Ashen God
Chapter 653 - 652: Slaying the Demonized Mammoth

Chapter 653: Chapter 652: Slaying the Demonized Mammoth

While most of the tiny bone fragments resulting from the shattered ivory flew off to hit Zhang Yanhang’s Energy Shield, the majority returned to their original owner, embedding into the face of the Demonized Mammoth. The fragments cut through the rich capillaries in its facial skin, easily tore through the thick eyelids, and penetrated the lens of the eyeball.

Of course, this was just a bit of additional damage. As the Twisted force field of transparent fluctuations spread across its body, the liquefied vitreous humor within the mammoth’s eye burst through the lens and pressed outwards.

This left a large area around the mammoth’s eye resembling tears but with a viscosity much greater, more akin to glue than actual tears.

After mixing with the blood seeping from the capillaries around the eye socket and eyeball, this vitreous humor quickly turned a striking red, looking incredibly out of place as if someone had inexplicably Photoshopped cheap red-eye effects onto its face, but it was all too real.

Compared to its eyeball that was still contained within the socket, the mammoth’s brain—its most vulnerable part—was faring much worse, with pieces of crushed skull stabbing into the brain tissue below like sharp knives.

Under the impact, these bone shards quickly turned the brain into a mushy, unrecognizable mess, which then spurted into the air alongside dark red blood—pushed out by the compressive force of the Twisted force field through the mammoth’s massive wounds torn in its head muscles.

On the face of the Demonized Mammoth, dark red blood, chunks of brain tissue, muscle fibers, bone fragments, and vitreous liquid mingled together to form an especially gruesome and terrifying visage, so much so that even Zhang Yanhang felt a bit repulsed.

Of course, when talking about the face, it should be noted that under the effect of the Death Wave, the entire head had been ravaged akin to a piece of rotten meat—barely more intact than the rest of it.

Compared to the barely hanging head, broken at the neck, the mammoth’s body remained more intact due to its massive size. Most of its internal organs were shattered within the body and didn’t burst outward like the brain matter.

Since Zhang Yanhang’s Death Wave Skill had reached a level of fixed damage capable of killing a Five Hundred Life Value Second Tier Four Star Lord Monster like the Crimson Iron Ant Queen in one hit, right after he released the Death Wave, his ears immediately filled with the notification of the Demonized Mammoth’s demise.

[Successfully killed Second Tier Two Star Monster ’Demonized Mammoth (Common)’ ×1, Soul points +80.]

[Successfully killed Second Tier Two Star Monster ’Demonized Mammoth (Common)’ ×1, Soul points +80.]

[Successfully killed Second Tier Two Star Monster ’Demonized Mammoth (Common)’ ×1, Soul points +80.]

...

"Is the Soul points’ value of the Demonized Mammoth only eighty points? I thought it might be a few points higher, but that being said, eighty points of Soul points value is already quite high—after all, the Demonized Emperor Crocodile is only seventy-five points.

Moreover, the Goblin Chief Shaman Maka Bagga from the Goblin Plain as a Second Tier Two Star Elite Monster is actually only worth a hundred Soul points. So, for a mere Second Tier Two Star Monster, having eighty points is really quite good.

However, the twenty-point difference in Soul points indicates that the Demonized Mammoth would probably have some difficulty defeating Maka Bagga. Judging solely by the value of Soul points, Maka Bagga could likely dispose of the Demonized Mammoth with a Lightning Four-Strikes."

From the previous attacks of the Demonized Mammoth, Zhang Yanhang could only say that although it had a massive advantage in weight and size, it might not have been very adept at combat, with rather simplistic attack methods.

Compared to the Soul points’ value of the Demonized Mammoth, Zhang Yanhang was more concerned about the Stamina consumption of the Death Wave Skill.

How to put it—Stamina consumption indeed increased, but it did not reach the worst-case scenario Zhang Yanhang had anticipated, like increasing five, six, seven, eightfold; yet, it also didn’t meet the best scenario, such as only increasing by half or doubling.

In reality, Zhang Yanhang felt that after his Death Wave Skill had advanced to Original LV.6 stage, Stamina consumption had only doubled, that is, it had increased to three times the original usage.

Based on Zhang Yanhang’s Stamina limit, the Death Wave at the original LV.MAX stage could be released about ninety times in a row. Now, with consumption increased to three times the original, he could only perform around thirty successive Death Waves.

Considering the Stamina he currently had left, he could probably only release it about a dozen times at most. Of course, the thirty mentioned here refers to the Death Wave at full power and maximum coverage. If he were to reduce the coverage, he could potentially perform it about sixty times.

Although it would be insufficient under normal circumstances, it was manageable for now, given that the Demonized Swamp was almost completely cleansed, with only the last forty square kilometers remaining.

With an area that small, even without using Death Wave to enhance hunting efficiency, Zhang Yanhang could complete the cleansing of the Demonized Swamp within the day—it would just be much slower.

While he had already experienced the increase in Stamina consumption of the Death Wave Skill, he had not had a chance to feel its ability for a Blood Remaining Kill.

Zhang Yanhang hadn’t felt it simply because the Life Value Limit of the Demonized Mammoth was too low, far less than nine hundred. Thus, it was instantly killed by the Death Wave, not meeting the prerequisite condition of having ten percent Life Value remaining after taking a hit from the Death Wave Skill.

So, Zhang Yanhang thought he could only wait to test this ability on monsters with higher Life Value Limits that he might encounter later.

However, there weren’t many monsters in the Demonized Swamp that fit these conditions; in fact, only the Lord Monster, Demonized Four-Eyed Wild Boar Queen Pei Qi, met this criteria.

After all, the ordinary Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boar is just a Second Tier Three Star Monster, and Zhang Yanhang’s Death Wave·Original LV.6 could instantly kill even Second Tier Four-star Monsters, so it would definitely be impossible to fully test it out on an ordinary Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boar.

After wiping out ten Demonized Mammoths with a single Death Wave, taking out one-twentieth of the designated number of Demonized Mammoths in the Demonized Swamp’s swamp area, Zhang Yanhang began to stand still and quietly wait for the drop treasure boxes to refresh.

Seconds later, as expected, two blue quality drop treasure boxes appeared above the corpses of the Demonized Mammoths that Zhang Yanhang had killed; one was the guaranteed treasure box dropped on a First Kill, while the other was a normal drop treasure box.

After all, based on his previous experience of hunting Demonized Emperor Crocodiles, roughly every seven Second-tier Monsters killed would yield one drop treasure box, and since he had killed ten at once this time, it was entirely normal to get a drop treasure box.

Zhang Yanhang immediately went up to pick up the two drop treasure boxes and stashed them into his waist bag, then quickly moved toward the other Demonized Mammoths at high speed. He still had thirty square kilometers to clean up, and he couldn’t freely use the Death Wave Skill, so it was indeed better to hurry.

...

October 27th, Tuesday, the day after the Double Ninth Festival, and also the third day since Zhang Yanhang entered Ashen World, at 9:53 PM, in the swamp area of the Demonized Swamp, the habitat of Demonized Mammoths.

[Successfully killed a Second Tier Two Star Monster ’Demonized Mammoth (Ordinary)’ ×1, Soul points +80.]

[Successfully killed a Second Tier Two Star Monster ’Demonized Mammoth (Ordinary)’ ×1, Soul points +80.]

[Successfully killed a Second Tier Two Star Monster ’Demonized Mammoth (Ordinary)’ ×1, Soul points +80.]

...

After shooting dead several Demonized Mammoths surrounding him with the Six Roots Pure Soul Passage Spear, Zhang Yanhang began to stand in place and quietly await the refresh of drop treasure boxes; in the past ten minutes, he had already cleared an area of ten square kilometers in the swamp region.

Converting the hunting efficiency, he was able to clear roughly one square kilometer every minute on average, roughly the same as when he was clearing the lake area of Demonized Emperor Crocodiles.

However, the density of Demonized Mammoths is actually a bit higher than that of the Demonized Emperor Crocodiles, and some of them even live in herds. Moreover, unlike having to dive underwater to hunt monsters like the Demonized Emperor Crocodile, Zhang Yanhang’s hunting efficiency should have been faster in the swamp area.

Unfortunately, due to the increased skill cost of the Death Wave Skill, he could no longer use the Death Wave Skill as freely as before, so the hunting efficiency was still about the same as with the Demonized Emperor Crocodiles.

If he could still use the Death Wave Skill as freely as before, Zhang Yanhang estimated he could clear one square kilometer every half minute and increase the hunting efficiency by twice as much, but unfortunately, the skill consumption of Death Wave had increased too sharply.

This was exactly why Zhang Yanhang left the Death Wave Skill to be upgraded last, as not being able to use it freely really affected the hunting efficiency.

If Zhang Yanhang had upgraded the Death Wave Skill to Original LV.6 from the beginning, he reckoned that he wouldn’t be able to clear the four hundred square kilometers of the Demonized Swamp in four days, possibly not even in eight days. To this, Zhang Yanhang could only say that he was truly very foresighted.

"The swamp area of the Demonized Swamp cleaning plan Phase Five occupies a total area of forty square kilometers, and I have now already cleared ten square kilometers, which is already one-quarter of it. Just thirty more square kilometers and I can clear the swamp area and then the entire Demonized Swamp.

At present, this ten-square-kilometer cleaning progress translates to 25% of the specific progress for Phase Five of the Demonized Swamp cleaning plan. Based on the hunting efficiency, it should take at most another half an hour to fully clear the entire swamp area.

It’s now just 9:53 PM, with more than two hours left until the end of the day. It seems I can easily reach my goal of clearing the entire Demonized Swamp today."

The area Zhang Yanhang had just cleared, if converted to the overall progress of the Demonized Swamp cleaning plan, would increase the completion progress from the original 88.8% to 92.5%, a further increase of 3.7% in cleaning efficiency compared to before.

After waiting quietly in place for a few seconds, a blue quality drop treasure box appeared above the corpse of a Demonized Mammoth right under his feet, which Zhang Yanhang bent down to pick up and then immediately stored in his waist bag.

He had cleared roughly seventy Demonized Mammoths up to now, not too many—in fact, quite few—but they were of high quality, worth seven times the Soul points of Demonized Saber-toothed Tigers, eight times that of Demonized Dogtooth Giant Apes, and nine times that of Demonized Maned Tooth Beasts.

Hence, when he opened the treasure box later, he should still be able to obtain a considerable number of Soul points. Although Zhang Yanhang couldn’t guarantee a large amount, at least a five-digit sum should still be no big problem, and of course, if the situation was good, even a six-digit sum wouldn’t be too difficult.

According to his experience summarized from clearing these ten square kilometers, the density of Demonized Mammoths in the swamp area was indeed a bit higher than that of the Demonized Emperor Crocodiles in the lake area. Still, because the density of monsters for the Demonized Emperor Crocodiles themselves wasn’t high to begin with, averaging only five or six per square kilometer.

Therefore, the number of Demonized Mammoths was not actually that many—only about six or seven per square kilometer—and in total only two hundred. Zhang Yanhang had already killed over a third of them with the seventy he had taken down, so even if he wanted higher monster density, it just wasn’t achievable.

Every time he encountered such a situation with low monster density, Zhang Yanhang would always think about having an ability that could attract monsters. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any way to acquire such a thing, and he would probably have to remain in a daydreaming state for a long time in the future.

After waiting in place for a few seconds, Zhang Yanhang unexpectedly found that this time, there was no treasure box drop; he had killed eight Demonized Mammoths all at once, yet there was no reaction. Although such situations were quite common, Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but sigh.

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