Chapter 1471: Rising Cloud
It had to be the case. If things had gone exactly as I had planned, I would’ve taken evasive action 0.2 seconds before the boss executed its skill. In reality, I was stalled for an instant right as I was about to make my move, and that was enough to change the outcome of that exchange and nearly the entire battle completely. Long story short, the Death Weaver unleashed its Domain power to manipulate my movement right before it was about to make a move. The boss's AI was seriously impressive!
My confidence grew immediately. Now that I had figured out the enemy’s tactic, all I needed to do was to counter it. In this case, I planned to use my own Domain power to affect its movement. We were all gods here, so there was no reason for this to be a one-sided affair.
……
I fanned the fire with even more fire by attacking the boss non-stop. Very soon, I had regained 80% HP, and Uldan had escaped the shackles of the Web of Death as well. She resumed shooting her arrows at the boss, but not only was her attack pattern limited from range, her DPS was a tad lower than mine. The main offense of this boss fight was still me.
Swhoosh!
I leaped off the ground and flew toward the boss right now. I was very quickly growing more and more familiar with aerial combat thanks to the sheer amount of battles I had fought up until this point. In fact, barring the Web of Death, the boss was completely powerless to do anything against me.
"Roar roar…"
The scythe limbs landed on the ground, and the boss lifted its body once more. It’s about to use its Web of Death again!
I held my breath, watched the boss closely, and ran down a timer in my mind. 0.4 seconds before the skill was executed, I abruptly summoned a giant icicle with my Domain and smashed it against the boss's head. It barely dealt any damage at all, but that didn’t matter. All I needed it to do was to interrupt the boss before it could slow me with its own Domain, and it did!
Rustle!
I exploded into motion, and the Web of Death landed harmlessly behind me and resulted in a MISS!
I was delighted at the success as a matter of course. Since the experiment was a success, I simply needed to repeat it until the boss was dead. So long as the boss's Web of Death couldn’t hit me, this battle was as good as won!
……
At the distance, Uldan even let out a whoop of excitement, "Well done!"
I thought it was very well done myself.
And so the boss fight continued with me flying all over the place while using various skills to interrupt the boss's rhythm. However, even after I had the boss figured out, it still took 80 long minutes to finally bring it down to 10% HP. Instead of letting my guard down, I heightened it even further. The boss should be using its ultimate skill any moment. I wonder what this Infinite Spawn skill is like…
I wasn’t disappointed. The moment the boss's HP dropped to 9%, its lower half suddenly began trembling wildly, and its two pincers were raised into the air. The next moment, a most disgusting thing occurred: it was giving birth to thousands and thousands of tiny spiders! Worse still, every single one of them was a Level 326 Ancient Immortal Rank miniboss! They only had 5 million HP or so, however… Maybe this was a good chance to grind even more experience?
I dismissed the idea almost as soon as I thought of it. Low HP or not, only an idiot would try to grind thousands and thousands of minibosses with nearly 100k Attack…
I opened my palm and executed three of my AoE skills—Myriad Swords Obliteration + Summon the Storm + Ancient Seal!
The mini spiders screeched in pain but survived the combo. I wasn’t expecting that.
There was no time to think, so I activated Heavenly River Transformation and summoned my SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill, Xuanyuan Slash!
Boom!
Everything dissolved into dust before my super skill. My experience bar also skyrocketed to 97%!
I needed to stop the mama spider from birthing more baby spiders though. Otherwise, Uldan and I were sure to be overwhelmed!
I rushed forward and gathered the power of Magic Piercing Punch in my left fist. Be destroyed, Infinite Spawn!
Bang!
MISS!
Unfortunately, it missed. The skill’s visual effect was pretty, but its actual effect absolutely wasn’t. The mama spider was still birthing babies, and if I read the channel bar correctly it was going to continue for 60 seconds. By the time it was done, Uldan and I might as well have been lying on the ground and waiting for death to claim us…
I still had a trump card to use, however. Once again, I gathered my strength and used—Mad God Lunge!
It was a skill with a 100% success rate even against bosses[1]!
Thud thud thud…
This time, the Death Weaver’s staggered a few steps backward and, most importantly, its ultimate skill was disrupted. Humiliated and enraged, it retaliated with a devastating Four Blade Slash even as its baby spiders nipped at me with their teeth. My HP hit rock bottom in no time at all. I needed to act now!
I used War Crush and stole an incredible amount of HP. Then, I moved backward and struck the spiders with Burning Blade Slash!
The crisscrossing blades of doom annihilated the baby spiders and turned them into experience. At the same time, a column of golden light increased my level to 254 and healed me to perfect condition. Oh yeah!
……
The Death Weaver let out a defeated wail before swinging its scythes at me as quickly as it could. After even its ultimate skill had failed to kill me, it had finally decided to discard its pride and go all out against me. It was too late. I had already figured out all of its secrets, and I had a counter to everything it threw at me. Whatever shot it had at victory was already lost forever. It was only a matter of time before it died.
It didn’t go down quickly, however. Another 10 minutes passed by in the blink of an eye, and I decided that I didn’t even want to summon the Phantom Wolf King to assist me any more. With its constitution, all it achieved was a level loss in face of the attacks of a Divine Rank boss…
4% HP!
3% HP!
2% HP!
As the boss's HP dropped little by little, my heart crawled up to my throat. Come on, give me one of the Twelve Divine Armaments! Help me annihilate all opposition and dominate the world! Come on!
I swung my weapon one last time and triggered its septuple-damage effect. It was done!
Swhoosh!
My level jumped to 255. It was a height no one had ever reached besides me. However, even that achievement mattered little compared to the loot the boss dropped for me. Show me something that will make my heart race, baby!
……
I kicked the boss's body out of the way and stared at the pile of shinies. Or at least I tried to.
Bang!
All I managed to do was to sprain my own ankle. Even in death, the boss was way too heavy for me to kick out of the way…
Left with no choice, I dug a small passage below the boss's body with the Xuanyuan Sword. It was at the center where I finally found a pile of shiny loot. OMG! It dropped 9 Divine Crystals in one go? This Quasi-Divine Rank boss was just too good!
I narrowed my eyes to inspect them. Four of them were between 77 to 99 Quality, and the other 5 were a perfect 100. According to the forums, the current price of Perfect Divine Crystals was over 300k RMB, so this haul was 100% a jackpot. Obviously, I was going to save these Divine Crystals for Eve or Yiyi. A player who became god both gained a massive amount of hidden stats and the ability to fly. They were literally and practically gods on the battlefield. It would be well worth the investment if they completed their ascension successfully!
I put the 9 Divine Crystals into my bag before checking out the equipment. The boss had dropped 4 pieces of equipment in total, and the stats of three of them—
Trella’s Helmet (Ancient Immortal-grade Outstanding★★★★★★★★): Increases user’s base Attack by 2,000, and increases all stats by 2%. Level Requirement: 240. Reputation Requirement: 2,000,000.
Trella’s Chest Armor (Ancient Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★★★★★): Increases user’s base Attack by 2,500, and increases all stats by 3%. Level Requirement: 240. Reputation Requirement: 2,000,000.
Trella’s War Boots (Ancient Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★★★★★): Increases user’s base Attack by 2,200, and increases all stats by 2%. Level Requirement: 240, Reputation Requirement: 2,000,000.
……
All three pieces were incredibly good in their own right, but they were also an equipment set. Unfortunately, the boss only dropped three of the pieces, and I absolutely wasn’t going to hang around until Trella respawned so I could kill it again. Even so, the three pieces increased all of the user’s stats by 7% and 6.7k base Attack in total. Even in its incomplete state, it was absolutely a god-tier equipment set at the current stage of the game!
Once more, I put the items into my bag. The equipment set was suitable for offensive-type players, meaning that He Yi, Gui Guzi, Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon and more could use this.
……
The fourth drop was what I looked forward to the most. It was a pair of pitch black boots with fiery runes floating around it. An ancient totem was engraved to the metal, and when I touched it, an incredible amount of energy surged into my body. I waved my hand, brought up its stat screen, and felt my heart race exactly as I hoped it would—
Rising Cloud (Seventy-two Ghost Armaments, Outstanding★★★★★★★★★)
Defense: 24,500
Magic Resist: 22,000
Strength: +3,450
Stamina: +3,300
Intelligence: +3,270
Agility: +3,150
Tactics: +275
Passive: Increases user’s movement speed by 370%
Passive: Increases user’s physical attack power by 115%, and all resistances by 150%
Ghost Armament: Profound Armor. Upon activation, user’s Defense is increased by 300%. Cannot be mitigated by armor penetration effects. Duration: 15 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.
Outstanding Property: Rising Cloud Art. When flying, overall speed is increased by 100%. The effect is canceled in combat.
Slots: 18
Level Requirement: 250
Reputation Requirement: 3,000,000
Luck Requirement: 40
Class Requirement: Warrior[2]
……
I literally teared up when I saw the Ghost Armament effect. The mama spider was a bro after all. It might not have given me what I asked for, but this support equipment was practically as good as one…
Not only did the Profound Armor increase Defense by 300%, I couldn’t be affected by any armor penetration. This meant that anything with "ignore x% Defense" was completely useless during its 15 seconds. Not only that, they would have to face the full, impenetrable might of my 300% Defense. It was absolutely OP!
Without hesitation, I switched out my existing boots and put on the Rising Cloud. As I thought, my decision to kill the giant beast was the right one after all. Even if I had gone with Uldan’s plan to sidestep the boss, we still would’ve had to fight it because it was hiding inside the bottomless lightning abyss; the one and only entrance that led to the fourth floor!
……
After that, I dumped everything else the Death Weaver had dropped, be it good or bad, into my bag. I could sort them slowly after I’ve returned to the city. Right now, the first priority was still getting to the seventh floor and finding Xinran.
After I crawled out of the boss's body and patted away the soot on my face and armor, I said to Uldan, "Let’s go to the fourth floor now."
However, Uldan asked with a slightly sickly complexion, "Is it okay if I… take a break?"
I asked concernedly, "What’s wrong?"
She sighed. "You saw me using the power of bewitchment earlier, right? It took a lot out of me, not to mention that I had lost too much divine power already during my thousands of years of torture… I need to recuperate a little, or I’m definitely going to drag your feet later!"
I looked back and forth between the sky and the lightning abyss. Then I nodded and said, "Sure. I’ll go kill the worm clouds while you catch a break. Just tell me when you’re ready…"
"Okay. Be careful…"
"Don’t worry. As you know, I’m pretty powerful…"
……
To be honest, I was okay with this arrangement. I had been eyeing the thick worm cloud also known as flying bags of experience for a while anyway, so I might as well try to grind to Level 256 while Uldan was resting. The higher my level, the greater our chance of rescuing Xinran.
1. E/N: Lu Chen is supposed to be a god gamer but doesn’t Mad Lunge whenever it’s needed. That’s a sin. And then when he finally realizes he’s been dumb this whole time, he tries to pass common sense off as his genius! ☜
2. T/N: or fighter? I can’t tell because he added a 系 at the back, which makes it general. I think it’s fighter ☜
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om