MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Li Yi led the party into the Fire Beast Dungeon.

Arrow Tower did not pose much of a difficulty, they passed it on their first try.

However, when they faced the first boss Kruder ¹ , due to an issue with party coordination, once the Curse of the Fire Seed hit, the entire party started plunging into a chaotic mess. No matter how much Li Yi shouted out his orders, nothing changed. They were completely wiped effortlessly.

More than twenty people died in the battle, much to Chu Tiange’s confusion and frustration.

After seven days of preparation work, every party member had raised their GS. How did they still not manage to even beat the first boss?

“It’s the lack of coordination, cooperation, and party awareness. A good party needs to go through a long period of playing together to be able to improve. Let them get wiped, they’ll start feeling the pain after getting wiped a few more times.”

The people who died started to drink up their Fire Resist Potions as Li Yi started to explain their boss strategy once more.

Just now, the melee classes had the most casualties, whilst ranged classes had an advantage. When they saw that something went wrong ahead, they all just ran straight out of the dungeon…

On the other hand, Jiaojiao seemed to have a lot of praise for Li Yi, “Even though you don’t look it, you have quite quick legs for a kid.”

“Even if you had a fire seed planted into you, don’t be afraid. As long as you don’t have anyone near you, no matter how the fire seed explodes, you still won’t die, so please pay more attention to your surroundings when you run.”

As Li Yi finally finished his lecture, he felt like his tongue had run dry.

“If I run left, some other guy also runs left. If I run right, some other guy also runs right. Then where am I supposed to run?” One of the novices looked very troubled.

“If they run, why don’t you just stand in the same spot? A large-sized Instance Dungeon tests you on your adaptability. If you do not have the wits to deal with sudden changes, you’re better off going back to 5-man dungeons. Don’t stay here and impair the party.”

‘What has to be said has been said, all that’s left is up to their own awareness.’

Li Yi did not have too much hope. Seven days had passed, at this point, there had already been numerous parties that have beaten the Fire Beast and obtained the requirements for entering the Molten Furnace Instance Dungeon. If he did not act quickly, his Instance Dungeon progress rate would surely fall behind once again.

On their second attempt on the boss, they were clearly doing much better. It proved the saying that coordination is not something that you can learn without dying a few times.

After 37 members died, they finally defeated the boss.

As for the DPS dealt, Chu Tiange was in first, with Li Yi in second. The two had a difference of fewer than 3000 points. Looking below at the third place, fourth place… All of them were completely outshined by them. The difference was over hundreds of thousands.

Chu Tiange did not use any techniques and relied completely on his equipment. On the other hand, Li Yi was giving out commands whilst dealing damage, it was obvious that he had done a lot more work than Chu Tiange.

“Guild Leader Chu, you should be the one looting the boss.”

Last time, Chu Tiange’s luck was decent, so this time, Li Yi suggested that he should do the honors.

As Chu Tiange went up to loot, he got 1 gold, 3 green, and 2 miscellaneous items.

Coincidentally, the gold equipment was Blazing Heart.

Blazing Heart was a ‘Unique’ accessory, meaning that a person can only equip one of this accessory, so obviously, Li Yi had no use for it.

Li Yi handed the Blazing Heart over to Jiaojiao.

Jiaojiao’s DPS was ranked fifteenth, and in both boss fights, she did not even die once. However, there were a lot of others who performed better than her, so after Li Yi finished distributing the loot, a lot of people started looking at him suspiciously.

This young lady Jiaojiao was also entering this dungeon for the first time, but in the two boss fights earlier, she did not die even once. Of course, that’s no big deal, but let me ask you this; when the boss’ fire seed was thrown at the healers, what were you guys doing?”

“We’re DPS, of course, we would be fighting the boss,” answered one of the members, matter-of-factly.

“Hehe, to be a good DPS, you need to do much more than just fight the boss.” Li Yi pointed to Jiaojiao, “Just now when the boss was throwing the fire seeds, she used her body to block the fire seeds, allowing the healer behind her to escape that fate. Did any of you even try to do the same? If you did, please come forward.”

The entire party fell silent.

“Not even one of you? So, with that in mind, I’ll go on to give the best equipment to her then.”

“You’re quite observant for a kid.” Jiaojiao proudly equipped the Blazing Heart onto her set.

Li Yi secretly wiped off his sweat. Jiaojiao did definitely do a “blocking” action on the fire seed, but Li Yi was not sure if her intent was actually to “block” it or if she just did not manage to dodge in time…

Who cares, Li Yi was never some kind of saint. If there was good stuff, he would naturally share it with the people closest to him first. As for the others, their priority was placed dead last.

The remaining green-colored equipment and miscellaneous items were up for everyone else to roll. Li Yi once again reaffirmed that he would distribute the loot mainly based on their party coordination and individual awareness. As for DPS ranks, it only serves as a tiebreaker.

Jiaojiao’s luck ² was amazing, she successfully rolled for another green-colored equipment and a miscellaneous item.

This time, Li Yi had no plans on challenging Hard Mode. To be honest, the only reason he could beat Hard Mode last time was mostly due to luck-based factors. If he attempted it again, there was no guarantee of him succeeding.

Li Yi asked, “Anyone here has interrupt skills?”

“Me!”

“Me!”

Chu Tiange and Delicately Cute answered simultaneously.

“Alright, then us three will be in charge of interrupting the boss’ skills. I’ll go first, followed by Guild Leader Chu, and lastly Delicate.

“When a red channeling bar appears on top of the boss’ head, you must interrupt it. You can ignore it if the channeling bar is blue since that’s an uninterruptable skill.”

Delicately Cute suddenly said in an awkward tone, “I think I’ll pass on this, my reaction is a bit slow, so I’m afraid I may not be able to react in time.”

The second boss Scasa’s red channeling skill will need at least three people’s continuous attack to interrupt it, if Delicately Cute could not do it, Li Yi had no choice but to find a replacement. “Who else has interrupt skills?”

“Let me try!” Jiaojiao raised her hand.

“You have interrupt skills?” Li Yi got suspicious.

The first interrupt skill that an Archer can learn was the Muting Shot at level 21, but Jiaojiao was obviously not at level 21 yet.

“Got you stumped? Be a good boy and let me teach you a lesson. Dark Elves have an Innate Ability called Shadow Bind.”

“Shadow Bind…” Li Yi’s face flushed red.

He had played as a Dark Elf for eight years in his past life, how could he not know of this Innate Ability?

[Shadow Bind]

[Instantaneous Skill, effective range 10 yards.]

[Utilizes the target’s shadows to bind the target. It can interrupt the spells being channeled by the target. Skill cooldown time 5 minutes.]

The Dark Elf’s Innate Ability was extremely useful in Player Duels, but to use it to interrupt a boss’ channeling, its cooldown time was way too long. The reason why Li Yi did not consider this Innate Ability was mainly due to this fact.

‘Oh well, at least it’s better than nothing…’

Li Yi thought briefly, “Let’s go with this, Delicate and Jiaojiao pair up. Delicate will try to interrupt first, if she missed the interrupt, Jiaojiao will step in. This way, we’ll have a bit more insurance.”

“No problem!” Jiaojiao immediately replied cheerfully.

Delicately Cute seemed to frown slightly, she was really a bit worried for herself.

After the failure of the alliance with Century Flower Guild, her position in the Dark Empire exponentially dropped. Although Chu Tiange did not scold her, she could still feel his rage.

To put it simply, she really did not want to show an even worse performance in front of Chu Tiange…

‘He’s trying to make things difficult for me.’

Delicately Cute thought to herself.

After everyone received their orders, the party swiftly pushed on into Summoner Scasa’s domain.

“What are Fatty and Ice doing, why are there still not here?”

For this dungeon raid, Dark Empire only sent 48 players, the other two spots were specially reserved by Chen Yang and Fire Ice.

However, even after they finished the first boss, Fatty and Fire Ice had still not shown up.

“Brother Yi, add us into the party…”

Just before they started the boss fight, Chen Yang sent them a message.

Li Yi immediately added the two to the party.

Just a moment later, Chen Yang and Fire Ice ran over.

“It’s a massacre outside, it took us a lot of effort to get here.”

“What massacre? Who’s fighting who?”

Chen Yang shook his head, “Century Flower Guild and Huashan Guild are at it, killing everyone in sight. Now, the peak and the bottom of the Pinnacle of the Fire looks different, it’s all piled with corpses.”

Chu Tiange asked curiously, “Weren’t the two guilds working together? Why did they start killing each other?”

“Because of Ice.”

Chen Yang pointed at Ice.

Fire Ice blushed as she timidly hid behind Li Yi’s back.