I replied in an astonished voice, "Oh, the boss has appeared?"
"That"s right!" Lin Yixin replied. "We"re stationed around the area and we haven"t started fighting the boss yet. I"ve only told you so far, so you can"t leak the news! We need to finish this boss off before Candlelight Shadow and his men find this place. Just bring the core of your guild along with you, around seventy people at most. I"ll form the party and we"ll divide the spoils of war among the hundred of us by checking the DPS chart and then rolling for it."
"Okay, I got it! I"ll be there in half an hour!"
"Alright!"
……
I closed the chat window and quickly surveyed the area around me. There were only a few dozen Star Rhinos left, so we were about to mop them up pretty quickly. We soon picked the battlefield clean of any useful items. I had managed to find another twenty-four pieces of the Split Galaxy set, so I currently had thirty-eight pieces in my inventory. We managed to form six full sets from these thirty-eight pieces, so everyone would definitely agree that this was a bountiful gather indeed.
Yeah, it was time to link up with Lin Yixin and kill that boss. There were five guilds in the Star Dragon Domain right now. Besides us, there was Snowy Cathaya, Purple Lily, Candle Dragon, and Warsky Alliance. Besides Snowy Cathaya, there wasn"t another guild that we could absolutely trust here, so working together with them to kill the boss was an absolute necessity.
I opened the guild channel and said somberly, "All Famous Generals in the guild, step forward! I also need another sixty-two long-range attackers and healers. Xu Yang, pick out these sixty-two people from among the survivors. We are going to form the strongest seventy-man team we can a.s.semble right now!"
After I said that, I sent the coordinates to He Yi, Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi, and the other Famous Generals, and told them that they had to keep these coordinates a secret. I also privately messaged Xu Yang to tell him that the people that he picked had to be ones who were completely loyal to the guild. We had to guard against all leaks. If no one leaked anything, it was possible for us to kill the boss within two hours and not be discovered.
……
I started moving toward the center of the map.
I saw that He Yi and the rest of them were already waiting for me. All of our surviving Famous Generals were here along with our elite players like Xu Yang and Yamete. He Yi formed a seventy-man party and added Beiming Xue and I into it before making me the party leader. We then instructed the remaining guild members to continue farming Star Rhinos as we set off on our secret expedition. Everyone else gladly stayed behind because these mobs gave a generous amount of items and experience. Furthermore, I didn"t mention anything about a boss, so most of the guild members thought that we were heading out to a new hunting ground to ma.s.s-clear monsters.
The seventy of us quietly crept under the shadow of a mountain ridge, our expressions nervous and tense.
"Lu Chen…" He Yi caught up to me and asked, "Did you already discuss how both guilds are going to split the boss drops and the dragon scale with Beauty Lin?"
"Yeah." I nodded my head. "We"ll split the drops according to DPS and rolling. We actually haven"t even talked about the dragon scale yet. But don"t worry, just leave it to me. If we kill the boss, I"ll be responsible for grabbing the dragon scale. Even if Beauty Lin makes her move, I"m confident that I will be able to s.n.a.t.c.h it before she does. After all, my fingers are quicker than hers…"
He Yi gave me a meaningful look as she said, "Hmph! Oh you…”
……
As we moved toward the coordinates that Lin Yixin gave us, we soon saw a huge valley appear in front of us. We could even hear the faint sounds of a dragon growling. More and more Star Rhinos started to appear in front of us and it was very clear that Lin Yixin had been clever enough to leave these monsters alone. She had skirted around them and entered the valley because she knew that she would be discovered very quickly if she had chosen to fight them.
"Okay, Beauty Lin and her men are just ahead of us. From now on, everyone can only use the party chat to communicate! We must not allow these coordinates to leak to the rest of the guilds here!" He Yi"s voice wasn"t very harsh, but it was filled with a calm authority. As the Vice President of GGS Asia, her voice had a certain charisma to it.
After we rounded the mountain pa.s.s and entered the valley, we saw about thirty people a.s.sembled in front of us. It was Lin Yixin and Snowy Cathaya.
"You finally came…"
The Fruit Knife G.o.ddess flipped the dagger in her hand idly as she walked toward us with a grin on her face. "Hurry up and form a new party and prepare to fight the boss. We need to take advantage of this small window of opportunity to kill it quietly. You never know when Candle Dragon and Warsky Alliance will find out!"
"嗯！"
"Got it!"
I nodded my head and dissolved my party. Lin Yixin formed a new party and added all of us into it. As I swept my eyes over the remaining members of Snowy Cathaya, I couldn"t help but ask, "Yiyi, where are Lifetaking Sword and Zi Chuanyu?"
"Oh, we got into a fight with another guild and they died. This is all that"s left of my hundred-man squad," Lin Yixin said coolly.
"What? Nearly 70% of your hundred-man squad died? This… Who did you get into a fight with?" He Yi"s delicate mouth dropped open. The news had clearly shocked her.
Lin Yixin laughed and said, "Candle Dragon. We fought their main force, and Candlelight Shadow, Blue Sky Scar, and Transient Smoke and Clouds were among them. After we clashed once, both sides decided to cut their losses, though we suffered terrible losses in that fight."
I replied, "That can"t be all, right? Candlelight Shadow only brought one hundred of his men in. If they managed to kill 70% of your forces, how many people do they even have left?"
"Probably less than half?" Lin Yixin said as she pursed her cherry lips. Bloodl.u.s.t flashed in her beautiful eyes. "Candlelight Shadow"s mechanical skill is still impressive…"
"Where did you guys clash? Candlelight Shadow hasn"t discovered this location, right?" I asked.
Lin Yixin shook her head. "No, this was a fight that happened half an hour before I found this place. Both sides suffered heavy losses and Candlelight Shadow didn"t want to let everyone else know how bad things had gotten for him, so no news of this fight leaked out. However, they only have forty-odd people left. Even if they do find us, they"ll have to deal with the crème de la crème of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. We shouldn"t have anything to fear from them."
I gave a heavy sigh. "I"m just afraid that they"ll come when we"re right in the middle of fighting the boss. That"ll be a doozy."
"Yeah. So let"s hurry up and get this thing started already!"
"Okay!"
……
He Yi started a.s.signing roles to everyone. "Gui Guzi, Lu Chen, Yiyi, and I will be the tanks for this boss fight. Everyone else, please pay attention to your aggro meter, we mustn"t overtaunt the boss. The first thing we need to do is to identify the visual cues the boss has when preparing to cast a skill. We also need to be very sure of what each skill does and take note of their radius and special effects. The very next thing we need to do is to find the dragon"s weak points and weaknesses as soon as possible. This is the very first Heaven Rank boss to appear in the entire server, so we need to proceed with utmost caution."
Lin Yixin nodded her head. "Yeah, Eve"s absolutely right. Everyone… All of us need to be fully prepared for a party wipe. This boss isn"t gonna be some walk in the park."
Gui Guzi hefted his spear and grinned. "Don"t worry about it! Shall we begin our attack!?"
"Yeah, let"s go!"
……
We started to move forward two at a time, and Gui Guzi and I were standing at the very front of the formation. Lin Yixin"s Bombsh.e.l.l had boosted my stats by 70% and Pure Love had given me a 49% HP buff on top of that, so my current HP was more than 58000. This amount of HP was simply incredible.
Of course, all four main tanks had a dedicated bard to buff them, but the quality of these bards differed. Pure Love could practically boost all of my stats by 50% while He Yi and Gui Guzi"s bards could only buff their stats by 39%. Lin Yixin"s bard was stronger than their bards. The pretty Beauty At First Sight could buff Lin Yixin"s stats by 44%, but she still lost out to Pure Love.
"Hahaha, this feels great. Now that I"m fully buffed, my HP is nearly eighty thousand. If I work a bit harder, I should be able to break a hundred thousand!" Gui Guzi said with a roar of laughter.
Lin Yixin giggled when she heard those words. "Eighty thousand? Hmph! Just how much Magic Resist do you have? I suspect that one blast of dragon breath from the boss is going to have you rolling on the ground crying for your mommy!"
Gui Guzi was stunned into silence. He was actually still quite afraid of the beautiful Lin Yixin. In the battle of Frost Mound, he had been killed by Lin Yixin so many times over the span of a single night that he had dropped from the top spot in the Heavenly Ranking to outside the Top 100. That terrible incident cast a dark shadow over Gui Guzi"s heart. In fact, every time Gui Guzi got drunk, he would sling an arm around my shoulder and say, "Boss Broken Halberd, I think you should try to subdue Lin Yixin when you have the chance. I don"t ever want to face off against that demoness in the field of battle ever again…"
In the eyes of most players, Lin Yixin was an existence akin to a G.o.ddess. She had the perfect body and face and her skill at Heavenblessed was simply unbelievable. Everything about her seemed to be absolutely perfect.
However, to people who had fought against her before, like Gui Guzi and I, Lin Yixin was like a temptress who brought nations to ruin. If anyone could subdue her, it would practically be an act of national service! It was way too risky to even try though, because it was more likely than not that the person who tried would be subdued by her than the opposite!
……
As we slowly delved deeper into the valley, we saw that there were no other monsters inside of it. However, the one monster that we did see stole our breath away.
There was a gigantic purple dragon hovering quietly in the air, its wings glistening with brilliant light. It was as if this dragon was a star in the sky and the purple scales that covered its body looked more like amethysts than scales. Its angular head looked extremely sinister and one look at those dark green eyes sent a shudder down everyone"s spines. We could instantly tell that this dragon would be one tough cookie.
"Lu Chen, go up and check the boss"s stats…" Lin Yixin said as she gave me a light push.
"Why does it have to be me? What if I get gobbled up…"
"Oh please, you wouldn"t even count as a snack. In fact, that giant dragon might not even bother trying to eat you!"
"Dammit…"
He Yi laughed. "That"s enough. Lu Chen, hurry up and go check on its stats. Your level is the highest here anyway. If you don"t go, who will? Are we going to ask Luo River G.o.d of the Capital to come over and check its stats for us?"
"Fine, fine, I"ll go!" I wasn"t left with any choice once my beautiful guild leader opened her mouth. Lin Yixin"s expression turned frosty when she saw how obedient I was to He Yi. She looked extremely adorable as she stomped a foot on the ground angrily and she looked like she couldn"t wait to kick me in the a.s.s.
……
Star Dragon (Heaven Rank Boss)
Level: 160
Attack: 2940~3750
Defense: 3200
Health: 15,000,000
Skills: Dragon Blade, Scale Armor, Galaxy Storm, Galaxy Vortex
Introduction: This is the legendary Star Dragon, a dragon which was said to have been born from the core of a star during ancient times. It possesses an enormous strength that the other dragons do not possess, and legend has it that this power comes from a treasure gifted to it by the G.o.ds of heaven. This transformed the Star Dragon into one of the kings of dragonkind. However, a cataclysmic event overturned the entire continent and caused this demesne of dragons to sink below the ground. Thus the Star Dragon was buried underneath the earth together with the Nine Lost Dragon Domains, and has finally emerged from the depths of darkness. This king of dragonkind is exceptionally vicious and cruel. After being trapped in this prison for hundreds of thousands of years it has resolved to slaughter all the living creatures in this world to soothe its pain.
……
"f.u.c.k me… this dragon looks extremely fierce…" Li Chengfeng said with an audible gulp. "Fifteen million HP, an Attack that nearly hits 4000. Man, I don"t even know if I can take part in this battle."
High Fighting Spirits twirled his battle axe in a show of bravado as he said, "What"re you afraid of? Follow me, let"s charge in together!"
Li Chengfeng spat out a retort, ""Do you know how to spell the word death?"
High Fighting Spirits scratched his head as he gave a most insouciant shrug, "Nope. How do you spell it?"
Li Chengfeng vomited blood in defeat.
……
A rather incredulous expression appeared on Lin Yixin"s face as she witnessed this exchange. She exclaimed with some disdain, "Why is your guild full of guys like these?! Get everyone ready, we"re about to start fighting the boss. Lu Chen, use your Sword Boomerang to lure the boss here, I"ll follow up with an Extreme Break. Let"s try one proper rotation of attacks to see if we can even break its defenses in the first place."
"Alright!"
I carefully measured the distance between me and the Star Dragon. I steadied myself and once I planted my feet firmly on the ground, I let out a loud yell as I hurled my sword toward it. The Heaven-stealing Sword transformed into a whirling blade as it spun toward the Star Dragon"s tail. It sank into the fleshy tail with a loud thud, causing the huge dragon to immediately rear its head up. After that, it let out a loud shriek of pain before spinning around and glaring at me with a pair of dark green eyes filled with bloodl.u.s.t.