Chaos Moon returned to the city and the rest of us split up into three parties. He Yi, Gui Guzi, and I each took command of one party and we divided the dragon scales we had among us. Li Chengfeng, Beiming Xue, and High Fighting Spirits joined my party and the three hundred players of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls started to prepare to enter the B9 floor.
……
Beep!
Lin Yixin sent me a message: "Hey, Lu Chen. Are you guys going to the next floor?"
I replied: "Yeah, I mean, what else can we do?"
I looked toward Lin Yixin and I saw that she was currently dueling with several experts from Warsky Alliance. Hundred Battler was desperately trying to fend off Lin Yixin"s blade with his own, but the Fruit Knife G.o.ddess"s fierce attacks sent him reeling with only a sliver of health left.
I immediately continued in an incredulous voice: "Hey, Yiyi, aren"t you PvPing right now? Do you really have the leisure to talk at this moment…"
Lin Yixin sent me a smiley-face emoticon before replying, "Haha, it"s fine! Candlelight Shadow already left and I don"t need to use one hundred percent of my brainpower to deal with these scrubs. How about we talk about what"s been happening in the world lately? Have you heard about the recent instability in the Middle East…"
I nearly vomited blood when I read her message: "WTF, we can talk about current affairs over a meal if you want. Just concentrate on killing people first! Go, go, go! Grab that dragon scale!"
"Gotcha!"
……
I took out the teleportation scroll that would send us to the B9 floor as we retreated to a safe spot. The B8 floor was a complete mayhem, so we mustn"t allow ourselves to get caught up in this mess while using the scrolls! Let"s go to the ninth floor first!
Whoos.h.!.+
A blinding light flashed in front of me and the scenery had changed completely by the time I could see again. It was a place filled with rock formations. There were patches of flat ground, there were mountains, and there were even lakes in this area. It looked like any other map in the game. However, if someone were to raise their head to look at the sky, they would see a vast array of brilliant stars filling it. Furthermore, the ground was dotted with many holes of varying sizes. I bent down to inspect one of them and realized that we could see through these holes and it was the same black starry sky below us! It was as if we had been teleported to a piece of land that was floating in the middle of a starry universe!
"Be careful…" I swiftly caught hold of Beiming Xue and pointed at a hole in front of her. It was about ten meters wide and everyone could admire the beautiful stars brilliantly sparkling at the bottom of the hole. But if someone dropped in, it wouldn"t be so pretty anymore! It was very possible that a player would lose a few pieces of equipment forever and be sent straight back to Sky City if they took one wrong step!
……
"Woah, that was freaking scary…" Beiming Xue jumped backward in shock, her hands covering her chest.
I spoke in a serious voice, "Everyone, be very careful. This is the last floor and it"s also the resting place of the final boss of the Nine Lost Dragon Domains. There"s no way that it will be like any of the bosses we have faced before. This goes for the monsters here too. Never let your guard down while you"re fighting them. Only three hundred of us entered this place so each and every one of you is an irreplaceable part of our fighting force. Acting responsibly and staying alive is your duty to the guild!"
"Understood!" everyone shouted as they nodded their heads heavily. Everyone wore a determined look on their faces.
"Big bro, check that out…"
Beiming Xue stretched out an arm to point at what looked like a small valley in the distance. There were a bunch of rhinos clad in thick armor running around and they didn"t look easy to fight at all. Four flames of different colors blazed on each of their four hooves. They were red, yellow, white, and green respectively. It was as if they were riding on top of Nezha"s wind and fire wheels. There were three horns adorning their large heads and a tiny cl.u.s.ter of starry energy swirling in the center of those three horns. It looked as if it could fire energy blasts from that swirl of energy and that alone gave me serious pause.
"Be careful, this shadow-rank monster isn"t simple to deal with…"
I slung my Heaven-stealing Sword over my shoulder before I shot forward at lightning speed. When I was about fifty yards away from the rhinos, I managed to scan their stats—
Star Rhino (Shadow)
Level: 160
Attack: 2140~2450
Defense: 2500
HP: 200000
Skills: Barbaric Slam, Horn Thrust, Heaven Vortex
Introduction: The guardians of the Star Dragon Domain. These Star Rhinos are slaves of the Star Dragon. They are extremely strong and their horns are sharp enough to split scales of a true dragon! Furthermore, they can use their horns to unleash a storm of stellar energy, which deals ma.s.sive damage to anyone caught up in it. These giant three-horned beasts are extremely violent and cruel, and just the thought of them sends s.h.i.+vers down the spines of their enemies.
……
"f.u.c.k me, a Level 160 shadow-rank monster…" High Fighting Spirits exclaimed in a shocked voice. He violently gulped down a mouthful of saliva as he said, "How are its stats different from any normal boss? Aren"t they all a little too high?"
Li Chengfeng laughed and said, "Just be careful when you fight them. Barbaric Slam and Horn Thrust are definitely single-target attacks, but that Heaven Vortex attack may be something else altogether. Whatever it is, let"s not get one-shot by this herd of shadow-rank mobs."
"Got it! Vice leader, we"ll let you lure them in!"
"Okay!"
I strode forward and lifted my Heaven-stealing Sword high in the air. Even though I was still a very far distance away from the herd of Star Rhinos, I swept my blade down. A cyan blade of energy shot out of my sword and whistled through the air, striking a Star Rhino fiercely in the head, causing a "9874" damage number to pop up above its head. Yeah, even though this Star Rhino had thick defenses, it wasn"t enough to block my attacks!
"Roaaaar!"
As it let out a howl, the Star Rhino charged toward me at full speed.
Whoos.h.!.+
I used Thunderous Charge just when it had started to draw near, and I managed to successfully stun the ma.s.sive beast. I immediately attacked it with a Universe Break + Burning Blade Slash combo, causing the Star Rhino to howl in agony. At the same time, it madly thrust its head forward and one of its bladed horns smashed into my pauldrons, causing an intense pain to radiate from the area of impact.
5803!
Holy s.h.i.+t! This damage was insane! A Level 160 shadow-rank monster was really a cut above the rest. In fact, when I was. .h.i.t by its Horn Thrust, I was rendered immobile for one whole second as well! That could spell serious trouble for us if we weren"t careful!
"Charge!"
Li Chengfeng, High Fighting Spirits, and the rest of the high-level fighters activated their Charge skill as they crashed into the rhino from all sides. After that, the Star Rhino reared up in fury before beams of starry energy shot out of the middle of its horns with a crackle and a pop! A vortex of cosmic energy attacked everything within a 3x3 yard square. Li Chengfeng, High Fighting Spirits, and I were all hit by the attack and we felt a scorching sensation a.s.sault us from all directions as we continuously lost health.
3902!
3881!
3789!
……
What the f.u.c.k! Was this still even a shadow-rank monster? It actually dealt more than ten thousand damage to me! Meanwhile, Li Chengfeng and High Fighting Spirits were receiving the beating of their lives. They bared their teeth as they both lost nearly 17000 HP! Thankfully, there were several priests who were busy healing us from the back and Moon Dew was one of them. Even with all that healing, the three of us barely survived this single attack made by a Level 160 shadow-rank monster!
Swhoos.h.!.+
An arrow flew in and ended the Star Rhino"s life. Beiming Xue"s attack had finished off the mob and a round Phantasmal Magic Stone dropped from it. I immediately picked it up and tossed it to High Fighting Spirits.
"Let"s continue!"
I climbed up a small hill and that sight that greeted me sent shudders down my spine. Li Chengfeng and High Fighting Spirits soon joined me and their jaws simultaneously dropped to the ground in shock and fright! They yelled, "f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, did we enter some sort of rhino farm?!"
A vast, rolling plain greeted us and countless Star Rhinos were ambling along the ground. They bent down to chew on the tender gra.s.s as the sounds of their bellows reverberated in the air.
"Did you check out what happened earlier? These Star Rhinos give a ridiculous amount of experience! Even after it was split among the hundred of us, I still saw my experience bar light up…" Li Chengfeng said with a s.h.i.+t-eating grin on his face.
I nodded my head, "As long as you receive 0.1% of the experience you need to level, your experience bar will light up. These Star Rhinos really do give an incredible amount of exp and if I kill one by myself, I would probably gain 1% in one go! One hundred of them would be just enough to level…"
High Fighting Spirits couldn"t help but chuckle as he grinned from ear to ear. "Then, this current situation is simply perfect for us. Let"s clean this place of Star Rhinos! Sounds good, right?"
"Yeah. Send out a few a.s.sa.s.sins to go scout out the boss"s location. The rest of us will stay here and clear the area of these Star Rhinos. These are the last shadow-rank mobs in this huge dungeon, so they will probably drop some nice items for us as well."
"Alright, let"s keep up the killing!"
We rushed down the hill and entered the plains, there was experience to farm! High Fighting Spirits, Li Chengfeng, and I each split off into three different teams and each team had five priests attached to it. The three of us would act as the main tanks and we would lure one Star Rhino in at a time. This would greatly increase our farming speed.
I was practically the main damage-dealer in my team as well, and there was a 70% chance that I would deal the last hit to the mobs. My 33 Luck would ensure that my item drop rate was good as well. It was too bad that Chaos Moon wasn"t here though. If not, her Famous General Skill, Plunder, would boost my drop rate by 120%! That would have been wonderful!
……
We received a new piece of news in the guild channel
Xu Yang: I got a new battle report. The Great Earth Wind Dragon was killed by the Warsky Alliance in the end. However, the beautiful Wind Fantasy stole three pieces of equipment, and the dragon scale was stolen by Moonkiss. Warsky, Farewell Song, and the rest sacrificed a few hundred people to kill the boss, but they really only got experience in the end…"
Gui Guzi: "Hahaha, Warsky Alliance are really a tragic bunch, aren"t they? See how clever we were! If we had chosen to fight over that boss with Snowy Cathaya and Purple Lily, we would have sacrificed the levels of way too many of our guild members to get that dragon scale!"
He Yi giggled: "Lu Chen, right now, these eight dragon scales are split among the big guilds, but have you thought about what the final result will be in this map?"
I chuckled: "There will only be one result! Someone will end up taking all nine scales and exchanging them for the grand prize of this quest. Hmph, when everyone enters the B9 floor, they"ll start clearing the map of Star Rhinos. The guilds will definitely start fighting each other after that. The dragon scales are designed to drop if the player holding them dies, so we need to focus on protecting the scales that we have right now. We also need to look out for opportunities to s.n.a.t.c.h the dragon scales from the other guilds!"
Li Chengfeng spoke up: "Heh, Lu Chen said exactly what I was thinking. Only eight hundred people can enter the ninth floor. So let"s sit back and enjoy the show, boys and girls!"
Chaos Moon: "Everyone seems really lively huh…"
He Yi"s laughter sounded like silvery bells. "h.e.l.lo, my pretty Chaos Moon. Your Ghost G.o.d Prophecy…”
Chaos Moon giggled. "I finished dying…"
I replied, "Congratulations…"
Chaos Moon: "..."
……
I had already killed over twenty Star Rhinos, but they had only dropped magic stones and some trash Dark Steel and Silver–grade equipment so far. The game had advanced to such a stage that these items didn"t have much use, so they wouldn"t attract much attention.
Finally, after I had killed my twenty-seventh Star Rhino, the wailing beast finally dropped something that could catch my eye. A pair of azure gauntlets fell to the ground and when High Fighting Spirits picked them up, he couldn"t keep a grin off his face.
Split Galaxy Gauntlets (Purple Gold–grade, Outstanding★★)
Defense: 550
Magic Resist: 420
Strength: +100
Stamina: +95
Tactics: +15
Pa.s.sive: Increases user"s max HP by 2500
Outstanding Property: Cruelty, increases user"s Attack by 11%
Property: Split Galaxy Set
Level Requirement: 125
……