I held Xinran tightly while repeating, "It’s going to be fine, Xinran, it’s going to be fine…"

I couldn’t let Xinran be hurt anymore, so I turned around and covered Xinran’s body completely with my own. At the same time, I raised the Cyan Dragon Shield, abandoned all attack attempts and simply Guarded against Strella’s attacks again and again. Step by step, burst of pain by burst of pain, Xinran and I slowly sank to the infinite depths below.

……

"Is this hell?"

Xinran muttered when she opened her eyes and saw that she was surrounded by thin soil and tough rocks. Then, she saw Strella’s head behind me, and her vision sharpened into focus. She held my neck tight and wept, "Big brother! No! I don’t want to see you like this…"

Crack!

A talon pierced through my back and out my chest, dealing 1.5 million damage to me and killing me. Even as I came back to life, a jet of blood escaped my throat and spilled out from between my lips. I could count the amount of times I was injured this badly in the game on one hand. I pushed the pain away, forced out a smile that I was sure looked very ugly and said, "It’s fine, Xinran, I can still hang on. I—"

Bang!

This time, it was Strella’s motherfucking teeth that punctured my body, and I nearly let go of my sword. Forget lying to Xinran, I couldn’t even lie to myself anymore. This was literally killing me!

……

Xinran sobbed quietly as tears slid down her cheeks. "I’m sorry I’m always a burden to you, big brother. I’ve been dragging you down since Floating Ice City. I’ve made you bleed and sweat from me since the beginning. I’m so useless, I, I’m so…"

I stopped her before she could blame herself any further. "Enough, Xinran…"

Bang!

I took another heavy blow to the back that sank both me and Xinran dozens of meters to the ground. Normally, we would’ve sank much deeper, but this time our momentum was halted by an unusually hard rock.

"Hmm? What is this rock? And why is it so tough?" I exclaimed in astonishment.

Xinran pushed away her pain temporarily and caressed the rock. Then, she explained, "This is the Stone of Sealing. It is a natural object capable of withstanding everything in this world, literally. It is untouchable even by the power of god, and it is about several kilometers deep. Behind the Stone of Sealing is the plane of hell itself."

I shuddered. "Holy shit. We’re this close to hell already?"

"Yeah."

Xinran nodded when suddenly, her eyes lit up with ingenuity. "Big brother, can you carry me and search for a perforation?"

"Perfo what?"

"I mean a hole. The Stone of Sealing is a stratum, so there are natural perforations in them. It’s how some devils manage to escape from hell and slip into the human plane. These perforations are normally narrow, and Strella is way too huge to fit in any of them. All we need is to find a perforation like this, and we’ll be able to kill him from range!"

Xinran’s explanation lit a new flame of hope in me. I was completely out of ideas, and I would’ve let Strella kill me to Level 0 to protect Xinran. I was a player, but Xinran was an NPC. If she died, she most likely wouldn’t come back to life. Even if she was just a packet of data, I loved her as deeply as I loved a real person. There was no way I was ever going to give up on her.

"Hold me tight, Xinran!"

"Mn!"

I continued blocking Strella’s attacks with the Cyan Dragon Shield while probing the Stone of Sealing with the Chill of the Nine Provinces. It was as tough as Xinran claimed; not even my sword was able to leave more than a faint mark.

I died another 4 times during the search, and in total I had dropped all the way from Level 232 to Level 221. If this continued, I would drop all the way back to when I was just an eighth-promotion player. It wasn’t unfixable though. If I managed to kill Strella, its experience would definitely boost me back to Level 230 or higher!

Pu!

Suddenly, my Chill of the Nine Provinces sank into a patch of soft soil with little resistance. Hope bloomed in my chest as Xinran whooped with joy. "This has to be a perforation, big brother!"

"Mn!"

I raised my arm and summoned the Xuanyuan Slash. A loud bang later, all the soil, dust and stone blocking the way were blown away to reveal a seemingly bottomless hole that was about a meter wide. Without hesitation, I jumped into the hole with Xinran in my arms. Once again, Lady Luck smiled upon us. The hole was only 30 yards deep, so I could hit Strella with my Dragon Slaying Slash and Burning Blade Slash. Moreover, Fusion Armor turned my basic attacks into ranged sword auras, and they traveled far enough to hit Strella as well.

"Roar roar…"

Strella roared furiously from outside the hole. "You think you can escape me like this, you despicable brat? Naive! Just you wait, I swear I’ll tear you to shreds!"

Before he could finish his sentence, I tossed my Chill of the Nine Provinces at his open maw and treated him to a taste of Coiling Dragon Revolution, dealing 500k+ damage. After all the times I had revived using Resurrection Art, my Attack had been boosted to the point where even the simplest skill dealt considerable damage to Strella.

"Arghhhhh…"

Strella backed a few steps and screamed in pain, but it refused to give up and blasted its breath through the hole.

"Come the fuck on!" I was practically wailing at this point. I really didn’t want to fall below Level 200 if I could help it. Once our adventure in Dragon Domain was over, the guilds and cities would start fighting each other over new maps again. It would be demoralizing to my guild members if I lost too many levels.

Luckily, Xinran struggled out of my embrace and held her hands in front of me. Eyes filled with deep determination, she chanted, "Again, Phantom Umbrella!"

Whoosh!

The indigo umbrella Xinran had summoned before manifested again and blocked Strella’s breath completely. Although Xinran shuddered and suffered even greater internal injuries, getting burned by Strella’s dragon breath would’ve been worse for the both of us. Moreover, Strella had to channel its breath at least 1 to 2 seconds before unleashing it. It was a powerful attack, but it was far less DPS compared to when it was able to tear into me with both its teeth and its talons.

Overjoyed, I caught my returning sword and made a hand seal, blasting Strella’s head with a Myriad Swords Obliteration. While my stronger skills were in cooldown, I hit away with basic sword auras and Dragon Slaying Slashes. Strella had horrifyingly powerful HP regeneration, but it wasn’t enough to outpace my damage. Right now I had a DPS of 975k; a number the generic player didn’t even dare to dream of especially against a Purgatory Sovereign like Strella the Dark Magma.

Of course, this level of DPS was normally out of even my reach. It was possible only because I had died a dozen or so times and had my Attack boosted just as many times. It wasn’t worth it in the slightest. My levels cost tens of hours to retrain, while the Attack boost would disappear the moment I logged out of the game!

……

Despite her weakness and pain, Xinran continuously strengthened the Phantom Umbrella with her left hand and fired thin swords into Strella’s head with her right. On one hand, Strella was too huge, and Xinran’s conjured swords too tiny to deal any significant damage. On the other hand, every damage counted in this situation, and who was to say that Strella wouldn’t turn into a retard if he accumulated too much brain damage?

Meanwhile, the girls finally dared to speak to me in the guild channel—

He Yi: "How did it go, Lu Chen? Sorry we took so long to contact you, we didn’t want to distract you while you were fighting against Strella…"

Beiming Xue: "Big brother, you’re only Level 221 now…"

I replied, "Yeah. Strella is too powerful. So anyway, just so we’re all on the same page, the black Holy Giant Dragon we fought earlier was NOT Strella. She was Strella’s wife, Lucifer. The boss that one-shot everyone is the real Strella, and well, you’ve all experienced his power with your own deaths. Xinran came to help me not long after you wiped, but she too suffered grievous injuries and won’t be returning to full health anytime soon. Long story short, this whole boss fight is one massive pain in the ass."

Li Chengfeng exclaimed in shock, "I cannot believe it! That Lucifer was powerful as hell, and she’s still wasn’t the real Dragon God?"

[1]

Me: "Yeah."

Gui Guzi: "Heavens, this is humiliating. Forget giving it a real fight, I died to the very first AoE it used…[2]"

Xu Yang: "Pooh! You call that humiliating? I died on the first floor!"

Gui Guzi: "Brother Xu Yang banzai!"

Xu Yang: "Fuck you!"

I said again, "Anyway, you guys don’t need to worry about me. I found a cheat spot, and I’m currently using it to solo the boss. It’s just going slowly because Strella’s HP regeneration is too powerful. I think it’ll take at least a couple of hours before I finally kill it."

He Yi: "In that case, we’re logging off and going to bed first. Be careful. We’ll wait for you to finish in our dreams…"

Me: "..."

……

I had given He Yi a conservative estimate, but with my current DPS, it should only take an hour or two for me to kill Strella. Moreover, I was partially protected by the Stone of Sealing and Xinran’s Phantom Umbrella, so not even Strella’s forbidden spell was able to reach me. I was about as safe as I could possibly be.

An hour later, the Dragon God’s HP dropped to 10%. Then, a heartbreaking moment happened in front of me. Strella shook its head and chanted, "O’ infinitely glorious god of life, the one who gifted the dragon race with the strongest bloodline and resurrected the earth, grant me the power of life—Dragon Race Blood Boil!"

Swhoosh!

Not only did the Dragon God heal itself, the healing number nearly made me quit the game—

+60000000!

……

"Are you shitting me?"

I couldn’t believe it. Strella’s max HP had been increased to a whopping 400 million after he was enhanced by the power of the dead, and this Dragon Race Blood Boil healed him for 15% HP straight! If he could do this infinitely, I would sooner strangle the dev before I killed Strella!

Thankfully, Xinran blinked once and said, "Don’t give up yet, big brother. Blood Boil is a high-level dragon’s racial ability, but it can only be cast three times a day. Keep this up, and he will die eventually!"

"Three times ‘only’, you say…"

It was good news, but it was still pretty depressing. My brain, my stomach, my bladder! Dammit!

……

My internal struggles—both literally and figuratively—were great, but the Dragon God Strella couldn’t care less about it. Every time it unleashed its breath, Xinran’s internal injuries would worsen further. I tried feeding her some Saint Spirit Potions, but it was a stopgap measure at best. Her legs especially showed no signs of healing at all. I literally had no idea how to restore them.

1. T/N: Okay so the author is smoking something hard when he wrote these two paragraphs that I had to change it to make sense. The raw claimed that LUCIFER was the one who one-shot everyone, but as we know that’s not the case.

E/N: Well, it still sounds like it. After all, Lu Chen is explaining that Lucifer wasn’t Strella… to people who hadn’t been one-shot by Lucifer and fought Strella.

2. I refuse to put that in for the author’s sake, so here’s the original TL: "Heavens, this is humiliating. Forget fighting the real thing, I died before I even caught a glimpse of it…" I guess Gui Guzi kinda forgot he fought Strella