MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Windstorm Platform was a Level 30 Party-level Instance Dungeon. It was different from the Pinnacle of the Fire dungeon series as Windstorm Platform was a completely standalone dungeon. The entrance to it was located in the air right above the Pinnacle of the Fire dungeon group.

The Windstorm Platform dungeon area was extremely big, so the monsters inside were extremely spread out. If a party accidentally gets TPK’d at the very end, the corpse run alone would easily take more than half an hour. Hence, this dungeon was not really popular with the players at the start. It was only after news spread that Li Yi looted the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage here that this dungeon became more and more popular.

Countless players started heading over to the Windstorm Platform to grind for the Epic-Level Greatsword. However, due to the absurdly low drop rate of the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage, even in the eight years King of Pantheon ran in Li Yi’s past life, the number players who actually got the sword was less than one hundred.

Out of billions of players, barely one hundred of them had their wish fulfilled. As such, that was why the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage was so precious.

Of course, the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage’s attributes does live up to its name. Its special effect had a high chance of stunning the enemy. After getting their hands on the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage, a lot of players, who were once considered noobs, suddenly became a force that even the majority of top players could not counter. With that, the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage’s terrifying potential was obvious.

The first Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage was the one that Li Yi looted. The price it was sold at was 2,300,000 Gold Coins, and the buyer was none other than the Star Fire Guild Master, Yang Xingchen.

With the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage, Yang Xingchen managed to become the grand champion in the Arena’s Annual Championship for the year. Ever since then, the name of the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage spread even more, causing the price to undergo large inflation. When the second Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage finally arrived at the Auction House, the price had already surged up to 80,000,000 Gold Coins…

As the price soared even higher, Li Yi, as the first person who procured the first Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage, had long been forgotten by the masses…

Standing at the Windstorm Platform entrance, scenes from the past surged into his mind. Li Yi’s expression looked as if he was both laughing and crying. Complex emotions were stirred up in his heart, with all types of polar opposite emotions mixing together at once.

“What’s up with you? Why are you just standing here?” Jiaojiao reached out her thin and long finger, repeatedly waving it in front of Li Yi. Just as Li Yi snapped out of it, he instinctively bit on the finger.

“Ack—— You son of a ballsack, let…Let go!” Jiaojiao started hissing like a startled kitty, yelping in pain.

The game King of Pantheon had an adjustable realism option that allowed for a 1% to 100% in pain simulation. Jiaojiao had always used 1% in combat and 100% in non-combat as her settings. As such, once Li Yi bit her, she felt it like in real life.

That pain was exactly as if she was bitten in real life…

“Is your zodiac sign a dog? F*ck it hurts so much.” Jiaojiao started blowing on her finger whilst glaring at Li Yi. Looking at her stance, she was no doubt trying to find an opportunity for payback.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t have breakfast this morning. When I saw your finger I thought it was a sausage.” Li Yi purposely played dumb.

Jiaojiao glared daggers at Li Yi and shouted, “You son of a b*tch. How can you call a finger as white as this a bloody sausage? You need to get your eyes checked!”

“Is it that white?” Li Yi bent forward and looked at the finger in question carefully.

“I’m not letting you see it no matter if it’s white or not.” Jiaojiao quickly hid her finger behind her back as she let out a cold hmph. Then, she suddenly moved towards Li Yi’s face and started latching onto his neck and biting it.

Li Yi remained motionless, as he continued to chuckle at her.

“My pain simulation setting is set at 1%, even if you’re doing this… I can’t feel a thing.”

“Damn you!” Jiaojiao stomped the ground in rage.

“This is a 25-man dungeon. We only have three people, how are we gonna do it?” At this point, Wind-on-Snow finally cut in.

Li Yi replied, “We’ll wait for people. Once there’s a party looking for people, we’ll just join.”

“Windstorm Platform 25 people. Need healers and tanks. DPS please state your GS before entering the party!”

“Windstorm 25, we already have heals and tanks. Trusted Gay God Summer Leaf party. Need 1 more Thief that knows Ambush to start! 24:1 ¹ .”

“Windstorm 25, all fresh CDs. Join if you have patience. 1:24. State your GS before joining, if you get no reply that means you’re not in.”

At the entrance of the Windstorm Platform, thousands of players were forming their parties and looking for groups. In reality, unless the player had their own fixed party, they would all have to go through this frantic process of looking for a party when raiding larger dungeons.

A party consisting of only friends was called friend parties; a party from a guild’s scheduled activity was called a guild party; whereas this last-minute party arrangement would usually be called a casual party.

Most of the terrifying in-game incidents with unethical players scamming for Gold Coins or equipment came from casual parties. The reason for that was simple. No one in the parties knew each other. It was one thing if no good equipment dropped, but once something good drops, a lot of players would let their greed take over. The issue of casual parties scamming people was one that had always been present since the beginning of this game.

Li Yi chose to go solo in this life. He also had the guild parties and Platinum party as backup. Thus, he had never lacked party members. He would occasionally run dungeons with the people inside the guild. Those people were all busy putting him on a pedestal, naturally, no one would dare to scam him.

“Let’s just join one of them, the wait is killing me.” After half an hour, Li Yi still had not joined any party. He was not in a hurry, but Jiaojiao’s patience seemed to have run out.

“What’s the hurry? You’re gonna have your fill of fighting in a bit.” Li Yi said with a slightly annoyed grin.

Looking at Jiaojiao raging, Li Yi gave an explanation, “If it was only me, this would be simple, but this time I’m boosting the two of you. That makes things a bit more complicated. I’ve already messaged a lot of party leaders, but once they heard I was carrying people, they all declined.”

In reality, Li Yi was only observing the party leaders who were hosting their L4G messages. He had not messaged any of them. Otherwise, just based off his reputation alone, it would be a piece of cake to get them into any party.

Li Yi was patiently waiting. Combining his experience from his past life and the information Shen Lang gave him, he was confident that particular person would definitely appear.

“Changfeng trusted party is recruiting members. We already have three healers, need tanks and DPS. We start at 5 o’clock sharp. State your GS to join the party!”

‘He’s finally here!’

Li Yi grinned devilishly and sent a message to the party leader, “Archer class, GS2311. Bringing two newbies with me to the party.”

“Scram…”

The party leader only replied with a single word. Almost an instant after that, he let out a shout of shock before directly inviting Li Yi into the party.

“Dark… Guild Master Dark Wing. I’m so sorry, I didn’t notice your name earlier.”

“No worries, give me adding perms ² , I’ll add two more.”

“OK, OK.” The party leader just replied with two OKs before giving Li Yi the adding permissions.

Li Yi added Wind-on-Snow and Jiaojiao into the party. Waving at them, he motioned for them to enter the dungeon first.

“We’ll enter the dungeon first, there’re too many people here, so it’s a bother.”

The party that Li Yi just joined was a fresh party. At this point, the party only had four people — himself, Wind-on-Snow, Jiaojiao, and the party leader earlier.

The party leader just now was not some nobody. He was Xiao Changfeng, the party leader of the casual party he was in when he looted the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage in his past life.

The reason Li Yi did not join any other party was that he was waiting for this Xiao Changfeng. This was because he wanted to recreate that incident from his past life. As a key character in that incident, the casual party leader Xiao Changfeng naturally had to be there.

“It’s an honor, Guild Master Dark Wing.” Xiao Changfeng sent a friend request to Li Yi. Li Yi only smiled as he pressed accept.

“Changfeng trusted party is recruiting members. We have the Little Drunk Cat’s Guild Master Dark Wing. Need tanks, healers, and DPS. State you GS to join the party. Do not message me with a GS below 1000, not taking anyone with lower GS!”

Due to Dark Wing joining his party, Xiao Changfeng started to get haughty.

“What? Dark Wing joined your party?”

“Holy sh*t, are my ears deceiving me? That godlike Archer joined your party?”

Ding ding ding ding ding…

Xiao Changfeng’s inbox started ringing like crazy. Immediately after he sent out an L4G message, he instantly received thousands upon thousands of messages from players interested in joining the party.

So this was the celebrity effect ³ …

“The lore and backstory behind the Windstorm Platform was quite romantic. This place was originally the home of the Goddess of Hurricane. Mortals did not have the permission to walk this place. But because the Goddess of Hurricane fell in love with a Dwarf, the Goddess handcrafted a Wind Ladder so her lover could reach this Windstorm Platform. That Wind Ladder was precisely what we rode up here on from the Pinnacle of the Fire just now.”

Li Yi was seated inside the dungeon, telling the lore behind the Windstorm Platform to the two girls.

He had also told this story in the past. However, at the time, Jiaojiao was not part of the audience. Only Wind-on-Snow was there.

“Because the Goddess of Hurricane met up with her lover on the Windstorm Platform daily, it angered the Ruler of God atop Mount Pantheon. The Ruler of God personally took action, he captured her back to Mount Pantheon and locked her up. The Dwarf lover of the Goddess was even worse off. Not being able to handle the agony of his lover being taken away, he committed suicide. After he died, his soul could not find peace, so it continues to roam the Windstorm Platform even to this day, desperately searching for the Goddess.”

“What a tragedy.” Jiaojiao let out a short sigh.

“Yeah, the Ruler of God is such a busybody,” Wind-on-Snow added.

“The 25-man party is full, let’s enter the dungeon!”

All of a sudden, Xiao Changfeng let out an excited shout, announcing that they’ll enter the dungeon.

“Where’s the godlike Archer?”

“Where’s Dark Wing? Where is he?”

As the part members flooded into the dungeon, the first things they said were not about the tactics for this dungeon, but rather asking about Dark Wing…

“Guild Master Dark Wing, can I add you as a friend? I’ve admired your work for a long long time.”

“I’ve also admired you for a long time…”

Everyone gathered around Li Yi, kissing his *ss non-stop.

He could not help it. When a player’s achievements were so far ahead of the average player, anyone would receive this kind of treatment.

“Everyone calm down, one at a time…” Li Yi did not reject anyone. As long as they added him, he would just click accept without hesitation.

Xiao Changefeng was grinning from ear to ear as he said, “Guild Master Dark Wing, since you’re participating in this party, I no longer have the authority to be the party leader. Why don’t I hand over the party leader position to you? With you leading the gang, we’d also get a chance to see your masterful Archer godliness at work.”

Li Yi waved his hand, “No need, you can be the party leader. I’ll leave the commanding to you as well. Just treat me as a normal player. I’ll follow whatever you say.”

“That seems quite unbefitting for me to command someone of your caliber…” Xiao Changefeng was so ecstatic that he was starting to get dizzy.

“Say no more, it’s settled.”

“Alright, then I’ll take up the moniker of party leader!” Xiao Changfeng slapped his thigh before starting to give a rundown of the dungeon’s strategy.

“The Windstorm Platform has a gigantic map with a wide area and sparse monsters. If we get TPK’d at the very end, just the corpse run alone would easily take more than half an hour…”

Xiao Changfeng’s explanation was similar to the one he gave in his past life. While Li Yi looked at him, memories of his past life started popping up.

“Lil Snow, what do you think of this party leader?”

“I don’t know him, but based on his speech he seems to be much better than the last guy. Hopefully, we get through this time…”

As Li Yi remembered his conversation with Wind-on-Snow in his past life, a fiery rage started igniting in his heart.

He had read through the information on Wind-on-Snow that Shen Lang sent him.

“Wind-on-Snow. Female. Real name: Xiao Xue. Age: 18. Family members: Both parents are alive and well, has an older brother named Xiao Changfeng, IGN: Xiao Changfeng!”

…