The Great Thief

Why did the monster have such a cold body in such a hot environment?

Lu Li tried to pull away, but he was horrified to find that the monster was pulling him in the direction of the magma.

He also found out that this monster that he initially thought was a snake, wasn’t actually a snake. Beyond the thing that was wrapped around his body, the rest of the monster was still far into the darkness.

This meant that what he could see was only a part of the monster.

‘Stay calm, don’t panic!’

Lu Li tried to grasp onto anything he could nearby to avoid being dragged away with one hand, and was beating at the monster with his Shard of the Defiler with his other hand.

There were many rocks jutting out on the ground and Lu Li grabbed as many of these as possible to reduce his speed.

The monster was slippery, so his attacks often failed, but it seemed quite sensitive as he could see it quivering with every hit. He could also hear screams in the distance.

Playing video games tested your awareness, patience and mental fortitude.

At this point, he needed to depend on his mental fortitude, as the rocks in the ground weren’t fully preventing him from being dragged away.

He was slowly being pulled towards the lava river. The temperature was rising and the situation was becoming critical; he didn’t need to imagine much to know what would happen if he was pulled in. He was definitely going to burn to death.

Lu Li calmed himself, held his breath and started attacking the monster again.

Sometimes, when his attacks failed, he would hit his own body. Although there was no pain in doing this, the game did not advocate any kind of self-harm.

This was a test of his will.

Lu Li had determined at least one thing – the monster attacking him wasn’t a snake. The thing that was tightly coiled around him was a long tentacle that had suction cups on it that prevented him from prying it off. The monster was in the lava; he could hear it screaming inside.

Lu Li suddenly saw a big rock on his left side and was overjoyed. He struggled and managed to roll behind the rock.

The big rock was quite close the lava river, which made things rather uncomfortable, but Lu Li endured it and continued to attack the tentacle.

Hopefully, the monster would be unable to handle the pain and would decide to give up Lu Li as its prey.

The monster released the suction cups and seemed to want to retract its tentacles.

Was it going to leave?

Lu Li obviously wasn’t going to let this tentacle get away so easily. He took out a dagger from his bag and stabbed it into the tentacle that was retreating.

Worried that the tentacle would get away, Lu Li found a few other items and stabbed them into it to lock it in place.

He then drank a Health Potion while attacking at the same time.

Lu Li was also afraid that this tentacle would be severed. If the tentacle was cut off, he would have no way of reaching the monster in the lava river.

Fortunately, the monster didn’t have that kind of courage, or perhaps, it was just too painful to do so.

After attacking it for over a dozen minutes, the tentacle no longer struggled and laid there completely deflated. There was also a body by the river that was smoking and covered in ashes.

Lu Li was sure that this weird tentacle monster was dead.

This was because he had received EXP – a whole 5% of his EXP bar. The EXP was so good that it was almost unbelievable. If someone told Lu Li that this monster was a Boss, he would believe it.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any way of retrieving the loot.

The tentacle monster’s body was in the lava and was being burned up. The dropped items had probably sunk to the bottom of the river, or were perhaps being burned with the body. In any case, Lu Li couldn’t do anything about it.

After killing the tentacle monster, Lu Li immediately ran away from the lava river to get a breath of fresh air.

Breathing was required in this game. He was previously holding his breath, which not only made things difficult for him, but also made him lost HP. The HP loss was equivalent to suffocating in real life.

Even though he didn’t receive anything else, the 5% EXP was absolutely worth it.

Lu Li estimated that if killing a monster like this took 15 minutes, he could gain 20% EXP in an hour. That meant he could level up in 5 hours, which was ten times faster than farming in the outside world!

Even the inconvenience of killing the Boss didn’t matter.

This was a land of milk and honey!

Of course, all of this was predicated on there being enough monsters in the lava river for him to kill, and that he wouldn’t need to spend too long finding one.

However, it was easy to verify this – Lu Li guessed that the monster likely used its hearing to find its prey. It was his coughing and choking in the smoke that led to the monster attacking him.

Lu Li walked along the river for some distance before finding a similar geographical spot. There was a big rock that could keep him in place.

The next part was simple – he just needed to make a sound.

It was only a few seconds before Lu Li heard a noise reaching for him.

‘Come, be bolder! I’m a tasty piece of meat.’

He pretended to not be aware as the tentacle wrapped around him. Once everything was in place and it had a firm hold on Lu Li, he began to attack it.

Lu Li was nervous too – he was worried that the rock wouldn’t be strong enough to hold him. If he was pulled into the lava, then everything would be over.

The tentacle monster was very strong, but its weakness was obvious. It had a great fear of pain.

As it was attacked by Lu Li, it kept crying out and pulled with less and less strength. This meant that Lu Li was safe behind the stone. Following the same pattern as before, he quickly completed another kill.

He had received another 5% EXP.

In half an hour, he had received a whole 10% EXP. Suddenly, Lu Li felt invigorated.

As long as a person was motivated, it would be rare for them to fail. His tactics also changed over time. At first, he would always find a big rock, but later, he simply plugged a double-headed spear into the ground. As long as he had something to hold on to, he wouldn’t be pulled away.

One by one, the tentacles were lured to their deaths. Lu Li’s EXP was quickly rising.

Before long, the common double-headed spear had been used seven to eight times. It was surprisingly durable, but Lu Li estimated that it would be consumed by the end of this.

This rubbish equip wasn’t worth anything, but he was worried that he would run out of things to use. He didn’t have much equipment in his backpack.

Monsters often dropped equipment like this, but Lu Li was so stingy that he didn’t throw them away. The money that he would receive from selling it was so little anyway. It was only when his bag was completely full that he would sell some of the more useless items.

This time, in order to fit the sailboat, he had cleared out his backpack.

As such, his backpack was only half-full of rubbish from the Double-Headed Hellhounds and the lava monsters.

The weapon that they dropped most often was the double-headed spear that could be used by Hunters, Druids, Paladins and Warriors. Lu Li knew that this kind of equipment often dropped in demon areas.

He threw away the old double-headed spear and stuck new one from his bag into the ground.

His cautious approached actually saved his life once. When he saw two tentacles wrapping around him, he was eternally thankful for the durable support he had set up.

However, it was still two tentacles!

Was it two monsters working together, or one monster with two tentacles?