Marble white started dyeing the dark sky, and it wasn"t long before the first ray of dawn cracked over the horizon. Another in-game day had arrived.

Chiang chiang chiang!

A Dragonlight Armored Horse was being cut down to size by a storm of swords. It wasn"t long before it let out a death scream and dropped a pair of pitch black war boots.

After Beiming Xue went over to pick it up, she said, "Level 150 3-star Outstanding Purple Gold–grade boots, big bro! Not bad…"

He Yi nodded in agreement before saying, "Finders keepers, so they go to Beiming. Next!"

I looked at the time and saw that it was 10:30 am in the morning already. Before I knew it—seriously, I didn"t notice the pa.s.sage of time even once until just now—it had been 14 hours since we logged back into the game. It was simply impossible to care while there were more Dragonlight Armored Horses to seal. One of these mounts was amazing enough, but now I was sealing hundreds of them with no end in sight. The treasure map Lin Yixin gave me truly was valuable beyond imagination.

……

Murong Mingyue asked, "Lu Chen, we"ve cleared over half of the map already. How many Dragonlight Armored Horses have you sealed so far?"

I checked my bag before smiling. "Well… my Luck is high, so my fail rate is low. I"ve only failed to seal 2 Dragonlight Armored Horses so far, so in total I have 977 Dragonlight Horses in my bag right now. Not bad, right?"

"What? You"ve sealed 997 mounts already?" Both He Yi and Beiming Xue exclaimed in astonishment before chirping delightedly, "That"s wonderful! This means that it"s not impossible to make a 2000-strong Dragonlight Cavalry!"

I nodded. "Indeed, it"s very achievable!"

"Hehe, that"s wonderful!"

He Yi said, "Lu Chen, why don"t you contact Chaos Moon and tell her to create that fighter ranking of yours right now? I would normally leave such a thing to Xu Yang, but the girl is more scrupulous and Xu Yang is loyal to a fault. The player ranking he makes may not be completely fair."

"Okay!"

I contacted Chaos Moon while I aggroed yet another Dragonlight Armored Horse—

"Hi, Chaos Moon!"

"Hi, big bro vice leader…"

"Big bro yourself! Anyway, I have work for you!"

"Sure, what is it?" Chaos Moon replied with a giggle.

I took some time to organize my words before starting, "I want you to make a fighter ranking of our main guild using criterias such as level, equipment, skill, control and more. After you"re done, I want you to embed it into our guild system and make it refresh automatically every once in a while. Think you can do it?"

Caught off-guard, Chaos Moon said, "Huh, that"s a very intellectual task you have for me. Well, lucky for you I once worked with statistics at a company before, so it"s not beyond my capabilities…"

I smiled. "Very good, then I leave this to you. If possible, I"d like you to finish that ranking today."

"Will do!"

"See you later!"

"Wait, give me a kiss before you go…"

"..."

……

After bidding Chaos Moon goodbye, the girls and I continued exploring the depths of Dragonlight Canyon. So far, this map had turned out to be profitable beyond even our wildest dreams. After the battle of Immortality City, the power gap between the three main cities of China seemed to have narrowed considerably. A war was expected to break out between the Top 10 guilds at any moment, and Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls guild was threatened by top guilds such as Warsky Alliance, Candle Dragon, Hegemon Palace, G.o.ds of Destruction and more. If we didn"t improve our power as quickly as possible, it was only a matter of time before the predator became the prey. After all, Dark Moon City was a Rank 9 territory founded at an excellent geopolitical position. How could we protect our land and keep the wolves away if we grew complacent and negligent?

A deep sense of achievement welled inside of me as I stared at the Dragonlight Armored Horses inside my bag. With these Sealing Stones, we could forge a 1000 to 2000 strong cavalry that was almost certainly the strongest cavalry in the entire world right now. Moreover, our Dragonlight Cavalry would be extremely deadly because most of the non-magic knight fighters in our main guild had finally reached Level 150 and gained a mount slot. Magic knight was a defense-oriented cla.s.s, whereas warrior was balanced both in terms of offense and defense. Therefore, a warrior"s offensive power was far greater than a magic knight"s after they equipped a mount. Take High Fighting Spirits, Li Chengfeng and Chaos Moon for example. Their Xiezhi Howl, Reverse Scale Slash and Rock Crush would absolutely devastate a battlefield once they obtained a mount.

……

"Huh? What"s that…"

Suddenly, He Yi let out an exclamation of surprise and pointed her Blade of the Earthen Soul down a certain direction. Beiming Xue also narrowed her eyes before smiling. "Hehe, it looks like the object of our desire has finally shown up! It"s a boss!"

I looked at the direction they were pointing and found an exceptionally huge statue. It was a Dragonlight Armored Horse, but it was much larger than normal and covered in icy flames. It also had three horns protruding from his forehead that looked like a triangle from the front. It was obviously a boss of some sort.

He Yi rode up to it and smashed it with a stone hammer. A rumbling noise immediately filled the air as the copper casing peeled away on its own to reveal the indigo scales beneath. Again, the boss looked no different from a normal Dragonlight Armored Horse except it was larger and had three horns. As the boss raised its head and let out a mighty neigh, I extracted its stats screen with my Dark Pupils—

Dragonlight King of Strange Beasts (Heaven Rank Boss)

Level: 180

Attack: 5540~7250

Defense: 6000

HP: 50,000,000

Skills: Hoof Trample, Armor of the Wild, Dragonblade Pierce, Stampede of the Hundred Beasts

Introduction: The Dragonlight King of Strange Beasts is the superior of all Dragonlight Armored Horses. It was exceptionally intelligent even when it was just a wild horse, and the Beast Emperor couldn"t tame it despite trying for ten years. In the end, the Beast Emperor had no choice but to shackle it with his magic and pour Dragon Armor Lava over its body. After the King of Strange Beasts absorbed the dragon blood, it underwent a mutation and became extremely violent and aggressive. It would definitely wreak havoc if it ever broke out of its sh.e.l.l.

……

"Holy f.u.c.k!" I gasped audibly. "A Level 180 Heaven Rank boss? This is going to be one h.e.l.l of a fight! Look at its stats, its max Attack is over 7000, and if we account for its hidden stats then its effective Attack is at least 20k or more! Stay alert, everyone. Eve and I may not be strong enough to tank it completely!"

He Yi nodded in agreement. This boss was so powerful that we couldn"t even claim a 50% chance of winning against it.

Moonlight Stone turned a little pale. "Will it wipe us…?"

Murong Mingyue chuckled. "Calm down. In general, a party wipe won"t happen as long as the tank stays alive. In other words, we should be fine as long as Lu Chen doesn"t go soft on us~~"

Me: "What the f.u.c.k are you saying? I"m a warrior! A warrior shouldn"t be expected to be the main tank, much less an unbreakable tank! This is so unfair…"

Murong Mingyue giggled. "Cut the bulls.h.i.+t, you"re complaining like you aren"t the only crazy warrior out there with three or four AoE skills and defensive skills like Ghost Deity Armor and Immortality. Hmph, who else is more qualified to be a tank than you? Now get ready already! The boss"s AI is about to awaken immediately!"

"Got it…"

I pulled out the Cyan Netherworld Sword. The blade was currently shrouded by a red light that represented the power of undead energy. This horse king counted as a living unit, so undead energy would deal extra damage to it.

Besides that, I pa.s.sed the party leader position to He Yi so we could fight the boss with Royal Road. The Famous General Skill improved all our stats by 50% and reduced the boss"s stats by 10% or so, increasing our chances of winning by 30% at least!

Finally, I opened my palm and summoned my body double from the Apparition Ring. An extra body that could function both as a damage dealer and a tank was always a good thing!

……

"Alright, get ready, everyone!"

I ordered, "Beiming Xue, use Corrosive Arrow to lower its Defense, and Mountain Stagger Arrow and Freezing Arrow to lower its movement speed and attack speed. Remember, you are not the damage dealer this time. Your only role in this fight is crowd control, understand?"

"Got it, big bro!" Beiming Xue nodded seriously. We had never encountered such a high-level Heaven Rank boss before, so we were fighting this battle with the utmost caution.

"Eve, pay close attention to aggro transfer, and absolutely watch out for its Dragonblade Pierce skill. Whatever you do, don"t let it one-shot you. If the boss targets you with Dragonblade Pierce, use Holy s.h.i.+eld immediately to Guard and let me aggro it, understand?"

"Got it!"

"Sis, keep us healed. Moonlight Stone, use Ice Dragon Howl to keep the boss slowed. We"re looking to kill the boss safely, not quickly."

"Mn!"

Once the girls all nodded their understanding, the battle began in earnest!

First, I locked onto the boss and activated Thunderous Charge!

Swhoos.h.!.+

Both my figure and my apparition blurred toward the boss at the same time. I was Level 157 and my apparition shared my level, so my chance of stunning the boss was pretty high.

… or that"s what I thought, until the boss slapped me right in the face with two fat MISSes!

"Roar roar!"

The image of a holy dragon appeared on top of the horse"s head, and it abruptly used Hoof Trample. The shockwave hit me, He Yi, my avatar and the Phantom Wolf King at once—

29034!

41772!

62883!

37285!

Holy s.h.i.+t, a single Hoof Trample was enough to make us cry like a b.i.t.c.h, and my apparition was the one who fared the worst out of everyone, losing half its HP in one go!

"Motherf.u.c.ker, this thing"s crazy!"

I met the boss head-on. After Beiming Xue lowered the boss"s Defense by 50% with a Corrosive Arrow to the head, I immediately unleashed Burning Blade Slash + Universe Break combo to its neck. The King of Strange Beasts let out a scream of pain as four damage numbers rose above its head—

17376!

25237!

32488!

29834!

After its Defense was lowered, Burning Blade Slash showed its true power and dealt even more damage than Universe Break with its third hit, stackable attack power of its successive hits overcoming armor penetration.

After the boss"s aggro was firmly captured by me, He Yi rode up to the boss from behind and used Purgatory of Ice and Magma. The five sword auras. .h.i.t even me, but luckily, friendly fire didn"t happen because her attack mode was set to "Guild".

Bang bang bang…

Utterly p.i.s.sed off after eating five sword auras in a row, the King of Strange Beasts abruptly shook its head and used its Dragonblade Pierce on her. Unlike the usual Dragonlight Armored Horse, the skill was a triple-hit skill because it had three horns! He Yi was in grave danger!

Thankfully, He Yi"s control was nothing like back in the days. She quickly moved her s.h.i.+eld downward and used Holy s.h.i.+eld from atop her mount!

Chiang chiang chiang...

Sparks flew everywhere as the draconic horn slammed into the holy s.h.i.+eld three times in a row. Golden sparks flew everywhere as He Yi shuddered like a leaf and lost half her HP in one go! That was dangerous!