Reign of the Hunters

“But...” Overflowing Ink stopped mid sentence. He looked around at the party members, sighed, and lowered his head.

“Aren’t we here today to pioneer a dungeon? Is there any guild that suffered 0 casualties when they go pioneering? Is there any guild that did not get annihilated on their first try?” Ye Ci laughed out loud, “The coordination between party members is formed through deaths! There’s no perfect party cohesiveness right from the beginning!” She continued after a slight pause, “Changing a commander right now... Is just like having a different general lead an army in the middle of a fight. Have you ever heard of something like that? Swapping out a general at the most crucial moment of the battle tends to result in defeat.”

At this point, it was obvious that Ye Ci had rejected Overflowing Ink’s proposal. He became increasingly nervous, and his hands and feet were cold. Remote Depths noticed his distress and patted him on the shoulder, “Just do it your way. We’re all now under your command. If anybody doesn’t cooperate, just yell at them.”

Overflowing Ink took a glance at Remote Depths who was smiling, took in a deep breath, and nodded. He then walked to a side to adjust his state of mind, and proceeded to once again marshal the party.

Ye Ci stole a glance at him, and saw that he was wearing a calm expression, with confidence burning in his eyes.

No lives were lost during the first stage, and the party was able to perfectly avoid the Freeze Ray. In the fatal third stage, Overflowing Ink had formulated a strategy that suited his guild members the most, based on his previous failures.

“The MT must hold still while pulling the aggro firmly. The second and third tank, position yourselves at a 129 degree angle on both sides of the MT, and hold the secondary aggro! I want the main healer to take good care of the second tank. The third tank, please take note: If the second tank dies, you’re next in line. The fourth and fifth tank, focus on pulling the aggro of the monsters coming from both sides, don’t allow them to self destruct! I want all the melee players to focus your attacks on the smaller monsters while the ranged players concentrate fire on the BOSS. When I give the order, I want all of you to cast your damage-resistance skills. If you don’t have one, use a potion instead.”

Overflowing Ink had adjusted his style of his command, and the players were quick to familiarize themselves with it. They were able to make preparations according to his orders. The third stage of the BOSS fight immediately began. Remote Depths pulled the BOSS’s aggro firmly. In the third stage of the BOSS fight, he was one of the safest players. The BOSS would not attack the primary source of its aggro, but instead chose to attack the player holding its secondary aggro while occasionally attacking random players.

“The little monsters have appeared!” Overflowing Ink was monitoring the entire course of the battle even as he was playing a role in dishing out damage, “Fourth and fifth tanks, hurry! Drag them to a corner, don’t let them get close to the ranged players! The rest of the melee players, move in and kill them all, do not allow them to self-destruct!”

The fourth and fifth tank immediately rushed out and pulled a green-skinned goblin each to a corner. The Rogues, Barbarians, Knights and other melee players began swarming upon the goblins and attacked them mercilessly.

“I’m angry! I’m angry!” The goblin at the left began to glow red. This would last for 15 seconds. And if players were unable to slay it within 15 seconds, the goblin would self-destruct. All the melee players around it would be killed, and even the ranged players might be caught in the blast zone. This was the reason for the party’s last failure.

Ye Ci shifted her attack towards the goblin. She cast Empowered Hunter’s Mark, Falcon Protection and Poison onto her target, and the goblin was finally slain when there was 3 seconds left on the timer. The other goblin was dispatched in the same way as well.

All the players let out a collective sigh of relief after both goblins were dead. That was too close.

When the melee players rejoined the ranged players, Overflowing Ink shouted out, “I want all the Warriors and Knights to look after the healers! Everybody, be ready to pop your damage resistance abilities! DPS players, use all the AOE skills you have after you cast damage resist!”

“Come out, my children!” The BOSS raised its hand right after Overflowing Ink’s voice died down. Spores appeared like spring bamboo after the rain. When the spores burst, swarms of weird-looking insects crawled out from them.

“Damage resist!” Overflowing Ink shouted out loud.

Almost all the party members popped their damage resist abilities or consume damage resist potions. At the same time, the DPS players began casting their AOE skills. Blizzard, Starfall, Mystic Rain, Random Shot, Thunderstorm... The visual effects from the multitudes of skills overlapped with each other, forming a rather beautiful scenery.

Ye Ci looked around after casting Random Shot. The scene was even prettier than the fireworks during national day.

“Poof poof poof...” Despite having a considerable amount of health, the monsters could not withstand such a ferocious barrage and were dead within moments. The first segment of the third stage of the boss fight was finally over. The entire BOSS fight would be over after 2 more repeats of the spore segment.

The effects of Overflowing Ink’s adjusted command style was obvious. Not a single one of the party members lost their lives. Overflowing Ink shouted in joy into the command channel, “Well done! As long as we keep this up, victory will belong to us, Upwards Ho!.”

After their initial success, the second and third wave became way simpler for them. Some claimed that success could be duplicated, and in this case, it could. The second and third wave of monsters were dealt with ease.

“Impossible! O’ Great King Bakthany, how can I be defeated by such mere mortals? Forgive me! Forgive me!” The BOSS disappeared into a puff of green smoke after shouting out in despair, leaving behind only his armor.

“Wooooh!!! We made it!!!” the party immediately erupted into cheers. The guild members laughed heartily, and some of them even jumped up and down in joy. Overflowing Ink however, stood at a side, deep in thought. Ye Ci walked up to him and noticed that he was trembling.

“Congratulations! You succeeded!” Ye Ci wanted to pat him on the shoulders, but decided against it. She stood behind him and let out a slight smile.

Overflowing Ink immediately turned around. He rubbed his eyes in a panic, and then beamed at Ye Ci, “Guild leader...”

“Isn’t it better this way?”

“I... I...” Overflowing Ink began stuttering.

“We’ll do even better next time.” Ye Ci continued for him, and then pointed at the armor that was left behind by the BOSS, “Hurry up and go loot the BOSS’ remains.”

Overflowing Ink’s luck was very good, and hence there was an unspoken rule in the first squadron that he would always be the one to loot any drops. The party was rewarded with 19 equipment, and all of them were blue equipment, which included 2 weapons, 5 armors, 2 gauntlets, a shoulder guard, a helmet, a belt, a pair of boots, a cape and other miscellaneous accessories. One of them was leather armor worn by Hunters, but it was not as good as Ye Ci’s current equipment. She passed it on to another Hunter in the party.

By the time the party had cleared the first BOSS, it was already noon. Overflowing Ink took note of the time and said, “Let’s take an hour’s rest. You can go offline and grab a meal if you have to, but don’t leave the dungeon. We’ll continue pressing on towards the second BOSS after the break.”

This prompted a chorus of agreements from the party members. Monsters that had already been slain in a dungeon would not respawn. The party members could go offline at the place where the first BOSS was slain.

The road to the second BOSS was a smooth one. The only problem suffered by the party was an issue with the healers. The objective in the second BOSS fight was to rescue an Undead NPC who was imprisoned. When players fought again the BOSS, they must also insure the survival of the Undead NPC. If the NPC died, the BOSS would become invulnerable. It was, however, impossible for the Clerics and Priests to heal the Undead NPC, as their abilities were usually Light type spells, and would deal damage to the Undead NPC. It could only be healed by Druids and Rangers.

The problem began to surface immediately. Druids and Rangers were unable to match the healing capabilities of a Cleric or a Priest. Not only that, the Druids and Rangers in Upwards Ho! were DPS oriented, and had not developed their support skillset. Their healing power was just too low.

The party had to retreat due to the lack of healing after several attempts to challenge the second BOSS.

After a brief discussion with Mi Lu, Overflowing Ink decided to heal the NPC up with a Druid and a Ranger at the same time. The NPC finally had enough health, but the damage output of the party dropped drastically. This put a huge amount of pressure upon the 4 healers in the party.

Ye Ci had no choice but to summon Ol’ Four and instructed it to attack the BOSS alongside the melee players. She spoke up in the command channel, “The MT and second tank please hold the aggro of the BOSS firmly, don’t let my pet take the aggro away from you! Its aggro builds up quickly, and he has no means to reduce aggro. Be careful! Don’t think of the damage, building a stable aggro is your top priority!”

Even if it was not known by everybody else, Ye Ci knew for a fact that Ol’ Fours abilities were all Epic-tier. It could build up aggro pretty fast, which was why Ye Ci had not opted to send him out. But if she did not send him out at that moment, the damage output of the party would be lacking, as the Druid and Ranger were tasked to heal up the NPC.

As expected of an Epic-tier monster, Ol’ Four’s normal attack was astonishing even when it was lvl 17. After a few attacks by Ol’ Four, most of Remote Depths’ aggro had transferred to Ol’ Four, and he immediately shouted out, “Hurry up and let your pet back off! I can’t hold on to the aggro much longer!”

Ye Ci immediately instructed Ol’ Four to retreat. When Remote Depths once again built up his aggro, Ye Ci once again unleashed Ol’ Four upon the BOSS, and then pulled it back again. In this BOSS fight, Ol’ Four was the most exhausted one other than Overflowing Ink. It was made to rush back and forth without even receiving any food. And with that, it began to take action to show its anger and object against the “unfair treatment” it had received: It went on a strike.