Chapter 295: Defend the Territory (5)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
‘Ding! You have received the effect {Weightless}! You have gained the ability to Float. Movement speed reduced by 70%!’
Like the air elementals, Zhang Yang had floated several centimeters above the ground. The white bear beneath him was wiggling its feet frantically like a dog in the water. They may have been slowed down, but the good part was the fact that he could fly!
"Eh!? Little Yang! What are you doing? Are you finally going to the heavens?"
"Haha! Even Aladdin needs a magic carpet to fly. Our boss only needs a giant polar bear to fly!"
"Eh!? Hell nah! Everyone can fly. It’s easy as getting stoned!"
"What…?"
"What?"
Everyone started to laughed at Fatty Han and Endless Starlight jokes and forgot to fight.
"Hey! Wankers! Don’t just yap around, start attacking the boss!" Zhang Yang sternly scolded.
Without any further delay, Wei Yan Er and the rest of the party hurried to the white gaseous area and followed Zhang Yang, floating upwards like a bunched of oversized party balloons.
"What does this {Weightless} do?" Players started to throw the same question at Zhang Yang. It did not seem to aid the boss or undermine the players in any particular manner.
Zhang Yang shrugged without answering. ‘God’ Miracle’ was just too vast, and to explore every single thing was too much of a hassle.
As if they were underwater, players were able to "swim" upward and "dive" downward, and while it may seem fun to move around in the air, the speed of it was extremely slow. Some players had trouble controlling themselves and were floating haphazardly. Many of them had never experienced underwater combat like Zhang Yang did when he was hunting for the Python skins. Curious, those player experimented with it while attacking the boss at the same time.
Shush!
The boss struck Zhang Yang with its hammer. Though Zhang Yang managed to activate {Block} in time and nullify the attack, Zhang Yang’s character was launched at an extreme speed, as if he was plummeting like a cannon ball. At incredible speed, Zhang Yang was sent out of the white gaseous zone and slammed into the ground, hard.
WHAM!
‘-3,000!’
Zhang Yang had just received damage from falling. Unlike the other types of damage, such damage would never be reduced or absorbed by any kind of skill. A character will always receive a fixed amount of damage as long as the character had fallen down from a high altitude, unless the character possessed an Invulnerability status.
After striking Zhang Yang, the boss remained in its place without moving. Instead, it turned to the players that were floating around him and swung at them. With a nice curved swing, anyone in the hammer’s pathway was struck out of the gas zone. As a Level 77 Yellow-Gold boss with basic attack of 11,000, coupled with the falling damage, the accumulated damage of 15,000 was enough to kill any fully geared Gray-Silver player! Unless they fitted all their sockets with Vitality type gemstones, the attack would only result in death!
The boss’s behavior was extreme odd. Whenever a player exited the gas zone, the boss will completely ignore them and turn to other players within the gas zone. By the time Zhang Yang had gotten back to the boss, it had already killed more than 10 players! Only those who were part of the main attack party, such as Wei Yan Er, survived the attack as their equipment were "tanky" enough.
"What a sh*tty boss! You’ll be flung out of the fight with just a single strike! This is just plain annoying!" Endless Starlight complained. After Zhang Yang was sent out of the gas zone with a home run, Endless Starlight was next in line to be flung out.
"Healers! Stay out of the boss’ attack range! Attackers! Watch your HP! Those who can withstand one strike may remain attacking! Those who cannot, leave the area!" Zhang Yang cried out after thinking up of something.
Nodding their heads, the players obeyed. What that was supposed to be a serious fight, turned out to be quite fun. Players who were floating and fighting the boss were flung out like one of those amusement park rides. Every one or two seconds, 10 or more players will be flung out of the gas zone.
However, Moriarty was still the boss monster for the fifth wave, it will bound to have other skills beside this play thing. Just as everyone was having the time of their life, the hammer in the boss’ hand glowed brightly. In an instant, the boss started spinning like a motor. Without any warning, everyone inside the gas zone was flung out! Everyone received more than 15,000 damage in just one attack! Coupled with the 2,000 to 5,000 additional damage from falling, many who had underestimated the boss’ attack were killed instantly as they splattered onto the ground.
"What!? {Tornado Cleave}!?" Gasps of horror filled the air as players started to frown. The battle had just gotten much harder. With the recent deaths, there was an obvious decrease in the number of players, as a whole lot of them were already stacked with three {Fallen} debuff and could no longer return to battle.
One problem came after the other, Zhang Yang felt a sudden headache like never before. Open-world bosses were just like that! Since the number of participant in an open-world boss was unlimited, a boss could be as strong as they want to be! Do not hope that the game developers would just present you with a straightforward battle! Most of the open-world boss often required heavy sacrifices to win the battle!
If the situation was different, Lone Desert Smoke would have been willing to send out as many sacrifices as much as they can without giving in to any worries. However, this battle was very much different! Once a player dies three times, they will not be able to come back! There were still many more monsters to clear after this! If more players are sacrificed, how would the guild face the next wave of monsters!?
There was only one thought running inside Zhang Yang’s mind. Should he use the [Friendship Jade], and summon Smaug’s shadow to fight this boss? Judging from the current situation, to use the two remaining uses of [Friendship Jade] on a Yellow-Gold boss would not be worth it! However, the situation was dire! The Territory was at stake! On the other hand, he also had to worry about the next boss!
Zhang Yang finally came to a final conclusion after serious consideration. If the next boss was even stronger than the current boss, he will drag the boss battle on for longer than 10 minutes after his appearance! Even if Lone Desert Smoke could not defeat the next boss, the Territory should be fine as long as the main Territory hall is left intact! However, if he does not kill Moriarty right now, it will kill more players! Any more losses, and they may be overrun by the next wave!
Without further due, Zhang Yang put on the [Friendship Jade], turned himself into a skeletal soldier, and summoned Smaug.
"Woah! Boss! That’s awesome!"
"Long live Zhan Yu guild master! Even as a skeleton, he sure makes a handsome one!"
"KYAAAA! Zhan Yu! I love you!"
There were a few female player with an odd sense of romance cried out for Zhang Yang’s attention, which he completely ignored.
Swiftly, Zhang Yang commanded Smaug’s shadow to attack Moriarty. "Everyone! Back away now! Let the professional handle this!"
With the speed of the wind, Smaug’s shadow hastily jumped into the gas zone! Miraculously, he did not receive any {Weightless} effect and was able to maintain his feet on the ground. He then swung the Shadow Blood Blade and cleaved Moriarty with over 200,000 damage in a single blow.
Besides Han Ying Xue and his own original crew members, the rest of the guild members were oblivious to Zhang Yang’s secret weapon. They had always known that their guild master was strong, not I-can-command-holy-tiered-bosses-to-do-my-bidding kind of strong! Would that not mean that Zhang Yang was undefeatable? Unrivaled?! If there was a word to describe the feeling beyond admiration, beyond worship, that would be the word to describe the feeling of how the members of Lone Desert Smoke felt about their guild master.
With Smaug’s strength, he only took less than 3 minutes to kill off Moriarty! With no other targets in sight, Smaug returned to guard Zhang Yang. After the entire ordeal, Smaug had only lost less than 10% of his HP! Strong would be an understatement that would not do him justice!
Still, Zhang Yang felt far from joy. He was mourning the second last use of the friendship gem.
Zhang Yang could not help but sigh. After a while, he laughed. Even though the [Friendship Jade] was just a Yellow-Gold tier, it was still able to summon a Holy-tier boss to come to his aid. If it was able to summon Smaug for an unlimited time, that would be too ridiculous! If that was the case, changing the item rarity to Ascended would have made sense instead!
With the early death of the boss, they had won themselves four minutes of rest before the next wave spawned. Everyone took their sweet time to heal themselves with recovery snacks. During that time, Zhang Yang took all the items from the previous bosses and auctioned them out to the members. The session went by quickly without a hitch. Those that had won the bid were happy and those that did not, were not all too disheartened. They knew that the time would come again, in the future!
‘Ding! The sixth wave of monsters have started the attack!’
The 150th minute threshold of the battle had started, with the last wave of monsters spawning, 500 meters away from Thunderstorm Castle.
When Zhang Yang the final wave of monster approaching the castle, he froze. Not in his wildest expectations was he prepared for an entire wave of spectres! Every single one of the monsters out there rode atop a skeletal war horse! These Death Knights were all wearing pitch black armor and long broad swords hung on their backs. From afar, you could feel the chill of death coming towards you! Other than their blackened armor, the only part of them that you could see clearly were the glowing green flames in their eye sockets that reeked of doom!
[Death Knight] (Elite, Spectre)
Level: 79
HP: 158,000
Defense: 400
In perfect formation, they started galloping forth, even the sound of the hooves in tandem.
With such a display, fear surged across the players, tremendously lowering their morale.
Without wasting precious time, Zhang Yang commanded Smaug’s shadow to guard the castle gates. With only 11 minutes left on the timer, this Holy tier boss should be able to last for that period of time. Riding the mount, the Death Knights were able to reach the gates fairly quickly, where Smaug growled, drawing them to him. With a roar, the Death Knights began to surround Smaug, only to be hacked by him. Without a proper AoE skill, Smaug could only kill the Death Knights one at a time! With millions out there in the battle field, Smaug killing speed was extremely limited!
As expected from a Holy tier boss, Smaug possessed ultra strong defense that all the Death Knights were unable to deal more than 1 damage to Smaug, despite having more than 5,000 basic attack damage. Joining the fray, players from the top of the castle wall laid down their attacks. The cannoneers were also attacking from behind the wall. With each strike killing thousands of monsters in a single blast, the cannoneers spared no expense and fired all 30 shots with haste.
Soon, the 11 minutes counter has finished and Smaug’s shadow disappeared into the air. Without the ultimate tank, a large number of Death Knights had rushed into the castle gates and had started engaging with the players.
With no choice left, players could only resort to using themselves as human shields to hold off the Death Knights from proceeding further into the castle. The Death Knights were all Level 79 elite tiers! Other than Zhang Yang alone, everyone else would be affected by the huge level gap! They would deal out penalized damage, while taking even more damage from the monsters! Both attackers, and tankers were having an extremely tough time dealing with the swarm of monsters!
With players all dropping like flies, more and more Death Knights were able to make their way further into the castle. Finally, the inevitable had occurred. The Death Knights were able to punch a huge hole in the last "absolute defense line" and had turned the battle into a one-sided massacre.