"Hmm?"

I hesitated for just an instant. During this time, Strella had killed another dozens of Candle Dragon Qiu Beast Cavalry. If you looked at its Attack alone, it was without a doubt a Divine Rank boss in every sense of the word. And yet… Lin Yixin was right. This was going a bit too smoothly. Strella the Dark Magma was one of the Nine Purgatory Sovereigns, a boss you would expect to lose tens of thousands players against, even with the aid of powerful NPCs. Could we really defeat it at the cost of just a couple thousand players?

It was too late to change our minds, however. There was a saying called "a notched arrow must be set loose", and we didn’t have the time to puzzle out this conundrum.

Li Chengfeng asked me again, "So? Are we doing it?"

"Do it!"

I growled out and activated Heavenly River Transformation. This was the first time I used it after making contact with Strella. As a pair of bloody wings spread out behind me, and the Chill of the Nine Provinces glowed red with the power of undead energy, the golden blade that was Xuanyuan Slash burst into existence. At the same time, I changed my attack mode to friendly guild mode. The soft-hearted cannot achieve great things, and I could be as hard as diamond if I wanted to. Anyone who wasn’t an allied guild would die alongside the boss!

……

However, Li Chengfeng acted before me and unleashed his Crimson Firmament Slash and, to the surprise of us all, Strella abruptly raised its head and covered every inch of its scales with a massive shield. The Ancient Divine Skill disappeared into it like it was an illusion, and it failed to deal even a single point of damage!

"What… what’s going on?" Both Li Chengfeng and Gui Guzi exclaimed in shock.

Hegemon Palace’s Wang Dongliang couldn’t care less about this oddity though. "Quickly! The boss only has less than 6% HP left! Kill it and claim the loot! It might even drop one of the Twelve Divine Armaments!"

The players quickly became overwhelmed by greed. A mountain of gold was right in front of them, and anyone who obtained one of the Twelve Divine Armaments would quickly transform from a nameless player to a top expert. After all, wasn’t it every hardcore gamer’s dream to rise to the top?

It was chaos. The moment had passed, and I no longer knew if I should unleash my Xuanyuan Slash or not. Hundreds would die if I did it, and something was clearly off about this whole thing.

……

Suddenly, Strella raised its head hard, shook its body violently and spread its meaty wings wide. It pulled at the chains regardless of the fact that they were piercing into its scales, breaking some of them and shaking the entire Dragon God Main Hall. Then, it let out a mighty roar and said, "Damn you, Strella, you despicable coward! Why are you afraid to meet me? Why are you letting these lowly humans humiliate me and our racial pride? Damn you! Damn you! I will kill you, you despicable Dark Dragon God!"

For a second, no one could utter a word.

Staring at the black Holy Giant Dragon, Lin Yixin muttered in shock and disbelief, "This… this dragon isn’t Strella? It… was referring to Strella as a different entity, and its voice sounded female-ish, but…"

Gui Guzi clenched his fists tightly. "Heavens! Is it a little female dragon!?"

Nangong Lexi shot him a surprised look. "Why do you sound so excited all of a sudden? You’re not planning to marry her, are you? Well, it’s not the worst thing to happen in the world…"

Gui Guzi blushed. "What are you talking about? I just want to kill her, is all!"

Li Chengfeng asked, "What the hell is going on? Is this dragon the Dragon God or not?"

I finally canceled the Xuanyuan Slash and allowed its light to fade gradually into nothing. It would be foolish to continue on this course after everything that had happened.

……

While everyone was confused, a low voice suddenly boomed from behind us—

"Hahaha, fret not, Lucifer, my beloved wife! The last light of your flames of life will certainly make the dragon race proud! Most importantly, your death will finally allow me to escape this place. Thank you for everything, my beloved wife. I especially thank you for cheating with the Crimson Crystal Dragon Eglin and opening my eyes to the truth, hahaha! For that, I will see you off personally!"

We turned toward the source of the voice and saw that it was the wounded Soul Eater Figue who spoke. His face was hidden, and red light was shining from his body for some reason. An unnatural tremor overtook his body, and the skin on his arm abruptly shredded to reveal rows and rows of sinister, pitch-black scales. The more he extended his arm, the more his skin peeled away like onions. Finally, the human arm shedded completely ro reveal a dragon’s talon. Not only that, Figue’s head was slowly but surely contorting into that of a sinister, ferocious dragon’s!

"Holy shit!"

I understood everything at that moment. Dashing backward while keeping Lin Yixin and He Yi behind me, I shouted, "We’ve been tricked! The real Strella is this so-called human Figue! The bastard lied to us to make us kill his wife, Lucifer, for him!"

"What?!"

Lin Yixin’s eyes widened in disbelief. "How… how can this be…"

……

Figue slowly raised his head to reveal a savage grin. "That’s right! I am the mastermind of everything! You realized the truth too late, though. Thanks to you… lowly humans, the betrayer is dead, my wife, Lucifer, is soon to die, and my seal may finally be undone! I promised you I would reward you handsomely, haven’t I? Rejoice! You will soon become a part of me for eternity!"

Suddenly, the half-human, half-dragon monstrosity leaped into the air and bit Lucifer’s neck before anyone could do anything. Figue’s, or rather Strella’s head grew more and more draconic, and with a mighty pull he tore a giant hole in Lucifer’s neck and pierced it with his claws. A while later, he pulled out a purple crystal, put it in his mouth and began chewing.

"Kakaka! Lucifer, you whore! To think you would swallow your lover’s own crystal! You truly deserve to die!"

Strella started thrashing left and right until Lucifer’s neck was completely shredded. He then stabbed his talons into her neck and ended her dying struggle once and for all. Again, he fished around her brain, pulled out a black Dragon Crystal and devoured it as well.

"Kaka…"

Strella’s body grew steadily bigger as he roared, "This! This is my true power! For a hundred thousand years I was imprisoned at this place, but finally, I shall be fully unleashed to the world! Only a Dragon God that is complete can become the true ruler of the Dragon Domain, and here and now, I am!"

……

"I don’t even know what to say." Li Chengfeng voiced his incredulity. "Every time you think you’ve seen everything, the game just slaps you in the face and refreshes your views all over again."

Dragon God Strella continued to unleash his power and grow his body in the air. Eventually, he became an absolute monstrosity that was 50% bigger than even Lucifer. He was literally a gigantic mountain of flesh. After his transformation was complete, he looked at the thousands of players still alive on the ground and said in a deep tone, "Come, adventurers. I shall send you to the Purgatory for an adventure myself! You lowly humans didn’t really think that you would be able to conquer Dragon Domain with your feeble strength, did you? A dragon’s power will never be within your reach, so die knowing that it is deserving!"

The moment he finished his sentence, he abruptly swooped down and unleashed a long, long jet of dragon breath. Hundreds of unfortunate Peach Garden players including Indigo Collar himself committed the innocent sin of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and were burned to ashes in an instant. Indigo Collar had almost 2 million HP, and it still wasn’t enough to withstand a single breath from the Dragon God!

"What the fuck is that damage!?"

The aura of Strength of Divine Arms lighting up his feet, Little Piglet spurred his mount to leap into the air so he could get close enough to unleash a series of sword auras. However, Strella’s Defense hadn’t been reduced yet, so the damage he dealt could only be described as depressing—

477!

582!

532!

……

Everyone knew how strong Little Piglet was. Ever since he obtained Great Conqueror, he had evolved from a fully defensive player to a fully offensive one[1], both style-wise and gear-wise. However, it still wasn’t enough to pierce Strella’s Defense. Just how tough was the motherfucker?

Disdain entered Strella’s eyes, and his talons flashed across the Cold Wind Swordsman’s body before he could react. It was a one-shot.

4190294!

Of all the times to receive a critical hit, this wasn’t one of them. There was nothing he could do except die and be teleported away from the Dragon’s Pit. Strella floated about ten meters in the sky, spread his wings and roared, "Elemental spirits from hell, heed my call! Fire devils, awaken from your slumber and burn everything to ashes! I, Strella the Dark Magma cast—Dragons of Hellfire!"

Groan groan groan...

The earth within a thousand yards of Strella was torn asunder, and fiery, draconic energy from hell began jetting out of the cracks. The AoE skill encompassed more than half of the Dragon God Main Hall. No one had expected Strella to cast such a terrifying AoE skill right from the start! He might even annihilate us all in one go!

"Invincibility, now!" I shouted on top of my lungs.

Lin Yixin, Li Chengfeng and the others activated their invincibility skills to protect themselves, while I relied on a full-durability Battle Astral Wind to withstand the powerful attack.

Scorching pain nearly overwhelmed my senses. I was still surviving, but white lights were flashing all around me. High Fighting Spirits, Heaven’s Rain, Diamond Dust and more were all killed by the Dragon of Hellfire, and columns of damage numbers amounting to millions rose above everyone’s head!

The skill lasted 15 whole seconds. It meant that everyone whose invincibility skill only lasted 6, 9, or 12 seconds were in danger as well.

"Lu Chen, we can’t hang on any longer…" Lin Yixin looked at me.

I ran up to her and held her in my arms, but it was no defense against the ravaging fires. She shot me a helpless smile before departing the Dragon God Main Hall as showers of light.

The heat turned overwhelming, and I revived on the spot. I immediately cast Battle Astral Wind again before I could take any more damage.

"Lu Chen!"

"Big brother…"

Not far away, He Yi, Lian Xin and Beiming dropped dead as well. There were very few pieces of equipment that had invincibility skills that lasted over 15 seconds, and in my case, I could only rely on Battle Astral Wind and levels to cling onto existence.

……

When the skill was finally over, the scene that encompassed the entire Dragon God Main Hall could only be described as hellish. Nearly everyone except a handful of people were still alive.

1. E/N: Just because he can deal a lot of damage because of his FGS’s splash doesn’t mean his Attack is anywhere close to the top players, author. Piglet is countered by Defense, hard. Just like he counters anyone that isn’t Lu Chen.