Chapter 116 The Troublesome BOSS

However, although Mi Lu exercised great control over the party, his command method does has its fatal flaws; It demanded too much on the reflexes of other players. You cannot expect everyone to immediately react with a mere thought just like your own limbs. Therefore, even though this method is acceptable if the party members have good teamwork and were used to the situation, it revealed fatal weaknesses when deployed in a pioneering attempt at clearing dungeons.

Even though they smoothly made it past the first stage without any casualties, it was evident that a majority of them had been mentally stretched to their limits. Fortunately, Mi Lu had realized his shortcomings and quickly controlled the pace of the battle, enabling the players to gradually adapt to the situation. Unfortunately, just when all seemed to be under control, the BOSS unleashed a ultimate skill that wiped out the entire party upon reaching the third stage of the fight. Not even Gongzi You was able to escape such a horrible fate, joining the fallen party in death.

This was Ye Ci’s first death ever since she reincarnated. Ye Ci let out a sigh as she laid on the ground. She had thought that she would be able to avoid dying all the way until she had reached lvl 60. Never did she expect herself to die in a dungeon when she was still in her early lvl 30s.

Respawning, Ye Ci sat on the ground. Both Overflowing Ink and Mi Lu also sat nearby, eating without speaking a word. As Ye Ci pointed out their errors one by one, the duo could only nod repeatedly in agreement.

“Leader, how about you take over for this attempt? We’ll observe and learn from you.” Mi Lu replied after taking a gulp of water.

Ye Ci nodded her head in agreement. If it wasn’t for the fact that they are competing with Tang Dynasty for the First Blood, she would have allowed these two to try again. Alas, this was not the time to allow them to continue trying. So she stood up and addressed the party. “I’ll be explaining the new strategy to everyone. I understand that it is not easy to adapt to so many new battle tactics in such a amount of short time, so I will take everybody’s difficulties into account. My command method will not differ too much from the previous ones As long as you people stay focused and not get distracted, we’ll be fine.”

She received the indication from the party that they would be able to abide by her command.

“I’ll do an inventory check now. How many cold-resistance potions does everyone have left? If you have less than five, go grab more from Timely Rain.”

“I only have 1 bottle remaining.”

“I still have 4.”

“I have 4 remaining as well.”

…After reporting the amount of cold-resistance potions left in their inventory, they flocked towards Timely Rain to replenish their potions. When the team was just about done refilling their inventories with potions, Ye Ci continued to speak. “Each of you has only 5 cold-resistance potions with you. As long as you listen to my commands, they will be sufficient. That is why I hope that you will only consume them when instructed. When it is time, I will notify all of you. During the first stage of the fight, I want players of all classes to attack the BOSS from the farthest distance possible. At this stage, the BOSS will use his Frost Embellishment. Just as everyone saw earlier, once the Frost Embellishment appears, the tank will definitely receive constant damage. The radius of this frost circle is 22 yards, but the maximum healing range of a healer is 20 yards. This means that the main healer will have to heal the tank from within the circle, while another healer remains outside the circle to heal the main healer.

With that, Ye Ci started to assign roles. “Fruit Jelly, you are to stand inside the circle and heal Remote Depths. Icy Cold Tiny Hands will be in charge of healing you.” The two acknowledged Ye Ci’s arrangement and she continued. “I want the rest of the healers to be flexible by healing the players around you when needed and dealing damage when no one requires healing. For the melee players, all of you can take it easy during the first stage of the fight, but you must not get distracted. The first stage will last for about 5 minutes and the fight will proceed to the second stage right after these 5 minutes. In the second stage, the BOSS will create doppelgangers of itself, which will appear randomly at any of the four corners. When this happens, only the main healer, sub-healer and the tank should remain in their positions, while the rest of the party run towards the doppelganger appeared.”

“As for the third stage of the BOSS fight…be alert and listen to my instructions, everyone has to stop attacking when I give the instruction, or you will be afflicted with an Explosion DEBUFF that will cause you to explode, catching anyone in the explosion's radius. If you get afflicted by the DEBUFF, rush to a corner where there’s nobody around so that you will not kill the other party members when you explode.”

After briefly explaining the battle plan, Ye Ci rallied the players and started the battle.

Having already fought the first and second stage and thanks to Ye Ci’s pre-assigned objectives, not a lot of mistakes were made. However, the team’s lack of experience started to show itself upon reaching the third stage of the BOSS fight.

“Stop!” Ye Ci, who had unblinkingly observed the BOSS’s state, immediately gave out the warning the moment it began channeling its skill. This skill was uninterruptible and the only way to avoid the skill was to stop and wait for the skill to finish casting.

At Ye Ci’s shout, almost everyone halted their skill casting and even the tank turned his back towards the BOSS. Unfortunately, a person failed to listen to Ye Ci’s command. A mage called Crescent Night’s Solo failed to stop, and so a large fireball flew out and landed on the BOSS. The BOSS roared out “Crescent Night’s Solo, you dare to anger me? I’ll teach you a lesson!”

Crescent Night’s Solo was momentarily stunned. He had not been in a situation where a BOSS that would call out a player’s name. He couldn’t help but shudder when the BOSS roared at him. At the very next instant, the BOSS threw something onto him and white smoke to sprout from his body.

Noticing the situation, Ye Ci cried out. ”Crescent Night’s Solo, run towards a deserted area!”

The DEBUFF’s countdown timer was six seconds. If one was quick on their feet, they would definitely be able to move to a place far away from the group before the explosion. If he wasn’t to grasp this time window, the whole group will be dragged down with him.

It was evident that Crescent Night’s Solo had never encountered this kind of situation before. Ye Ci’s words only caused him to panic even more, and he dashed around like a headless fly. Looking at the situation, Ye Ci could not care less about the battle’s pace anymore as she had to ensure that the remainder of the party was able to maintain their assault on the BOSS. She yelled. “Everybody spread out, keep 20 yards away from Crescent Night’s Solo!”

Although she gave the warning in time, the team was still not used to adapting to sudden situations like this. Despite Ye Ci’s warning, a majority of the team still were blown up by Crescent Night’s Solo 6 seconds later.

Ye Ci had no choice but to give up on this attempt, and she shouted, “Retreat!”

At that time, the BOSS had only 13% of its HP remaining, so this attempt’s failure weighed heavily in everyone’s hearts. No words were exchanged, but the dejected sighs pierced deep into Crescent Night’s Solo, he sat alone in a corner with his head miserably hung low.

Ye Ci sat not too far away from him, eating but did not speak a word.

This caused Crescent Night’s Solo to feel even more uncomfortable. Time slowly ticked by and Ye Ci still remained silent, Crescent Night’s Solo aside, even the entire team felt that they were being suffocated by the atmosphere. They whispered amongst themselves but did not dare to come up and say something.

Just then, Crescent Night’s Solo stood up and walked up to Ye Ci with a remorseful expression. “Leader, I messed up. I’ll back out from the team. You guys can continue without me.” With that, he turned to leave.

In response, Ye Ci glared at him and said curtly. ”Come back.”

Crescent Night’s Solo had never seen Ye Ci acting so sternly before. He just stood there, stunned and at a loss of what to do.

Ye Ci continued to look at him, softening the tone of her voice. “You’re going to leave the team over a small matter like this? What are your team members to you? If you’re backing out after making a small mistake, then there’ll be another person backing out tomorrow because they messed up. So should this party just disband? Should we stop attempting dungeons in the future?”

At Ye Ci’s words, Crescent Night’s Solo became even more depressed.

“You made a mistake this time, so remember how you did it, amend your mistake and make sure you don’t repeat it again. If you can’t even take such a minor setback, how can you even talk about getting First Blood?”

“Yes, Leader, I was wrong.” Crescent Night’s Solo took a deep breath and nodded.

“Solo, let me ask you. If the same situation happens in the next battle, will you make the same mistake again? ”

“I won’t!” Crescent Night’s Solo shook his head. ”I guarantee it with my life!”

“What about you guys?” Ye Ci raised her voice, taking this moment to stand up and glance at everyone.

“We won’t!!” Everybody exchanged glances and answered unanimously, their voices loud and clear.

Ye Ci nodded her head in satisfaction. ”Good, then let us start the fight.”

This time, everyone held their breaths and yet, their morale was high. The first stage, they managed to clearing mobs whilst stationary, was cleared without a single death. No one had their HP fall below 90% and their mana control was excellent. In the the second stage, the appearance of the BOSS’s doppelgangers, everybody ran together as a whole and did not pull the team down. After 20 minutes, the accursed third stage arrived.

“Stop!” Upon Ye Ci’s command to halt, everyone immediately stopped in their tracks and not a single person did anything excessive. This repeated a few times and everyone was able to avoid getting afflicted by the BOSS’s skill. As the fight dragged on, the skill’s frequency increased and players who were unable to keep up started to appear. These players proactively dashed towards a deserted area and did not cause trouble to the team.

When the BOSS’s HP bar was down to 5%, the entire team had been whittled down to 6 members.

Ye Ci, Remote Depths, Fruit Jelly, Let Go Of That Girl, Ideal Height 1.7m and Pickled Pepper Phoenix Claw.

Everyone paid close attention to the BOSS’s state, hardly blinking at all, afraid of being afflicted with the DEBUFF.

The corpses on the ground also didn’t dare to make a sound as though worried that the commotion caused might end up affecting the mental states of the remaining six.

In the end, Ideal Height 1.7m was a fraction too slow.

“Ideal Height 1.7m, you dare to anger me? I’ll teach you a lesson!”

“F**K!!” Ideal Height 1.7m cursed as she turned to run but the countdown for the DEBUFF’s timer was now reduced to 3 seconds. Everyone had to run in the opposite direction as her if they wanted to avoid getting caught by her explosion.

Just at that moment…

This is another chapter translated by Rozen! Hope y'all enjoy!