The Great Thief

After seeing the Boss’ actual body, everyone went silent.

This water buffalo was gigantic; its height exceeded well beyond 20 metres, which was taller than a 6-storey building.

“What the heck? This guy could be level 100!” Unforgettable Maple exclaimed as he stared in disbelief.

“We’re not even bigger than its toes!” Hachi Chan cried out in despair as she measured herself against the size of the beast. She found out that if this Boss merely sneezed at her, she would be blown to the other side of the map.

“Wow! How nice would it be if it was my pet!” Remnant Dream was beyond excited, drooling at the sight of the buffalo.

“Let’s go. I can’t tank this. I don’t even want to try anymore.” Azure Sea Breeze sighed as he imagined himself crushed underneath the monster’s foot with his innards spilled out.

Water Fairy also did not want to try; their strength was on completely different levels.

However, as she glanced over to Lu Li, she found that his gaze was a little different. Lu Li looked like he was trying to figure out a secret about the monster. This made her stop her words just before they left her mouth. This sense of trust in Lu Li was not always there, but had grown over time.

“I’ll test it out. Wait here,” Lu Li said imbued some form of poison on his daggers and rushed forward.

“Oi! Don’t act recklessly!” Unforgettable Maple shouted, but could not stop Lu Li in time.

Under normal circumstances, he would wish for Lu Li to keep dying until he reached level 0, but now that they were teammates, he had his best interests in mind. If this monster truly was level 100, then not even Lu Li would have the chances of returning.

“Don’t worry.”

Lu Li did not bother explaining his plan to them. After rushing towards the beast, he plunged his dagger deep into one of its legs.

Everyone felt that this was a redundant attack, since this Boss was so huge. Comparing to the Boss, Lu Li was a mere ant.

However, it was hard to determine whether it did feel the pain, since even mosquito bites could be painful.

As everyone was waiting to see what would happen, the beast that could seemingly kill any Demon Lord suddenly began to shrink rapidly. In the end, it transformed into a wolf, with a single horn on its head.

From a 6-storey-tall Boss, it was now only half a metre tall.

“What are you all looking at? Come and fight!” Lu Li yelled as he casted Gale Steps to avoid the oncoming attack and instantly began running away. The size of the Boss did not matter. After all, it was still at least a level 50 Boss that could make quick work of Lu Li.

Azure Sea Breeze regained his focus and rushed to gain aggro of the Boss. The others were still trying to shake out themselves of their daze.

“Did you already know earlier?” Water Fairy asked, unable to resist.

She found herself admiring Lu Li more and more. After all, he was the unannounced ‘leader’ of many big-name guilds.

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure at first though,” Lu Li answered as he fought.

Truthfully, he had read something on a book that mentioned this monster. The book also mentioned something about an NPC who had experience with travelling within the Twisting Nether. Lu Li also reckoned that in a couple of years, this NPC would be either leading players personally into Twisting Nether or helping them enter the place.

The monster that they had faced was a type of Nether Beast – a Single-horned Nether Wolf.

Nether Beasts had a special ability, which was to transform. They could choose to transform into a large or small beast. It was also possible for them to transform into other races. These were not mere appearance deceptions, but they were also able to emit the same type of aura as the things that they transformed into. That was why the beast was able to make itself seem much stronger than what it was.

Players just needed to attack the beast for the illusion to be dispelled. However, this was easier said than done – it required immense courage.

Lu Li recognised that this was a Nether Beast fairly quickly. The reason behind this was because the monsters that were guarding it were all level 50, while it had made itself seem like a level 100 Boss.

After recognising the strange situation, Lu Li figured it out.

As for actual battling abilities, Nether Beasts were weaker than normal Bosses. However, players still needed to be wary of its illusion abilities.

It was fortunate that the skills used by the Beasts were common ones. Lu Li believed that if they were cautious when battling, taking this Boss down was not impossible. However, while Lu Li was not worried about the Boss, he was worried about how to reveal his strategy for fighting, since the players here weren’t all from his own guild.

As he mulled over this, the Nether Wolf had already begun moving.

Shadow Clones!

Three Nether Wolves all left Azure Sea Breeze and began to pursue other players.

“I’ve got the real one!” Unforgettable Maple yelled.

“I’ve got the real one too!” Kitty Likes Meat also yelled.

“Damn. I think I’ve got the real one too!” Elevenless began to chuckle bitterly.

Dawn had many monsters that could use Clone skills, especially Instance dungeon Bosses.

The players present today were elite players and their reaction times were extremely fast. As they were being attacked, they would use the damage that they had received to identify the real body.

Despite this, the three that were attacked all said that they had the real body.

This meant that the damage dealt by the Boss was extremely high, whether clone or not. Azure Sea Breeze could not figure out what was going on, so he couldn’t decide on which monster to pull away. Fortunately for him, Lu Li’s instructions came just in time.

“Pull the one with Kitty Likes Meat and ignore the others. Unforgettable Maple, stop using mitigation!”

Lu Li had been partners with Azure Sea Breeze for a long time, so he had unwavering confidence in Lu Li. His body instantly moved at the command.

Had it not been for Kitty Likes Meat mitigation skill, she would have died.

“Argh, damn it! I’m nearly dead! Argh!” Unforgettable Maple was going crazy. He did not know why Lu Li decided that Kitty Likes Meat’s attacker was the real one, while he was here, tanking huge amounts of damage from his. He did not think that he could last any longer.

“Ignore the other two,” Lu Li said without wavering.

“Lu Li, if I die, you’re going to need to compensate me.” Elevenless was also nearing the end of his HP bar. Both of them weren’t Lu Li’s set teammates, so they did not have the basic foundation of trust in Lu Li.