Swhoosh!

I left behind a trail of purple lightning as I slammed into the dwarven king using Thunderous Charge. I was much taller than him even though I was in Fusion Armor mode right now. While he was stunned, I stabbed into his rotten, cotton-like body and greatly lowered his Defense with Purple Frost Concentration. Then, I hit him three times in a row using Burning Blade Slash and caused a shower of black blood—

332877!

392172!

442726!

At nearly the same time, He Yi and Lin Yixin cut in from the left and right and executed their respective combos. At the back, Beiming Xue fired her Bone Eroding Arrow, and Lian Xin her Ice Spiral Matrix to reduce the boss's HP even more.

"Nngh…"

After Nordin awoke from his stun with a dull groan, he abruptly slammed his blade into my Dragon God Shield and dealt over 190k damage. True to his reputation, the ancient hero followed up with a 5-hit Blaze Sweep + Sword Rain combo that struck my Guardian Dragon Armor before I could protect myself. 10% of the damage I received was converted into HP, but I still lost around 250k HP per hit, or a total of 1.25 million HP in the end. It was bad.

I didn’t fall back though. I was the main tank after all. I retaliated with Universe Break + Pardon + basic attack of my own and held the boss's aggro in a vice grip.

Behind me, Lin Yixin shouted, "Stay strong, Little Cheat! Sister Mingyue and Guanyue, focus all your heals on him! We must defeat this boss right here and now, or heaven knows how many times we have to die before finally beating all three bosses! That is simply unacceptable!"

Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh!

Holy light flashed around my body repeatedly. Murong Mingyue had cast Pool of Life beneath my feet as well. The ancient hero was an abomination who could hit me for over 180k damage with his basic attack, and over 400k damage with his Barrier Break. It wasn’t all bad news though. His Ultimate Strength Break could only deal less than 100k damage to me, meaning that his Strength wasn’t much higher than mine.

"Gulp!"

I downed a Rank 10 Saint Spirit Potion, kept my shield in front of me like my life depended on it, still trading blows with the boss like crazy. Thanks to my lifesteal, HP regeneration, potion, and Murong Mingyue’s buff, I was able to maintain my HP around the 50% mark.

"Good, good! Keep this up!" He Yi smiled at this. "Lu Chen’s 2.5 million HP is so good here! If he wasn’t as ridiculously tanky as he is, we would never be able to beat a Level 280 Ancient Immortal Rank boss without casualties!"

Murong Mingyue warned smilingly, "We still need to watch out for the boss's critical hits. If he manages to land multiple crits in a row, then even Lu Chen will be in grave danger!"

"Yeah!"

……

The Dwarf King Nordin roared angrily when he realized that his power wasn’t enough to instakill me. Thankfully, Nordin’s AI wasn’t so advanced that he could override the almighty aggro mechanic and kill off our two supports, Murong Mingyue and Pure Love, first. Without their support, even I couldn’t go head-to-head against an Ancient Immortal Rank boss for more than half a minute, much less everyone else.

Some distance away, my apparition was using Dragon Slaying Slash, Coiling Dragon Revolution, Myriad Swords Obliteration and more ranged skills to decrease the boss's HP. Although it only had 75% of my stats, it still carried a lot of firepower. The Phantom Wolf King was also carrying out its own hit-and-run tactic; dashing in to hit the boss with Claw of the Storm and Purgatory Storm before running away as soon as possible. The little fellow understood that its days as a tank were behind it, and that it could only play the role of a damage dealer now.

In fact, only a pure tank pet could truly withstand the blows of an Ancient Immortal Rank boss. Lin Yixin’s ice dragon wasn’t a pure tank, so it couldn’t tank an Ancient Immortal Rank boss either. Recently, I heard that Tempest Shadow had caught a giant metal slime with pathetic Attack, good Defense and absolutely ridiculous HP. To give an example, it had less than 30k Attack but over 5 million HP at Level 220. Now this was a classic tank pet. In fact, I had a feeling that the slime was part of the reason Candlelight Shadow was able to get his SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill. After all, percentage-based heals were absolutely insane on a unit with over 5 million HP.

……

"Watch out, big brother!"

Beiming Xue cried out in warning when Nordin was using a flurry skill. The bastard had gotten lucky and scored a chain of critical hits, causing my HP to drop to just 20% or so.

Thud thud thud...

I took a couple of steps backward and healed myself with Tenacity of the Dead. Then, I fired off Burning Blade Slash to regain around 200k HP before Murong Mingyue pulled me past the 50% mark once more. This was good news because it proved that the boss was unable to kill me even at its luckiest moment. At this point, it was only a matter of time before it succumbed to our party. Mountain Guardian might have been an anomaly for its rank, because Nordin was nowhere as powerful despite sharing its rank.

The fight lasted around 25 minutes or so. When the Dwarf King Nordin only had 1% HP, the girls automatically backed away and allowed me to score the last hit. My Luck was high enough that they could afford to lose the additional experience.

Chiang!

I knocked aside the enemy’s sword with the Chill of the Nine Provinces before smirking. "You were Prince Lin Qian’s mentor, weren’t you? Have a taste of my sword arts then!"

I sidestepped his final attack before plunging my sword through his rotten body. Then, I executed Burning Blade Slash + Universe Break + Rise of the Guardian Dragon combo. The dragon-shaped energies propelled his body into the air and destroyed the final sliver of his HP.

Nordin let out his death throes and dropped a ton of items and equipment. Even as his body hit the ground though, he uttered with a distorted expression on his face, "Damn you, Lin Qian, you traitor! I will never forgive you! Never!"

I curled my lips, sat down beside the boss and checked out the drops. The first piece of equipment I checked was an Immortal-grade bow. It was obviously lousier than Beiming Xue’s Xuanming Bow, but I reckoned that it could be sold on the market for seven to eight thousand RMB. We all rolled for it, and Guanyue won it with an impressive roll of 97 points.

The second piece of equipment was a ring that added 27% Attack and increased Strength, Stamina and Intelligence. Lin Yixin managed to roll it this time. The third item was a necklace that added 57% Magic Attack power, but Lian Xin’s current necklace was better. We rolled again, and finally it was my turn to score some loot. I bet I could sell this at the market for 5000 RMB or so!

The four and final piece of equipment was an Immortal-grade axe, and it was won by Murong Mingyue. We gave the rest of the magic stones and gems to Beiming Xue, Lian Xin and Guanyue since they didn’t get any equipment drops. Everyone walked away happy from the loot distribution.

……

Rustle rustle!

There was a dark blue–colored soul essence rolling back and forth on the ground. I picked it up and said, "This is probably Nordin’s soul, right?"

He Yi nodded. "Yes, most likely. It’s such a tragedy though. To think that the former mentor of a prince would end up like this."

I looked at the soul essence and said seriously, "Don’t worry, Nordin. I’m bringing your soul essence to Prince Lin Qian, but only because he wishes to atone for his sins and rescue your soul from a fate of eternal wandering. So rest in peace!"

After I put the soul essence in my bag, I snapped my finger and said, "Alright, our quest is now 33% complete. Time to seek out the next two bosses, take them out, and turn in our quest. This is an SS Rank main quest, so there’s a chance we might get some Luck out of this. Do your best, everyone!"

The girls smiled and said, "Okay!"

I wasn’t kidding. Luck wasn’t a stat you could grind, just like an SS Rank main quest wasn’t something you could get just because you wanted. There was a real chance we might get some Luck out of this quest.

……

We continued following the edge of the mountain with me acting as the point as per usual. After checking my equipment for a bit, I said, "I’m losing quite a bit of equipment durability, and my weapon especially is below 50%. We’re probably going to scrap the barrel by the time we finish this quest."

Lin Yixin said, "Yeah. Let’s avoid killing the mobs from now on, and you should activate Heavenly River Transformation only when absolutely necessary."

"Yup."

We didn’t need to go far before we encountered a pile of giant fire dragon’s bones. They glowed an eerie white beneath the moonlight. The reason I knew that they were the bones of a fire dragon was because I saw tendrils of flames snaking across the frame. Despite having perished for tens of thousands of years, not all of its flaming power had disappeared.

Standing in front of the skeleton of the fire dragon was a beautiful succubus carrying a longbow on her back. Her deathly white complexion marked her as an undead. She was staring in the direction of the skeleton, and despite having died for many years the sorrow in her eyes was unmistakable.

……

"Who is it?!"

The former succubi queen abruptly turned around as if noticing something. When she saw us, she immediately drew her bow and asked harshly, "Who are you? Why have you come here?!"

I stepped forward and replied in a solemn tone, "We are adventurers from Sky City, and we have come to clear this place of its undead. Apologies, but we plan to leave no evil creature alive in our wake, and that includes you, Succubi Queen Leila!"

Leila’s eyes immediately turned chilly. "You think that a weakling like you can kill me? Dream on!"