Swhoosh!

Scorching hot wind blew past my ears as I jumped down from the fifth floor to the sixth floor. It felt like I was entering some sort of molten abyss, and waves of heat just kept rolling in from the front. It was highly likely that the mob of the sixth floor wasn’t the Dragonspeech Mage anymore because I spotted some sort of fiery red globs in the distance the closer I got to the ground. I wondered what they were.

Thud!

I activated Dark Pupils and cast Summon the Storm the second I landed. Better to be safe than sorry. Assassins could be prowling about, and Blood Alliance’s guild leader, Assassin’s Creed, could still be on the sixth floor. Eighth-promotion assassins could elude detection skills, set up traps and deal massive damage. They were especially difficult to beat on a map like this.

……

"You can come down now!"

The moment I shouted, Lin Yixin, He Yi, Beiming Xue, and the rest of the girls jumped down to the sixth floor. They were followed by Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi, and the rest of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. Speaking of our guild members, they kept Gui Guzi as the party leader because his Knight God boosted all cavalrymen’s Attack and Defense by 225%, making it so much safer to fight mobs.

Li Chengfeng was still using the Dark Blade because the Crimson Refinement Sword had a Level Requirement of 220. He was only Level 217 right now, so it would take him at least a couple of days of grinding[1] before he could equip it. It was also why he jokingly claimed that he was going to abandon us all and invincible->teleport back to Sky City if the boss managed to bring him to low health. Immortal-grade weapons were extremely precious at the current stage of the game, and his Crimson Refinement Sword had entered the Top 20 of Global Weapon Ranking the moment it came into existence. It was no wonder he treasured it as much as he did.

Eyes glimmering with fighting spirit, Gui Guzi licked his lips and asked, "What do we do now?"

Chaos Moon chuckled. "What else? We kill the mobs on the sixth floor until we find the cliff, jump into the seventh floor, find Strella immediately, wipe and finally teleport back to Sky City…"

Gui Guzi: "..."

I said, "Anyway, watch out for Blood Alliance’s assassins, okay? They may still be prowling about the sixth floor. Although… I guess you guys have less to worry about. No assassin is going to kill a Dragonlight Cavalryman buffed by Knight God without considerable effort. Still, be careful."

Li Chengfeng nodded before voicing his thoughts, "Our assassin subguild and Cute Little Naughty are currently grinding instances, and they showed no inclination to visit Dragon Domain at all. It’s the same with the other assassin guilds because they’re aware that they can’t defeat a boss anyway. Blood Alliance is the only one that showed up with at least ten thousand players, and it’s obvious that someone has paid them to assassinate the core players of various guilds. The question is who, and why?"

I thought for a moment before answering, "It’s simple. Whoever benefits the most from this journey is Blood Alliance’s employer and the true murderer of Stranger of Three Lifetimes and Eyes Like Water."

To my surprise, Chaos Moon pointed an accusing finger at me and declared, "I knew it! Since you embarked on this journey, you’ve gained the Guardian Dragon Armor, Cyan Dragon Shield, Crimson Refinement Sword, Suppressing Fire Sword and Dragonfrost! You are without a doubt the player who benefited the most from this journey, and that makes you the mysterious employer of Blood Alliance!"

Pa!

I slapped her hand away lightly before retorting, "Screw you. Those fuckers are getting paid ten thousand RMB to kill a single person! How can a poor guy like me possibly pay the price? I could sell my kidney and still not have enough money to hire them!"

It was at this moment Moonkiss dropped down from the fifth floor and blinked. "Kidney? You can’t sell your kidney. Your girlfriends are going to hate you to death if you do that[2]."

Me: "..."

He Yi chose this moment to speak up, "Are you done chatting? If you are, then let’s continue and try to take out Strella as soon as possible. We’ve been online for over 24 hours, and countless people are tired, hungry, and in desperate need of a toilet break…"

I curled my lips. "You know what? Let’s log out for half an hour so we can use the toilet and get some food…"

"Sure!"

……

And so, we set up a tent at a corner of the sixth floor and logged out. Although the Dragon God Cave was an SSS Rank map, the devs weren’t crazy enough to make it so that you were automatically kicked out if you logged out or something. Gui Guzi also stationed three Dragonlight Cavalrymen to guard us in case someone decided to ambush us after we came back online.

My entire body hurt when I logged out and returned to the real world. I rushed into the toilet, drank some water, and ate two loaves of bread. Thank goodness there were two toilets in the workshop, or there would be a line and maybe even some yelling while business was being done.

I drooped my head in exhaustion as I slumped down on the sofa. There were some bread crumbs around my mouth, but I couldn’t be bothered to clean them right now.

Behind me, He Yi was dressed in a white pyjamas and basking in the sunlight. She looked like a sprite of dawn and morning dew. Her pyjamas looked half-translucent in the sunlight, and outlined her firm breasts, flat stomach and round butt. I could barely keep my eyes off her.

"Stop looking and turn around!" He Yi ordered half-jokingly.

I did as she said, and a second later I felt a pair of soft, tender hands pressing down on my shoulders and massaging them. I closed my eyes and caressed He Yi’s arm gently. I had been online for a ridiculous amount of time, and every time we encountered a boss I had to control three characters at once to maximize my DPS. It was exhausting work, but if this was the kind of benefit I got to enjoy after the day was done, I wouldn’t mind it at all. The number of people who got to enjoy a shoulder massage from He Yi could probably be counted on one hand.

A few minutes later, He Yi grew tired and took a seat beside me.

It was my turn to repay the favor, so I moved behind her and gave her a shoulder massage as well. However, Murong Mingyue chose this moment to enter the living room, and the instant she saw us she immediately smirked and said, "Oh? Have you changed jobs and become a masseur, Lu Chen? How much is a full massage? I want one when you’re done with her. By the way, you probably want to raise your hands a bit. Any lower than that, and you’ll be massaging Eve’s sacred plots. You don’t want to do that in public, do you?"

Me: "..."

He Yi: "..."

It was at this moment Lian Xin entered the living room with a box of yogurt. She said lazily, "Five more minutes until we log back into the game, people. By the way, I’ve already discussed with Beiming what to do when we meet Strella. The plan is to show our faces a bit, die, and teleport back to the city so we can finally catch some sleep. Ultimately, it’s up to you, Lin Yixin, and boss to defeat Strella…"

I replied, "Nothing is certain until the real fight begins, but yeah. Strella is just too strong right now. It swallowed Warsky in one gulp, and Candlelight Shadow is nowhere to be seen after he fell into the sixth floor. Moreover, this entire map is shrouded in mysteries. I’m not sure why, but I keep having this uneasy premonition that Strella is absolutely going to destroy us somehow…"

Murong Mingyue rolled her eyes. "Isn’t that obvious? Strella can probably delete two-thirds of your HP in a single breath. That’s a true Divine Rank boss in every sense of the word, and it’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to challenge it without a full set of Divine Armaments. Still, if we somehow manage to beat Strella, the Divine Armaments it will drop are probably going to surpass everything we’ve seen up until this point…"

I nodded. "Yeah. Anyway, it’s almost time. Let’s get back into the game and try to complete all the scenes of this arc in one go!"

"Mn!"

……

Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh…

White lights condensed into humanoid figures as we logged back into the game. I poked my head out of the tent and glanced at the Dragonlight Cavalrymen guarding our spot.

"Guild leader!"

"Mn. Where are Gui Guzi and the others?"

"They’re about 100 meters deep. The mobs are kinda hard to kill, and our priests are having problems sustaining our frontliners."

"Got it. Let’s head over together!"

"Yessir!"

My cloak dragged against the ground as I crawled out of the tent. At the same time, I used a Snot Dragon Card to increase my max HP. This increased my max HP to 2.3 million even without a bard’s buffs. I hoped that, accounting for all the Magic Resist I accumulated through my Sacred Armaments and Divine Armaments, I would be able to withstand two breaths from Strella the Dark Magma without dying.

The flashes of Barrier Break + Ultimate Strength Break combo temporarily chased away the darkness. As stated, our players were doing battle against the mobs. The mobs of the sixth floor were dragon-shaped fire spirits, Level 299 fiend-rank monsters called Dragon Spirits. It had slightly lower HP than normal, but it more than made up for that weakness by hitting even Gui Guzi for 500k with a simple Fireball. Knight God was amazing, but it didn’t boost Magic Resist. The good news was that there were almost 400 Dragonlight Cavalrymen in the party, so they could just Charge the mob repeatedly and stun it more than 50% of the time. It was only a matter of time before it died to Ultimate Strength Break.

The sixth floor map was even wider than the previous floors. Its width alone was 400 meters, and no one knew the circumference of the ring-shaped floor. It also meant that there were more than enough mobs for every guild that entered this floor to grind. For example, Hegemon Palace was grinding about a hundred meters away to the right of Gui Guzi and Li Chengfeng’s party. Wang Dongliang, their guild leader, was riding a Bloodbone Warhorse and wearing a full set of Immortal-grade equipment. His skill was average at best, but the equipment he bought with the power of RMB was a different story. It wasn’t too far behind Warsky’s assuming that the latter didn’t have the Immortal Blade.

Wang Dongliang was looking in our direction and urging his players, "We need to move faster. As usual, the magic knights are going to Charge and use their Trapping Nets in an organized fashion, and the archers will stun the mobs with Shock Arrows. We’re also going to kill three Dragon Spirits at a time. As long as the priests keep healing, and the bards keep our MTs buffed, the Dragon Spirits won’t be able to stop us. Those who fuck up will be reprimanded!"

Little Piglet assured his guild leader while swinging his Ghost Head Blade, "Calm down, boss. The Dragon God Cave Sixth Floor is just one floor away from the Dragon God Strella, meaning that anyone can die at any moment. Barring the exceptionally stupid, no one is going to PK each other on this floor or the next. Moreover, a large majority of the players who had come to Dragon Domain perished in squabbles between each other on the upper floors. Over 1100 of the 5000+ players on this floor belong to us. As long as we keep preserving our strength, we should be able to pose a threat to Strella."

Shangguan Wan’er abruptly appeared behind a Dragon Spirit and stunned it with her skills. She said smilingly, "That is correct. There is nothing more important than preserving our strength for the fight against Strella, so we should avoid clashing against the top guilds such as Ancient Sword, Snowy Cathaya and Candle Dragon as much as possible. Ah, Warsky Alliance doesn’t count. Most of their core players such as Warsky and Lin Bing Dou Zhe are dead, and October Rain can’t do anything by herself…"

A smirk rose to Wang Dongliang’s face. "Puff, if we manage to kill Strella, and our guild’s ranking rises dramatically as a result I’ll treat you, Little Piglet and everyone else to dinner at Longxiang Hotel! I’ll even book two whole floors to show off our success!"

The priest, Profound Puff, grinned lasciviously. "Hell yeah! And once the drinking is over, we’ll head to Seven-colored Heaven and pick up some girls!"

"Bro, what are you even talking about? Just throw some money on the table, and I guarantee you they’ll strip down for you in no time!"

"Sure…"

1. T/N: Wasn’t Lu Chen like Level 230 or something, and he only grinded for an hour to accumulate like, 70% experience if I remember correctly? How would it take Li Chengfeng a couple days if he just grinded mobs?

2. T/N: For those who don’t get it, kidneys are said to be a key component of sexual performance