Chapter 228: Change

Vine Demon King (Dark Gold Rank boss)

Level: 80

Attack: 550~800

Defense: 1100

HP: 400000

Skills: ???

Introduction: The Vine Demon King evolved from a thousand-year-old vine who has the ability to attack its enemies with countless vines, but is permanently rooted in one place. Vine Demon Kings have existed deep inside forest areas for tens of thousands of years, and the strongest among them was sealed in the third floor of the Devil Sealing Tower to serve as a guardian.

……

I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the Vine Demon King’s stats. It was a Level 80 Dark Gold Rank boss, but it only had 800 Attack. Was it created to put all other Dark Gold Rank bosses to shame, and not in the positive sense? It had ridiculously high HP and Defense, but this was exactly the kind of boss I loved!

I lifted the Purgatory Sword and charged the boss confidently!

Whoosh!

MISS!

But to my surprise, I had failed to stun the boss. Still, I didn’t let the failure slow me and transitioned into an Ice Ray + Slayer Slash combo!

1784!

1450!

Tsk tsk, its Defense is truly amazing! I was barely able to pierce it and do some damage!

Looking incredibly angry, the Vine Demon King retaliated by swinging its arms at me. But instead of evading or parrying the attack, I simply let it hit me in the body!

387!

Ghost Deity Armor rattled under the impact, but the actual damage dealt to my person was so weak that I could practically ignore it. Man, the bosses of the Devil Sealing Tower had so far proven themselves to be extremely “benevolent” creatures. The Golden-armored Devil Beetle had shit stats in general, so it was incredibly easy to kill. The Gargoyle King had a low turn rate, so it was possible to bully it to death with good positioning and maneuvering. The Vine Demon King, on the other hand, was your standard meatshield. Killing it was just a matter of time.

The fight continued like this for a time. It was an incredible feeling to watch the boss's HP decrease while I chugged my potions and kept myself constantly in the green. Lin Yixin had given me reserves, and that plus my original stock totaled up to 90 Health Potions or so. It should barely be enough to last me the whole tower crawl. Although the Vine Demon King didn’t have high Attack, it was very tanky. At the rate I was wearing it down, I estimated that it would cost at least 30 Rank 6 Health Potions before I finally killed it.

Ten whole minutes later, the Vine Demon King let out a death scream and collapsed in shame. Its gigantic body crumbled and exploded into many items!

The Phantasmal Magic Stones were thrown all over the place, so I decided to grab the equipment drops first.

Most of them turned out to be very disappointing. There was a pair of Dark Steel–grade leather wristguards, a Dark Steel–grade leather cape, and a pair of Silver-grade leather boots.

But the last item was something else. It was a dark gold–colored long bow!

I picked up the bow and gave it a look. It looked like it was made from pure gold, and a powerful energy was flowing from the bow and into my arm. I waved my hand ones and brought up the stats screen. It was as good as I thought it would be!

Golden Scale Bow (Dark Gold–grade)

Attack: 70~240

Strength: +50

Agility: +42

Passive: Increases user’s max HP by 20%

Level Requirement: 75

……

Tsk tsk, the bow had 240 Attack. It was even better than Beiming Xue’s Level 70 Dark Gold–grade Purgatory Bow, albeit only slightly.

This Golden Scale Bow was the only good item dropped by the Vine Demon King. I already knew what I wanted to do with it.

I took a screenshot of the bow and sent it to Beiming Xue: “Lil Beiming, what do you think of this bow? Do you want it?”

Beiming Xue let out a cry of astonishment before asking, “Where did you get it, big bro?”

“The Devil Sealing Tower, of course!”

“Oh, that place…” Beiming Xue smiled. “Anyway, I think I prefer my Purgatory Bow. Although this Golden Scale Bow has pretty good stats, it only has a base Attack of 70. That means that its overall offensive power is actually lower than my Purgatory Bow. Besides that, it adds 50 points of Strength instead of Stamina, and increases its user’s max HP by 20%. I won’t deny that its passive is incredibly powerful, but ultimately the most important stat to an archer is Attack, not HP. Even if my max HP is off the charts, I still wouldn’t be able to take two hits from a warrior like you, could I?”

I smiled. As expected of the archer I chose, she had found the flaws of the Golden Scale Bow almost immediately. At first glance, this Dark Gold–grade equipment looked incredibly impressive, but its true value was so-so at best. It was better as a decoration than an actual weapon.

After confirming that Beiming Xue had no use for this bow, I hung up and made up my mind to put it up for auction at Floating Ice City. A Level 75 Dark Gold–grade weapon was a reserve weapon most high-level players could use at this stage of the game, and who knows, I might even be able to sell it for an obscene amount of money!

I continued toward the fourth floor after throwing the Golden Scale Bow into my bag. It was the last floor of the Devil Sealing Tower, so I should be at the top after this last flight of stairs!

A familiar ring entered my ears when I entered the fourth floor of the map.

Ding~!

System Notice: You have entered the boss map, General Hall!

……

Fuck! The General Hall?

I was surprised by how small the top floor of the tower was. It was only as big as a basketball field, and there were spinning runes at the center of the map. It was also there that I spotted a bunch of mobs.

There were four Level 80 elite mobs clad in greenish metal armor, and they seemed to be guarding a pure black coffin. If I wasn’t mistaken, the Purgatory Devil Sovereign I was tasked to kill was lying in it.

I glared at the four guards and fell into thought for a moment. These lackeys needed to die first because I couldn’t afford to be distracted by them when the boss made its appearance. Moreover, there was no such thing as a second chance in this tower. If I failed even once, I wouldn’t be able to enter it a second time.

As usual, I sent the Dark Wasp forward to act as bait. It wasn’t long before all four elite mobs were pouncing toward me. The good news was that the boss wasn’t awakened by the disturbance!

“Die!”

The edge of the Purgatory Sword was covered in bloody light as I charged into the middle of the guards and spun like a top. Waves of bloody energy struck out at my enemies and cut them into mince meat in just the blink of an eye. I might be 5 levels below these elite mobs, but there’s still nothing they can do to me as long as they are not a boss.

All four elite mobs died in less than three minutes. The boss was the only one left now!

……

I kept my sword pointed toward the coffin as I slowly approached it. Suddenly, the entire Devil Sealing Tower started shaking as a ray of bloody light burst out of the coffin!

Thud!

A huge hand that was covered in metal pushed away the lid of the coffin. Then, an intimidating giant slowly rose to his feet and stared at me. The boss was a mighty-looking general with a thick and bloody cape draped over his shoulders. He was holding a glowing sword that matched his size—most likely the Devil Suppressing Sword—and his armor had jagged lines and edges that resembled draconic armor. He looked ridiculously cool in that outfit.

I hurriedly took a couple of steps away from the boss. I was shocked that I couldn’t see its stats at all.

Purgatory Devil Sovereign (Dark Gold Rank Boss)

Level: 85

Attack: ???

Defense: ???

HP: ???

Skills: ???

Introduction: Purgatory Devil Sovereign was a Holy Dominion warrior. His soul succumbed to darkness because he had murdered countless people in his life. He was summoned back to life as a bloodthirsty general by a Night Creature leader hidden deep within the darkness. Tens of thousands of years ago, a human empire successfully defeated him and sealed him inside the Devil Sealing Tower in exchange for the lives of 21 Holy Dominion warriors and 14 dragon horsemen. Today, Purgatory Devil Sovereign has lost most of his strength to the passage of time, but is still an incredibly scary foe.

……

I sucked in a deep breath. If there was one thing I was certain about, it was that this boss had incredible stats!

Fortune favors the bold, and it was do or die in this tower!

“Die!”

I activated Charge and hit the boss like a lightning bolt. Then, I swung my Outstanding Purgatory Sword straight at its head!

Bang!

MISS!

2275!

Fuck! Even after Pardon had mitigated most of the boss's Defense, I was only able to deal around 2000 damage or so. Worse, 2000 HP was barely a tick in the boss health pool! He was way tougher than that Gargoyle King I had fought earlier!

I contained my shock and gritted my teeth. A sinister smile spread across the dark face beneath the helmet. “Hehe, die, you lowly undead adventurer!”

He swung his sword at me as he spoke. I hurriedly backed away from him and raised my sword defensively!

Clang!

Unbelievable! The attack actually broke my defensive stance and caused it to mitigate a lot less damage than usual! Not only that, the boss's level was so high that my Deterrence was completely ineffective against it!

1298!

It was bad. The boss was far stronger than I initially imagined!

The Dark Wasp flew forward to buy time for me, but all it took was one casual swing from the Purgatory Devil Sovereign to send it back to my pet space!

It was clear that I couldn’t fight this boss head-on. Worse, his movement speed and turn rate were absolutely higher than mine. Unlike the Gargoyle King, he couldn’t be dealt with by just quick maneuvers!

I kept backing away while observing the terrain around me. Suddenly, my eyes lit up. I think I found an exploitable area!

There was a window where a bit of light entered from outside. It was only big enough to fit a human, and there was no way Purgatory Devil Sovereign could squeeze through it.

I was delighted. As the saying goes, never give up hope and one will find a way eventually!

I ran toward the window and leaped into the opening. Now, I was surrounded by thick walls on both sides. A boss NPC would never damage the building, right?

But Purgatory Devil Sovereign disappointed me and swung its sword horizontally. The bricks collapsed under his swing easily like he was cutting tofu!

I immediately raised the Purgatory Sword and activated Thousand Mirage Slash!

It was my only chance. I had to kill it with Thousand Mirage Slash before the boss could get his hands on me!

But was that even possible? One hit from Thousand Mirage Slash only dealt about one thousand damage. It wasn’t even enough to nullify his regeneration...

“Die! Die!”

The boss continued to hack away at the walls like crazy. Bits of stones were flying all over the place. Suddenly, he stopped swinging and grabbed my arm with his big hand!

……

Suddenly, something completely unusual happened!

Swhoosh!

A magnificent red light illuminated the entire hall, and my little skeleton suddenly appeared behind the boss. She raised her spear and spoke in a shockingly melodious voice, “Let him go… let him go!”

Swhoosh!

She thrust her spear forward and hit the Purgatory Devil Sovereign squarely in the back!

127984!

It was a ridiculous amount of damage to say the least. At that moment, I found that I didn’t know that little skeleton at all. What on earth is she?

Enraged, the boss turned around and retaliated with a mighty swing of his own. NPC battles had always been intense!

Clang!

There was a shower of sparks, and the little skeleton’s helmet was knocked off her head.

The night’s breeze carried her black hair into the air, and her beautiful face came under the moonlight. Her blood-red eyes were full of sorrow and anger.

……

My knees buckled and hit the ground before I realized it.

“Xinran, is that you?”

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