Swhoos.h.!.+
I stepped through the teleportation formation. A flash of light later, I appeared on the ninth and most likely the highest floor of Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower.
"Roar roar roar…"
However, I immediately heard a devil"s roar and felt a burst of pain from my shoulder. What the f.u.c.k was this s.h.i.+t teleportation? I got attacked by three dread-rank mobs the moment I appeared!
After my eyes adjusted to the light, I looked around and saw three undead knights clad in metal armor. Each of them was carrying a spear that was glowing a red light, and the spear was covered in scary-looking barbs. The real threat wasn"t getting impaled, but having your blood, flesh, intestines, kidneys, gallbladder, urinary bladder and more pulled out of your stomach when the weapon was pulled! What a scary mob!
I immediately activated Ghost Deity Armor. The undead knights kept hitting me, but my new armor was so OP that I actually took far less damage than I did on the previous floors—
7809!
7662!
6722!
……
Good. Not even a Level 195 dread-rank mob can threaten me any longer. I can fight them head-on!
The Armored Ice Qilin Horse raised its hooves and hit the ground using War Crush, hitting the dread-rank mobs three times in a row and eliciting screams from them. While they were flinching from my counterattack, I checked out their stats and noted that they were called "Dark Guardians” and were Level 195 dread-rank mobs with much higher stats than the Level 193 Dark Prisoners.
Swhoos.h.!.+
Suddenly, a mob"s spear became shrouded in flames, and I was astonished to see that it was using Barrier Break. This was the first time I saw a mob using this super skill!
Thud!
18767!
I took a sizable amount of damage, but the Heaven-burning Armor suddenly lit up and erupted into a ring of flames. The Heaven-burning Flame damaged all targets who were close to me, and the three undead knights were no exception. Unlucky b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, the battle barely began and they already triggered my armor"s pa.s.sive skill.
The fight was shortened drastically thanks to the lucky trigger. In less than twenty seconds, I used Burning Blade Slash for the third time and killed all three undead knights at the same time.
Pop!
A few Phantasmal Magic Stones and a pair of black wristguards dropped on the ground. I picked up the equipment and noted that it was part of the Dark Prison set. Not bad. Continue!
……
I brought up the map and saw a couple of light orange dots directly ahead of me. Once I saw that they carried the guild symbol of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, I hurriedly made my way toward them. After killing the dozen undead knights blocking my way, I saw 7 Dragonlight Cavalrymen engaging three undead knights in battle. They were having trouble because they didn"t have a priest, and every Barrier Break dealt at least 40k damage to them.
I pointed at a dread-rank mob and shackled it with the G.o.d Binding Art while the Phantom Wolf King drew the attention of another mob. The Dragonlight Cavalrymen immediately felt a lot less pressured than before.
One of the Dragonlight Cavalrymen—a beautiful knightress—bloomed into a wide smile the moment she turned around and saw me. "Wah, it looks like luck is finally on our side! To think we would run into the vice leader almost immediately after we entered the ninth floor!"
She was none other than our Knight General, Diamond Dust.
"Mn."
I gave them a nod before saying, "Join my party. We are far away from the boss, so we"ll be using Martial G.o.d to fight our way to the boss."
"Okay!"
A temporary party was formed, and I was the main tank. It was because my Defense was gigboosted by the Immortal-grade Heaven-burning Armor, and my Attack was high enough to hold the enemy"s aggro for as long as I wanted to. There was no one here who was more suited to be the party"s tank than me.
Half an hour later, we cleared out two corridors and met up with another twenty or so Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players. In total, there were now 35 of us. Most of them were of the Dragonlight Cavalry because the traps on the first floor were too dangerous for mages, archers and other fragile cla.s.ses to charge through by force. On the other hand, Dragonlight Cavalry had no such problems as long as a priest was present to heal them halfway through the traps.
Me and my party of 20+ Dragonlight Cavalrymen and a small number of mages, priests, archers and a.s.sa.s.sins continued on our way. It wasn"t long before we heard the clangs of weapons and the battle cries of players.
"Kill that woman now!"
A particularly violent voice shouted.
I hurriedly ran forward and saw a girl carrying a scepter stumbling across a corridor and attempting to escape the two magic knights and three archers at her tail.
Swhoos.h.!.+
The girl healed herself with a green spell before casting pools of gray mud that slowed down her pursuers temporarily. At the same time, she buffed herself with Death Match and Physique.
It was impressive that a bard could fight this well. In fact, she was someone we were all very familiar with—Pure Love.
"f.u.c.k! They"re hurting sister Guanyue!" Diamond Dust raged.
I smiled. "Follow me!"
I rode past Pure Love and summoned a cone of cyan flames around my sword. Then, I stabbed a Northern Alliance magic knight right through the chest and, exploiting my much greater Strength stat to my advantage, lifted him right off his horse and blasted him with Burning Blade Slash. Even the archers behind him were caught by the sword auras and one-shot as well. My Attack was just too strong for them.
Diamond Dust rushed forward to take out another magic knight with a few strikes, and the last enemy magic knight was ganged up on by the others and killed. The battle was over in an instant.
……
"Uu…"
Now that she was out of danger, Pure Love looked at me and Diamond Dust before moaning in grief, "I was so unlucky. Not only was I chased the moment I teleported to this floor, there were only Northern Alliance players wherever I went…"
I added her to my party and said, "It"s all fine now. We"ll get back at all those people who tried to kill you!"
"Aiyo, you are making me fall in love with you all over again, sweetheart…"
Beep!
System Notice: Player "Pure Love" has been kicked out of the party!
"Aiyo, I"ll stop teasing you, so let"s go take revenge already…"
Beep!
System Notice: Player "Pure Love" has been added to the party!
……
We soldiered on. Pure Love cast all her buffs on me since I was the point of the party. Now that she was no longer alone, all she needed to do was to cast a spell or two from the backline.
We encountered several more 30-man Northern Alliance parties along the way, but since I always spotted the enemy first with my Dark Pupils, we were able to annihilate them all without casualties.
A while later, Beiming Xue appeared from the north with a 70-man party and met up with me. My party was now a force to be reckoned with.
While all this was going on, a lot of news came through the guild channel—
Gui Guzi: "Everyone, meet up with your brothers and sisters as soon as possible. I heard that Vienna"s Sorrow has gathered almost a thousand players and is guarding the boss right now. They may even have started already. f.u.c.k, how are these f.u.c.kers moving this fast? They must have incredible movement speed…"
"No, they don"t," Li Chengfeng replied immediately. "Do you still remember how the Northern Alliance teleported their cavalry to the walls of Dawn City, Little Gui? It"s the same trick. Their mages are teleporting their allies directly to the boss area. You don"t actually think that Vienna"s Sorrow is a G.o.d, do you? Dude"s just a human like all of us…"
Gui Guzi: "Mn. Well, it doesn"t matter if they get there first. The last boss is ours no matter what. Once that is done, all we need to do is to s.n.a.t.c.h the remaining Tiger Soul Essences from Candlelight Shadow and Vienna"s Sorrow, and our quest here is complete."
Xu Yang: "Eve and I are very close to the boss already. I heard that Luo River G.o.d of the Capital and 200 Purple Lily players are attacking the Northern Alliance"s defense line right now, and Candle Dragon and Warsky Alliance are gathering their men already. Looks like everyone"s bringing their game for this last floor!"
Me: "Send a few of our a.s.sa.s.sins to check if it has already been started. I want eyes on the boss"s HP bar and the guarantee that the last hit is ours."
However, He Yi replied, "I don"t think it can be done. Little Naughty sent 20 or so a.s.sa.s.sins over just now, but they were all found out by Vienna"s Sorrow. It looks like he has an insight skill like you, Lu Chen. We already have too few a.s.sa.s.sins on the ninth floor, and we cannot lose any more men."
I thought for a moment before saying, "Okay, then we"ll wait. My party will be arriving at the boss area in ten minutes tops. Once we a.s.semble 500 Dragonlight Cavalrymen, we"ll charge their battle lines right away. Hmph, the ninth floor is a wide map, so this is the perfect opportunity to make the Northern Alliance relive the taste of our Dragonlight Cavalry!"
"Mn. Be quick!"
……
I turned off the communicator and focused on fighting the mobs. We took out all the Dark Guardians blocking our way and got a couple more Dark Prison set pieces in the process. I took them all so that they could be put in the guild warehouse and purchased by the guild members with contribution points later. They weren"t of much use separate anyway.
Ten minutes later, we arrived at the boss area and discovered that the place was like a giant, open-air plaza. A battle had already broken out at the center where tiger roars could be heard, and large groups of Northern Alliance players were blocking our way. I scouted the area with my Dark Pupils, and just as I had feared, the f.u.c.kers had already started the boss. I didn"t know what the boss of the ninth floor was, but judging from how intense the battle looked even from outside I suspected that they weren"t close to finis.h.i.+ng anytime soon.
Li Chengfeng raised his spear with a smile and asked me, "We going?"
"We are. Come on!"
We managed to gather over 700 Dragonlight Cavalrymen in total. After everyone was buffed as best they could, we set off to punch through the Northern Alliance"s defense line!
……
Suddenly, a troop of Sky City cavalry emerged from a corner in front of us. It was none other than the Earth Dragon Cavalry led by Roaming Dragon, Iron Pardon and Inconstant themselves!
"What the f.u.c.k? That"s Mad Dragon. What the h.e.l.l are those idiots planning?" Li Chengfeng exclaimed in astonishment.
I shook my head. "I don"t know…"
We saw the mages of Mystic Alliance aiming their scepters at Mad Dragon. The next moment, a torrent of spells turned all the Mad Dragon riders into shreds.
"They must have come to satisfy their inner m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts…" I said with absolute conviction.
He Yi, Gui Guzi, Beiming Xue and everyone else nodded in agreement.