Chapter 1561: Chapter 951: Slightly Improved Performance
Completely exploring the Chaos Ruins of Izalis might be a tough job.
But for the Skyrim Strategy Group, just doing a rough run through here to reach the Boss Monster’s lair wasn’t all that hard.
Starting from the bonfire in the White Spider Nest, they took the lift back up to the upper area of the Demon Relics, then went all the way down through that hidden lava cave, passed the lava waterfall and the tunnel where Sheep-headed Demons would jump out, and finally set foot once more on the land of the Chaos Ruins of Izalis.
After running this whole route, Luluwo had basically memorized the process in her head: where to dodge, where to climb, where the Monsters were the most agitated, which spots had branches popping out of the rocks for sneak attacks—she’d engraved it all in her mind.
Because the map of the Sain Dungeon always changed more or less every time an adventurer entered, when compiling guides the Skyrim Strategy Group had to be as thorough as possible, recording as many traps here as they could; who knew when it might come in handy later.
For this reason as well, the guidebooks of the Skyrim Strategy Group were always a bit thicker than those of other Strategy Groups, and of course more expensive.
With the buff from the charred orange ring, the lava that used to block their every step was now nothing more than slightly too-hot bathwater. Tami even had the time to step twice into a particularly deep pool of lava; the splashing lava landed on his calves, leaving only faint red marks.
"This ring is really handy." he sighed from the bottom of his heart.
"Handy is handy, but stop playing with lava and hurry up." Berto turned back to urge him.
On their way, they chose a bit of a cheesy method: whenever they ran into a road that was hard to traverse, they would usually have Luluwo, wearing the charred orange ring, dash across first, then use chains to hook everyone over one by one, or toss the ring over for someone else to use.
Thanks to that, their advance speed was much faster than Temude’s party back then.
In less than an hour, they were already standing in front of the Fog Gate, with the Rot Dragon they had been kiting for half a day behind them; it didn’t dare step onto the platform of the building complex and could only stomp anxiously in the lava.
This Fog Gate at the deepest part of the Chaos Ruins of Izalis was the final threshold leading to the Izalith Witch.
"Ready?" Luluwo turned back and glanced at her teammates behind her.
All fifteen of them nodded in unison.
So Luluwo placed her hand on the Fog Gate.
The white mist retreated in all directions, the familiar weightless feeling of passing through a Fog Gate hit them, their vision instantly turned blank, and a strange piece of music rose in their ears.
It was a rather peaceful and steady melody, like an old Bard—had to be a man—singing hoarsely in front of a tavern fireplace. Rough, yet brimming with emotion. It clearly wasn’t the kind of music to get your blood boiling, yet Luluwo inexplicably heard in it a sense of eating wind and drinking dew, rushing along the road.
"This BGM’s kind of interesting."
The Skyrim Strategy Group gave it a high rating.
As the white mist dispersed, a wide, spacious circular arena unfolded before their eyes.
Beneath their feet were gray-black stone bricks, fitted together piece by piece. In the gaps, one could faintly see the bottomless darkness below. Beyond the edge of the arena lay the Abyss, with numerous twisted tree-branch tentacles stretching up from beneath, supporting this "isolated island" floating above the Abyss.
And in the very center of the arena stood a figure wrapped head to toe in a red robe—the Izalith Witch!
The King’s Soul in her hands instantly drew everyone’s attention, but the Witch, as if deliberately toying with them, immediately put it away again.
That figure was the Izalith Witch.
She looked exactly the same as in the recording, not even a little bait-and-switch.
"I thought it’d be some kind of tentacle Monster," Tami muttered quietly. "This looks pretty normal, doesn’t it."
"Shh, what if she understands you!" Mila hurriedly told him to shut up.
Just as she finished speaking, the Izalith Witch moved.
She spread her arms, her robe sleeves fluttering in the heatwave. Two tornadoes of Chaos Flame suddenly rose at her sides, and countless crimson pillars of Flame scattered across the arena, spiraling upward. Those flares illuminated the entire circular arena as bright as day. The Flame tornadoes began rotating clockwise around the arena, and every sweep would drag everything nearby into them and burn it to ashes.
"Spread out!" Luluwo shouted.
The fifteen of them immediately jumped in different directions. This was the standard opener against a Boss Monster with large-area attack Skills: spread formation, probe attacks, find the weak point, then focus fire and dogpile. The Skyrim Strategy Group was so familiar with this sequence they could do it with their eyes closed.
In the City Lord’s chamber, Gong Qiying watched the Skyrim Strategy Group’s battle through the Crystal Ball while conjuring a barrel of popcorn out of thin air and stuffing it into his mouth.
The fight of Temude’s party earlier had already given him plenty of entertainment; now he wanted to see whether the Skyrim Strategy Group could perform any better when facing the Chaos Breeding Ground.
After all, compared to those Berserkers in Temude’s team, the Skyrim Strategy Group actually used their brains more. Maybe they could bring him a few surprises?
A dozen or so minutes later.
"Feels like they’re performing about the same as the first batch....."
Gong Qiying let out a sigh.
It seemed that when adventurers first encountered the Chaos Breeding Ground without any intel, their performance was more or less all the same.
