"Vienna’s Sorrow escaped!"

Candlelight Shadow finally made it back to his people, but he was already too late. He clenched his fists as he glared at Vienna’s back and swore angrily, "Fuck! I can’t believe that fucker managed to slip away!"

Blue Sky Scar asked in a hurry, "The boss is here, Candlelight. What should we do?"

"Tell Autumn Carrot and his archer party to shoot the Northern Alliance forces on the opposite side of the boss! The rest of us will tackle the boss itself!"

"Ancient Sword, Purple Lily and Blazing Hot Lips are all here. What do we do with them?"

"Focus on the boss. Whoever kills it, kills it!"

"Understood!"

……

It was clear what everyone’s stance was. Internal conflict was a no-no before our greatest enemy, but the boss and the Tiger Soul Essence were also too important to give up. Naturally, all eyes were set on the Heaven-opening Tiger.

I walked with Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi, He Yi, Chaos Moon and the others while saying, "Charge with me once I give the signal. If an opportunity presents itself, seize it and take out the boss. The Northern Alliance must not get it no matter what. Healers, make sure you heal us properly. Frontliners, watch out for any strange movements from the opposite side. I’m sure they won’t give up the kill easily."

"Mn!" Everyone nodded in unison.

"Beiming!"

At my order, Beiming Xue released her bowstring and loosed an icy arrow straight at the Heaven-opening Tiger’s head. A sickly purple aura spread across its skin and reduced its Defense by 50% instantly. Bone Eroding Arrow is fucking awesome!

Next, I fired a long range Dragon Slaying Slash and Sword Boomerang at the boss's head as well. My Attack was unrivaled, so the skills easily tore into the boss's flesh and dealt over 100k damage. The aggro target changed, and the Heaven-opening Tiger let out a roar. It moved away from the Candle Dragon players engaging it and ran straight toward our formation.

"Shields up! Keep the boss's aggro on us!" He Yi ordered. The Dragonlight Cavalry at the front immediately raised their shields and used Holy Shield to reduce damage taken as much as possible. The Heaven-opening Tiger’s Attack was super high, and we didn’t have many priests with us right now. As powerful as their healing was, it wasn’t quite enough to cover everyone.

Candlelight Shadow grew alarmed when the boss moved away from him and toward our camp. He chased after the boss while shouting, "Candle Dragon, follow me and kill the Heaven-opening Tiger—"

Swhoosh!

But a single rider blocked their way and raised his sword threateningly. It was Li Chengfeng with his Battle Soul Possession turned on. "Please don’t come too close to our camp, Candle Dragon. Otherwise, we will treat it as a breach of agreement and deal with it accordingly."

Candlelight Shadow gritted his teeth but didn’t dare to act recklessly. It was because I had moved to Li Chengfeng’s side as well and activated my own Great Earth Transformation. I hadn’t used Great Earth Transformation when engaging Vienna’s Sorrow earlier because it consumed a precious resource, but now both of us were using it to deter Candlelight Shadow from coming any closer. The guy was probably complaining in his head that we were showing him a bit too much respect or something.

"What do we do now, Candlelight?" Blue Sky Scar asked, "Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls is clearly planning to claim the Heaven-opening Tiger for themselves. Should I tell Autumn Carrot to cease their suppressive fire? We can let up the pressure on the Northern Alliance and make Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls suffer the consequences of their greed!"

The light behind Candlelight Shadow’s eyes flickered for a moment before gathering into steely determination. "No, keep the suppressive fire up. Viper Dragoons, follow me to charge Vienna! We may not get the Heaven-opening Tiger today, but we are not giving up on Vienna’s head! Candle Dragon, attack!"

The 1000-strong cavalry troop moving to attack the boss stopped in their tracks and turned toward Hero Alliance immediately. At the same time, Autumn Carrot’s party was also dropping suppressive fire on Mystic Alliance to focus on Hero Alliance. What this meant was that the mage collective and the female mage, Dark Night’s Rose, were now free to send her mages after us. After all, killing the Heaven-opening Tiger was everyone’s ultimate objective on this floor, and no one wanted to give it up without a fight.

"Fuck!"

High Fighting Spirits swung his war hammer angrily and said, "That shameless Candlelight Shadow! On the surface it looks like he’s not fighting the boss with us, but in reality he’s abandoning the frontline so that Mystic Alliance can hit us directly! So shameless, I can’t believe he has the face to call himself ‘Martial God’…"

Chaos Moon said with a smile, "I think it’s a smart move, actually. In one move, he unloads a powerful enemy on a rival guild and focuses his full strength on Vienna’s Sorrow. He’s killing two birds with one stone."

He Yi looked at the approaching enemy forces worriedly. "Mystic Alliance is getting closer and closer, and I count at least 3000 mages. What do we do? We’re in trouble if we don’t find a way to cut them off from the boss."

"I’ll go!"

I volunteered myself. "Give me a troop of Dragonlight Cavalry, and I’ll stall them until you’re done with the boss. What do you think?"

"Sure. Just leave it to—" Before Xu Yang could finish speaking, the boss abruptly smacked him in the head and caused blood to pour all over his face. Then, the poor guy took a blast of fire to the face and lost almost 130k HP in a second!

Swhoosh swhoosh!

Lucky for him, Murong Mingyue saved him with a timely heal before giggling. "My dude, even the boss disagrees with your reliability! Stay here, Lu Chen. We need you to fight the boss, and look, our ally has come to help us!"

"Oh?!"

……

I looked at the direction she was pointing and saw a troop of purple cavalry slamming into Mystic Alliance’s formation from the flanks. It was none other than Snowy Cathaya’s Purple Dragon Cavalry!

Lin Yixin was leading at the front with cyan lotus petals surrounding her body. She raised her sword into the air, and a second later a flaming sword of ice crashed down on the enemies and annihilated the Magic Shields. Then, Lin Yixin opened her left palm and cried out, "Ice Storm!"

Swhoosh!

A great amount of energy seeped from the center of her palm and shot into the air, a storm of icicles following soon after. It covered an area of 20x20 yards in front of her. A good amount of mages screamed in pain as icicles pierced into their body, killing them and dying the ground red in just a second. It was a horrible sight to look at.

It looked like Lin Yixin had learned a new AoE skill, and its area of effect was practically comparable to that of a Divine General Skill. That being said, it must have a cooldown of sorts.

I counted in my head, and as expected, she used the skill again after 15 seconds had passed. This probably meant that Ice Storm had a cooldown of 15 seconds, which was pretty good considering its area of effect and attack power. No wonder Lin Yixin was shooting up the levels like crazy lately.

In the sky, the Ice Dragon Kris added to the enemy’s misery by shooting jets of blue flames at them. Even better, most of them discovered that they were unable to pierce Kris’s abnormally high Magic Resist; a common characteristic of the dragon race. That was why Kris barely lost any HP despite tanking several rounds of Galaxy Storms head-on.

……

"Hahaha, Snowy Cathaya truly is a most reliable ally! They always send help when we need it!" Li Chengfeng laughed.

I walked closer to Snowy Cathaya and shouted, "Yiyi, can you come over with Purple Marquis? The Heaven-opening Tiger is a pretty difficult boss to kill!"

"Okay."

Lin Yixin nodded and came to our aid with an elite party.

We surrounded the boss and bombarded it with attacks and skills. The Heaven-opening Tiger was powerful, but the frontliners surrounding it were all top-class players like Lin Yixin, He Yi, Gui Guzi, Chaos Moon, Purple Marquis and me. None of us were so fragile that the Heaven-opening Tiger could kill us in one hit, and with our priests healing us non-stop it meant that the boss could be killed without losing anyone.

Suddenly, someone shouted out a warning, "Watch out! Someone’s charging toward us!"

"Who?"

We turned around and saw a party of Chinese players, It was none other than Bloodthirsty Battle Monarch leading the Ghost Riders of Hall of Immortality himself. The guild leader was laughing loudly and swinging his blade when he shouted, "Kill them all, brothers and sisters! The boss is right in front of us, and Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ numbers are lacking! This is our chance to claim the boss for ourselves!"

I counted at least 3000 Ghost Riders, and they were coming at us with clear organization. I didn’t think that Hall of Immortality would risk so many people just to snatch a boss, but at any rate, they were definitely a deadly threat we couldn’t afford to ignore.

……

Suddenly, the Heaven-opening Tiger let out a roar almost as if it could sense a threat to its being. Lightning energy surged around its forelimbs, and it swiped the empty space in front of it and created a spatial rift. Somehow, the boss had torn apart the fabric of space itself!

"What the fuck? A spatial rift? What is that—"

Swhoosh!

A couple of Dragonlight Cavalrymen were sucked into the spatial rift before they could react. Caught by surprise, nearly a hundred Ghost Riders stumbled into the spatial rift as well. At the same time, the bell of a system notice kept ringing in everyone’s ears—

Beep!

Combat Log: Heaven-opening Tiger used the skill "Spatial Rift". Player "Light Feather Flies Lightly" has been teleported to the map "Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower First Floor"!

Beep!

Combat Log: Heaven-opening Tiger used the skill "Spatial Rift". Player "Bloodthirsty Battle Monarch" has been teleported to the map "Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower Eighth Floor"!

Beep!

Combat Log: Heaven-opening Tiger used the skill "Spatial Rift". Player "Fading Emotions" has been teleported to the map "Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower Ninth Floor"!

Beep!

Combat Log: Heaven-opening Tiger used the skill "Spatial Rift". Player "Another Bottle" has been teleported to the map "Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower Third Floor"!

……

Everyone was speechless with shock. No one was expecting the boss to possess such a brutal skill!

He Yi warned in a quiet voice, "Careful, everyone. It looks like this boss can tear apart space itself and randomly teleport a player to any floor of Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower…"

The spatial rift lasted around 4 seconds. It revealed the stupefied faces of the Ghost Riders behind it after it disappeared.

"The boss… the boss was teleported to the eighth floor…"

"The mobs on the eighth floor must be pretty powerful. There’s no way he’s going to survive it…"

"What should we do then?"

"Let’s pretend we DC’d and teleport back to the city!"

"Oh, that’s a great idea!"

……

I chuckled. "Interesting! I wonder if the boss would be so kind as to send me straight to the ninth floor? I would like to fight the final boss right now…"

"Keep dreaming…" Lin Yixin teased me.

However, as if a deity had possessed it to fulfill our careless wishes, the Heaven-opening Tiger swiped its thunderous claws right between me and Lin Yixin and created a spatial rift yet again!

"OH SHI—"

All I saw before I got pulled into the spatial rift was the surprise on He Yi’s face.

Whoosh!

Then, a warm body landed squarely in my lap. Lin Yixin was pulled into the spatial rift as well.

We plunged across the unusual space for a moment before a system notice entered our ears—

Beep!

Combat Log: Heaven-opening Tiger used the skill "Spatial Rift". You’ve been teleported to the map "Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower Seventh Floor"!

Beep!

Combat Log: Heaven-opening Tiger used the skill "Spatial Rift". Player "Wind Fantasy" has been teleported to the map "Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower Seventh Floor"!