The Great Thief

Before they had even seen the Boss, they had already been wiped a few times.

 The Instance Dungeon difficulty was evident from that. It was likely that the other clubs trying to do this were also not having a easy time. They all had to slowly work out what these four monsters could do.

After killing these mobs, they turned to the left to see the Obsidian Eradicators and Anubisaths. After clearing them, they finally saw the first Boss – Prophet Skeram.

 Prophet Skeram was an insect Boss. Perhaps in the eyes of the insects, he was quite good looking, but all the players thought he was incredibly ugly.

“This Instance Dungeon has been so difficult. How should we approach this?”

Azure Sea Breeze felt paralysed with fear. He had been killed by the mobs at the beginning of the dungeon. Now that they were faced with the Boss, it would be strange if he wasn’t scared.

 He wasn’t willing to just die. No matter how much it happened, they would never get used to the feeling of dying.

“Who knows? We’ll only know when we try and die. Let’s just clear the mobs first,” Lu Li shrugged and admitted that he didn’t know either. He couldn’t just tell Azure Sea Breeze what the strategy was. The fact that they had him, someone who had experienced rebirth, was a blessing. Otherwise, Azure Sea Breeze wouldn’t have become Dawn’s number one Main Tank

 “Alright then, I’ll go ahead. Please don’t give up on me,” Azure Sea Breeze begged, having no choice but to rush forwards.

It was his fault that he decided to be the main tank!

 After the monsters had been cleared, they instantly started attacking the Boss.

 “Let the screams of death reach the clouds! Let symphonies of fear begin to play!”

The unique screams of this Boss were in language that the players could understand. This monster responded in anger to how the players dared to block the insects’ advance.

At first, no one expected that they would be able to defeat this Boss any time soon. However, they quickly worked out what his skills were.

The most commonly used skill was Arcane Explosion, which was centred around the Boss. It dealt two thousand damage, so non-defensive melee players obviously shouldn’t stand next to him for too long. The Thieves and Berserkers would just have to retreat and heal more often.

Earthquake – When Skeram’s target was far away from him, he would unleash this skill which dealt more than 2000 damage. This meant that they couldn’t just have all ranged players attacking from afar. There had to be someone standing near him and taking the aggro.

The strategy to deal with that was just to have the Main Tank standing next to him at all times.

 Clone – When the Boss’ HP was reduced by 25%, he would be divided into three. There were two fake avatars that had powerful attacks, but weak defense. Their HP would also rapidly deplete over time.

Currently, Lu Li and the others hadn’t reduced the Boss’ HP by 25% yet, but it was likely that this skill would be cast at 75% and 50%.

 Teleport – the Boss (and the fake avatars) would teleport from his original position to another random location to the right or left. When this happened, all aggro would be cleared and the nearest player would become the next target.

The most horrible situation was when three Skerams appeared in the same place at the same time.

Enrichment – the Boss would control a player once every 5 seconds. The controlled player would grow larger, their skills would cast instantly and their damage would be increased by 100%. The way they dealt with this was quite simple; it was very similar to when they were dealing with Nefarian.

 These were his five main skills.

These five skills, when used in combination, were the reason this was Nightmare Difficulty. Almost every time the group got wiped, it was because the Boss used a new trick.

The most important thing was to watch out for was Enrichment. Although the players that were controlled would be Polymorphed by the Mages, it was often the Main Tank that was the target. It wasn’t clear if it was just the Instance Dungeon or because Lu Li was involved in this First Clear attempt.

Once the Main Tank was controlled, everything changed.

The Boss would teleport elsewhere and begin killing players because there was no one to draw aggro.

 Many players would die, and they wouldn’t have enough damage to continue.

The strategies that he had read up on didn’t explain this phenomenon at all. Fortunately, he wasn’t an inflexible person, so he discussed a bold plan with Wandering and Sky Moon.

They would take six Main Tanks into the fight!

 They had 40 players, so it seemed like they would have plenty of healers, but they only had ten as they needed to have a minimum number of damage dealers. Having six main tanks would really be pushing it.

In the end, they settled on having three Main Tanks instead.

On each platform, there was a tank stationed in preparation of the Boss’ teleport. The reason for this was to prevent all their tanks from being controlled by the Boss. They would then cast Taunt when the Boss teleported.

 The other damage output players and healers would stand on both sides and above the platforms. There would be at least one Mage on each of the stairs, ready to Polymorph whoever was controlled. They all also had to ensure that they maintained enough distance from the Boss to survive the Arcane Explosion.

When the Main Tank attracted the Boss’ aggro and the battle began, the he would pull the Boss so that it would be facing the wall. Everyone would then deal as much damage as they could.

There wasn’t too much pressure on the healers at this point, but the attack power of the fake avatars couldn’t be underestimated. As such, there was also a high priority on identifying and getting rid of them.

When the Boss teleported, the Main Tank needed to run and drawl it back to the middle to avoid confusion.

After the Clone skill, one of the fake avatars could also use Teleport. In that case, two Warriors would have to come in to use their Shields and Life gems to hold the Boss with the healers until the Main Tank could deal with the other Boss avatars. The fake avatars could teleport wherever they wanted to, but the real body needed to be kept in the centre so that they could maximise their damage output.

Skeram didn’t actually have that much HP. As long as they handled the fake avatars well, he wouldn’t be that difficult.

Soon, the success of Ruling Sword was announced by the System.

 “Dreamy, loot the body. Let’s see how the other clubs are going,” Lu Li sighed in relief, but he knew it wasn’t time to relax.

The other Clubs hadn’t followed the gentleman’s agreement. Who knew how long it had been since they started the Ahn’Qiraj Temple Instance Dungeon? At least Glory Capital was unlikely to have started with the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj.

If the Boss dropped more things, it meant that the other guilds were still stuck on the initial monsters.

If the drops didn’t reflect a First Clear, it meant that some other Club had already defeated the First Boss, and maybe even more. If so, the challenge facing Lu Li and the others was even more difficult.

The first that was looted was some Gems. There were a few Strengthening Stones, but nothing else. This didn’t tell them anything as they would be dropped regardless of whether it was a First Clear.

Then, there were four Synthetic Gems dropped.

 They had decent attributes. One in particular had a cloning effect, which was almost exactly the same as the Boss’.

 After using it, two fake avatars would be formed. The defense and HP of the avatars would be weaker than the real body, but they had stronger attack power. The duration wasn’t as long as the Boss’, but it was still a valuable gem.

Even so, it was still uncertain as to whether they had gotten the First Clear on the first Boss.