“Gulp…”

I stared at the chest hair hanging in front of a tauren’s chest and gulped.

Lin Yixin looked back and forth between me and the tauren horde before saying, “Only a real man can handle these muscular taurens. Lu Chen, go!”

I exclaimed in shock, “You’re giving me too much credit! I’m not the only real man in China!”

Clear Perfume asked while staring at the taurens, “Are they powerful?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded and shared the tauren’s stat screen in the party channel.

Tauren Warrior (Elite)

Level: 75

Attack: 550~675

Defense: 700

HP: 15000

Skills: Splash, Smash, Crush

Introduction: Considered excellent warriors among beastmen, Tauren Warriors have extraordinarily powerful physique and defense. They smear thick layers of bark extract over their skin to protect themselves from most blade damage, and there is nothing their magically-enhanced totems and amazing strength can’t crush. Legends say that Taurens are the guardians of the Beast God, and they are the most elite tribe of the beastman clan.

……

Clear Perfume curled her lips and chided us. “What’s wrong with you two? Sure, its Attack and Defense are stronger than normal, but it doesn’t look like anything special. Did you forget that you’re the two strongest players of Floating Ice City?”

Lin Yixin turned away and stared at distant trees swaying with the breeze of spring, so I explained, “Of course we can kill them without trouble if that is all there is to them, Qingqing. Not even our priest would feel any pressure whatsoever. But did you see what skills they have? Smash is a skill with a high chance to ignore one’s Defense. Crush is a CC skill. Splash is even worse because it means the taurens deal splash damage when attacking. What if Yiyi and I are caught in seven or eight splashes at once? Even we would be one-shot in an instant!”

“Ah?”

Clear Perfume stuck her tongue out at the taurens in the valley before saying, “These taurens are that powerful?”

Lin Yixin smiled a little. “Well, we’re going to have to deal with them one way or another. Qingqing, shoot the taurens and lure them over one by one. Lu Chen, you’re the tank. I’ll act as the coordinator.”

“Got it!”

I nodded strongly before instructing Clear Perfume. “Qingqing, remember, lure only one tauren to us at a time, and no more than three if there really is no choice, okay? I know it’ll be slow, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Any more than that and it’ll be really dangerous.”

“Okay!”

Clear Perfume raised her bow and notched an arrow. She smiled at us and said, “You guys ready?”

“Ready!”

An arrow cut through the air and struck a Tauren Warrior squarely at the chest. There was so much force behind the Devil Piercing Arrow that its reddish chest hair was literally quivering!

The tauren immediately raised its totem, roared like an animal and charged straight toward us!

Gripping her sword tightly, Lin Yixin smiled and said, “I thought bulls are supposed to moo, not roar. It sounds so terrible…”

“Hmph hmph~~”

I charged at the Tauren like lightning and stunned it instantly. Then, I followed up with Pardon and a basic attack that was empowered by undead energy!

MISS!

2984!

Very good, the Tauren Warrior’s 700 Defense was practically nonexistent before my Rank 6 Pardon!

The tauren roared angrily and retaliated with a mighty swing to my shoulder. It wouldn’t be possible for me to dodge this attack!

Bang!

Fuck, it hurts! That one strike would’ve brought me down to one knee if I hadn’t supported myself with the Ghost Ice Soul!

It was at this moment the Dark Wasp and Fire Blade appeared and launched an attack at the same time! However, the Tauren Warrior ignored them and swung its totem at me again with bloodshot eyes!

342!

That was the damage I took, but both the Dark Wasp and the Fire Blade got caught in the splash damage and suffered some injuries as well.

248!

441!

Meanwhile, Lin Yixin stabbed the tauren in the neck and followed up with a swing of the blade. The two attacks deleted nearly 2000 HP from the elite mob’s health bar.

“What an amazing amount of splash damage…” Lin Yixin stuck her tongue exasperatedly. “It’s got to be 40% or above, or our pets wouldn’t be battered this badly!”

I nodded while hitting the tauren at its weak spot. Every hit dealt at least 1000 damage to the mob.

It was actually quite easy to determine what the weak spot of a monster was in the game. For example, these taurens covered themselves in slippery bark extract. If I were to attack the Tauren Warrior at these protected spots, I would deal less than 80% damage at most. However, there was no bark extract beneath the Tauren Warrior’s armpits, meaning that I could deal full damage if I attacked them there.

In a PvP battle, players who wore cloth armor and leather armor had no weak spots to speak of. However, it made no difference to a player with high offensive power like me because they were going to die in a hit or two anyway. As for players who wore metal armor, the gaps between the armor, the holes between a chain mail, the areas not protected by the legguards, the exposed neck, the waist and so on were all considered as weak spots. A player who hit their opponent in these spots accurately would deal between 20% to 50% more damage than normal. This game design added more depth to PvP, and a true pro would always strive to shield their weak spots from their opponent through excellent movement, positioning and dodging. In the past when I clashed against Candlelight Shadow, neither of us were able to hit each other’s weak spots because we were too good at keeping them protected. It was why our duels always turned into a battle of attrition where one of us was eventually cut down by a cumulative amount of basic attacks.

……

Rustle rustle...

Lin Yixin had a very unique way of moving. After landing two successful strikes on the Tauren Warrior, she moved away from it to avoid taking unnecessary damage. The way she backed away while still facing toward me somehow made me think that she was a super model or something.

Clear Perfume was whittling away at the Tauren Warrior’s HP from the distance one shot at the time. Although she wasn’t able to pierce its Defense as thoroughly as Lin Yixin or me, it was still pretty good damage. Besides that, Shadow Chanel also found an opening to fire a disgustingly powerful Ice Dragon Howl that tore 1500 HP from Tauren Warrior’s health bar because it was wearing metal armor. Her incredible magic power made her one of the indispensable damage dealers of our party!

I had to admit that Lin Yixin was a charismatic person. Experts like Shadow Chanel and Purple Marquis weren’t exactly easy to recruit. I had no doubt that both of them would become the central pillars, or even the key generals of Snowy Cathaya in the future!

A good general was difficult to find, and it was no different inside a game. Some reputable experts could easily gather a fanbase around them without trying. Currently, there were a ton of fanbases in Floating Ice City, and one of them belonged to our almighty Fruit Knife Goddess. They were mostly made up of Lin Yixin’s fans; people who would scour the internet for her PvP videos or talk about her on the forums just like the fans of a celebrity. They were all an invisible force that could be used to do many things. For example, I’m sure that these people would do everything in their power to help Lin Yixin if she decided to employ their services someday.

There were also the Unkillable War God fans, Dominating Heaven Blade fans, Gui Guzi fans, Purple Marquis fans, Beiming Xue fans and so on. Everyone had their own favorite expert. So if a guild were to recruit say, ten top-tier experts and declare an expansion with these people at the helm, one could just imagine how much surge into the guild just to support their idol.

In a game, the absolute best pros might as well be gods!

Heavenly King–level experts like Lin Fan and Frivolous Scholar especially were practically gods among gods. If one day these two decided to make a return to gaming, I’m sure they could gather millions of supporters overnight just by verifying their identities and posting a thread on the forums!

As for me, well okay, I’m not really a Heavenly King expert. At the very least, my achievements were inferior to Lin Fan and Frivolous Scholar’s. But that’s fine, because my era is only just starting! I’m absolutely going to make it to the top in Heavenblessed!

……

“Roar roar…”

The Tauren Warrior finally let out a death scream and collapsed to the floor. To my surprise, it dropped a Phantasmal Magic Stone, a drop that was an entire tier above a Big Magic Stone. Right now, a 100 Quality Phantasmal Magic Stone could be traded for exactly 1 gold, or in real life currency, 1 RMB...

Gold was losing value at an insane rate lately because the players were higher level now. The amount of magic stones they were able to farm was growing higher each day. It was why the repair cost, learning cost, potion cost and so on were all increasing lately. It was all part of the game company’s plans, of course. From here on, 1 gold would probably always exchange for 1 RMB and vice versa.

I picked up the Phantasmal Magic Stone and tossed it to Lin Yixin. “Here, your gold…”

Lin Yixin: “Mn…”

We continued to execute our game plan and killed the Tauren Warriors one by one. Since they were the elite warriors of the beastmen, their numbers weren’t so daunting that we expected to be stuck here for a very long time. There were less than a hundred of them, and at our level of offensive power it basically took only a minute on average to kill one of them.

About an hour or so later, there were only a couple of taurens still alive in the encampment. They refused to budge from the deepest end of the camp, or more specifically a bloody stone fort that looked like the commander’s camp. There was a halberd outside the camp with a rotten human head spiked to the blade and a red flag at the center. It was none other than the flag of the beastmen!

Lin Yixin stared at the commander’s camp and smiled slightly. “Mn, the last boss's probably inside that building. This quest should be complete once we kill it!”

I raised my sword and said, “No problem! Let’s go!”

But suddenly, Clear Perfume interrupted both of us. “Wait!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just give me a minute…”

Clear Perfume was lifting up her sharp ears and staring toward the outside of the valley for some reason. A while later, she said, “I’m sensing a lot of people running toward us!”

Lin Yixin gave an “oh” of acknowledgement before chasing her gaze, asking, “Who are they?”

“They’re going to reach us very soon!”

I asked Lin Yixin, “Is this Qingqing’s racial talent? Enhanced perception?”

“Yeah!”

“...”

A while later, a group of people appeared outside the valley just as Sun Qingqing said. Lin Yixin shot a glance at the group before whispering, “Let’s find a hiding place for now!”

We immediately rushed into a nearby forest and ducked under cover. Then, we watched and waited for the unknown intruders to show up.

Rustle rustle…

A group of people ran into the valley at high speed, and I recognized the player leading at the front almost immediately. It was the second player on Floating Ice City’s Heavenly Ranking, Dominating Heaven Blade. The heavily-armored Level 70 warrior was wielding a sharp blade, and his eyes looked both sharp and stern.

Following behind Dominating Heaven Blade was the bulk of the Domination Clan’s strongest players. Besides Heavenly Ranking players such as Dominating Warrior God, Dominating Mage God and so on, I also counted over twenty third-promotion players in total. It looks like every elite of the Domination Clan is here!