Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World

The two spider automata familiarized themselves with the surroundings. After spinning in circles several times, they started moving forward under Nie Yan’s command, their eight legs moving in a rhythmic fashion. 

One spider moved faster than the other. A gap of two meters opened up between them.

The faster spider soon approached the chest, only a meter to go. It investigated the surroundings, searching for signs of traps.

While Nie Yan was patiently waiting, Lil’ Gold and later also the shadow clone arrived back by his side. They’d fallen behind earlier. Luckily, Angud only cared for Nie Yan and the Death God’s Edge in his possession. Other than Paladin Lafus who’d unfortunately been in his way, Angud didn’t bother with the other two. They were ant-like existences to him, not worth his time.

Angud was still standing outside the pithole, seemingly unable to come to a decision.

Nie Yan unsummoned Lil’ Gold. His large frame made it impossible to go unnoticed, not to mention the cave would only get narrower from here. There was no way a large dragon like him could squeeze through. As for the shadow clone, Nie Yan decided to keep it around for a while longer. He shifted his focus back onto the chest.

About a minute later. BANG! The faster spider was blasted into smithereens. The sound of the explosion wasn’t all that loud, but the power was something else.

An explosive trap!

After a while, the smoke and dust settled, revealing metallic parts scattered over the ground.

A whooshing sound rang out from the depths of the cave. Nie Yan entered stealth and hid behind some larger rocks, just in time to see several wraiths floating over. He couldn’t make out their appearances. Only their glowing red eyes which shone through the darkness. After hovering around the chest for a while and failing to find anything amiss, they returned back whence they came. 

A group of Level 200 wraiths! Seven in total and one was an Elite!

This was a Level 200 map! Normally, if Nie Yan were to accidentally stumble into such a place, he would quickly turn around and leave. Similar to Level 50 and Level 100, Level 200 was a watershed in combat power for monsters.

These wraiths had no consciousness, filled only with the singular instinct of killing the living. Appearing and disappearing unpredictably, they were difficult to pin down. Such frightening monsters definitely couldn’t be provoked!

Even so, Nie Yan still felt reluctant to leave the chest be.

Thinking for a bit, he had the other spider go forward. After inspecting the area around the chest without triggering any more traps, it seemed safe to open it.

The Unknown Transfer Scrolls in his hotbar were no longer grayed out. Nie Yan could leave at any time!

“Tch… I already cleared all the traps. Leaving a Legendary chest would be such a waste…” The greed in Nie Yan’s heart was fighting the rational in his brain.

After thinking for a bit, Nie Yan put down a marker. Like this, he could come back here at any time.

“Let’s try opening that chest,” Nie Yan muttered. He slowly approached the chest. At three meters away, he came to a halt and warily looked around. Calming his breathing, he continued on forward and arrived in front of the chest. 

The chest wasn’t large, but the craftsmanship was superb. Even the simple grooves on the sides were carved with meticulous care. Its ancient appearance was hidden underneath a thick layer of dust. After wiping it clean, it looked brand new.

The chest was sealed by a lock that looked quite intricate despite only being the size of a thumb. Picking it would take quite some time.

Nie Yan looked pensively at the chest. He didn’t know when or if the wraiths would come back. If they caught him opening the chest, that’d be it for him most likely. “Screw it! I’ve already come this far, no point in turning back now!” He crouched down and started picking the lock.

Time passed by extremely slowly. This lock was a relic left behind from the Era of Darkness. It was extremely complex. If not for his Lockpicking Specialist skill, Nie Yan would have no way of opening it.

After a minute, the progress was only at 55%. Opening this chest was taking way too long! 

Suddenly, several shrieks echoed out from the depths of the cave, piercing Nie Yan’s eardrums.

“Shit! They’re back!”

Nie Yan spotted the wraiths coming over in the far distance. They immediately went into a frenzy upon discovering his presence. They were like bloodsucking evil spirits, devouring any life they came across.

Seeing seven pairs of red glowing eyes getting closer and closer, Nie Yan had the shadow clone go up and try to stall them.

The shadow clone quickly arrived in front of the wraiths. Annihilation Slash! 10 flaming swords emerged in the air and cleaved down on them.

BANG! BANG! BANG! The massive attack filled the chamber with smoke and dust.

To Nie Yan’s dismay, none of the wraiths died. Even the lowest health one among them still had over 60,000,000 health. These were only ordinary monsters! He couldn’t even see the health of the Elite-class wraith.

The wraiths lunged forward and slashed down with their claws! PSFHT! PSFHT! PSFHT! Their attacks sliced right through the shadow clone. 

Nie Yan glanced at the chest—89%. So close! He just needed a bit more time!

However, the wraiths had already closed in on him. They were only three meters away.

“FUCK!” Nie Yan cursed. He had no choice but to give up on opening the chest.

Nie Yan tried to leap away, only to find a wraith right in front of him. Brandishing his blade, he stabbed forth with the Bloody Dagger.

Nie Yan’s attack was just about to pierce the wraith, when it suddenly vanished into thin air.

PSFHT! A claw slashed into Nie Yan’s back. A damage value of 17,000 floated up above his head.

“Shit! I need to escape!” Nie Yan flicked his wrist, an Unknown Transfer Scroll appeared in his hand. Just as he was about to crush it, his eyes widened as a silhouette appeared before him. She wore white robes and looked just like a goddess, with a pure and holy aura that rejected all that was profane around her. A faint but alluring smile hung over her lips.

“Xie Yao, what are you doing here?” Nie Yan asked. The instant he gave voice to his confusion, he realized something was wrong. An illusion! 

Phantom Apparition! How did he forget about this skill!?

Some wraiths had a special skill that caused a target to hallucinate. The illusions of ordinary wraiths were easy to see through. However, the illusions from these wraiths had completely sucked Nie Yan in. This was definitely a first!

Nie Yan tried to focus his mind and break out of the illusion, only to jolt in pain as two more wraiths dug their claws into his back. He let out a groan and collapsed on the ground.

These wraiths were too strong! Their every attack sliced almost a third off of Nie Yan’s health bar. When the fourth claw dug deep into his back, his health bottomed out.

Seeing Nie Yan’s corpse on the ground, the wraiths searched around the chamber. Failing to find any other intruders, they returned to a passive state and headed back into the depths of the cave.

After some time, Nie Yan’s finger twitched. A bit of colour returned to his pale and icy face as he slowly regained consciousness. His eyes jolted open, and he hurriedly crawled back to his feet in preparation to evade an attack, only to discover the wraiths were nowhere to be found.

Nie Yan breathed out the turbid air in his lungs. Looking around, he saw the Death God’s Edge, Paternoster’s Warhammer, and the chapters from the Book of Order scattered all over the ground. He hurriedly picked them up. Seeing that his current health was only at one point, he scurried over to a corner of the cave, sat down behind some boulders, and started recuperating.

After class advancing to a Luminous Dancer, Nie Yan had acquired a skill called Death and Rebirth. It allowed him to revive upon death, and had a cooldown of two days.

Nie Yan never procced this skill before because he had never died up until now. Today, however, he had lost his life at the hands of these wraiths. Thankfully, they were beings without consciousness and so wouldn’t rob player drops.

Looking at his experience bar, Nie Yan found he’d only lost about 10%. This death penalty wasn’t all that bad, pretty much the best outcome of a bad situation.

Before long, Nie Yan was back to full health.

Nie Yan stood up and glanced over at the chest. He needed to think of some special way to open it!

The allure of a Legendary chest in a Level 200 map was immense!

Nie Yan assessed the situation. He needed at least 90 seconds to open the chest, while the wraiths would notice any movements within the chamber in 60 seconds. So, it was impossible to open the chest undetected. 

The passageway up ahead was too narrow. Lil’ Gold’s frame was too large to fit in. The shadow clone could go in, but it couldn’t last against the wraiths for more than 15 seconds. The illusions of these wraiths were simply too powerful!

Opening this Legendary chest was as difficult as scaling the heavens for Nie Yan. He just needed 15 more seconds to open it, but figuring out a way to buy that time was giving him a terrible headache.

Nie Yan couldn’t think of anything no matter how much he racked his brains. It seemed like he could only give up for the time being. The chances of another player snatching the chest before him were pretty much nill, and he had already placed a marker here anyway. 

“Guess this will have to wait for some other time,” Nie Yan muttered.

After using several Unknown Transfer Scrolls in quick succession, Nie Yan found himself in the middle of a barren plain. He had no clue where he was. Angud wouldn’t give up so easily in all likelihood. What should he do? Even if he couldn’t deal with Angud, he would have to at least think of a way to hide from him. No one would feel at ease being chased down by a Level 180 Demonified Lord.

Nie Yan rubbed his chin. When his eyes fell on the Instant Transmission skill, an idea flashed through his mind. There was a way!

“Let’s do this!” Nie Yan summoned the Darkwing Dragon and jumped on its back before flying off towards the southeast.