The Great Thief

“Hachi Chan,” Remnant pulled Hachi Chan to the side and whispered in her ear, “Who is this Earth Mother and why is she always guiding people?”

She had been holding in this question the whole time and eventually, her curiosity got the better of her.

“Pfft.”

Hachi Chan almost rolled onto the floor when she heard this. She only stopped herself from bursting out in laughter because of the serious atmosphere.

She was a quest expert and knew that you should never treat NPCs as actual people.

Perhaps Muyoh didn’t hear Remnant Dream’s question, or he pretended that he didn’t hear. He resolutely continued on his mission and began performing the awakening ritual on Navarex.

Navarax began tossing and turning restlessly in his nightmare.

As this was happening, corrupted monsters began to spawn out of his dream…

“Prepare for battle! Azure Sea Breeze, you must be on full alert. Make sure you grab all the aggro!” Lu Li shouted.

While performing the ritual, Muyoh became extremely vulnerable. If the ritual was interrupted mid-way, he would be trapped in Navarax’s dream forever.

If this mission was not completed, the 8th boss would not spawn.

The place where Naralex resided was surrounded by water. The underground spring water here was planned to be used for restoring the Northern Barrenlands. However, it had now become infested with monsters from the Emerald Dream.

The river waters had become dark and murky. Suddenly, a Murloc surfaced above the water with a ‘quack’.

Then another… and another…

“Don’t go too far! Stay calm and wait for them to come closer!” Lu Li shouted, stopping Azure Sea Breeze in his tracks. It would be much easier to stay around Muyoh and wait for the monsters to come closer, rather than chasing them around and leaving him exposed.

“There are too many! I might not be able to pull all the aggro.” Azure Sea Breeze began to panic.

“Don’t worry, Moonlight and Wandering will assist you. Take a side each and pull the aggro while covering for each another. If you see a green monster, then kill it immediately. If the monsters are black, then pull aggro and ignore them. They reflect back three times the damage taken.”

Instance Dungeons always had traps and tricks within them, and damage reflect was a classic example. This was one of the reasons why the Howling Cave was a nightmare for melee classes.

Upon hearing Lu Li’s commands and confidence, everyone felt a sense of relief and comfort.

The monsters appeared out of the waters, wave after wave. Most of them were Murlocs.

Why Murlocs?

There were no simple answers to this question. Lu Li did not know much about Navarax’s background lore, or of the seven great Druids in Dawn.

The only thing that he remembered was that he could transform into a butterfly.

The great Druid that had discipled Serpentis was in a deep slumber.

Based on pure imagination alone, he must have been incredibly powerful and terrifying in his prime.

A great multitude of Murlocs appeared from the waters. The Xin Xin Mercenary Group had to put in their maximum effort to protect the vulnerable Tauren.

In reality, the failure rate for this quest was quite high. In his past life, a total of 1000 parties had been surveyed on this particular quest, and more than 700 had failed.

Luckily, Lu Li and his team were able to successfully clear out the Murlocs under his command.

A gaming company would never design an Instance Dungeon that was impossible.

As long as a team had the required level and gear, and each member fought to their maximum potential, they would have a high chance of defeating the Boss.

Before they could familiarize themselves with the spawning pattern, Lu Li and the others were faced with a giant Murloc that slowly surfaced from the waters.

Mutanus the Devourer!

From the darkest corners of Navarax’s soul, his Emerald Nightmare had summoned a corrupted version of his greatest enemy. A Murloc monster called Mutanus had been spawned in the real world to devour anyone who tried to awaken the great Druid Navarax.

Mutanus the Devourer – the final boss of the Howling Caves.

Compared to Serpentis, Mutanus could instil fear into players with his appearance alone.

It was level 25, the same as Verdan the Everliving.

“What’s the strategy? Quick!” Azure Sea Breeze was worried.

They watched as Mutanus slowly rose from the water and sinisterly stared at Muyoh. It wasted no time and began to approach them.

“Azure Sea Breeze, go up and tank it. Drink Health Potions when they come off cooldown to take off some pressure from healers. March Rain, support the main tank with your healing and Hachi Chan, assist March Rain in healing. Everyone else, drink a Health Potion if your HP falls.

Everyone knew that there would be a lot of pressure on the healers during this boss fight.

As expected, Azure Sea Breeze immediately lost a massive chunk of his HP bar.

With the support of Hachi Chan, March Rain was able to heal him back up.

“Everyone, be careful – it might start summoning minions. Wandering, you’re in charge of protecting the Tauren from the minions. Hachi Chan and Wandering, if you guys die, I’ll subtract 10 points!”

Just as Lu Li had predicted, the raging Murloc screeched and began waving its arms around, summoning 8 Murlocs.

Wandering reacted quickly and casted Consecration to take aggro.

“Everyone focus on the minions and ignore the boss!” Lu Li yelled.

While everyone switched their focus to the Murlocs, they were not able to kill them in time. After 30 seconds or so, Mutanus picked up a Murloc with its mouth and threw it in the air. It landed straight into its mouth, screeching and screaming.

Mutanus bit down and began to chew, as blood and chunks of flesh sprayed everywhere.

Everyone felt nauseous at the sight of this. Even Lu Li, who had been expecting it, felt uneasy in his stomach. The designers of the game must have had weird taste to create such a gory animation.

After Mutanus devoured the little murloc, its HP bar increased by a large portion.

Everyone now understood why Mutanus was known as the devourer.

The other two Murlocs were quickly eaten as well, recovering Mutanus’ HP by 2%.

They had basically wasted their time.

Wandering finally understood why Lu Li had assigned two healers, rather than just March Rain. If the fight continued like this, it would take them years to defeat it.

“Do you guys see now? The minions must be killed immediately,” Lu Li signed.

Although everyone had followed Lu Li’s commands, they didn’t realise the urgency behind them and had to face the consequences. The team now knew the importance of killing the minions first.

The goal of this fight was to eliminate the minions as quickly as possible, then focus their firepower on Mutanus.