Chapter 838: Song of Despair
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
BANG!
Zhong Xiu Hua's fist had only made a tiny bump on the plastic table in his office. With rage, he lifted his right fist and slams it down again as if he was dissatisfied for not being able to break it. "How is Lone Desert Smoke taking all the good stuff in the game! How could we allow Lone Desert Smoke – no! How could be allow Zhang Yang to beat us!? US!? We are the Eternal Flame guild! Is th1is goes on, how are we going to be China's number one guild?"
Standing on the opposite side of the table were two grown men in their early adulthoods. They were Scholar Musou and Longrich. Both of them stood there like scarecrows, motionless as they could not muster up any excuses to answer Zhong Xiu Hua.
The atmosphere of the office grew heavier.
After a long silence, Scholar Musou finally found the courage to talk. "It…it's because Zhang Yang has the {Gates of Hell}. The skill had allowed him to fight the boss toe to toe. Without it, not even Zhang Yang's Defenses would hold on."
"Tell me something THAT I DON'T KNOW!" Zhong Xiu Hua screamed. "What am I hiring you for when all you do is give me excuses!"
Both Longrich and Scholar Musou clenched their fists. For the past few days, Eternal Flame finances had dried up. Zhong Xiu Hua had not been issuing his regular member's salary for more than a month. Still, it not for his "princely" social and politic status, the entire guild would have long been abandoned and disbanded.
When a guild is built using the attraction of money, it would be greatly impacted when the money stops coming in. Once the promised wages are delayed, people will start taking actions. One more month and the guild will eventually be empty, no matter how prominent the guild master may be.
Technically, in their current predicament, Eternal Flame stills stood amongst the top 5 guilds in China. With that standing, there should be companies seeking to be their sponsors. If that is the case, how did the finances suddenly go rogue? The reason was rather simple, actually. Eternal Flame's main sponsor was none other than Zhong Xiu Hua's own mother, the CEO of Hua Yi Trust Fund. Since the entire cooperation was facing problems in the real world, the sponsored monetary funds were cut off.
According to his mother, ever since the Trust Fund gone public, there was an unknown faction that had been buying up a large share of the company. The person was buying so many shares realized that his position was starting to threaten the authority of his mother. Hence, to prevent the liquidation of the company's shares, his month had been cutting off all outgoing fundings to counter the buyer.
That action was uncalled for but was inevitable. There was nothing that Zhong Xiu Hua could do to make things right. He was not talented in the game. He had been relying a lot on his members to do the deeds. As such, all the sponsored money that came in was shared with others but not himself. When the money stopped coming in from his own family side, he was cut off completely. That had made Zhong Xiu Hua incredibly angry.
"Master Zhong. This may sound harsh but, there is nothing we could do about Lone Desert Smoke nor Zhang Yang at the moment. If we would want Eternal Flame to burn brightly in all of China, there's only one way to do it," said Longrich.
"What ingenious idea have you come up with?" said Zhong Xiu Hua, trying to hold back his urge to punch anyone in the face.
"Kill. Murder."
Zhong Xiu Hua widened his eyes at the idea of killing. However, it did not take long before common sense kicked in. It was not his humanity, but the consequences of his action that might cause the Sun Family to meddle in his matters again like before. He will be facing with Sun Xin Yu's wrath if things get out of control. No matter what happens, he still had something to hold on to, he would not be willing to give up his life for someone like Zhang Yang!
"No. That's not efficient enough. I want finer method. I want to surgically remove Zhang Yang as a threat from my life!"
…
In the headquarters of Silky Soft Holdings. Zhang Yang's main office.
"Mr. Zhang. I have managed to procure another 20 billion dollars. This would allow us have more than 50% of all the share for Hua Yi Trust Funds," said a young man that was busy tapping on a digital calculator on Zhang Yang's desk.
"Very good." Zhang Yang nodded and swiveled his chair around. "Do report back to me when you have it done."
"Yes, sir," said the young man and he went back to his own world of digits and numerals.
Zhang Yang crossed his fingers and rested his chin on them. With a satisfied feeling in his guts, Zhang Yang smirked. Zhang Yang had played a risk. He had pulled out 70 billion dollars from his own company and borrowed 20 billion dollars from the bank, all for the sake of investing. No matter what it takes, he must have Hua Yi Trust Funds under him. That way, he will ultimately cut off all fundings of Zhong Xiu Hua.
Like a fierce lion that is defanged and declawed, Eternal Flame will, ironically, go up in flames. Like The Myth, the guild would never prosper when it is built up using money. By then, there would be no way for Zhong Xiu Hua to remain in the game.
…
The official site had released a new info along with a new update to the game. Along with the end of the Spectre Invasion and the Demon Descent patch, all Celestial tier bosses will be revealed to the world, allowing players to fight them openly.
Unlike the bosses of other races, the Nine Demon Lord and the Seven Spectre Kings were revealed to the world. Even though Angus and Kenzack are already killed, there will always be a new Celestial boss to replace their seats to keep the number of Celestial tier bosses the same.
After a Celestial boss was killed, the game system would take up to 30 days (real time) to respawn a new one. Those still roaming in the game will have no changes applied to them. On the other hand, the newly spawned boss will have its difficulty and level adjusted according to the average players' Level. However, the system had not released any more information on that matter.
So far, there were 16 Celestial tier boss in the entire game. There were 8 roaming in the Level 270 – Level 300 map, 6 in the Level 240 – Level 270 map, 1 in the Level 210 – Level 240 map, and 1 in the Level 150 – Level 180 map. One of them, that had been alive for as long as the game started had been doing extremely well. The Witch King of the Undead, Mardevich. He had been having his fun time killing countless players.
Zhang Yang was only around Level 220 and the boss the was most suitable for him will be in the Level 210 – Level 240 map. It was better to fight a boss that is within their level radius than fight a boss that is a killer wolf under a sheepskin.
The most important rule to fight any boss is to never be outside the level range. That being said, now that the developers had openly revealed all the bosses' locations, clearly they would not be an easy target.
Zhang Yang got back home, did a little adult recreational fun time with the ladies, and logged back into the game. His first target to slay was The Demon Lord Regalia. His location, a valley.
By then, there were already many players that were ready in the game, waiting for the rest of the Lone Desert Smoke main party members to assemble. While Lone Desert Smoke was still making their preparations for the attack, other guild master feared that they might not have a shot at digging the gold mine. Hence, even though other guilds were not as prepared, they had already set off to the valley. The battle was already ongoing when Zhang Yang and his attack squad arrived. When he did, he saw one massive guild trying to fight, but they were all killed in less than 10 seconds!
Astonished at the boss' prowess, Zhang Yang was determined to find a weakness that he could exploit.
[Demon Lord Regalia] (Celestial, Demon)
Level: 240
HP: 24,000,000,000
Defense: 60,865
Melee Attack: 662,803 – 862,803
Magic Attack: 401,779 – 481,779
Skills:
[Force Strike]: Deals 100% melee physical attack. 50% chance to strike an additional attack.
[Demonic Soul]: Unleash pools of demonic souls within 300 meters around the caster. Players that made contact with the pool will be converted into Regalia's servant.
[Fiery Blast]: Deals 200% Magic Fire Attack that will explode and deals 500,000 additional fire damage to all targets within 10 meters of the initial target.
[Tornado Cleave]: Deals 100% melee physical attack to all targets within 300 meters.
[Demonic Constitution]: Restores 1% HP every 30 seconds. Recovery rate will not be affected by any skills or effect.
[No Escape]: After entering 300 meters to Regalia, players cannot leave 300 meters from Regalia or will be subjected to instant death.
[Death Mark]: Inflicted on death after being killed by Regalia. Players with the debuff cannot enter within 300 meters of Regalia or they will be subjected to instant death. Effect lasts for 72 hours.
[Song of Despair]: Sings a song of despair around 300 meters around Regalia. Initial damage of 1,000,000 Chaos Damage will be inflicted and will gain a stacking damage of 1,000,000 every second. Lasts for 30 seconds.
Note: A Demon Lord that stands out amongst the rest of the Demon Lords. Regalia is a demon that kills all that encounters him to hide his presence. No one knows how strong he is. Caution would be an understatement when one approaches him.
Zhang Yang finally understood why all the players that had charged in earlier than he did were killed after 10 seconds. It was the doing of the skill {Song of Despair}. After simple calculations, the total damage that could be dealt was as high as 465,000,000. That's a skill that was even stronger than any [Forbidden Scroll] in the entire game! No one. Not even Zhang Yang could survive with his Transformation.
With such a skill in his skill list, Regalia will undoubtedly be the strongest god amongst all gods! The chances of winning was an absolute zero!
However, the developers will never make a boss or a quest that can never be solved. However, to counter the boss' {Song of Despair} and kill the boss, all players in the world must a full Celestial tier set equipment and the highest class Inheritance, along with the strongest Battle Mount to win!
Such a requirement would be absurd. Hence, unless there is a method to nullify or weaken the skill, {Song of Despair} will be treated as a bug that makes the boss undefeatable.
"Holy mother of all crap in my *ss. How are we supposed to fight that?" said Fatty Han. Everyone else shared the same thoughts and was prepared to make their way back to the Holy City. Zhang Yang, on the other hand, had been busy trying to find a way to defeat him. When his sea of thoughts failed him, he turned to the outside world, scouting around any possible points of interest that may help. Suddenly, he saw something and shot down to the ground.
"Heyyya! Where are you going!" cried Wei Yan Er.
Zhang Yang ignored her and continued downward and finally landed in front of a small dwarf NPC.
[Salygos] (Normal, Humanoid)
Level: 240
Note: Even though Salygos is a dwarf, there was an unexplainable power emitting from him.
"This place is not for the weakhearted. Why are you here? I must urge you to leave for your own safety." Said Zhang Yang.
Salygos frowned and begun to spat at Zhang Yang. "I am here for the like of you weaklings!"
He then calmed down and explained, "Regalia's strength is currently too strong for anyone, he holds part of the Death God's power. If you try to fight him now, you will be killed."
Wei Yan Er had managed to catch up with Zhang Yang, along with the rest of the main party members. However, there was someone else along with them. Dusk Phoenix came down and winked seductively at Zhang Yang, Hourglass Figure came down and blatantly ignored Zhang Yang. And there were more other random players that Zhang Yang recognized as part of the elites. It was then made clear to him that he was not the only "smart" one that were trying to find a way to solve the boss' extreme difficulty.
"To defeat Regalia, you must find the Staff of Primordial Life. That magic staff will be your only hope that could purge the Death God's power from him."
Every word that came out of his mouth seems to be emitting a powerful shock wave that made the ground crack and the dust falling off Zhang Yang's armor. Even the valley was vibrating from his sheer power.
The moment he had finished his speech, the dwarf glowed in a bright light. Zhang Yang noticed a large shadow that flew over him and noticed a large blue dragon had flown away.
"The Staff of Primordial Life?"
Obviously, the Staff of Primordial Life was meant to remove the skill {Song of Despair} from the boss list. That, or have it greatly weakened so that players could stand a chance to defeat him.
At then, Zhang Yang had an epiphany.
"I need you guys to handle this. I've got something urgent that needs to be done as soon as possible."
Zhang Yang shot to the sky immediately, before anyone had any chance to say a word.