Chapter 711: The Way to Fight is to Lose?
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"I applaud your efforts of entering my realm with only the five of you!" Dorak laughed with a deep, husky voice that was both eerie and bold. He then lifted his staff and fired {Shadow Arrows} again and again, dealing 200,000 damage to Zhang Yang.
However, despite being powerful, the attack was like a mosquito bite when Zhang Yang is in his Transformation state. He had 40% magic nullification chance. Hence, technically, he would only take on average of 50,000 to 60,000 shadow damage and lose around 30,000 HP per second. It was too low!
"Come on! Pump it up! Give me more pain!" Zhang Yang provoked him. If he is possessed then, it would be extremely difficult to push Zhang Yang's HP down to 10%. Perhaps, he would even kill everyone, before then!
Then again, it was supposed to be a good thing, yet the boss' low damage hitting was proving to be a little troublesome. At the rate of 30,000 damage per second, the boss would need to take 19 minutes to damage Zhang Yang down to 10%. By then, he would have been controlled countless of times.
"Pest should do nothing but be squashed! Save your tongue, after I kill you, I shall turn you into a headless knight! Perhaps, you can find solace in knowing that you will never speak again!" Aggravated, the boss fired all his {Shadow Arrows} at Zhang Yang. After several blast, he grabbed his staff with both of his wrinkled hands and stabbed into the ground. "Ring of Shadows! Fatten these intruders!"
Gulong! Gulong!
Nine rings of shadow appeared, lining up in a straight line on both left and right of Darok. Like a Ferris wheel that had gone out of control, the rings started rolling towards the party. Since the place was designed like a dungeon fight, all skills were evadable. At every gap between each ring, there will be a meter wide gap that player could stand in to evade the attack.
While that was supposed to be the case, Zhang Yang and the party was not moving away from the rings. Instead, they took the hit deliberately. Each of them took a hit and suffered 300,000 shadow damage. While Zhang Yang and his party were "eating" the attack, Felice and the other battle mount and battle companion were dodging the rings to avoid the damage. Since they were not considered as player characters, they could not be controlled. Dodging the attacks would be the only be the natural thing to do. 300,000 damage was more than enough to kill them in one attack.
The rings rolled from the boss, towards the back of the palace, and back again towards him, hitting everyone once more.
"Haha! Is that chaotic enough for you?! Let's make it better!" the boss laughed hysterically and stabbed the ground with his staff again. Surrounding him, shadow pits were forming. The size of the traps were roughly 2 meters wide and was forming, only 50 meters around the boss. The traps placements were extremely random and the traps were overlapping each other.
"Oh! Nice!" cried Wei Yan Er happily as she charged towards the traps to spring it.
Again, normally, players would dodge the traps, and for good reason as well. Each of the traps could deal as much as 400,000 shadow damage and could kill non-Transformed, non-tank players. However, even though the traps were overlapping over each other, there will always be a way to dodge all skills of the boss. The gap between each trap was wide enough to allow players to dodge them and evade the rolling rings of shadows.
After being sprung, the traps will automatically be removed from the battlefield, Zhang Yang and everyone deliberately moved around the field, stepping on each trap to take the damage. Amongst them, Wei Yan Er was fastest and sprung the most traps. It was deliberate, since the little girl had the Darkness Inheritance with a natural high tolerance to shadow attack. Even though she had stepped on 14 {Shadow Traps}, the damage she had taken was only around 1,680,000. The little girl went on complaining that the boss was just too weak!
"What mad fools!" even the boss was astonished at the party's extremely unorthodox method of fighting! However, as the system dictates, after all the traps are sprung, the boss will automatically replenish them again.
"Sigh…we should have taken some damage before Transforming earlier! It's so hard to lose HP now!"
In the most common situation, players would want to have the highest HP possible during a boss fight. There are even times when the healer had to burn all their MP just to keep the players alive! However, right then, who would have thought that a party would want to have their HP lowered as fast as possible!? Who in the right mind would do that!?
After a few more rounds of {Shadow Traps}, the boss grinned eerily and turned towards Wei Yan Er. With a quick blink, his entire character had turned into a puff of smoke that zoomed through the battlefield to seep into her body.
A familar skeletal cross appeared behind Wei Yan Er and her hands were swung open as if she was being crucified. Her eyes turned white and she had lost control of her body.
"Haha! It has always been my favorite form of enterntainment to see friends killing each other!" The boss had controlled Wei Yan Er character and spoke through her mouth. The little girl then turned towards Sun Xin Yu and charged towards Sun Xin Yu.
At the very moment when the boss had turned into a puff of smoke, Zhang Yang trailed it immediately and waited beside Wei Yan Er ready to react. With a quick smash, Zhang Yang stunned Wei Yan Er with {Blast Wave}. Everyone, including the battle mounts and battle companions had attacked the little girl!
Fortunately for the party, when Wei Yan Er "betrayed" them, she had lost the right to gain the benefit from Zhang Yang's {Vitality Aura}. Similarly, the party had lost the right to gain the benefit from Wei Yan Er's {Strength Aura}, causing the team to lose a little of their damaging power.
However, the little girl's attack power was extremely high. Since she had already Transformed, she could kill two to three players in their team! However, her current opponent was primarily Zhang Yang and Sun Xin Yu. In less than half a minute, both of them managed to dispel the control of the boss by hitting the little girl down to her last 9% HP.
PUFF!
"GURAAHHHH" Wei Yan Er arched her head back and screamed at the top of her lungs, and the same dark smoke burst out of her mouth as she expelled the boss from inside her body.
"Waaa! That was scary! I almost died!" cried Wei Yan Er.
The battle resumed back to the "normal" pace when the boss reformed back at his original spawn point.
Although Wei Yan Er had managed to get herself to 10%, before she was freed from the control of the boss, she had managed to deal enough damage to the party. Zhang Yang was still left with 59% HP, Sun Xin Yu had 48%, Han Ying Xue had 45% HP, and Daffodil Daydream had over 43% HP.
The boss continued his pace and set up more traps and casted {Shadow Arrow} on Zhang Yang.
Now that Wei Yan Er had left with 10%, she had stopped taking more hits and switched to the normal evasive style. Perhaps she was getting better after playing the game, after so long. Occasionally, she could stand at a spot and take no damage at all. At time, she soared around the field, dodging all the traps and the Ring of Shadow, laughing hysterically while she was at it.
Without the healer doing her job, the HP of the entire party dropped faster than usual. By the time the boss used the second {Possession}, everyone, but Zhang Yang was left with 10%. Only Zhang Yang had trouble getting his HP down to 10% in time. He still had over 19% HP left!
It was inevitable, since his damage reduction and absorption were too high and efficient. At one point, he had even removed his shield to reduce the absorption level. Only then, he was able to reduce his HP down to 19%. That or it may have ended up even higher!
Since Zhang Yang was the only person in the party who had over 10% HP, the second {Possession} struck him.
"Everyone, be careful when you're attacking Zhang Yang. His attacks are too strong!" said Han Ying Xue as she cast {Regeneration} on everyone and prepared {Holy Shield}.
It was extremely dangerous indeed to fight Zhang Yang. Note that when the boss controls a player, the controlled player will use all its active skills. Zhang Yang's skill {Destructive Smash} was so powerful that it could reduce Han Ying Xue's healing rate by 75%. It was extremely dangerous, since she could not heal the others in time.
Fortunately, Zhang Yang had only over 19% HP left. It was easy to free him from the boss' control.
"Hahaha! You don't know how long have I waited for this moment, noob tank!" Wei Yan Er glided across the floor and stunned Zhang Yang. She then brought down her axe and cleaved Zhang Yang with high damage. Since Zhang Yang had already removed his shield, everyone had a better time attacking Zhang Yang.
"What have I done to wrong you?" said Zhang Yang through the party channel. Even though he was not able to control his own character, he could still send messages through the party channel.
"Evil henchman! I shall punish you in the name of the moon!" said Wei Yan Er while she posed like the character in Sailor Moon.
Sun Xin Yu used {Shadow Step} to disappear from the battle for a brief second before entering stealth with {Vanish}. She then moved behind Zhang Yang and stunned him before attacking. All of the party members, besides Zhang Yang had less than 10% HP. Hence, they could not afford to trade blows with Zhang Yang. In the worst-case scenario, they might actually be overwhelmed by Zhang Yang!
Fortunately, even though the players could still use their skill, the boss would not use them too often. On the other hand, since he knew that he would be the one that would be controlled, Zhang Yang had preemptively used all his status-removing skills beforehand, rendering him being stunned by Sun Xin Yu without resistance.
After {Ambush}, Sun Xin Yu extended the stun with {Kidney Shot}, extending the stun time by 10 seconds to allow the party to deal enough damage. Right at the last moment of the stun, Zhang Yang's HP dropped below 10% and he was freed from the boss' control.
As the boss laughed at the "wounded" players, he laughed maniacally and attacked Zhang Yang, while scorning them. "Your doom is close!"
Zhang Yang took a hit from the {Shadow Arrow} and awoke from the stun. He then immediately reequiped the shield and continued his attack on the boss.
From the party's perspective, the real battle had just begun then!
Since they would no need to heal, and could not lose any more HP than they had then, everyone was extremely careful while moving around the battlefield. They had to avoid all the traps and the rings of shadows. In such a scenario, when a party is forced to survive with less than 10% HP while attacking the boss, it would be a difficulty that even Zhang Yang's party would find hard to continue.
Those with lower control skill would surely be dead then, as they were too busy avoiding the traps and rings, forgetting to prioritize their matters.
Perhaps it was one of the main factors when designing the boss. To allow players a chance to survive in the battle, the designer of the boss had not bestowed any recovery skills to the boss. It would be a hopeless battle of the boss could regenerate HP while the entire party is too busy avoiding the skills!
Han Ying Xue was at her best. She would not dare lower her guard, even for a second, since they were all at the 10% HP threshold! Despite the fact that all their HP bars were at the very least, at 1,200,000 HP since all their Transformation skill were active. At most, they could take one trap and one attack from the Ring of Shadow.
Zhang Yang was on a whole other level. At 10%, his HP was at 4,000,000 HP! It was almost the same as a B class Inheritance Transformed players!
Since none of the party members then had over 10% HP, the skill {Possession} was completely taken off the floor! The only things that the boss was firing constantly were the {Shadow Traps} and {Ring of Shadows}.