Chapter 1392: The Second Burning Blade Slash
Chapter 1392: The Second Burning Blade Slash
Aerial battle!
When two people meet, only one will emerge the victor. Both Breeze and Rain and I knew this well. It was do or die from the moment we had resolved ourselves to snatch the boss!
The Purple Wing Unicorn shot a bolt of lightning that spread into a crackling web toward me. At the same time, Breeze and Rain opened his palm and used Soul Refining Cage, a skill that would immobilize me for 7 seconds straight. His movements were fluid, well-practiced, and took him almost no time to complete.
I gave the Chill of the Nine Provinces a light swing before moving into action. First, I angled my body so that the Ancient Divine Dragon would loop around like a jet fighter while I held onto its red mane with my left hand. Then, I activated Battle Astral Wind to block the Purple Wing Unicorn’s lightning strike. Finally, I swung my Chill of the Nine Provinces and clashed blades with Breeze and Rain while I was still upside down. I knew exactly where he was without needing to look.
While metallic sparks exploded from our blades, I abruptly sped up and slammed into Breeze and Rain’s shoulder. I could do this because the Ancient Divine Dragon was just a tad faster than the Purple Wing Unicorn.
"Ah?!"
Breeze and Rain exclaimed in surprise as a blood-red chain appeared around his neck. It was of course the visual effect of Chains of Freedom. Up until this point, I had used the Ghost Armament on several famous players such as Red Maple and Copper Spear. As a result, there was no one among the elites who didn’t recognize its effect. Breeze and Rain twisted away from me and kicked me on the shoulder so that he could get away from me as fast as humanly possible. Then, he yelled, "Just you wait, Lu Chen!"
He flew back to his party after shooting the verbal threat.
……
Now that I was free to do whatever I pleased, I threw the Chill of the Nine Provinces at the boss's face using Coiling Dragon Revolution. There was so much force behind the blow that its head was actually thrown back for a second. The boss immediately let out a furious roar and raced after me.
Thud!
After I caught the returned Chill of the Nine Provinces, I fired another two Ancient Seals at the boss's feet before I began flying back to my party. There were Spirit Devouring Devils everywhere, and I wasn’t so bold that I would fight this boss right in the middle of them. On the way, I scanned the boss and shared its stats in the guild channel—
Spirit Devouring General Shanlie (Ancient Immortal Rank Boss)
Level: 300
Attack: 51000~75500
Defense: 62000
HP: 400,000,000
Skills: Battle Axe Ray, Burning Blade Slash, True Martial Oath
Introduction: The leader of the ancient giant race, he became a forerunner of the undead legion after succumbing to the temptation of power. The Spirit Devouring General possesses incredible strength, and it is rumored that he can cut a mountain range in half in one strike. [1]
……
I took a moment to weigh the boss's strength. While it was clearly weaker than a Sovereign Rank boss, its DPS was still absolutely terrifying. Its first skill in particular—Battle Axe Ray—turned its basic attacks into cone-shaped AoE attacks with a length of 20 yards, and that was scary. Moreover, I had to pull the boss deep into our party so that God of War, Breeze and Rain and other Cyan Beast elites couldn’t steal the last hit. After all, they were less than a hundred meters away, and they hadn’t given up yet if I knew them at all. This would be quite the tricky boss fight.
I pointed at the Dragonlight Cavalry directly in front of me and yelled, "Open up a way so I can lead the boss inside! Eve, Chengfeng, Little Gui, join me to lock down the boss's aggro! Beiming and Lian Xin, organize our mages and archers to take down this boss without any casualties if at all possible! Priests, don’t stop healing!"
After the crazed boss had passed through the gap, the Dragonlight Cavalry immediately "closed the door" and resumed their resistance against the Spirit Devouring Devils. Thank goodness the Spirit Devouring Devils’ strongest assault had passed, or this would’ve strained our people to the max .
……
After we were in the right location, I stopped running and activated Fusion Armor. The second my feet hit the ground, I charged straight toward Shanlie and stabbed its leg with Purple Frost Concentration, lowering its Defense by 29.3%. While jumping away from a retaliatory strike, I executed Burning Blade Slash + Universe Break combo that caused Shanlie to scream in pain.
The three dragon knights—He Yi, Gui Guzi and Li Chengfeng—joined the battle at this moment and worked with me to wear Shanlie down.
Every time Shanlie swung its battle axe, deadly shockwaves would ripple across a wide area. Thank goodness I had ordered our players to get out of the way, or someone would be dead already. If even I took almost 300k damage from Battle Axe Ray, everyone else could only do worse.
Beiming Xue drew her bow and ordered a volley of Shock Arrows from the Dragonlight Archers. There was a saying that went something like "even ants can kill an elephant given sufficient numbers”, and that was exactly the case with the Dragonlight Archers and Shanlie. A thousand Shock Arrows fired in rapid succession were more than enough to chain stun him for a long time!
"Roar roar roar…"
Rainbow-colored draconic beams burst out of the ground and engulfed the boss again and again. It was Lian Xin directing the Holy Mages to whittle down the boss's HP with Touch of the Dragonkiss. Everyone already knew that the Holy Mages were powerful, but they still managed to surprise us by deleting 190 million HP from Shanlie’s pool of 400 million in just 2 minutes. We were delighted by this outcome, of course. They were the living proof that Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls truly deserved its title as the number one guild of China!
……
Suddenly, Xu Yang shouted from my right, "Cyan Beast is charging us! What do we do?"
I glanced toward that direction and saw Chaos Moon saying to me, "I’ll rally the men and stop them for 5 minutes. Make sure you take out the boss during this time. This boss is ours, and Breeze and Rain ain’t taking this away from us!"
I nodded. "Be careful!"
"Don’t worry!"
Chaos Moon and about a thousand Dragonlight Cavalrymen charged toward Cyan Beast’s party. I didn’t worry too much about their safety because they had proven their strength to me long ago, not to mention that they were supported by a large number of bards and priests. Not even Breeze and Rain would be able to get through the Dragonlight Cavalry in just 5 minutes.
I kept trading blows with the boss, but while the boss's HP kept dropping without end, mine almost never fell below the 80% mark. It was the same for He Yi, Li Chengfeng and Gui Guzi. Unlike our previous grinds, we were 500000 strong with a full party of priests to support us. In a world of cold weapons, the human sea tactic is the best tactic in the world bar none...
Less than five minutes later, Shanlie died to my Burning Blade Slash and dropped a couple of equipment drops and other various items. It didn’t reward any Luck, but that was hardly surprising. Luck wouldn’t be the precious stat it was if it was so easy to collect.
……
I walked up to the boss and picked up its equipment. There was a pair of Ancient Immortal-grade wristguards that were rolled away by He Yi, a male-exclusive Ancient Immortal-grade metal armor that was rolled away by Li Chengfeng, and a ring that added 87% magic damage that was rolled away by Lian Xin. Gui Guzi and I were the only ones who got jack shit.
"Looks like the two of us are the only ones who are empty-handed, Boss Broken Halberd…" Gui Guzi laughed.
I produced a fiery red skill book and said, "Not necessarily. The boss also dropped this skill book. If it’s some super cheat code or something, then I’m claiming it by right of me being me…"
Gui Guzi watched me with a look of betrayal on his face.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. The second I brought up the skill description, what I saw made me feel like someone had kicked me in the balls—
Burning Blade Slash: Elite fighter skill book.
……
"OMG, it’s another Burning Blade Slash…" I said in a dumbfounded tone.
Li Chengfeng exclaimed in excitement, "Hahaha, it’s Lu Chen’s signature skill! That’s wonderful!"
Gui Guzi was salivating as well. "Burning Blade Slash is an amazing skill! We must roll for this!"
I brought up the loot rolling system and left them to it. I already had the skill, so of course I was going to roll for it.
The Top 10 fighters with the highest DPS rolled for the skill book, but it really was between He Yi, Li Chengfeng and Gui Guzi only. A moment later, Gui Guzi became the proud owner of the second Burning Blade Slash in the guild.
I was secretly glad that the skill book went to a worthy owner, to be honest. Gui Guzi was infamously tanky, but his DPS had always been his weak point. Not even the Ghostblade Halberd was enough to make up for the fact that he lacked a powerful offensive skill. That was no longer the case now that he had the Burning Blade Slash.
"Care to show off your skill a bit, Little Gui?" Yamete and Du Thirteen demanded with a guffaw.
Gui Guzi swung the Ghostblade Halberd in front of him. Immediately, three fiery arcs appeared in front of him in rapid succession. Visually speaking, it was most impressive.
……
Yamete clapped Gui Guzi’s shoulder with a laugh. "Haha, our Little Gui is finally OP! You can probably challenge even Candlelight Shadow now…"
However, Chaos Moon said bluntly, "Challenge Candlelight Shadow? Are you trying to get him killed?"
Du Thirteen: "Can you explain, Miss Chaos Moon?"
She answered slowly, "The same skill is not the same in the hands of a different person. Little Gui has the Burning Blade Slash now, but does he have Lu Chen’s Attack and precise control? To give you an example, I think the chances of Candlelight Shadow nullifying the Burning Blade Slash perfectly is over 85% for Gui Guzi, but less than 40% for Lu Chen."
However, Gui Guzi didn’t let Chaos Moon’s assessment get to him and clenched his fists strongly. "It’s okay. I know I’m not a match for Candlelight Shadow right now. One day though. One day, I’ll surpass him and beat him with my own hands!"
Li Chengfeng nodded strongly. "Well said, brother!"
……
It was at this moment I noticed something. "Speaking of which, weren’t you fighting Cyan Beast just a couple of minutes ago? How are you back already?"
Chaos Moon shrugged. "Don’t ask me, ask Cyan Beast. They retreated the second they saw us moving to engage them…"
Heaven’s Rain giggled. "That’s because Breeze and Rain noticed how quickly we were killing the boss and realized there was no way they could have possibly stolen it…"
I looked to the front next. Almost all of our Spirit Devouring Devils we had been fighting were dead.
……
"What do we do now?" Gui Guzi asked.
I looked at He Yi. "Have our engineers arrived yet, Eve?"
"They have!"
"Awesome! Set up the cloud ladders and White Marsh Catapults! It is time to siege the Godslayer Fortress!"
1. T/N: this description is almost identical to Shatter Queen Lin Qian’s, but with some slight differences that makes it obvious that the king is inferior to the queen. It’s why the queen had said to Lu Chen that she wished he had been her consort instead before she died. ☜