Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
Although there were a few of them who were level 15, Mu Zi Xian had started the game the latest so she naturally had the worst equipment. She was practically wearing the equipment she obtained from the beginner village!
Clinton was an Independent mode boss so he naturally didn’t follow the conventional aggro system. For bosses like these, they would usually go for the weakest player first.
Aside from this, Clinton also had another special feature for his aggro. Being an ex knight himself, he preferred to go for players who had chosen his old job first.
Of course for a level 40 boss like Clinton, there wasn’t much of a difference between a level 15 Knight or Priest. Both could be killed with but a single attack from him.
Mu Zi Xian was more inclined towards being a strategist instead of an actual fighter. So the moment she saw the mass of black flames flying towards her she immediately crouched down and started screaming in fear.
Just as it looked like she was about to die, a bright light suddenly flashed and Wang Yu appeared right in front of her and blocked the flames with his [Energy Shield]. In just one attack from Clinton, Wang Yu had ended up losing two fifths of his health even with a defensive skill of his own!
[Dark Fire] was a skill that had a 1 seconds stun as well. It was only because Wang Yu had used [Energy Shield] that he wasn’t affected by it.
“?” Seeing his skill blocked, Clinton froze on the spot and cocked his head in confusion for a brief second before madly charging towards the party.
Spring Halo hurriedly waved his staff and summoned the little ghosts and formed them into a crescent formation to block Clinton. However, one slash by Clinton was more than enough to instantly annihilate all six of the little ghosts.
In response, Spring Halo repeatedly casted [Contagion] and [Plague] to slow Clinton down. Taking advantage of this, Spring Halo then casted [Distortion] to lock Clinton in place.
As a boss, Clinton naturally had a high resistance to crowd control skills. Within less than a second, Clinton had already escaped from the effects of [Distortion] and even crushed the spell itself! Even the slows from Spring Halo’s previous spells had already worn off…
The AI of an Independent Mode boss was truly a frightening thing. Clinton was a level 40 Elite boss so how could he swallow the same of being restrained by a mere level 20 Dark Shaman? With a loud roar, he brandished his greatsword and slashed towards Spring Halo.
Clinton’s greatsword was exactly two meters long so within that range there was nowhere to dodge at all. In the blink of an eye, his blade had already appeared in front of Spring Halo’s face…
“Poof…” With a light explosion, Spring Halo’s body turned into a lump of black smoke and he floated to the back of the party.
Since Spring Halo had always acted as the main tank when they fought, his sudden disappearance left a gaping hole in their formation.
Defiant Tiger and Sanguine Primrose were both Crusaders so they were more focussed on offense. Although Mu Zi Xian was a Templar, she was only here to make up the numbers. At the critical moment, Crotch Lord used [Charge] to rush over at replace Spring Halo and hurriedly raised his own shield to block Clinton’s attack. Taking another step forward, Crotch Lord swung his sword and struck Clinton’s knee.
-192
Since Clinton’s knee wasn’t covered by his armour, Crotch Lord’s attack managed to stagger him slightly.
He then rushed forward again, this time dodging to the back of Clinton. He then swapped to only a one handed sword around before striking Clinton’s calf with [Heavy Strike].
-227
Seeing these two sets of blood red numbers floating above Clinton’s head, Defiant Tiger once again found himself dumbfounded.
What shocked Defiant Tiger wasn’t the fact that Crotch Lord had used a one handed weapon with two hands, it was that his damage was incredibly high!
Before a Guardian reached level 20, they would only be able to use a shield. However after reaching level 20 and completing their job advancement, they would receive a talent called [Doublehand].
Although this talent allowed Guardians to wield two weapons at once, it didn’t truly allow them to dual wield. The secondary had would still be weaker than the main hand and still relied on the attributes of the weapon that was equipped in it.
Hene, most Guardians would choose to equip a shield in their main hand so that they would be more durable at the cost of their damage.
192 damage was probably the absolute limit of the damage that a Guardian could deal even if he had weapon in his main hand. However, Crotch Lord’s attack had exceeded this value even though he had attack with a weapon in his off hand! Such a thing was truly beyond Defiant Tiger’s realm of understanding.
“What’s going on here? I’ve never heard of a Guardian who could dual wield…” Defiant Tiger quizzically asked the nearby Ivory Emperor.
“He’s changing his main hand!” Ivory Emperor immediately replied. As an expert on par with those in the Quan Zhen Sect, all it took was a single glance for him to see through Crotch Lord’s trick.
“Changing his main hand? What’s that supposed to mean?” Defiant Tiger asked again.
“It means he’s changing which hand he sets as his main one! When he wants to attack then he changes it to the one holding the sword and then changes it back when he needs to block!” Ivory Emperor explained.
“You can do that???” The idea that one could freely change which hand was their main hand while in the heat of battle was something that Defiant Tiger hadn’t even considered before.
While the two of them were talking Crotch Lord had changed back to a shield and saber and and was currently blocking another of Clinton’s attacks. Meanwhile, Fearless, Sanguine Azalea and Little Yi were all rushing to heal him.
Seeing that Clinton’s aggro had successfully been pulled by Crotch Lord, the other long ranged dps began to start attacking.
Instead of rushing forward to attack, Boson, Vainglory and Frost Blade all stay at the back lines to protect Yang Nuo, Ivory Emperor and Ming Du.
They all knew that Independent Mode bosses had their own aggro system so Crotch Lord wouldn’t be able to pull it for long.
Sanguine Primrose and Defiant Tiger hadn’t fought an Independent Mode boss before so they simply charged forward to attack as per the usual bossing strategy.
Ignorance truly was the greatest enemy of man…
Clinton’s gimmick was that he would always target a Knight if he had the opportunity. No matter who he was locked on to, as long as a Knight entered his attack range the would immediately start attacking them.
The moment these two attacked, CLinton immediately ignored Crotch Lord and swung his greatsword towards them. At the same time, he also waved his scepter and summoned another ball of black flames and threw it towards Sanguine Primrose.
“Peng!” When Clinton had turned around, Crotch Lord immediately activated [Charge] and rushed towards Sanguine Primrose to knock her out of the way of Clinton’s spell.
When Sanguine Primrose was knocked out of Clinton’s attack range, he then set his sights onto Defiant Tiger.
“Duang!” With a mini explosion, an arrow was suddenly wedged into Clinton’s skull, knocking his back and even briefly stunning him.
Taking advantage of this opening, Defiant Tiger activated a movement skill as well and retreated back to the party to receive healing.
After Clinton recovered from the stun, he stabbed his greatsword into the ground and reached for one of Spring Halo’s little ghosts. Instead of killing the ghost, Clinton actually stuffed it into his mouth!
+5000
After swallowing it, a large green number appeared on top of his head.
“F**k!!!” Crotch Lord cried out. This was too much! All the damage that Crotch Lord had done would only be around 1000 in total. WIth the help of the ranged dps, they had only done roughly 7000 damage in total. Yet with a single skill, Clinton had managed to recover more than half of that…
Without any pause, Clinton grabbed another little ghost and stuffed it into his mouth again.
+5000… full health…
“Urk! This bastard…” Seeing this tears started streaming down Crotch Lord’s face. This boss was too shameless…
“This… How’re we going to deal with him?” Sanguine Primrose asked Fearless.
“Just do whatever you want!” Fearless chuckled.
Not only did using [Swallow] heal Clinton, it even gave him a stack of a buff <Consumer>
<Devourer (2 stacks)>: Attack increased by 2%, attack speed increased by 2%, all normal attacks carry a knock back effect.
“Gegege, how delicious! As thanks, you can all go to hell!!!” Clinton wildly laughed as he picked up his greatsword again. ‘
With a swing of his sword, Clinton knocked Crotch Lord back more than five meters. When Crotch Lord landed, there was a large red ball floating above his head.
<Fatality>: Lose 1% of maximum health every second. Lasts 20 seconds.
“Boson, help me!!” Crotch Lord shouted as he continued to block Clinton’s attacks.
Hearing his cries, the nearby Boson quickly used [Charge] to rush over. Under the coverfire from Ming Du’s spells, he was able to safely get to Crotch Lord.
[Tornado Slash]!
[Heavy Strike]!
[Triple Slash]!
[Fatal Strike]!
Weapons Masters were masters of close combat and Boson could be considered one of the best. Although his equipment wasn’t one of the best in the Quan Zhen Sect, in terms of skills, he was definitely one of the top three.
After all, Boson was using Independent Mode just like Wang Yu and Vainglory.
Boson had previously went overseas to study for three years. During this time he had picked up some swordplay. In terms of foundations, he was even better than Vainglory.
When Boson fought, he constantly activated and cancelled his skills at a high speed. His grasp of timing and the rhythm of his attacks were on a different level from even ordinary users of Independent Mode. When Warriors used their skills three would usually be a wind up or a telegraph. But under Boson’s control everything linked together fluidly.
In one combo, Boson had chained together eight different attacks and skills and dealt over 5000 damage.
With another roar, Clinton slashed towards Boson and Crotch Lord again.
Boson immediately twisted his body and dodged behind Crotch Lord who raised his shield and blocked Clinton’s attack again.
“Duang!!!”
When Clinton’s sword clashed with Crotch Lord’s shield, it emitted an ear piercing screech and Crotch Lord’s health instantly plummeted. Fortunately Fearless was already prepared and casted a few healing spells to save him.
Clinton then turned around to find another target to attack but Boson had already expected that and slashed down on his calf again while Crotch Lord used [Shield Bash] to stagger him.
With two Warriors working in unison and coordinating their attack and defense, Clinton was beaten back every time they clashed. It was almost as though they had successfully pulled the aggro of this Independent Mode boss.
Behind the two of them, behind the two of them, Ming Du and the others repeatedly rained down attack after attack on Clinton, competently ignoring the whole aggro system. It’s wasn’t that Clinton didn’t have one, it was just that he couldn’t get away from Crotch Lord and Boson.
Watching this scene, Sanguine Primrose couldn’t help but feel that she too was nothing more than a calefare to fill the numbers…