When Tanke said he would taunt the infamous beast, the cultivators did not expect him to do it in such a stunning manner. The Panda Guardian never hesitated despite fighting against a beast of such a large stature as he rushed onto the stumbling Nian with a shield charge.
Tanke’s chi accumulated towards his shield, staring down the Nian and with each step, he shouted to attract as much as possible. Even as Nian tried to stabilise itself, it knew that the Panda Guardian was racing towards it and thus remained in a defensive position. However, it did not anticipate Tanke to shift his body weight and performed an uppercut with his shield, utilising the opening the Pandarens created to strike.
The Demon Lion Beast being slammed on its face head on, subconsciously stepped backwards as it still needed some time to recover from the blunt smash on its chin and get used to its loss of vision. Yet, the Elder Pandarens had no intentions of giving it such an opportunity. Jing Yu aimed for the limbs while Xia Mao went for its sides. Zi Dan, with his cultivation managed to move towards the back of Nian to attack it. He nimbly sped through the sides (although he nearly fall because of the beach sand) and zoomed towards its butt.
Despite the three-pronged attack, the Nian was still powerful enough to retaliate whereas their damage was sharply negated. The scales on the body were absorbing the damage rather well and Jing Yu’s stabs could only reveal a crack on Nian’s dragon-like scales while the torso slash was not much more effective. Even Zi Dan’s back attack had been instinctively repelled by Nian’s tail.
The same could not be said about the counterattack by Nian nearly which nearly obliterated Jing Yu when she tried to repeat the attack for the second time. Its battled honed reflexes went for the blades as if it learnt how those blades moved and subsequently went forward to strike the ‘caster’. Thankfully, Tanke’s reaction as a Guardian was fast enough to block the attack by putting himself at the middle to intervene the strike. But this partially caused him and Jing Yu to fly backwards.
Nian himself was an altered monster boss based on the Burning Lion’s data, one of Weslie’s Four Cardinal Guardians who had protected the Farming World. Jin had experimented on making it a little more predictable while creating new moves for the monster so there would be exciting mechanics for the cultivators to weather through.
There was actually a threat meter that had been implemented by Jin yet it was not visible for the cultivators for now. The purpose of the tank in the party was to maintain the highest threat meter so that their offensive players could continue to dish out damage.
That was why those Guardian type NPCs were programmed in such a way to generate as much of the threat meter as possible. Without any prior explanations about this concept, it was mostly the younger generation parties who utilised their knowledge from games.
After everything Jin had done to give this team an advantage over his other customers, he still felt that they might not be able to clear the dungeon instance if they did not catch on to the passive mechanics of the Holy Trinity.
“Are you alright?” Heala asked as she rushed towards Jing Yu and Tanke with her staff shining with magical powers.
“Heal our tank first! He took the brunt of the damage!” The Hungry
Condor Cultivator told their healer as she grabbed a potion from her side waist pouch and drank it.
“This is way harder than I had expected!” Zi Dan sighed as he stood up, trying to shake off the experience of the tail whacking him.
“That must be why Boss Jin insisted that we would need a dedicated guardian and healer to go into this dungeon instance. There’s got to be an underlying meaning to his actions!” Xia Mao thought out loud as he picked his scimitars up.
“Anyone else has the feeling that the Nian is still pulling its punches? You saw how it managed to control the tide waves when we tried to sail towards it.”
“Are you suggesting we should try to lure it away from the beach and go further inland before we enter into a more difficult phase?” Xiao Mao asked as he could see Nian had already recovered from the stun and was observing the prey that had pissed it off so much.
“Damn, this monster is intelligent as well!” Zi Dan could feel the menacing gaze from Nian as he tried to move a step forward.
“Have no fear! TANKE WILL PROTECT YOU!” The Panda Guardian shouted as he bashed his warhammer on his circular shield like a gong attracting Nian’s attention. Given that there were no orders from the Pandarens, Tanke proceeded with his initial setting, which was to taunt the Demon Beast away from them, so the cultivators could attempt to attack.
Xia Mao was observing the fight and contemplated their options. Staying at the shores might prove to be a dangerous endeavour to fight the monstrous Nian. The beach was open with no covers to take advantage of, and its manipulation of the tidal waves might prove to be a hassle for the group later on.
Then again going inland might not be much better either. He had no idea what awaited them, but after participating in many of Jin’s dungeons, he expected that there should at least be something inside that could change the balance of the battle.
Still, things could go south if this wasn’t the actual Boss and more appeared inland, but it also meant that there might be some good spots they could utilise to fight such a monster. Perhaps if they were lucky, they could chance upon a few extra weapons to help them overcome it.
“Surely we can buy some instant items from the shop to get a bonus rocket launcher, but damn, I’m not rich to that extent!” Xia Mao thought to himself as he even considered trying to overcome the situation by pouring more money into the current problem.
“Stupid! That is only for raid instances! Remember how we try to buy a few items and they only gave us a box of potions?!” Zi Dan shouted, forcing Xia Mao to recalled that Boss Jin had previously promised to only allow such a brute force method for his raids.
“So team leader, what is your plan?!” Zi Dan asked as the Nian was getting only more difficult to fight.
“Fuck it! Let’s run further in. It is definitely better than staying stuck here with the unstable ground because of the sand.” Xia Mao decided as the current situation didn’t look good. Without Heala, their Panda Guardian would have long since been totally overwhelmed.
“Understood!” Jing Yu said as she conjured even more blades from her storage ring. She agreed to the choice as Heala definitely could use the break. If she ran out of mana, it would not take long for their Panda Guardian to fall and subsequently the rest of the team.
With the manipulation of the blades via her long strips of cloth, it allowed Tanke to move while holding Nian’s attention. In the meantime, Zi Dan, with his speedy cultivation, moved further into the island to scout for a safe place to fight.
They might not be aware that the current dungeon doubled as their proving grounds to get the Pandawan Status, but as always, they would give it their best shot to win. For this was their hobby, and the thrill of the hunt had never been better than what they were feeling right now.
