Lin Yixin immediately turned red with excitement. She grabbed her Dragonfrost and said with great enthusiasm, "Finally, some open-world PvP! Let’s kick some ass, people!"

I asked in a flabbergasted voice, "You want to just… charge the enemy and kill them?"

"Duh? How else do you PK someone?"

"Well, what if they’re super-tier experts? Us heavy-armor players won’t die, sure, but Beiming Xue, Lian Xin and sis aren’t can’t say the same. There’s also that 24-hour death penalty to consider."

"Aw man. What do we do then?"

I pointed at the nearby wall. "You see that natural depression on that wall? I want all of you to hide inside while I stealth outside. Once they enter our vision range, we’ll ambush them and kill them all. Ideally, I want us to kill them before they even see what hit them. Just imagine what they’ll say about us when they revive outside. I bet it’ll make a cool ass PK legend later…"

For some reason, the girls all shot me a weird look. In the end, they said, "Fine, we’ll do as you say, cool ass!"

……

Swhoosh swhoosh!

I dissolved into several rays of bloody light and slipped underground. While I waited, the girls hid themselves inside the depression. Lin Yixin was the closest to the exit, and He Yi the second. They weren’t completely invisible, but it certainly would take an unusually keen eye to spot them from the corridor. We all stared in the direction where the enemy players were expected to show up from.

About half a minute later, four players wearing the emblem of Swallow Ear Canton entered our view. Not only were they Japanese players, I recognized the cavalryman leading the way. He was the guild leader of Era of Strife, Copper Spear. His party members were a mage, an archer and a priest. While an exploration party like this was hardly uncommon, there weren’t nearly enough of them to explore an SSS Rank map. Did they think that they were on a newbie’s map or something?

I remained where I was and waited for them to come closer. Just because the enemy was careless didn’t mean I should emulate my example.

Meanwhile, Copper Spear shot the dead blade devils on the ground a look before saying, "Heads up, everyone. I heard that the Chinese have entered this map before us, and looking at these dead mobs it definitely looks to be the case. They may even be closeby. Archer, activate your Clear As Flame just in case an assassin is lurking somewhere. Now is not the time to save MP."

"Yes, boss!"

The archer nodded, and a lantern-like image appeared above his head. It was a fitting icon since Clear As Flame was like a lantern that chased away the darkness and revealed the danger lurking within.

Too bad for him, I was already shouting inside the party channel before he activated the skill, "NOW! GO GO GO!"

Thud!

The second I jumped out of the underground, I placed my palm on the ground and cast Rise of the Guardian Dragon, shredding the archer to pieces before he ever got the chance to shout his warning. The nearby priest had also lost his spell shield and died. Of the three who were hit, Copper Spear was the only one who survived with half health. He was currently moving toward the right at high speed.

The mage attempted to thwart me with God Devil Break, but he was shocked to discover that his skill only managed to deal 100k+ damage. I was wearing multiple Sacred Armaments and Divine Armaments right now, and every one of these equipment boosted my Intelligence by a considerable amount. Unless he was Lian Xin, Stranger of Three Lifetimes or Luo River God of the Capital, one mage wasn’t nearly enough to push me back.

The mage immediately turned tail and ran when he noticed how strong I was.

I couldn’t resist a chuckle. "A bit too late to run now, don’t you think?"

My sword abruptly turned into a spinning scythe of death, and it easily penetrated both the mage’s shield and body. There was a flash of white, and the player was fully teleported out of the map. He didn’t even leave behind a corpse because of the map’s death penalty, which meant that he probably revived instantly at a nearby graveyard.

Some distance away from me, Copper Spear was still running away when a beautiful figure closed the distance between them vanishingly quick. It took her three zigzags, but she successfully tricked Copper Spear into misjudging her trajectory and allowed her to get close. A cut across the throat from Lin Yixin, and a sword through the torso from He Yi later, the man died just like that.

Thunk!

A helmet spun round and round where Copper Spear was killed. What a generous man! He even left behind a present after he died! When Beiming Xue picked it up and gave it a look, she chuckled. "Oh, it’s an Immortal-grade helmet. Looks like Copper Spear has some pretty good equipment…"

Lin Yixin put away her dagger with a smile. "But of course. He wouldn’t have survived Lu Chen’s Rise of the Guardian Dragon otherwise."

I returned my gaze to the black unknown and said, "We need to hurry and find the entrance to the next floor. Things will get messy as more and more players show up, and we can’t possibly kill all of them."

"Mn mn!"

……

After I picked up Copper Spear’s Magic Consumable and tossed it into Murong Mingyue’s hands, we continued forward and defeated the 5-man Dragonman Blade Devil party we encountered earlier. It was a close thing, but we managed to do it without suffering any casualties. Unfortunately, the place got even darker as we progressed, causing our vision range to worsen even more.

I didn’t see it coming until it was too late. One second my boots were stepping on rotted stone, and the next I was falling through the air. What the… It was a sheer cliff! For whatever reason, the road onward from here had fallen apart completely!

"Big brother!" Beiming Xue cried.

I hurriedly canceled my Fusion Armor and landed on top of my Ancient Divine Dragon. Then, I returned to the floor where the girls were. The back of my head felt a bit cold for some reason, but I ignored it and tried to assure the stunned girls, "It’s fine, it’s fine, I didn’t hit the ground so it’s all fine. Anyway, why do you all look like you’ve seen a ghost? Just relax. Now someone gimme a smile already!"

He Yi poked my chest with an index finger and continued looking behind me. Behind me? I turned around and nearly jumped out of my own skin. A pitch black giant dragon was flying in the air. Its head looked as ugly as sin, its mouth was curled into a malicious grin, and its dark red eyes were staring right at me. Black scaly armor covered its body, and spine-like blades grew out of its back. It was about 5 meters long, and I immediately recognized it was your classic mountable dragon!

Chiang!

I unsheathed the Chill of the Nine Provinces and grinned with greed. "Wow! Not every day a mount delivers itself to your doorsteps!"

To my surprise, the giant dragon understood my words and cackled out loud. "Mount? Do you wish to become a dragon knight of legends? Okay! Your grandpa here has been looking for a human to scratch its back for a long, long time. However, the hunger in my stomach seems worse than the itch on my back. Whatever shall I do?"

I spat at it. "Stupid dragon!"

Lin Yixin pulled my hand and chided me, "Come now, you are being very rude to an Ancient Immortal Rank boss… Not to mention that we may not be able to beat it…"

Oh, I knew that better than her. I had already scanned it with Dark Pupils earlier, and I shared the results with everyone inside the party channel—

Swordback Dragon Mons (Ancient Immortal Rank Boss)

Level: 290

Attack: 49500~67000

Defense: 75000

HP: 70,000,000

Skills: Bloody Bite, Sword Hook Storm, Giant Dragon Flame Curse

Introduction: A long time ago, Swordback Dragon Mons was one of the dragon elders of Dragon Domain. After the war, it joined Lin Na’s Purgatory faction and became one of the guardian dragons of Strella the Dark Magma. Swordback Dragon Mons possesses nigh indestructible scales, enormous strength, and sharp claws that can tear anything apart. The spine-like blades on its back are a natural weapon as well. Swordback Dragon Mons is a long-time follower of Strella and an adept in Dragon Speaking magic. He is especially good at Giant Dragon Flame Curse.

……

I said while watching the boss closely, "A Level 290 Ancient Immortal Rank boss, huh? This thing is even stronger than the Nine-headed Fire Hydra! Get ready for a hard fight, everyone!"

I spurred my Ancient Divine Dragon forward and made it bite the boss’s neck. Then, I stabbed my weapon through its supposedly indestructible scales. Hmph, the incarnation of the Xuanyuan Sword might not be able to cut through absolutely everything in the world, but the scales of this dragon wasn’t among the exceptions!

The scales shattered, and blood spurted in jets. Without pause, I cast Purple Frost Concentration and lowered the boss's Defense by 31%. All high-level bosses were prideful though, and this Swordback Dragon Mons was no exception. It let out a furious roar, reared its head back and headbutted the Ancient Divine Dragon away from it. As amazing as my little dragon was, its level was too low to be able to go toe-to-toe against a dragon elder.

After a suitable distance had opened up between the boss and I, I fired Burning Blade Slash at its body and dropped Myriad Swords Obliteration at its head. My Attack was high enough that not even a Level 290 super boss could withstand it.

"You’ve angered me, you damned brat!"

After the mouthed off the angry words, it bit down on my shoulder hard using Bloody Bite, dealing over 640k damage in one go. Considering that I was equipping the Guardian Dragon Armor and the Cyan Dragon Shield right now, its attack power could only be described as terrifying. On a related note, the 60k+ HP I absorbed wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

"Hang on, Lu Chen!"

Murong Mingyue’s eyes shone with excitement as she declared, "The boss's skill can only hit you for less than 700k damage. This means that there’s a real chance we can beat this boss all by ourselves! Your Defense is seriously amazing. If this was Eve, she would’ve lost a million HP at least!"

I was too busy getting mauled by the dragon to share her happiness though. "Ouch! Fuck! Less talking, more healing! Beiming, Little Xin, CC the boss with whatever you got!"

"Ohh!"

Everyone got to work immediately. Swordback Dragon Mons was airborne, so neither the Phantom Wolf King nor the Snake King Little Qing were able to help out. In fact, of all the pets we had, Lin Yixin’s Ice Dragon Kris was the only one who could generate a steady stream of DPS. The good news was that I had more than enough damage to keep the boss's aggro firmly on me, and Murong Mingyue carried enough "breast milk" to last me this whole boss fight.

……

It only took us ten minutes to drop the boss's HP to 50%. In fact, I triggered my weapon’s septuple damage effect a whopping 8 times during this time. There was only one way this could end for this boss.

"Turn into ash, you damned humans!"

Suddenly, Swordback Dragon Mons let out an angry roar. The spine-like blades shuddered for a moment before flying out of its back, and they spun together to form a deadly blade storm. I hurriedly backed away from the blade storm while shouting, "Retreat!"

It wasn’t too late for the girls, but it was for me. Both me and my dragon were struck by the Sword Hook Storm, and it only took a moment for my HP to drop to 10%; 200k+ HP!

Pu!

That wasn’t all. The cunning boss bit my left arm again and twisted left and right, deleting my mount tenacity with every shake of the head. I had no choice but to activate Fusion Armor to stop it from emptying my mount tenacity. However, the moment my dragon transformed into my armor, it abruptly lifted me into the air, whipped its head aside and tossed me straight into the air. I just barely caught a glimpse of the ground of the second floor as I hurtled across the air!

Was this motherfucker trying to isolate me on the second floor?