Chapter 1418: Fire Qilin Set
"Fuck!"
Li Chengfeng swore while gritting his teeth. "I’ve seen the details of these skills on the forums before. Flame Spit is an AoE fire skill that deals 50% increased magic damage. Ancient Divine Flame Shield functions like a Magic Shield, but also deals immolation damage to everything within a certain range of it. The power of the immolation is based on the attacker’s Attack. Finally, Nirvana Rebirth is a 10% chance to revive much like the Archer class’s Impossible Escape…"
I said, "Both the Undying Berserker card and my Resurrection Art are unusable here. As far as I know, Impossible Escape is the only revival skill that functions on this map [1]. Maybe this Nirvana Rebirth won’t work on this map either…"
Li Chengfeng snorted. "Do you really think that a rule that applies to us will apply to an NPC mob? The entire point of this ‘challenge’ is to fuck us over!"
I clapped my own head. "Yeah, you’re right. I was being stupid there…"
Li Chengfeng let out a hearty laugh before saying, "Anyway, it’s time to get into business. Let’s arrange the formation and get ready to receive the minibosses. Priests, please give it your all, okay? These mobs are all minibosses and stronger than even the deity-rank Thunder Devil Soldiers we fought earlier. There’s a very high chance we may be annihilated if we cannot hold them back. We are the China server’s number one guild after all. We cannot afford to lose this face, can we!?"
Everyone immediately raised their weapons and chanted, "Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls is unrivaled! We may lose our life and money, but never our face!"
I complained, "OMG, who the fuck came up with this slogan? It’s so lowly and base…"
Li Chengfeng shot me an incredulous look. "You set your in-game status on your profile to this three days ago…"
Lin Yixin also shot me a look from afar. "You said the same thing when you were fighting to pay the bill during our lunch…"
Me: "..."
"It’s okay, no one’s losing any face today. Now focus! The mobs are almost upon us!" He Yi said smilingly from atop her Snow Crystal Dragon. The Shield of Cave Ice glittering prettily on her arm had drastically improved her tankability, and combined with her Suppressing Fire Sword one might say that He Yi was finally an all-rounder now…
……
The qilins’ roars got closer and closer. Although they weren’t as numerous as the Thunder Devil Soldiers, the mobs at the front row were only 3 to 5 yards apart from each other. Once the Fire Qilins at the back had caught up, we would be fighting at least 1 of them per yard. This meant that every player on the battle line must be ready to duke it out against one miniboss at least. If they couldn’t hold, then our defense line would surely be destroyed.
Lu Buyi was standing in front of the rubble where the walls used to be and buffing around 4000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen with his Purple Dragon skill. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the 150% boost to all of our stats was our greatest shield against the Fire Qilins’ assault. Thank goodness Lu Buyi had an invincibility shield, or he might’ve died to Thunder’s super AoE skill earlier.
Just like before, I moved as far away from the Dragonlight Cavalry as I dared before saying, "The enemy’s a miniboss this time, so I’m not sure if my Xuanyuan Art will work. Guard first to weather the enemy’s first assault, and find an opportunity to counterattack later!"
While I was saying this, 7 Fire Qilins sensed me at the same time and charged toward me. They started using their Flame Spit before they even got within melee range. Normally I wouldn’t be afraid of a miniboss, but they were all Ancient Immortal Rank and my armors were of the heavy type. A column of damage numbers rose above my head as scorching pain overtook me. Thankfully, my Pity of the Purgatory Gods nullified some of the attacks—
592,883!
612,389!
MISS!
528,778!
MISS!
MISS!
1,128,394!
Motherfucker! Pardon of the Gods had nullified 3 of the 7 Flame Spits I received, but I still lost around 2.8 million HP! Even with 4 million max HP, I would’ve been instakilled if not for my necklace!
I raised the Chill of the Nine Provinces and fired Burning Blade Slash at the largest group of mobs!
Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh…
Over 1.7 million HP returned to my health bar at the same time 11 Fire Qilins lost around 1.5 million HP in total, temporarily putting me out of danger. I then pointed the Death side of my blade toward the sky and cast Xuanyuan Art!
Whoosh whoosh…
Countless columns of red light struck the mobs, but the effects were greatly diminished just as I thought. Instead of the usual 50%, the minibosses only lost at most 10% of their HP. It was still better than nothing though. Imagine what would’ve happened if these Fire Qilins were proper Ancient Immortal Rank bosses. Xuanyuan Art would’ve failed completely, and our battle line was almost certainly going to be annihilated!
The Xuanyuan Art was a great skill, but it wasn’t without certain risks. The skill struck every Fire Qilin within 1000 yards of me, which also meant that I had aggroed all of them. If I didn’t do something soon, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls would be annihilated by the horde in 5 minutes tops…
I backed a few steps from the closest mobs and used Earth Escape. The moment the skill took full effect, all the aggro I had accrued with Xuanyuan Art instantly vanished like never before. Not wasting a second, I leaped back to the surface and paid 1000 gold to the system. Rise of the Guardian Dragon!
While the Fire Qilins were being ravaged by the skill, Beiming Xue, Lian Xin and our few remaining Holy Mages and Dragonlight Archers fired their own skills and bought us time to react. Unfortunately, the mobs stubbornly refused to die because they had almost 50 million HP. Well, one step at a time, I suppose!
Bang!
While stealing more HP with a devastating War Crush, I rotated away from the Fire Qilins’ melee attacks while making sure not to step into the path of their Flame Spits. At the same time, I executed Coiling Dragon Revolution + Myriad Swords Obliteration + Summon the Storm combo. After my sword had returned to my hand, I fired another Burning Blade Slash that restored another huge chunk of HP. Unfortunately, they went poor almost immediately as another barrage of Flame Spits deleted about 50% of my HP in total.
I was dancing on a knife’s edge here, but I didn’t let the stress get to me and played seesaw with nearly a hundred Fire Qilins right in front of my guild’s battle line. He Yi, Gui Guzi and Li Chengfeng didn’t dare to follow my example and fought together with the Dragonlight Cavalry though. Unlike me, they didn’t have a 30% chance to avoid magic attacks. Not even Gui Guzi could shrug off a bunch of Flame Spits like it was nothing.
"Roar roar roar…"
The Fire Qilins roared as some of them finally struck the Dragonlight Cavalry’s defense line. After they unleashed their magic attacks, they proceeded to use physical skills such as Hoof Trample, Horn Strikes and more. Most of these skills could be tanked with Guard, but there was a problem. The Ancient Divine Flame Shield had a range of about 1 to 2 yards or so and dealt between 100k to 300k immolation damage per second. It was torturous to be near one of these mobs to say the least.
"God dammit, we’re losing HP too quickly!"
Tiger Leopard Knight groaned while swinging his blade, "My HP isn’t rising with three Fire Qilins burning me at the same time! What do we do?"
A short distance away, He Yi shouted while drawing the attention of two Fire Qilins with a Stormwind Slash, "Don’t just spam your AoE heals, priests! Drop Instant Heal on anyone whose HP falls below 20%[2]! We cannot afford to lose anyone with so few of us left…"
Gui Guzi and Li Chengfeng didn’t say anything. They simply focused on executing their skills, aggroing as many Fire Qilins as they were able and killing them. It was the only way to reduce our losses as much as possible.
Despite our best efforts, the Dragonlight Cavalrymen were still dropping one after another. The Fire Qilin’s Flame Spit was especially difficult for them to endure. It was a desperate battle to say the least.
……
Candle Dragon, Warsky Alliance, Snowy Cathaya, Blazing Hot Lips and more were losing players much faster than we were. Although my Xuanyuan Art had reduced the Fire Qilin’s HP by 10%, not a single one of the mobs had died during the first three minutes. 45 million HP wasn’t something you could delete immediately after all.
Lin Yixin was running around with a pack of Fire Qilins at her heels and killing them with her Purple Spirit Sword just like me. She lost HP at an incredible rate but regained it just as quickly because she had the 5% HP regeneration from the Dragon Soul Ring, lifesteal from the Purple Spirit Sword, greater HP and resistances than normal thanks to the Crimson Crystal Dragon, and finally the healing of her own priests. She wasn’t doing as well as I was, but she was just barely holding on in there.
As for weaker guilds such as Purgatory Mad Dragon, Flower Room, Rose of the Holy Domain, Hall of Immortality and more, let’s just say that they were almost extinct from the frontline. The undead qilins had gone through them like hot knife through butter, and their rebuilt defense line was utterly destroyed in as soon as three minutes. It was just unacceptable.
……
Boom boom boom…
After I dished out another Burning Blade Slash, I activated Heavenly River Transformation and dropped a Xuanyuan Slash on top of a group of mobs. Critical hits and splash effects ran wild, and 24 Fire Qilins dropped dead at the same time my experience bar filled up by 24%. If these Fire Qilins weren’t so hard to kill, this would be the most perfect leveling experience I have ever had…
Rustle rustle…
My boots rustled against wilted grass as I made a mad dash across the barren land. The mobs were minibosses, so every kill restored 10 Divine Energy Points to me. The moment I noticed this, I immediately made up my mind to maintain Heavenly River Transformation for the entire battle and spam Xuanyuan Slash every time it was off cooldown. The amount of Divine Energy Points I was regaining was more than enough to make up for the consumption!
The ground was covered in countless dead mobs. Some of them had glittering equipment on top of them. My eyes began to shine brighter. As a proud gold fetishist, my dignity wouldn’t allow me to pass by a top-tier items without claiming it as my own!
Swhoosh!
I swiped four pieces of equipment from the ground and deposited them in my bag. They were all red-colored, metal-armor equipment with a rainbow luster on their surface. My experience was telling me that these equipment must be of a high grade, or they wouldn’t have given that luster. While throwing out Summon the Storm, I snuck a peek at their stat screen and was delighted to find that they were pieces of a set!
Fire Qilin Armor (Middle Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★★★★)
Defense: 9900
Magic Resist: 9550
Strength: +1980
Stamina: +1850
Agility: +1800
Intelligence: +1500
Tactics: +155
Passive: Increases user’s Defense by 70%
Passive: Increases user’s Attack by 40%, and max HP by 50,000
Outstanding Property: Qilin Armor. Increases user’s Defense by 2000
Property: Fire Qilin set, Chest Armor
Level Requirement: 230
……
Holy shit! It was a 7-star Outstanding Middle Immortal-grade equipment set, and its stats rivaled that of the incredibly-hard-to-grind S5 or S6 instance sets! Jackpot!
1. T/N: the archer technically never died in the first place because they pulled off an Impossible Escape I guess ☜
2. E/N: Okay I’m confused about healing balance in this game. Not long ago we’ve had someone tell their priests to NOT use single-target heals because their healing isn’t enough, and to just drop AoE heals instead. When most attacks are tanked by the frontliners, MMO logic would be to throw Pool of Life under the frontline and spam single-target heals on key players when they are low. A few chapters ago we hear AoE heals are better, and now He Yi says that single-target heals are better, sheesh ☜
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