Chương 55: Chapter 54 - Final Preparations

The next day, we met early in the blighted mountain city on a cleared platform, poisonous water dripping down to the ravine below us.

"No way, why?" Veyra asked. She studied the item stats, then blinked at me.

"You sold Lichfang for this?" Sablethorn Item Type: Legendary (Unique Event Item) Required Character Level: 239 Stats: 750 Attack Force 300 Defence Abilities: Steeldrain (Passive): Hitting an armor piece with Sablethorn steals a portion of defence from the target. The amount stolen scales based on the strength of impact and the total defence of the target. This effect stacks and can critically strike.

"I thought you needed more damage!" Veyra said.

"How is this going to be useful? It does way less damage, just for some defence?" I just grinned.

"What?" she asked.

"Take a look at these gloves I also found," I said, showing her another item. Steelripper Gloves Item Type: Legendary (Unique Event Item) Required Character Level: 224 Stats: 100 Defence Abilities: Sharpness Of Defence (Passive): Attack Force increases for every Defence point the wielder has (one Attack Force for base Defence; two Attack Force for temporary bonus Defence.)"I had to sell Fuhad's gloves as well to afford both," I said, "But the combo should be completely broken." Veyra paused, studying the effects.

"Wait, so defence converts to attack force. The tankier you are, the more damage you deal."

"Yep," I said, and I didn't need to explain my idea behind this build. I'd be hitting enemies randomly anyway to stack [Eviscerate]. With my previous items, those random hits had one goal only, to stack evisceration, while adding miniscule numbers to Lichfang's passive. Now, I had another win condition to play for. Not only would random hits stack evisceration, they'd also steal defence and add to my attack force.

Sure, my initial attack force stat was lower, but if I stacked enough armor, this dagger could outdamage Lichfang.

"And how much money did you spend on these?" Veyra asked.

"Yes," I said. Veyra crossed her arms.

"A couple," I said.

"So you spent so much you're not even going to tell me," Veyra said.

"They're both overpowered," I insisted.

"And who did your math?!" Veyra blurted out.

"You could have at least let me take a look! Really, how much defence will that dagger give you with each hit you make? Will it even make a difference?"

"I'm feeling positive," I said.

"It's a legendary item. And it says the effect stacks."

"So you just sold Lichfang and bought it by feeling?" Veyra asked.

"We need to fly to Worlds next week!"

"But you admit it has potential, right?" I asked. She pouted, sighing.

"Against high defence targets, sure. It might. But if your goal is to do more damage and one-shot targets, I'm not really sure."

"You're forgetting one thing as well," I said.

"This effect steals defence. It doesn't just amplify my defence stat, it also removes defence from the enemy. You'll do more damage as well." She leaned against the wall, biting her lip.

"I don't know… I still can't help but feel like my build is subpar. Four years ago, back in the day, my fire mage build had combos one-shot players if I landed everything right. With this build, Chronorift deals good DPS, but enemies can just heal that. Time Freeze has good burst, but landing it is getting harder and harder when we fight better opponents and tougher monsters."

"Frost and time provide great utility, though," I said.

"If you were a fire mage, I'd need to dodge your spells alongside enemy spells. Also… I remember you mentioning you have a secret ultimate, still." Her head perked up, only to fall again.

"Oh, that. Yeah, I have one more secret skill… It's definitely not an ultimate, though. It's closer to pocket sand. I'll show it to you in a bit, but it's really just a final hopeless trick." I tilted my head.

"Well, either way, we still have a week. We can still hunt for at least one gear piece for us both. I saw on the forums that the Portal Mage's Crypt still isn't cleared. The boss is still up."

"Except there are two problems," Veyra said.

"The boss is so insane that Zenith Protocol with FireBrand didn't even want to attempt it. He moved to questing instead. Their B-team is still controlling the respawns there right now. Sneaking past them will be pretty much impossible. There's no way we can just walk in and clear it." Her tone implied that guild-wiping Zenith Protocol's B-team would be too difficult as well. I had to agree. It still included over 5 top 100 players, including Henrift.

We could wipe out lower tier guilds without much issues, but now that our opponents were all literally the best players in the world, walking in to kill everyone wasn't so simple. At the very least, we'd need a proper plan and perfect execution to wipe them. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. I was also inclined to agree about the boss. I had seen the footage of Zenith Protocol's livestream fighting the boss in the Portal Mage's Crypt.

It had been a level 435 monstrosity of a berserker. Zenith Protocol's B-team hadn't even gotten it to the second phase before it killed them all. Currently, the boss was just sitting in the dungeon, waiting for someone to attempt to fight it again. Impossible bosses like those were common in Wonderind. The most famous example of a boss standing the test of time was the Wormvile Tyrant in the wilderness of the basegame, protecting the basement of a cursed temple.

It was so difficult that when it was discovered, seven years ago, clearing it took over two years and thirty-four failed raids, until The Eon Covenant with SoulShadow and a bunch of other top players finally succeeded. There was a good chance the Ray Dragon event would have a few long-standing bosses as well. Wind Virtual always left impossible challenges in the game to give the community something to look forward to.

Some bosses were designed to be so difficult that players didn't even attempt to clear them before they'd leveled up. If we could clear the Portal Mage's Crypt, that would be insane, but Veyra was right. It wouldn't be happening.

"There's also the final Ray Dragon fight," I said.

"We have the apostle title. We'll just have to wait for the red moon."

"Except, there's a good chance that event will favor the big guilds as well," Veyra said with a sigh. She's stressed out, I noted. She'd been stressed for a long time now with preparation for Worlds constantly in our minds. I agreed with her, in a way. Against true top players like Annath, we were still behind. If we walked in with the gear we had now, we would probably just lose.

"You could also invest in a new item," I said.

"A robe, maybe? New items always boost confidence."

"I'd love to, trust me," Veyra said.

"But I need money. I'm really close to my goal. Winning something small at Worlds will get me over the threshold. But if I buy something and spend money, we'll need to win big instead." My lips formed a little line. Buying something probably wouldn't help stress. We could only hope for lucky drops through guild-wipes or dungeon hunts. Maybe I could grab her a gift? But I wasn't exactly rich either yet.

"Well, we've still got a week to prepare," I said.

"For now, let's finish this dungeon."

That week passed in a flash on one hand, and on the other, it seemed to never end. First of all, I was sad to admit, but Wind Virtual's balance team had actually done a decent job with item stats this time. As in, my new dagger and gloves combination was good, but it wasn't as overpowered. I definitely felt tankier and more secure with this build after I got momentum going. Sablethorn required a few good hits for its defence stealing mechanic to start ramping up. Once it did, though, it kept going.

Sablethorn stole defence all the way to zero. If I'd hit a tank enough, I stole all of their defence, and not only did I turn into a tank, my gloves also gave me insane amounts of Attack Force. At that point, my opponent was so stacked up with [Eviscerate] stacks that I could pretty much ensure a one-shot. The weakness was always the start of the fight. If I didn't get the first hit in, I would die. Only once Runeband and Sablethorn were both active, I started to feel strong.

In that state, the build was definitely much stronger than what I was with my Vital Strike build.

"I'd like to test this out on players as well," I said.

"How about another guild wipe?" Veyra agreed, and I took the job of finding a suitable guild for us to hunt. Assassinating people was different at the end of an event compared to the start. Near the end, most quests and dungeons were already cleared. Tracking progress was difficult. Instead, people tended to set home inside dungeons, like how the Cupcake Crew picked the Sunken Crypts as their territory. To find a guild, all we had to do was pick a mid-level dungeon, walk in, and kill everyone.

"Remember this," I told Veyra while looking at the map.

"The most contested dungeons are always crypts or caverns. People hate poison swamps, and we won't find any sane guilds in blighttowns. For a good profitable guild wipe, always pick a dark cavern."

"What about a poison cave, though?" Veyra asked with a funny grin, pointing at The Caustic Warrens.

"That should be dark, and it's a cave." I rolled my eyes, but I agreed. We entered the cave network, filled with shiny green poison puddles. Oversized bat monsters lay there, dead and all looted. We walked deeper, until arcane magic told us we'd found our target. It was a mid-high-tier guild called Paragon. They sat in an open cavern with a purple magical campfire in the middle to avoid smoke. They were just standing up and grabbing their weapons, ready to descend deeper. Their tank player, MayorPug, went first.

For a smooth job, we should have waited until they got into a fight, interrupting them at the worst moment. This guild didn't seem to have scouts behind, trusting that nobody would attack them in a poison cave. But we're here to test the limits of our builds, I thought. I [Shadow Dashed] straight through the entire guild, into the next tunnel down that MayorPug was just about to enter. He flinched, yelling, "Assassins!" I hit him right away, stacking Sablethorn from his armor.

He gritted his teeth and [Swung], giving me the easiest block with The Immortal. I continued stacking from his armor, while his guild was in utter panic behind. If their mages tried to shoot, they'd hit their tank in the back. My defence hit 1639 and stopped there, having stolen everything MayorPug had to offer. But it would be a waste to kill you now, I thought. That would return all of the defence back to the corpse.

I left the tank alive and [Shadow Dashed] through, to the backline, where Angelinna, a cute but slow mage girl panic casted [Elemental Barrier]. With my defence stacked, I also had insane amounts of Attack Force. I ripped through the barrier as it was forming. I slashed her twice with both of my daggers, then activated [Eviscerate]—but before killing her, I slid The Immortal to its holster and took out Soul Orb Of Rathax —and thrust Sablethorn through her brain. Slash. That exchange took a second and a half.

Swords and spells were already raining down on me. But since I had the soul orb in my hand, [Reset] refreshed my dash's cooldown, and I [Shadow Dashed] to my next target, killing LmaoKing in similar fashion. By then, my defence was lowering. [Steeldrain] required me to keep hitting my target, or the defence I'd stolen slowly wore off. So I dashed back to MayorPug, hitting him with Sablethorn. I kicked him to the ground, since his defence was now at zero, and I faced their sword dance player, LordWindy.

To say I utterly demolished LordWindy was an understatement. I let him [Swing] me on the shoulder to see the damage. His sword did 8% of my health bar, and the sword clinked off of my shoulder as if it was solid metal. I counter-attacked, quickly stacking evisceration, before one-shotting him with my high Attack Force. The slash came and his figure disintegrated, when behind him, the air chilled as time itself blew up, and more slashes resounded.

Veyra stood calmly where their back-line used to, having killed every remaining member with a fully charged [Time Freeze]. I grinned.

"And you say your build is sub-par?" She shrugged, unimpressed.

"How many of these guys were in the top five hundred?"

"MayorPug is somewhere in the top four hundred," I said.

"And I think LonerWolf is in the top three hundred as well. I didn't see him before you killed him, though."

"Hm," she said with a vague smirk as she began collecting gear pieces. After collecting everything, the best drop was worth two thousand gold, with the average loot being around a hundred. Not the best luck, and unfortunately nothing for Veyra's build, but it was good to know that my build worked in PvP as well. After that, we kept monster hunting, bringing my level to 248, and Veyra's to 252.

We continued checking the auction, but I was a bit broke, and Veyra wanted to avoid spending money, so the auction didn't show results. I wondered if I should finally ask what she was saving for. She avoided bringing the topic up in her usual secretive style. But since she was already stressing out about her build and our trip to Sweden, I figured we'd focus on our Worlds performance instead.

We discussed strategies, practiced tandem attacks, and of course hugged here and there, until the final day of the Ray Dragon event hit. The moon turned red, and our quest info popped active. Quest: Apostle Of A Great Dragon (SS Tier Event Quest) Quest Details: The night of the red moon has arrived. Visit Ray Dragon Embridge on the Dragon Canyon for your final offering. Quest Reward:???