Chongxing Went Down Too, Cleared Only on the Second Try

"It's not like nobody has a trump card. My Ice Barrier can last at least ten seconds," War Sky said disdainfully.

"Then let's have a contest and see who can live longer?"

"When it comes to survivability, we Shield Guard won't lose," Dragon Diagram Jinghe said disdainfully.

Just as he was drawing the leader's attention, the remaining people were trying to move to a corner.

Unexpectedly, the BOSS "Infernal Machine Demon King," who had been holding the center, suddenly launched a charge, targeting their group!

"Spread!"

Although the group tried to dodge, the Demon King's speed was terrifying, and several of them were knocked down in an instant.

"The hatred has gotten out of control! They've already lost members at the start?"

"Luckily, I reacted quickly and activated the Ice Seal instantly."

Only "Unparalleled Weaving Rain" and War Sky survived the BOSS's charge.

"Next time, I'm afraid neither of us will be able to hold on."

Fortunately, no further incidents occurred after that initial charge.

The two huddled in a corner, without any healer to support them, and dared not approach the center of the battlefield to receive his treatment.

"Looks like now it's just a matter of who can take more beatings."

"Everyone else is out of the game, and everyone's defenses are about the same. I can react instantly and activate my life-saving abilities. That guy Yu Tian can only lie on the ground now." War Sky's tone was not without smugness.

This time, he stole the spotlight.

At this moment, two small monsters spawned in the arena and attacked him and Unparalleled respectively.

"This is bad! Don't come any closer! Get away!"

The two dared not make any rash moves and could only lead the little monster around the arena.

However, a red warning zone suddenly appeared over the entire venue.

This time, it's no longer a half-field attack like the Venom Puppet, but a devastating strike that completely covers the entire screen!

Both of them activated their damage reduction skills again, but to no avail.

In an instant, everyone, including Zhang Mingzhen, was swallowed up.

The "Heart of Undeath," which can only be activated once a day, has already been used up, and the potion of Resurrection cannot be used in the dungeon.

This resulted in Zhang Mingzhen also dying in the dungeon.

The talent skill failed to trigger; it seems this was another instant-death judgment that ignored defense, completely wiping out everyone's health.

Zhang Mingzhen did not immediately launch a second attack; he remained at the respawn point, pondering the reason for the skill's trigger.

The rest of the group held their breath in concentration.

This was the first time they had witnessed this top expert suffer a setback in a dungeon.

They felt a surge of schadenfreude; it turned out there was a limit to how much cheating could be done.

They were right.

This is why Zhang Mingzhen proactively transitioned from a player to a planner and behind-the-scenes controller.

No matter how skilled a player is at cheating, they are still limited by the Game System.

However, these people were also afraid that Zhang Mingzhen's resentment would affect them.

The previous relaxed atmosphere vanished completely, and they only dared to communicate quietly in the private channel.

"Is this dungeon too difficult? Even Cheater would fail!"

"There's no other way; those are all deadly moves."

"It's a miracle he survived the final blow in the second round. Everyone, try to be more understanding."

"If you can't even get past the Chongxing, then there must be a problem with the dungeon design."

"Hehe, I'm actually relieved. This shows he's not invincible."

After some deliberation, Zhang Mingzhen realized that the problem might lie with those two small monsters—the failure to eliminate them in time caused the BOSS's invincible ultimate skill to be triggered, making the area-of-effect attack impossible to avoid.

"Try again later."

"You all stand next to me. Try to lie down and play dead in the arena later, so as not to aggro the monsters."

"I think the key lies with them."

Dragon Diagram Jinghe also agrees with this assessment:

"I agree. One small monster was instantly killed, and another was taken away from the battlefield. We couldn't deal with it in time, which is very likely why we wiped out the entire team."

As he analyzed, he glanced at War Sky and Unparalleled Weaving Rain, making the two of them stiffen.

"Okay, let's try again."

When the battle resumed, everyone gathered at the leader's feet.

Facing the oppressive aura of the Demon King head-on only sends chills down one's spine.

The leader's first wave of attacks left only Zhang Mingzhen alive among all the players.

Having learned from his previous experience, this time he wiped out the monsters the moment they appeared—and sure enough, no more area-of-effect finishing moves appeared.

The Demon King then alternated between charging and summoning minions; his other scattered attacks did not cause much trouble.

"If the third level is this difficult... it seems alright?"

"Not bad? Then how did we fall? We didn't even catch a single move."

"The leader's attack power remains very high."

"But compared to the Venom Puppet in the second level, the pressure is indeed less; at least it doesn't test Healing Ability as much."

As Priest, "Seaside Wave" has personally experienced the continuous erosion of the Venom Puppet, even though the boss in easy mode is somewhat weakened.

He admitted he wasn't confident he could keep the team's health up, and still felt the second stage was the most challenging.

But reality responded to him the very next second.

"The Demon Armor Puppet Beast? Isn't that the boss of the first level? How come it's here?"

The Demon King let out a wild roar, Demon Armor Puppet Beast from the first level of the dungeon immediately appeared.

Facing two bosses simultaneously significantly increases the difficulty of the battle.

"I take back what I just said... How are we supposed to fight like this? There's no way we can get through this on our own!"

"I have a bad feeling... If I can summon the boss, will I also summon the Second Brother?"

Let's forget about that premonition.

"The thought of multiple poisonings still sends chills down my spine."

"To fight two bosses at the same time, the team has to split up and fight separately. No wonder they need twenty people to enter the instance—if you ask me, they need at least twenty more!"

"I observed the effects of Chongxing's attack. The newly summoned Old One seems to be weaker than before, essentially a summon with high health and defense. Moreover, it can no longer use that half-screen light shield ability, so it's been weakened."

Zhang Mingzhen pulled the two monsters together for a concentrated attack, and also realized that the newly appeared leader's strength had indeed been reduced.

To prevent any unforeseen circumstances, he decided to prioritize dealing with the first boss that had been summoned.

At this point, the Demon King's health had dropped to below half, and the number of minions he summoned increased to four.

Combined with its charge every thirty seconds, the skill combos become increasingly tight, severely testing the team's coordination and adaptability.

If it were a full-strength team of twenty, it would be hard to imagine how to command the movement of the entire team – this would certainly be a test for the team leader.

Under his relentless attacks, the summoned boss finally fell.

As expected, when the Demon King's health dropped below 30%, the Venom Puppet from the second level was summoned back to the battlefield.

"Give up... This endless summoning, who can kill it quickly except Chongxing? I don't even want to think about how we're going to get through easy mode."

"It's difficult, but high risk also means high reward."

"I wonder how many fragments the Demon King will drop. If there are enough, it'll be worth spending more time defeating him."

"It's too difficult. I just did the math, and with people needing to clear the mobs in time and groups needing to handle the first and Second Brother, there simply aren't enough people to attack the Demon King."

"Did you notice the countdown above the leader's head? This leader... might have a time limit."

From the very beginning, a thirty-minute countdown hung above the head of the "Infernal Machine Demon King," with the numbers ticking away second by second.

This undoubtedly presents a challenge, and there are certainly strict time constraints.

"That would be tricky."

"Should we try the easy difficulty next week? The problem is, can we still gather twenty qualified team members?"

"Damn, this means we have to divide the resources equally and cultivate enough strong individuals."

"Next week will probably be even more difficult, especially for the Priest."

"Yes, just like the Seven Swordsmen who slay the dragon in the Wind and Cloud. Even if they are the masterminds behind the scenes, they still need to make all seven of them grow stronger."

"The second stage has a high demand for Priest, and everyone knows how quickly the Priest class levels up."

"Those skilled players may not be able to reach level 60 next week."

"Let's do our best. We have to help them."

"At least we have a top player to guide us this time; teams from other regions will only face more difficulties."

Even with Zhang Mingzhen's strength, it took him a full twenty minutes to deal with the Demon King's skills on his first encounter, making it the longest boss battle he has ever fought.

The Demon King's summoning mechanism is extremely troublesome, posing a severe test to the team's overall damage output.

Fortunately, the Hell difficulty Infernal Machine Demon King did not leave us empty-handed – a Platinum- quality piece of equipment appeared in the loot list!

Six fragments of Amulet also appeared at the same time!

System notification: "Congratulations to the team for successfully defeating the Hell difficulty Infernal Machine Demon King, gaining experience points... 1000 achievement points, and 1 Mechanism Island Execution Token."

Server-wide announcement: "Congratulations to players Chongxing, Qin Xiao Youhui, Dragon Diagram Frenzy... and their team for being the first to clear the Hell difficulty Mechanism Island dungeon."

"My God! Platinum equipment? This boss actually drops Platinum equipment! We have to get it no matter what!"

"This is the first time I've ever seen a Platinum Grade item in person!"

"War Sky Star-Chasing Boots (Platinum): Constitution +300, Spirit +200, Intelligence +200, Agility +300."

"Advanced Cooldown: After casting a skill, the cooldown of the next skill is reduced by 50%."

"Attire Requirements: Magic-based class, level 65"

"There's no use in being envious; this is magic-based equipment, and you can't wear it anyway."

"Sigh, the pros have already donned Platinum gear, and we haven't even collected a full set of gold gear yet."

"This time the Demon King gave us six fragments, which is equivalent to the total from the first two levels. It seems that challenging it was indeed worthwhile."

"Jing He, have the guild's strategy analysis team focus on studying this boss."

"Dragon Diagram Frenzy" prioritizes the double fragments dropped by the Demon King, and this pattern may apply to other difficulties as well.

During this dungeon run, Zhang Mingzhen obtained two pieces of gold equipment, one piece of Platinum equipment, and ten Amulet Fragment.

The remaining team members each received an additional 3,000 achievement points and over 4 million experience points, making it a win-win situation for everyone.

Originally, Zhang Mingzhen charged 1,000 Gold Coin per person for leading the team, but later the price was increased to 1,500 gold coins.

Now that players have more ways to acquire Gold Coin and are more financially secure, after discussion, the price for this level 60 Team Dungeon is set at 2,000 gold per person.

Given that this is a large-scale dungeon with many players, finding a leveling service at this price is quite difficult.

This is a massive amount of experience, and more importantly, strategy information—something you can't buy even with money.

"Master, you've got the execution token, are you planning to try again?"

Qin Xiao Youhui was also Fortune to obtain a token, asked regretfully.

"Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking."

You can get ten fragments from a single dungeon run, and with two chances a week, you definitely shouldn't miss it.

"I wonder if you can reschedule for tomorrow?"

"I'd like to ask if any other brothers in the Legion can reach level 60 before tomorrow, so they can familiarize themselves with the dungeon mechanics in advance."

Qin Xiao Youhui a lot of confidence in his own Legion members; if they went all out, someone should be able to meet the requirements.

"Okay, then let's set it for tomorrow at noon."

"I will start the group on time. You can apply to join before the deadline, and the rules will remain the same."

After saying that, he left the group, leaving the leaders of the major guilds to continue their discussion.

After Qin Xiao Youhui it up, the other guilds also realized their mistake.

Each guild has many high-level players with outstanding combat power and abundant Gold Coin, and they will definitely be very interested in the new dungeon.

Even just for the generous experience reward, it's enough to level up.

So everyone contacted each other, and those who were interested went to the wilderness together to level up quickly.

Speaking of upgrades, the Seaside Wave suddenly remembered something:

"When you reach level 60 and challenge the Ranked Tower, you're basically fighting against your own mirror image, right?"

"I heard the difficulty increases dramatically after the sixtieth floor. I haven't tried it yet today, but I'm planning to give it a shot later."

Unexpectedly, several people in the group simultaneously wore wry smiles.

"I suggest you increase your attack power first and prepare more mana potions before you go."

"Your Priest's mirror image probably also possesses all healing skills, which could very well turn into a war of attrition."

"Is it that difficult? Have you all passed it?"

Dragon Diagram Jinghe helpless. "It's not that simple."

"Although it's just an illusion, the damage it causes is almost indistinguishable from the original. I've tried it several times already."

"If it weren't for the generous experience rewards, I would have given up long ago; it's just too time-consuming."

Hopefully, as my level increases and my combat power improves, I can save some time.

"Before reaching level 70, I plan to only challenge the 60th floor; that's the most efficient way."

Berserker continued, "We discussed this before: what if everything above the sixtieth floor is just an illusion of oneself?"

"Then it's better to focus on the most cost-effective levels, like levels sixty or seventy."

"The rewards are similar within the same tier, and the difficulty level isn't too high, so as not to waste time."

"However, I'm not so clear about your Priest's situation."

"If both sides excel at healing, but lack sufficient damage output, how will the battle end? I also wonder if the illusions have mana limitations..."

The Seaside Wave sounded somewhat disheartened, "After what you've said, I'm not so sure about it anymore."

"Let's prepare some damage-boosting potions and try them out. If that doesn't work, we can give up on climbing the tower for now and focus on grinding monsters in the wild."

"However, fighting against oneself is not the end of the world."

"You are not Priest, so you can't understand how devastated we were when we encountered the vision of the Great God of Chongxing."

The news that the group would be organizing a second dungeon Chongxing tomorrow at noon spread, and all players on the server who had reached level 60 or were close to level 60 took note of this information.

After all, tomorrow is the last day of the week, and missing it means losing a whole week's worth of dungeon attempts.