Thud thud thud...

I hit the ground with a roll, but was able to slam my sword into a nearby rock and steady myself. Then, I ran across the slippery floor and straight toward Swordback Dragon Mons. Without hesitation, I activated Ghost Spirit Step Art first, Battle Astral Wind second, and Tenacity of the Dead to heal myself for 700k HP third. Finally, I downed a Saint Spirit Potion to heal even more.

Above my head, the boss roared savagely, "Prepare to die, boy!"

It unleashed its dragon breath at me three times in a row, but thankfully Ghost Spirit Step Art nullified two of the blasts. While this was going on, I leaped toward the boss—it so happened that it was pretty close to the ground right now—and thrust my Chill of the Nine Provinces into its chin.

372726!

That was just the beginning of my attack, however. I grabbed its chin with my free arm and swung myself to its side before it could react. After I held a firm grip on its draconic scales, I began slashing the back of its neck repeatedly. It was the boss's only weak point, but most players wouldn’t even realize it was there because Swordback Dragon Mons would almost always be higher in altitude, its back never facing the players.

The boss screamed again and again as its scales became wet with its own blood. Suddenly, the blades behind its back started spinning, and I knew it was trying to hurt me with its Sword Hook Storm. I didn’t have nearly enough HP to tank it right now, so I kicked myself off and fired Burning Blade Slash at its weak point not just to deal more damage to it, but also to push myself away from its skill using the knockback force. I was successful, having launched myself 30 yards away from the dragon in an instant.

……

Lin Yixin asked urgently inside the party channel, "How are you doing, Little Cheat? Your HP is jumping up and down like crazy! Is there a bottom down there? We can’t see anything from here…"

I replied immediately, "Jump down now, the second floor is only less than 200 meters away from the first floor. I’m still surviving against the boss, but I won’t be able to hang on for more than a couple of seconds. Jump down now!"

"Er, the fall won’t kill us, right?"

"I don’t think so…"

On the minimap, I saw my Beautiful Little Pepper falling down from above. The party leader had jumped to my aid without any hesitation whatsoever. It was dangerous though. I was "carried" over by the boss itself, so I didn’t really take much fall damage at all. She, on the other hand, was going to take a lot of fall damage if I didn’t do something soon.

Swhoosh!

I activated God Binding Art and summoned four divine arms from the sky. The skill’s success rate against the boss was less than 25%, but I got really lucky and shackled it this time.

I looked up. A beautiful woman carrying the Dragonfrost in one hand and the Seven Star Veluriyam Sword in the other was falling from the sky. Her hair and cloak were whipping wildly above her head, giving her a wild and exotic appearance. The way her long, smooth legs seemed to glow in the darkness was especially attractive.

Thud!

I calculated her landing spot in my head before jumping off a giant rock. By now, Lin Yixin had accelerated to the point where, when I caught her in my arms, the force was enough to send us rolling a dozen or so meters across the wet floor. Covered in mud from head to toe, she looked up at me and blushed red all of a sudden. "Where do you think you’re putting your hands?"

I immediately realized that I had one hand wrapped around her back, and the other around her round, perky butt. Obviously, I wasn’t considering her modesty when I leaped to her rescue. It felt really, really nice to touch...

"Ahem…"

I let out an embarrassed cough before whispering, "What’s wrong? This is my boyfriend privilege, isn’t it?"

Lin Yixin let out an amused snort before replying in a sweet voice, "Move it, gangster. Sister Eve and Sister Mingyue are jumping down soon, and you don’t want them to die from fall damage, do you? Beiming, Lian Xin and Guanyue especially have low HP, so we need to catch them properly…"

"Yeah!"

We rose to our feet and looked up just in time to see three figures jumping down from the cliff. It was He Yi, Murong Mingyue and Lian Xin. Seriously? Had they not considered what would happen if we failed to catch them in time?

Lin Yixin and I split up. There was a frantic moment, but somehow, someway, we were able to catch all three girls before they turned into meat pancakes. Beiming Xue was the second last person to jump down, but she said, "No need to catch me, I can land myself…"

She wasn’t kidding. As it turned out, succubi archers had insane Agility, and Beiming Xue was among the most skilled players in the game. Right before she was about to land, she fired her Evil Spirit Volley and canceled her falling force completely. One extra twist of her perky butt and a beautiful spin in the air later, she landed safely on her own two feet just as promised.

The boss had broken free from its bindings when Guanyue made her jump. However, Murong Mingyue had healed me back to 75%, so I wasn’t in danger of dying anymore. I Thunderous Charged it and resumed trading blows with it without using Heavenly River Transformation. After I obtained the Guardian Dragon Armor and Cyan Dragon Shield, mere Ancient Immortal Rank bosses were no longer a threat to me, not even if they were Level 290!

Swhoosh!

Pool of Life appeared beneath our feet and kept us frontliners healed. We did our best to pin the boss to the ground because it was easily the best way to maximize our DPS. There was a time Swordback Dragon Mons tried to take to the air, and He Yi miraculously managed to land a low-chance Trapping Net. Once it hit the ground like a meteor, we hit it with absolutely everything we got.

……

"Damn you ants! Die!"

A while later, the boss opened its bloody maw again and cast its Dragon Speak magic, Giant Dragon Flame Curse!

Whoosh!

Scorching pain erupted from every inch of my body. He Yi, Lin Yixin and I all lost huge chunks of HP because it was the boss's strongest skill—

1178288!

1322874!

1408289!

……

"OMG, I only have less than 10% HP left…" Lin Yixin retreated while saying to me, "Please tank the boss until we return, Little Cheat…"

He Yi also retreated. The girls simply lacked the stats to face-tank Giant Dragon Flame Curse.

I remained on the frontline not only because our two off-tanks were healing, but also because our bard, Pure Love, had applied all of her buffs on me. As a result, my resistances were easily the highest out of everyone in the party. Also, the Cyan Dragon Shield made for the perfect biting toy for a boss like Swordback Dragon Mons.

Murong Mingyue and Guanyue healed me, the Guardian Dragon Armor converted 10% of the damage I received to HP, and the Chill of the Nine Provinces absorbed 20% of the damage I dealt as HP. As a result, I was able to maintain above 70% HP no matter what the boss threw at me. I could even confidently say that I could keep fighting even if Swordback Dragon Mons cast its Giant Dragon Flame Curse every 15 seconds.

Time passed bit by bit. The boss's roars grew weaker and weaker, while its body was riddled with more and more holes. There were slash wounds, arrow holes, magic burns and more. By the time Swordback Dragon Mons’ HP approached 5%, it was so weak that its resistance felt like the struggles of a dying old man. It could only groan and curse us verbally, "You foolish, fearless brats! I may die, but the great Dragon God Strella will take revenge for me! The dragon flames will turn your bodies to ashes, and your souls will perish! You will never be reborn for eternity!"

Bang!

My only response was to slap its ugly head with my sword and say, "You have no idea how long we’ve been planning our births, do you? We Chinese haven’t dared to reincarnate since times immemorial because every fetus past six months is forcefully brought to life via labor induction[1]!"

The girls joined in on the beatdown, and the boss lost HP even faster.

"How much Luck do you have right now, Lu Chen?" Murong Mingyue asked suddenly.

"99. Why?"

She giggled. "Oh wow, only a point away from 100? Wonderful. Do last-hit the boss so that we can get better loot. If Lady Luck smiles upon us, we may even get one of the Twelve Divine Armaments like Warsky. Our Eve could use that Dead Wind Blade…"

I snorted. "The Twelve Divine Armaments aren’t stall goods, you know? Do you have any idea how unlikely it was for Immortal Blade to drop from that Ancient Immortal Rank boss?"

"Whatever. Just kill it already!"

"Fine, fine!"

I gathered my strength and unleashed an absolutely devastating five-skill combo—Burning Blade Slash, War Crush, Myriad Swords Obliteration, Rise of the Guardian Dragon and Summon the Storm. Swordback Dragon Mons let out one final groan, and it collapsed to the ground and exploded into a ton of equipment, magic stones, gems and more.

I looked at the boss's dead body and muttered a silent prayer to the heavens above, "I don’t ask for much. All I ask is a dragon mount pet egg. Amen!"

……

Swhoosh!

All seven of us leveled up at least once. Since I had gotten the last hit, I leveled up twice and hit Level 229. These days, levels seemed to come and go at an incredible rate. As long as I kept finding super-tier maps like this Dragon God Cave and defeated bosses without losing levels, it shouldn’t be difficult for me to hit Level 250 at all.

Level 255 was a dividing line of sorts[2]. As of this moment, no one really knew what awaited beyond.

Rustle rustle...

I slowly walked up to the boss before kicking its head out of the way. Then, I examined the equipment on the ground. Unfortunately, my prayers weren’t answered. Forget a mount pet egg, the stingy bastard hadn’t even dropped a pet egg.

I picked up the items and shared their stats screen in the party channel one by one—

Blade of Dragonheart (Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★★): 4200~8700 Attack. Increases user's Attack by 75%, 4% chance to ignore Defense. Level Requirement: 225.

Dragonscale Chain Armor (Ancient Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★★★★): 11500 Defense, 19750 Magic Resist. Increases user's Defense by 65%, 7% chance to dodge an attack. Level Requirement: 225.

Diggs Cloak (Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★): 3500 Defense. Increases user's Defense by 25%. Level Requirement: 225.

Giant Dragon Plate Armor (Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★★): 8500 Defense, 7700 Magic Resist. Increases user's Defense by 50%. Increases max HP by 30000. Level Requirement: 225.

1. T/N: The author is probably referring to one of the effects of the one-child policy that was still carried out at the time this chapter was written. He’s saying that a citizen of China would rather pass on to the afterlife than be reborn via the cycle of reincarnation, because the babies that are born during this time are likely to be weaker than normal or worse, still born.

2. E/N: Obviously, 8th power of 2 is 256. 8 bits is 1 byte. Not sure why that would be a problem for storage, but since there’s Level 0, 1 byte can only hold numbers between 0 and 255. Next number to look out for is 4294967295. That’s classic integer size minus one. And this one actually breaks many games if unaccounted for.