BXBX NOVEL Chapter 15: The Black Claw
Kindling Chest Hair died a little too fast, and that was even before other players had even entered combat! After killing Kindling Chest Hair, the two monsters quickly headed back to their original positions, surprising Zhang Yang who was waiting to intercept the aggro.
“Shit! What’s going on with you healers? Why didn’t you guys heal me?” yelled Kindling Chest Hair angrily.
Ocean Despair did not want to debate with this idiot anymore, and so, his own guild mate Prideful Babysitter replied, “You died too fast, I couldn’t react in time!”
Truthfully, Kindling Chest Hair was not killed within seconds. There was still a short moment of time for them to heal. It was just that they had never met this kind of monster so no one had the awareness for danger. A slight distraction and they would not be in time anymore.
Kindling Chest Hair kept quiet for a moment then said, “Revive me!”
Prideful Babysitter said, “Can’t do it!”
“Sacred Knight?” Kindling Chest Hair asked as he turned to Ocean Despair.
“Nope!”
“Fuck! How can you be a babysitter when you don’t even have a reviving skill?!” Kindling Chest Hair scolded again. He released his corpse and returned from the spawning point to where he died.
Ocean Despair was being ridiculed again, his expression turning even more sour.
[Resurrection] could be used to revive a fallen player who died out of combat, saving him the time and effort to return from the starting or spawning point. It was a useful and practical skill that could be learned by both Priests and Defenders. However, this skill could not be obtained from a class instructor and could only be attained from skill books found in monster’s loot.
<Resurrection>’s drop rate had always been low. Even 5 years after the game server had been launched, the <Resurrection> skill book was still in high demand and could be sold at the exorbitant price of several thousand Gold Coins. As of now, the people who possessed this skill would most likely be the main healers of large guilds.
Before the game had launched, the officials had wanted to help the players understand each profession clearer and had released introductions of skills attainable by each profession in their website including the functions and effects of skills, as well as the method of attaining said skills. However, the officials had kept quiet regarding skills attainable through hidden quests, allowing the players to figure out a way themselves.
Floral Shorts thought for a little while and said, “When the Defender comes back, the two tanks will each pull one monster. Healers stay alert. These two monsters seem fierce!”
Zhang Yang’s attention was not on this dungeon anymore. He had taken the chance to have a casual conversation in private messages with Hundred Shots. Even though Zhang Yang had already known about this guy’s future accomplishments, he would not pick his teammate solely based on skills. A player’s moral character would be of greater importance!
7 to 8 minutes later, Kindling Chest Hair had revived and stood once again amongst the party members.
“Hairy, recover your condition!” Floral Shorts said as he marked the two monsters with different symbols. “Defender, you’re to handle the monster marked with a star. Guardian, yours is the one with a sun mark. Go!”
Kindling Chest Hair consumed a piece of cake and had his HP and MP fully recovered. He then took out his war hammer and shield, going straight for the monsters.
“<Shield Toss>!”
Zhang Yang, too, used <Charge> and dashed towards the monster with a sun mark. With a swing of his sword, a damage text with the figure “-62” emerged above the monster’s head.
The ‘sun monster’ had recovered quickly and stabbed towards Zhang Yang with its spear.
“<Block>!”
“-42!” <Block> reflected damage.
“-102!” <Shield Bash>!
“-140!” <Horizontal Sweep>!
The aggro value was established in an instant.
The other teammates had unanimously picked Zhang Yang’s target as their attack target. Swords slashed and spells flew all at once.
Kindling Chest Hair was furious because even his own guildmates, Floral Shorts and Prideful Precepts did not dare to attack the monster he had pulled. How embarrassing!
“Ding! Executioner Gnome uses <Immolation Assault>!”
Zhang Yang reacted swiftly and slid back, leaving the monster’s melee attack range and caused <Immolation Assault> to hit nothing but air.
On the other side of the battle, Kindling Chest Hair was suffering major damage, causing Prideful Babysitter to spam cast his healing skills while reminding Kindling Chest Hair to use his own health recovery potion. Ocean Despair had long since given up on him.
After about 40 seconds, the ‘sun monster’ let out a wail, collapsing in its own pool of blood. The party turned and attacked the ‘star monster’ Kindling Chest Hair was pulling.
After 10 seconds or so, the monster let out an enraged cry and ignored Kindling Chest Hair, charging towards Hundred Shots!
“He’s been pulling aggro for over a minute and still managed to get OT. It’s really a wonder of wonders!” Flame Emperor was more than shocked.
<Charge>!
Zhang Yang quickly chased after the ‘star monster’. He was not competing for aggro with Kindling Chest Hair, so he naturally had full Rage as he did not use any Rage consuming skills. Zhang Yang used <Horizontal Sweep> followed by a normal attack and then continued with 3 <Force Strike>, causing a large amount of damage and aggro.
Once the ‘star monster’ recovered, Zhang Yang used <Provoke> and forced the monster to attack him for 2 seconds.
“<Block>!”
“-42!”
“<Shield Bash>!”
“-102!”
Hundred Shots’ performance was commendable. He had stopped attacking and had waited for Zhang Yang to hold the monster’s aggro. After the 2 seconds ended, the ’star monster’ was still attacking Zhang Yang, confirming its complete aggro lock on Zhang Yang.
Kindling Chest Hair kept his mouth shut. With this situation in hand, however shameless he was, remaining silent would be his best course of action. If he had quibbled, he would only be setting himself up as a joke – not like he was not one already.
In due course, the ‘star monster’ had died.
The party progressed and after clearing 5 waves of monsters, they had finally encountered the first boss. It was a black colossal hound the size of a public bus, its fur a shining black. The boss was currently sleeping on the floor, snoring thunderously loud and drooling all over.
[Black Claw, Guardian Beast of the Crypt Entrance] (Black-Metal Boss)
Level: 12
HP: 36000
There was only a lone boss in this overly large cave and no minions around.
“What’s the plan?” Snowy Death asked in the party channel while staring at the fearsome monstrous beast.
“Easy! Tanks pull, damage dealers attack and healers heal! It’s simple!” Prideful Precepts said with ease.
Zhang Yang shook his head and said, “This boss has two skills the first being <Death Stare>. It’s a skill that causes the player with the highest aggro to receive extra damage. The target will receive an extra 100% damage when attacked and this skill can be stacked indefinitely. In this case, theoretically, this boss requires 2 tanks. When one tank has accumulated high stacks of <Death Stare>, the other tank takes over. When the debuff ends, the first tank will replace the second tank once again! Of course, if the DPSers are strong enough, we could still do this with only one tank, killing the boss in the shortest amount of time.”
The players looked at each other, neither of them trusting Kindling Chest Hair to hold aggro. To believe that he could do it would be would be more unlikely than to believe that all prostitutes are virgins! The only way to do it was to go all out on dealing damage and to kill it forcefully.
“The second skill is <Venom Spit>. It will target players at random and cause around 200 basic damage in Normal Mode. The cast rate is very high so there will be substantial healing pressure.” Zhang Yang continued.
Prideful Precepts gave a skeptic look and asked, “How did you know? You’re not making this up just for the sake of bragging, are you?”
Zhang Yang had cleared this dungeon numerous times in his previous life, how could he not know?! Zhang Yang smiled and said, “There are a lot of dungeon information on the official forum, I saw it in passing.”
Everyone believed him without a doubt.
“Hairy, which of you two would be the main tank?” Floral Shorts still had faith in Kindling Chest Hair.
“Of course it would be me! He won’t survive a hit from the boss with that petty HP!” Kindling Chest Hair had yet to realize the difference in ability between him and Zhang Yang. He had a big hat but no cattle.
Ocean Despair could not help but chuckle.
Kindling Chest Hair had been displeased with him for a while, and yelled, “What are you laughing for? Was I wrong?”
Ocean Despair remained silent but posted the ‘Heal Received Statistics’ in the channel.
[Heal Received Statistics]
1.Kindling Chest Hair, 57632, 92%
2.Snowy Death, 1579, 3%
3.Flowery Pants, 1553, 3%
4.Zhan Yu, 1422, 2 %
“Is this for real?” Everyone looked at the list and was beyond surprised.
What did it mean?
Zhang Yang had not only locked a monster’s aggro, his attack evasion was on another level!
He did have less HP compared to Kindling Chest Hair but based solely on his skills, monsters’ attacks could barely graze him! If so, why does it matter whether he had high or low HP in the first place?
The pitiful Kindling Chest Hair was still unable to grasp the overall picture and had laughed egoistically after looking at the statistics, “Now you guys know my pain! I’ve pulled so many monsters, of course they would attack me!”
Ocean Despair smirked, “Pain your ass! Healing you is the real pain!”
Kindling Chest Hair was livid. Just as he had wanted to refute Ocean Despair’s comment, he was flooded by blames from the rest of the party, criticizing his weak ability in locking aggro, as whoever was supposed to deal damage to his monster would definitely OT. Feeling overwhelmed, he wanted to find the other 3 Pride guildmates as support but saw them intentionally turn their heads away, pretending to miss the conversation.
“Alright, alright. The two of you go together. Whoever holds the aggro will tank it!” Floral Shorts finally decided, an attempt to help Kindling Chest Hair but everybody had known that this was just for show. Let’s not compare Kindling Chest Hair’s aggro to Zhang Yang. Perhaps, even healers’ could build higher aggro than him!
“Go!”
Zhang Yang unsheathed his Refined Iron Sword and dashed towards Black Claw. Not wanting to be outshone, Kindling Chest Hair also rushed towards the boss.
“<Charge>!”
“<Shield Toss>!”
Zhang Yang dashed towards the boss like a train, arriving right in front of Black Claw almost immediately. He swung his sword and slashed the boss.
“-52!”
The damage was reduced by roughly 20 points due to the boss’ high defense.
At this time, Kindling Chest Hair had also arrived and smashed his war hammer furiously.
“-1!”
Tragedy. He could not break its defense and had only caused 1 point of damage.
At the same time, Kindling Chest Hair activated <Devotion>. A glowing golden light appeared beneath his feet and another “-1” damage text appeared above the boss’s head.
2 seconds later, the boss had recovered from the stun and clawed at Zhang Yang.
“<Block>!”
“-36!”
“<Shield Bash>!”
“-96!”
“<Horizontal Sweep>!”
“-136!”
“Start the attack!” Zhang Yang announced in the party channel.