Chapter 105: Young Master Wrath
"What on earth is happening?!"
"There's even a Brokeback Mountain dude here too!"
"A cheating woman, and the star of Brokeback Mountain! This is even better than that TV drama at 8pm!"
With a serious look on his face, Zhang Yang said: "I'll say. It's harder to sort out their relationship than to actually fight them in battle!"
Judging from the attributes of the ring, Hunters and Thieves could both benefit from it. However, <Take Aim> was a Hunter's Skill, so the special effect within would not be triggered if given to a Thief. Therefore, it would make perfect sense that the ring go to either Hundred Shots or Fatty Han.
[Recipe: Dwarf Potion]
Use: Teaches you to make the Dwarf Potion.
Requirement: Amateur Alchemist.
As Zhang Yang was the only Alchemist among the group of six, naturally, no one would want to have the item. Zhang Yang pocketed the item and posted the properties of the Dwarf potion for all to view.
[Dwarf Potion] (Consumable)
Use: Incredible! You have turned into a dwarf! Effect last for 3 minutes.
Cooldown time: 10 minutes.
Level requirement: 10.
"It does not seem to have great effects, but it's definitely great for entertainment purposes!" Zhang Yang laughed.
"It seems fun! Noob tank, please make a few hundred for me!" said Wei Yan Er, greedily assuming that Zhang Yang would actually do that.
Zhang Yang laughed dramatically before replying, "I think that you need a Growth Potion instead of a Dwarf Potion!"
"What! Why would you say that! Gyaaah! I'll kill you myself!" snarled Wei Yan Er furiously.
The party then continued forward unto their journey to locate the last boss.
Along the way, the number of minions increased. Zhang Yang found it annoying to kill them off one by one. Thus, he decided to just kite them all at once. Instantly, he dragged around 20 monsters and killed them. Under the attack of so many monsters, Zhang Yang's set equipment effect triggered so quickly that it rivaled even a healer!
Zhang Yang had been "One Straight Flushing" the monsters for 3 times and before they finally arrived at the fourth boss area.
This time, it was not just one boss in the arena, but five of them! One big boss, surrounded by 4 mini-bosses. Yes, this time, the Boss was a 20-year-old youth, surrounded by four beautiful, enchanting maidens. The lad appeared to be most contented.
[Young Master Wrath] (Gray-Silver)
Level: 34
HP: 400,000
The four maidens were Victoria, Emma, Merainy and Melanie, all Level 32, with 100, 000 HP respectively!
"The number of the enemies, seem a little bit more than we expected!" Han Yin Xue stared intently at Zhang Yang with narrowed eyes, "Can you handle them?"
"Little Yang, pretty Little Snow is suspecting your capabilities! Hahaha!" Fatty Han laughed.
Without any comeback for Fatty Han, Zhang Yang simply shook his head and said, "They may seem to have upper hand on numbers, however, we do not have to face them head on! The Boss does not have any skills of his own. Our main focus should be on the four maidens, each of them possess a unique skill. If any one of them dies first, the Boss will acquire the skill of the fallen maiden, healing 25% of his health points at the same time! Furthermore, the Boss will have 200% of the skill effects he acquired! But, the Boss will only be able to acquire 3 skills. When the forth maiden dies, the Boss will abandon the first skill he acquired."
"So... we should take care of the boss first?" Hundred Shots asked immediately.
"No!" Zhang Yang shot down the suggestion, and explained further. "The Boss would instantly gain invincibility when he has 1% HP left if we attack him without taking out the four maidens first. The Boss would be undefeatable! "
"Then we can only take care of the little ones first?"
"Yes!" Zhang Yang nodded, "But, we have to bear in mind that the sequence of the skills the boss acquired will determine the difficulty of the Boss battle, because each of the maidens possess different type of skills. Victoria is a healer, giving the Boss a boost of 10,000 HP for every three seconds. Emma is a Spellcaster with the <Chain Lightning> Skill. She can cast her skill every two seconds, hitting up to four targets at a time. The first hit would do 500 damage, before jumping to the next target, which is reduced to 400 damage, and so on. Merainy deals physical attacks with <Bleeding> effects that makes her target bleed, inflicting 1,000 damage every two seconds. Melanie also deals physical attacks, but with a different effect known to be the <Traumatize>. This skill basically does not pose any threat to the enemy. Only one negative effect is forced onto the target. When the target has the <Bleeding> effect, the target would receive 50% more damage!"
On second thought, Zhang Yang did not want his party members to be too dependable on him, so unlike his usual procedure of laying out a strategy after his briefings he remained silent this time. After all, Zhang Yang only got to Level 179 in his previous life, not to mention that there were more dungeons with higher difficulties to be challenged in the future. If the party members never start thinking up battle strategies, Zhang Yang was certain that it would be a disaster by then.
"So what do you guys think? Who do we start on first then?"
"We take down the healer first! Healing once gives it 10,000 HP, and it would become 20,000 HP when the Boss acquires it. So we should force the Boss to abandon this skill in the end by the time the maidens are dead!" Fatty Han seemed confident in his decision.
"Hmm." Hundred Shots nodded to agree with Fatty Han.
Well, it is a common strategy to take out the healer first.
"Take out Merainy first, then Melanie!" Sun Xin Yu cut in. She fell silent soon after as they turned to her.
Wei Yan Er clasped her hands together in agreement, "True, either Merainy or Melanie should be taken out first, and leave one of them to be killed last. The <Bleeding> effect increases 100% damage every time it is cast. If one skill is stacked one with another, it would be 4,000 HP lost in a single tick. Any more stacks than that would kill off our noob tank!"
Zhang Yang silently agreed. To take down this Boss, the most important thing was to prevent the Boss from having both <Bleeding> and <Traumatize> skills. Otherwise, any tank below Level 40 would never make it!
Han Yin Xue joined in and said, "Melainie's <Traumatize> alone could not do much damage to as compared to the <Bleeding> effect that Merainy has. So letting the Boss acquire the skill for a bit longer will not become a problem for us!"
"Fatty and Hundred Shots, both of you are not seeing the big picture! Hahaha!" Zhang Yang laughed hard. "Indeed, we should kill both Merainy and Melanie, either first or last. Killing Merainy first would be a bit easier then killing Melanie first!"
Wei Yan Er was pleased with her idea being recognized by Zhang Yang. She made a funny looking face at Fatty Han and Hundred Shots, and she giggled.
"Take out Merainy first, and then we take out Emma, then the healer Victoria. We should leave Melanie as the last to kill!" Zhang Yang made a final statement before letting the party rush into battle.
"The healing spell can be interrupted, so, those who have their interruption skills ready to cast, just do it! Better than none!"
Zhang Yang unsheathed his sword. "Little Snow, cast a shield on me. I'm going in!"
Han Yin Xue waved her hand, casting <Holy Shield> on Zhang Yang. A translucent magical shield appeared on his character.
Zhang Yang charged forward, in just an instant, he was already within the aggro range of those monsters!
"Assassins! Assassins are here! Protect the Young Master!" The four maidens cried out loud, charging towards Zhang Yang.
As the distance got closer, Zhang Yang activated <Charge> and dashed toward Merainy. With a full swing of his sword, he dealt a damage of 578. As his Rage gauge increased to 41, he swept his <Horizontal Sweep> outwardly, inflicting a series damage that exceeded a thousand damage.
Even though they have seen it many times, everyone would still be lost in awe of his devastating melee combo.
"That skill is just too strong! 200% melee damage with area effect! That's insane!"
"Wuwuwu. Noob tank, I want to use <Horizontal Sweep> too!" Wei Yen Er cried out.
Zhang Yang used <Block>, quickly following up with <Thunder Strike>, locking on the aggro. After that, he turned his focus to Melanie. He stacked five layers of <Cripple Defense> and a series of <Destructive Strike> to reduce the healing rate.
Victoria had no physical attacks. When the battle commenced, she first healed Young Master Wrath and then she turned towards Merainy, healing her like no tomorrow.
Pow pow pow!
Every other monster landed their attacks on Zhang Yang. <Chain Lightning>, <Bleeding>, with a number of additional melee attacks lit up the battle. However, the damages from the minions were weaker, and since the Boss was known as a spoiled young master who did not possess any skills of his own, his attacks were as weak as the other monsters. There was nothing to worry about.
Everyone else locked their target at Merainy and attacked with everything they had!
Zhang Yang intentionally did not remind the party about interrupting the healer. The three party members with the skills to interrupt did not disappoint Zhang Yang, as they had already discussed on the chain of order on whose turn was it when it came to interrupting. The interruption started with Fatty Han as the first, secondly by Hundred Shots, followed by Sun Xin Yu.
All skills involved had the effect to interrupt, however, it was clear to see the difference of skill levels and the experience among the party members through the manner and the timing of their skills.
Fatty Han used his skills to interrupt the moment he saw the healer starting to cast the healing spell; on the other hand, Hundred Shots waited for the maiden's progress bar to be half-filled before he interrupted, while Sun Xin Yu would interrupt at the exact moment when Victoria finish reading the spell.
The three of them had different senses.
It did not matter if it was <Silencing Shot> or <Low Kick>, the effects were similar. The targets would be interrupted from casting their spells, making them unable to cast their spells again for the next three seconds!
As it took 3 seconds for Victoria to chant the spell before casting it, Fatty Han only managed to delay the monster from healing for 3 seconds since he interrupted almost instantly. Hundred Shots would score at least 4 seconds as he waited for Victoria to read the spell for approximately 1 second. Meanwhile, Sun Xin Yu would not only manage to counter Victoria for 3 seconds, but also causing her to waste almost 3 seconds as she interrupted after the maiden almost finished reading the spell, delaying her for up to almost 6 seconds!
Zhang Yang could not be any prouder. As expected of the Queen of Shadow Dance!
With a 75% decrease in healing effect after receiving <Destructive Smash>, Victoria could only heal her target by 2,500 HP. It was obvious that the healing effect was thoroughly surpassed by the damage done by Zhang Yang and his party members! With or without healing, Merainy's HP dropped as fast as an open hydrant!
After approximately 100 seconds, Merainy had finally been taken down to zero! She let out a scream, saying, "Young master, allow me to give you my last drop of blood to fulfill my loyalty to you!"
Boom!
She transformed into a pillar of light and merged into the forehead of the Young Master Wrath.
"Ding! Merainy has used <Dying Loyalty>!"
"Ding! The Young Master Wrath has acquired a new skill: <Bleeding>, and under his grief, the effect of <Bleeding> has increased by 100%!"
With one maiden down, the party felt the sense of urgency! With the <Bleeding> effect increasing by 100%, Zhang Yang would receive double the damage from <Bleeding>! That was 1,600 damage every tick!
Everyone stuck to the plan. They immediately turned their assaults toward Emma.
In no time, Emma suffered the same fate as Merainy.
"Young Master, allow me to offer you my last drop of blood to prove my loyalty to you!"
"..."
The similar scenario as the previous maiden unfolded, continuing with Victoria, lastly followed by Melanie.
As mentioned earlier, when the four maidens are dead, the Boss would regain 25% of his full health. So it was expected that the Young Master Wrath would be at full health again when they went up against him after all the maidens had fallen!
The Boss had 3 skills at the moment: <Healing>, <Lightning Chain>, and <Traumatize>.
Proceeding into stage 2, let the battle begin!