“But…”
Uldan paused for a moment before looking at me. “The ice giants are very powerful. I will have to pay a huge price to bewitch them. It also means that I won’t be able to use any divine energy for about 7 days after I’ve finished bewitching them. I’ll be as useful as a cripple. In other words, this is as far as I can help you. You’ll have to finish the rest of your journey on your own.”
I nodded. “Understood. Thank you, Uldan!”
“Hehe. Let’s go!”
……
I waited until my HP had regenerated to full. The good thing about being a player was that returning to full health was the same as returning to full strength. I held Uldan in my arms, jumped and flew toward our destination.
A huge valley appeared in front of us less than three minutes later. It felt absolutely frigid, and the source of the cold was the near invisible giants meandering about in it. It was a Level 230 Ancient Immortal Rank miniboss called the Extreme Land Ice Giant. I counted at least 10,000 of them. If we could put these big guys to good use, there was definitely a chance we could kill the legendary Dihai.
Even now, I couldn’t wipe the image of Dihai’s powerful attacks and killing power from my head. The boss of the sixth floor was that powerful. Though, considering that the seventh floor was guarded by Lin Na himself, I supposed that it wasn’t so surprising after all.
“Alright, I’m about to start. All you need to do is to keep me safe during this time…” Uldan chuckled.
I nodded and floated beside her. “Don’t worry. No harm will come to you!”
“Mn!”
Once more, Uldan stuck her hand into her portable space and pulled out a bamboo green flute. A moment later, she moved it to her lips and began blowing a tune. The music was both touching and absolutely melodious. Then, I remembered that it was “Ripples of Destiny”[1]…
When the vicious ice giants heard the flute music, they all stopped doing whatever they were doing and looked at the sky. They looked like they were listening to the voice of god and submitting themselves to it. Slowly, they gathered and formed a massive group in front of us. Not even an hour had passed, and Uldan had assembled a temporary army of over 30,000 ice giants!
“Holy shit, there are so many of them…” I exclaimed in disbelief.
Uldan’s face was covered in sweat at this point. Clearly, she had to pay an unimaginable amount of divine energy to bewitch this many ice giants. After she was done, she lowered her flute and said, “This is the most I can bewitch with my ability. Now, we return to Dihai and fight him once more. Let’s see if his fiery blade will melt the ice giants, or the ice giants will extinguish his flames. I will command the ice giants to swarm Dihai later, and your job is to dish out as much damage as possible while he is kept busy. Be careful, and stay alive. As long as you remain alive, we will exhaust his strength and kill him eventually!”
I nodded. “Got it!”
I wrapped an arm around Uldan’s waist. I could feel that she had almost lost even the strength to fly.
……
We slowly flew back to Dihai with over 30,000 ice giants running after us and screaming their lungs out. I didn’t know their language, but if I had to guess they were probably shouting something like, “Don’t worry, goddess! We will die to prove our loyalty to you!” Yeah, that had to be it.
Half an hour later, we arrived at the entrance to the seventh plane of Purgatory once more. Seemingly anticipating our arrival, a fire-wreathed Dihai rose to his feet and shot us a sinister smile. “Very good, Uldan. I knew you would return with that feeble Asura God. This time, I will kill both of you!”
Dark Pupils revealed to me that Dihai’s HP had returned to full. Bosses regenerated quickly, and it probably took him half an hour at most to regenerate 17% HP, and we were gone for over an hour.
When the earth started shaking more and more, and the ice giants suddenly burst out of the forest and entered his vision, whatever confidence Dihai had had suddenly disappeared without a trace. He couldn’t help but bark furiously, “Uldan, you despicable witch! You dare bewitch the ice giants to aid you? Your Divinity is no longer pure! You have become the shame of the Purgatory!”
Uldan was weak, but she had enough strength to shoot him a disdainful smirk. “So? Since when is honor a thing in the Purgatory? Filthy things like you should’ve perished a long time ago… Go, my ice giants!!”
The ice giants roared in unison and rushed Dihai under their goddess’ command. They began throwing icicles that dealt nearly 100k damage per hit!
……
“Here I go!”
After I steadied Uldan, I zigzagged toward Dihai, unsheathed the Xuanyuan Sword, and stabbed his back using Purple Frost Concentration. Without pause, I detonated Burning Blade Slash from within his body.
“You are courting death, boy!”
Dihai turned around and slashed me with his burning blade, dealing nearly 5.7 million damage with a single Fire God Flurry. I hurriedly dashed away from him while slapping Ancient Seal on top of him. Since the ice giants were acting as my tanks, I had ample amount of time to regain my HP.
Dihai’s AI was pretty good considering that he immediately chased after me to put me down. However, the ice giants’ icicles were everywhere, and just a few seconds after he took to the sky he was literally knocked back to the ground. It was a humiliation the invincible Dihai couldn’t accept.
“You damned things! Die!”
He swung his weapon in an arc and dealt 30 million damage to the dozens of ice giants standing close to him, killing them all. He then proceeded to leap into the air and fired many blade auras, melting another hundreds of ice giants into nothing. It was the kind of grinding prowess I could never hope to achieve in a lifetime.
Although the ice giants were numerous, there was no way they could endure for long if Dihai was allowed to slaughter them at this pace. I quickly regenerated to full health and got back into the fray. I used a hit-and-run tactic so that Dihai couldn’t really do much damage to me. I was still the main damage dealer, since the damage these miniboss NPCs could do to the Divine Rank boss was limited. Whenever the Xuanyuan Sword’s septuple damage effect triggered, even Dihai couldn’t help but let out a scream of pain.
Time passed little by little. Dihai’s HP was falling gradually as well. About 50 minutes later, when his HP dropped to 15% or so, he abruptly raised his arm and roared, “Infinite flames, accept my prayer and grant me the power of the ancient gods! I, Fireblade Dihai beseech—Fire God[2] Arrival!”
Buzz!
A crack appeared in the sky, and countless jets of flames gushed out of it. They entered Dihai’s body and formed the image of a giant above his head. At the same time, I received a system announcement—
Combat Log: Fireblade Dihai uses the skill “Fire God Arrival.” His Attack, Defense and speed is increased by 40%, and he gains the skill “Blazing Purgatory”!
……
Blazing Purgatory?
Dihai gave me no chance to be surprised. He opened his palm, and the 100-yard radius area in front of him abruptly erupted with flames. Nearly a thousand ice giants were caught in the sea of flames and turned into tiny pools of water in just an instant. It truly was a devastating skill!
I looked around and noted that the ice giants’ numbers had decreased considerably. There were at most 10,000 of them left. At this rate, Dihai would be able to kill them all in just a moment, and that would spell my doom.
Once again, I hit him with Burning Blade Slash + War Crush combo while dashing past him. Then, I turned around and cast a long-range Dragon Slaying Slash and Myriad Swords Obliteration. I was doing nearly everything I could to maximize my DPS and take the boss out as soon as possible!
……
Whoosh!
This time, I was the one who was burned alive by Dihai’s ultimate skill, Blazing Purgatory. I had lost nearly 4 million HP in one go. Thankfully, I was able to heal myself with Tenacity of the Dead before dishing out even more damage. It was do or die!
The ice giants kept being slaughtered by Dihai. All too soon, their numbers had dwindled to just a couple hundred while Dihai still had 3% HP or so. I was very anxious as a matter of course. The boss had 1.5 billion HP, and 1% of that was 15 million HP, so 3% equaled to 45 million HP. How the hell was I going to delete that last chunk of HP before the ice giants were all dead[3]?
There was nothing else to do except increasing my pace and hacking away at the boss’s remaining HP. In the end, the last ice giants were slaughtered like pigs by Dihai!
……
“Get out of my way, you damned brat!”
He hit me with his blade and knocked me at least dozens of meters away from him. I lost nearly 3 million HP and dropped to less than 40% HP once more.
Dihai laughed madly as he abruptly vanished from his spot. The next moment, he appeared in front of Uldan and swung his blade at her!
Chiang!
Uldan just barely parried the attack with her bow, but Dihai kicked it out of the way and stabbed her through the chest before she could react. I could even see the tip of his blade poking out of her cloak…
……
“ULDAN!”
Fear seized my heart like a vice. I charged toward Dihai with all my speed, opened a pair of bloody wings behind me, and used Xuanyuan Slash!
A chilly sensation assaulted my wrist at the perfect moment. This attack would deal 7 times, no, 14 times more damage than normal because it also happened to be a critical hit! Even the Scarlet Dragon Flames of my Scarlet Dragon Armor had triggered at this exact moment!
BOOM!
19,971,558!
That was nearly 20 million damage in an instant, but it still failed to kill Dihai. I backed away from the boss, healed myself to full health with the Xuanyuan Art, and downed a potion and a consumable. After both my HP and MP were full, I raised the Xuanyuan Sword and activated my greatest skill—Purple Dragon Howl!
“Roar!”
The dragon-shaped energy engulfed the boss and dealt a ton of damage to him. For a time, Dihai couldn’t stop screaming.
Finally, Dihai’s last chunk of HP was gone, and I fell uncontrollably from the sky due to the Weakened status condition. I landed in a pit that was caused by the Xuanyuan Slash, and Uldan fell right next to me. Dihai himself was still falling from the sky together with his pile of loot.
Swhoosh!
A column of golden light surrounded me, and I officially reached Level 270.
……
“Uldan… Uldan…”
I crawled up to Uldan and held up her face. She asked me, “Did we defeat him?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We did. We killed Dihai…”
Her head tilted to one side, and she said, “This is as far as I can help you…”
……
“Don’t die, Uldan!” My sorrowful scream resounded throughout the canyon.
Uldan slowly opened her eyes again and said in a slightly resentful tone, “I’m still alive, friend. Stop cursing me…”
1. T/N: Theme song of Chinese Paladin 5 ☜
2. E/N: If Lu Chen was a god gamer, it would go like this: “I, Fireblade Dihai beseech—Fire G- MAD GOD LUNGE FUUUUUUUUUQ RIGHT OFF ☜
3. E/N: He managed to chunk 17% earlier, now he’s worried about 3%? He can probably just use invincibility skill when ice giants had run out and brute-force it. ☜
