Chapter 1768 – Sockham’s Blade

“Roar!”

As Solitary Nine came within 150 yards of the Frost Ape Warlord, the Grand Lord abruptly opened its eyes and let loose an angry roar that echoed throughout the third underground floor. Even the ground trembled at its bellow.

Without waiting for Solitary Nine to reach it, the Frost Ape Warlord advanced, its body transforming into a powerful gale as it charged at the Shield Warrior.

In the blink of an eye, the Ape Warlord arrived before Solitary Nine and swung one of its longswords at the Shield Warrior.

Reacting quickly, Solitary Nine raised his shield slightly and deflected the Ape Warlord’s longsword, sending the weapon crashing into the ground beside him. Immediately after, he tightened his grip around his one-handed axe and swung it at the Ape Warlord, silver divine runes appearing on the head of the axe as it moved.

Tier 2 Skill, Angry Blow!

In the next moment, the one-handed axe sneaked past the Frost Ape Warlord’s defenses and landed on its body. Upon getting struck, the Grand Lord shrieked in pain.

-51,854!

Everyone present was dumbfounded at this damage. This number was too absurd. Previously, when going up against the Normal Mode Frost Ape Warlord, Solitary Nine could deal only a little over -20,000 damage when using a Tier 2 Skill. Now, despite going up against the Hero Mode version, he actually more than doubled that damage.

After getting struck, the Frost Ape Warlord became enraged. This time, it fiercely swung two of its longswords at Solitary Nine. Upon seeing this, Solitary Nine executed a spiral jump. At the same time, his shield gave off a dazzling glow. Both longswords the Ape Warlord swung then involuntarily shifted to cut at the shield.

Tier 2 Defensive Skill, Attack Redirection!

When activated, Attack Redirection forced a target to land all of their attacks on the user’s shield. At the same time, the user’s Defense would be increased by 100%, and the damage received, reduced by 50%. Attack Redirection was a very rare Defensive Skill.

When both longswords landed on Solitary Nine’s shield, two damages of -2,600 appeared above his head. After the Shield Warrior reached Level 55, his HP exceeded 65,000. This amount of damage was nothing to him; one healer would be enough to keep him alive and healthy.

While Solitary Nine was still in midair, he used the opportunity to land another blow on the Frost Ape Warlord.

-49,431!

After this attack, the Shield Warrior had thoroughly pulled the Ape Warlord’s aggro to himself. Now, only Solitary Nine existed in the Ape Warlord’s eyes.

“Good! Everyone else, join in the fight!” Shi Feng commanded.

Following Shi Feng’s command, everyone in the team surged forward.

Taking the lead, Lifeless Thorn executed Thrusting Assault and stabbed his glowing Tier 3 Mana Spear at one of the Ape Warlord’s joints, the blow forcefully redirecting the Ape Warlord’s movements. A damage exceeding -90,000 also appeared above the Grand Lord’s head.

Meanwhile, Cleansing Whistle, Yan Ya, and the other Tier 2 players also triggered their respective Mana Weapons’ abilities, their attacks wreaking over -80,000 damage each. They dealt much higher damage than MTs like Solitary Nine and Dark Madness. Even without using their Mana Weapon’s ability, they could still mete out over -40,000 damage.

As for the Tier 1 players in the team, when they activated their Tier 2 Mana Weapons, they could inflict over -30,000 damage with their attacks. If their weapons were in their passive state, they still dealt over -10,000 damage with each attack.

This situation made everyone in the team feel as if the Hero Mode Frost Ape Warlord was actually easier to deal with than the Normal Mode one.

Following which, the Ape Warlord’s HP fell rapidly, reaching 90% after just a short moment. When its HP hit 90%, its two Passive Skills took effect. Immediately, the top 20 DPS of the team had their Attack Speed reduced by 100%. At the same time, the Grand Lord’s Attack Power and Defense rose.

“Everyone, attention! Use your weapon’s Skill only when you are certain you can hit the Boss. If you’re not 100% certain, just attack normally. Dark, you and Solitary take turns attracting the Boss’s attention! Prioritize killing the mobs that appear!” Shi Feng instructed through the team chat.

Although their Attack Speed had been reduced, that did not mean that their Attack Power had declined. So long as they could land their attacks on the Boss, they could still deal damage.

Following which, Shi Feng activated Abyssal Curse, lowering the Boss’s Attributes by 10%, giving his team an easier time against the Boss.

Due to the Mana Weapons, although the Frost Ape Warlord’s two Passive Skills had taken effect, the Tier 1 players in the team were still able to deal over -10,000 damage with their attacks; they were not much weaker than an ordinary Tier 2 player. As a result, the Boss’s HP still decreased at a rapid pace.

80%… 60%… 30%…

Despite the Grand Lord becoming increasingly powerful as its HP diminished, it still failed to cope with Asura’s team, which effectively rivaled a 100-man team of Tier 2 players.

When the Ape Warlord’s HP fell to 20%, it abruptly raised its six longswords into the air and started gathering a large amount of Mana around the weapons. It was clearly planning to use a powerful team-wipe Skill—something that the Normal Mode Frost Ape Warlord did not possess.

“Everyone, gather at my location!” Shi Feng did not grow flustered in this situation. After all, he had dealt with Hero Mode Bosses plenty of times in the past; hence, he expected the Frost Ape Warlord to possess a team-wipe Skill.

Everyone present was an expert. Upon hearing Shi Feng’s command, they speedily gathered around him.

However, as the Ape Warlord’s Skill had a short channeling time of only three seconds, not everyone managed to get to Shi Feng before the Boss’s Skill activated. In the next moment, the Grand Lord rapidly brandished its six longswords simultaneously, sending energy blades flying in all directions. The power contained within those energy blades shattered even the sturdy stone floor. Meanwhile, the energy blades flew up to 100 yards before they disappeared.

Three players that failed to get within range of Shi Feng’s activated Absolute Domain were killed instantly.

The frightening destructive power of the Boss’s team-wipe Skill had everyone alive gasping. However, after using its team-wipe Skill, the Frost Ape Warlord fell into a sluggish state, its Movement Speed decreasing significantly. This situation allowed Asura’s members to land attacks on it more easily.

In less than two minutes, the Frost Ape Warlord fell under Shi Feng’s Divine Providence-enhanced attack, dropping a bunch of items around its corpse.

Seeing the Frost Ape Warlord dead, everyone could not help but sigh ruefully. They never thought that the Hero Mode Boss would be so easy to deal with. Even when Hecate’s raid team challenged and defeated the Normal Mode Frost Ape Warlord, the team had lost over half of its members. On the other hand, they had defeated the Hero Mode version at the cost of only three lives. If not for the Boss’s team-wipe Skill, they might have even managed to clear the floor without suffering a single casualty.

“Resurrect the fallen. Once everyone’s recovered, we’ll head down to the fourth underground floor,” Shi Feng instructed. He then proceeded to collect the Boss’s loot.

Although he had activated Divine Providence, at the end of the day, the Frost Ape Warlord was still a monster of the Ice Crystal World. Practically all of the items it dropped were materials, albeit Epic ranked ones. Only two items were equipment: Level 50 Fine-Gold ranked mage robes and a Level 50 Fine-Gold ranked two-handed axe. Even so, this loot still made many of the team’s experts drool.

Among the 30-plus items that dropped, only one managed to catch Shi Feng’s attention—the Sockham’s Blade Forging Design. Sockham’s Blade was a Level 50 Dark-Gold Weapon. To the current God’s Domain that had a severe scarcity of top-tier Level 50 weapons and equipment, a Level 50 Dark-Gold Weapon was an item beyond most players’ reach.

After tidying up the loot, Shi Feng noted that his team had already recovered fully. He then led his team down to the fourth underground floor.

The fourth underground floor was a maze that was littered with traps, which made traversing the floor extremely difficult.

After spending over an hour exploring the maze, the team arrived before a spacious hall.

“Sure enough, there aren’t any mobs here, either?” After arriving at the end of the maze, Shi Feng noticed that the situation here was similar to that on the third floor. There were no wandering mobs here at all. There were only two four-winged gargoyles standing at the entrance leading down to the next floor.

…

[Stone Guardian] (Archaic Species, Grand Lord)

Level 64

HP 130,000,000/130,000,000

…

“We need to deal with two Bosses on this floor?” Shi Feng smiled as he looked at the two gargoyles. “Solitary and Dark, each of you take on one of these Bosses. We’ll split the team into two groups of fifty and raid the Bosses separately!”

Other teams might find dealing with two Bosses simultaneously to be headache-inducing, but the two Stone Guardians were not a problem for Asura’s current raid team. As Refinement Realm experts, both Solitary Nine and Dark Madness were more than capable of tanking a Grand Lord ranked Archaic Species all by themselves. As for DPS, although the team’s damage dealers would be split between two teams, they could still cope with the Stone Guardians, thanks to the Mana Weapons.

In the end, just like Shi Feng had expected, before even twenty minutes had passed, both Stone Guardians had fallen to Asura’s raid team, dying under Shi Feng’s swords. In total, the two Bosses had dropped over 30 items, none of which managed to catch Shi Feng’s attention. The only noteworthy items in the loot were three pieces of Level 50 equipment; two pieces were Fine-Gold rank, while one was Dark-Gold ranked leather boots.

After resting for ten minutes or so, Shi Feng led the team down to the fifth underground floor, which was also the final floor of the Snow Ruin.

At the same time as Asura’s team was descending to the final floor, a system announcement suddenly rang in everyone’s ears.

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