Chapter 294: Defend the Territory (4)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
With the presence of a Yellow-Gold boss in the field, everyone was pumped up. The incensed players started wiping the monsters at a faster rate, taking bigger risks, bigger swings.
Akemoshi’s strides were so massive with it took less than 10 steps to reach the castle gates, walking over all the other monsters, and jumping into the castle area!
The last thing that they wanted was to have any monsters getting into the castle gates. Zhang Yang hurriedly activated his {Spear of Obliteration} and rode on his white bear towards the boss.
‘-2,346!’
Akemoshi growled. Provoked, and agitated, the boss hurled its massive fist at Zhang Yang.
{Block}!
Zhang Yang blocked the attack, however, he was knocked back several meters, along with the white bear. The other players around had waited for Zhang Yang to build up the aggro. Even though they had no clue on what kind of skill does the boss had, all melee fighters had already surrounded the boss, ready to attack with all their might. With severe time constrains, none of them could afford to slack off. Who knew how long, it would take for them to kill this boss? By then, the fifth wave of monsters would have already spawn! If the boss was not killed by then, the situation will start to fall like dominos as more and more monsters flock into the castle grounds!
“AURGH!”
Akemoshi roared, and it looked like its muscles were actually expanding. Zhang Yang had a bad feeling something that bad was going to happened. But before he could warn anyone, Akemoshi slammed the ground with all its might, sending a shockwave across the ground, as if it was its personal mattress. The ground literally folded in and out as players started to wobble around as if they had just drank 10 shots of Flaming Lamborghini.
The attacks went on repeatedly. Each time Akemoshi struck the ground, he caused close to 2,000 damage to every player within 40 meters around him. The AoE were strong and quick. Some players had managed to run out of the AoE circle before they were killed. However, no matter how swiftly they ran, the slams came every second for the next 5 to 6 seconds. Many players were already dead by then. The attacks lasted for 10 seconds.
Akemoshi looked around him and started to pound his chest like King Kong in the movies. The attack was call {Quake Slam} which dealt 2,000 physical attack every second to every target within 40 meters, for 10 seconds!
Zhang Yang began to shout orders around. “Those with lower HP please give up on this boss and get away! Ranged attackers, get yourself out of that range! Healers, please stand further back! Melee attackers, move to the outside of the castle gates and attack the elite monsters instead! You are not allowed to attack the boss! Healers won’t have time to heal you!”
Everyone else nodded and made their way outside the castle walls to attack the snowmen. Wei Yan Er was the only one who stayed with Zhang Yang, as she had a battle mount. Together, they had up to 30,000 HP. Wei Yan Er could easily withdraw to get herself healed! Such were the benefits of having a battle mount!
Seeing how Wei Yan Er was performing extremely well in the battlefield, Han Ying Xue could not help but feel a little envious of her little cousin sister. “Dummy! Give the elder sister a battle mount as well!”
As the situation was controlled and the number of dying player were reduced tremendously, Zhang Yang could actually reply Han Ying Xue. “Not anytime soon. However, there will be plenty of chances for you to catch a battle mount in the Chaos Realm! That being said, the rare ones are really difficult to find!”
Akemoshi’s {Quake Slam} was strong; strong enough to completely overwhelm 90% of all the tanks in the world. However, while the others players yelled in alarm as they ran out of danger, it was nothing Zhang Yang couldn’t handle with a little bit of healing.
The attack was activated once every 30 seconds. Once everyone got the gist of it, they could properly move to safety before the skill was activated and move back after the 10 second duration ended. However, Akemoshi had another skill which was activated at every 10% HP bracket. The skill was similar to that of a Warrior’s {Blast Wave}, which blasted a conical shaped shockwave, stunning anyone within the AoE for 10 seconds!
If both {Quake Slam} and the {Blast Wave} were used together, it would be a lethal combo! If Zhang Yang had the luxury of time, he could properly control the skill activation so that both skill would never be used together! However, with the next wave spawning in around 7 to 8 minutes, he would have to simply attack the boss without giving much thought! That, or many players will start to lose their spirits, and the guild would lose many more players to the boss!
The good news was that, Healers were not receiving any damage from the {Quake Slam}, and the ranged players were kept alive by the healers. However, players were all human, afterall. Someone was bound to make a mistake or two. The casualties could not be completely halted.
After the fourth wave of monsters, a majority of the players around had sustained the debuff – {Fallen} on them and had their attributes reduced by 10%. After having two stacks of {Fallen}, not only would the attacks will be reduced tremendously, the survivability of the player will also drop.
‘Ding! The fifth wave of monster had started the attack!’
Just when Akemoshi still have 30% HP left, the fifth wave of monster had spawned. Luckily, all of the snowmen had already been eliminated beforehand. Zhang Yang had his hands full with the current boss. He quickly contacted Endless Starlight. “Starlight, what do those fifth wave monster look like?”
“They are all elite-tiers! Something call Wind Surfers. I think they are all melee type!” he replied instantly.
“Alright, lead a squad down there and hold the gates!” Zhang Yang commanded.
The battle with Akemoshi lasted for two more minutes before it fell under the focus fire of the ranged attackers. Zhang Yang first looted all the equipment and drops from the boss and kept it in his inventory. The equipment were all Level 70, which still exceeded the current average level of the players in the guild. Auctioning would have to wait! He could not afford to distract them! Even if the auctions only took a few seconds, the entire process will greatly affect the damage output! He could not afford to spare a single moment.
After having things cleared the castle grounds, Zhang Yang rode out of the castle gates and found Endless Starlight and a few others having a tough time, dealing with the new monsters. These Wind Surfers were surrounded with visible vortexes of wind. Their upper bodies were human-like, yet they did not seem to possess any lower halves. Instead, that area was just a focused sphere of condensed wind…that kept them floating up to 20 to 30 centimeters above the ground. They were definitely elemental beings, with a few modifications. Unlike the usual elemental being, these monsters carried swords in their right hands, and shields in their left. They seemed to be the tank equivalent of monsters.
[Wind Surfer] (Elite, Elemental Being)
Level: 76
HP: 152,000
Defense: 400
The monsters were highly leveled. And since they were elite tier, they were too strong for almost 90% of all players of Lone Desert Smoke. Their attack could deal at least 6000 to 8000 to anyone beside Zhang Yang! Luckily, Endless Starlight and the other tanks were holding their ground. A few of the monsters had managed to pass through the defense line and were causing chaos in the castle grounds. The situation could only get worse as more of them slip in.
“Cannoneers! Aim the cannons at the most concentrated areas and fire! On my mark! Cannon number 1! Respond!” Zhang Yang commanded.
“Aye sir!” The player in charge of cannon number 1 replied, and took aim. He then loaded the Power Source Crystals and wait for Zhang Yang’s green signal.
“3,2,1 FIRE!”
“FIRE!”
BOOM!
The cannon burst out a bright ray of light and struck the area beneath the castle wall at a particularly thick clump of monsters. Not a trace was left behind.
With that strike, close to 1000 and more Wind Surfers were annihilated, leaving a void in the middle of the sea of monsters! The drawback was that they did not award any experience points or loots. Still, it was a rather spectacular sight, like seeing something out from a movie.
“Awesome! Good shot!” Everyone cheered in awe.
Being monsters, or rather simple programming, these monsters knew no fear. After witnessing their own comrades being blasted away into smithereens, they hurriedly filled in the gap and cramp together once again.
“Cannon number 2! Fire on my command!” Zhang Yang waited until the time was right and commanded cannon number 2 to aim at the same spot.
“FIRE!”
“FIRE!”
Boom!
Another shot was fired. Another void was created. The cycle continued on with cannon number 3. This time, the cannon was aimed at some place where the monster had already breeched the defense line.
The best usage of the cannon was to wait for monsters to clump up together and fire at them. Since the cannon’s damage and the size of the AoE was fixed, a good strategy was to lure all the monster together instead of waiting for them to miraculously lump together. As long as the castle gates stood, players could be situated there, where they would herd the monsters through the bottleneck. This time, it was the cannon’s turn to wipe the monsters out.
Boom! Bang! Bam!
Fearing the sixth wave of monsters, Zhang Yang had only used half of their resources for the cannons. Yet, they had only managed to kill half of the incoming monsters. How hard it was, at least it had reduced the massive burden of the tanks in the defense line at the front of the castle gates.
As the battle prolonged, there were many more player that had been sent back to White Jade Castle after accumulated three stacks of the debuff {Fallen}. With that, the defensive power of Lone Desert Smoke had hit a snag. From 19,724 players, the remaining survivor were reduced down to only 7,234 just after 20minutes into the fifth wave.
‘Ding! Wind Surfer Moriarty has entered the battle!’
Similar to the previous bosses, a huge air elemental spawned about 500 meters away from the castle wall. A hundred meter high, the boss shared the same appearance with the elite Wind Surfers. The only difference was the weapon and the shield that it was using. Instead of a sword, the boss was using a Yellow-Gold battle hammer, while carrying a torn off castle rampart as a shield. It moved at an incredible speed towards Thunderstorm Castle.
[Wind Surfer Moriarty] (Yellow-Gold, Elemental Being)
Level: 77
HP: 18,000,000
Defense: 1,400
Moriarty floated towards the side of the castle, and began pulverizing the walls with its hammer. A loud crashing sound was heard, and a large cloud of dust was formed. As the dust settled, a large, gaping hole in the wall was made.
Zhang Yang had no intentions of using the cannons to fight the boss! The magic powered cannons were strong, but they would only deal around 200,000 damage a shot. Zhang Yang would need to burn through a large sum of gold coins just to fire a few shots! Left with no other choice in hand, Zhang Yang rode on his white bear and charged towards Moriarty.
“Sha…Sha…” Speaking in an inaudible noise, Moriarty shook his “butt” and emitted a clump of white gas that spread across 40 meters out from him.
“YUCK!” As expected from well-behaved ladies of the guild, everyone pinched their nose even though there were no smell in the air. Still, it had appeared, that the giant boss had just farted at them!
Fatty Han eye’s glinted with a mischievous intent. He quickly cried out, “Do not fear! Brother Han is here! Come to me, my darlings! I will protect you!”
Sometimes, when things get out of hand, with mass panic, things might just work out the way you want them to. This time, a few girls had actually listened to Fatty Han and had ran towards his embrace.
They say that, there’s always a catch, when things seemed to work out just the way you want them to. When Fatty Han saw the faces of the girls who had come to him, he jumped and cringed, as most of them were extremely unpleasant to the eyes. He then sent a private message to Zhang Yang saying, “Boy! Next time, please set a certain level of requirement during recruitment! Don’t be inviting those ugly b*tches man! I almost crapped my pants just now!”
Zhang Yang turned around to glare at Fatty Han who was far behind the defense line and rolled his eyes. “In that case, you’ll be the first person I’ll kick out of the guild!”
“Hey! What’s that’s supposed to mean? I’m just fat! There’s nothing else wrong with me!”
Ignoring Fatty Han’s jokes and comments, Zhang Yang continued to fight the boss. When he walked into the area where the white gas had spread, Zhang Yang and white bear started to float upwards!
