The Great Thief

“I believe in my father; our cause is just!”

As Vanessa said this, she elegantly spun on the spot and swung the edge of blade outwards.

Blade Flurry!

Her blade was swinging so fast that it was blurry. Those who were about to be hit by it knew that it was going to hurt. Lu Li hid behind Azure Sea Breeze but still got hit twice, losing 600 HP instantly.

Azure Sea Breeze, who was standing at the front, quickly cast Shield Wall. When the flurry ended, he only had 40% of his HP remaining.

Although he was normally one to mess around, he could be depended on when it counted. When Vanessa had begun her Blade Flurry, he had promptly cast Shield Wall and blocked most of the damage. It was unlikely that the team could have tanked it otherwise.

However, in doing so, he enraged Vanessa. She cast Backhand Backstab and stunned him, while also applying an Amour Pierce effect. His HP was falling so quickly that even March Rain’s healing couldn’t keep up.

Luckily, the Fearless Barrier he was equipped with had a very strong effect. When he dropped below 20% HP, he practically became impossible to kill as it would mitigate most of the damage. This wasn’t only useful for PVE; many Paladins liked using it for PVP as well.

During the eight second damage reduction period, his HP was restored to a safe amount.

Lu Li didn’t bother hiding anymore. He pushed past the gap left by Azure Sea Breeze and started to help deal damage.

Vanessa’s HP began to drop quickly. When she reached 60% HP, she revealed another one of her tricks. One could say that she started cheating.

Player’s from his previous life had always ridiculed the idea of a Thief with the ability to summon helpers.

Following the instructions of their leader, a Defias Executor, Defias Shade and Defias Blood Shaman all appeared on the battlefield.

“Flower, turn the Blood Shaman into a sheep,” Lu Li ordered.

Lonesome Flower quickly targeted the Blood Shaman and cast Polymorph on him. The Blood Shaman turned into a sheep and began to run around.

“It’s so cute!”

Remnant Dream had a special kind of thought process that everyone was used to by now.

Lu Li ignored the bleating Blood Shaman and went straight towards the Executor, who was the equivalent of a Paladin. If it only had high damage that would be fine, but it also had a very strong healing spell. Killing it had to be their first priority.

Under Lu Li’s leadership, the players stopped attacking the Boss and focused their fire on the Executor, upon which it quickly died.

At this point, they ignored the Blood Shaman, even though killing Mages and Shamans first was a common practice by most parties. Instead, the next target they switched to was the Defias Shade.

The order they had taken made sense, as the healing of the Executor would have quickly undone all of their efforts.

After dealing with Executor, they immediately turned to the Defias Shade. This monster could disappear mysteriously, but killing him actually turned out to be pretty easy as he could be crowd-controlled. They just needed to keep him crowd-controlled long enough to be dealt with.

However, the Shaman that was left also had a trick of his own. Lu Li quickly told everyone, “Don’t the Shaman yet. Kill the Boss first.”

You could do that?

Azure Sea Breeze and the others were puzzled, but they had blind faith in Lu Li, so they switched their focus to Vanessa.

The Blood Shaman didn’t attack anyone, but started to channel a spell instead.

As it did this, a transparent cover appeared on the battlefield. It was as tall as a person and had a 40 yard radius. It looked like a big bubble.

“Sea Breeze try to move the Boss so that Flower and I can attack her. Flower, stand with me.”

Lu Li moved and stood in the bubble.

As he entered the bubble, a damage value floated above his head as he lost 200 HP.

“Are you trying to get me killed?”

Lonesome Flower hesitated before bracing himself and stepping in. The damage dealt by the bubble was magic-type, so he lost around 150 HP.

After stepping into the bubble, he realised what was happening. He saw that he had gained a status effect.

‘Reduce defence by 50%, increase attack by 50% and take damage every 5 seconds.’

Azure Sea Breeze pulled the Boss into a good position before everyone else desperately tried to deal as much damage as they could.

As Lu Li and Lonesome Flower were taking constant damage, March Rain took care of them. If things got too out of hand, they could still take an Intermediate Health Potion.

With a 50% increase in attack, the Boss’ HP quickly dropped from 60% to 40%.

“Kill the Shaman.”

Lu Li turned around and targeted the Defias Blood Shaman.

“How unfortunate. If only we could take the Blood Shaman with us to farm monsters. His buff is just too good,” Lonesome Flower said as he coordinated with Lu Li to instantly kill it.

When her HP dropped below 40%, Vanessa suddenly became invincible!

She activated some kind of dodging item which caused everyone who attacked her to miss. She would then flash like a ghost and appear behind the players before casting Cheap Shot.

Luckily she would only hit once at a time, which gave March Rain some time to heal.

This meant that if the bubble was still up…

Seeing how he had instantly dropped to half HP, Lonesome Flower’s face went pale.

However, this phase didn’t last very long, as Azure Sea Breeze was working very hard to regain aggro. While Vanessa was attacking them, she also complained about Stormwind City.

The players never thought that Vanessa was a bad guy.

In this world, there were many that were actually sympathetic to this charming female Thief.

The two girls were affected by her speech and unknowingly stopped their attacking and healing, but they quickly started again after Lu Li yelled at them. He had no intention of dying because of the Boss’ lines.

When her HP dropped below 20%, Vanessa Van Cleef became enraged and started to blow up the ship.

No matter how beautiful she was, her craziness would pull anyone back to reality.

“Follow me!” Lu Li turned and ran. The others quickly followed suit.

The system would never have designed an Instance Dungeon that was unsolvable. Lu Li brought everyone to some ropes by the side of the boat which could be used to swing off the hull and avoid the explosion.

He had thought that the girls wouldn’t dare to jump, but he didn’t think that their swings would be smoother than his.

By now, the explosion that Vanessa started had dissipated. As this was a videogame, the explosion had no effect on the ship’s hull.

They continued to damage Vanessa, but she no longer did anything as flashy as the explosion.

Her parents were killed when she was 12, which was the reason she had developed this hatred. Fighting this Boss felt like they were a reading story; everyone’s emotions were conflicted.

“It’s just a game; don’t take it too seriously. When we come back, we’ll see her again,” Lu Li said as he tried to lighten up the mood.

This argument was surprisingly effective and quickly did away with the sadness in the player’s hearts.

“It’s unfortunate though,” Lu Li muttered.

“Why is it unfortunate?” March Rain was right next to him, so she could hear him.

“There won’t be a World Announcement.”

Lu Li changed the subject. His words didn’t make much sense, but Azure Sea Breeze would have known what he was talking about.

Clearing the Death Mines at ordinary difficulty wasn’t rewarded with a World Announcement. However, if they could do it at this difficulty, they could probably complete it at Elite or higher difficulties too.

Of course, Lu Li didn’t really care about the World Announcements. He was just sad that he didn’t get to see the Hidden Boss.

The final Boss of this Instance Dungeon was Vanessa Van Cleef. However, there was a certain chance that players would be able to face the Defias Brotherhood founder, Edwin Van Cleef, in his spirit form.

That was the so called Hidden Boss.