Chapter 808: Separated (1/2)
Lin Yixin agreed. ”A skill that adds attack range is pretty troublesome.”
I said, ”Come on, it’s time we went to the fourth floor. It’ll be bad if we keep letting the Northern Alliance get ahead of us.”
”Yeah.”
……
When we fought through the corridors and arrived at the center where the boss was, its body was long since cold and dead. The Heaven-slaughtering Tiger had been killed, its Tiger Soul Essence had been taken away by Vienna’s Sorrow, and its body had turned into a teleportation formation. A group of Candle Dragon players were rushing into it right now.
Swhoosh!
I appeared on the fourth floor of Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower. Every entry was a reshuffle where players were randomly teleported onto the map, and parties had to be reformed. That was why whoever entered a map first had a natural advantage over the others. It had nothing to do with strength and everything to do with luck. Whoever killed the boss first would get to enter the next floor first and potentially become the king of that stage!
Beep!
Li Chengfeng sent me a message: ”What took you so long, Lu Chen?!”
”What is the situation on the fourth floor?” I asked.
Li Chengfeng sounded very urgent. ”We entered the fourth floor a bit late, and at least a hundred Northern Alliance guilds had gotten ahead of us. They all accepted the newly ascended Vienna’s Sorrow as their commander and are currently doing a sweep across the whole floor! Take a look at the map. There are Northern Alliance players guarding nearly every point of the floor, and they are trying to split up our players and kill them one by one. Their goal is to wipe out every Chinese player who entered the fourth floor! Moreover, the four main passages leading to the boss's location are also guarded. Just ten minutes ago, they managed to trap 50+ Dragonlight Cavalrymen and 200+ Cyan Tiger Cavalrymen at a corner and killed them all!”
”Fuck!”
I opened the map and noted that the layout of the fourth floor was a bit different from the previous floors. Like a head-to-head circuit, there were points where pathways converged, or intersected, into one every bit of the way.. It was also how the Northern Alliance gathered their strength and defeated the separated Chinese players with superior numbers.
”Chengfeng, I have an order I want you to deliver.”
”Sure, tell me!”
”Upon teleporting to the fourth floor, our players are to wait for more Chinese players to join them. They will attack the Northern Alliance’s defense line only if their party has 50 people or more. Avoid solitary operations at all if possible, and take back control of the fourth floor one step at a time!”
”Mn, got it!”
I looked at the map again and saw no friendlies around me. Then, I activated Dark Pupils and saw a dense pack of red dots about 400 yards ahead of me. It was a group of Northern Alliance players gathering around an entrance. I should clear the way first and think about my next move later.
I got up the Armored Ice Qilin Horse and moved forward slowly with my apparition and the Phantom Wolf King next to me. As my vision widened, I spotted a silver figure standing on the dry, rotten floor some distance away from me. When I got closer, I realized that it was a humanoid warrior wearing rusted silver armor and wielding a rusted spear. It shambled toward an unknown destination while letting out a guttural growl—
Silver Halberdman (Dread)
Level: 188
……
God damn! It was a Level 188 dread-rank mob with incredible stats and multiple skills such as Thrust, Charge, Stampede and more; a true fighter in every sense of the word. It was also an undead mob that was forged into an automaton with molten silver, so it had an insane Defense of 7500!
”Hiss…”
Noticing my presence, the Silver Halberdman let out an angry growl and charged toward me daringly!
Thud thud thud…
I jumped three times to the back, timed my movement and dodged the dread-rank mob’s Charge almost perfectly. When its skill came to an end, my Cyan Netherworld Sword was already biting into its neck, its weak point, and erupting into Burning Blade Slash + Universe Break combo. A column of high damage numbers rose above its head—
27873!
31992!
37626!
41098!
Hmm, the mob’s Defense was so high that I wasn’t able to crush it like rotten wood even with my Attack. That was fine though as I was accompanied by the Phantom Wolf King and my apparition. Both Universe Break and Burning Blade Slash had a cooldown of 6 seconds, and I estimated that it would take 3 combos of Universe Break and Burning Blade Slash, or 20 seconds, to kill the mob. It was no trouble at all.
”Roar roar…”
The Silver Halberdman retaliated with a hit to my shoulder, dealing over 15000 damage and leaving behind a hot, painful sensation. This thing was way stronger than the Bronze Armor Wolves and Bronze Beasts on the first to third floors.
Squelch!
Just as I had predicted, I was able to claim the Silver Halberdman’s life at the end of my third Universe Break. I checked my HP and saw that I was sitting at 65%. Even with lifesteal and a recovery skill, I still lost about 70k of my HP. The good news was that I had Regeneration of the Undead, so it wouldn’t take long for me to regenerate back to full health. Struggling I might be, I should be able to fight my way through without too much delay.
On the map, the red dots that were the Northern Alliance players hadn’t strayed away from their original positions too much. From time to time, I saw one or two dots at most moving toward a certain point almost as if they were aggroing a mob. It was natural. If they aggroed too many Silver Halberdmen at a time, a tragedy was sure to happen.