Swhoosh!

I tossed the card into the air, and it enveloped me in a cone of red light. This Axe Fighter Card increased one’s physical attack power by 50% and attack speed by 20%, so it was perfect for a melee fighter—especially one who had been dropping all his stat points into Strength like me.

We had taken out six Level 200 dread-rank mobs and breached the entrance in less than two minutes. As I stared at the bodies on the ground, I couldn’t help but admire our party’s strength. Our explosive power was positively insane, and I doubted that there was another party like us in the entire world. The reason I said this was because everyone here had the ability to rank high on the CGL Hall of Fame, establish our own guilds and create our own base of power. The only reason we were all together in one place today was because of He Yi.

……

"I’m going to open the door. Keep your eyes open, everyone. We don’t know what else is inside the passage," I warned in a cautious tone.

All the girls nodded in unison and said, "Yeah."

I spurred the Armored Ice Qilin Horse and slowly approached the gate. I gave the heavy and rusted iron gate a push, but all I heard was the sound of twisting springs. The gate itself didn’t budge in the slightest. Talk about a lack of Strength!

Pa!

This time, I put both hands on the iron door, growled and pushed with all my might, but it was futile. Left with no choice, I activated Great Earth Transformation—three cyan dragons instantly burst out of the ground, turned into guardian blades and surrounded me—and tried again!

Creak...

Finally, the gate gave in and slowly opened. However, before I could do anything else, a fiery red sword suddenly appeared from the gap and hit my Heaven-burning Armor with a high-pitched noise. A 7000+ damage number rose above my head. Whoever did this to me must have an impressive Attack! That being said, it wasn’t like I was completely helpless. The Heaven-burning Armor chose this moment to come alive and engulf my attacker in a blast of flames, forcing them to fall back while groaning in pain. The flames of the Heaven-burning Armor were no joke for sure.

"Who’s over there?!"

Lin Yixin slammed into the gate and widened the gap further before thrusting her sword at the attacker, the Barrier Break forcing them to fall back another couple more steps. I hurriedly opened the gate fully while no one was attacking me. As expected, the passage was crawling with Night Creature guards, and they were all Level 200 melee fighters. Their classes were pretty diverse—I spotted swordsmen, spearmen, axe fighters and more—but they all shared the same name, "Bloody Fortress Defender”.

"Get inside!"

I shouted while rushing in and blocking one part of the passage with my body. The intelligent Lin Yixin had already moved the Ice Dragon Kris to the empty space beside her and blocked off that part of the passage as well. Just like that, the two of us and our pets successfully blocked off the 9 yards wide passage, meaning that our backliners could freely unleash on the mobs.

Our actions aggroed all the Bloody Fortress Defenders in the area, so they rushed us while swinging their weapons and shouting, "I will devour your flesh, damned intruders! Fight to the death, my fellow Night Creatures! For the glory of Ovia the Bloody Finger!"

If we weren’t sure before, we now knew this fortress was definitely a part of the Bloody Finger’s domain. Hmph hmph, it looked like the fourth strongest Purgatory Sovereign was assembling an army in Bloody Shield Domain, and once he was ready he would command it to attack Sangharama City. This was probably one of the Night Creatures’ major strategies too. They were hoping to take control of the border cities first, eating away at the Silver Moon Alliance’s strength from the outside bit by bit until they took out both the NPCs and the players!

All one hundred Level 200 dread-rank mobs rushed toward us, but the action only amused us instead of striking terror into our hearts. It was because we had blocked off the passage with 4 high HP, high Defense units while our backliners rained hell upon the mobs, making it just like any other choke point battle. These Level 200 dread-rank mobs were very powerful, but their experience yield and item drop rate were equally handsome. No one here could resist the temptation.

"Lu Chen, Beauty Lin!" Murong Mingyue said from behind, "The Bloody Fortress Defenders have high attack speed, so I may not be able to heal all of you in time! If your HP falls to 15% or so then please use Guard and protect yourselves! The path is blocked anyway, so OT is not a concern!"

"We know!"

Lin Yixin and I responded while using our AoE skills at almost the same time. Our Burning Blade Slash and Ice Flame Slash already dealt over 40k damage to the mobs per hit, but the splash damage boosted our overall damage output even further. One cast was all it took to delete over 100k HP from their health bars!

Behind us, Beiming Xue was doing a considerable amount of damage as well with her Evil Spirit Volley, although her DPS was no match for Lian Xin’s AoE magic. Dimensional Storm was almost big enough to cover the entire battlefield, and since the defenders were heavy-armor type, they took extra damage from magic attacks. Screams of pain filled the air as Lian Xin easily climbed to the top of the DPS chart.

Chiang chiang chiang...

Both Lin Yixin and I lost HP rapidly as the fearless Bloody Fortress Defenders swung their weapons at Lin Yixin and me again and again. That being said, Murong Mingyue was able to keep both our HPs above 75% for now.

The Phantom Wolf King was doing splendidly as well. Every time it swiped at the enemy, there was a high chance it would trigger Claw of the Storm and annihilate huge chunks of HP from the mobs’ health bars. In fact, its DPS outshone all the pets present including the Ice Dragon Kris. Dragon Breath was a powerful skill, but it had a 4-second cooldown. The Phantom Wolf King on the other hand attacked 2 to 3 times per second and triggered Claw of the Storm once every 2 seconds on average, so his DPS could only be higher.

Lian Xin couldn’t help but look at the Phantom Wolf King and comment, "Big brother Lu Chen, how did you come by this pet? It’s way stronger than my Stone Giant King!"

I shot her Stone Giant King a glance. The pet was a powerful, all-rounder unit that could tank hits up close and toss stones at faraway enemies, but its attack speed was terribly slow, attacking only once per 2 seconds. While it was slightly stronger than the Mingshe, the difference was fairly negligible.

I explained to Lian Xin, "This wolf started as a slightly weaker pet from the wolf archetype, but it evolved into the Phantom Wolf King during a quest. Considering how I came by it, it’s probably one of a kind."

Lian Xin giggled. "I see. Well, if you find another offensive agility-type pet like this, remember to reserve it for me. I prefer pets like this!"

"Sure!"

We picked up a couple more Axe Fighter Cards as we slowly pushed forward, so Lin Yixin used one and buffed her own Attack and attack speed. As a Famous General Skill that boosted all stats by 80%, Bombshell was undoubtedly some of the best stratagems out there. However, all good things came with a trade-off, and in Bombshell’s case, its cap wasn’t as high as, say, Martial God’s 200% Attack increase. The Axe Fighter Card helped offset that flaw slightly though.

Speaking of which, there was an astonishing amount of mobs in the passage. Every time we killed the group of mobs in front of us, another group would replace them. Before we knew it, we had taken out almost a thousand Bloody Fortress Defenders already. Since everyone in the party had a healthy amount of Luck, the ground was positively swarming with equipment and magic stones!

I paid attention to both the ground and the mob in front of me, and once in a while, I would scoop up a valuable item or two. For example, I just got a 4-star Outstanding Spirit-grade longbow with a max Attack of 1220, a passive that added 35% ranged attack power, and 40 Tactics. It was the kind of loot that would immediately sell for 3000 RMB at least at the eastern plaza of Sky City. The number of high-level archers were growing each day, and there was never enough supply of good weapons to meet the demand. Heavenblessed’s drop rates for wristguards, helmets, armor, boots and legguards were low, the drop rates for necklaces and rings were lower, and the drop rate of weapons was the worst of them all. That was why every Heavenblessed player dreamed of getting a high-level, top-tier weapon at least once in their gaming life.

For example, Li Chengfeng had been giggling to himself like an idiot for days after he obtained the Augustus’ Spear. Almost all of his equipment was now Heaven-grade, but for some reason he just couldn’t grind a Heaven-grade weapon until that day. Good skill didn’t translate to good karma, so sometimes you just had to suck it up and deal with it somehow.

……

Swhoosh swhoosh…

Some time during the grind, both Lin Yixin and Lian Xin leveled up once. Ten minutes later, I leveled up to 171 as well. The Bloody Fortress Defenders simply gave too much experience, and these days, leveling up via grinding non-bosses was a serious chore!

Speaking of which, the number one player on Sky City’s Heavenly Ranking was Lian Xing. High level was synonymous with high resistances, and the difference was obvious even when the gap was only 3 to 5 levels. For example, the chances of a knight successfully stunning a mage with Charge would be greatly decreased. That was why there was a saying that level was equal to life in the game.

"This is some insane amount of profit…" Beiming Xue said with a blissful expression on her face.

Lian Xin nodded repeatedly. "Mn mn! I’ve never grinded such a profitable map at Seven Star City! It’s so nice to be with you all!"

Lin Yixin looked ahead and said, "Too bad it’s almost over then. Look, the mobs are almost all dead, and the barracks aren’t pumping out Bloody Fortress Defenders anymore. I think we wiped out an entire division worth of mobs during these two hours…"

Beiming Xue chuckled. "Well, this isn’t our final destination. When we reach the Dharan City ruins where the fourth Purgatory Sovereign, Ovia the Bloody Finger, is waiting, I’m sure the stuff we got here will seem like nothing at all. Let’s keep up this pace, everyone!"

I said cheerfully, "Yep, Beiming Xue is completely correct. Anyway, let’s grab the loot and continue forward already. Once we pass through this fortress, we’ll reach another canyon. A couple more hills after that and we should reach the Dharan City ruins. Hehe, I bet that bastard Bloody Finger is itching for us to show up!"

Lin Yixin tried to tease me. "You mean he’s waiting to kill us all, right?"

"Whatever. One way or another, it would be an honor to die in the hands of the fourth boss of the whole game!"

"...”