A Bitter Struggle

Damn, Old Sang could do that too? What a pleasant surprise.

Mo Fei was quite thrilled as he watched the Bone Dragon on the screen. Judging by its size alone, this Bone Dragon was already about as large as he was, and its boss rank was only two tiers below his own. If it performed well, it might just wipe out the other side.

Meanwhile, the adventurers were all horrified. This was not in the script.

Only Dawn Divine Sword remained calm. "Everyone, buff me! I'll hold the boss! Start attacking after three rounds!"

At Dawn Divine Sword's command, the adventurers immediately reacted.

All manner of buffing spells were thrown at Dawn Divine Sword as if they cost nothing.

Brute Force Spell!

Blessing of Might!

Blessing of Courage!

Divine Grace Art!

Mark of the Wild!

Enduring Stamina!

Dawn Divine Sword's body visibly grew a full size larger, dazzling with multicolored light. He grabbed his Dragon-Slaying Greatsword and charged at the boss.

The Bone Dragon let out a roar and swiped at him with one claw. Dawn Divine Sword hurriedly rolled sideways.

Boom! The bony dragon claw slammed down less than two meters from his side, sending bone fragments flying everywhere. Dawn Divine Sword slashed the claw with his sword. -421. Bone chips scattered, but the damage was indeed not very high.

The Bone Dragon swiped again, and Dawn Divine Sword rolled sideways once more.

The dragon opened its jaws and bit down—Dragon Devour!

Instead of retreating, Dawn Divine Sword advanced, rolling beneath the dragon's mouth.

Rising Dragon Slash! He leaped into the air and slashed the Bone Dragon's lower jaw...

Seeing that he had secured its aggro, the adventurers behind him began attacking from range as well...

But as Mo Fei watched, his expression gradually stiffened. Something's fucking wrong here. How was this Dawn Divine Sword so good at dodging? It felt as though he was extremely familiar with Dragonkind attack patterns, practically knowing them inside out.

Dragons were different from humans. There was not much variety in their close-quarters combat. Human monks could perform three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spinning flying kicks, while human swordsmen could unleash Blade Flurry in a dazzling barrage of ornate sword techniques.

But dragons could not. They were too large, and they could not use weapons. Their attack patterns were practically limited to just a few types.

Dragon claw swipes, Dragon Tail Sweeps, Dragon Wing Slams, Dragon Devour—dragon mouth attacks—and at most, a charging dragon rush. Those were basically the attack patterns they cycled through.

Normally, those moves were enough. After all, dragons were huge, which meant their attacks covered huge areas too. A Dragon Tail Sweep could reach over ten meters, while a Dragon Claw Swipe could cover an area three or four meters across.

Even purely agility-based adventurers found them difficult to avoid.

Yet judging from his fighting style, Dawn Divine Sword seemed to have completely mastered them.

His movements looked perilous, but every time, he narrowly slipped out of the attack range at the last possible instant, as if he could predict the attacks in advance. If this guy had not trained against dragons before, then ghosts must exist.

Looks like he had slaughtered plenty of dragons in the past.

No matter. He did not have a shield. One careless hit would take half his health. No matter how well he dodged, he could not possibly evade every attack, right? Besides, Undead generally did not respond to taunts, so why was Old Sang still so fixated on him?

Speak of the devil. Seeing that it could not bring down Dawn Divine Sword, the Bone Dragon immediately charged toward the adventurers.

Dawn Divine Sword hurried after it, slashing at its back in an attempt to regain aggro. But the Bone Dragon suddenly turned around and unleashed a Dragon Claw Strike.

Dawn Divine Sword had no time to dodge at all. Just as he was about to be struck head-on, he suddenly raised his greatsword and held it horizontally before him.

Bang! The massive dragon claw struck the greatsword solidly. Dawn Divine Sword's legs were driven into the ground by the tremendous force, yet he did not fall.

Block! The bright red text left Mo Fei staring in stunned silence.

Those two words looked utterly ordinary, yet they shocked him even more than the impressive battle just now.

In Skyworld, weapons could be used to parry, but they could not block—only shields had the ability to block.

What did that mean? This guy could actually use a weapon as a shield?

But on closer inspection, the Dragon-Slaying Sword was over two meters long and half a meter wide, made entirely of metal and shaped like a door panel. Was it not practically a natural shield? It could be used like that?

Mo Fei's heart sank as he watched. Was his own close-combat ability really better than the Bone Dragon's?

It should be somewhat better. At the very least, with Death Berserk activated and War Behemoth Form on top of that, he would definitely be much stronger than the Bone Dragon.

But whether he could defeat the enemy with that, he had been quite confident before. Now, he was not so sure.

The battle continued.

This Bone Dragon seemed to have no concept of vital points. No matter where it was struck, at most it lost a few bone fragments and a little health. So even after fighting for more than ten minutes, despite its chest and skull being hit repeatedly, it could still fight. It had only lost one-third of its health.

Dawn Divine Sword likewise showed no sign of fatigue. Whenever his condition dropped even slightly, more than a dozen healing and buffing spells immediately landed on him from the adventurers' side, restoring him to full vigor in an instant.

The two sides traded blows, with the dragon's health and the adventurers' mana steadily declining.

But overall, the adventurers still held the advantage. They could drink mana potions, while the Bone Dragon had no means of recovery whatsoever.

Finally, the Bone Dragon's health fell to 50%.

The Bone Dragon forced Dawn Divine Sword back with a Dragon Tail Sweep. Its bones were badly damaged, and deathly energy surged all over its body. It was clearly seriously wounded.

'Step into Death' Santazak (Bone Dragon): "For... Lord Murphys... at any... cost. Awaken... fallen dead... sleeping warriors, you shall fight for Lord Murphys once again!"

With a fierce spread of its wings, deathly energy surged wildly from its body, and its health instantly dropped by another 10%.

Under the influence of death magic, the bones scattered across the ground began to tremble, move, and assemble, forming skeleton warriors one after another.

They stretched their bones and twisted their skulls, producing a clattering sound. They picked up rusted swords and weapons from the ground, then charged at the adventurers in groups.

Dawn Divine Sword's expression darkened. He had not expected this move.

"I'll hold the boss. Hurry up and clear the mobs."

As he spoke, Dawn Divine Sword swept his sword horizontally, smashing the skeletons charging at him into pieces. Then he rushed toward the Bone Dragon, which was already beginning to weaken. At the same time, Midnight Arcane God and the adventurers engaged the skeleton army.

The archers fired first, but they awkwardly discovered that their attacks dealt almost no damage to the skeletons. Arrows often flew straight through gaps in the bones, and miss kept appearing.

Even when they occasionally struck bone, the damage was low.

The casters were far more effective. A volley of spells easily blasted the skeletons into fragments.

But they soon discovered that things were not so simple. Under the influence of death magic, the shattered remains of those skeletons actually reassembled themselves and continuously revived.

"It's death magic! Death magic can keep bringing them back!" an adventurer cried out.

"You think I didn't notice? Can you give some useful advice?" Midnight Arcane God shouted. "Priests, dispel them!"

He shouted twice, but no one moved.

"Black River, dispel them already! Aren't you a priest?"

"I'm a war priest. I worship Odin. Can't you see I'm holding a hammer?" Black River wore full plate armor and wielded a warhammer. He looked more like a warrior than anything else as he smashed skeletons apart one hammer blow at a time.

"Kumquat Lemon, aren't you a priest too?"

Kumquat Lemon's priest shook her head. "I worship the Earth Mother Goddess, so I don't have any skills for dispelling Undead. But I can do this—"

As she spoke, she threw out a stone sphere. The massive ball of rock knocked several skeletons over, but the fallen skeletons immediately climbed back up.

Midnight Arcane God was speechless. There were fifteen magic classes and four priests in the party, yet not one of them could dispel Undead.

In this game, the powers of priests and clerics were tied to the gods they worshipped. Only gods from the Holy Light faction, such as the Sun God and the God of Light, granted their followers the power to dispel Undead.

Since their primary target this time was the Black Dragon, the party composition had been tailored to deal with Dragonkind Flame Breath. Faced with this sudden development, they were clearly having trouble handling it.

"Arcane God, use your ultimate already!"

Midnight Arcane God sighed helplessly. "It's still on cooldown."

Firestorm was so powerful because it was a hero skill, but hero skills had long cooldowns to match their power. He had thought that using it once in a boss battle would be enough, and that the journey of clearing mobs would give it time to cool down. He had not expected this dungeon's design to be so goddamn inhuman. They had spent the first hour clearing mobs and navigating a maze, while the three boss battles at the end were all connected. On top of that, the first two boss battles had ended too quickly, so his skill still had not finished cooling down.