The Great Thief

By the time the two Main Tanks pulled their assigned Bosses, they had already lost three of the 15 players.

As a summoned Boss, Shahram’s attack was high and the Blackblade was obviously no joke. The Blackblade was actually even worse than General Drakkisath himself.

Only 30 seconds had passed, and three people had already died.

Every 10 seconds, a player would die. If this continued, the team would almost be completely wiped out by the time the two minutes were up.

“Pull them further apart. Breezy, pull Shahram so that he is behind the throne. Darkness, you will have to heal him. Hachi Chan, you need to watch Darkness and March Rain’s HP. If either of them dies on your watch, we’ll be having dragon stew tonight,” Lu Li instructed. His focus was on protecting the healers.

Azure Sea Breeze and Wandering weren’t idiots either; they knew what Lu Li was tyring to do.

One of the Bosses was being pulled to the back of the throne and the other was being pulled away from the hall. This way, they wouldn’t have to face the attacks of both. Someone had once considered completely separating General Drakkisath from Shahram, but this wasn’t possible. Shahram was summoned by General Drakkisath, so if they were too far apart, they would be automatically teleported to each other.

“Rice Ball, take your potions!” Lu Li cried out.

Sesame Rice Ball originally felt like his HP wasn’t too low as he was standing next to the healer. He didn’t expect Lu Li to call him out, but thankfully, he followed the command without thinking and immediately downed a potion.

Just as he finished the potion, he saw Shahram’s Blackblade slamming into him.

Hadn’t Shahram just been pulled behind the throne by Azure Sea Breeze? When he looked around, he noticed a number of Shahrams in the area.

He had duplicated!

Lu Li only had time to remind Sesame Rice Ball. There were others that had enough HP, so they survived, but Sakura Memories and Remnant Dream weren’t as fortunate. Both of them were one-shot by these attacks.

After killing two players with one hit, Shahram disappeared as he had completed his mission.

“Be careful of that. Make sure your HP is as high as possible. There is a lot of pressure on the healers, so you will need to take potions. Use whatever skills you need to stay alive. We are down to the last 40 seconds, so do whatever you can to survive. If you can’t…”

Lu Li didn’t finish his sentence.

There were some teams that tried to evacuate the area so that only the Healers and Tanks remained. However, this was a very luck-based strategy. If things went favourably, then they would have saved their damage output players. However, if they were unlucky, then they would likely be wiped.

All Lu Li could do here was to try and keep as many damage output players alive as possible while prioritising the Main Tanks and Healers.

“30 seconds left. March Rain, don’t bother the damage output players – just keep Wandering alive,” Lu Li called out. He was looking around and was highly focused.

“25 seconds! Don’t worry about anyone who still has damage reduction skills!”

“20 seconds! Alright, keep it up. Don’t worry about your brother; we can continue fighting without him. Just stay focused…”

“15 seconds. Stay away from the Boss; use your movement speed buffs if you have to. March Rain, give up on Wandering and heal the damage output players that are away from the Boss. Hachi Chan, resurrect anyone you can.”

“Lu Li, please, why did you give up on me?”

“Shahram’s whirlwind is going to last at least 10 seconds. When he finishes, it will be done. We won’t need you anymore after that. I hope you survive.”

“Hey, don’t forget that I’m a Paladin. I have invulnerability, and I still can be useful. I can interfere with the Boss.”

“Yes, you could. Just do that then, but you can die now.”

“You can’t trick me!”

“Wow, this guy still isn’t dead yet. This is the last 5 seconds. Pay attention – whoever dies now will lose guild points, so don’t die.”

“3, 2… dammit, now you’ll lose guild points, and you’ll also need to spend more resources on fixing your equipment…”

Soon enough, Shahram reluctantly vanished in a puff of smoke.

After all, he was just a summoned Boss and could only exist for 2 minutes. This had been enabled by the master of the Blackblade, who once wounded Golganneth the Thunderer with it.

Although it was only a small injury, if you knew who Golganneth was, you would think differently.

Golganneth the Thunderer was Aman’Thul in the flesh – the father of the Gods and Eonar’s child. He was the creator of the sky and the ocean. This tall male titan had white-gold skin, held a giant horn as a weapon and wielded lightning that passed through his eyes.

In the beginning, he created the sky, ocean and all marine life in the world of Azeroth. He created the sea giant to help the earth, and modelled the mountains which were later known as Kalimdor. The Sea Giants were responsible for maintaining the deep sea.

Golganneth had enjoyed his creation and assisted the Pantheon to bring order from chaos. However, he still loved the sheer strength that came with power.

In battle, he would blow into his horn-like weapon, the Shagahn, which could destroy a mountain. Golganneth didn’t do this too often because his mission was to create rather than destroy.

He was the embodiment of thunder, lightning and storms.

After wounding the Thunderer, the Blackblade of Shahram was contaminated with the blood of the Titans and was cursed. This reduced a heavenly weapon that was capable of harming the Gods into a fallen weapon.

Before Lu Li was reborn, many people believed that there was an opportunity to rejuvenate the Blackblade of Shahram.

After Shahram disspated, General Drakkisath went back to being silent.

He looked a little sad and the Blackblade of Shahram seemed to have lost its edge. The damage caused to Azure Sea Breeze wasn’t even at risk of being fatal – he was in a weakened state!

In fact, Lu Li was also quite miserable. Under his care, the two Main Tanks and three healers didn’t die. However, they had lost six of their damage output professions, which meant they only had four left.

Fortunately, General Drakkisath was weak and there were enough Main Tanks and Healers to ensure the safety of the group.

In addition, the two guards that had disappeared had come back to fight again. Although they had shamefully run away, they had not lost their fighting ability.

This was why Lu Li had chosen to save the Main Tanks and Healers instead of the damage output players. When General Drakkisath was in his weakened state, having less damage output was less of an issue. If they had saved their damage output players and the Main Tanks or Healers had died, then even 5 seconds would be enough for the Bosses to wipe out the remaining players.

The Main Tanks were currently holding all the aggro, but since they weren’t doing much damage everyone could be a potential target. At this time, the Boss was determined to cast a large area of effect skill.

Now with the two guards, there was a total of six damage output players. None of them held anything back.

Before long, General Drakkisath’s HP was completely depleted…

They had finally completed the Blackrock Spire’s upper level Instance Dungeon!

Unfortunately, there were no flowers or applause. Almost no one noticed the First Clear that Lu Li and the others had just achieved. Blood Red War Flag had achieved the First Clear of the whole dungeon, and it didn’t matter that Lu Li and the others were playing at the more difficult Nightmare Difficulty of the Instance Dungeon.

However, no one felt much frustration, especially with such a strong final Boss lying dead in front of them.