We walked up to the low-leveled leader of the Night Creatures, Iron Skull General Wind Fury, until we were less than ten steps away from him. His back was facing toward us, but his fluttering white cape,craggy dragonskin armor and the air cyclones swirling beneath his feet still put immense pressure on us.
In that moment, I even felt an illogical, subconscious urge to look up to this boss, as if it was a great figure of sorts.
Rustle rustle...
Wind Fury abruptly turned around and glared at us with his b.l.o.o.d.y eyes. “Are you here to die as well?”
……
The question caught Lin Yixin off-guard, but she clenched her teeth and activated Charge immediately. “So what if we are!?”
Swhoos.h.!.+
I hurriedly activated my own Charge because I couldn't let her fight the boss alone. But all our efforts accomplished were two beautiful MISSes. His level was so high he was immune to our CC!
Surging with killing intent, Wind Fury slashed Lin Yixin right across the shoulder!
Pu!
A shocking amount of blood entered my vision, and I knew immediately that Lin Yixin had suffered a grievous blow!
4107!
What a monster! Lin Yixin only had around 4500 HP, but the boss still nearly one-shot her with a basic attack! It was so powerful that it almost contradicted all logic!
“Die!”
Lin Yixin's pretty little face almost turned purple when the boss swung its sword at her a second time. However, a golden light suddenly paralyzed it right before it could hit her! It was the Paralysis Ring showing its true power. Although the boss could ignore skills' CC components through sheer stats, it couldn't ignore pa.s.sive combat effects such as paralysis.
I seized the opportunity to fire an Ice Ray!
Pu!
1765!
I felt like crying when I saw the pitiful amount of damage I did. If even I, with my impressive attack power, could only do so much, then it was no wonder those pitiful archers couldn't do more than 10 damage!
I heard two tw.a.n.gs behind me, and two arrows plunged into the boss's body. It was Beiming Xue's Freezing Arrow, a skill that could reduce the boss's movement speed by a significant margin. However, since our opponent was an Epic Rank boss, the slow debuff was reduced by at least 70%!
Wind Fury glared fiercely at me. The instant the paralysis effect vanished, it immediately raised the Arctic Storm into the air and slashed the ground apart with reddish power! The earth trembled as lightning surged toward me. It was yet another War Crus.h.!.+
War Crush's range was 5 yards, and it was impossible to dodge because it had a channeling time of 0.5 seconds at most! I might be able to move 2 to 3 yards in 0.5 seconds, but 5? It was literally impossible.
I immediately raised my own sword and held it close to my body. I was betting on the possibility that this War Crush was considered a physical attack, and not a magic one!
Stance—Guard!
Bang bang bang!
The thunderous triple-hit attack made me feel like my body was being torn apart. At the same time, three damage numbers appeared above my head—
1208!
567!
1004!
……
f.u.c.k, I lost that much HP even after guarding. No wonder even those Level 85 magic knights had dropped like flies! The boss's attack power is seriously f.u.c.king insane!
My head flashed twice with holy light as Murong Mingyue and Moon Dew healed me, but I was only alarmed by their actions. Guard reset aggro, and heals were very “attention-grabbing” to say the least! They're in danger!
It was as I had predicted. The boss immediately gave up on me and charged toward Murong Mingyue and Moon Dew instead!
Swhoos.h.!.+
He Yi activated Charge and blocked the boss's path. It was impossible to tell if she was confident or nervous, but she tried to delay the boss by zigzagging twice in front of it. Her movement was inexperienced and unpracticed, but she still managed to delay the boss by around 1 second!
Lin Yixin finally arrived at the boss's side and plunged her dagger into his dantian, eyes gleaming with the power of Moon Gaze. Even I felt pain just staring at the powerful attack!
3074!
Extreme Break was as powerful as before, it seemed!
The aggro was now transferred to Lin Yixin, but she wasn't strong enough to defend against its attack. I fearlessly ran up to the boss and executed Pardon + Desperate Gambit combo!
MISS!
11054!
Very good, a critical hit at a critical moment!
So far I was thoroughly enjoying my good karma, not to mention that Pardon on its own was amazing at taunting any enemy. If the skill name wasn't enough of an explanation, just imagine someone pardoning you for your sins and then stabbing you in the back at your weakest moment. It would be more strange if such a disgusting skill didn't generate a huge amount of aggro.
Of course, the boss's retaliatory strike was no less deadly than my own. It had hit me with Nightmare Strangle, a ghastly skill that dealt 50% extra damage to all living players. But of course, I was an Asura of the undead race. It wouldn't be able to crush me as easily as it did to the poor players earlier...
Thud!
The skill left a scorching pain across my head and dealt 3764 damage!
Not letting up on the offense, I continued to throw out every skill in my repertoire—Slayer Slash, Ice Ray, everything—so as to keep the boss completely focused on me. If an OT were to happen again, the priests might not be so lucky as to escape death a second time. When that happens, it's GG.
“Glug!”
I chugged a health potion and kept fighting! Xu Yang, Gui Guzi, Purple Marquis and the rest also surrounded the boss and did their thing for a time!
“Argh! You are courting death!”
Wind Fury suddenly shouted and unleashed War Crush again!
“Guard!” I shouted, but it was too late. He Yi was the only one who guarded in time because she knew from the start that she was unsuited to be a damage dealer.
Unlike He Yi, Purple Marquis had pretty good damage, but he couldn't withstand the War Crush. He slowly collapsed to the ground and died under the powerful lightning strike!
Xu Yang fared even worse. He barely managed to say “f.u.c.k!” before he turned into a cold, lifeless corpse as well.
Gui Guzi survived the longest out of all of them. He had the highest HP, and he had Undying s.h.i.+eld, so—
4054!
+1621!
5248!
+2099!
5427!
……
His Undying s.h.i.+eld was Rank 8 now, so 40% of the damage he took was converted into HP. Unfortunately, despite having almost 8000 HP, he ultimately wasn't tanky enough to withstand the full barrage of War Crush. He too shouted “f.u.c.k your sister!” before collapsing to the ground!
Nearly all of our fighters in our party were killed by that one attack. Only Lin Yixin, He Yi and I had survived the attack. He Yi was still doing okay, but Lin Yixin was low on health and had to run back to her priest again after dis.h.i.+ng out one last Extreme Break!
I couldn't but shout, “Eve, Yiyi, just stay at the sidelines for now! That War Crush is too powerful, so it's best if I tank it alone! If I happen to OT, then the two of you absolutely have to keep it busy until I drag the aggro back to myself with Pardon! This is the only way we might have a chance to kill the boss!”
“Mn!”
The girls nodded obediently in unison and flooded my heart with pride. Who wouldn't be if they successfully made the two most famous guild leaders in Floating Ice City obey their command? Of course, that was only because my order was correct. If I made an error in judgment, it was entirely possible that the beauties would turn me into a sky lantern and light me on fire instead. At the very least, Beauty Lin had been looking for an opportunity to do just that for quite some time now.
……
While I was fighting, He Yi walked to a group of nearby players and raised her sword into the air. She said, “I am the guild leader of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. Is there any priest who would like to join us?”
At least 20 priests were shaken by her offer. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls was pretty famous these days even on the national scale, especially since the legendary CGL Hall of Famer, Falling Dust, had returned to the guild. The guilds that were on the rise always had the most interesting stories to tell, and plenty of people were tempted by the opportunity to be part of that legend!
At least dozens of priests requested to join Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls immediately. The rest declined because they knew that their levels were too low.
He Yi wasted no time in adding all 27 priests into Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. Then, she said, “Right now, Lu Chen is fighting the boss alone. All you need to do is to heal him from afar. If you run out of Magic Consumables, tell me and I'll provide you with some!”
The priests immediately nodded and followed our beautiful guild leader to the frontline.
I couldn't help but laugh inside my head. What a smart girl! I thought she had gone away to recruit a couple of experts to help me, but no, she only recruited priests to heal me!
It was in fact the right call. I could tank the boss as long as the priests kept healing me, and as long as I didn't die, killing it shouldn't be too big of a problem. Moreover, there were so many priests that the aggro would be all over the place, meaning that it was actually easier to keep the boss's attention on me.
The moment the healing began, holy light flushed my body and kept me above 50% at all times. It was fun as h.e.l.l to have 29 priests doing everything in their power to keep me alive. Suddenly, I was reminded of the cla.s.sic formation of 1 heavy armor player at the frontline and 9 priests in the back. I finally got to experience the legendary and invincible 10-0-0 formation myself!
While I was bathing in holy light, Lin Yixin pulled another twenty or so priests into the party to heal me! Now it was impossible for the boss to one-shot me unless it crit me twice in a row!
Oh s.h.i.+t, it could one-shot me if it crit me twice in a row. s.h.i.+vering with apprehension, I hurriedly produced a card from my bag!
Root Protector Card: Increases user's max HP by 45%. Duration: 30 minutes.
……
The card was one of the boss drops at Hundred Flower Valley. I had stolen this particular loot for myself without telling anyone. Now that I thought about it, it was a rather shameful thing to do, wasn't it?
Swhoos.h.!.+
The card flew into the air and increased my total HP to 7126. Now I had enough health to tank a couple of basic attacks or even survive a War Crush without Guard… probably. Oh well, not like I'll test if my calculations are correct. Better safe than sorry!
The fight went smoothly as time pa.s.sed bit by bit. By now, a ton of players from various cities had gathered around the area to watch the fight with envy or jealousy. Everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of the boss drops, and who knows, maybe they could even steal one for themselves if they were lucky!
