Chapter 373 Anti-Mecha Strategy
After receiving the last event quest, the Players—aside from the newbies helping old Meredith maintain order amongst survivors of Crookes—had gathered, and went off to bother the ancient Mecha Giant.
The grandiose look they have seemed to say ‘what do you mean, three hour-limit? Why can’t we just destroy it?!’
And yet, when they encountered the Mecha Giant just twenty kilometers away, they were almost team-wiped instead.
After all, supermassive enemies meant superior HP and Defense to the Players, along with their Rule Resistance that prevents them from taking turns casting control spells. Indeed, they were very much the worst opponents the Players could encounter.
Still, the Players who had at least been cornered several times over the last few days were no longer a bumbling, blind and thickheaded crowd who only use their numbers and death toll to push for a win. Instead, they began to examine tactics and strategy.
That pleased Xi Wei since he had definitely taken a wrong route early on. He had led his own believers along the path of a video game from Earth, even if his Players would fear nothing and would attack anything with a red name.
Be that as it may, ever since he ascended as an intermediate god and had studied this world further, Xi Wei found that the still waters of this world run rather deep.
Therefore, though his believers could be trained into courageous, dauntless Players, Xi Wei himself was not a peerless system so frequently depicted in novels or games, and getting full of themselves would only draw self-destruction.
And after having weathered through the period of danger following his transmigration, the right choice now was to take a step back. Xi Wei should wait until his believers had all become overwhelmingly powerful, and becoming vigilantes who fought injustice, beating up evil gods and their minions to a pulp.
Back to the matter at hand.
Once the Players had realized that their waves of ultimate skills were only inflicting single-digit damage and did not affect its HP bar, all of them retreated immediately-not the scattered withdrawal as most ragtag bunch of armies would do, but following the decision of the leading Players when they decided that continuing to fight was meaningless.
Although the spread-out formation looked similar to a fleeing pack of pigeons, it was merely because each blow of the Mecha Giant were AoE attacks and so that more of them would survive.
After all, only automatons or undead had better more morale than them…
“No wonder the quest only had us delay and obstruct it from causing too much damage to the tortoise.” Edward sighed as he sat on his Blackfire Dragon. “To think I’ve thought that the quest is not that difficult… I really did not think this through.”
And between the Blackfire Dragon’s talons, Joe we frowning. “That thing is as tough as it’s powerful, and the damage we could do to it is pathetic. Even if it doesn’t attack, we would have to focus our firepower for over ten days or even half a month to blow away its HP. Forget that it can’t be stunned, put to sleep or poisoned. It can’t be repelled or frozen-this is very troublesome.”
“He truly is the God of Games. He had thought of the fifth stratum just when we saw the second!” Edward praised devoutly.
“By the way, can you let us on the dragon’s back?” Gou Dan, who was held between the dragon’s other leg had wind stream down his throat the moment he opened his mouth, and hence shouted at Edward who was sitting on the dragon’s back as hard as he could. “My leather armor is not windproof, and my junior is about to get frozen off!”
“Just turn off your senses,” Edward suggested seriously, unaffected by the winds since Jessica had raised a shield over the dragon’s back.
“There’s no stopping junior getting froze off even if I turned off my sense!” Gou Dan yelled, feeling as if he was a balloon having air pumped inside him. “Let us up there!”
“Sorry, full house.” Edward refused regrettably.
“Wasn’t it able to carry more people before!?”
“Skill got nerfed after version update,” Edward replied seriously once again. “Who do you think you’re fooling!?” Frustrated, Gou Dan’s whole body was shaking from the chill. “You are getting back at us because we left you to die with Mister Marni back on Steel Earth!”
“Time is short. Red Eyes Black Dragonaccelerate!” Edward pretended that he did not catch that and sped up.
“¥@#¥ %%&*” This time, Gou Dan couldn’t even speak. He could only hope that his junior could work normally when they return to Crookes.
Still, it didn’t really matter even if it got frozen off. They were Players, and all they have to do was ruthlessly cut it off and down a bottle of cola, and it just might grow back…
“Quit it with the nonsense. It feels like I’m becoming stupider.” Princess Leah, who was sitting behind Jessica on the dragon’s back sighed heavily, feeling helpless that the boys would still have the mood to fool around despite the sheer difficulty of their current quest. “What should we be doing now, actually? Are we supposed to wait until it reached the tortoise colossus, while we buff the tortoise with shields, damage immunity and keep healing it to last the three hours?”
“No. The tortoise colossus is a neutral unit so we can’t heal it… and that thing seems to be a huge magitek mechanism, so healing it might be a problem.”
Edward promptly rejected the Warrior Princess’s suggestion. “The Mecha Giant would react to our attacks, which is why attacking it to prompt its retaliation is the only way to slow it down. That said, its damage is so high and all of its attacks are AoE. Numbers won’t work, but sending in one person at a time works.”
“Sending people to take turns dying and buy time…” Princess Leah became thoughtful. “But that wouldn’t buy much time.”
While a suicide squad is certainly an idea when they were out of ideas, Leah was just a little uncomfortable about it.
Moreover, now that the event had progressed thus far, the Players’ stores of revival items such as Resurrection Ankh were almost used
up.
They have to minimize deaths now.
“Dying is just a front,” Edward replied, turning on the Player forums to upload an edited map. “That thing only walks in straight lines, so its movement could be predicted! Since our attacks won’t stop its advance, we just have to switch landscapes!”
“You mean…” Leah stared at Edward in surprise.
“That’s right! We will have the Players who can’t change the landscape to play the role of expendables and slow the giant down, while other players would dig a pitfall along the route of its advance! It most likely won’t hold it since it could break the hole with just a few punches and create a path forward, but we can attack where its feet would land when it climbs, and knock it back inside the hole!”
“As long as we take care not to be caught in its blows, we could send it dropping into the hole again and again.” Edward then concluded in great spirits. “It’s not impossible for us to buy the God of Games three hours!”
