In the next instant, golden blades started raining down on us as they covered an area of roughly 50 yards around the dragon. After that, these barrier blades shattered, causing huge amounts of damage to the players around it!

I had managed to get out of the boss’ attack radius by locking onto Moonlight Stone and activating Thunderous Charge, my increased movement speed allowing me to get out of its range. He Yi and Gui Guzi’s mounts were fast enough, so they both managed to successfully dodge this AoE attack as well. Fortunately for us, Xu Yang, Li Chengfeng and all of our core melee fighters were smart enough to have retreated before I even yelled my warning, so they had managed to scramble to the sidelines as well.

However, nearly thirty of our melee players hadn’t been able to dodge the boss’ sudden attack. So when those golden blades started to shatter, all of them immediately collapsed to the ground, not a single survivor remained as damage numbers over fifty thousand popped up above their heads.

Holy shit, even I wouldn’t be able to survive an attack like that! I’d probably be one-shot as well! Fighting a Level 155 Earth Rank boss was really biting off a little more than we could chew. We could still tank its normal attacks and skills, but the moment it started using its ultimate moves, the only option left to us was to retreat.

……

The boss’s Golden Barrier Blade skill lasted for nearly thirty seconds. As the dazzling golden light finally started to disperse, we saw that the golden dragon was rearing back its head and howling at us. It was as if it was venting its dissatisfaction and rage at these puny interlopers who had dared to attack it. As a true ancient giant dragon, it had actually been ganged up on and beaten up by a bunch of players. It was an indignity that its pride simply could not suffer!

“Little Gui, go!”

I hefted the Heaven-stealing Sword and rushed towards the One-horned Golden Dragon with lightning quickness. Of all the players present, it seemed as if only He Yi, Gui Guzi, and I had the ability to shake up this boss. He Yi’s mechanical skill was still quite lacking when compared to Gui Guzi, so she couldn’t be the main tank yet. This meant that only Gui Guzi and I could meet this boss headon. Even then, the golden dragon was still extremely powerful and Gui Guzi’s face had already gone ashen after the first hit from its claws. He started roaring in pain as its claws slammed into him relentlessly.

Woosh!

Gui Guzi charged forward as swift as lightning, but a big “MISS” appeared in the air above the golden dragon’s head. The golden dragon answered that impetuous charge with a slap of its claws. As the dragon’s claw slammed into Gui Guzi’s face, I winced. Ah, he really lived a hard life.

I was right behind Gui Guzi and I also activated my Thunderous Charge. Even though my stun missed as well, the God Binding Art that I threw out next managed to succeed! The golden dragon was bound for fifteen seconds, and these were fifteen very precious seconds indeed. It would allow our priests and archers to attack and heal with abandon, greatly reducing the pressure that Gui Guzi and I were facing.

Woosh! Woosh!

Gui Guzi’s health bar filled up quickly as beams of holy light fell on him incessantly. Everyone else charged up to deal damage to us. Li Chengfeng, He Yi, Xu Yang, Chaos Moon, and the rest all stepped up to deliver their Barrier Breaks before they scrambled back 10 yards. They definitely didn’t want to attract the dragon’s aggro, this was especially true for Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, Xu Yang, and High Fighting Spirits. Their HP wasn’t high enough so getting attacked by the boss would be disastrous.

It was at this precise moment that my God Binding Art wore off. The golden dragon suddenly reared its head backwards as its neck swelled up again. This was the windup for its dragonbreath attack, and it only lasted for half a second. However, I had already sprang into movement even before the dragon reared its head back. I jumped and punched its throat, my left fist covered by a swirl of bloody energy!

Bang!

Magic Piercing Punch managed to work this time as it caused the energy gathering in the back of this gigantic dragon’s throat to dissipate. Yes, we had successfully stopped it from using its dragonbreath!

“Haha! What a beautiful interrupt!” Xu Yang and High Fighting Spirits crowed together.

Gui Guzi and I continued to circle the boss and wear down its HP as we kept trading aggro using our respective Break skills. Once we got a grasp of the boss’ behavior, attack power, and speed, killing it wasn’t as hard as we had imagined. Moreover, we had an elite squad of priests to back us up, so we didn’t need to worry about our healing or the boss’ minor attacks.

……

Time slowed to a crawl as we slowly shaved away at the golden dragon’s health. My Silver Dragon Ring kept roaring as Silver Dragon Storms continuously exploded out of it. By the time the golden dragon had been hit by a dozen of these storms, its HP had finally dropped to 10%. However, this entire experience had lasted for a full forty minutes! Killing this boss was way too hard!

“Let’s keep going, the boss is almost dead!” Gui Guzi crowed in delight.

I nodded my head, “We need to watch out for its final phase though!”

“Yeah!”

But before I had even finished speaking, I saw a beam of golden light drop down from the heavens. Bloody fucking hell, it was Golden Barrier Blade again! This was the second time this boss had used its ultimate attack!

All of us started to scramble backwards, but before I had even taken a few steps, I suddenly realized something. I immediately yelled, “Shit! We’ve been had! Beiming Xue, you and your squad need to retreat now! Retreat at least fifty yards! Hurry!”

“What?” Gui Guzi was greatly shocked by my outburst but he soon realized it as well. “Fucking hell! This boss is way too despicable! It actually centered the skill around where Beiming Xue is standing?”

Beiming Xue reacted extremely quickly, clearing the distance after using a single Leap. However, not every archer had her reaction or movement speed. In the next instant, a 100 yard area was covered by the One-horned Golden Dragon’s Golden Barrier Blade skill. As the golden energy blades shattered, most of the archers, mages, and priests who were standing there instantly collapsed to the ground!

“We’re done for…”

My heart fell. This attack had done us some serious damage. Out of our archer contingent, only Beiming Xue and a few of our elite archers had survived. Even our best mage, Moonlight Stone, was lying in a pool of her own blood. Just this skill alone had practically wiped out our entire elite squad of more than a hundred archers, mages, and priests!

The only thing we could celebrate was that our two main healers, Murong Mingyue and Moon Dew, were still alive!

“Charge!”

Gui Guzi and I reversed course and charged towards the One-horned Golden Dragon. The best time for us to hit the boss with our best shot was after it had just used Golden Barrier Blade. We just happened to be outside of skill’s area of attack, so we would not even get hit by any splash damage even as we assaulted the boss.

Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun was a very intelligent person, he knew that his own Attack hadn’t reached a superlative level yet, so he wisely stood away from the boss and used his mount’s ability to extend his skills by 23 yards to launch attacks from the distance. Even though his damage paled in comparison to mine, he was in a very safe position. He wouldn’t be hit by the boss’ dragonbreath or Golden Barrier Blade.

……

It wasn’t really very hard to shave off the last 10% of this giant dragon’s life. At the critical moment of the fight, I immediately activated my God’s Rage skill and raised my crit rate to 100%. I immediately followed this up with Universe Break and Pardon + basic attack to maximize my damage. As light exploded out of my sword at a furious rate, everyone’s jaws dropped open as they said, “Lu Chen is going all out…”

After a furious chain of attacks, the boss was finally reduced to its last sliver of health. Gui Guzi and I pulled out all stops at this moment, we were doing everything in our power to get 50% of the experience this boss would give.

However, truth was often stranger than fiction and the outcome was often something that no one had expected in the first place. When the golden dragon’s health had dropped so low that we couldn’t even see it anymore, Gui Guzi and I both used our Break skills. However, it was when our attacks were winding up that a beam of sword energy whistled through the air and smacked into the One-horned Golden Dragon’s belly.

Thud!

927!

It just so happened that the boss only had a few hundred HP left, so it roared in misery as it collapsed to the ground. To think that it had died just like this!

……

At the same moment, the excited ringing of the system notice filled the air.

System Announcement: Player “Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun (Sky City)” has successfully defeated the Earth Rank boss, One-horned Golden Dragon and reached level 125. They have met the criteria to become a Famous General and they are the twenty-fourth Famous General of China! Luck +1, Tactics +1, and the exclusive Famous General Skill, “Flying General”!

Flying General: Beseech the power of the war god and increase the movement speed of all mounted party members by 100%. This skill’s effectiveness is affected by the user’s Tactics. Skill exclusive to player Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun.

……

What the fuck!? Flying General? A Famous General Skill that would increase the movement speed of all riders by 100%? This… this was a sibling to Gui Guzi’s Knight God skill! They could first use Flying General to perform a blitzkrieg attack on the enemy lines before switching to Knight God to commence the killing. Knight God + Flying General. This was a killer combination that was practically made for the riders in this game, the current “mobility kings” of this game of swords and sorcery.

A wide grin instantly appeared on Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun’s face. His loud laughter rang in the air as he said, “Wah, I finally got myself a Famous General Skill! This old boy has finally become a Famous General. Little Gui, how do you feel about that?”

Gui Guzi patted him on the shoulder and said, “We are going to be brothers forever!”

“Hahaha…” Li Chengfeng was also laughing out loud. He said, “Little Gui, Eighteen, the two of you will be the ultimate shock cavalry troops of Ancient Swords Dreaming Souls. Yeah, in the Nation Wars and battles over territory, your Famous General Skills will become more and more important. That will be the time for the both of you to step onto the big stage and dazzle the whole world!”

Li Chengfeng was truly a world-class general. At the very least, he was for Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. He had been able to provide such penetrating insight the moment we got that new Famous General Skill, and it was truly difficult to find these sorts of people.

……

At this time, I stepped onto the golden dragon’s corpse and started to sort through our spoils of victory. I soon discovered a bunch of golden-colored scales. These were golden dragon scales! I immediately threw these scales into my inventory. After all, I was the best person in the guild to protect these precious scales.

“Guild leader, it’s time to hand out the equipment!” I said as I moved to the side.

He Yi nodded her head and walked up to where I was standing. After that, she kept all of the items that the One-horned Golden Dragon had dropped in her inventory and thrust Whirlwind into the ground with a loud crack!

She smiled at everyone and said, “Before we divide the spoils of this battle, I want to say something first. If it’s something that isn’t a heavy armor item or an item that adds to Defence, we are all free to roll for it. But if it is one of the two types of item I just mentioned, I would suggest that we give priority to Gui Guzi and Lu Chen. After all, we still have to challenge the rest of the Nine Lost Dragon Domains. Our probability of beating the bosses that await us will depend on how good their equipment is and it is only by further strengthening them that we can go the distance!”

High Fighting Spirits spun his Invincible in the air before he laughed and said boisterously, “Our guild leader is exactly right! I support her unconditionally!”

Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun said, “I’ve just been paddling along the sidelines, so even getting all of that experience from the boss is good enough for me…”

In truth, I hadn’t gotten any experience from that boss just now. All of it had gone to Gui Guzi’s Knight God squad. Ah, who would have expected Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun to land the final blow?

Since everyone had agreed to what she just said, He Yi started dividing the spoils. There was a golden spear, a formidable-looking shield the color of deep gold, a pair of dark green leather leggings, and a garnet chestplate that sparkled with a prismatic light. This doesn’t look bad at all!

Of course there was still one more item, and it was the item that had attracted the most attention to it so far! It was a round and shiny pet egg!

……

Everyone’s hearts instantly started thumping loudly in our chests. What the heck was that?