Chapter 118 – Mid-Air Coordination
Start!
Lord Grim led the way forward. He was the main force for pulling monsters. At the start, the four monsters were pulled in the same way. Except this time, once Lord Grim alarmed the four monsters, Soft Mist immediately went up. She quickly rushed towards the position Ye Xiu indicated for her to go to. A Falling Flower Palm into a knock-up into a Dragon Tooth and the four monsters flew backwards all together.
Lord Grim used a Shadow Clone Technique. This time, he didn’t head towards Soft Mist’s position. Instead, he directly flashed over to where the four monsters flew to. Cleansing Mist, Steamed Bun Invasion, and Hateful Sword had already rushed towards that direction when Lord Grim was pulling the monsters. They swiftly hit the monsters into the stone crack. The zombie was in the very back and the three skeletons were in the front. Sword, lance, cannon, brick, all wildly greeted them.
In a short moment, the first monster at the head was killed and the second skeleton went up. When killing the first skeleton, all of their AoE skills were sent out. So when the second skeleton came out, its life wasn’t full. After a few rounds of attacks, it also fell. The third skeleton went up and came out even weaker than the second. In just one round of the five players’ combined attacks, the skeleton was blasted into a pile of shattered bones.
The three piles of shattered bones piled on top of each other and the fourth zombie monster bore its teeth and brandished its claws, trying to tear them apart. But the five players had already ran off and vanished.
Ye Xiu’s so-called new strategy built upon the basis of going around monsters by increasing the number of stuck monsters.
Under normal circumstances, the stuck monster were there in order to pursue dependability. But strategies that pursued safety couldn’t be considered when pursuing efficiency. Ye Xiu’s method of getting a monster stuck in Boneyard directly trapped it so that they wouldn’t need to kill it. This naturally saved a lot of time.
But for a record-setting party, they couldn’t slowly and unhurriedly keep trying to trap it. They had to use the shortest amount of time to trap it on their first try.
For the first wave of four monsters, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim could successfully trap one by himself. However, it would be far slower than the five of them coordinating together. In terms of damage output, they were even more incomparable.
Perfect and careful coordination, perhaps wasn’t necessary for success, but it was necessary for efficiency.
However, there was one place where they needed coordination to succeed. This was also one of the difficult parts of the strategy. Over the course of the five player’s practice, they had always made mistakes over the course of their practice. To this day, not a single perfect run had been achieved.
When Liu Hao compared the old and new strategy, he calculated that the new strategy would be able to avoid a total of 21 monsters, while the old strategy avoided only 12 monsters, a difference of 9 monsters.
However, the monsters weren’t the only ones that could be avoided. In reality, with Ye Xiu’s researched strategy, they could even avoid a BOSS.
The second BOSS, Zombie Bailey.
Zombie Bailey moved slowly, but had matchless strength. Players hit by it had an extremely high chance of being hit back and being infected by the Zombie Virus. Moreover, this Zombie Virus could be transmitted between players.
It sounded scary, but in reality, this BOSS wasn’t difficult to beat. The infection speed of the Zombie Virus wasn’t fast and it didn’t do a lot of damage. If a party had a Cleric with decent equipment, as long as the party knew who had the Virus, the Cleric could stop the infection. For top-tier experts like Ye Xiu, who didn’t need Clerics, they were confident that they wouldn’t be hit by the slow-moving BOSS.
Although Zombie Bailey was easy to deal with, it had high health, so they would need a lot of time to beat it. For monsters like these, record-setting parties could only go all out in their damage output to save time. However, Ye Xiu had researched a method to directly trap Zombie Bailey.
But this method was extremely difficult. They had been stumped by it up until now. Although the party had been successful before, they had never succeeded on their first try.
However, if they succeeded. They’d be able to save a lot of time. Under normal circumstances, where the party would just go all out with their damage, it would take at least two minutes to kill it. But if they completed the method Ye Xiu had thought of on their first try, they wouldn’t even need 20 seconds to kill it.
This exceedingly difficult method sounded very simple. It was to send Zombie Bailey into a crack in the wall not too far high up. Once it was trapped in the crack, it would no longer have any way of climbing out.
The hard part was actually doing it.
There was a quite a bit of distance between the ground and the crack in the stone wall. The strategy required all five players to chain knock-up skills and continuously lift Zombie Bailey into the air, until it was finally sent into it.
When they first tried to do it, the five players had knocked Zombie Bailey up into the air until it was dead, yet never succeeded once. This was all because the requirements for their coordination and hand speed was too high. Every time a player knocked it up, there was a very short interval to link the next player’s skill. If anyone made even the slightest of errors, it would cause them to fail. Moreover, this all required on the individual to grasp the timing. By the time Ye Xiu reminded them, it was already too late.
Only by succeeding on the first try would they be able to set the fastest record.
However, no one had much confidence in doing this on the first try. But even if they succeeded on their second try or third try, they’d still be able to win a lot of time. It was an advantage that no normal party could surpass.
Liu Hao liked this. With his Hateful Sword here, there was no way he would let Ye Qiu’s party succeed on their first try. In this party, anyone had the possibility of making a mistake. But switched with a party of pro-players, wanting to succeed in this difficult part wasn’t a challenge at all.
Seeing that they were about to reach Zombie Bailey, Liu Hao secretly plotted.
“We’re almost at Zombie Bailey! We can do it!” Ye Xiu said at this moment.
“We can do it!” Steamed Bun Invasion yelled.
“Let’s try to succeed by the second try!” Ye XIu said.
“Succeed on the first try!” Tang Rou was even harsher.
Ye Xiu laughed bitterly. He hoped to succeed on the first try, but such a thing really was too difficult for them.
“Everyone focus!!” After clearing away all of the monsters in front of Zombie Bailey, Ye Xiu shouted out.
Everyone immediately went into their position.
Because Zombie Bailey moved slowly, it would take quite a bit of time for it to reach the stone wall, which was why it required the players to help push it faster.
“Begin!!” Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim rushed up to pull it. He knocked it up and unleashed a Falling Flower Palm. Zombie Bailey went flying.
Soft Mist stabbed forward. Taking advantage of the flying Zombie Bailey, she used a Sky Strike and then another Falling Flower Palm.
Steamed Bun Invasion and Hateful Sword carried out their relay roles. From beginning to end, Zombie Bailey never fell and was sent over. This process was simple. No mistake had been made yet. The pitiful Zombie Bailey was only the second BOSS. It wasn’t like Frost Forest’s Frost Thain. It didn’t have any method of getting out of chain knock-ups.
The final player to receive it was Su Mucheng. She kicked Zombie Bailey up and fired consecutively with a machine gun, the skill BBQ. Zombie Bailey tumbled in the air under fire.
If Delivery Gun could be used, then there would be a higher chance of succeeding on their first try. Unfortunately, after testing it multiple times with Chasing Haze, he found that there was no way of directly Delivering Zombie Bailey from the air into the crack due to the terrain. The firing angle wasn’t enough.
Regretfully, they could only use this sort of five player chain knock-up method.
After BBQ finished, Zombie Bailey dropped from midair when Steamed Bun Invasion rushed forward and followed up with an Uppercut.
Zombie Bailey was once again hit, but Ye Xiu sighed in regret.
Failed……. In the first move, Steamed Bun Invasion had already failed. Because the party had used trash equipment to practice this so many times, after Steamed Bun Invasion punched and then observed, he also went “Uh oh” and was aware of his failure.
“Don’t stop, continue.” Ye Xiu yelled.
If they couldn’t succeed on the first try, then hopefully they’d succeed on the second try.
Hateful Sword moved up and used a Back Slash. The slashed Zombie Bailey smashed into the wall like a bullet and then rebounded.
Perfectly executed!
With Steamed Bun Invasion’s mistake, Liu Hao didn’t need to deliberately mess up. This was because he already knew that this already wasn’t a perfect record.
Su Mucheng’s Cleansing Mist leaped up. She swung with her hand cannon, using the Launcher knock-up skill “Swing”. Zombie Bailey was hit up a bit higher.
Tang Rou’s Soft Mist had already rushed to her position. She leaped up into the air and then used a Sky Strike. Her lance tip hit Zombie Bailey right when it began to fall. This move didn’t cause Zombie Bailey to continue rising, but made it stay at the same height.
Steamed Bun Invasion, who had just made the mistake, had already leaped high into the air. He followed up with a Hook. Zombie Bailey rose higher up again and reached a height where normal jumps could no longer reach.
A figure flashed above where Steamed Bun Invasion had jumped.
Lord Grim.
Leaping up, he stepped on the stone wall, turned around, and jumped again. This move allowed his character to leap up higher.
The previous four players hadn’t made any mistakes. Success or failure now all depended on Ye Xiu.
Lord Grim’s lance steadily stabbed out. After piercing Zombie Bailey, the lance flew in a circular arc and delivered Zombie Bailey into the crack in the stone wall.
“Success!!” Steamed Bun Invasion yelled.
“Continue! Don’t be careless.” Ye Xiu’s voice was still calm. After landing onto the ground, the party continued onto the remaining ⅓ of the dungeon.
At this moment, Liu Hao suddenly felt a bit regretful.
Even though this level wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t far from it. The only time lost was from Steamed Bun Invasion’s single mistake. How long was that? Three seconds? Four seconds?
But could his party succeed on the first try? Previously, Liu Hao had never doubted it, after all, they were all genuine pro-players. But after finding out that the gap was only by three or four seconds, he suddenly felt a little worried.
“No! How could the distance from perfection only be three or four seconds? In the entire dungeon, I’ve always been holding back my strength. If I went all-out, then I’d definitely be able to steal back 15 seconds. Adding on to my more perfect and coordinated pro-team, we should at least be able to beat the time by 30 seconds. Oh, I forgot, we even have Orange weapons!! This time, our party has two players with Orange weapons…… the damage output is definitely greater than Lord Grim’s party, who only has a Silver weapon.” Liu Hao carefully calculated. After determining his party’s overall advantage, he finally relaxed and gave up on intentionally making a mistake in this run.
Boneyard’s final BOSS finally fell. The last ⅓ of the dungeon could be considered perfectly done. The system announcement also came out: Congratulations to Blue Brook Guild’s players: Lord Grim, Cleansing Mist, Steamed Bun Invasion, Soft Mist, Hateful Sword for breaking the Boneyard clear record, time: 17:22:17.