MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

“Cursed humans…”

The Kobold Chief screamed in agony and fell to the ground.

“Thank you for your help.” Highlord Mograine pressed a hand to his chest and bowed deeply at Li Yi and company.

Immediately after that, the system began to announce the first kill. Li Yi and the others had undoubtedly obtained the first kill of Holy Light Redemption. Aside from money and Reputation, they also earned 1SP each as a reward.

“That psycho, that’s his second first kill…”

“Wanna bet how many more he gets?”

“I can’t tell. Sigh, he’s too OP.”

The World Channel was abuzz again. Some praised him while others were envious, but everyone admitted one fact. Dark Wing was the real thing.

Just then, a treasure chest appeared in front of Highlord Mograine. It was the reward for passing the dungeon.

“Who wants to loot it?”

“Me!” Little Elf from the Magical Realm volunteered and went to loot the treasure chest.

“Ding!”

There was a clear and crisp sound, and an item appeared before their eyes.

[Dog Whistle (Gold-colored Special Accessory)]

[Equipment Level: Level 50]

[Usage: Summons 5 to 15 Little Kobolds to fight for you. Lasts for 10 minutes. Cooldown time: 20 minutes.]

…

“This is… This…” Little Elf from the Magical Realm opened her mouth, but she did not know what to say.

Li Yi laughed. “It’s not too bad, take it as a toy.”

The Little Kobolds summoned by players could only ever have 200HP. Although they had high ATK, they would die if the target so much as touched them, so they were only useful against targets who would not fight back. This accessory did not have any attributes either, so it was barely better than a stick.

“I’m a healer, what am I to do with this? Do you want it?” Little Elf from the Magical Realm offered Li Yi the Dog Whistle.

“Your big bro got better things in hand. You can play with it, and maybe it might even save your life someday when you’re in a pinch.”

“Call me big sis,” Little Elf from the Magical Realm corrected him.

Even though the final dungeon completion reward was nothing more than a Dog Whistle, they had still managed to obtain the first kill. Besides, anybody who passed and therefore unlocked a dungeon would always receive a pearl. (The Fire Instances gave a Fire Pearl, and the Light and Darkness Instances would either grant a Light Pearl or a Darkness Pearl. Once they collected enough pearls, they could exchange those for good equipment anyway.

Highlord Mograine was still posing over there, but Li Yi had lost interest in watching. He called the four girls over and they left the dungeon quickly. According to his plan, he wanted to take at least three first kills in one day.

“At the most, I’ll forgo sleeping.” When she heard that, Xu Man looked utterly excited.

“Don’t you have any performances lately? Why are you suddenly so free?” Li Yi was curious.

“I rejected them all. Sigh, recently I’m losing interest in being a super… you know what I mean. I just wanna play and relax a little. Give myself a vacation.”

“Oh, I see…” Li Yi nodded consecutively, indicating that he understood.

Before the five of them walked through the dungeon exit, Li Yi called for a halt.

“Wait for a bit here until I get back. I’ll go take a peep outside.”

If his calculations were not wrong, quite a few players from the three major camps should be here by now. He was not clear about the situation outside yet. If they just exited carelessly, there was a chance they would fall and never get up again.

After he used Violent Bear’s Protection to increase his HP to more than 20,000, Li Yi snuck out of the dungeon and immediately used Camouflage.

Outside the Ancient Civilization Ruins, it was just as Li Yi thought. The players from the three major camps were massacring each other, and the bodies around them had been piled up into mounds.

The situation was completely out of control. It was no longer a matter of right and wrong. The players from the three major camps had long since gone mad from the killing. A killed B, who killed C, who killed A, and the grudges just kept snowballing. There was the occasional glitter of equipment sent flying. There was laughter and cursing, in the intense heat of the battle.

‘It should be about time for the King of Souls to fly over here, isn’t it?’

Li Yi stood calmly at the dungeon entrance, occasionally raising his head to look up.

There was no limit to his Camouflage state, which meant he had infinite invisibility. The only weakness was that he could not move either.

“How is it? Is it safe yet?” Moonlight Ocean was growing impatient.

Before Li Yi could even answer, the sky above them changed color. The King of Souls screeched with creepy laughter and descended from the sky, pouncing at all the players around him.

“These souls are my power! So many fresh souls here, what a nutritious source of power! Hahahaha…”

The King of Souls shot out thousands of black threads that penetrated straight into the players’ heads and absorbed the essence of their souls.

“King of Souls, a purple-colored boss!” gasped a keen-eyed player.

Countless attacks flew at the King of Souls. Most of them missed, and the others dealt [−1] damage at the most. There were no exceptions.

“Kill him! If we kill him, we’ll get equipment from the King of Souls!” roared one player.

A purple-named boss would drop a piece of purple-colored at the very least. The King of Souls’ arrival drove players from all three camps into a frenzy. Most players stopped fighting among each other and concentrated their attacks at the King of Souls instead. There were a few especially crafty players who specifically targeted those who did not fight back. That triggered another round of cursing there.

There were more than 2,000,000 members from the three major camps. When everyone concentrated their fire, even if each player could only deal 1 point in damage, the total amount was still a significant amount of damage. Li Yi, however, did not put any hopes on the players at all. The moment he saw the King of Souls appear, he immediately ducked back into the dungeon to hide.

“We’ll go out after 10 minutes. Ice, keep track of the time.”

“Okay.”

“Waiting around is such a bore. You two, come over here and sing your big brother a song.” Li Yi beckoned the sisters over.

“Watch your attitude. Do you know who you’re talking to?” Xu Man pouted with her little mouth and did not budge even a little.

Li Yi chuckled. “I’m talking to my party members, of course. Don’t forget, in a dungeon, the party leader’s orders are absolute.”

It was meant to be a joke, but the sisters actually began to sing. However, the thing that triggered Li Yi slightly was that they were singing a nursery rhyme…

“I’m a-looking for a friend, and I found my bestest friend. Take a bow, shake my hand, you are now my bestest friend…”

They sang just like a child, while Li Yi and the other two were left speechless.

“I’ll give you 10,000 Gold Coins and book you two for a month. Sing for me every day.”

“F*ck off!” Xu Man and Xu Yue gave Li Yi the middle finger in unison.

10 minutes passed by in a flash, and Li Yi led the four girls out of the dungeon.

Outside the dungeon, the ground was littered with the corpses of the players. There were more than a million of them, and not a single one left alive.

This was the King of Souls’ signature move, Soul Prison. It prevented players from resurrecting within the next five hours, so all they could do was lie there obediently…

“C’mon, let’s enter the next dungeon.”

Li Yi summoned his Holy Light Warhorse and led the way.

“What are we going for now?” Xu Man checked the information on the instances and followed behind him on a pony.

“We’re going for a very interesting dungeon. It’s a little hard, though. Even I can’t be sure if we can pass.”

“What’s it called?”

“Man and Woman.”

…

“Fellow brothers of the Iron Alliance, let us depart now and enter the dungeon.”

All three major camps suffered a significant blow as a result of the King of Souls’ attack. The Iron Alliance was the only side to take the least damage, because Li Yi had sent Pretty Good Mood a hint in advance, warning him to lead their men away from the King of Souls.

Not long after Li Yi brought the four girls into the dungeon, the members of the Iron Alliance also arrived on the scene, numbering by the tens of thousands. When they saw the millions of bodies lying outside the ruins, they were all rendered slack-jawed and speechless.

“Team 1 of Little Drunk Cat’s Elite Party, come with me. Team 2, go with my master. Guild Master Underpants, please make arrangements for your men as you see fit.”

Pretty Good Mood led the members of the Little Drunk Cat Guild and swaggered into the 500-man Party-level Instance Dungeon, Soul of Sin. This was also on Li Yi’s orders.

“Alright, guess we’re splitting up here.” Flower Underpants called up Shangguan Bailu and discussed how they were going to scout out the dungeon.

“What bad luck…”

“Sigh, that King of Souls is real crazy. We fought ’em for so long and never once did we even see his HP bar. Then he uses one move, and here we are, all laid flat.”

Defiantly Tyrannical and Yang Xingchen lay on the ground, unable to resurrect since their souls were imprisoned. All they could do was chat to vent their frustrations.

“And we gotta wait 3 hours too, what an *ss.”

“Plus we have to be online for that time, time passed when logged off don’t count. What a pain…”

At Dragonbone Waste, several million player souls cursed and swore furiously. When they could no longer speak on the current channel, they went to the World Channel instead. At that moment, the World Channel was flooded with nothing but the curses of these players.

“Stupid Pantheon, what the heck is this? This is literally unplayable. Stopping us from resurrecting after we die? Well, f*ck you!”

“What the f*ck? What the f*ck is this? Even if you won’t let us resurrect here, couldn’t you at least allow me to return to the city? So you’re saying all I can do is wait here quietly? F*ck this, objection!”

“Objection +1”

“Objection +2…”

The protests of several million players rose at once, and they finally annoyed the King of Pantheon’s main algorithm There was a system announcement in bright red letters, and then the World Channel fell silent.

[System Notification: After a year of testing, the system’s Major Gods have made some automatic adjustments to the game. Please find the details of the adjustments below.]

[1. After a player character dies, their soul will be shifted to Observation Mode. They may not speak, type, or communicate with anyone else, including other player souls…]

[3. (TN: The raws jumped from 1 to 3, yep. Not sure if this is an honest mistake or foreshadowing on the author’s part by hiding item number 2.) The Natural Summoners, a branch of the Summoner class, will have their Passive Skill, Natural Heart, boosted. It will now increase the pet’s ATK by 25% (initially 10%). The cooldown period of the Wizard classes’ Flash skill will be halved. The Sky Vagabond’s Wind Motion skill will heal 5% more. The Cyclone Thief, one of the Thief classes, will have their SPD doubled when in Stealth Mode. The Explosive Thief will automatically obtain a combo point when entering Stealth Mode. The Poisonous Thief’s chances of successfully applying poison will be raised by 10%.]

[Aggro-transferring skills such as the Archer’s Mislead, the Thief’s Shift Blame, and the Vagabond’s Change of Heart, will no longer be effective against enemy targets. They may only be used on party members or pets. Hunt Target will no longer lock onto invisible targets or targets in Stealth Mode. The duration of Soul Target will be halved.]

…

Those system announcements silenced the entire World Channel…

Most classes were buffed, but a select few were nerfed. Archers were one of those few…

If Hunt Target no longer worked on invisible targets or those in Stealth Mode, that meant that as soon as the enemy turned invisible or entered Stealth Mode, the Archer would immediately lose track of them. Also, if they could not use Mislead on an enemy, how were they going to divert the aggro?

It was a nerf, all right…

“Wizards and Summoners sure get it good, but the rest of us are rejects!” A Curse Priest shattered the silence on the World Channel by roaring angrily.

Curse Priests had always been below average, and now that the Soul Target’s duration was halved, they were even more defenseless…

“It’s just a system adjustment. Quit gawking, don’t you want that first kill? C’mon, let’s go beat up B*stard and the B*tch!”

Inside the Man and Woman Instance Dungeon, Li Yi hurried the four stunned girls.

…