The Great Thief

”The long and hard search stops here; real justice will be decided by fate. Children, let’s celebrate,” the Headless Paladin said as he waved his long weapon.

A big pile of pumpkins laughed as they rolled forward.

”Dodge to the left,” Lu Li shouted as soon as the pumpkins came out.

This skill seemed like a prank, but it was definitely not to be underestimated. Two team members didn’t dodge in time and were killed in an instant.

These hundred-man raids were different to the standard dungeons. It was rare for players to be instantly killed in dungeons, but this situation was common in these raids.

”I’ll repeat again, you must follow instructions. If I ask you to go left, make sure you go left. If everyone went left, would you guys still collide with each other?”

It was a pity that two people had died as soon as the raid began. They died because they couldn’t tell the difference between left and right.

Nevertheless, this was a small setback, and Lu Li asked for those two players to be resurrected.

Ranged attacks started raining onto the Headless Paladin as two-digit damage values floated into the air. The boss had a total of 1.2 million HP, but it wouldn’t take long to clear its health bar if they continued at this rate.

However, this was a super boss, so there was no way it would go down so easily.

With a simple swing, the Headless Paladin dealt a circle of damage around himself. The melee players were all attacked, and four or five them instantly died.

Berserk!

Five stacks of Berserk – that was a 50% attack damage increase. Even Azure Sea Breeze was losing his health rapidly.

Fortunately, he had used his damage reduction in time and there was someone who was focused solely on healing his health bar.

The Berserk effect was one of the things that made the Headless Paladin quite fearsome. If he used that skill to kill one enemy, he would gain one stack of Berserk. This effect could stack up to ten times.

Each stack gave him a 10% increase in his attack damage.

”Druids, resurrect the dead. Breeze, defend as you move. The others should move with him as well. Don’t get within a five-yard radius of the main tank. Melee players, either use damage reduction or fall back if you see the Boss’ weapon rise above its head.” Lu Li made strategic adjustments on the spot, and displayed an excellent reaction when most teams would’ve wiped.

Of course, this was only an illusion. In his previous life, he had already fought the Headless Paladin twice. Although he was unable to ever take it down, he learned a lot in the process.

There were countless guides about the Headless Paladin, but only elite teams from big guilds managed to actually take it down.

As the battle continued, the pumpkins rolled out again a few times. The Berserk effect appeared a few times as well, but everyone dodged nicely. There were no more situations like in the beginning when five people died. The health of the Headless Paladin continued to decease and soon fell to 80%, which meant that they had entered the second stage.

”Fallen knights, follow my command. Fight for victory.”

A row of Spirit Knights appeared before the Headless Paladin and trampled towards the players.

”Breeze, pull the boss away. Darkness and Hachi Chan, look after his health. The other three tanks, pull three Spirited Knights each from left to right. Ranged players, keep damaging the boss. Melee players, go take down the summoned monsters.”

Since there was a lot of people in the team, Lu Li was unable to explain the guide thoroughly beforehand, and could only work on a reactionary basis. When the Headless Paladin spoke his lines, he made sure the secondary tanks were in good position.

The second stage was actually harder than the first.

The most difficult thing about first stage was the pumpkins racing towards the players. They came in great numbers, but they were slow and followed a set track, so they were easy to dodge.

However, these nine Spirit Knights were a completely different story. They each had the strength of a minor boss, and if the tanks failed to pull them at the start, they would wreak havoc.

Lu Li didn’t assign nine tanks for each Spirit Knight because these Spirit Knights came with a special buff called ”Stability”. This buff had nine stacks and if any of them had less than three stacks, they would go berserk.

A Spirit Knight that went berserk was a real disaster. It would run around everywhere and kill anyone who ran into it in an instant.

It would also be a disaster if they were pulled all together by one tank, as the Stability buff gave them defense attributes. Dealing damage to them would be impossible if they had too many stacks.

Three monsters per tank – this was the best result after rigorous experimentation.

Unfortunately, theory doesn’t always go to plan in real life. Global Friendship only managed to pull two monsters, with the other one being pulled by God of Destiny. He didn’t even realize that he had pulled an extra monster.

There was nothing wrong with pulling an extra monster – God of Destiny was a defense Druid, so he had a lot of health and wouldn’t die too fast.

However, the two monsters that Global Friendship pulled instantly went berserk.

Wherever these two Spirit Knights charged, a glow of white light would rise.

”My ****,” Lu Li swore as he died to the Spirit Knight that ran over him.

This waved killed a dozen people, including the commander. There were no one to hold down the two berserk Spirit Knights and the two monsters slaughtered the area.

”Reset. Those who didn’t die, run out of the dungeon. Those who can’t run out, just die,” Lu Li commanded as he went to collect his corpse.

He couldn’t blame the tanks for not pulling the Spirit Knights properly – this was their first time and the situation was too messy.

In fact, it was rare for a team to make it through stage one on their first try.

With the lead of someone who has reincarnated, Ruling Sword had already been spared a lot of trouble.

Everything was reset in their second run. There were no Spirit Knights and no Headless Paladin – the boss had to be summoned again.

”Alright, success is the mother of failures...” Lu Li didn’t blame anyone and decided to stay rational.

”It should be failures are the mother of success.” Azure Sea Breeze was quick to correct him, and was met by a wave of laughter.

”You guys get the gist of it,” Lu Li said as he glared at him and pretended that nothing had happened. ”Everyone did well in the first stage; we dodged all the pumpkins. We only lost a few people at the start because everyone was unfamiliar with the situation. In the second stage, the key is to pull the monsters appropriately. I’ll set a secondary tank to each of you as a helper. Make sure you pull your own monsters and don’t pull anyone else’s...”

Since the cooldown for Druids’ revives wasn’t ready, Lu Li gave everyone a two minute break.

”Boss, does this thing drop mounts?” Fat Monkey asked as he came over. He had fallen in love with the Spirit Warhorse the moment he saw the Headless Paladin.

Even the Spirit Knights rode these kind of warhorses; these mounts were too cool.