Chapter 169 – Skill Interrupt
Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng obviously recognized this, which was why they hadn’t placed very high hopes on it. They only needed to buy a bit more time.
Even with this though, the Fire Witch was still closing in on the two. As soon as they entered her attack range, she immediately lifted her staff and chanted a few words. The space around them seemed to suddenly split open. Two massive fireballs formed and crashed down from the sky towards them.
The Fire Witch continued give chase as she cast the spell.
Magic that required chanting usually couldn’t be done while moving. But there was one exception —— Elementalists. After learning the Level 30 Passive skill Mobile Cast, Elementalists were able to move while casting spells. Of course, their movement speed would be greatly reduced under this situation. Leveling the passive skill would decrease the extent by which the movement speed was reduced. However, even at max level, Elementalists would still only be able to move at 50% of their usual speed. It still couldn’t be compared with moving under normal conditions.
Although the Fire Witch was a BOSS, she still had to comply with the rules of the system.Her movement speed had greatly reduced while she was casting those two massive fireballs. Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng easily dodged the attack and took advantage of the opportunity to widen the distance between them and the Fire Witch.
The Fire Witch’s AI wasn’t very smart. She would first have to catch up to them before attacking. As soon as there was an opportunity to attack, she would cast a spell and slow down. Through this alternation, between her movement speed Lord Grim and Cleansing Mist were always able to maintain a certain distance from her. The goblins were eventually left behind so they gradually left the battle.
The goblins were all normal monsters in the leveling area. They were completely unrelated to the Fire Witch. The reason so many of them had accumulated around her was because the Fire Witch hadn’t been killed for such a long time.
They all had their own way of deciding on aggro. At this moment, their targets were getting further and further away. Soon, they could no longer see their targets, so the goblins turned around and went away to play.
As for Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng, all they could was run around in circles. The BOSS also had a limited range for where she was able to move around. It wasn’t possible to bring the Fire Forest’s Fire Witch all the way to Frost Forest.
“Coordinates 1658, 1542!” Ye Xiu messaged Tang Rou and Steamed Bun Invasion. With the way he and Su Mucheng retreated while attacking, it appeared as if they were kiting the Fire Witch. However, the two of them weren’t able to chain their attacks too closely. In addition, the the BOSS’s life would still automatically recover. Even though the recovery wouldn’t completely mitigate the damage they had done or even if they had infinite mana, it would still take them more than a day to take down the BOSS.
Tang Rou and Steamed Bun Invasion received the message and quickly rushed over. When they got there, they saw that the goblins that used to be with the Fire Witch, were already gone. Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng no longer needed to play tag with the Fire Witch anymore so they began hunting her down.
“We have arrived!!” Steamed Bun Invasion announced. He himself hadn’t arrived yet, though his Brick had. The flying Brick smashed into the back of the Fire Witch’s head. The Fire Witch seemed to have been stunned for a bit, but she instantly recovered.
“Look carefully before using it! Dizzy won’t have much of an effect on her, so only use it to interrupt her skills!!” Ye Xiu instructed Steamed Bun Invasion.
No matter how short the Dizzy effect lasted, it was still a status effect. If the Fire Witch was hit while casting a spell, then the spell would definitely get interrupted. Of course, the prerequisite was that the Dizzy effect activated. If it didn’t, then the damage dealt from it wouldn’t nearly be enough to interrupt her spells.
“You also have Inject Poison. Pay attention to how you use it!” Ye Xiu reminded Steamed Bun Invasion.
Inject Poison was a Level 30 Brawler skill. Even though the skill’s name contained the word poison, it didn’t actually have any Poison effects. This skill had two effects: It could induce a Bleed effect and it could also Break Super Armor.
The target could not be knocked down, launched, knocked back, or interrupted when it was in Super Armor....... Unless a Grab type skill was used, the target could not be moved forcibly.
Inject Poison was a skill that could get rid of this Super Armor. At its lowest level, the skill could dispel Super Armor for up to 5 seconds. At max level, the skill could dispel Super Armor for up to 10 seconds.
Under the Fire Witch’s Level Suppression, there was no way Inject Poison would be able to dispel Super Armor for a full 5 seconds. However, Steamed Bun Invasion could still hear Ye Xiu’s instruction from before telling him that he should circle around the Fire Witch and be ready to use Inject Poison at any time.
Whenever the Fire Witch attacked or cast magic, a red glow would emanate from her. This was her appearance when she was in a Super Armor state. In this state, the Fire Witch was unstoppable. Neither normal attacks nor skills had any way of stopping her movements. She suddenly opened her arms. Not only was there a red glow around her body, a fiery aura also emanated outwards, making everything around her go up in flames. Quite a few dried up leaves also leapt up in flames.
Meteor Shower!
This was the Fire Witch’s AoE spell. The spell summoned numerous meteors that would fall like rain onto the target.
“Inject Poison!!” Ye Xiu didn’t have time to tell him what the spell was. As soon as he saw the Fire Witch raise her hands, he immediately shouted.
Prepared, Steamed Bun Invasion heard Ye Xiu’s command and immediately used “Inject Poison.” The Fire Witch took the Inject Poison and the fiery aura emanating from her body instantly retreated. Steamed Bun Invasion was extremely shameless. He was afraid that he would provoke some sort of response. So after he used Inject Poison, he immediately ran and hid behind a tree.
“Why are you hiding?” Steamed Bun Invasion’s cowardly display made Ye Xiu not know whether he should laugh or cry. If Steamed Bun Invasion wasn’t going to use this chance, then he’d have to make up for him. Luckily, Lord Grim wasn’t too far from the Fire Witch. He sent a Sky Strike and launched the Fire Witch into the air. Under the Level Suppression and the BOSS’s innate defense, this Knock-Up was only able to make the BOSS stumble. However, Ye Xiu quickly followed up with a Falling Flower Palm, hitting the Fire Witch.
After successfully interrupting the Fire Witch’s Meteor Shower, Ye Xiu scolded Steamed Bun Invasion: “Don’t run! Once Inject Poison is used, you have to hurry up and interrupt her spell.” This was supposed to be a chance for Steamed Bun Invasion to practice, but that guy had actually run away.
“I was afraid that she would have some sort of scary spell.” Steamed Bun Invasion immediately replied.
In the time it took to say these words, the Fire Witch had already recovered and returned to kill them. Tang Rou’s Soft Mist went to meet up with her. Three types of Chasers danced around her. Besides the Neutral Chaser and the Ice Chaser, there was also a Fire Chaser from the use of Falling Flower Palm. The Fire Chaser buffed her Strength. At this moment, a layer of red magic fluctuations glowed around her arm. Her appearance with the Fire Chaser looked similar to the buff which the Fire Witch had given to the goblins earlier.
Soft Mist initiated with a Sky Strike. But the Fire Witch didn’t budge as she had Super Armor. The staff in her hands whirled. The rune at the end of her staff brought forth flames as it moved through the air. All of the Fire Witch’s attacks carried the Fire Attribute.
This Witch’s staff was extremely long. The sweep it created covered a wide area. Steamed Bun Invasion, who was just about to go forward, was forced to retreat. Soft Mist, who was already in range, didn’t have time to retreat. She hastily ducked to avoid the attack and then rolled, avoiding the streak of flames that came from the Fire Witch’s staff.
Su Mucheng’s Cleansing Mist was long-ranged, so she didn’t need to get up close. At this moment, she fired a stored-up Laser Rifle. The Laser Rifle crashed onto the Fire Witch’s body and seemed as if it would penetrate through her body. The momentum it carried was astonishing, but against the Witch’s Super Armor, it was only able to deal damage. The Fire Witch continued what she was doing and was once again about to cast a large AoE spell. Steamed Bun Invasion saw this and panicked: “Inject Poison is still on cooldown!”
He hadn’t finished talking, when Lord Grim rushed forward. He used a Circle Swing and stabbed the Fire Witch, throwing her and interrupting her spell. Grabs ignored Super Armor.
Interrupting a skill this way seemed simple on paper, but a normal player would still fail nine out of ten times. The successful interrupt would only be because of luck.
The BOSS’s skills weren’t so slow that you had time to see it, rush up, and then use a Grab to interrupt it. When the Fire Witch cast a spell like the Fireballs, the cast was nearly instant. It was practically the same as not casting at all. Even for large spells like Meteor Shower, if Steamed Bun Invasion was even a step slower, there wouldn’t have been enough time to follow up with any skill after his Inject Poison.
There was only a one second window and sometimes even less.
During their battle against Frost Forest’s Frost Thain, Blue River had a Super Armor Break skill “Wave Wheel Slasher” to use against the BOSS’s Super Armor skill. But why didn’t he use it then? It was because he wasn’t good enough.
What Ye Xiu could do didn’t necessarily mean that other players could do as well. Even for Tang Rou, even with her high hand speed, she still lacked in experience. If she had tried to use Circle Swing to interrupt the Witch, she would have most likely failed. Too early and the BOSS would have simply gotten back up and re-cast the spell. The Circle Swing would then be on cooldown. Too late and well, the spell would have already been released and the Circle Swing would be interrupted.
Lord Grim was unspecialized. Besides Circle Swing, he also had access to skills like Back Throw and Wave Wheel Slasher, which could Break Super Armor. He had the ability to continuously interrupt the Fire Witch’s casting. Letting Steamed Bun Invasion use Inject Poison was simply a convenient way to help him learn. Fighting against this big BOSS with a huge level gap was to practice interrupting skills.