Chapter 258 – Dragon Knight (2)
Translator: Seven
Editor: Ana_Banana
One of the basic techniques when hunting dragons was to divide your forces in two.
One unit would fight the Dragon, while the other would fight the Dragon’s Guardians.
The best players were usually part of the Dragon slaying team.
This was a fact that had never been questioned before.
It was the same this time as well.
In Kim Woo-jin’s memory, those who had attacked the A+ rank 7 Floor dungeon had the same thought.
When they encountered the Black Dragon on the seventh floor, they identified the situation, split their group into two units, and the main force moved to hunt the Dragon.
Their movements were fast and smooth since they had already encountered the Red Dragon on the sixth floor.
That was why they didn’t panic.
‘Dragon Knight is stronger than the Dragon…’
No one expected that the Guardian they had to deal with was a Dragon Knight, a monster that was even stronger than a Dragon.
‘It’s a vicious combination.’
As Kim Woo-jin said, it was a vicious setting that would trick even the most experienced Dragon hunters.
And the thing that made this setting possible was none other than Excalibur, which the Dragon Knight was wielding.
‘No one could imagine a monster wielding Excalibur.’
Excalibur’s abilities were simple.
It recognizes those who attacked its wielder as challengers, then it gave those who were perceived as challengers the Curse of the Challenger.
And when their fight began, the wielder of the sword would be given the Blessing of the Winner.
The Curse of the Challenger decreased the target’s stats by 25% while the Blessing of the Winner increased the target’s stats by 20%.
It was truly the sword of the king which would make the person who wielded it in battle inevitably win their fights.
‘To give it to the Dragon Knight.’
Furthermore, it was being wielded by none other than a Dragon Knight.
Dragon Knights were different from Guardians.
If the Guardians were simply puppets that the Dragon simply controlled, then Dragon Knights were the children of the Dragons who were even given part of their Dragon Hearts.
They were monsters whose physical ability, physical resistance and magical resistance could be considered to be on the same level as Dragons!
Such an opponent was impossible for any player who had not at least reached level 200.
That was why it was terrible.
There were players here with levels as high as 230, but what if they were given the Curse of the Challenger while facing a Dragon Knight with the Blessing of the Winner?
Then it no longer became a problem of being able to deal with the opponent.
If Excalibur’s effect was activated, it was impossible for even the strongest players in the dungeon to even stall against the Dragon Knight.
In all honesty, most of them would just be annihilated instantly.
‘If it’s like this then the Dragon Slayer would’ve just died.’
If the player who had come to clear this dungeon was none other than the Dragon Slayer, he was certain that it would have only been remembered as a failed dungeon attack.
‘Even if the Dragon Slayer has Balmung, he would probably fail.’
Even if the Dragon Slayer had the legendary item, Balmung, in his grasp, he would be unable to do anything to the Excalibur wielding Dragon Knight.
That was how threatening and overwhelming the existence of a Dragon Knight with Excalibur was.
Of course, even Kim Woo-jin was not an exception to that fact.
He had a large amount of health, but even Kim Woo-jin wasn’t certain how long he could take on a Dragon Knight buffed with the Blessing of the Winner while he had the Curse of the Challenger.
That was the reason.
Bang!
The reason why Kim Woo-jin was blocking the Dragon Knight’s terrifying attacks with the Aegis s.h.i.+eld.
‘However, it’s fine as long as you don’t show hostility.’
The blind spot to Excalibur’s skill was that it was only triggered by direct attacks.
Naturally, this meant that the effect didn’t work on a target that was just defending.
Of course, this didn’t mean that it was easy.
When the attack on the Dragon began, the Dragon Knight would naturally move to protect it.
When that happened, Kim Woo-jin would have to draw the attention of the Dragon Knight back to himself.
This meant that the hunting dog had to stop the prey from biting the hand of its owner who was holding the gun.
‘I’ll hold onto you all day.’
This wasn’t a hard task for the Hunting Dog, Kim Woo-jin.
Rooaar!
Therefore, Kim Woo-jin did not even twitch when he heard the Dragon’s roar ring in his ears.
He had no doubt.
‘Lee Jin-ah, I can only trust you.’
That Lee Jin-ah would make it happen.
…
Kill the Dragon!
The moment Isaac Ivanov shouted out these words, the players instinctively moved at the same time.
It was just that.
Instinctively, they knew that Isaac Ivanov was dealing with a huge disaster and recognized that it was their role to hunt the Dragon in the midst of that. Recognizing that it was the only way for them to clear the dungeon and escape with their lives.
But Lee Jin-ah was different.
‘The fact that Kim Woo-jin went to him directly means that that’s not a normal guy.’
Instead, he acted more rationally as ever.
‘Furthermore, the fact that he’s using a s.h.i.+eld rather than a weapon means that he has no intention of fighting. And the player who attacked shouted Excalibur, didn’t he?’
And he judged the current situation properly.
‘So in summary, it’s a Dragon Guardian with Excalibur, and in order to stop it, he needs the legendary item, Aegis s.h.i.+eld. And if we go after the Dragon… the Dragon Guardian will come to protect the Dragon.’
And with this rational judgement, he came up with an answer.
‘The longer this goes on, the worse the situation will be.’
The sooner this finished this hunt, the better.
As soon as his thoughts reached that stage, Lee Jin-ah didn’t bother to think about it further.
“If we want to hunt the Dragon, we’ll have to split into two teams first.”
“Let’s form the wing cutting team first. Each guild will nominate ten players and we will divide them into three groups in case of failure.”
“Gather the players first. Then we’ll clean up the surrounding Guardians one by one.”
“We need to prepare for the Poison Breath since it’s a Black Dragon! Let’s make sure the buffs are stacked.”
“Set your item setting properly.”
While the others were devising their carefully laid out plans to deal with the Dragon, Lee Jin-ah began to run towards the Dragon’s location as fast as possible.
“Uh, th-, there!”
“Oh my G.o.d!”
“Spas.h.i.+ba is running!”
Those who noticed this sudden action were shocked.
They had no choice but to be.
There were not many opportunities when hunting Dragons, and if an attempt led to failure, it would cause a large number of lives to be lost.
If Lee Jin-ah’s actions lead to failure, they would have to pay an unspeakable price.
And even if they succeeded, there would be problems.
The Black Dragon was currently flying, but what about after it fell?
“Change your settings, quickly!”
“It’s too late. Those who aren’t ready, get as far away as possible.”
The top priority of those players was to escape from the aftermath.
At that point, Cooperation was impossible.
‘I don’t need them anyway.’
Of course, Lee Jin-ah didn’t care about that.
He didn’t have even the slightest bit of worry about it.
‘I just need to bring it down.’
In any case, all he had to do was cut the Dragon’s wings to prevent it from flying.
Rattle!
And it was clear that the skeletons moving alongside him would do the rest.
With his faith in that fact, Lee Jin-ah aimed Gungnir, which he held in his hand, towards the flying Black Dragon.
“s.h.i.+ba!”
Then he threw the spear after releasing a short cry.
…
In the world of players, keeping a monster’s attention was known as aggro management.
In truth, aggro management was not an easy task.
In particular, it was difficult to perform proper aggro management without controlling the aggro of a monster.
After all, wasn’t the ultimate goal of aggro management to create an opportunity for your teammates to attack the monster?
In other words, even if a teammate was to attack the prey, the tank’s duty was to ensure that the prey’s attention stayed on them.
And to do this, the tanks would block the monster’s path and send all kinds of attacks directly at its face.
Doing whatever it took to regain their aggro.
So what about a situation where it was impossible to attack?
Tanks would tell you.
Such a task was impossible in the first place, so it’s pointless to even hypothesize.
Clang!
Nevertheless, that was exactly what Kim Woo-jin was doing now.
It was so ridiculous that even tanks couldn’t help but think about this hypothesis.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Quite a while. It’s been over an hour now.”
However, Kim Woo-jin had been doing just that for over an hour.
“It’s scary that this is not a dream.”
“Agreed.”
The players who were watching from afar in case of an unforeseen situation were unknowingly impressed.
After all, Kim Woo-jin’s performance was worth their admiration.
“How the h.e.l.l is he doing it?”
Shortly after Kim Woo-jin began to tangle with the Dragon Knight, it realised that Kim Woo-jin, who was only defending, was an obstacle.
Naturally, it had moved to remove the intruders.
Recognizing that, Kim Woo-jin predicted the Dragon Knight’s path and blocked it precisely.
That was the point.
“I didn’t expect him to be able to read its movements so perfectly.”
“It’s hard to believe that he can even control a monster’s aggro.”
Perfect prediction and interception of its path.
Using this, Kim Woo-jin was able to perfectly block the Dragon Knight without attacking it even once.
Of course, if that was all, they would just feel a little admiration.
“After the Dragon raid began, the Guardian went crazy too…”
The real challenge started after the Black Dragon fell to the ground.
The Dragon Knight’s focus immediately changed to protecting the Black Dragon as its roars and cries of pain shook the poison filled forest.
The Dragon Knight’s attempts to head over to the Dragon became much more intense.
It was like a rugby ball that you couldn’t tell when it would bounce.
“But he’s still able to predict it.”
Nevertheless, Kim Woo-jin continued to predict the anomalous and aggressive movements of the Dragon Knight and blocked them.
It was so perfect that this wouldn’t have been possible even if they’d agreed and practiced to do it in advance!
It made those watching find it hard to believe what they were seeing.
“What the h.e.l.l is Isaac Ivanov made of? How can he showcase such skill?”
It was even harder to believe that it was none other than Isaac Ivanov who was doing this.
The Isaac Ivanov the world knew was the King of the Undead Army.
But the display that Isaac Ivanov was showing them wasn’t that of a king.
More importantly.
“Whatever it is, there’s one thing we can tell for sure. Isaac Ivanov could clear any dungeon on his own.”
What was clear was that Isaac Ivanov was the only player who could clear an entire dungeon on his own.
What he was currently displaying was the best proof of that.
Rooaar!
Then a long roar from the Black Dragon shook the forest once again.
And everyone who heard it could immediately tell.
‘It’s almost over.’
‘They almost got it.’
Thanks to the experience they gained from the sixth floor, they could tell that that wasn’t a triumphant roar, but a pitiful cry uttered by a dying Dragon.
They also realised.
‘It shouldn’t take much longer.’
That the countdown to their clearance of the 7 Floor dungeon and the time when they could return to the real world had begun.
Not long after, they received a notification.
[The Ruler of the Land of Dragons has been defeated.]
It was the notification which signified the end. Upon hearing it, the players all lifted their hands to the sky.
“We did it!”
“We cleared it!”
“We cleared the peak of 7 Floors!”
Disregarding the process, they cheered the fact that they had cleared the highest dungeon up to that point.
Of course, Kim Woo-jin didn’t cheer.
Instead of cheering, he looked down at the body of the Dragon Knight, which had fallen after the Black Dragon’s death.
Then he reached for the sword in the Dragon Knight’s hand.
As soon as he grabbed the sword, Kim Woo-jin received a notification.
[Excalibur reacts to King Arthur’s Ring.]
[Excalibur recognizes you as its owner.]
Kim Woo-jin smiled at that.
‘To think that the Dragon Slayer missed it even when it was right in front of him.’
Excalibur.
It was revealed that the item was found in this dungeon.
Despite that, however, the sword never made an appearance in the world.
The reason for that was because one needed King Arthur’s Ring in order to wield Excalibur.
The Dragon Slayer, who didn’t have King Arthur’s Ring at that time, could only come out of the dungeon with Excalibur’s information.
But now, in Kim Woo-jin’s hands, the sword would be able to reveal its true value.
[Excalibur]
– Rating: Legendary
– Physical Attack: 777
– Required Level: Level 100 or higher
– Description: King Arthur’s Sword. It is a sword that brings eternal glory to its owner. Anyone who doesn’t have King Arthur’s Ring should not dare to wield it.
– Attack power increased in proportion to user’s level
– All stats +15%
– All attack power +15%
– All defense +15%
– Triggers Curse of the Challenger when attacked
– Triggers Blessing of the Winner when attacked
Kim Woo-jin, who was looking at Excalibur, wasn’t very impressed.
Holding the sword in his hand, he began to walk towards the site of the battle with the Black Dragon.
[Your level has increased.]
[The Emissary of the Underworld admires your performance.]
[The Emissary of the Underworld bestows some power unto you.]
[The rank of the Lich skill increased by one.] (TL: See, didn’t use ‘Lich Summoning’ here)
[The rank of the Death Knight skill increased by one.]
He also received a notification.
But Kim Woo-jin didn’t pay attention to the notification either.
‘There’s just one left now.’
He didn’t even notice.
‘I’ll meet you soon, Lee Se-jun, after the next dungeon.’
At that moment, the only thing that Kim Woo-jin could see was his prey.
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