Midnight, Myriad Poison Cave, Second Floor.

It had been five or six hours since we entered the second floor. The corpses of Venomous Twin-headed Snakes and Poison Beautiflies littered the narrow, winding cavern we were in. Nobody knew how many elite mobs we had killed, only that our levels had skyrocketed since the beginning of the battle!

As the highest damage dealer of the party, I was currently sitting at Level 69, 17% EXP. When I first entered Myriad Poison Cave, I was at Level 67, 81% EXP. It was obvious to everyone that leveling only got harder and harder, so my current leveling speed was absolutely nothing to scoff at!

Swoosh!

A beam of golden light surrounded He Yi as she leveled up to 60. She was the lowest-leveled player in our party, and now she was finally qualified to undergo her third class promotion!

Swhoosh...

There was another flash of light, and a pair of wristguards with fire running across their surface wrapped around He Yi’s arms, drastically improving her Defense. These were the Azure Wolf Wristguards. They were the first step of He Yi toward becoming a high-Defense magic knight!

Murong Mingyue smiled. “Tsk, it’s past 1 am already. Are we going to finish this quest or what?”

He Yi nodded and smiled back. “Of course! A chance to grind experience like this doesn’t come very often, and we can’t let Lu Chen and his amazing quest down, can we?”

“But staying up late will cause endocrine dyscrasia…”

“It’s fine, it’s only today,” I consoled her.

In the end, Murong Mingyue curled her lips and acquiesced, “Fine. Let’s keep killing then!”

…...

“Hiss hiss…”

After a Venomous Twin-headed Snake died, I opened my palm and cried out “Death Plunder” softly. Three brownish scales entered my hand in the next moment.

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have foraged Venomous Snake Scale x3!

I took a look. It was a Rank 6 armor crafting material, and it added 5% poison resistance when applied to a leather armor. Not bad. 5% poison resistance means slightly more survivability and recovery after being stabbed by Assassin's Poisoned Weapon. Long story short, with enough poison resistance, anyone could become impervious to any poison.

He Yi also took a look at the crafting material before smiling at me. “Is it useful?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll keep this for Yamete. I’ve collected almost a thousand of them, and he should be able to create a lot of poison-resistant leather armor pieces.”

He Yi smiled. “Mn!”

Speaking of which, we were almost at the end of the second floor. Beiming Xue let out a yawn before complaining in disappointment, “It doesn’t look like there’s a boss on the second floor, does it?”

But I looked around and found a partially hidden red dot on the mini map. It wasn’t too far away from us!

Heh, here comes the boss!

I pointed to the south and declared, “Everyone, boss battle ahead! Please restore yourselves to full immediately!”

“Oh?”

The girls were surprised, but they obeyed my orders and started chugging HP pots and Magic Consumables. I had proven my gaming knowledge and prediction abilities many times throughout the quest, and in a sense it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim that I had completely conquered them with my hardcore experience and technique. Mentally speaking, of course.

Gripping the Ghost Ice Soul, I carefully scouted ahead with the Dark Wasp beside me. When I turned a corner, I immediately saw a crouching giant about 50 yards away from me. The distance was why it didn’t attack me immediately, not to mention that I was hiding behind a clump of poisonous bushes anyway, so it couldn’t possibly spot me even if I was close enough to draw aggro.

I suddenly felt a soft feeling behind me. It was He Yi grabbing my arm, leaning on me and poking her head out of the wall to check out the boss. She looked like a pretty little thief.

“Yah, so big…” He Yi exclaimed in admiration.

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s big, isn’t it?”

Murong Mingyue, Beiming Xue and Moonlight Stone also poked their heads out around this time. I couldn’t help but laugh at the comedic sight of ourselves before joking, “If an enemy was waiting for us right here, they could probably kill five birds with one stone if they sliced our necks from top to bottom!”

He Yi snorted before patting me on the shoulder. “Time to go. We’ll cheer for you from behind!”

I raised my Ghost Ice Soul and boldly strode forward. It was only a boss. Why would I have anything to fear from the symbol of wealth and divine items? Come at me, my new challenger!

But I was starting to feel weak in the knees when I had shortened our distance to 30 yards or so, and the reason was very simple. The fucker was a three-meter tall giant scorpion with a pair of huge pincers that looked like they were made of steel, and a body that looked like it was clad in greenish armor. But none of these characteristics came even close to being as terrifying as the scorpion’s tail, a venomous sting that literally glowed with a green light and looked sharp enough to pierce pretty much anything. I didn’t want to imagine how much “ecstasy” it would bring to be stung by it!

Myriad Poison Scorpion King (Golden Rank Boss)

Level: 72

Attack: 550~750

Defense: 620

HP: 100000

Skills: Slash, Poison Sting, Poison Needle Storm

Properties: 100% poison resistance, 45% magic damage resistance, 25% physical damage resistance

Introduction: The scorpion king transformed into a terrifying creature after absorbing an unfathomable volume of poisonous gas into itself during its reign in Myriad Poison Cave. It is said that those who killed the Myriad Poison Scorpion King will obtain a tenacious armor and a poisonous blade.

…...

I snorted at the introductory text and shared its stat screen inside the party channel. At the same time, I laughed. “It looks like this boss has a 100% chance to drop an armor and a weapon. Do your best, everyone! I’m ready anytime you guys are!”

Murong Mingyue said, “Lu Chen, this Myriad Poison Scorpion King’s Attack is no weaker than yours! You’d better be careful!”

“Mn. It’s no shame to admit that its Attack is totally higher than mine!”

I raised my sword and laughed again. “Come out, everyone. Beiming Xue, use Evil Spirit Volley to lure the boss over. I’ll use Charge to intercept it midway. Sis, please make sure you focus your healing on me. I’m sure this boss won’t be as easy as the last one, so be ready to die once or twice for the cause!”

“Got it!”

The girls stopped hiding themselves and got to open ground. Following my orders, Beiming Xue drew her bow to its fullest, 8 iron arrows nocked. All of them were shrouded in ghastly souls whose bloodcurdling screams made my scalp tingle. Be it in terms of visual effects or actual power, Evil Spirit Volley was one of a kind!

Thud thud thud…

Beiming Xue “flicked” arrow after arrow at the boss in front of her. Bow flicking was an advanced technique that tested archer’s reaction speed and judgement. Just like Volley, the direction of Evil Spirit Volley’s arrows was completely random. As a result, it was up to the player to use the bow flick mechanic when shooting the arrows to correct their path and shoot their intended target. With a skill that fired 8 arrows in just two seconds, it wasn’t an easy feat to perform at all!

However, Beiming Xue was a strong, mechanically-skilled player, and bow flicking was a piece of cake to her. The average player’s hit rate was less than 20%, but Beiming Xue consistently hit over 50% of her shots!

Six out of eight arrows she fired struck the boss dead-on and erupted like mini bombs across its surface, causing the purple flames and energy shockwaves all over its shell. Every shot dealt at least 200–300 damage to the boss!

Damn, the scorpion king’s Defense was very impressive!

“Roar!”

The Gold Rank boss roared and awakened from its slumber. It started rushing toward Beiming Xue like the wind while clapping its pincers like they were the scissors of death.

“Everyone, watch out!”

Beiming Xue jumped a couple steps backward and fired another shot at the boss, a Devil Piercing Arrow this time. The girl was still young, but her skill and movement were starting to look like a true bow master’s!

…...

I immediately charged the boss and drew its attention to me instead. All of us would die if I failed to maintain its aggro on me!

Swhoosh!

A successful stun later, I dragged my sword ruthlessly across the scorpion king’s shell. I could see that its armor was thinner around the head, so I was sure that I had struck a weak point!

Ice Ray! Slayer Slash!

784!

822!

As I thought, my attacks penetrated most of its Defense. Although it was still largely weakened by the enemy’s protective shell, it wasn’t an impossible foe to kill!

Icicles started forming around the scorpion king’s shell thanks to Ice Ray. I wasn’t able to aggro the boss yet, but Ice Ray slowed its movement speed massively and gave me the opportunity to attack it a few more times. Finally, the gigantic creature stopped chasing after Beiming Xue and swung its pincer toward me.

Very good. Had I chosen Blaze as my skill during Level 50, our party would have been in danger already. Clearly, Ice Ray was the skill to pick for a control-type melee fighter!

Splash!

While the boss was swinging its pincer, it activated Slash and hit me on the shoulder!

Clang!

Sparks burst out from the point of contact and sent tremors throughout my body like a drum. My shoulder burned like something had torn through my flesh. Heaven knows just how powerful this scorpion king was!

1237!

Four digits! An incredible amount of damage!

He Yi’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Heavens, this boss can hit Lu Chen for four digits? This… this is starting to look a bit dicey. Kill the bastard!”

Beiming Xue continued to rain arrows on the boss, Moonlight Stone cast her Ice Dragon Howl again and again. Unfortunately, the amount of damage they were able to deal was fairly limited, especially Moonlight Stone, since the boss had a property that negated almost half of the magic damage she was dealing. This meant that Beiming Xue and I were the only real damage dealers in our party right now!

The Dark Wasp attacked the boss 4 times in a row and deleted about 2000 HP from its health bar. Not bad, my pet! It was doing far more damage than Beiming Xue at the moment at least!

Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh...

Murong Mingyue did everything she could to put me in the green, but this boss’s Attack was beyond her ability to manage. Every time it hit me, it dealt around 500 to 1000 points of damage. If the sucker managed to get a critical hit, I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen to me!

“Lu Chen—Lu Chen I can’t keep you alive…” Murong Mingyue yelled mid-battle.

Turning around in a hurry, I ordered the Dark Wasp to take a hit for me while I drank a Rank 6 Health Potion!

+1500!

Tsk tsk, super potions are the best! Look! I’m back at full health again!

He Yi didn’t involve herself in the battle because she could see that the boss absolutely had the power to one-shot her. Having nothing better to do, she started roleplaying a commentator out of nowhere and commented, “Heavens, even Lu Chen is forced to drink pots and put his life on the line. Ladies and gentlemen, this boss is definitely a force to be reckoned with…”