Chapter 55: Karone Foresight

“God of War Ares in heaven, what do my eyes see? A burning giant combat machine, no, this can’t be real, no…”

Just as the party and the Fire Beast were deeply embroiled in battle, a normal dwarf with a large beard appeared at the scene. Looking at the Fire Beast, he hugged his head in agony.

“This is… the combat machine my ancestor created!”

A bolt of white light scattered across the area and every member of the party gained an additional buff.

[Karone’s Determination!]

[Status effect lasts 180 minutes, increases HP by 10% and reduces damage by 5%. Obtained temporary skill, God of War’s Protection. Effect: Gives player ten seconds of immunity, limited to three uses.]

With the exception of Li Yi, everyone was shocked for an instant.

In truth, be it in Hard Mode or Normal Mode, the Dwarf called Karone Foresight would always appear after the player attacked the Fire Beast. The difference was that in Normal Mode, the buff would increase HP by 20% and decrease damage by 10%. They would also get five uses of the Invincibility skill.

“A temporary invincibility skill? Hahaha, with this buff, would this boss even still be hard?”

“That’s three uses of Invincibility, if we still can’t beat ’em, we should just cancel our accounts.”

“Exactly. Everyone deal all the damage you can, and just block immediately when you see the boss preparing a big move. Haha, we don’t even need to dodge anymore.”

The party morale was instantly boosted, but Li Yi was the only one who did not think so. The system would not help any player for free like that. The three free chances of Invincibility that they handed out to every player must not be used carelessly.

The Fire Beast had three stages, and the first stage had an AoE attack that was particularly hard to dodge, Sea of Fire.

Sea of Fire lasted for 12 seconds, and if you were in the Sea of Fire, your HP would continuously decrease. MTs could survive it, but other classes would not even last 10 seconds.

The Sea of Fire stretched across a large area, and if you wanted to avoid, you would need to prepare beforehand. Many people could not dodge in time, and so they would use Karone the Dwarf’s Invincibility buff to resist it.

However…

This was only the first stage. If they wasted all their uses of Invincibility in the first stage, they would not have any more uses during the second and third stages for insurance, making it all the harder to survive.

Li Yi yelled, “Guys, don’t waste your Invincibility uses. If you see the flames on top of the boss’s head light up, retreat immediately so you can avoid the Sea of Fire!”

Every time the Fire Beast unleashed its Sea of Fire, it would first gather up some energy, and the signal was that the flames atop its head would then light up especially brightly. It was only more than ten seconds after that signal when the Fire Beast would actually unleash its Sea of Fire.

The Fire Beast had already used Sea of Fire once, and three members of the party had died from that. Add that to the two MTs from before, and the party was five more men down.

Chen Yang and Fire Ice, on the other hand, were very much safe. One was a Healer and the other a Summoner, so both stood far away from the action. The Sea of Fire could not reach them at all, so all they had to do was avoid the weaker Fire Projectiles.

The flames on top of the Fire Beast’s head lit up once more. Hua Feiwu and Delicately Cute ordered a retreat, and some people did retreat, but others kept on hitting the boss, ignoring them completely.

For a party to mature, they had to be trained over countless obstacles. The party made by a haphazard collaboration between two guilds, Dark Empire and Century Flower, clearly was not in sync enough for this.

The wide Sea of Fire erupted at them, and at least seven people chose not to retreat, using their Invincibility instead to resist the attack.

They were not stupid, either. If they did not have the Invincibility skill, they probably would have retreated as well. The reason they would do this was for none other than the DPS.

Sea of Fire lasted for 12 seconds, while the retreat and return took another twenty or more seconds. In total, they would have wasted more than half a minute. Most importantly, the damage taken by the boss when one attacked whilst standing in the Sea of Fire was multiplied. If they just fought like this a couple times, their DPS would surely increase exponentially.

How could it be this easy to get the first kill off a boss in Hard Mode? Even if they passed the first stage, what about the second? Or the third? Were they that certain they would survive?

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It was best to just stock up on DPS. That way, even if they could not last until the end, they would still have some cash in hand at the end of the day.

Although some people wasted their Invincibility, no one died this time, so naturally, no one scolded them. Instead, many players, including Hua Feiwu, had a new idea.

Using the Invincibility in that Sea of Fire and dealing as much DPS as they could might actually be the key to defeating this boss.

Li Yi repeated once more, “You must not use the Invincibility too early. Everyone, if possible, it’s best not to use it at all.”

Nevertheless, this was not Li Yi’s party. He was merely a party member, and although his DPS was very high, there were still many people who were not convinced. Right now, if they just used the Invincibility and attacked the boss, their DPS would increase exponentially, so if they did it one more time, some other person would take over his place as number one.

This punk was clearly afraid of losing his first place spot, that was why he yelled that.

Well. It seemed that Li Yi might have been better off staying silent, because the moment he said that, everyone started harboring their own secret thoughts.

Next to them, Karone the Dwarf shouted with all his might, “Everyone, watch out for the Fire Beast’s Sea of Fire attack, watch out! The Fire Beast is gathering energy!”

The Dwarf, Karone Foresight was a common sight in the Pinnacle of the Fire Instance Group Dungeons, and the players had also given him a name: the ‘Road Guide’ (TN: the raws use a term that refers to implied or would-be traitors among civilians who would willingly open the gates for enemy soldiers, now used as a meme for critics of the government).

As long as he was there, they did not need to purposely pay attention to what skill the boss was going to use, because every time before the boss unleashed a skill, they would hear him yell and shout…

As expected, the top of the Fire Beast’s head lit up again, and this time, not one of the melee classes retreated. Even Hua Feiwu ran into the Sea of Fire using his Invincibility, dealing damage desperately.

Everyone’s DPS rose tremendously and the boss’ HP dropped drastically. By the time the Sea of Fire ran out, Hua Feiwu was first in the DPS rankings.

Chu Tiange was in second place, and Century Battlemaster was third. Li Yi, on the other hand, fell to eleventh place. He did not slack off, but when he avoided the Sea of Fire, he simply could not deal any damage at all.

Although he was a ranged class, the only ones who could deal any damage to the boss when it was using its Sea of Fire were the melee classes. If one tried to attack it from afar, the boss would automatically counter with Fire Projectiles. For every time you hit it, it would counter once. Forget ranged classes, even MTs would not be able to take that.

“Watch out, everyone, please retreat slightly, I can sense… that the energy of the Fire Beast is changing, what terrifying energy… This is… my ancestor’s masterpiece.”

The Road Guide, Karone the Dwarf warned them at the first possible moment, and everyone retreated as they continued to fight.

“Clack clack clack clack clack clack creak~”

The booming sounds of machinery rang in their ears, and the Fire Beast’s external appearance changed. It was no longer in T-Rex formed, but had instead become an enormous fireball.

“This is the second stage of the Fire Beast, the Ball of Double Retaliation. Ranged classes, no matter what you do, don’t attack haphazardly, or else you will instantly be hit by the Ball of Double Retaliation’s doubled fire attack.”

Hearing Karone’s loud yells, many ranged classes stopped attacking, but there was just one guy who did not believe him. This player created a Frost Arrow and shot it at the Ball of Double Retaliation.

“Pssh! Pssh!”

Two extremely fast Flame Arrows instantly penetrated that player’s body, and before he could even use his Invincibility, he was laid flat on the ground…

“Bang!”

“Ding!”

There was a ding that meant the equipment that player had been wearing had dropped.

A blue ring and a pitch-black staff appeared on the ground.

“The Destruction Staff!”

Hua Feiwu’s eyes immediately widened into saucers.