Elemental Combat Technique, the Powerful Boss

"ROAR!!"

The four Elite Feral Beasts flanking the Ancient Sea Giant Crocodile boss let out furious bellows and lunged straight at Lu Yuan.

He stepped back immediately — and the third Elite crocodile crashed down right where he'd been, its massive jaws snapping shut on empty air.

He couldn't help but frown.

These four Elite crocodiles were probably the strongest Elite Grade Ancient Sea Giant Crocodiles he'd ever faced.

Crocodiles were built low to the ground. Short legs meant poor lateral mobility, and Lu Yuan exploited that mercilessly. He sidestepped the angry charge with ease and slipped around to the flank of the nearest one. His heavy sword raked sideways across its armored side.

Metal screamed against scale. A gash opened. Blood welled up — but the wound wasn't fatal. The defense on these particular Elites was a notch above anything he'd encountered before.

The other three Elite crocodiles closed in on him from three directions.

From the pool, the enormous Ancient Sea Giant Crocodile raised its head and sent out a long, resonant roar at the sight of him.

Then the water began to churn.

*Crash!!*

The surface erupted. Something vast parted the water as it moved toward the shallows, its colossal frame emerging gradually into the open air.

It hauled itself onto the bank.

The four Elite-rank crocodiles, each nearly ten meters long, immediately fell into formation around it — flanking it on all sides, every pair of cold eyes fixed unblinkingly on Lu Yuan.

The creature stood nearly two meters at the shoulder.

Over fourteen meters from snout to tail.

Its scales were black as spilled ink, each one looking dense enough to stop artillery. The horn jutting from the center of its forehead was nearly a meter long, curved like a scimitar, catching the sunlight in cold, sharp flashes.

A powerful aura rolled off its massive frame in waves. Lu Yuan felt it like a stone settling on his chest.

*A Boss Grade Feral Beast. Absolutely absurd.*

Cold sweat prickled at his temples.

*Facing one Boss Grade and four Elite Grade Feral Beasts simultaneously — even he couldn't stop the sweat from forming.*

*How is anyone supposed to fight this?*

Just then, the hairs on the back of Lu Yuan's neck stood straight up.

A threat unlike anything he'd felt before slammed through his every instinct.

His expression snapped cold. He turned.

The Boss Grade Ancient Sea Giant Crocodile's forehead horn was pulsing with a faint blue glow.

Water vapor gathered in the air, condensed, and shaped itself into arrows. They launched toward Lu Yuan.

*Combat Technique.*

He didn't think. He detonated every muscle he had and threw himself to one side.

*BOOM!!*

A blue water arrow tore through the space where he'd just stood and hammered into the cliff face.

Water exploded outward. The stone cratered — hairline fractures spiderwebbing in all directions from the point of impact.

Fortunately, he'd already taken a Potent Speed Enhancement Serum earlier. He'd barely squeezed out of its path in time.

He stared at the impact point.

The crater was nearly thirty centimeters deep.

His scalp crawled.

*A Boss Grade Ancient Sea Giant Crocodile. With a ranged Elemental Type Combat Technique.*

*Just Trainee Rank territory — and the destructive power is already like this?*

*How do you even begin to fight this?*

He had one thought in that moment: *I might actually die here.*

But the Boss didn't give him time to dwell on it.

Water arrow after water arrow launched from that glowing horn in rapid succession, relentlessly chasing him across the valley floor. He had no choice but to keep moving, keep running — dust and rock chips spraying across his back each time a shot came close.

He reached into his pack while moving and pulled out a row of vials. Blood-red. Cyan. Black. One after another, he drained them without slowing.

Strength Enhancement Serum. Speed Enhancement Serum. Defense Enhancement Serum.

All Potent Grade.

For an average person, one such serum was the absolute limit — the concentrated power would overwhelm a normal body. Two simultaneously would cause serious internal damage. Three would kill you outright. Only someone like Lu Yuan, with 98% tempering and Elite Grade genes encoded into his body, had physical defense that had already surpassed the normal ceiling for a Trainee Rank Gene Warrior. Only he could swallow multiple Potent Serums at once and walk away intact.

Power surged through him like a rising tide.

His strength climbed by nearly eighty percent.

He flexed his hands around the hilt of his heavy sword and bared his teeth at the sensation.

*That's what Potent Serums feel like.*

Powerful Spirit Power stirred deep within him — a force pressing outward against the walls of his flesh, his very body straining to contain it. A faint, electric prickling sensation spread across his skin from the inside out.

*Combat Technique.*

The instinct carved into his genes. It rose on its own, not by conscious decision.

His eyes sharpened. He picked out the nearest Elite crocodile and broke into a sprint.

His speed now vastly outpaced theirs. The Elites had no hope of laying a hand on him.

He was beside the first one before it could react.

*Ding!!*

A flash of dark sword light. The Elite Ancient Sea Giant Crocodile barely managed a single sideways shuffle before the blade was already past its guard.

A grinding screech of metal on scale as his heavy sword raked across its armored flank. Blood fountained from the gap.

Still not fatal — the defense on these Elites was genuinely stronger than anything he'd faced before in this valley — but the wound was deep. Before the creature could recover, he twisted the blade and drove it in the rest of the way.

Blood poured like a waterfall. The massive body crashed to the ground.

He smiled.

*Two Elites down in quick succession.*

A flicker of grim satisfaction.

He could see it happening — the remaining Elite escorts had quietly stepped back a few paces, putting distance between themselves and the melee. Careful not to catch a shot from the Boss's ranged fire.

*Good.*

The other crocodiles snarled and surged toward him. And from the distant river came the sound of churning water and breaking waves. He looked.

Masses of Ancient Sea Giant Crocodiles were pouring toward him from the river — great numbers of common-grade ones, with several exceptionally large Elite-grade ones mixed among them.

*Where did all these crocodiles come from?!*

He'd thought he'd killed every crocodile in this valley on his way through.

*Apparently not.*

The pool's exit was packed solid with bodies. Four Elite Grade and one Boss Grade still waited inside. Two of the faster Elite crocodiles had already broken clear of the pool mouth and were circling to cut off his retreat.

He was completely surrounded.

*This lineup was crushing.*

*Then every instinct screamed again.*

Lu Yuan narrowed his eyes and lunged sideways just as the next water arrow tore through the air. The shot missed him by a hair and struck the cliff behind him — a fresh crater punched into the stone, dozens of centimeters deep, cracks radiating outward like a shattered pane of glass.

He stared at the damage.

*One direct hit. Even with his current defense, it would cost him half his life.*

He looked toward where the shot had come from. The Boss Grade Ancient Sea Giant Crocodile's horn glimmered with fading blue light, those cold eyes watching him from behind the Elite escort with complete, unmoved indifference.

*That was the most dangerous element of all. Not the Elites. The Boss, standing back and shooting.*

Then the Boss heard its subordinates screaming.

"ROAR!!"

It bellowed and came at him directly — *thud, thud, thud* — the ground shaking with every step.

An eight-meter Elite crocodile happened to be in its path. The Boss didn't pause. One massive forelimb swung and sent the Elite tumbling through the air, clearing the obstacle without breaking stride.

Lu Yuan gritted his teeth, gripped the heavy sword with both hands, and wove between two Elite crocodiles' lunging mouths — jaws that could have swallowed him whole — before launching himself at the Boss's flank.

He stabbed.

*Clang!!*

Sparks flew everywhere.

His blade sank in less than five centimeters. Then stopped cold.

*Five centimeters.*

He stared at the sword, lodged uselessly in that ink-black scale.

*Five centimeters wasn't even as deep as the Boss's scale armor was thick.*

He hadn't reached flesh at all.

His face underwent a complete transformation.

He had 98% tempering. Elite Grade genes encoded into his body. And this was all he could manage.

*The defense on this thing was absolutely absurd.*

*He'd had no idea.*

Then the tail hit him.

A vast, sweeping arc he hadn't cleared in time. The impact drained the color from his face in an instant; his body launched sideways and slammed hard into the nearby cliff wall.

*CRACK. CRACK CRACK.*

Fractures spread through the stone. Lu Yuan peeled off the wall and hit the ground.

He grimaced through the full-body pain and took stock of his surroundings. The fourth Elite crocodile was nearby, tail still sweeping back and forth at a measured pace. The Boss's horn was already glowing blue again.

*No room to breathe.*

*How do you fight something like this?*

He forced himself to his feet as the next barrage launched, and in the same motion his eyes locked onto an Elite crocodile positioned between himself and the Boss. He sprinted toward it, putting it in the line of fire.

The Elite, furious at being used as cover, twisted around to attack him.

*BOOM!!*

The water arrow meant for Lu Yuan struck the Elite instead. The eight-meter crocodile was blasted sideways through the air by the impact, letting out a shriek as blood sprayed.

*That opened a window.*

The Boss charged toward where Lu Yuan should have been.

Found nothing.

A black afterimage flickered.

Lu Yuan landed on the Boss Grade Ancient Sea Giant Crocodile's enormous back.

The Boss let out a furious roar, whipping around and finding only empty air.

Lu Yuan's expression went cold and hard. He raised the heavy sword and drove it straight down with everything he had.

Powerful Spirit Power erupted within him — a vast force pressing outward from somewhere deep, straining against the limits of his flesh, sending sharp, electric prickling sensations racing across every nerve in his body. His physical form could barely contain it.

*Combat Technique.*

The instinct carved into his genes. Rising on its own.