MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Li Yi had intentionally died to Drifting Snow’s in their previous bout…

If he truly wanted to survive, Li Yi could have used Violent Bear King’s HP increasing skill, activate the Brainwashing Helm, and burn Drifting Snow to cinders. However, the reason he restrained from doing so was to lure Drifting Snow into a false sense of security to hold the bet.

Brainwashing Helm’s success rate on monsters was below 10%, and the percentage was even lower when used against bosses. However, it had a hidden effect, in which its success rate on players’ pets was 100%!

Be it the pets of Summoners, Archers, Wizards, or even the ghouls summoned by Black Paladins, Brainwashing Helm could control them all. Furthermore, there was no worry of failure as it would always succeed when used against them.

Drifting Snow had made a grave error, whereby he did not expect Li Yi to control the phoenix to burn him. He stood like an idiot under the phoenix’s fiery rain, and died in mere seconds…

“F*ck it, how could you be wearing the Brainwashing Helm? What kind of joke is this? The Brainwashing Helm has a pair of horns. Yours definitely isn’t the Brainwashing Helm.”

Drifting Snow was reluctant to admit defeat.

Shaking his head, Li Yi answered, “Have you ever heard of Trickery Ring? It allows the user to change the appearance of equipment.”

Whatever he said was too little and too late now. Flaming Phoenix was already long gone, and as soon as a pet was Released, they would never return.

Drifting Snow laid on the ground, unmoving. He was very depressed.

The whole process of raising the Mysterious Egg to a mature phoenix was undone in a blink of an eye.

‘All of it is gone…’

‘Why did I bet against him when I had nothing to gain?!’

Drifting Snow’s gut was already green with remorse.

Indeed, his luck had far exceeded that of an average player. However, luck was transient. It never comes at the right moment, and nobody could control its presence.

Now that Fiery Phoenix was gone, was it even possible to hatch another one?

Drifting Snow’s heart had dropped into a gorge.

“Dark Wing, though I have lost, I refuse to bow down to you. Your deeds today will not go unavenged!”

Drifting Snow’s corpse disappeared. He had chosen to lose some levels and resurrect back at a major city.

With a blinding flash, Drifting Snow resurrected in a Resurrection Point of a major city, and… was killed right away…

A few days ago, Drifting Snow had bound his Return City Stone to Fragrance City to complete a quest. Due to this, he was transported to Fragrance City when he chose to resurrect in a major city.

He was blindsided by his rage and had forgotten that the invaders from Invincible Continent were currently besieging Fragrance City.

However, he was not the only one who died at the Resurrection Point, as evidenced by the mound of corpses around him…

The Fire Walls of the Wizards burned fiercely, and the Vacuum Storm of the Vagabonds continued to howl. Players constantly resurrected and were repeatedly mowed down.

“F*ck!”

Once he understood the situation, Drifting Snow spat out a curse uncontrollably. After some thought, he sent a message to his boss which succinctly explained the situation, and his corpse disappeared once more. This time, he had opted to log off.

The war raged on. Shangguan Bailu, Pretty Good Mood, and Royal Blue Sky were each leading their own battalion of players to massacre the Southern Continent. Currently, they had already taken over three major cities.

Resistance from the Southern Continent players was practically non-existent. None of the forces from Fluttering Snow Alliance or Arthur’s Empire were present, and wherever the Invincible Continent’s forces went, they conquered easily. It was as if they had entered a ghost continent.

‘No resistance? What kind of strategy is that?’ The three commanders were bewildered.

Back in the Invincible Continent, Jiaojiao had heeded Li Yi’s instructions and was currently standing guard at the Celestial Capital. She did not even leave the boundaries of the capital.

Fluttering Snow Alliance and Arthur’s Empire were not resisting, which meant that something was definitely up. Drifting Snow was only a small diversion, and Li Yi had determined that they were launching a reverse sneak-attack.

Which major city would incur the greatest loss when conquered? Why of course, the symbol of the continent’s crown, the most prosperous city, the Celestial Capital!

“Perverted Wing, I’ve already made many patrols in the Celestial Capital, but I’ve yet to spot a single enemy. Will they really launch a sneak attack?” Jiaojiao was riding Crimson Emperor Warhorse when she sent over the voice message to Li Yi.

“I’m not confident enough to say that there’s a hundred percent chance, but better safe than sorry,” Li Yi replied.

“So, where are you right now? When are you coming over?”

“I’ll return tonight…”

“Alright. Hey! You’re going off topic.”

“You could fetch me back, you know?”

“Get lost!”

While chatting with Jiaojiao, Li Yi took out Divine Looking Glass and steered Black-feathered Golden Eagle to head towards the west.

The west, the direction where Flaming Phoenix flew off to!

Once Released, Flaming Phoenix was no longer tamable. Furthermore, it would not drop items even if it died. To most players, a Flaming Phoenix that was released was no different from a trash monster. However, to Li Yi, a wild Flaming Phoenix was of major significance.

After so much time, Li Yi had mostly cleared the seals on his Orange Quality Bow. The first seal required him to carry out blood sacrifices for tens of thousands of souls, and the next one required him to extract the souls from a dead god. All these experiences had led him to believe that the key to upgrading Orange Quality Bow was to absorb souls.

Souls that were out of the ordinary, came in all shapes and sizes, and were incredibly strong!

Whether absorbing Flaming Phoenix’s soul would yield any changes to the Orange Quality Bow, Li Yi was not sure. However, he still wanted to test out his theory.

After all, pets that had been Released were considered useless by players. They could not be captured, would not yield equipment, and gave no EXP. What should they be considered as, if not trash?

However, were they really trash? If they really were useless, why would Pantheon’s official forum implement the Releasing function in this manner? Would not they be better off if they just deleted the pets forever once they are released?

Li Yi personally believes that the Released pets have their own uses and that their purpose has yet to be discovered.

Divine Looking Glass was displaying Flaming Phoenix’s details. However, since it was a legendary pet, its details were not fully displayed.

[Flaming Phoenix (Legendary), Race: Mythical Creature, Level: Level 100, ???]

The final details were all a bunch of question marks, and its stats could not be read.

The consensus was that Divine Looking Glass was a Purple Quality Epic-level item, and since Flaming Phoenix was an Orange Quality Legendary-level creature, the difference in their levels had caused the problems in Divine Looking Glass. The situation was similar to Li Yi attempting to use Survival Instinct to dispel Dark Binding, whereby Survival Instinct being one tier lower than Dark Binding had caused it to fail.

“Gu-hawk—”

Flaming Phoenix had landed atop a tall mountain and was singing with its neck craned.

Now that it was a master-less phoenix, its size had reduced quite significantly, but its cloak of flames was burning even brighter. Without a doubt, its strength had increased.

Li Yi hopped off his mount, summoned Holy Light Warhorse to circle the area, and once he confirmed that there were no wild monsters, he bravely approached Flaming Phoenix.

The wild Flaming Phoenix had preserved all its skills from when it was a pet. Naturally, it included the headache-inducing Divine Protection Spell as well.

Legends say that the phoenixes were granted Ruler of God’s protection and had received Divine Protection Spell. It was for this reason that they became immortal creatures.

When Li Yi fought against Drifting Snow, he could use Soul Bind to subdue Flaming Phoenix, or he could kill Drifting Snow to forcefully dispel Flaming Phoenix. However, these two methods were unusable now.

If he were to use Soul Bind, Flaming Phoenix would lie down on the ground as if it had used ‘Pseudocide’, and because of Divine Protection Spell, Li Yi still could not kill it.

Li Yi was left with only one option.

He had to nuke it!

The moment he thought of the 99% chance of Divine Protection Spell resurrecting its user, Li Yi could feel a migraine running up his head.

Naturally, since it was a game, there was no such thing as an invincible enemy. No matter how powerful Divine Protection Spell was, it was not indestructible, and there were many ways to break through it.

Archers who owned phoenixes shone the brightest when they besieged cities, followed by PKs. However, when fighting against wild monsters or when clearing dungeons, the strength of the phoenixes was actually pretty average. Their strength was only around that of a Fire Wizard.

Within dungeons, be it pets or players, they all had a finite amount of resurrections. Taking Light Conference as an example, the maximum number of public battle resurrections available was only three times. Should the phoenix users allow their pet to resurrect willy-nilly, that would rob other players of their chances for resurrecting mid-battle. Furthermore, once the battle resurrects were used up, even the mighty Divine Protection Spell would be useless.

When the phoenixes were in the Open World, however, they could resurrect indefinitely. Despite that, they were powerless against the might of the world bosses. It was not that the infinite resurrection was unexploitable, but since Fiery Phoenix would grow stronger with each death, the boss’ aggro would be diverted to its owner very quickly. Furthermore, the world bosses were immune to all forms of invisibility, including stealth. Though Fiery Phoenix could resurrect indefinitely, what about its owner?

Once the aggro was set in stone, the boss would constantly hunt down the owner of Fiery Phoenix. At that point, death was just a stone’s throw away.

Once the owner dies, even the strongest of pets would follow their owner’s demise.

Fiery Phoenixes with owners could be taken down by targeting their owners, but what about those without owners?

There was no other choice but to nuke them down!

Additionally, Divine Protection Spell had a weakness. Whenever it activates, the phoenix’s might would drastically increase, and accompanying this rise in power was a drop in the success rate of subsequent resurrections.

Thus, there was a simple method in killing wild Fiery Phoenixes, and that is to constantly nuke them down until their resurrections no longer occurred.

Something else to take note of is that the Divine Protection Spell’s resurrection odds were based on a single person only. Getting killed twice by two separate players would not cause the odds to drop twice, but instead, once per person.

How long would it take to bring down Fiery Phoenix then? Back in the previous life, Unending Unmatched and Brother Windcloud Nine had launched their own investigations to determine the answer.

Unending Unmatched needed to kill it 13 times, whereas Brother Windcloud Nine needed 18 times.

In reality, there was no lack of accidents when Drifting Snow besieged cities in Li Yi’s past life. There was a time where Flaming Phoenix was immediately taken down before resurrecting even once.

A 99% chance of resurrection was different from a 100% chance. As such, the more attacks that Flaming Phoenix receives, the more that accidents become unavoidable.

For that reason, Drifting Snow constantly carried a Random Teleportation Scroll whenever he attacked cities. He was afraid that his Flaming Phoenix would not hold out if it was hunted by too many players.

Since Flaming Phoenix was a Legendary-level creature, it required an hour to resurrect. As such, once it died for real, he would be in a predicament.

…

Li Yi summoned Violent Bear King and commanded it to stay in place. He then ran off to the opposite side, pulled back his Orange Quality Bow with all his might, and shot an arrow to Flaming Phoenix.

Tch-psh-bish-tst-pst-brrrr—

“Powered-up Arrow!”

“Thud!”

[−23412]

The glorious damage counter flew off from Flaming Phoenix’s head. It was a critical hit!

…