Swoosh!

I sensed danger the moment the boss raised the barbs on its body. Not good, it looks like it’s about to unleash a powerful move!

The last Level 60 boss, Hill Protector God, had an incredibly powerful move called Thunder God’s Stampede. This Bloodspine Wolfking was also a Level 60 boss, so I should’ve expected it to have a similar killer move as well!

“Gui Guzi, defend! Everyone else back off! An AoE attack is coming!”

I shouted and backed off quickly. However, Murong Mingyue couldn’t escape because she was standing too close to Gui Guzi! Eyes widening, she waited for the inevitable to arrive.

“Fuck…”

I clenched my teeth and burst into action. I charged toward Murong Mingyue and pushed her to our backline. At the same time, I turned around and expanded the cloak behind my back completely. The Bloodspine Wolfking finally unleashed its killer move and fired all the spikes on its body, razing everything within 20 meters.

Beep!

Combat Log: Bloodspine Wolfking used “Thousandfold Penetration”!

……

Thud thud thud!

My back turned numb as three spikes penetrated my back in succession!

411!

397!

421!

My HP instantly hit rock bottom, but thankfully Murong Mingyue raised her arm and enveloped me in a beam of holy light, restoring over 400 HP!

I quickly turned around to check the party. It was bad. Gui Guzi and Du Thirteen’s Wasps had died to the attack, and my own Dark Wasp only had a sliver of HP left. Even Gui Guzi looked battered because the attack had taken away four-fifths of his HP!

That wasn’t all. Xu Yang had been killed because the attack was too much for him to withstand. The second party’s mage and archer were also dead because they reacted too slowly. Du Thirteen escaped with his life because he never got close enough to be hit in the first place, and Beiming Xue was the only one who escaped the deadly assault in time by backflipping into the forest behind her.

“That was too close…”

Murong Mingyue stuck out her tongue before glancing at Xu Yang’s corpse. She couldn’t stop herself from kicking him playfully and saying, “Sigh, Xu Yang is such a noob…”

Unsure what to say about her action, I drew the boss’s aggro to myself and bought Gui Guzi some time to recover. I was the offtank after all, it was my job to prevent a party wipe!

Thankfully, that AoE attack was basically the Wolfking’s last-ditch effort. Now, beating it was only a matter of time.

The raid continued uneventfully after that near party wipe. Since Murong Mingyue kept both my and Gui Guzi’s HP above 75% at all times, we were never in any real danger. I must say that her healing skills were very impressive.

“Awoo…”

Finally, the Bloodspine Wolfking let out a dying howl and perished gloriously to our blades!

I stretched open my hand and executed Death Plunder. Loot first, talk later!

Swhoosh!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have gained Wolfking Pelt x20!

……

Pleasantly surprised, I checked my bag to find a shiny stack of golden wolf pelts. I gave them a cursory check, and I wasn’t disappointed!

Wolfking Pelt (Quality: 100): Rank 5 material, can be used to create Silver-grade leather armor. Any equipment created using this material will receive bonus of +9 Agility, +1% critical rate, or +7 HP!

Damn, a special material that adds stats? That’s amazing!

It didn’t take long for me to decide that this was a material I couldn’t sell. The best thing to do here would be to hire a high-level armorsmith and forge an amazing armor for Beiming Xue. It would greatly enhance her attack power and survivability, and in a game like this there was nothing more important than increasing my group’s strength!

Thus, I tossed the stack of Wolfking Pelts back into my bag.

It was at this moment Murong Mingyue walked up to me and picked up the loot on the ground. Unfortunately, her beautiful face was marred by disappointment. “Sigh, we’re still not getting a Hero’s Token. It only dropped a Silver-grade cloth armor and two Steel-grade metal armors.”

I took a look. The cloth armor was an elegant-looking robe. Its milky-white color symbolized purity, and it enhanced a player’s healing effect by 0.8%. This equipment was clearly designed for a priest.

I moved closer to Murong Mingyue and chuckled softly. “Sis, this one’s yours. If you put it on even you can pretend to be pure…”

Murong Mingyue rolled her eyes at me. “I am pure. Why would I need to wear this and pretend? That being said, this robe does have some pretty good stats, and I’m not about to turn down a good offer. Now, how do you want to distribute these two metal armors?”

“The wristguards go to Xu Yang, and the boots go to Amazing Expert. Is that okay?”

“No problem!”

After that, Murong Mingyue gave me all the Phantasmal Magic Stones and 200 gold to boot. With a smile, she said, “This is yours. No need to be courteous, you have to consider the wellbeing of your own men, am I right?”

I obeyed her wish. I didn’t want other people to recognize that we were acquainted anyway.

After that, I turned around and declared to Gui Guzi, Beiming Xue, and Du Thirteen, “Alright, our quest today is a resounding success, and this here is the loot we got! Come now, let’s head back to the city and grab our breakfast. After that, we get back to leveling!”

Everyone nodded, and I logged off after returning to the city.

……

I logged back into the game after finishing breakfast.

I strolled the squares of Floating Ice City in hopes of finding a high-rank armorsmith who could forge a good leather armor for Beiming Xue. I had taken a gander at her equipment, and while her bow and cloak were pretty good, everything else was not up to par. The only reason she made it into Top 10 was because of her racial traits, class advantage, and excellent mechanical skills.

There were at least a hundred armorsmiths at the square, and many were looking to purchase high-quality materials. However, the best armorsmith I found thus far was only Rank 4. It wasn’t nearly good enough to make use of my Wolfking Pelt.

For a moment, I was troubled by the lack of results. Is allowing these precious pelts to collect mold in the warehouse my only choice?

Suddenly, a refreshing voice reached my ears from the right.

“Bronze-grade Coral Chest Armor for 5 gold each! First come first serve, if one is fake, I shall compensate you for ten of them!”

The voice immediately caught my attention. I had heard of this Coral Chest Armor before. It was a Level 50 Bronze-grade item, and the materials necessary to make it were rather simple. Its Defense was low, and it only added 4 points of Agility. Naturally, it wasn’t going to sell now or ever. However, the armorsmith who could forge a Coral Chest Armor had to be at Rank 5! It was evident from the armor’s Level 50 requirement!

I turned around and found an uncle sitting alone at a corner. He was a Level 48 priest with patchy facial hair, and his expression was scrunched into a look of resignation. The lines on his forehead seemed to contain many untold stories and hardships, and his game ID was called “Yamete.”

I strode up to him, crouched and looked him in the eye. I asked, “Your armorsmithing skill is Rank 5, am I right?”

Yamete’s murky eyes cleared up. “I see that you’re a shrewd person, brother!”

I smiled slightly at his response before replying, “I may have a business proposition for you.”

“Speak.”

I showed him all 20 of my Wolfking Pelts before saying, “This is the raw material. I’ll pay you 10 gold if you can forge me a Silver-grade chest armor. What do you think?”

Yamete frowned. “This pelt is but one of the many materials I would need to make a chest armor, among materials like Refined Steel, Velvet Thread, Obsidian and so on. The biggest problem would be the Rank 5 Obsidian. It fetches 100 gold or even more on the market. If all you’re offering is 10 gold, then I’m sorry to say that I cannot accept your proposition.”

I asked, “Do you have Obsidian right now?”

“I do, but that’s for my own use. I’m collecting materials necessary to make a Silver-grade cloak, cloth armor. Sorry.”

“I see. It’s okay. Sorry to disturb you!”

“Hehe. See you!”

Slightly disappointed, I turned around to leave. I still have a long way to go before I can forge a chest armor for Beiming Xue, it seems!

But I barely took a few steps before I heard a loud voice from behind me. “Fuck! How many times do I have to fucking tell you that this spot belongs to our guild? Are you leaving or not? If you don’t, don’t blame us for PKing you when you step out of the city! Seriously, how fucking shameless can you be?”

I turned around in haste, and I saw Yamete being surrounded by four players. Their IDs had the prefix “Mad Dragon” in it. Clearly, they were part of the Mad Dragon guild.

“What is the meaning of this?” Yamete asked solemnly.

“We mean exactly what you’re seeing right now.” The crowd parted to give way to a high-level Warrior. It was none other than the ace warrior of the Mad Dragon guild, Iron Pardon. Shooting Yamete a cold look, he said, “What the hell were you thinking making excuses after excuses every time we sent you a guild invitation? Are you looking down on us or what?”

Iron Pardon then took out a pitch black stone from his lap and sneered, “This is what you were waiting for, am I right?”

Shock overcame Yamete’s expression as he stuttered, “H-how did you get that Obsidian?”

Iron Pardon laughed loudly. “How did we get it? We set up an ambush and one-shot that idiot friend of yours, that’s how! Unluckily for you, he dropped the thing you needed the most!”

Yamete rose to his feet furiously and shouted, “Fuck your mother, Mad Dragon!”

Iron Pardon sneered again, “You’re the one who insisted on drinking a forfeit. Our Mad Dragon still needs a high-level armorsmith, and it’s not yet too late for you to join us. If you refuse us again, I’d advise you to fuck off from Floating Ice City as far away as you can. There is no place left for you here anymore!”

Yamete’s chubby face was completely distorted by anger, but he had nowhere to vent it at all. He was a high-level priest, but he was hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched. How could he possibly fight against them?

Iron Pardon swept a glance at his guild members before laughing. “Yamete, I don’t have time to waste on you. Guys, it’s time to head out and grind again! As for you, just try and take a step out of the city. I promise I’ll have your corpse camped for at least a week!”

Yamete gritted his teeth so hard that they bled. His eyes were burning with fury.

……

As they had said, Iron Pardon’s group left the city.

Whoosh!

However, Yamete also got to his feet, grabbed his shabby-looking staff and chased after them. Clearly, he wasn’t willing to give up his Obsidian without a fight.

My eyes weren’t clouded by emotion like Yamete’s, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was a bad move, literally and figuratively. A Level 42 assassin was stealthed, following right behind Yamete. Clearly, Iron Pardon wasn’t joking when he declared that he would camp Yamete’s corpse for a whole week if he dared to step out of the city. The Mad Dragon guild was both powerful and crazy enough to commit such an atrocity.

Thus, I concealed my ID, grabbed my sword, and rushed toward the city gates. I couldn’t allow this injustice to pass!