPTER 233: LET THE WORLD BURN

"You again," Damon said, appearing from the shadows. "You did not learn your lesson the last time?"

Magicaa’s eyes widened in horror. He quickly erected a triple-layered flame barrier, surrounded himself with defensive enchantments, and even used a rare artifact to boost his magical defense.

"Blood God, you are pushing your luck. You need to know when to stand down and accept your loss and when to fight back. You make one wrong move, and he might just make everything a lot worse. You should already know what he is capable of."

Damon sneered. He did not respond and instead casually thrust forward his crimson lance, which shattered one barrier after another without any sort of resistance. Magicaa started panicking more.

But there was nothing he could do. No matter how much he threatened, Damon simply did not seem to care about that person at all.

"Blood God! You will definitely regret this!" Magicaa screamed as Damon unleashed a brutal barrage with his bare claws using [Blood Cleave] to tear apart the fire mage like he was made of paper.

[Ding! Blood extraction successful]

[Ding! You have acquired the skill Burn]

[Ding! You have gained +2 luck]

"Tch." Damon clicked his tongue. He had hoped for a better skill but all he got was a shitty burn. At least he gained 2 luck stats, which was huge. He shook it off and prepared to move to the next area when suddenly the guy he had killed once again magically resurrected right in front of him.

"Oh?" Damon raised a brow. His grin widened, and Magicaa’s face paled. "You guys have really used a lot of resources for this raid, haven’t you?"

He grabbed Magicaa’s neck with his bare hands and started squeezing it with his claws, drawing blood wherever they touched. The man started pouring out like a fountain, all the fountain waters heading straight to Damon.

As he watched the life slip away from the man’s eyes, Damon suddenly had another thought. "Are there more high-level players hidden in the purification raid? I guess even you guys couldn’t pass up the golden opportunity to earn a few more contribution points and reputation points, huh?"

Magicaa croaked and dropped dead for a second time, but the look on his face gave all the answers Damon needed. If he was not wrong, then there should be several high-tier players hiding amongst the NPCs, and each one of them was potentially a blood bag carrying a precious skill."

[Ding! Blood extraction successful]

[Ding! You have acquired the skill Flame Explosion]

[Ding! You have gained +2 luck]

Flame Explosion: Any target afflicted by fire-based skills becomes primed with unstable elemental energy. Upon the target’s death (or after the debuff duration ends), the energy violently detonates, dealing Area of Effect fire damage in a radius around the target. The explosion scales with your Intelligence and Fire Affinity and inflicts Burn on all nearby enemies. If [Burn] is already active on the target, the explosion radius and damage increase by 30%.

What a nice guy! He made sure to give me two skills! Damon’s lips curled as the notifications rolled in. He only glanced at it before he started moving again, but he suddenly stopped as he realized that the skill wasn’t all that simple.

Sure, it was not a super flashy skill, but the devil was in the details. The chain effect on this skill was ridiculous. He could potentially cast this skill again and again and create a huge mess on the battlefield, and if his mana and his fire affinity were sufficiently high enough, then the results could even be catastrophic. A full-on massacre!

Wasn’t this actually perfect for his current situation? "Looks like you were worth the effort after all, Magicaa." Damon grinned as his hands were itching to try it out. His gaze swept to the area where Elina was running amok. The huge fire serpent was spewing out fire everywhere, standing in the safety of the vampire NPCs.

Damon had not even instructed the snake to do something like this. She had strategized it on her own. She was an extremely intelligent beast.

And right now, she had prepped the battlefield perfectly for him, already having inflicted fire damage upon many NPCs. She did not have the buff that the other vampire NPCs and Damon had, so her dot damage was ignored by many, and they hadn’t even bothered to heal or dispel it. This provided the perfect in for Damon to test out his new skill.

He quickly invoked the new skill Flame Explosion. The result was instant and horrifying. Elina might not have the buff, but he sure did.

One afflicted knight collapsed, and his death triggered an eruption of molten fire that detonated his corpse like a bomb. The blast consumed a cluster of squires nearby, who, having been marked by Elina’s attacks, went off like dominoes.

On the other side, two others collapsed, triggering two more chain reactions. The explosions chained violently, one after the other, erupting in a sprawling, multi-ring inferno that engulfed half the plaza.

From a distance, it looked like a golden lotus blooming in slow motion, wave after wave of flame and ash.

[Ding! You have killed 14 enemies.]

[Ding! You have gained experience points]

[Ding! You have killed 24 enemies]

[Ding! You have gained experience points]

[Ding! You have killed 5 enemies]

[Ding! You have gained experience points]

...

...

...

The notifications continued to roll in, and plenty of loot littered the battlefield. More importantly, the numbers of the raid were instantly cut down by a quarter, just a single attack doing a ridiculous massive wave of damage.

The culling was more than enough to trigger the next phase, the second wave. Damon grinned ear to ear as he watched another teleportation portal open up. This time, the backup did not come in hordes. Instead, only a couple dozen men arrived, all dressed in divine and holy attire, and every single one of them was at least level 75.