"Alright, you can come in now!" I said quietly inside the party channel.

Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh…

The barrier at the entrance flashed a couple of times, and all the girls entered the map "Dragon God Cave First Floor”. Lin Yixin missed a step and knocked into me, so we staggered forward until we were just a meter away from the edge of no return. When Lin Yixin noticed the bottomless abyss in front of us, she stuck out her tongue and said, "That was close. A couple more steps and it would be game over for us…"

I rebuked her a bit. "Careful! It wouldn’t necessarily be game over. My Ancient Divine Dragon could have caught us had we fell down this cliff."

"I’m not so sure about that…"

He Yi said while pointing the Suppressing Fire Sword at the heart of the abyss. "You see that totem that seems to connect the ceiling and the bottom of this cave? Look up. I’m pretty sure they’re no bats…"

We looked and were startled by what we saw. A ton of winged dragons were clinging to the top of the totem. Now I understood why He Yi said that flying might be a bad idea. The moment the Ancient Divine Dragon took off, these winged dragons would surely awake from their slumber and attack us. No matter how high my Defense was right now, there was no way I could survive an entire group of high-level dragons.

"Well, let’s proceed carefully. This map is extremely dangerous, and dying here means being barred from entry for an entire day."

"Mn mn."

……

I unsheathed the Chill of the Nine Provinces and resummoned my Phantom Wolf King and apparition. Then, I took the lead and started toward the unseen depths of the corridor. I said, "This floor is ring-shaped, but I bet there’s an entrance somewhere that’ll lead us down to the second floor. Sis, be ready to heal me at a moment’s notice while I look for a way through."

Beiming Xue blinked once before asking, "Big brother, what are the chances Warsky and Candlelight Shadow will follow behind us while we search?"

"That chance is a big fat zero."

"But why?"

"Because they’re afraid that we might hang around the entrance and kill anyone who comes through. I reckon that we’re safe for around an hour. Of course, they might send some cannon fodder to scout ahead and probe our reaction, but again we’re safe for half an hour at least. No one who came to Dragon Domain is an expendable cannon fodder. If they make it too obvious, their people are going to lose trust in them."

"I see."

……

The darkness was almost complete, and I wasn’t able to see far even with my Dark Pupils. I tried using my Chill of the Nine Provinces to light the way, but even then I was only able to secure around 5 meters of vision range.

Rustle rustle…

I stepped on the scalding stairs that probably hadn’t been stepped on by anyone for tens of thousands of years. I was certain that Strella was a fire-type dragon because the cave felt as hot as a steamer basket.

"Hiss hiss…"

Suddenly, I heard a worrying hiss from the darkness right as a red dot appeared on the map screen. Here comes our first mob!

I summoned the Cyan Dragon Shield into existence and rushed toward the source of the noise. I wanted to see the first mob we encountered in Dragon God Cave with my own eyes.

Whoosh!

A disgusting-smelling wind hit my nostrils, and a most ugly face entered my view. The head was of a dragon, but it was only as big as a human’s head. Scales covered its humanoid body, and it had a long tail that was about two meters long. Suddenly, it attacked me as soon as I saw it, giving me almost no time to react—

Chiang chiang chiang chiang chiang!

The mob had struck my new shield five times in a row, and the blows were so powerful that my HP dropped visibly, and my left arm turned slightly numb. What the hell was this thing?

90887!

89283!

91237!

88724!

102281!

The Chill of the Nine Provinces revealed the mob completely when it was just a meter away from me. It was a dual-wielding dragonman warrior. It crossed its blades together and struck my shield again, causing me to fall backward even with my Defense—

Combat Log: Dragonman Blade Devil used "Twin Blade Slash", dealing 219882 damage!

……

"Get lost!"

I launched myself into the air, flipped over the mob, and kicked it squarely at the back of its head. After I landed, I fired Burning Blade Slash at the same spot—

290878!

341287!

412662!

By the time I followed up the skill with War Crush, my apparition, the Phantom Wolf King and the Snake King Little Qing had joined the battle as well. While Lian Xin and Beiming Xue were deleting its HP, I used the time to check out its stats using Dark Pupils—

Dragonman Blade Devil (Fiend)

Level: 280

Attack: 39800~57500

Defense: 50000

HP: 3000000

Skills: Dragonblade Quintuple Slash, Twin Blade Slash, Dragonscale Reflect

Introduction: Dragonman Blade Devil. They are a pitiful group of warriors whose souls have been devoured. A long time ago, they were braves who were chosen to become dragon knights. Unfortunately, they were betrayed by the dragon race before they obtained their dragon mounts and were transformed into undead soldiers who were doomed to guard the Dragon God Cave for eternity. After they became corrupted by draconic energy, mutation overtook them and gave them draconic scales, incredibly strong arms that allow them to wield two blades at once, and massive explosive power. They are the reason not a single person had set foot in Dragon God Cave for a hundred thousand years.

……

Crack!

The Chill of the Nine Provinces triggered its septuple damage effect, and my attack sent the Dragonman Blade Devil’s head flying off its shoulders and rolling to He Yi’s feet. Amusingly, she let out a yelp of surprise and instinctively kicked it to Murong Mingyue.

Murong Mingyue’s eyes widened as she exclaimed, "What the fuck!"

She too kicked the dragonman’s head away from her, and this time the poor thing fell into the bottomless abyss.

I walked up to the Dragonman Blade Devil’s body and found a 78 Quality Purple Crystal that could be sold for 780 RMB. This discovery told me that this SSS Rank map was overflowing with riches, but it wasn’t one the average player could enjoy. The Dragonman Blade Devil had dealt over 700k damage to me in an instant even though I had 630k Defense, and Ghost Deity Shield. The average eighth-promotion warrior would’ve been one-shot three times over.

Lin Yixin declared as she watched the mob’s body, "The Dragonman Blade Devil is absolutely going to murder most of the players who enter this floor. Not even Laughing At The Heavens will be able to survive Dragonblade Quintuple Slash + Twin Blade Slash + basic attack combo. It’ll take a Warsky or Candlelight Shadow to tank them…"

I smiled. "Good. Let’s keep snowballing our advantage and enter the second floor as soon as possible. With luck, we’ll leave absolutely everyone in the dust, hmph hmph!"

Lin Yixin tilted her head at me and smiled. "You must feel like you’re invincible with all this Defense, am I right?"

"Heh, yep. I bet not even Little Gui is as tanky as I am…" I said happily.

He Yi couldn’t resist rolling her eyes a bit. "Gui Guzi? Of course you’re tankier than him. Both his level and equipment are inferior to yours! Maybe if he had the Immortal Blade…"

"I’ll give him the Dragon God Shield later. It’s outdated, but at least it has a 25-second invincibility skill."

"Yeah."

……

We continued. At first, we tried to circle around the Dragonman Blade Devils unless they blocked the way completely. However, the lone mobs gradually started appearing in pairs.

"What do we do? There’s two of them now," He Yi said.

I replied, "I’ll immobilize one with God Binding Art so we can focus the other one down."

"It’s fine!"

However, Lin Yixin declared confidently, "I’ll take on the other mob myself. I want to see just how strong they are…"

"Just make sure you don’t get one-shot by it…"

"Don’t worry, I won’t. Sister Mingyue, please be ready to heal me at a moment’s notice…"

"Let’s go!"

Lin Yixin and I targeted a Dragonman Blade Devil each and activated our Charges at nearly the same time. Their HP went down quickly, but the blade devils themselves were no slouches. I lost another 700k HP, and Lin Yixin lost twice that amount. It would’ve been dangerous if Murong Mingyue hadn’t dropped an Instant Heal on her.

After I took out my blade devil, I went to Lin Yixin’s rescue and killed hers in a couple of strikes. Then, I asked her again, "So? Still want to fight a Dragonman Blade Devil yourself?"

She blushed in embarrassment before saying, "Never mind. You can handle them all…"

"Hmph hmph, I told you so… the mobs here may be fiend-rank, but they are twice or even thrice as strong as the fiend-rank mobs outside. This map wouldn’t be rated SSS Rank otherwise."

"Uuuu, I know already, stop educating me you bastard…"

"..."

……

The farther we went, the more brutal the battles became. Soon, we encountered a group of 4 Dragonman Blade Devils. They were less than ten yards away from each other, so I was certain that they would all attack us if we aggroed any one of them. There was a chance they would split up on their own, but we couldn’t be sure if and when it would happen. Time wasn’t something we could afford to waste now..

"How are we going to do this?" Lin Yixin asked.

I thought for a moment before answering, "Let’s do it the usual way. I’m going to immobilize one with God Binding Art, and my apparition will do the same to another one. Beiming Xue will stun the rightmost mob with Shock Arrow, and once the stun is over Lian Xin will use Freezing Domain to freeze all of them. We’re going to focus our firepower on the second to the right mob first, and the rightmost mob second. If the God Binding Arts misses, then Eve will hold off one of the mobs. We can use our pets too if necessary. Pet levels aren’t worth shit anyway. If they die, so be it…"

"Er, okay…"

"Go!"

I executed Summon the Storm + Myriad Swords Obliteration combo that struck all four mobs. When they started moving toward me, me and my apparition immediately fired God Binding Art each at a mob. Two Dragonman Blade Devils became frozen in place, and Beiming Xue’s Shock Arrows stunned the third mob. So far, everything was going exactly as planned.

After the first devil died to our combined firepower, I executed another Myriad Swords Obliteration + Summon the Storm combo to delete the remaining mobs’ HP. The faster the mobs went down, the safer we were.

In the end, everything went about as smoothly as it possibly could. They even dropped enough Purple Crystals for everyone in the party to share. There was no need to roll for the loot in this case, and to be honest, I never really liked the loot distribution system. I still remembered that one time Lin Yixin, He Yi and I went out to grind, and we got 17 magic stones at the end of a battle. We decided to roll for it, and I was so unlucky that I failed to get even one. I nearly burst a vein at the time.

……

We continued forward after the loot distribution was complete. This time, we encountered a group of five Dragonman Blade Devils!

"OMG…"

Lin Yixin inhaled. "This is too much, isn’t it?"

It was at this moment Beiming Xue blinked and pointed behind us. "Big brother, a group of four players is coming up behind us. I don’t think they're Chinese."