Wow! The item-dropping rate is really high!

Having made his decision, Bai E no longer hesitated.

Each skill in the same tier of the skill tree requires double the experience to unlock than the last, starting with a thousand points; learning a second would cost two thousand.

Fortunately, he had saved quite a bit from the fight in Black Street, with exactly 2,000 points of battle experience remaining to the dot.

[Payment: Training Points*2, Battle Experience 2000 points.]

[Acquired Skill — Blessing of Salvation.]

[Blessing of Salvation: Having fought countless battles, you can gradually identify your opponent's weaknesses during combat. From now on, you can keenly exploit these vulnerabilities with precise strikes. Attack speed +30%~100%, critical hit +10%~30%, armor break +10%~30%. All bonuses will incrementally increase to the maximum as the fight progresses. (Reach peak after engaging the same target for over 3 minutes, when switching to a similar target, bonuses start at half.) Consumption: 10 Spiritual Energy (100 action power reserve) /min.]

A youth's version of a lucky strike which consumed Spiritual Energy and wasn't entirely stable—that was why Bai E hadn't been keen on it before.

But under these circumstances, this skill was the most suitable one.

He activated it right away.

Not only that, under the same Combat Proficiency skill tree — Absolute Defense, Bai E activated that as well.

Blessing of Salvation merely enhanced burst damage; against creatures like bugs who relied purely on physical strength, Bai E still needed to consider his own safety.

Squeezing his fist, Bai E felt the surging power coursing through his body.

Nonchalantly dropping his machine gun, he stood atop the vehicle, waiting for the perfect timing. He then saw the sandworm charging towards him and with a powerful leap from his legs, soared through the air!

"Bang!" Following the moment his heel hit the ground, a pair of iron fists solidly smashed into the head of the sandworm.

"Crack!" A crisp sound rang out for an instant, and crack lines emerged on the sandworm's slightly dark red carapace as if it had been cracked open.

The powerful blow ignored the hard chitinous outer shell, continuing to reverberate through to the muscle tissue beneath.

[Used close combat attack to hit target, triggering "Armor Break", Combat Mastery Experience +2.]

[Dealt 10 points of blunt damage to the target!]

Worms have touch sensitivity, but their sense of pain is not sharp.

Bai E's punch hadn't caused much injury to the creature; its enormous body was what it was bred for.

Instead, the awareness of "food" jumping right above its head brought its hunger to a peak.

The giant head swayed left and right, trying to shake off Bai E who had landed on top of it.

The carapace was smooth, and indeed slippery underfoot, as Zhou—who had rushed onto the bug holding the Chainsword as well—can attest to the difficulty in keeping one's footing.

Fortunately, Bai E came empty-handed, and it was much easier for him to adjust his center of gravity within his body.

Moreover, the foundational bonus from his level six Combat Proficiency greatly enhanced his self-control over body coordination to nearly its limit.

As the worm tried to shake him off, Bai E, after observing it earlier, precisely pinpointed that one spot on the sandworm's body that wouldn't move during its writhing.

The sandworm, after all, wasn't like those purely soft-bodied creatures that could twist their bodies at will, even tying knots... It had to maintain some rigidity in motion, and in that brief observation, Bai E had easily noticed this characteristic of the sandworm with the boosts from his various combat abilities.

Striking a snake's vital point followed the same principle.

Raising his right fist, Bai E targeted the spot beneath his foot that would allow him the strongest leverage for his punch and smashed down once again.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

The small figure moved swiftly on the sandworm's back, striking with his fists, which was far more efficient than other attacks capable of breaking defense.

And as long as Armor Break was triggered, the damage wouldn't be low...

[Used close combat attack to hit target, and simultaneously triggered "Critical Hit", "Armor Break", Combat Mastery Experience +5.]

[Dealt 20 points of blunt damage to the target!]

It seemed the massive force directly shattered a nerve node beneath the carapace, and the nearby bladed limbs visibly lost control in an instant, twitching reflexively at their tips.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

By comparison, the small figure was like a black whirlwind, rapidly moving across the sandworm's body.

The chitinous carapace's raised spikes provided the ideal anchor point for Bai E to maneuver.

Twelve seconds!

The huge sandworm's body slowly collapsed behind Bai E...

"Boom!"

Sand and dust were flung into the air.

[Consecutive hits on the target, causing 18 points of fatal damage!]

[You have completely killed the target, gaining 40 points of battle experience.]

"..."

Observing everything happening around oneself during battle is a basic skill for any mature warrior, especially since Bai E's actions were not merely a flash of lightning.

Twelve seconds were more than enough for every warrior engaged in battle to notice the swift and forceful advance here.

The teammates who witnessed this scene, including those from another squad saved by You, all had a moment of stunned silence.

The impact of the contrast, under the huge difference in size, was particularly shocking.

"So... so strong..."

The warrior lying on his side in the overturned carriage, twisting his head around, even forgot for a moment that he was still trapped and unable to move, muttering to himself while looking in that direction.

You, who hastily glanced back, had her eyes round with surprise and shouted a warning from afar, "Careful!"

...

["Lucky Strike" charge +7.]

The experience wasn't high, and it was quite hard to kill.

Bai E frowned, pausing for a moment of thought.

The shadow behind him advanced, and like pincers, the lethal jaws closed in from both sides, attempting to bisect Bai E in an instant.

"Careful!" You's voice traveled across the space, almost arriving simultaneously with the closing jaws.

The jaws sped up as they were about to close in.

"Squeak~"

The muscle tissue strained to clench, but discovered they couldn't bite down no matter how hard they tried.

The human in front of them spread his arms wide like forged steel, effortlessly holding back the sandworm's jaws, preventing them from moving forward even a fraction of an inch.

Bai E looked down at the pair of jaw-teeth curling around his back like curved blades, a cold light flashing in his eyes.

In a large military march, it might be difficult to detect the movements of sandworms underground, but on a small-scale battlefield, the "sibilant" sound they made while slithering through the sand was hard for an individual to miss, not to mention that he possessed the "Blind Fight" talent.

Even amidst the chaos of the battlefield, he could easily detect the approach of a sandworm attack from behind with his ears.

Giving the opponent this chance was to see how its attack power stacked up against his defensive power.

Absolute Defense!

There was a faint blood mark on his arm, the worm's jaw-teeth adorned with numerous tiny spikes had punctured his skin slightly under the immense pressure, but that was all.

Having gathered more data from a direct confrontation with the sandworm, Bai E immediately felt confident.

With a rapid change of his palms directly supporting the jaw-teeth, Bai E's complexion turned a slight red as he exhaled, "Heh!"

Upon a light shout, the pair of jaw-teeth, which seemed monstrously ferocious and nearly half the size of Bai E's body, were forcibly pried open.

The "squeal" from the muscles signaled they had reached their limit.

It wasn't Bai E; it was the sandworm.

Overlimit Drive!

"Bang!"

Fractured bone splinters flew in all directions, a few grazing under Bai E's eyelids, which reflexively closed, leaving the bone splinters to scrape futilely across his skin as hard as city walls…

Holding the forcibly broken jaw-teeth in his hands, Bai E swiftly turned around.

In the worm's enormous lantern-like eyes was the reflection of the imposing human man facing it.

The corners of Bai E's mouth wickedly curved upwards as he took a step forward and punched directly towards the sandworm's face!

"Crack!"

The sound of bones shattering echoed in the stillness, the carapace crumbling under his fist...

"Gulp."

The soldier from the ally squad, who had already opened the dump truck door, climbed out with a flamethrower, and was attempting to set it up, swallowed hard.

"Who the hell is the monster here..."