The Great Thief

It was only in this moment that everyone realised that this Instance Dungeon really wasn’t that great. This was especially true for the people who had enjoyed the rewards of Black Wing’s Nest; to them, Zul’Gurub was barely worth their time.

Lu Li didn’t say anything, but he certainly didn’t think the same way. “We might’ve already missed the First Clear for this boss, otherwise it wouldn’t just drop one piece of Epic equipment. So, everyone, speed it up a bit,” Then with an enticing tone, Lu Li asked, “Did you guys not see the two new mounts in that official video?”

“Yeah, there are two new mounts, but we don’t know what their drop rates are like.” At this moment, everyone realised again that this Instance Dungeon wasn’t all bad. At this point in the game, mounts weren’t particularly rare. However, most people were only riding an ordinary model. To get a good mount, you needed to spend a lot of effort to try and find one. For example, Lu Li had a Headless Paladin’s Steed, but this sort of mount was extremely rare. Most players in the team today only had the most basic steed.

After thinking about the new mounts that they saw in the video, everyone’s spirits rose at once. “I’m not too sure about the drop rate, but I don’t think it’s high. There is a high drop rate only if we get the First Clear. So, everyone, let’s keep working harder. During our Black Wing’s Nest runs, not a single mount was dropped, so there’s nothing to be dissatisfied about,” Lu Li said.

Everyone immediately focused. Two mounts weren’t enough to be shared with everyone but being able to see them was still satisfying at least.

“It’s just that we don’t know which boss the other clubs are up to. This Instance Dungeon’s difficulty is a little low.” Wandering was still relatively rational unlike Azure Sea Breeze, who always thought that work and capital were number one.

“If we can defeat the first boss, that’s already not bad. We’re the only club that has Yeh’Kinya’s Potion and I also still have a Team Buff on me. However, don’t underestimate this Instance Dungeon. The First Clear on Nightmare Difficulty will make you cry,” Lu Li said.

“Hehe, I think that the harder the Instance Dungeon the better,” Azure Sea Breeze smirked, already full of pride.

“There was someone in Black Wing’s Nest who almost fought till they cried, and now they’re starting to brag again,” Wandering laughed coldly.

“Wasn’t me. Not me, not me,” Azure Sea Breeze denied, not admitting anything.

The bat stage very quickly came to an end. The next area had poisonous snakes; High Priest Venoxis had brought his Poison Tongue soldiers to be garrisoned in that area. The Poison Tongue God, Hesisi, was the object of their belief.

Actually, in the background story of the world of Dawn, there were quite a few Poison Tongue Gods. For example, the God of Hydras was Gahz’ridian, the God of Poisonous Snakes was Sseratus, and the God of Wind Snakes was Quetz’lun; Hakkar was also considered a God of Wind Snakes. The trolls had a long and complicated history which meant that their system of Gods was extremely complicated. What was more, most of their Gods had actually died long ago.

The trolls in this area came from the Sandfury clan.

Thousands of years ago, before the ancient wars, the Sandfury trolls were once a clan under the Gurubashi empire, but a great natural disaster led the trolls of the jungle to split up. Some of the trolls stayed in Tanaris which was beginning to turn to desert. In the end, their appearance had been changed by the emotionless desert to what they looked like now. Today, they don’t look at all similar to the trolls in the jungle; Tanaris wasn’t a land of peace. Threats from various places pushed the Sandfury trolls into a corner and all they could do was protect this last piece of territory.

New wars begun between the Sandfury trolls and their countless invaders; this unending war led to the clan’s gradual decline. This time, the Sandfury trolls’ High Priest Venoxis hoped that in this land of Zul’Gurub, once a land of glory, the clan would be able to find hope again. They were not that different than with Zul’Farrak, a fellow Sandfury clan; the trolls here also liked to use poison.

Because he knew about this first, Lu Li had prepared extremely high-level antivenom potions well in advance. Actually, Paladins, Shamans and Druids all had antivenom capabilities. Ironically there was basically only one player left who still had antivenom. If they lost the players who could heal poisoning, then it would lower everyone’s ability to fight effectively.

“When you’re pulling, keep your back to the group,” Lu Li reminded. Azure Sea Breeze obeyed and turned the poison-spraying monster around. This way, it was only him who was getting sprayed. Here, the Sandfury trolls and the Zul’Farrak were also in different places. You could even say that these Sandfury trolls had completely changed this Instance Dungeon. The rare occasion where small monsters led to the whole team dying basically happened in this place.

Everyone knew Berserkers were famous for their Whirlwind skill. In the current patch, Berserkers basically relied on this skill for their damage. If you didn’t escape after a Berserker’s whirlwind, then you’d die. Unless you were like Moonlight and had some awesome skills, this was simply an ordinary attack that dealt massive damage.

The trolls here had a similar skill; they would also spin around violently. The difference however, was that when they were spinning, they’d also continue to shoot out javelins.

These javelins didn’t do a lot of damage – even a mage could take four or five of them and still not die. However, it would be a fatal mistake to dismiss them. The speed at which these javelins shot out was extremely fast, and also had the attribute of knocking players down when they weren’t careful.

Without saying another word, they started to spin violently, with each javelin continuously knocking down the players. After getting knocked down, there was no way to use skills because they’d just be cancelled. It was also really hard to escape – once you were knocked down, how could you escape? Even if you crawled on the ground, the javelins would still hit you. Let’s say if there were four of these Sandfury troll javelins heading to you, these javelins could damage the whole group. As long as you were in range, no matter how many people there were, you’d take the damage of all four of these javelins.

Stuns didn’t work; Lu Li had already tested this out. The monster that he’d stunned was already spinning in its original place and the number of javelins and the speed at which they flew didn’t decrease, other skills like Frost Nova also didn’t work.

When Lu Li came here for the first time in his past life, he got in a situation where his whole team had died. That’s why he was extremely clear about how to deal with these Sandfury trolls. He immediately commanded, “Mages, get out of range of the battle, turn ’em into sheep.”

High-level magic roles liked having equipment that can store up skills. Fat Monkey was wearing a ring that had that special effect. As soon as he pointed to a monster, they’d immediately turn into a little lamb. Four turned into three as less javelins flew out.

Deadly Green Orange escaped from the attack range in a flash, and with a wave of his hand, he changed the troll standing guard nearest to him into a sheep. In the end, only two were left. The other two mages were finally able to crawl away and escape.

Not every battle was as tiring as this. After the players prepared themselves, they killed the other monsters and then went back to take care of the relatively strong spinning trolls. This way, the spinning trolls didn’t even do any harm to Lu Li and co.

Lu Li and his team wasn’t delayed by much. Very soon, they saw the second boss – High Priest Venoxis! A male boss with typical pale blue skin. However, what was relatively special was his hair. It was bound up in a small tail pointing upwards standing up straight; It had a very exotic feel to it.

Lu Li felt that this boss wasn’t too difficult compared to the spinning trolls. It was the same as the first boss; this boss was also separated in two stages. In the first stage, Venoxis went into battle taking the form of a human. “You interfered with Gurubashi’s plan. Come, bear the deadly poison of death,” he cried in a big voice. Then, he violently sprayed poison everywhere.

It had four younger brothers, all of whom were large venomous snake monsters. Everyone realised that when these monsters were with the boss, they were really quite powerful. Furthermore, the boss itself was an even match for them already.

Lu LI resolutely ordered the mages to control these four little monsters, while the Main Tank was responsible for pulling the boss far away.

If the boss wasn’t pulled away, the boss would help its little brothers get rid of the controlling magic. So, the little monsters needed to be defeated first. After the little monsters were killed, it would just be High Priest Venoxis left.

High Priest Venoxis’s poison was really very amazing. What was more, the players who had antivenom abilities had their abilities cancelled. It didn’t matter if it were Paladins or Shamans, even druids couldn’t do anything about the poison.

At this time, the antivenom potions that they had prepared earlier could begin to take full effect. Although these antivenom potions couldn’t completely get rid of the effects of poisoning, everyone was pleasantly surprised to realise that at least it reduced poison damage. Compared with the situation before, this was already really good. Other clubs might’ve already been poisoned to death in the first stage.

However, Lu Li and his team’s first attack still ended in defeat. The reason for how the team died was very strange. Healing roles, especially priests when healing teammates, emitted Divine Magic energy from their skill. This Divine Magic energy was partly absorbed by the boss. Afterwards, this energy was collected little by little, and when it reached a certain amount, it was released by the boss as damage.

He first used it against the player closest to him, then the second, then the third and so on, with each attack increasing in damage. Soon, the damage output reached a stage where a player could be killed instantly. After killing someone, the energy didn’t decrease; it remained at the same amount and it kept looking for a target to attack.

After the whole team died, they had a discussion and came to the conclusion that there were no other alternatives. The priests needed to position further away, and the Tanky Healers needed to be furthest away from the boss. That wasn’t all, in order to avoid the snowballing, damage-increasing attack, close combat roles also had to be positioned a bit further away.

In the end, this led to an amusing scenario. One Main Tank fought the monsters, while the others, as a group, were fighting from a distance and the close combat roles could only observe from a distance. The second time, Lu Li swapped some of the backup ranged roles to come forward and kept very few close combat roles. This way, they finally steadied themselves and could keep attacking the boss.