The Great Thief

Within minutes, Azure Sea Breeze was down. Even with the healers focusing on him, they couldn’t save him.

The entire team wiped and returned. Lu Li patted Azure Sea Breeze’s shoulders and lectured, “Do you still think you have a lot of damage deduction spells? See, if it wasn’t for the fact that you wasted so many of them, I’m pretty sure you would still be able to hang on longer.”

“I know now! What a pointless lecture!” Azure Sea Breeze huffed as he turned his head to the side.

Wyrmthalak was a Dragonspawn, but he was different to those Dragonspawns in the Wild. He could at least breath fire, and even if it was just a few sparks, it was enough to deal constant fire damage that stacked up.

Things would be a lot easier if they had Fire Resistance potions, but unfortunately, they didn’t have any.

“Switch tanks,” Lu Li said. If he kept his mouth shut, Azure Sea Breeze would die again. It was best to have Wandering tank for a bit, then Azure Sea Breeze tank again after his burn effect wore off.

If anyone thought that this was all that Wyrmthalak’s had, then they were definitely wrong. This was just his most common tactic; it wasn’t even a skill.

“No one can challenge my master, not even you!” Wyrmthalak roared.

This wasn’t just a regular line, but a skill – Demoralizing Shout. It reduced the melee attack of nearby enemies for 30 seconds. This meant that within the next 30 seconds, melee combat was pointless. Lu Li’s damage went from around 200 to less than 40 and it was the same for everyone else.

On top of this, Wyrmthalak also casted Cleave.

This was a common skill, but it was anything but ordinary when cast by Wyrmthalak. He could attack three players with this spell. Dealing damage that was between 1200 to 2800. If the spell dealt any critical strikes, it could instantly take down a close combat player.

“When the boss casts Cleave, all close-combats leave. Wait until the effect from Demoralizing Shout wears off, then come back and deal damage. Everyone, prepare your damage reduction spells,” Lu Li said as he stepped back first. He didn’t want to die to this silly ability.

Wandering’s health dropped rapidly from the burn damage and had to ask for help.

“****, I can’t anymore. Breezy, help!”

Azure Sea Breeze didn’t have time to tease Wandering; he quickly went over to pull the Boss to himself. The burning effect on himself hadn’t worn off entirely, but he had to force himself to tank it regardless.

“Wandering, back off a little more from the Boss to recover,” Lu Li instructed. Under normal circumstances, it would take a long time for players to discover that the further they went from the Boss, the faster the burning effect disappeared. It was most inefficient to stand near the Boss and deal damage while waiting for the burn effect to disappear.

Wandering was smart enough to realize this after he stood further away.

“Hmph, Lu Li, how come you know that the further away I stand, the faster the burn status disappears?” Wandering was curious.

“Oh really? Well, how would I know? I just thought that since you couldn’t deal damage anyway, you might as well move away and stop blocking me from completing my skills,” Lu Li responded bluntly.

Even a Thief like him with high damage could only deal 30-40 points of damage, let alone a defense Paladin like Wandering.

“Damn you, do you really have to point that out?” Wandering cursed. What Lu Li said was true, but it did hurt to have it pointed out at him.

“Stop chatting around and go help Breezy. He’s almost cooked.”

Lu Li had successfully fooled a smart man. He wasn’t entirely making things up either. The completion level of physical-type spells had a major relationship with a player’s movements.

This strategy of alternating tanks could at least guarantee the team to pass phase one of Wyrmthalak.

Then, Wyrmthalak’s health dropped to 50%.

This brought in phase two, which was signalled by two waves of summoned monsters. The first wave of summoned monsters were Bloodaxe Veterans. They came in groups of four and had the ‘Punches and Kicks’ skill.

The skill was a common one for strong monsters. Punches dealt physical damage and also knocked the player away, while Kicks dealt damage and interrupted casting.

The prior was aimed at close-combats while the latter targeted magic classes. Regardless of the class type, all players were affected.

Fortunately, all 15 of them were above level 56 with good equipment, so they didn’t have too much trouble taking down the 8 Bloodaxe Veterans. After the Bloodaxe Veterans, another two monsters were summoned.

These two monsters weren’t really summoned monsters, because they dropped items. Normal summoned monsters didn’t drop anything.

Based on their HP, Armor and Attack attributes, it was more proper to refer them as semi-bBosses. One of them was called Smolderthorn Berserker and the other was the Spirestone Warlord.

“Breezy, pull another,” Lu Li quickly told Azure Sea Breeze.

If the Smoulderthorn Berserker and Spirestone Warlord pounced on Wandering at the same time, he wouldn’t be able to handle it. Because the melee players had reduced damage due to Demoralizing Shout and they were taking damage from Cleave, most guilds would have swapped their players and replaced them with a new formation of three defensive classes with healers and ranged damage dealers.

Lu Li didn’t plan to swap any members out. The situation was tougher, but it wasn’t impossible. People just had to work harder and it seemed like Azure Sea Breeze was capable of tanking another monster.

But why did he pull the Smouldering Berserker?

The Spirestone Warlord was clearly closer to him, which was why Lu Li didn’t point out which monster he should pull. The Smouldestone Berserker would now teach him a lesson; pulling the wrong monster would definitely cause trouble.

Mortal Strike – this was a spell that allowed the Smouldestone Berserker to inflict heavy physical damage to a player and reduce their received healing effects by 50% over 15 seconds. Azure Sea Breeze had pulled two monsters. One of them was a boss and now that he had received an extra Mortal Strike status, which reduced his received healing, there was no way he could survive.

A wipe!

They had to start over again and this time Azure Sea Breeze finally knew that he shouldn’t pull the Smouldestone Berserker.

The Spirestone Warlord wasn’t an easy target – in fact, it even knew how to go berserk. However, as long as it wasn’t a real Boss, Azure Sea Breeze could ignore its Berserk mode.

They finally passed this phase after some tough work. At the same time, Her Tears reported in that Glory Capital had taken down the second Boss and had begun to work on the third one. Lu Li had to admit that their group was very speedy. If both parties started at the same time, Ruling Sword might not win against them.

Fortunately, he had strategies in his head that he could use for phase three.

In phase three, Wyrmthalak began to show off his long weapon. The weapon seemed to allow him to constantly cast Sweeping Slam, an ultimate group spell. Their health bars dropped rapidly, even though the healers were spamming their healing abilities.

Under normal circumstances, players would gain some sort of experience and enlightenment after many wipes.

Sweeping Slam wasn’t an attack that had no blind spots; it dealt cone ranged damage. This meant that if the Boss targeted a certain player, this player would be at the tip of the cone. The fan shaped area from the Boss and that player would be the area of damage.

In that case, if the other players stayed out of the cone, they wouldn’t take damage from the spell.