"The Flame Dragon·Greedy Hoarder's greed instinct has been triggered."
"Hate value decaying."
"Hate…"
Everyone except Orson was stunned. Alerts kept popping up on the battle log.
The Flame Dragon · Greedy Hoarder completely ignored the players' hate value and dove headfirst into the rocky rubble, frantically digging for treasure.
"Want to get those coins? Guess you'll have to take a few more hits."
Orson chuckled to himself, activating Whisper of the Wind to continuously channel his Magic Eye output.
In an instant, more than ten Chaos Magic Balls shot out from the Magic Eye, traveling through the space channel and crashing out of the Mirror of Folding. Accelerated five times by the Mirror of Folding, they turned into chaotic meteors that rapidly struck the Greedy Hoarder through the rubble.
-2500
Critical Hit -5000
Burn -8000
…
Massive damage numbers flashed in the battle log. ShatteredCrown and the others' scalps tingled—this output efficiency was equivalent to a small mage squad attacking together.
What was even more terrifying was that the target was still nearly 10 kilometers away. How could they hit from so far?
"God, I'm so short, I hate this! I don't deserve to be your disciple!"
ShatteredCrown screamed to the sky. This was the pain of a mage, the sorrow of a caster!
ShatteredCrown roared, "Food! I need food! Bring me a ton of Holy Food!"
BlackStockings twitched three black lines on her forehead and sighed, "If Young Master keeps eating like this, he's going to burst."
ShatteredCrown didn't care. With a plate of leftover fried rice in hand, he forced himself to eat until his hunger gauge was maxed out.
Meanwhile, The Flame Dragon · Greedy Hoarder continued, obsessed with its own nature—like a bird who dies for food, or a dragon who dies for coins. Despite Orson's brutal output, it kept digging through the rubble, searching for gold.
The Flame Dragon screamed in pain, its head scorched from the chaos fireballs. Finally, it managed to dig out a pile of coins from the muddy earth and let out a satisfying roar. Its red wings flared as it flew off in search of more "treasure."
"Foolish," Orson smiled, watching the dragon. Just like Empress had said, lower-tier dragons embodied human negative emotions.
Empress: "I understand now. No wonder you knew exactly how to deal with these two dragons when you saw their attributes."
Empress: "Greedy Hoarder... it means greedy, right? As long as there are coins, it will blindly prioritize them, with players being secondary."
Orson nodded. Her observation wasn't fully accurate, but close. It aligned with the seven deadly sins of humanity:
Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Pride, Lust, Wrath.
But the higher the dragon's level, the more self-control it had. To restrain greed, one would need to be at the level of a Guardian such as Burns. Even Burns, though, had been tempted by the Frost Dragon treasure, and hadn't he flown right out of Pondenorlin City?
It was clear that Greedy Hoarder was still naive, unable to resist its greedy nature. All it saw was gold.
Despite the constant barrage of chaos fireballs that quickly dropped its health by over a million, it kept circling in the air, searching for more coins.
With a swoosh, The Flame Dragon dove again into the rubble. Orson checked the cooldown on his God King Earrings and decisively sped up his output.
He didn't rush for the kill, continuing with insane attack speed and basic attacks.
If he used skills like Celestial Descent or Brahma's Divine Flame, there was a risk. One, the sudden output would increase the hate value, causing the dragon's greed threshold to be surpassed, potentially making it target him instead of the coins.
Two, if Greedy Hoarder and its sibling, Gluttonous Devourer, were too close, attracting both would mess up the plan.
The Flame Dragon, taking damage, swallowed a large pile of coins, its beastly eyes gleaming with greed, repeatedly flying up and diving back into the rubble.
"Good thing we have two big spenders around, or this tactic wouldn't work," Orson muttered to himself.
He had buried 100,000 gold coins himself, with ShatteredCrown contributing 500,000 and Empress 200,000. That's how they had created this treasure scene.
If they had just thrown a few hundred coins, it would have been nearly impossible to lure the dragon out. With its pride, The Flame Dragon wouldn't have bothered digging up such small sums of gold, no matter how tempting.
A few minutes later, Greedy Hoarder flew towards the fifth treasure spot.
The Magic Eye and Mirror of Folding were no longer visible. Orson's God King Earrings entered cooldown.
Greedy Hoarder's health had dropped by over 9 million.
Empress: "What now? Your God King Earrings can't be used anymore, and we'll have to rely on equipment skills for long-range strikes, right?"
"You seem to know a lot about my methods, Empress." Orson turned, his gaze sharp as a blade.
The God King Earrings were a magic-restraining accessory, currently ranked number one in the earring category. The information on the leaderboard was very limited, yet Empress somehow knew that the earrings could extend his attack range and allow him to lock on targets. That was interesting.
Empress flushed slightly, embarrassed. She explained, "I had nothing to do with it; the information was analyzed by Slaughter Demon Emperor and others. It's all on the official forum."
"No, something feels off. It's like everyone's been on guard against me."
Orson shook his head, muttering, "How could I not be the one to take you through high-difficulty instances? Who else could you trust?"
"You all don't feel guilty at all?"
Orson gave them a pained look. Empress and Chef were momentarily stunned. They rolled their eyes in silent disdain.
"Seriously, who do you think you are? Always threatening to wipe out the entire map! Always talking about slaying dragons and killing demons!"
Even though they were allies, who wasn't afraid of Orson's unpredictability? The top guilds weren't fools—no matter how close their relationships, conflicts of interest could always break bonds.
They had to keep a backup plan, Godslayer—and their target? The very person standing in front of them.
"Right, you guys don't feel guilty? My Master has been so good to me, and you're scheming behind his back! How could you!"
ShatteredCrown jumped up, scolding the others.
BlackStockings: "I thought you knew. You signed for those twenty-something analysts, didn't you?"
ShatteredCrown: "What? I thought they were some kind of business girls..."
ShatteredCrown awkwardly laughed. Orson wasn't fazed. He quickly became serious.
"If another business girl comes in, make sure to send two my way! I've got important matters to handle."
"Ha, Master, I feel like I've found a kindred spirit!" ShatteredCrown let out a weird laugh.
"Two lunatics, the more I watch, the more disgusting they seem," Empress muttered under her breath, unable to retort.
As they laughed and joked, Empress suddenly cried out, "It's healing! 30,000 health per second! My God!"
"Small problem."
Orson was calm, having predicted the situation. He activated Ice Prison Ring at maximum power, covering a 5-kilometer radius.
"Master, are you the devil?"
ShatteredCrown's back was covered in cold sweat. The plains around them froze, and all the level 40 monsters roaming nearby were frozen and burned.
The monsters swarmed in, only to quickly freeze and burn into ash.
Meanwhile, Greedy Hoarder reached the 5-kilometer Ice Prison Ring area, its wings froze mid-air, and it plummeted to the ground, taking massive damage.
-100,000 damage!
-130 frostbite damage!
The dragon shook off the ice shards and tried to lift off again, but it was forced to break its healing process.
Orson started to swing his staff, casting Chaos Magic Balls blindly.
His dark eyes flickered as he switched back and forth between the mini-map markers and the battle log.
After launching more than twenty Chaos Magic Balls, damage numbers finally appeared in the log.
"Looks like the boss is within range of the 5-kilometer ring!"
Empress stared in shock, "I thought you buried the coins so far away just to time the God King Earrings' cooldown, and you predicted the error margin would be under five seconds? You only allowed the boss to recover less than 150,000 health?"
"To be exact, I overestimated the speed of the Greedy Hoarder's flight... this dragon is too young," Orson said, shaking his head.
BlackStockings looked pale, muttering, "He's the devil."