Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed The World

Nie Yan was absolutely confident in his ability to kill Scaled Frogs. Especially since leveling up, his speed had increased a lot, and he could disregard even a Lord-class Scaled Frog. Now that there was only a one-level gap between them, he would no longer need to rely on anything but the blade in his hand.

Under the cover of stealth, Nie Yan crept up to the Lord-class Scaled Frog until he was only ten meters away. The monster still hadn’t noticed Nie Yan, who then scanned it with Transcendent Insight.

Nie Yan estimated that it would only take him twenty minutes to whittle down this Scaled Frog’s health. Back when Tang Yao had first taken down one of these, it had taken him a full ten hours. Although his lower level and damage output at the time was part of this disparity, no Mage’s cast speed could compare to the rapid-fire offense of a Thief. Additionally, Nie Yan could now induce high amounts of continuous damage using Splitting Edge to cause bleed and the Scarlet Poison Ring to inflict poison. With these items, just a casual attack could cause an enemy to lose 50 hitpoints per second, which would increase to over 70 or even 80 health per second when stacked with a bleed skill like Eviscerate. Just the continuous damage alone would take a huge chunk of the boss’s health. Unlike attack damage, continuous damage ignored defense. This made it especially effective on high-level monsters with tough defenses.

“You be careful then,” Yao Yao fretted. She was worried about Nie Yan’s safety.

“Don’t worry.” With a faint curve of his mouth, Nie Yan snuck up behind the Lord-class Scaled Frog. The monster had just felt something and was about to turn around to investigate when Nie Yan suddenly rushed at him with a burst of speed and struck out with a Concussive Blow.

The Scaled Frog froze in place, having been stunned for a couple of seconds.

Nie Yan’s dagger stabbed into the monster’s back with an Eviscerate, cutting it open and causing blood to spurt out.

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…

A continuous stream of damage values floated up from the Scaled Frog’s head. First came the damage from his attack, followed by bleed from Splitting Edge, then poison damage, and finally Eviscerate’s bleed damage. This frighteningly high damage output even put a Mage wearing a high-damage set to shame. Continuous damage was extremely terrifying, especially against monsters like the Scaled Frog with strong defenses.

With Nie Yan’s current damage output, he could rightfully look down upon anything equal to his level. Even fighting creatures above his level wouldn’t pose much of a challenge.

The Lord-class Scaled Frog turned its head, and looking almost like a massive tank, charged toward Nie Yan. Accurately predicting where its attack would land, Nie Yan’s figure flashed as he circled behind the giant frog once more. The dagger in his hand easily pierced the frog’s hard scales as he quickly used Backstab.

Nie Yan’s dagger stabbed into the Scaled Frog’s back repeatedly despite its attempt to turn around and face its foe. Damage values continued to stream into the air above its head.

Nie Yan’s movements were as moving clouds and flowing water[1]. He was so fast that each time his adversary tried to attack him, he could immediately predict the trajectory of its attack from its starting movements and dodge with minimal effort to avoid the attack.

These flexible maneuvers weren’t any worse than what a true Shadow Dancer could do.

This was what shadow dancing was all about. This level of skill allowed a thief to look down upon all magic users. Even Fighters without impact skills that did area-of-effect knockbacks would only die when facing a Shadow Dancer.

Whereever his dagger released a dazzling light, blood gushed out into the air like flowers blooming

The Lord-class Scaled Frog’s health quickly fell, chunk by chunk. Nie Yan’s damaging capabilities were simply too fierce. Even though the boss was recovering 20 hit points per second, that measly healing ability was no use in the face of massive bleed and poison damage.

As Sun watched Nie Yan’s actions closely, his eyes took on a wolfish glint. This level of skill was exactly what he needed to achieve! Such accurate judgement! Such perfect dodges! His mind had a flash of inspiration as he saw what a true Thief was supposed to be!

The master opened the door, but the step was his to take[2]. Nie Yan had already shown Sun what shadow dancing looked like. It was now up to him to comprehend it for himself.

Nie Yan’s damage output alone was plenty to kill this Lord-class Scaled Frog. There was no need for the others to intervene.

However, Yao Yao still waved her staff and cast Holy Smite. The spell struck the Scaled Frog's body, dealing 15 points of damage to its health. Although this bit of peanut damage wasn’t much, any bit helped. With Nie Yan doing so much damage, she had no fear of accidentally shifting aggro onto herself.

Yu Lan, Sun, and Bai Kaishui also took out their weapons and began attacking the boss. Even though they could only do 1 or 2 damage per hit, it was still better than doing nothing.

Ten minutes later, the Lord-class Scaled Frog was still furiously struggling to land its first hit on Nie Yan. It was now that the frog opened its mouth and spat out a scarlet cloud of toxins, which quickly billowed through the air.

When Nie Yan saw this poisonous cloud, he quickly retreated. Because of his excellent timing, the toxin didn’t affect him in the slightest.

Despite the Lord-class Scaled Frog being obscured by the toxic red fog, continuous damage values could still be seen floating up nonstop from its head. Its recovery speed increased somewhat in the toxic fog, but it still couldn’t keep up with the incredible continuous damage inflicted by Nie Yan.

Backing up ten meters, Nie Yan put his dagger away. He took his Crossbow of Blood out and began to shoot a flurry of bolts. With a succession of sounds, three bolts found their mark. However, their damage was minimal. Each bolt only did 5 or 6 damage to the monster, which now had only 23% of its health left. This had gone even faster than Nie Yan had expected.

The cloud of poison quickly spread to cover a fifty-foot radius around the boss, albeit somewhat diluted. During the time, the continuous damage effects wore off and the boss’s natural regeneration began to slowly restore its health. If this was allowed to continue, their efforts for the last ten minutes would go to waste.

With a bottle of Junior Antidote in his hand, he stepped forward to test the venomous cloud. Five points per second. It seems that it has truly diluted after spreading this far. However, even though the effect was greatly weakened, 5 points per second was still alarming. At that rate, Nie Yan would lose 300 points in a minute and die in two if he let it freely tick away at his health. Seeing this, he chugged the bottle in his hand. Because it had a cooldown of five minutes but only lasted for thirty seconds, the Junior Antidote was not particularly effective against sustained poisons like this one.

It was fortunate they hadn’t called over Resplendent Bladelight and the others. Otherwise, they would have had trouble dealing with this powerful poison released by the Lord-class Scaled Frog. After all, Resplendent Bladelight wasn’t high enough level yet. It wouldn’t be until he was around Level 30 that he could safely tank this boss.

Nie Yan did a roll to evade the attack of the Lord-class Scaled Frog, then darted through the poisonous fog to continue his assault.

The Lord-class Scaled Frog rushed fiercely at Nie Yan whose body flashed to the side. His movements were like the wind as he once more arrived behind the frog and attacked it with a Backstab followed by Eviscerate.

The giant frog leaped but missed yet again. It’s bulky body just couldn’t keep up with Nie Yan’s agility.

Nie Yan instantly unleashed his strongest attacks, bursting the Lord-class Scaled Frog down to five percent in two minutes. The boss became enraged, increasing its speed greatly. Now the that monster’s speed was higher than Nie Yan’s, he could definitely feel the difficulty spike. He couldn’t just casually run circles around the boss anymore.

The Lord-class Scaled Frog tried to ram sideways into Nie Yan, who could only hastily dodge. He retreated backward at full speed with Swift Retreat.

The Scaled Frog angrily chased after Nie Yan. Although his flight through the woods seemed dangerous, he was always careful over the distance between them. Even at its closest, the frog never had a chance to land a hit on Nie Yan.

Yao Yao and the others didn’t slack behind, stepping up their attacks. Although their damage didn’t increase, the previously insignificant attacks now began to take chunks out of its remaining health. After all, the boss only had less than five percent of its health left.

Nie Yan’s continuous damage effects also continued to chip away at the monster’s health.

It was almost dead!

The Lord-class Scaled Frog suddenly leapt high into the air and descended toward Nie Yan. Just as it was about to crush him, Nie Yan used Shadow Waltz and disappeared.

With a massive thud, the gigantic frog slammed heavily into the ground. Everyone held their breaths, until Nie Yan reappeared behind it with a blur, striking out with Assassinate. Immediately, he added yet another Eviscerate to its back and watched the monster’s health fall from 4% to 3%.

By the time the Lord-class Scaled Frog turned around to attack Nie Yan, he had already retreated over five meters away. His plan was exactly to chip away at the boss’ health with continuous damage until it died!

With only 1% health remaining, the creature still furiously stormed after Nie Yan. Yao Yao’s spells and the others’ arrows continued to land on the massive frog.

The Lord-class Scaled Frog chased after Nie Yan, catching up bit by bit until he was almost able to attack him.

-12

Finally, its final sliver of health was drained away. Its plump body, having lost support, hit the ground with an immense thud.

“It’s dead,” Sun said.

During the entire fight, the others hadn’t done much at all. The fight was basically carried entirely by Nie Yan. A Level 29 player soloing a Level 30 Lord was truly hard to believe, but Nie Yan had done it right in front of them.

Nie Yan looked at his experience bar. It had risen by 12%. While this was still a significant sum, the gains were clearly incomparable to the ridiculous levelling speed brought about by killing monsters many levels above him.

「Look at what it dropped.」Bai Kaishui curiously sent over through team chat.

What would a Lord-class monster drop?

Nie Yan bent down to pick the items up. There were two gems, a skill book, and a blood-red medallion. The metal medallion was unadorned, with only a Fiend Totem engraved on it. It looked extremely eerie and exuded a bloody stench.

Nie Yan’s heart leapt. He got a Slaughter Fiend Medallion?!

In the previous timeline, he had seen pictures of the medallion as well as its properties, so he had a vague recollection of it. Once he picked it up, a crisp system tone rung out. He opened the message.

There were two options below it. He could either hit confirm or destroy. Only he could use this particular Slaughter Fiend Medallion. Nie Yan naturally picked confirm without any hesitation.

[1] An idiom that means natural, unforced, smooth, etc. It’s often used to describe calligraphy / fancy writing.

[2] Buddhist saying, meaning that a teacher can teach, but the student has to learn for himself.