Chi!
9092!
Her blade split apart some of its scales, but that was all. As it turned out, the One-horned Golden Dragon was so tough that even He Yi"s Barrier Break couldn"t do more than 10k damage. This was terrible considering that her skill was at max rank, meaning that it ignored 70% of the boss"s Defense!
Swhoos.h.!.+
The One-horned Golden Dragon abruptly shook its head back and forth, turning its golden horn into a deadly weapon. The next moment, the horn penetrated He Yi"s s.h.i.+eld and sent both her and her warhorse flying! Her mount tenacity was emptied in an instant, and the Snow Domain Windchaser vanished before it hit the ground. A ridiculous damage number popped above her head as He Yi herself rolled across the gra.s.sland—
20192!
She was nearly one-shot. That skill was the boss"s Dragon Blade, and it was as powerful as its name suggested. Even He Yi was incapable of withstanding a direct hit!
……
Meanwhile, Gui Guzi had moved in front of the boss and left a couple of gashes around its chin. However, everything except Barrier Break only did around 500 damage or so. He Yi had already proven it earlier, but the boss"s Defense was seriously too high.
At the distance, I raised my sword and executed the G.o.d Binding Art. Four gigantic divine weapons instantly descended from the sky around the boss, red lightning connecting all of them together. The boss was trapped and immobilized instantly.
Nice, the G.o.d Binding Art was a success. This meant that the boss wouldn"t be able to do anything for 15 seconds straight.
"This is our chance!"
Li Chengfeng ran toward the boss and executed a Barrier Break + Dragonbone Flurry combo immediately. However—
7011!
372!
321!
335!
"WTF…" Li Chengfeng"s eyes turned as wide as saucers. "Surely my attack power isn"t that low? G.o.d dammit, it"ll take me forever to kill this boss!"
Blitz increased his attack speed but not his Attack. The moment he ran into a powerful boss like this, his Blitz immediately became a liability. The wise dragon warrior immediately changed his stratagem out for an Encourage VII so that his almost 180 Tactics would boost his Attack by 54%.
I had moved behind the boss while all this was going on, and an Eight Trigram formation appeared beneath my feet. Indigo flames wreathed around my sword, I stabbed the One-horned Golden Dragon right in the b.u.t.thole. It was so much pain that the boss reflexively lifted its hindlegs. I then followed up with a triple-hit Burning Blade Slash—
15782!
1402!
2743!
5192!
……
Holy s.h.i.+t. Even with my attack power, Burning Blade Slash only did a shadow of the damage it usually did. I supposed I should be thankful that Universe Break was still working for me. Considering the boss"s base Defense, rank and level, its effective Defense should be close to 10k.
Xu Yang curled his lips. "f.u.c.k, Lu Chen"s Martial G.o.d is the GOAT in this situation…"
Chaos Moon said, "Lu Chen"s the OP one here, not Martial G.o.d. Look at Chengfeng, he can only do a couple hundred damage per hit…"
Li Chengfeng complained, "WTF guys, praise Lu Chen all you want, but don"t insult me in the process…"
When 6 seconds were up, I used Universe Break again. This time though, I followed up with a Pardon and a basic attack instead—
16029!
MISS!
15092!
This was it. I should"ve known sooner that Pardon X would be way more useful than Burning Blade Slash in this situation. If I used Pardon first and Universe Break later, no amount of Defense would be enough to stop me. That being said, I wasn"t going to do that. It would be a waste of potential damage and generally not worth it.
At the back, Beiming Xue, Moonlight Stone, and the others bombarded the boss with arrows and magic, but the amount of damage was pitiful to say the least. Beiming Xue was the only archer who could consistently deal over 1000 damage to the boss. Everyone else only dealt single-digit—1, 3, 7 and so on—damage unless it was an armor penetration skill like Devil Piercing Arrow. It wasn"t even good enough to cancel out the boss"s HP regeneration.
On the other hand, our mages did fairly good work. Every mage dealt at least 200 to 800 damage per spell. Individually speaking it wasn"t much damage, but together it was easily a scary amount of firepower. The sight of the boss"s HP decreasing just a tad raised everyone"s morale.
It didn"t last long though. When the G.o.d Binding Art pa.s.sed its duration, the One-horned Golden Dragon lifted its neck, extended its claws and let out a mighty roar. Its scales suddenly stood on end like a cat"s hair, and a natural barrier surrounded its body entirely. It was the defensive skill, Scale Armor!
Beep!
Combat Log: One-horned Golden Dragon used the skill "Scale Armor." All magic attacks are negated for 30 minutes!
……
Excuse me? Full magic immunity??
Moonlight Stone and the rest of our mages nearly broke into tears. A giant dragon that was fully immune to magic? There was nothing our mages could do now.
And so, Moonlight Stone and all one hundred or so mages heeded He Yi"s order and backed to a safe distance. After all, why keep them on the battlefield if there was literally nothing they could do? Worse, they would die for nothing if the boss went on a rampage.
As if to prove He Yi"s intelligence, less than ten seconds after Moonlight Stone and the mages withdrew from the battlefield, the One-horned Golden Dragon"s neck suddenly swelled up as if it was channeling an extremely powerful dragon breath!
"f.u.c.k! Everyone watch out!" Li Chengfeng shouted.
Before he could finish his warning, the One-horned Golden Dragon aimed at the players directly to the south and unleashed a fan-shaped breath of fire. Almost every player that was caught in the flames was one-shot where they stood, not giving our priests even the chance to drag them away from death"s door. A column of damage numbers popped above their heads...
30192!
22998!
27162!
28371!
……
It was ridiculous. I, the only player standing directly in front of the boss, was also the only player to survive the dragon"s breath, losing a total of 22998 HP. Everyone else behind me—be it a mage, an archer, a melee fighter or other—was one-shot without mercy. This giant dragon was seriously powerful!
Tenacity of the Dead!
+7350!
While Regeneration of the Undead was working its magic, I chugged a health potion immediately to pull myself just barely to the 11k range. Then, Murong Mingyue, Moon Dew and the rest of our priests locked onto me and quickly healed me back to full health.
Regret filled my heart for a moment. I could"ve reacted in time and maybe interrupted the boss"s breath with a Magic Piercing Punch, but I failed to react in time because of surprise. It was my fault that we lost almost 40 players in one go.
He Yi said, "Lu Chen, your DPS is the highest, so the boss has been targeting you from the start. You should watch out the next time it uses its dragon breath again…"
I nodded. "I promise I won"t let you down again, leader…"
I then looked at Gui Guzi. "Little Gui, work with me to block the boss"s physical attacks. If the boss uses a basic attack, we tank it like normal. If it uses the Dragon Blade, then we use Guard. If one of us uses Guard, the other person must Barrier Break the boss immediately so that an OT doesn"t happen. It"ll be very challenging. Do you think you can do it?"
Gui Guzi nodded. "No problem, boss. Please put your trust in me!"
"Mn!"
……
With me at the front and Gui Guzi at the back, we started attacking the boss together. My Attack was higher, so I was able to maintain the aggro on me most of the time. Unfortunately, when I used the G.o.d Binding Art again, it resulted in a heartbreaking MISS!
Swhoos.h.!.+
The boss"s horn shone intimidatingly for a second before swerving toward me. It was yet another Dragon Blade. I took half a step backward and kept the Heaven-stealing Sword in front of me. Guard!
Chiang!
The skill rammed into my sword and shook my entire body. A damage number popped above my head—11920!
Good, Dragon Blade was no threat to me as long as I guarded it properly, though the flaw of the skill was that it removed all the threat from me, prompting the boss to seek out a new target immediately. However, a cone of fiery red energy pierced the air and slammed into the boss"s groin area with a disgusting squelch. It was Gui Guzi recapturing the aggro with impeccable timing. Not far away, Murong Mingyue and Moon Dew patted their own chest in relief, "That was scary. For a second I thought it was going to OT…"
The juggling between Gui Guzi and I went surprisingly smooth. Dozens of priests were keeping the two of us healed, so our HP seldom dropped below 50%. Still, even the boss"s basic attack was powerful enough to deal 10k+ damage to me, and 20k+ damage if it was a critical hit. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d critted quite often too, toying with our priests" feelings. The fact was even G.o.d couldn"t save me if it managed to crit me twice in a row.
Thankfully, Gui Guzi"s skill in melee battle had grown exponentially after countless battles. Although he still hadn"t entered the realm of perfection, he was firmly in the super tier and was almost as good as Purple Marquis and Li Chengfeng. It was only a matter of time before he broke through his limits and became as good as me, Lin Yixin, and Candlelight Shadow.
Chiang chiang chiang!
The boss"s seemingly unbreakable claws rocked my shoulder armor again and again. The Soul Suppressing Cloak and my Ghost Deity Armor had to operate at full power just to barely keep me alive. If it wasn"t for the party of priests healing me, it would be incredibly difficult to fight against an Earth Rank boss like this.
Everyone had horrible DPS because they either dealt low damage or no damage at all because it was a MISS. In fact, even my Universe Break and G.o.d Binding Art missed from time to time. Hundreds of us were attacking the boss, but our damage per minute was only 200k or so. Even so, it wasn"t like we could give up now. A grueling 20 minutes later, the boss"s HP finally dropped to 50% or so.
Suddenly, a terrible premonition struck me again. The One-horned Golden Dragon abruptly stopped attacking and lifted its head high. It flapped its wings and summoned a sea of golden barrier blades around itself!
Magic Piercing Punch!
Bang! The skill landed, but it only extended the boss"s channeling time by half. My level was too low, so I couldn"t interrupt its AoE magic 100% of the time!
I shouted, "s.h.i.+t! Little Gui, retreat!"
Thankfully, both Gui Guzi and He Yi reacted swiftly and retreated at the same time I did.