The Great Thief

The accuracy of Lu Li’s strategy in dodging the Time-Freezing Debuff was 100%!

He had practised this dungeon a countless number of times in his past life.

When Thalnos’ only overpowered skill became useless, his 150,000 HP quickly dropped to 30% in a couple of minutes. 30% HP marked the end of the Time-Freezing form of the boss.

However, Thalnos’ final form was even more annoying.

Obviously, he couldn’t use Death and Decay, which was only available to Bloodmage Thalnos in the Nightmare version of the Scarlet Monastery.

Death and Decay was a Death Knight skill, and was their one and only area-of-effect attack. When used by Thalnos and even higher-levelled bosses, it proved to be extremely difficult and terrifying to deal with.

Death and Decay ignored invulnerability to magic damage skills such as Lu Li’s Shadow Cloak, meaning that his active would be useless against it.

When casted, all units in the area of effect would be corrupted by Death and receive a certain %HP of damage per second over time. Usually, everyone that was affected would be dead from 3 to 10 seconds.

In the Difficult level, Thalnos didn’t use Death and Decay, but he did use a different type of weakened curse spell.

This skill targeted the aggroed unit, nullifying all Armor and Magic Resistance for 10 seconds.

Without any Armor, even the best main tank in the world would melt in a matter of seconds.

This was where Lu Li’s strategies would come in handy.

”Everyone stop. Wandering, come and cast Taunt. Azure, cast Shadow Meld.”

Lu Li called Wandering over who had already lured Thalnos back into the room twice. He was assigned with the dirty job once again.

That’s right, Wandering’s next assignment was to tank the Weaken Curse.

Whether or not he would survive after being cursed wasn’t important.

Shadow Meld was a great skill because it released the aggro of all monsters in an area. This meant that Wandering would be able to pull the aggro with his Taunt skill.

Wandering did what Lu Li had ordered without knowing what he was he getting himself into.

He was a secondary tank, and was meant to sub in for the main tank whenever required to rotate the aggro. Since his main role was to be a sub-tank, most of the time, damage output outweighed the benefits of being tanky. Therefore, Wandering’s Armor was quite low to begin with and the Curse would only lower it slightly.

Luckily, he had damage reduction skills.

”Everyone, we’re almost finished. Let’s pick up the pace.” Lu Li began attacking Thalnos at full force, and his HP quickly dropped to 25%. Thalnos roared in anger and the skull on his staff send out a red beam of light towards Wandering.

”Goddamn! Help me!” Wandering felt the energy from his body being drained and his Armor fell to zero in a split second.

”Azure Sea Breeze, Taunt!” Luckily, as soon as Lu Li commanded, Azure Sea Breeze displayed his No.1 main tank reactions and pulled the aggro almost instantly. Thalnos unwillingly changed targets as he was aggroed back to Azure Sea Breeze.

”Ok, you can go stand by the door.” Lu Li patted Wandering on his back, completely ignoring his death stare.

”Lu Li you bastard! How dare you kill the donkey after the grinding is done (to get rid of somebody once he stops being useful)?!” Wandering said resentfully.

”Kill the donkey…?” Azure Sea Breeze began laughing out loud and said, ”I thought you were smart; why would you compare yourself to a donkey?”

”…” Wandering was speechless.

He was pissed off because of his role as the guy who does all the dirty work in dungeons. He was either a guard dog or a scapegoat.

Everyone laughed it off and continued fighting the boss; only Wandering was pissed.

The rest of the battle was a walk in the park. Thalnos entered Berserk mode once his HP dropped to a certain threshold, which increased his attack and attack speed. However, he could only cast his skills towards Azure Sea Breeze who remained to be an impenetrable wall and wasn’t threatened at all until the end of the fight.

As long as the guide was followed, the Scarlet Monastery was a piece of cake and was considered to be the easiest dungeon out of the four Scarlet dungeons.

At the very same time and in the same instance dungeon, Glory Capital had taken Thalnos’s HP down to 29% under the leadership of Sorrowless. This was their first time making it past the Time-Freezing stage.

”Ok, there probably won’t be any more Time-Freezing and we’ve made it to almost a quarter HP without losing anyone. This is our chance, team!” Sorrowless shouted, which raised everyone’s morale.

Sorrowless was passionate about leading a team and his words were always words of encouragement.

”Guild leader, which part of the battle do you think Lu Li and his team are up to now?” Dancing Flower Beauty asked.

As the No.1 girl on the beauty ranking, her face and body was otherworldly, and she had a gentle and soothing voice. Anything she said would raise the morale of all the exhausted men.

She had always been leeching off other expert players and was currently level 28. As a member of the core Elite group, she fought along-side Sorrowless.

Although Sorrowless loved Darkness, he didn’t mind the company of a beauty in battles. He thought about her question and replied uncertainly, ”They’re probably still dealing with the summoned mobs. They were difficult for us to deal with the first time as well.”

Glory Capital’s first run in Scarlet Monastery was appalling; they couldn’t even make it past the mobs that were summoned by Thalnos.

”There’s no way they can progress as fast as us. Why do you seem so unsure, Sorrowless?” Dancing Flower Beauty inquired with a smile.

Usually, beautiful women weren’t the smartest people on earth. However, Dancing Flower Beautyf was an exception – she was clever and wise enough to use her gentle voice to get anything she wanted.

”Lu Li is… how do I put it?” Sorrowless didn’t usually talk about Lu Li, but in the presence of a beauty like Dancing Flower Dream, he felt the need to carry on the conversation. ”He is extremely talented in clearing dungeons; it’s almost as if he has a hack on every time he starts one. If only he could come over to Glory Capital… The other guilds like Blood Red War Flag would stand no chance.”

”Hacking…” Everyone in the Glory Capital was surprised by Sorrowless’ high praise of Lu Li.

No one suspected Lu Li to be hacking because Dawn had only recently come out. This was such high praise coming from Sorrowless and everyone felt like Lu Li was being overestimated.

They had never heard Sorrowless praise anyone in the past 10 years.

”Ah!” The main tank player screamed.

Before they could react, Thalnos easily killed their main tank.

Their main tank was level 25, had full Silver gear, more than 4000HP and was Defence specialist Warrior. He was the top tank in the entire Glory Capital guild.

”Secondary Tank, aggro it!” Sorrowless shouted as he activated an unknown active on his gear while the others attacked. This bought enough time for the secondary tank to react and draw aggro.

Their secondary tank was much beefier compared to Wandering, so he had no trouble tanking the damage.

”Druid, revive the Warrior,” Sorrowless sighed.

The only thing that was going through Sorrowless’ mind was whether or not Lu Li could’ve reacted as fast as him.

At this very moment, a World-Channel notification popped up.

System: Ruling Sword members Azure Sea Breeze, March Rain, Lonesome Flower and Sesame Rice Ball, under the leadership of Lu Li, have completed the First Clear for the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard on Difficult level.