Chapter 293: Defend the Territory (3)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The boss’s attack was considered to be a ranged attack, which could not be blocked. Since the attack was an instant-cast, Zhang Yang could not even react in time before a quick, loud "Pak", caused him to be covered in a splat of green, sticky goo. Right then, he looked like as if someone had just dumped a large bucket of green, gooey slime on him.
As a guild master, many members had greatly admired him. Though he may not be as stern as Hundred Shots, his position as the guild master had made others think that Zhang Yang was a little harder to approach. That impression was made even stronger when Zhang Yang was the person who had led the guild to take all the First Clear Achievement so far! He had even led Team 1 of Lone Desert Smoke to win the championship title of the Soaring Sword Competition in Shanghai! The image around him was more god than man!
However, that being said, he was just human. Despite all his unparalleled achievements when it came to killing and getting achievements and so on and so forth, everyone laughed their butts off when they saw how ridiculous Zhang Yang looked then! They saw how approachable he truly was! Zhang Yang was just a normal human after all!
‘Ding! You have received 4,634 Natural damage from Tumorase Acid Attack. (1,404 damage reduced, 994 damage absorb!)’
Just as the system notification rang in his ears, Zhang Yang quickly responded by raising his shield up high to intercept an incoming attack!
THUM!
The strong, massive attack was so forceful that it created a thunderous boom, sending both Zhang Yang and the bear a few meters back!
"Growl!" The bear growled ferociously as it regained its footing and began leading Zhang Yang to counter attack.
Following standard procedure, Zhang Yang stacked up {Cripple Defense} and laid down the attack order. The others started to surround the boss and attacked from various positions. No matter how large or ferocious the boss may be, it was just a Gray-Silver tier. With limited damage output, the boss was completely overwhelmed by the swarm of players attacking it, like a bunch of ants nibbling on small pieces of bread crumbs on the floor.
Just after 30 seconds into the battle, the boss twitched violently and burrowed down into the earth.
"I need you guys to move away when the boss resurfaced! Don’t attack! The small ones will attack randomly when they reappear! I think the boss will do the same!" Zhang Yang advised. Everyone around nodded their heads, his logic undeniable.
As the dust cleared a little, there was silence in the battle field. Aside from the ragged panting of players around, nothing else could be seen moving or making any noise. 10 seconds later, the boss burst out of the earth, somewhere far from Zhang Yang. As expected, the boss had cleared its aggro value and targeted a nearby Spellcaster, spitting the green liquid on him.
‘-7,000!’
Luckily, the players who Zhang Yang had selected to attack the boss with him were all top-tiered players in the guild. The Spellcaster had decent equipment that granted him a maximum HP of over 9,000. Although the attack did not kill him in one shot, it was enough to force him to cast {Ice Barrier} to save himself.
{Spear of Obliteration}!
‘-2,236!’
With one attack, Zhang Yang had managed to draw the boss attention, sending it into a violent rage, and it charged towards Zhang Yang like a huge truck. Zhang Yang intercepted the attack and the entire process repeated itself again. The boss would burrow into the earth after a while, where everyone would stop attacking, before the boss reappeared, and everyone continued to attack again. It was rather easy defeating the boss. After approximately 10 minutes or so, the boss was defeated and dropped a large number of loots for the guild.
Zhang Yang looted all the drops swiftly and cried out, "Get into the castle now! The next wave will appear any second!"
‘Ding! The fourth wave of monsters have started advancing!’
Just as he finished his sentence, the announcement rang in their ears. 500 meters away from the castle, a large number Abominable Snowmen spawned. With spears in their hand, they roared, almost simultaneously, sending a strong shock wave that resounded against the castle walls.
[Abominable Snowman] (Normal, Humanoid)
Level: 73
HP: 7,300
Defense; 70
"Tank Team 1, follow me and form an absolute defense line! We have to make sure that all the others get into the castle!" Zhang Yang cried.
The tanks quickly lined up and prepared to meet the enemy’s charge. Just then, the Snowmen had arrived and started their attacks.
Shush! Shush! Shush!
The snowmen were all Hunter class monsters. From afar, they could hurl their spears at the players on the castle wall. Since the monsters were all Level 73, the players that were 10 levels and lower would receive a much higher amoung of Unrepressed Damage due to the enormous level gap!
Unrepressed Damage was caused by huge level gap between two combatants. Unrepressed Damage could go from a 50% penalty, to a 100% damage bonus. This was the reason why players would not grind at higher level maps. Firstly, their own damage will be reduced to a certain level, and secondly, the monster’s attack will be stronger! Even though the system would award additional experience points for killing a monster that exceeded the level gap, it was too much work.
"Hey noobie tank! How are those monsters throwing spears again and again?! I mean, where do they get their spears from?" Wei Yan Er asked an unfathomable question.
Zhang Yang thought hard and finally replied with a cold sweat. "I think, they’re just like us, characters in a game, to be precise. Having an inventory that could fit many items?"
"Oh! That means, their inventory must be humongous! Look at them! They have been throwing for quite some time now and there’s no sign of shortages!"
Talking to this little brat would be the same as talking to a cow about playing the piano whilst thinking of string theory. Just by answering her question, one could be spending all their energy just thinking up a suitable answer for her absolutely ridiculous questions! Zhang Yang ignored Wei Yan Er’s bombardment of question and cried out to Endless Starlight. "Starlight! Let’s go! It’s the two of us!"
Among all the tanks around, only Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight were well-equipped enough to stand among the monsters and not take a beating from the Level 70 monster army. Even so, they had the sense not to charge into the thick! The Defense value provided by the Shield will only be in effect when attacks are taken from the front! Once a player is surrounded, the attacks from behind the character will not take the shield defense value into consideration and inflict greater damage. The number of snowmen out there was overwhelmingly large! So large, that even if each of them only dealt 100 damage with a single range attack, they could easily stack up to 100,000 when their sheer numbers added up!
Both Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight took the helm and guarded the front line like the jackal-headed Egyptian statues! Endless Starlight was not good in offense, so he merely held his shield up, while Zhang Yang took the liberty to take on the assault role and blasted all the Level 70 monsters to hell with various AoE skills like {Horizontal Sweep}, {Blast Wave}, and the proccing ability of the Dark Enigmatic Sword. He was acting as a true sword and shield.
With envy swirling in his eyes, Endless Starlight asked, "Boss, when you grow out of that Dark Enigmatic Sword, could you give it to me instead?"
Zhang Yang laughed. "Sure. I can give it to you. But let me ask you this, what AoE skills do you have that would proc the sword’s effect?"
Endless Starlight was baffled.
One of the multi-target, AoE type skills that a Defender had would be {Devotion}. However, the skill does not require any melee weapon to trigger, which meant that, it would not trigger the sword’s effect. The next skill would be {Hammer Drop} which would only strike a maximum of three targets! It would be difficult, triggering the 2% proccing rate of the sword.
"D*mn! Dream Tech is so biased! Do they have a grudge against Defenders!?" Endless Starlight complained.
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Zhang Yang could not be help but silently agree. To put both classes in comparison, a Warrior-class tank was more versatile in attacking and crowd-control. However, there were specific roles being assigned to their classes. As such, Warriors were known to be excellent in controlling just a single target, whereas a Knight excelled in mass control. That being said, bosses rarely spawn in groups, so a majority of players would use the Warrior-class tank to face the boss, and Knights would be left with the duty of kiting monsters.
Without the fighting spirit to face a boss, a tank would never reach the height of his potential!
As the two of them were having their discussion, attacks from players who were station at the top of the castle wall were raining down on the snowmen. As their name suggested, these snowmen were highly resistant against ice attacks. Cryomancers were having a tough time dealing damage to them since most of their attack had been reduced by half, and sometimes they would fail to even deal any damage at all.
While the ice elemental attackers were having a tough time, the fire elemental attackers were doing extremely well. The only problem was that the number of Cryomancer in the guild far exceeded the number of Pyromancers! So, even though the Pyromancers were dishing out solid damage on the snowmen, the number of Cryomancer and Pyromancer did not balance each other out, and as a whole, the guild was not doing very well against the enemy.
Time waits for no man, and the 100th minute checkpoint has arrived.
‘-1,406!’
A sudden damage text of 1,000 popped up on Zhang Yang head. Zhang Yang frantically looked around for the source of it. That really came out from nowhere! Based on his current level and defense value, even if a monster attacked him from behind, they would only deal as much as 400 damage! So, what and who had attacked Zhang Yang?! The attack had actually come flying from the front!
Did a boss spawn without him noticing? Was he too busy to hear the announcement?
No, if a boss did spawn, the damage would not just be 1,000! Alarmed, Zhang Yang searched around for the source of the attack. About 20 meters north, he found a slightly larger snowman with silver streak of fur on his snow-white coat. Other than that, it looked exactly like the others!
[Silvervine Abominable Snowman] (Elite, Humanoid)
Level: 73
HP: 146,000
Defense: 400
Crap, the elites have spawned!
Zhang Yang searched around, and was horrified to see many more Silvervine Snowman spawning behind it! It was obvious that the normal snowmen had stopped spawning and were being replaced with the elite-tier snowmen!
"Be careful! The monsters have been upgraded! There are elite monsters coming! Watch out!" Zhang Yang issued a warning.
As the sound of the trampling elite snowmen got louder and louder, the earth rumbled and the dust started to fill the air.
One within attack range, the snowmen started their attacks, tossing their sharp spears at incredible speeds towards the players.
"Get back! Get back now! Find cover in the castle walls!" Zhang Yang cried. Even he did not dare stand in the front lines any longer. He had to drag a slightly reluctant Endless Starlight all the way back to the castle gates. There, he commanded the troops to prepare themselves to strike when the monsters begin filing through the bottleneck.
GROWL!
Like water, the monsters rushed into the castle gates, 10 monsters at a time. Here, Zhang Yang and the other tank-class players clashed with the monsters while the ranged attackers rained down assaults from the rear. Even though the monsters were elite, they were quickly overwhelmed.
However, increased HP was not the only buff that the elite monsters had, their attacks were also rather strong. After a short while, player casualties started to skyrocket. Lone Desert Smoke was growing significantly weaker as time passed.
"Dummy! Isn’t it time use the cannons!?" Anxious, Han Ying Xue felt that they should start using their trump card.
Zhang Yang shook his head. "Just hold it for a little while longer! This is only the fourth wave! The monsters will only get stronger after each wave. The fifth wave monsters should be Level 76. The sixth wave should be Level 79! When that comes, everyone else besides me will have their attacks reduced! When that happens, we can use the cannons to substitute the damage loss! The damage from the cannons are fixed and will not be affected by the level gap. That is why, until that comes, we must hold on! If we cannot hold this wave, how could we hold on for the next two?!
"You don’t have to yell at me like that. Hmph!"
Thank god the elite monsters spawned 10 minutes after the normal snowmen. At most, the elite monster will continue spawning for another 10 minutes and stop when it’s time for the boss to show up.
It felt like an eternity before the system finally announced the arrival of the boss.
‘Ding! King of Snowmen, Akemoshi has joined the battle!’
Without any difficulty, a hundred-meter-tall snowman could be easily spotted appearing from 500 meters away. Its massive body was covered in the usual white coat of fur. Behind it, a long stretch of gold fur stretched from the top of its neck all the way towards its pelvic region. The monstrous snowmen was huge, and it seemed to be as ancient as the world itself. Each step it took was strong and heavy. The earth shook, as if it could not bear the weight of the beast! This was, without a doubt, one of those moments where you could hear the gulping of saliva from everyone.
[King of Snowmen, Akemoshi] (Yellow-Gold, Humanoid)
Level: 74
HP: 16,000,000
Defense: 1,400
"Y-Y-Yellow-Gold!?" When the players checked the boss’ properties, a majority of them gasped in horror and surprised. Yellow-Gold bosses were still a rare sight for everyone. Some of them had not even encountered, let alone fought one! Yet, right there and then, they finally had the chance to bear witness to the prowess of a Yellow-God boss! How could they not be surprised?
Now that almost all of Lone Desert Smoke knew how strong their guild master was, everyone was filled with tremendous hope and confidence, that Zhan Yang would lead them in slaying this monstrous beast! That being said, it was a major benefit to all guild members since an open-world boss would be dropping a large number of equipment! Anyone could get their hands on strong equipment as long as they had a sufficient amount of guild contribution points! It’s Yellow-Gold! Yellow-Gold equipment!
Even at this point, where players such as Zhang Yang or One Sword Stroke have already obtained Violet-Platinum equipment, Yellow-Gold equipment were still a rare encounter! By simply taking any one of them and selling it, you could easily fetch a good price of 100,000 gold coins! If you were lucky enough, you could sell a Yellow-Gold tier weapon for close to 1,000,000!
Seeing the smiles on their faces, Zhang Yang smiled as well. "Alright guys, take care of the smaller monsters before we go kick some boss’ arse!’
"AWW YEAA!" Everyone cheered.
From the looks of it, even after Zhang Yang had spent a lifetime worth of gold coins for the cannon’s Power Source Crystals, he would be reaping more profit than loss just by collecting the battle loots from the boss! Still, the Power Source Crystal was Zhang Yang’s personal expenditure, whereas the battle loots were all shared equally among all players of the guild.
Still, it was not all bad for him. As long as the Territory remained intact, it was a golden goose, laying golden eggs for him, every day! So what, if he had spent more than a million gold coins? The future profits would always be lucrative!
That being said, it would all be for naught if Lone Desert Smoke does not survive this entire ordeal! After all, the monster will only get stronger after each wave! There was a possibility that the next wave of monster would all be elites! If they lose this defensive war, taking down a Yellow-Gold boss would be like saving a nickel from a collapsing bank!