MMORPG: The Elementalist

The destination was a narrow valley about a hundred meters long. The warp portal lied at the end of the valley. The valley was supposed to be full of Crimson Ghastpuppets. But now, only two frightening Bosses were left in front of the warp portal.

A four-meter high stone giant that was red in color paced slowly. The place it set foot on ignited instantly and even the dry, hard rocks were no exception. Lava was seen pouring out from all over its body, as if the monster was a mobile active volcano that was going to erupt any moment. One would be mercilessly lambasted by the heat wave as soon as he or she entered the valley range.

The whole valley was a giant oven because of the Lethal Balrog’s flame. The abundant Fire Element in the environment made the Aquamancer, Qin Ruo, felt deeply uncomfortable.

Beside the Lethal Balrog stood a relatively shorter Greenstone Demon. As its name suggests, the monster body was made out of stiff greenstone and it appeared to be very heavy. However, according to Subjugator’s estimation, the Greenstone Demon speed might only be slightly slower compared to Amethyst Orc.

After he confirmed the two Bosses’ positions, Qin Ruo commanded Amethyst Orc to guard the valley entrance while Poochie bounced in rapidly to lure the monsters.

Roar!

The two Bosses stared at them as soon as Qin Ruo and Amethyst Orc stepped into the valley. When the small creature was sent in to provoke them, they felt their dignity challenged and their pride trampled on. As a result, they both let out earsplitting roars.

Fire began to burst from Lethal Balrog’s body. The monster turned into a giant blaze and ran at them carrying the deadly heat wave with it.

Qin Ruo heart dropped when he saw the incoming monster.

‘How am I supposed to fight a colossal… fire?’

He used telepathy to instruct Amethyst Orc to run at once.

‘Damn, the Lethal Balrog is much more formidable than I had initially thought.’ Although its attack might not be as deadly as Cerberus, the flaming Balrog was no less dangerous. It was like a self-guiding missile that had no apparent weakness and melee fighters might be hurt by its flame if attacked from a close range. Besides, constant exposure to the Lethal Balrog’s flame might lead to the Burning effect too.

The Greenstone Demon had exceptionally high resistance against Physical Attacks, which was also a great disadvantage to the melee Classes. So happened that half of Qin Ruo’s most recent party were of physical type (two warriors and a Bandit). It was simply too risky to rely on two Elementalists and a single Summoner to bring down two Bosses at the same time.

Qin Ruo was glad that he accepted Subjugator’s suggestion.

He immediately asked Amethyst Orc and Poochie to run at maximum speed. They had to ditch the trailing Lethal Balrog and Greenstone Demon… at least one of them.

Thud thud thud—

The speed disparity between the two monsters was soon obvious. Though the Greenstone Demon was not as imposing, its speed was far greater than the balrog that was wrapped in flames. When they ran past the valley, the Greenstone Demon had already exceeded the Lethal Balrog by more than twenty meters despite starting the chase at almost the same time.

Qin Ruo’s group kept on dashing and widening the gap. The burning sensation from the heat wave was proportionally lessened as the distance between them increased.

Roar—

Finally, the slower Lethal Balrog at the rear gave up on the pursuit when Subjugator and co. rapidly retreated by another hundred meters. It roared out of frustration. Only the equally speedy Greenstone Demon managed to stay behind Amethyst Orc.

***

“Lycan Barrage!”

Amethyst Orc abruptly halted and turned around swiftly. At the same time, Qin Ruo rolled down from the Orc’s shoulder and two ferocious wolves were seen blasting through the air.

Simultaneously, Black Rock, Snowleaf, and her summoned monster “Cryospider” appeared from behind Amethyst Orc and launched their attacks as well.

Qin Ruo applauded Snowleaf’s taste when he first saw her unique choice of summoned monster. Luckily he had gotten used to much more disgusting spiders at Aricus Ruins, so he coped with the spider just fine. Besides, Cryospider performed wonderfully well in battles. Three solid Frost Bullets were released quickly from the Spider’s opened mouth and the chilling spell hit directly at the Greenstone Demon as soon as the Boss entered their attack range.

The damage inflicted was moderate, as the three bullets only resulted in about two hundred damage points to the Demon. Nevertheless, the result was rather satisfactory since it was a Tier 4 summoned monster against a Tier 5 Miniboss. That was about as much as a Tier 4 Master Elementalist could manage.

Bam bam!

Almost at the same instance, the two wolves shattered upon hitting the hard surface of Greenstone Demon. The enormous impact did not slow the Boss down by even a bit. But the damage inflicted was sufficient to stun the other members in the party.

A single wolf dealt almost five hundred damage points.

The Lycan Barrage took away a thousand HP from the Boss. In comparison, although also classified as a Tier 4 multi-attack spell, a total of three Ruptured Stone Spears cast by the Level 48 Black Rock only managed to damage the demon by nine hundred HP. Snowleaf, meanwhile, recorded the lowest count thus far with less than five hundred damage points done. The discrepancy in terms of attack between Qin Ruo and the other two was clear.

This damage gap rendered Black Rock speechless.

Though his stat was far superior to Qin Ruo—seven levels ahead in attribute and wearing better equipment—his attacks were still a tad weaker than Qin Ruo. He was bewildered and did not understand how a Level 41 Aquamancer possessed two hundred and eighty points of Magic Attack.

But that was not all Qin Ruo could offer. More surprises were coming their way.

After the Amethyst Orc went up and clamped the Greenstone Demon down, three of them quickly condense magic in preparation for their second wave of attacks.

Again, Qin Ruo came out at the top and he managed to do so by a huge margin.

Within one second, the two wolves crushed down hard on Greenstone Demon’s head and took away another thousand HP.

Subjugator, Judge, and Fateless, whose involvement were not needed due to the presence of the Amethyst Orc, had the best view of the fight and they were the first to be astounded by Qin Ruo’s Lycan Barrage.

“Sigh, now I finally understand why even Dark Dragon suffered against this kid,” Subjugator commented.

Judge and Fateless could not agree more. Stealth-like magic technique, powerful magic attack, unique multi-attack spell, and the overly strong pet—all these were only attainable through chance meeting and getting even one of it required a great deal of luck. Yet Qin Ruo alone had had them all.

‘Life is sometimes, truly unfair.’

***

Black Rock and Snowleaf felt humiliated. They had each outperformed their own individual best and boosted their magic condensation speed to an unprecedented rate, and they were still outshined by Qin Ruo’s continuous Lycan Barrage spell. Most of the time, Qin Ruo had already managed two rounds of attacks when they had only completed one. The two of them were dealt a heavy blow, psychologically speaking.

Qin Ruo, however, had no time to care about his teammates’ vulnerable egos. Under the Amethyst Orc’s protection, he re-condensed Lycan Barrage again and again while carefully calculating the next attack trajectory of the wolves. He also did not forget to instruct the Amethyst Orc and Poochie to launch small scale combo attack on the Boss and further overwhelmed the poor Greenstone Demon.

***

Amethyst Shield!

Bam!

A mechanic-like heavy punch was thrown at the purplish shield that rapidly took form, generating a blunt, loud sound. Amethyst Orc did not flinch and returned the favor. Being in the same tier, Greenstone Demon’s defense was obviously sturdier than the Amethyst Orc. But its attack was no way near the purple Boss’ level. Greenstone Demon needed at least four pounces to dismantle the Amethyst Shield held in the Orc’s hand.

Under Qin Ruo’s tactical command, there was no way Greenstone Demon would be given the opportunity to breach the Amethyst Orc’s defense.

While the three human players and the Orc were throwing range spells at the Boss non-stop, Poochie sneaked to behind the monster under Qin Ruo’s order and planned to back stab the boss.

Bang!

Poochie used its quick small body to crash into Greenstone Demon’s head. Unfortunately, its tiny body immediately bounced off the rocky surface. The highly effective Shadowstrike failed for the first time. Poochie held its head and rapidly retreated from demon’s attack range while chirping sorrowfully. This evidently showed the great immunity the Greenstone Demon possessed against physical attacks and the accompanying effects.

“…”

Few players in the party received the identical system message simultaneously. The Level 31 Poochie only managed to deal one HP damage to the Greenstone Demon as expected. It would be outrageous if a Tier 3 Pet could do anything more than that to the Tier 5 Miniboss.

Qin Ruo frowned slightly after he received the notification. He knew Poochie had more to offer so he was not going to give up on it just yet. He ordered Poochie to keep the attack going after he created another sequence of Lycan Barrage.

Poochie followed the order and charged in once more. This time, the little creature took an aim at the Boss’ joint. These itching attacks did not draw much attention from the Greenstone Demon at first, since it posed little to no threat at all. The Greenstone Demon still had an equal number of enemies and three pesky human adventurers in front of him to worry about.

However, when Poochie hit the Greenstone Demon’s ankle from the back, an irresistible force finally shaken the monster that was withholding the Amethyst Orc’s attacks. A multiple Thunderslash by the Amethyst Orc came in just at the right time and hit the wobbling demon.

Flop—

A tremor travelled through the ground. But the floor was not the only thing shaken by the monster’s fall. Subjugator and Judge couldn’t hide their shock and gazed at the cute little Poochie. They looked at each other in disbelief.

That attack just now… took down the Greenstone Demon! How was that possible?!

They had experienced the Greenstone Demon’s Physical Resistance first hand. In addition to that, the monster did not even budge when bombarded by something as powerful as the Amethyst Orc.

‘How did a Level 31 pet… This is absurd!’

Even though Poochie’s attack dealt only one damage point and caused no other effects, it was still a great achievement. Subjugator and Judge did not even succeed in making the Greenstone Demon falter!

Subjugator and Judge pressed their throbbing foreheads. They felt like two losers who were unable to graduate from university after many years, and yet a primary school student surpassed them and passed the graduate test in flying colors after the first try. Moreover, the “primary school student” was not even a human being.

‘Dang!’