The Perfect Plan

Lizard-Skull Giant Demons are amphibious creatures — equally at home in mountain caves, buried in mud, gnawing on vegetation, or crunching through bone. As an all-purpose breed of Demon-Beast, they are among the most difficult opponents imaginable. Their extraordinary adaptability makes it nearly impossible to find any decisive weakness, and that same adaptability comes paired with a terrifying capacity for reproduction.

In Sunset Valley, forty or fifty years ago, there might have been only a handful of Lizard-Skull Giant Demons. Now... they could practically form a tour group for a mud spa.

One thing was beyond doubt: whatever lay dormant at the center of the mud lake was also a type of giant lizard.

The creature Mo Fan had faced before was a Giant Lizard Pseudo-Dragon — a lizard hybrid carrying traces of Western Dragon bloodline. The beast they now had to contend with clearly had no wings, yet was considerably larger than even a Giant Lizard Pseudo-Dragon...

For the past several days, all three of them had been searching for a way to kill the colossal thing lurking at the center of the lake.

When Ah Li Man ventured out to scout the valley, she returned with unwelcome news: two teams of Hunter-mages were already planning to enter. She had managed to seal off the eastern entrance they had used to get in, buying them a day or two at most.

"Looks like we'll have to move tomorrow," Mo Fan said.

Hunter-mages walking to their deaths — no one could stop them. But these reckless fools would ruin everything they had so carefully prepared.

Besides, Mo Fan felt that if they waited much longer, the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard would be well on its way to recovery.

In the faint glow of a small campfire, Mo Fan picked up a stick and began drawing in the dirt, laying out the plan.

"First things first — the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard is the hardest obstacle. Badly wounded as it is, its combat strength is still terrifying. Don't make a move on it until we have perfect containment in place. It's our target, and this creature knows how to disguise itself. Don't let its massive, mountain-like bulk fool you — it's a hell of a lot smarter than those Hunter-mages who kept walking straight into its mouth." Mo Fan scratched its position into the ash with his stick.

Zhang Xiaohou nodded along vigorously.

The Armored-Shell Giant Lizard really was frighteningly cunning. It hadn't struck when the Hunter-mages first appeared — it had waited until they were standing on its back. Those mages had been seasoned veterans, equipped with Enchanted Gear and with escape routes mapped out in advance. By all rights, at least one or two should have gotten away. Instead, they had been wiped out to the last, eliminated in a single instant.

"With our strength alone, there's not a shred of hope of beating it head-on. But there's something that turns the impossible into possible." Mo Fan jabbed his stick at another section of the swamp.

That area was where Ah Li Man had wandered alone — and precisely where she had been silently poisoned.

Mo Fan glanced at Ah Li Man and noticed she wore a contemplative look. He couldn't help but smile. "That's right. Sunset Valley doesn't just harbor the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard. There's also an absolutely monstrous venomous creature lurking here."

"Brother Fan, you mean to use the venomous creature against the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard?" Zhang Xiaohou's eyes lit up.

Fighting it head-on gave them zero odds. The thing was Commander-class — even a wounded Commander could one-shot mages at their level.

But if they could borrow someone else's power, everything changed.

Ah Li Man cast Mo Fan a deliberate look. She hadn't expected this wild man to have such nerve.

Leveraging outside forces was a technique Hunter-mages used all the time — the classic fisherman's-profit play, letting two beasts wear each other out. But against a Commander-class creature, not just anyone had the guts to try it. One wrong step and you became the meal.

"Do you actually know what that venomous creature is?" Ah Li Man asked.

"More or less," Mo Fan answered.

"*More or less???*" A vein nearly popped on Ah Li Man's forehead.

"The point is, we can use it." Mo Fan wasn't interested in elaborating. "The method is simple: lure the venomous creature toward the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard. The toxin it releases can reduce even a Commander-class creature to a weakened state. All we have to do is let the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard kill the venomous creature, then use the lingering poison to finish the lizard off ourselves."

Zhang Xiaohou nodded eagerly — this was clearly the most viable approach. After turning it over in his mind for a moment, he said, "So... who's going to lure the venomous creature toward the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard?"

Mo Fan and Ah Li Man both fell silent at the same time. The cave went quiet, broken only by the occasional crack and pop of something burning away in the campfire.

Zhang Xiaohou pointed at his own nose, his face going rigid. "Me?"

Mo Fan and Ah Li Man nodded in unison. Neither of them had reliable movement abilities. Zhang Xiaohou, on the other hand, had both Wind Element and Earth Element at his disposal, along with military training in tracking and concealment. There was really no question who this task belonged to.

Zhang Xiaohou knew there was no escaping it. He muttered under his breath: *Did you two plan this in advance or what?*

"We need the venomous creature and the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard to arrive at a designated location at the same time. So one person lures the venomous creature, and another lures the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard." Mo Fan pressed his stick against a point near the center of the valley's mud lake.

Zhang Xiaohou nodded.

But the more he thought about it, the more something felt off. He blurted out, "Wait — if we lure both of them to the same spot, what do *we* do? We'll be sandwiched between them! They'll wipe us out before they ever start fighting each other!"

The plan sounded beautiful on paper. The actual execution would be a disaster.

The biggest problem with any "borrow a force" strategy was always the same: how do you avoid getting caught in the middle? Did anyone genuinely believe you could just sprint ahead, make a sharp turn right before the two creatures collided, and watch them slam into each other in a fit of rage?

Come on — this wasn't a movie. The heroine of *Jurassic World* could pull that off in high heels. Zhang Xiaohou was not going to try.

"And that's exactly the interesting part," Mo Fan said, clearing his throat and tapping his stick against that spot on the dirt map.

"Did you ever wonder why I chose that particular location?" he asked, his expression perfectly serious. "Ah Li Man and I scouted it out. Behind this cave, there's a passage that leads to a dried-up underground river valley. That underground river runs beneath the entire subterranean world of this valley — including directly under the center of the mud lake." He drew another line in the dirt, overlapping it with the mud lake outline he had sketched earlier.

Zhang Xiaohou's eyes went wide as understanding hit him. "Brother Fan — you're saying someone can be waiting for us down below?"

"Exactly. We lure both the venomous creature and the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard to that spot. The bedrock underneath is extremely fragile — a few powerful mid-tier spells should be enough to blast it open. A hole tears through the bottom of the mud lake, the water and mud spiral down into the underground river, and we ride the vortex straight down to safety..." Mo Fan laid it all out with the precision of someone who had rehearsed every detail.

"Haha! A perfect vanishing act! Then the venomous creature and the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard tear into each other while we change into clean clothes and stroll back up to collect the spoils! Ahahahaha!" Zhang Xiaohou couldn't hold back his laughter.

*Still the same Brother Fan — always ten steps ahead. Everything already in the palm of his hand.*

The two of them were buzzing with excitement. Ah Li Man sat off to the side without a word.

Overall, the plan was workable.

But a new problem arose: Zhang Xiaohou would lure the venomous creature — so who was going to lure the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard?