Chapter 148: The Prince
Any magic type monster was weak and could be easily defeated as compared to a physical attack type monster, but when fighting with multitude of them, it did not matter how strong you were, the blast from the arcane magic was enough to send you to the grave!
The party did not dare to pull too many monsters in at one go and only took two or three at a time. Even though the killing speed was faster than killing one at a time, the efficiency was much lower than killing a large bunch like in the first floor. Thus, the progress was obviously slower, and the accumulation of experience points was slow as well. Still, this was just between the first and second floor, and the progress was better than grinding alone.
In just one day, the party had already made it through half of the floor. By then, almost everyone had their inventory packed with items. They had to discard some of the items to make room for more valuable ones. The two misers in the party, Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er were troubled and disturbed. If only they could just use the [Teleportation Scroll] and head back to town to sell them... But, if they did, they would have to start from the beginning, which was just a waste of time and effort!
Zhang Yang could not help but sighed heavily. "If only Hundred Shots could learn to make the [Portable Bank]..."
[Portable Bank]
Use: Summons a mobile bank, allowing players to deposit and withdraw items from their personal storage. The Portable Bank will disappear after 10 minutes.
Cooldown time: 1 hour.
Requirement: Master Engineering.
Zhang Yang then explained the description of the [Portable Bank]. Everyone was impressed by its use and one by one, they all encouraged Hundred Shots to quickly increase his Engineering mastery.
The difficulty of raising one's mastery to Master-tier was tough, but the recipe for the [Portable Bank] was so rare that no one had owned it by then! Everyone was excited but eventually accepted the harsh reality that it was still an impossible feat for them.
After clearing the floor for the entire day, the team finally managed to push a little towards the center. Zhang Yang called it a day and disbanded the party. Everyone logged off and had their rest for tomorrow.
At the brink of dawn, Zhang Yang started his training and went on to buy breakfast with the remaining 40 dollars in his wallet. Zhang Yang was so preoccupied with the Centaur Palace that he did not have time to visit the bank to withdraw cash! By the time he was done with the quest, the first thing he would do was to withdraw some cash. Any more delay and he would have literally no money left to buy food!
The team logged in and gathered together at 9:00 in the morning and proceeded as normal.
The team and cleared the pathway to the boss at 10:00 at night and arrived at the second floor's boss.
[Prince Chateau Turk] (Gray-Silver, Spectre)
Level: 44
HP: 880,000
The Centaur prince was standing majestically at the entrance to the 3rd floor. He was wielding a long spear with his right arm. As Zhang Yang approached him, he noticed a certain glimmer on his body with the shape of a sharp sword. When the glimmer appeared, Chateau Turk's head had a buff icon.
[Reflect Sword]: Counter any attack inflicted at 300% damage.
The buff was rather complicated and frequent. It was estimated to appear once every 30 seconds and would last for at least 10 seconds.
"Remember to stop your attacks when the [Reflect Sword] appears!"
Zhang Yang took the lead.
"The boss seems to be a Warrior class. Melee attackers stay away for now! You might get killed by the <Tornado Cleave>! I don't want to see any of you lying dead on the floor the whole time!"
Inching closer to the boss, Chateau Turk's appearance changed from a handsome majestic complexion to a nasty, irritated, and angry appearance.
"Why have you entered this land of the dead? The sinner should remain buried with their sins! Why must you exhume their hatred?!"
He picked up his spear and kicked off his hooves, charging towards Zhang Yang.
<Charge>!
Zhang Yang slid across the floor with his sword aiming directly at the prince.
'-702!'
<Cripple Defense>!
'-1,504!' <Destructive Smash>.
'-1,618!' <Horizontal Sweep>.
<Charge> gave him 10 Rage, followed by a normal attack with 37 Rage, and <Block> that granted him 30 Rage. Zhang Yang spent it all on <Cripple Defense>, <Horizontal Sweep>, and <Destructive Smash>, generating a bigger aggro.
Zhang Yang was the only one attacking the boss so far. The rest of the melee attackers were still waiting behind for the <Tornado Cleave> to proc, to guess and estimate the frequency of the skill.
Among them, Wei Yan Er, a fighter to be at least, was always the one who could not wait to attack. Gripping the weapon in her hand firmly, she could not help but mutter alone on the side.
"Damn! Damn you all! Why did you came here! Why! Why did you wake me?!" 15 seconds into the fight, Chateau Turk bellowed angrily. "Die! Just die!"
Shuush!
He took up the spear in the air and spun it around, creating a shadowy image of a spear in the air.
'Ding! Chateau Turk has used <Tornado Cleave>. All targets within 5 x 5 range will receive 6,000 physical attack!'
'-4,512!'
Wham! Zhang Yang took a hit.
<Block>!
Zhang Yang frantically activated <Block> to block off the next incoming damage and made room for Han Ying Xue to heal him.
"Hold on! Wait for the next <Tornado Cleave>! Make sure to know the skill interval duration before you can start fighting!" Zhang Yang warned Wei Yan Er when he noticed she was fidgeting to swing her weapon. Wei Yan Er heard his call and behaved. Before he looked away, Wei Yan Er quickly bared her teeth at Zhang Yang.
"Heh. Little brat."
10 seconds later, the bright glow suddenly radiated on the boss and formed sword like objects.
'Ding! Chateau Turk has gained <Reflect Sword>!'
Zhang Yang immediately pulled back. He then relied on <Block> and physically moving around to evade attack. If he continued to attack, he would be damaged from the reflect skill. Zhang Yang would be facing the boss and 3 additional Zhang Yang fighting against himself. Unless Han Ying Xue could triple her healing speed, she could not save him in time.
10 seconds passed and the buff expired. The boss cast another <Tornado Cleave> after 3 seconds.
With that, the party had obtained their battle plan and understood the boss' mechanics. Both <Tornado Cleave> and <Reflect Sword> would trigger every 30 seconds.
"Go! Melee attacker go! Remember to stop your attack in time!"
Wei Yan Er let out a loud battle cry and rushed into the fight with <Charge>.
10 seconds into the fight, Chateau Turk gained the reflect damage buff. Many of them were a little slow in stopping their attack and had to "eat" triple the amount of damage that they had inflicted on the boss. Han Ying Xue was suddenly pushed to her limit.
"Melee fighters back down now! When <Reflect Sword> ends, don't rush in back! A <Tornado Cleave> will be activated shortly after! Whoever is still in its range will surely die!" Zhang Yang cried in the party channel.
All melee attackers obliged and withdrew from the front line. Ranged attackers had only needed to stop attacking and wait until <Reflect Sword> ended. Now that the attacking cycle had to pause now and then, it reduced their attacking period down to only 2/3, especially since the melee attackers needed to move away to avoid the <Tornado Cleave> and to wait for <Reflect Sword> to end, severely affecting their attacking speed. The boss' HP dropping rate was even slower than Zhang Yang had ever experienced.
Chateau Turk's attack were strong to begin with, and now that the entire party had to slow down and drag the fight longer than they had initially expected, Han Ying Xue and Zhang Yang was pushed beyond their limit! It was lucky that Zhang Yang had many life preserving skills like <Berserker's Heal>, Lover's Sword <Lifesteal>, <Merlinda's Shadow>, and the +2,000 Defense accessory skill! He was too far from death to claim him!
Once the battle had stablized, and everyone was doing what they could do without a problem, Zhang Yang summoned [Clear Lotus] and controlled her to fight along with the party.
90%, 80%, 70%...
It was tough and excruciatingly long, but the party managed to slowly drag down the boss' HP.
"You pest! Wretched beings! Monsters! Die! Just die and rot in hell!" The majestic Centaur cried out. His tone was so enraged that you could feel the tremor of destructive intent from his voice.
"The boss is being a little too dramatic, don't you think?" said Endless Starlight.
Fatty Han pout his lips. "We must have come in the wrong time! Perhaps he was in the middle of having a good time with his maids! Blowing of his steam, leaving him hanging, of course he'd be crazy!"
"Direct hit Fatty bro! Genius!" said Endless Starlight with admiration.
"Starlight, direct is what I am good at! You know, there was a folktale describing the first night of the maid and the prince, they say..."
"SHUT THE F*CK UP! BOTH OF YOU!"
Everyone else cried out in unison.
Fatty Han and Starlight exchanged and look and was baffled at their scream.
"...I had become the laughing stock of the Centaurs, and you... the other races would even want to make fun of me?" Chateau Turk growled and thrust his spear to the ground and unleashed massive 2-meter-tall blast waves that discharged everywhere.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
4 melee attackers were knocked back and was stunned for as long as 10 seconds!
'Ding! Chateau Turk has used <Earth Crash>.'
The boss moved a step forward and attacked Zhang Yang with his spear.
Unable to activate <Block> in stun status, Zhang Yang could only take everything the boss had to give. Han Ying Xue was unable to heal Zhang Yang in time! Furthermore, <Tornado Cleave> was about to activate soon, if he were to stand there motionless, the rest of the melee attackers would definitely be killed!
Zhang Yang immediately came to a decision and used <Substitute>.
At the same time, Endless Starlight activated <Sacred Protection> to remove all negative status aliments and cast <Justice Bash> and <Provoke> he then immediately ran far away! He knew that the boss was about to cast <Tornado Cleave>, which was why he has to keep his distance from the boss.
Impressive sense of judgement! Zhang Yang's eyes gleamed with hope and admiration. Only under the unexpected situation would a player's talent and capability be demonstrated.
Being provoked by Endless Starlight, Chateau Turk turned around and galloped toward him.
Zhang Yang quickly chased after him and said, "Starlight, continue running! Don't drag the boss! Let me! You can't tank the <Tornado Cleave>!"
"Ok!" Endless Starlight did not want to compete with Zhang Yang in the first place. He only wanted to help when Zhang Yang was rendered powerless under stun. He had to do something until Zhang Yang could return to normal!
Similarly, Zhang Yang used <Provoke> and lur the boss to him.
'Ding! Chateau Turk has used <Tornado Cleave>. All targets within 5 x 5 range will receive 6,000 physical attack!'
<Block>!
After <Tornado Cleave>, Zhang Yang was prepared for the next incoming attack and deflected it with <Block>.
Shriiing! Han Ying Xue healed Zhang Yang back to full health and they managed to survive this sudden turn of event.