Chapter 125: Hermione the Witch

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor:

Gulp! Zhang Yang drank the [Rainbow Potion].

His entire body radiated in 5 different colors.

"That's cool."

The light was then absorbed back into this body and a buff icon appeared on his head. 'All Elemental Resistance +1,000!'

Hermione pointed her staff at Zhang Yang and blasted him with a fire ball.

Boom!

'-600!'

To think that the potion could reduce all incoming magic damage by 1,000! It was the right call to make!

Zhang Yang swung his sword and laid waste on Hermione after inflicting 5 layers of <Cripple Defense>! He then summoned his [Servant] after. To maximize time and attack power, Zhang Yang had strategically summoned the [Servant] only after stacking the <Cripple Defense>. Every second saved counted!

"God! I hate warriors!" Hermione cried as she raised her staff up high. 3 dim orbs of light beamed across the room and landed on Zhang Yang, his [Servant], and the NPC Merlinda.

'Ding! You have received <Weaken>. All damage and healing will be reduced by 50%. Cannot be dispelled. Last for 10 minutes!'

WTF?! How was he supposed to fight in that condition?!

Zhang Yang quickly activated <Substitute> and transferred every negative debuff from him to the [Servant].

"Hmph! Petty little magic!" Merlinda scoffed. "Hermione! Do not forget this! I'm the loyal believer of the Moon God!"

She too raised her staff up high and similarly sent orbs of white light everywhere. Instantly, the debuff on her and the [Servant] was removed.

Woah...She'd even had this sort of thing hiding up her sleeves.

Zhang Yang thought. If he had not undergone the quest in the 9th floor, he would not have encountered the quest and saved Merlinda. He would not have been able to even survive this boss without her help! It was all linked together! Facing this kind of boss that could 'weaken' a player, in order to counter this painful headache, one would have to depend on numbers to defeat her.

It was inevitable for Zhang Yang to misjudge a field boss in having multiple target type skills. Sometimes, the sheer numbers never guaranteed victory. You could defeat a boss with a party of 5 men; yet sometimes, you could lose a boss with a whole 500-man army!

Had he known sooner, he would not have wasted <Substitute>! It was all because of Zhang Yang's superhuman reaction. It was a huge advantage to have, but at times it could lead to something like this.

'-845!'

'-5,070!'

'-1,575!'

Zhang Yang lost the edge granted by his OP skills of <Block> and <Shield Bash> whenever he fought a magic attack type monster. Zhang Yang could only depend on <Horizontal Sweep> and <Destructive Smash> as his main damage dealers, along with <Force Strike> for some negligible bonuses. With Lady Luck smiling at him, his was able to hit a Lucky Strike with <Horizontal Sweep>, dealing 3 times the damage!

If the damage had been directed towards a player, Zhang Yang could have instantly kill any class with just a single stroke of his sword! It was a shame that the Lucky Strike's proc rate1 was just too god damn low! It was not like he could control its rate; it would have been bloody fun having a never-ending kill streak in the PvP ground otherwise.

"Pesky little bugs! Let the shadow consume your souls!" Hermione pointed her staff directly at Zhang Yang and a debuff icon appeared on his head.

[Shadow Starbreaker]: Explodes after 3 seconds, dealing 3,000 shadow damage to all targets within 10 x 10 meters around the inflicted target.

Zhang Yang read the skill description and quickly commanded the [Servant] to get away from him. Zhang Yang himself started to sprint away in the opposite direction to maximize their distance.

Boom!

'-1400!'

<Shadow Starbreaker> exploded and only damaged Zhang Yang.

Clear Lotus returned to the scene and continued her attack.

After a while, the boss raised her staff again to cast <Weaken> but was dispelled by Merlinda a few seconds later. Zhang Yang could not help but to praise himself for being able to discover the hidden quest. If he had wanted to save time and skip on saving the NPC, he would not have been able to "recruit" her and survive fighting this boss.

It was a miracle that he had saved her in time! He even got a Yellow-Gold tier ring out of it!

Hermione's favorite skill was the fire ball which would set off every 2 seconds, dealing 600 damage a pop. Zhang Yang had <Higher Regeneration> which would heal him 269 HP every tick. Coupled with the <Lifesteal> effect of the ring that he wore, healing him by 30 HP every second, Zhang Yang basically nullified the fireball damage.

The extra damage was from the <Shadow Starbreaker> that would activate once every 20 seconds that dealt a significantly high damage each time it exploded. Zhang Yang would have to activate <Berserker's Heal> after 1 minute. In that short amount of time, Zhang Yang drained away at least 50,000 HP. With additional damage from Clear Lotus and Merlinda, the total HP that Hermione had lost since the start of the battle was about 80,000 HP!

2 minutes into the fight, Zhang Yang's HP had dropped down to the danger zone. He then activated the sword's <Lifesteal> and recovered around 4,000HP. After a bottle of health potion, Zhang Yang recovered full health.

3 minutes in, Zhang Yang finally summoned Merlinda's Shadow to test out her ability.

The summoned shadow looked exactly like the current Merlinda. The only notable difference was that the shadow appeared translucent. Besides that, she had the same long pale dress, a magic staff in her hand, and those voluptuous breasts that would jiggle around lustfully.

'+1000!'

'+1000!'

'...'

Once the Merlinda's Shadow appeared, it started to cast healing spell on Zhang Yang. She would heal 1,000 HP every second! Foosh! Foosh! Foosh! After just 3 heals, and Zhang Yang was healed back to full health!

Awesome! No! F*CKING SPEACTACULAR!

As expected of a Level 50 Yellow-Gold equipment! Even Han Ying Xue, the finest healer in the entire server of China could only heal 1,100 HP every 2 seconds! This shadow could heal over 1,000 a second! How strong was that?!

In just 10 seconds, Merlinda's Shadow healed a total of 10,000 HP! The first few heals were effective as they were, but the rest were completely unnecessary! After 10 seconds, the duration of the skill expired and Merlinda's Shadow dispersed into thin air.

90%, 80%, 70%, 60%. The boss' HP was dropping quickly. Zhang Yang was progressing rather fast with the help of Merlinda (NPC) and Clear Lotus.

Zhang Yang realized that it was useless to have so many people just to fight this boss.

With more players around, the death rate would increase drastically when <Shadow Starbreaker> exploded. The most effective number of players would be Zhang Yang's own personal team of misfits, including Sun Xin Yu a.k.a Frost Night. Fire and Sword Mercenary party would also do quite well here.

53%, 52%, 51%, 50%!

"I've had it with you worms! Let me crush your body and soul with the Ray of Obliteration!"

Hermione struck the ground with her staff heavily and chanted something, keeping her poker face upright. A long progress bar appeared on her head. The cast time was extremely slow. Everything around her started to tremble as if she was emitting unimaginable power. Her hair started to float around violently on its own.

1 second... 2 seconds... 5 seconds, 7 seconds... Damn! It was still casting. Zhang Yang started to have second thoughts about the skill she was about to cast. It could be something extremely powerful.

Argh! No time to think! Activate <Shield Wall>!

9 seconds... 10 seconds!

The spell was completed. She plucked her staff out from the ground. A ball of black light emerged from her chest and floated no further than half a meter away from her. The orb of light began as a small fist sized ball but suddenly expanded to a 3 meter wide orb, looking just like a black colored wrecking ball!

Shuuoomm! Boom!

The orb exploded, releasing a wave of black flames everywhere around her!

'Ding! Hermione has used <Ray of Obliteration> dealing 10,000 shadow damage to all targets 100 x 100 meters around her!'

'-10,000!'

'-10,000!'

'-1,000!'

Zhang Yang, Clear Lotus, and even the NPC Merlinda received the damage from Hermione's <Ray of Obliteration>. Only Zhang Yang and Merlinda remained standing. Clear Lotus cried in pain and fell defeated.

What a powerful ulti!2 AoE multi target, 10,000 damage!

Zhang Yang could not help but wonder if there was any party around that could defeat her? It was not like everyone could use <Shield Wall>. In that case how does one survive that ulti-like skill?! If it really was a matter of numbers, then he would need to recruit at thousands of players just to fight her.

Merlinda's <Higher Regeneration> seemed to change according to the target. The effect on Merlinda herself was different from that of Zhang Yang. Merlinda had over 45,000 HP, every tick should have healed her by 2,250 HP. Somehow she only took 4 seconds to completely heal herself back to its full health.

Zhang Yang had a sudden epiphany. If he stopped fighting, Merlinda could kill off the boss, even if it would take an eternity for her to do so! Zhang Yang was not the main character here. Merlinda was! He was just taking a ride all along!

Now that he thought of her, Zhang Yang could not help but to stare at her body from behind her. Those long slender legs and seductive bodyline was truly a work of art! As expected of the genius minds in the development team! They had successfully brought out the most from the Elf race! Bravo!

"Impossible! How could you survive my spell? This is outrageous!" Hermione stared at Zhang Yang. He could see the fear in her eyes.

Impossible! Impossible!

Haha! I'm your greatest fear! I'm freaking Zhan Yu! The legendary Guardian!

Zhang Yang muttered to himself more self-praises as he slashed away her HP!

The boss was not programmed to respond to the player's taunts and speech. She then returned to casting fire balls.

Pew! Pew! Boom!

No matter how many fire balls she casted, it would always be reduced by 1,000 damage. With the <Higher Regeneration> on Zhang Yang, the boss could do nothing to kill him off!

The attacking power dropped when Clear Lotus had left the battle. Still, Zhang Yang was making progress.

40%... 30%... 20%... 10%!

By the time Hermione's HP was about to reach 0, Zhang Yang realized a terrible situation. The [Rainbow Potion] effect was about to end!

Crap! He had to be fast!

45,613!

10,141!

35,314!

28,718!

By the time it reached 22,000 HP, the potion effect ended.

'-1,600!'

A fireball landed and dealt its full damage!

Shit!

'-1600!'

'-1,600!'

After 3 shots, Zhang Yang quickly activated <Berserker's Heal> to restore full health!

Whenever Zhang Yang received huge damage, his Rage would pile up. This time, Zhang Yang could spam <Force Strike> and increase his attacking power.

'-1,600!'

'-2,400!' <Shadow Starbreaker>.

Merlinda's Shadow!

'+1,000!'

'+1,000!'

'...'

12,387!

8,134!

3,013!

1,343!

310!

0!

"Gyaa..." Hermione wailed pitifully as she crashed down to the floor, gracefully like how maidens died in classic Chinese martial art movies. Her eyes were still wide open as she died, unwilling to accept her fate.

Finally!

Zhang Yang sighed heavily. He had only 2,000 HP left. If Hermione had lasted a little longer, she could have killed Zhang Yang with two more shots of her fire ball.

"I pray that the Moon God blesses your soul. Rest in peace my friend..." Merlinda was kneeling down beside Hermione's dead body as she wept for her. She wiped her tears away and waved her staff around the body.

A white light flashed and a translucent, monochromic ghost appeared beside the body.

"Good bye..." said Merlinda as she nodded to the ghost. The ghost nodded back and dispersed into the air.

1Proc rate - The trigger rate of any skill, item effect, or critical/lucky strike, or almost anything at all that are governed by the rules of probability.

2Ulti - Short for Ultimate. Ulti is the common term for powerful skills. They usually have long casting time and equally long cool down. However, Ultis also deal extremely high damage. Usually an ulti is used once in a battle to deal extreme damage or to cast a strong debuff on the enemy. Ultis are commonly used to deal damage. However, there are also defensive or support type ultis. In other games for instance, a Priest Ulti could resurrect several dead players within the vicinity or cast a strong protection buff to prolong a player's survivability in battle.