MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

“Brother Dark Wing, I’ve fallen down. C-Could you… drop down to help me reclaim my equipment?”

Just as Li Yi had hopped his way to the huge red treasure chest, Autumn Love sent over a tear-filled voice message.

Right before Li Yi had made his way to the chest, Autumn Love finally mustered the courage to hop onto the first stone slab, and then… nothing else. She had fallen down, and nothing remained of her. Accompanying her death was the drop of an equipment and half of the items in her inventory. Furthermore, she was also forcefully resurrected in the temple outside the Wailing Grotto and she had lost a level!

It was a major loss!

“It’s all magma below us. Let’s say that I can survive down there, are you certain that we’re in the same Mirror Map?”

Since they could not even locate one another, locating the equipment was an even harder task.

“I’ve lost around 6,000 Gold Coins. I…” Autumn Love was already crying.

Without even answering her, Li Yi used his friend summoning tool to pull her over.

With a clink and a clank, the friend summoning tool rumbled and spat out a disheveled Autumn Love. She looked as pitiful as one could possibly be.

The friend summoning tool had malfunctioned once more, resulting in the durability of Autumn Love’s equipment to be halved…

Thankfully, the almighty friend summoning tool was able to pull Autumn Love over to Li Yi’s Mirror Map. With that, they could now remain together.

Autumn Love’s face contorted with agony. “What kind of broken machine is that? If you knew that it was a possibility, you should’ve reminded me to take off my equipment before pulling me over.”

Li Yi pointed ahead. “The big red treasure chest is right there. Do you want to wallow in your losses, or do you want to open the chest instead?”

“My Hall of Fame Quest takes precedence of course! Huge red treasure chest, here I come!”

Autumn Love’s eyes glinted as she let out a squeal of delight. She searched her bag, but she suddenly stiffened.

She lost her key when she fell into the lava…

“I…I…I…” She repeated the same word for a while as she struggled to get the words out.

Losing the quest item was akin to the failure of the quest…

Li Yi stepped forward to try his hand at it, only for it to notify him that it was locked. He then attempted it again while using the Universal Key and with a clank of success, it finally opened.

“It’s open… My treasure chest, mine…”

Autumn Love yelped and, in a manner similar to a mother hen protecting her chicks, she lunged towards the chest and extended her arms toward it…

A noxious wisp of crimson smoke was released and Autumn Love’s HP plummeted, killing her on the spot.

The huge red treasure chest before them did not contain any treasure, instead, it contained a deadly poison. In short, it was a trap.

“Why the rush? It’s not like I’m going to steal it from you. Sight, this is what you get for being greedy. By the way, before you release your corpse, let me try to jolt you awake. Let’s hope it works.”

Li Yi took out Cardiac Pacemaker Model V5 as he spoke. He placed it on top of Autumn Love’s chest and waited patiently.

Zzzt…

A spark appeared and fizzled away, as observed, the greedy lady’s luck paled in comparison to Jiaojiao, the resuscitation attempt had failed.

Li Yi shook his hand, saying, “Well, there’s no other choice. You need to Corpse Run.”

Despite that, Autumn Love did not release her soul. After a minute or so, a Priest named ‘Summer Night’s Dream’ sent a friend request to Li Yi. The request stated, “I am Autumn Love’s friend. Pull me over and I’ll save her.”

“…”

Li Yi added Summer Night’s Dream into the party and before the friend summoning tool’s effect had expired, he summoned the Priest over.

Summer Night’s Dream was a lady. She seemed to be one of the quiet types and her demeanor was like Fire Ice’s.

Autumn Love was now revived by Summer Night’s Dream, avoiding the 20% EXP penalty.

Autumn Love then handed over all her items to Summer Night’s Dream, including the equipment on her. With only a set of white clothes on her, she waved her staff and summoned a portal to the Western Continent’s Celestial Capital.

‘Black Autumn can use Teleportation!’

Summer Night’s Dream had taken all of Autumn Love’s equipment back to the capital. Li Yi, on the other hand, was seething with rage. “You b*tch! Didn’t you say that you couldn’t use Teleportation?”

With a straight face, Autumn Love replied, “Brother, the materials needed to summon the teleportation door isn’t cheap. It costs 1 Silver Coin every time I summon it, how wasteful is that? I’ll be drowning in requests if I ever mention it to anyone, do you think that I can afford it?”

“You’ll die due to your greed one day!” Li Yi scolded angrily.

“Let’s go! You’ll be the first to open the red chests this time.”

“Get lost!”

Li Yi had started hopping but Autumn Love was still rooted to the spot. She was waiting for Li Yi to scout ahead before jumping.

Li Yi was constantly moving, and in a blink of an eye, he had already hopped over 20 meters. Although his jumping skills were nowhere as impressive as Jiaojiao’s, it should not be forgotten that he had the Black Dragon’s Cloak on him which enabled temporary flight. Furthermore, the special skill, God Mode allows him to fly unhindered in any part of the map.

The perilous lava-filled map was no threat to Li Yi. With the two special skills in his arsenal, there was little chance of him falling.

Autumn Love was still standing at the same spot and she dared not to move.

Most of the stone slabs crumble after being stepped on once. Since Autumn Love did not possess any special aerial skills, she was afraid of dying, even though she was clad in white-colored equipment.

“Brother Dark Wing, the stone slabs have crumbled, so what now?” Seeing that Li Yi was nowhere to be found, Autumn Love started panicking.

“Oho, I’ve found a huge red chest. Hmm, I’m opening it now. Woah, there’s 200 Gold Coins in it!”

Ding! Ding!

Ringing sounds chimed from ahead. Without an ounce of hesitation, Autumn Love readied herself to jump. By using Flash, she instantly teleported ten or so meters.

Splash!

Alas, there was no stone slab below where Autumn Love had teleported, and she had once again dropped into the lava…

“Money can even force Autumn to face her fears.”

Li Yi let out a sigh as he held the 200 Gold Coins in his hand.

Autumn Love was forcefully resurrected in a temple outside the cave once again. It went without saying that she lost another level.

“I’m going to farm some materials out here for now. Pull me back once the cooldown on your summoning tool is over. For your information, my quest item is a crystal shoe, make sure to keep it for me if you locate it.” Autumn Love had no intention of coming back in.

Li Yi progressed onward. The lava map was filled with twists and turns and although there were many stone slabs, the paths they led to could be dead ends. If it were not for the flying skills, he would have died long ago.

Autumn Love made the right choice by not entering, as only death awaited her here.

The surroundings were littered with treasure chests, there were not only red treasure chests, but there were also green treasure chests and purple treasure chests. Without exception, Li Yi activated each and every one he saw.

However, unlike the impatient Autumn Love, he circled behind the treasure chests and carefully opened them. Whenever he saw the poisonous gas spilling out, he made sure to hightail it.

After half an hour, Li Yi had already looted over a hundred treasure chests. Despite that, the lava-filled path was only beginning. For as far as he could see, countless closely-arranged stone slabs spanned onwards, there was no telling how much further he needed to go.

Li Yi had noticed a pattern. The red treasure chests contained either the poisonous gas or Gold Coins, whereas the green ones contained numerous types of materials.

Out of all of them, the purple treasure chests were the best, as it could contain Skill Tomes, Magic Scrolls, design drawings, and countless other rare items.

Besides that, he realized that the treasure chests that contained good items were locked, whereas the ones without locks yielded no good items.

All in all, he had looted two gold-colored equipment, one green-colored equipment, three blue-colored equipment, thirteen white-colored equipment, and three Class Skill Tomes at the cost of ten Universal Keys, which by his reckoning, was worth it.

Woosh!

A column of fire erupted in front of him to reveal an Ember Spirit.

The Superior Ember Spirit before him was like the one Terrence had slain, it was a Leader-level Monster, which was second only to the boss types, and below it lay a huge purple chest.

Although they were at a distance from each other, it did not stop the Ember Spirit from growling at Li Yi.

“Those who want to lay claim to the treasure will die! In other words, you —mortal!”

“God Mode!”

Li Yi activated God Mode and launched his attacks at the Ember Spirit in mid-air.

Usually, no damage would be dealt unless both sides were on the same piece of ground. However, the same restrictions did not apply to God Mode. In this form, Li Yi is able to attack the enemies around him no matter they were on land or in the air.

“Die mortal!”

The Ember Spirit was seething with anger, and it roared vehemently as damage numbers appeared above it. Since Li Yi was far away from it, it was a one-sided battle as Li Yi was the only one able to launch attacks. All it could do was glare and shriek as it took the assault.

If Li Yi had not learned God Mode, he would have a hard time fighting the Ember Spirit. Since the platform was small and the Ember Spirit had multiple explosive skills in his arsenal, it was very likely that he would lose instantly by being blown off from the platform.

‘With God Mode, this is a cinch. If not, I’ll be in a pinch!’

Shortly after, the Ember Spirit was finally defeated. With a pained cry, its flames dispersed and only its core remained on the platform.

The Superior Ember Spirit yielded 200,000 EXP, however, just like the Fire Elementals, it only dropped materials and not items, which was rubbish.

Li Yi flew onto the platform and used a Universal Key to open the purple treasure chest.

Ding!

[You have obtained a Skill Tome for Meteor Arrow Skill…]

The treasure chest was now empty…

“Meteor Arrow!”

Although there was only one item within the chest, it still delighted Li Yi.

‘An Ultra Rare Skill Tome for Meteor Arrow!’

The skill was as powerful as it was rare. Back in his previous life, the orange-bow Archer, Shoot Until Daybreak had offered 10,000,000 Gold Coins for it, and even then, he still failed to get his hands on it. Its value was comparable to the Ultimate Archer Skill, Overlord Arrow.

Meteor Arrow Skill was an evolved form of Chain Arrow Skill. Only by maxing all 20 levels of Chain Arrow Skill could one learn Meteor Arrow.

Meteor Arrow Skill was very powerful, at Level 1, its damage had already surpassed Chain Arrow Skill and was almost a match for Crippling Shot’s damage. Nevertheless, its most prominent point is its rate of usage as it only had 0.5 seconds of cooldown, which definitely lived up to its name of ‘Meteor’.

With the skill in tow, forming combo attacks would be easier than ever. Naturally, since Meteor Arrow Skill does not possess any hit recovery, using Meteor Arrow non-stop would not sustain any combos. At most, it would only form 2 combos before breaking, just like Chain Arrow Skill. Aside from that, the only flaw would be its massive mana consumption and with sustained use, its mana consumption would be off the charts.

With a clap of his hand, the Skill Tome morphed into a white ray of light that penetrated his head.

At this point of time, Chain Arrow Skill was no more and was permanently replaced by Meteor Arrow Skill!

“Now that I’ve gotten my hands on Meteor Arrow, it wouldn’t be long until I get Overlord Arrow, right?”

After Li Yi’s rambling proclamation, he continued hopping onward…

…