The Great Thief

After the white light from the hearthstone had disappeared, Lu Li appeared at Astrana’s spawn point. As soon as he arrived, he saw Azure Sea Breeze and the others, who had been anxiously waiting for him. They couldn’t convince Lu Li not to go. and they knew that they would only be a burden to him if they went. The only thing that they could do was wait for him.

“It doesn’t matter that you couldn’t steal it. When we’re stronger, we’ll go and kill them all,” Seeing how calm Lu Li looked, Azure Sea Breeze thought that he had failed.

The system announcement saying that the Gangnam Royals had achieved the First Clear for the Boss had been heard by everyone.

The only thing he could do was comfort Lu Li.

“What are you on about? Of course I got it.”

Lu Li was still not quite used to the discomfort that teleporting brought, which was why he looked so blank.

He had just been in an incredibly intense situation and had stolen a Boss from the hands of the second ranked guild. However, he was not as ecstatic as one would have expected him to be. Instead, it was as if he had done something extremely ordinary.

For Thieves, remaining cold and aloof was quite normal. If he was a normal player, he definitely would have been extremely excited about what just happened.

However, Lu Li was not playing this game for fun. This was his job, a job that could allow himself and his little sister to live better lives. As such, he wouldn’t be afraid to make everyone his enemy in order to achieve his goals.

“Really?! Did you steal any good equipment from them?” Azure Sea Breeze’s reaction was more like a normal person’s.

Lu Li showed the three items he had obtained to the rest of the team in their team channel. He then explained the value of each of those items, which completely shocked the other players. Even Lonesome Flower, who had remained expressionless, couldn’t help but grin.

“I need the Plague Shard, as well as the Rager’s Pendant. I’ll give this Skill Book to Azure Sea Breeze to sell and you and Lonesome Flower can split the money,” Lu Li said as he handed the Skill Book to Azure Sea Breeze.

Lonesome Flower was about to refuse, but Azure Sea Breeze had already gleefully accepted it.

“Sure. Flower and I both lost quite a bit of EXP, so this should be enough to heal the wounds on our hearts.”

The team chatted as they headed to the Fire Scar Temple.

The Fire Scar Temple was in the Temple Ruins that the Apocalypse Guard Akereus was in. If they wanted to enter the Fire Scar Temple, they would first have to defeat Akereus.

Currently, quite a few players had found their way to this place. By the time Lu Li and his team had arrived, they found that the space that Akereus occupied was empty.

The Akereus for this day had been killed already.

Lu Li and his team stood on the altar and activated the Instance Dungeon scroll.

System: You have entered the Fire Scar Temple Instance Dungeon, Normal level. Kill the Apocalypse Guard Claudius!

The Normal level Instance Dungeon only had one Boss, which was Claudius. Like Akereus, he was also an Apocalypse Guard.

In the Elite level Instance Dungeon there would be a second Boss, in the Difficult level Instance Dungeon there would be 3 Bosses, and it was unknown how many there were in the Nightmare level Instance Dungeon. After all, Nightmare level Instance Dungeon scrolls were far too rare. Lu Li had never seen a guide for the Nightmare level Fire Scar Temple, but rumours said that the Silver grade Bow used by the famous hunter Glacial Autumn Wind had come from it.

Because Lu Li’s team only had a Normal level Instance Dungeon scroll, they only needed to kill Claudius.

Claudius was slightly stronger than Akereus, so Lu Li had waited for everyone to level up before coming to this Instance Dungeon.

Today was the deadline, so they had to pass it in one go!

The first wave of monsters were Hellhounds. Lonesome Flower and March Rain absolutely hated these dogs that could siphon Mana.

However, they weren’t enough to stop Lu Li’s team.

After 10 minutes, they stood before Claudius.

Claudius’ appearance was quite similar to Akereus’. To Lu Li, there wasn’t much difference between them.

“Wait.”

Lu Li grabbed Azure Sea Breeze, who was about to charge up.

“Do you have a guide?” Azure Sea Breeze asked hopefully.

Having a guide would be wonderful. As long as they acted in a specific way, they would be able to easily beat the Boss. Azure Sea Breeze had experienced what it was like to get past a Boss easily with a good guide and felt quite inadequate without one.

“Guide, my ass. Use this,” Lu Li said as he took off his badge and handed it to Azure Sea Breeze.

Bloodstained Badge (Silver): Constitution+10, recover 1% HP every 3 seconds when wearing. Has a certain chance to activate 30% damage conversion. Level Requirement: LV10. Durability: 40/40.

“My lord,” Azure Sea Breeze cried out, “Please accept my worship. Please let me be your servant! Please let me have your kids!”

Lonesome Flower rolled his eyes and the two girls giggled. However, after they saw the stats of the badge, they were completely dumbfounded. They simply couldn’t imagine how Lu Li had obtained this Silver grade equipment.

Lonesome Flower, who had been incredibly proud of his Silver grade Staff, couldn’t muster up any pride anymore.

“Stop making a racket. I’m only lending this to you temporarily. I still need it,” Lu Li said.

“Cheh!” Azure Sea Breeze’s face immediately fell.

In reality, they were all joking around. If any of them wanted to use one of Lu Li’s things, all they had to do was ask. Lu Li didn’t have any intentions of solely keeping the badge to himself, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken it out.

Azure Sea Breeze felt incredibly confident with his new badge and yelled as he rushed at the Boss.

During the first three minutes of the fight, Claudius acted normally. He had incredibly slow Attack Speed and average Attack. His attacks didn’t even have the Burn effect that the other Apocalypse Guards did.

Regardless, none of the players let down their guard. The more normal a Boss seemed, the more unpredictably it could act.

Three minutes later, Claudius used his first skill.

“Crap, it actually has an Armour Pierce effect. March Rain, focus on healing Azure Sea Breeze.”

Azure Sea Breeze didn’t know what else was coming, so he didn’t dare to casually use his Shield Wall. He could only do his best to block the Boss’ attacks and try to reduce the damage as much as possible.

“Don’t worry, this much damage can’t kill you,” Lu Li said, as he prevented March Rain from using her special healing skill.

March Rain was becoming more and more skilled as a player, but still needed to develop her judgement. She also didn’t have enough confidence in herself, which made it easy for her to listen to others.

Claudius’ Armour Pierce was not as simple as Azure Sea Breeze had thought. When the Armour Pierce’s duration had expired by one third, the Boss swung his sword again and stacked another Armour Pierce.

Azure Sea Breeze could no longer afford to rant or muck around. He focused on his HP bar and the Boss’ attacks, preparing to use Shield Wall.

Lu Li started to feel that his team’s tank was lacking some Damage Reduction. While attacking, he tried to recall where it was that they could find a Damage Reduction skill for Defence Warriors.

The two Armour Pierce effects caused Azure Sea Breeze’s health to fall by 20% each time. Claudius’ damage was simply insane. It would be impossible to survive with only March Rain’s healing.

“Don’t hesitate! Start using Potions!” Lu Li reminded him. If he didn’t start using Potions to bring his health back up, he wouldn’t be able to survive when the Boss stacked another Armour Pierce effect.

The toughest part about fighting Claudius was his Armour Pierce effect. He could continuously stack it, which became deadly for tanks. With three Armour Pierce stacks, it would be incredibly difficult for any tank to survive, unless they could quickly bring the Boss’ HP below 60%.