Reborn with Infinite System Points, I Can Directly Change Item's Value-Chapter 25 --The Monster Tide Escalates, and the Players Fall into Despair
When they saw that pitifully small damage number, the warrior player froze.
"What the hell is this?"
He thought it was some kind of bug, so he immediately activated his Heavy Strike skill again.
The greatsword came crashing down on the red-eyed monster’s head.
[-90!]
A strike that would normally deal at least 600 damage had been reduced to only 90.
The warrior player instantly realized something was very, very wrong—but it was already too late.
The red-eyed monster suddenly sped up.
In the blink of an eye, its savage claws pierced through the warrior player’s neck.
[-2100!]
A bright red damage number appeared.
The warrior player’s HP was instantly slashed by more than half.
And that was not all—his face quickly began turning green.
He had directly entered a poisoned, slowed state.
Only now did the other players realize something was off.
Some of them hurriedly cast Detection, and their hearts immediately sank.
[Red-Eyed Goblin] Lv. 25
[HP]: 16,000
[Attack]: 1,000
[Defense]: 1,500
[Skill]: Berserk
...
The first two waves had been low-level monsters below level 10.
So how had this third wave suddenly turned into level 25 red-eyed monsters?
And judging from their stats, they were even stronger than ordinary level 25 monsters!
"Run! These monsters aren’t right!"
Some players reacted in time and screamed as they retreated backward.
But because everyone had charged too aggressively earlier, the players in the rear had not noticed what was happening at all.
Layer upon layer, they packed together so tightly that those trying to retreat had no path left.
They could only watch helplessly as they were shoved alive toward the monster tide.
The red-eyed monsters might have moved slowly, but when it came to slaughtering players, they showed absolutely no mercy.
[-2189!]
[-2456!]
[-2798!]
Dense clusters of blood-red damage numbers burst over the players’ heads.
The squishier players turned into white light in the very first clash, their bodies vanishing on the spot.
All the equipment they had gotten from the first two waves of the monster tide was destroyed on the spot.
And for the next three days, they would not be able to reappear.
Even tankier classes like warriors could not withstand the monsters’ onslaught.
The red-eyed monsters only needed two or three hits to wipe out their HP.
The entire monster tide was like a meat grinder, slowly crushing apart the players who had charged forward of their own accord.
The battlefield was filled with players’ screams.
"Help! Stop charging forward—fall back!"
"There are no elites or loot up front—up there is hell!"
"If we don’t retreat now, we’re all going to die here! Run!"
Only at this moment did the monster tide finally reveal its true fangs.
And it filled several thousand players with terror.
The surviving players cried and fled in the direction of Novice Village.
As long as they could retreat back inside Novice Village, they could still survive—at the very least, they would be able to keep their levels and the equipment they had looted.
Even now, what these players were thinking about was still protecting their own gains,
not regrouping for a counterattack.
And because of that, reality taught them its cruelest lesson.
Bang!
The faster assassin-type players were the first to reach the entrance to Novice Village.
But when they tried to rush inside, they slammed heavily into an invisible wall of air.
A large number of players crashed into it and fell to the ground in a daze.
Novice Village would not let them enter!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The earth trembled.
When they turned back sharply, the red-eyed monster tide was already closing in behind them.
Their faces went deathly pale.
"It’s over. We’re completely finished!"
...
John took in the chaos at the foot of the mountain without missing a single detail.
No surprise showed on his face. Inwardly, he murmured,
"So after waiting this long, it’s finally here."
John slowly rose to his feet, standing with his hands behind his back as he looked down over the battlefield below.
It still was not time for him to make his move.
He had to wait.
"I just hope those top guilds and the NPC army can hold this wave."
John looked at the player crowd surrounded layer upon layer by the red-eyed monster tide and silently thought to himself.
...
"Everyone, calm down!"
Amid the chaotic tide of players, the guild leaders of the major guilds began rallying their members and reorganizing the line.
The mage guild leader whose kills had been "stolen" by John at Wolffang Gorge roared loudly,
"If you don’t want to die, then turn the hell around!
These monsters may be strong, but there are only so many of them.
The lower-level players stand to the side—let those of us with higher levels do the damage.
If anyone dares retreat, I’ll kill him myself first!"
At this desperate moment, the top guilds finally revealed the depth of their foundations.
With their refined gameplay skills and team coordination honed through countless battles, they successfully gathered the routed players back together.
They hastily formed a defensive line beside Novice Village.
At the same time, some guilds also sent people to contact the female knight and the rest of the NPC army, intending to coordinate and fight the monster tide together.
The red-eyed monster tide’s stats were terrifying, but because their movement speed was slow, they were actually not difficult to kite.
After the priest players cast a round of control skills, they quickly shrank back to the rear. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖
The warrior players gritted their teeth and stepped forward, forcibly pushing the monster tide back a little.
At the same time, the archers’ first volley arrived, instantly shaving off a small chunk of HP from the red-eyed monsters at the front.
"Focus their ranged attackers and assassins first!"
The guild leaders of the major guilds had very clear tactical thinking.
The assassin-class players slipped into the monster tide, targeting the monsters with ranged attack abilities.
Under those circumstances, they actually managed to stabilize the situation—barely.
But the true main force was still the NPC army.
"Defend our village!"
At some point, the female knight had mounted a giant wolf.
Raising the B-rank spear John had given her, she charged ahead at the very front and impaled a monster to death with a single thrust.
[-3014!]
Compared to the underdeveloped players, the NPC army that had been armed by John was on an entirely different level.
The mage class mentor cast a fireball, and blazing flames engulfed more than a dozen monsters at once.
[-2167!]
[-1998!]
The red-eyed monsters were already slow-moving to begin with, and now they were being burned by fire.
As their HP dropped, their bodies moved as if trapped in a swamp.
The moment the 700 NPCs charged into the monster tide, they forced it backward by dozens of meters.
The far more numerous players had instead become support.
However, the further back the monsters were, the stronger they became.
After the lower-level monsters in front had been cleared out, the NPC army could no longer push deeper.
The players and NPCs together held only a slight advantage.
They could do no more than ensure that the monster tide would not press forward again.
And strangely enough, whenever NPCs and players fought side by side,
the monster tide would almost always prioritize attacking the NPCs, turning a blind eye to the players beside them.
The monsters ignored the players’ attacks and focused only on tearing into the NPCs.
If the NPCs had not been protected by their equipment, they would probably already have suffered massive casualties.
The female knight noticed this and shouted a warning:
"Be careful, everyone! These monsters seem to have much higher aggro toward us!"
This bizarre targeting behavior made things much harder for the NPCs, though it greatly reduced the pressure on the players.
"Hold the line! These monsters have low agility. As long as you pay a little attention to dodging, they can still be handled!"
The guild leaders were still trying to boost morale.
And then, at that very moment—
one of the vice guild leaders who had led his squad toward the front line suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
He spun around sharply, only to see a blade rapidly enlarging in his field of vision.
Splurt!
[-3168!]
The terrifying damage instantly emptied his HP bar.
Several of the subordinates beside him were also killed in an instant by a few longswords.
Their bodies turned into white light and vanished from the spot.
