The Great Thief

The Wolf Riders, who had been critically wounded by the Paladin, turned away and started running.

The Orcs would rather live than die and this made perfect sense, especially for an intelligent NPC who was a Boss.

”Master, shame must be cleansed with blood. We cannot let them escape.”

Lu Li was anxious. These were three level 30 Bosses – if they didn’t at least kill one of them, he would have just wasted the day.

As soon as the word ‘shame’ was mentioned, the Paladin’s eyes turned red.

These dirty Orcs - they actually built a camp in his area. This masked Elf is right; blood has to be shed today. The blood of death to repay the shame!

”Attack!”

Delgren roared and charged his horse ahead. The spear in his hand pierced the wolf’s head and flung the Orc off its back.

The other two Wolf Riders didn’t stop for their fallen companion; they continued fleeing without looking back.

The Wolf Rider who was knocked-down knew he couldn’t get away, so he gave up his intention to flee. Instead, he put on a ferocious look and desperately roared as he raised his hand to attack.

Although the Wolf Rider had lost its wolf, it was still a Boss and it fought with even greater ferocity now that it didn’t have a means of escape.

”Attack the Boss!” The players weren’t afraid, in fact, they were further invigorated.

Lu Li was also very excited because he had already dealt a lot of the damage to the Boss. As such, once it was killed, he was likely to be the one with the authority to take the equipment.

Normally, a level 30 Wild Boss would have resulted in a lot of bloodshed.

However, with the NPCs’ help, it was significantly easier.

As the Orc Calvary also crashed into them, the players in front of him were knocked away and took significant damage.

However, Lu Li wanted the equipment, so he couldn’t falter now. If anyone dealt more damage to the Boss than he did, then he would lose the authority to claim the equipment.

Fortunately, NPC Paladin Delgren was there and his spear racked-up Orc-kills.

The two Bosses were eventually engaged in an even battle, while the other players were basically just fodder. Every now and then, players would be knocked aside, and some would even be killed in mid-air.

Lu Li thought that this Wolf Rider was a character that had slowly upgraded to Boss status and as such, would be weaker than the Instance Dungeon Bosses. However, he now had to admit how wrong he was.

Often, intelligence was a very powerful thing to have.

Compared to an Instance Dungeon Boss, this Wolf Rider had survived with its high intelligence.

There were no rules to the Wolf Rider’s method of fighting, and no strategy to deal with it. No one ever wrote about how these NPC soldiers could be effectively dealt with either.

The normal taunt skills were absolutely futile against it, and it didn’t cast its skills in a predictable manner like an Instance Dungeon Boss would.

In less than half a minute, a dozen players were killed. It would then follow this up by killing one player every minute.

It could dodge, move and cast skills whenever it felt like it. Lu Li was once almost hit by one of its strong attacks, but he just managed to cast Gale Steps just in time.

Paladin Delgren, who was already seriously injured, received a few more additional wounds. If it weren’t for Meisnera providing support from behind, Lu Li questioned whether he could have defeated this Wolf Rider alone.

One side was fighting for duty and honor, but the other side was fighting for their life.

The Wolf Rider soon came to the end of its life, but its fighting was heroic and fearless in the face of two other Bosses.

As it was pierced by Delgren’s spear, the last of his HP dwindled away.

Lu Li then received a prompt from the System that he had gained EXP. It wasn’t that much, as Paladin Delgren was the primary source of damage and the players were just barely supporting him.

Was he going to get the equipment?

The rules for equipment to drop in Dawn depended on the environment and the circumstance. It was different for every case.

In the current situation, if a player or a party had dealt the most damage and had reached a certain threshold, they would have priority in picking it up. If the threshold wasn’t reached, the equipment would explode in random directions and would be free for anyone to pick up.

Fortunately, it didn’t just explode into different directions, which indicated that someone had met the minimum damage threshold.

”Why can’t I pick it up?” someone said loudly.

The moment this person cried out, everyone rushed towards him.

No one could the resist the item that a level 30 Boss could have dropped. Meisnera was a little confused because no one was paying any attention to her, but the others could look at her any time they wanted.

Lu Li placed his hand over the Wolf Rider and prayed for a second before looting it.

He was actually quite anxious and worried that the System might tell him that he didn’t have the authority to loot it.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Something appeared in his hand and Lu Li quickly shoved it into his bag as he continued looting…

He first grabbed two small items, before getting a skill book and a large, two-handed axe.

The first two items were quite inconspicuous, but when a giant axe appeared in Lu Li’s hands, everyone knew that he was the one taking all the items.

”Hand the items over and we’ll spare your life,” someone said ominously.

”Everyone contributed, you can’t just take it all,” another interjected. However, if they had traded places, you would never hear a sentence like that from them.

”If you offend so many of us, do you think you’ll be able to continue playing this game?”

Lu Li began to sweat.

Gale Steps was on cooldown; he had just used it in the fight.

What about his shoe’s effect? There were hundreds of players surrounding him; there was nowhere for him to go.

Looking left and right, he couldn’t find a way to safely fight his way out.

The game still had to be balanced – you couldn’t fight hundreds of players at once no matter how strong you were. Everyone only had to cast one normal skill to instantly kill him.

”Thank you all for your help; you can claim your rewards from Meisnera. I will need some time alone with this Thief.”

Paladin Delgren was sitting on his horse watching over them. Just as the crowd was about to attack him, he suddenly spoke up.

Dammit, who do you think you are? If it weren’t for us, you would have already died to the Wolf Rider. The players almost laughed out loud, but they kept that thought to themselves and refused to listen to his order.

These players felt like they were the reason that the Orcs had retreated. However, in reality, if it weren’t for the role that Delgren and Meisnera had played, there would have been a continuous swarm of reinforcements.

The players weren’t really paying any attention.

”Attack!” Delgren suddenly raised his spear and thrust it out with force.

This wasn’t a regular thrust – this was the move he had performed when he defeated the Wolf Rider. However, this time, the thrust was directed at the players.

A dozen players instantly died.