The Great Thief

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Now that he had it in his hand, Lu Li was relieved. He had received a T3 item before, and now he was getting another. These were exactly the two items he needed to gain an effect from the Transmog Set.

Frankly, his current equipment wasn’t that much stronger than the rest. If he entered the top 100 of the Shadow Cup and faced someone like Blood Dagger, his victory would no longer be guaranteed.

As the leader, even if he was unlucky, he still needed to wear equipment that he was proud of.

The last item was a Splinter, which Lu Li temporarily held on to.

The day that they had spent on the First Clear was a great success and had ended perfectly. In the following day, when everyone came online, they had no reason to delay.

They met by the Spider Zone and immediately entered into the Instance Dungeon. Even though they had time, the other clubs and random players would soon start flooding into the Instance Dungeon. If that happened, they might not get the First Clear bonus on the first two Bosses.

They were free to attempt the Spider Zone, the Plague Zone, the Abomination Zone and the Death Knight Zone in any order they wanted. So, in order to get a few First Clears on the Bosses, some clubs decided to do them in a different sequence to the others. It was wishful thinking to try and get all the First Clears anyway.

However, if they could get even one more First Clear, that would be good too.

The Bosses in the Spider Zone had all been defeated. Lu Li announced that their goal for the day was to kill all four Bosses in the Abomination Zone. This was the only area with four Bosses, as the others only had three.

The monsters at the beginning were ones that they had killed countless times. If they ran into problems here, then they might as well give up now.

The Abomination Zone gatekeeper was the Boss Patchwerk.

His character was not as simple as he seemed. He was the most powerful creature in Kel’Thuzad’s Abomination army. Opponents that encountered him were often surprised and amazed at his strength and speed.

Unlike the slow-moving and predictable undead creatures, Patchwerk could use his inexhaustible strength to launch a barrage of attacks and crush any enemy that dared to face him. In his eyes, they were just little balls of meat to play with.

The Abominations had always been the backbone of the Scourge’s ground forces. Ghouls were always thinking about their stomachs and wouldn’t take a step if they hadn’t eaten enough. Crypt Fiends were more concerned about how they could torture their prey. However, the Abominations were always loyal to their master’s commands, which made them the perfect war machines. As such, Scourge scientists were also constantly trying to improve their abilities.

The birth of Patchwerk could be considered a miracle.

At the time, in the city of Stratholme, countless bodies were being transported into the huge slaughterhouse. The Scourge’s slaves, the Acolytes, were working to move the bodies around. Heigan directed the Acolytes to dismantle a Horde Tauren Shaman body. By using dark magic, this corpse constituted the main body of the Abomination. The body of a Dwarf Paladin became the arm of the Abomination, and its brain was put together with Orc corpses to form its head.

When the huge Abomination was assembled, Kel’Thuzad appeared in the slaughterhouse. Dark magic flowed from the high lich and the inanimate Abomination suddenly stood up.

This behemoth was 4 metres tall (Abominations were usually only 3 metres tall), and had a tough skin that had been enchanted by dark magic. It wielded a giant axe and could cut an unwitting target to pieces within seconds.

He was the Abomination that Kel’Thuzad had personally given life, and so became the King of Abominations upon birth.

Most of the clubs that chose the Abomination Zone as their first suffered at the hands of Patchwerk. Some even abandoned the Abomination Zone and moved on.

Lu Li didn’t want to leave the Abomination Zone until the end, but he knew that the Death Knight Zone was even more difficult. If they couldn’t defeat the Abomination Zone, then there was no point trying the Death Knight Zone.

The reason for Patchwerk’s strength was not because of how many skills he had or how complicated his behaviour was. It was just that his ordinary attacks were devastating once he went Berserk.

He was a typical tanky, high-damage Boss with high HP, and would go Berserk after 7 minutes, which would increase his damage by 400%.

This kind of damage was unbelievable; a normal Main Tank would basically get one-shot. After this happened, the rest of the players would just be a feast for the Boss.

One skill that it had was called Hateful Strike. This skill guaranteed that the next attack would be a critical hit. Patchwerk would select his target by picking someone who proportionally had higher HP than him.

These two factors made it very difficult for the Main Tank. The first made it such that the Main Tank needed to keep their HP high, but the second required the Main Tank to not have too much HP. Otherwise, if the Main Tank received a 400% damage attack with a critical hit, then even Azure Sea Breeze with 20,000 HP would fall.

This was where most of the clubs died.

Any club could enter the Berserk Stage, but they would inevitably be wiped. Even though they were playing as a three-guild alliance, Azure Sea Breeze was still being killed over and over.

“Wandering get out. Let’s get another Warrior in here. This way, we’ll have four of them,” Lu Li began to adjust the team composition.

With Azure Sea Breeze and three Warriors standing in a line, Lu Li instructed that Azure Sea Breeze’s HP should never be full. Instead, the three others should always be at full HP, even if that meant they were being over-healed.

In fact, keeping the three other Warriors at full HP wasn’t that difficult as long as the Healers kept healing.

The key point was that Azure Sea Breeze’s HP would remain a little lower, but this was difficult to coordinate. Darkness, who was responsible for healing, bit her lip and nodded. She was calm on the surface, but was actually feeling quite flustered. This was the first time she had been asked to heal in this way.

However, even after that, they still got wiped.

It was then that Lu Li finally came up with his trump card.

It was a bottle of orange-coloured potion which gave off a pungent smell after unscrewing the lid. Azure Sea Breeze had no desire to drink it.

“Drink it. Nothing bad will happen to you I promise,” Lu Li said, trying to console him. This was the last idea that he had, and it could only last one battle. They had been wiped so many times, but he didn’t take it out before because he wanted to ensure that it would work.

“Tch, why don’t you drink it then?”

Azure Sea Breeze really wanted to throw up.

Lu Li decided to give up on reasoning with him and said, “I’m not a Main Tank – why would I drink it? If you drink it, I’ll give you 20 DKP.”

“No, 100,” Azure Sea Breeze bargained.

“Uh, the most I can give you is 30. You can only get 10 from defeating a Boss, so how could I give you 100 just to drink this thing? What a shameless request.”

Lu Li wasn’t so easily convinced.

“80. I think that drink will probably cause me nightmares. Where did you even find such a smelly thing? I don’t want to do it.”

Azure Sea Breeze smelled the potion again and couldn’t take it.

“Big bro, 50 points then. If you really don’t want to, then I’ll let one of the other Warriors drink it,” Lu Li said, feeling somewhat guilty.

This potion was the smelliest potion he had ever held, so it was quite heartless to force Azure Sea Breeze to drink it.

However, the effects were very suitable for fighting this Boss. It was not really a potion, but a poison, as it would cap his HP at 90% for half an hour.

This would solve the problem of the Boss attacking the Main Tank with Hateful Strike.

Lu Li had deliberately searched for this item so they could fight this Boss. He had watched it for a few days in the Exchange Hall. The purchase had gone smoothly, but the smell was clearly foul.

Fortunately, Lu Li didn’t have to drink it, and could order Azure Sea Breeze to do it instead.