MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

The hardest boss within Demoness Ruins was not the final boss, Medusa, but instead the No. 2 boss, Eukana when it was under the influence of Eternal Darkness.

Players who attempted it would need to jump to and fro from various suspended chains within a pitch-dark space. Since they would be unable to see anything, they would need to rely on their judgment and intuition. Due to the absurdity of this mode, only one team had cleared it in the eight years of the game’s operation back in Li Yi’s past life. When asked about how they felt after clearing it, every single one of the party’s members stated that they would rather die than to challenge that boss again.

Being a Hell-level 8-star difficulty boss, Eukana’s strength was comparable to the gods. That was how scary the second boss of the dungeon was.

Li Yi and his party marched onward, leaving only one switch turned off. When they arrived at the area with the suspended chains, everyone was inflicted with a debuff — Eternal Darkness!

The special effect of Eternal Darkness was Absolute Darkness, which made the surroundings pitch-black, effectively robbing the players of their sight. Furthermore, the Level 100 Eukana had a HP of 120,000,000.

“Can…can we even beat it?”

Aside from Li Yi, all the other party members had gone numb.

Some of the party members had attempted Demoness Ruins before, but there were some who had come here for the first time as well. Seeing their distressed expressions, Li Yi shook his head, dragged Little Elf from the Magical Realm out from the dark space, and activated the last switch.

The players had full liberty whether to activate the switches for Eternal Darkness or not. As such, they were free to select the difficulty they wanted to attempt.

“Everyone! Try to get used to the layout of the map first, just make sure not to get too close to the boss and you’ll be fine.”

Li Yi pointed to the metal chains that dangled in the air like spiderwebs.

The gigantic Eukana was pierced by the metal chains, and it was positioned at the center of all the chains. It had a head full of white hair and it did not appear to have any vigor of life. Had it not been for the reactions she made whenever the chains faintly swayed, it appeared no different from a dead object.

“This boss is so pitiful…”

“Yeah, it’s chained here without any freedom of movement, and yet, it still needs to be killed.”

“The game developers have gone too far. She might be a demoness, but this is still too cruel…”

“Agreed…”

The two females in the party, Little Elf from the Magical Realm and Jiaojiao were engaged in their own gossip.

“Get up and get a feel of it.” Li Yi interrupted their discussion.

“This gimmick is pretty easy! I’m definitely not going to have any problems with it!”

Jiaojiao snorted, strode forward with her long thick legs, and walked onto the metal chains. Little Elf from the Magical Realm followed behind, and compared to Jiaojiao, she was way worse at controlling the swaying of the chains.

“Come here, everyone!”

Li Yi had walked onto the chains as well. Since it had been some time since he last fought her, he needed to get some practice as well.

Everyone in the ten-man party was standing on the same metal chain.

Li Yi began to sway the metal chain. With a creak and a crack, the magnitude of the chain’s oscillation gradually increased, and the party could feel their balance slowly fading away.

“Slower, brother, don’t shake it too fast, I’m about to trip.”

Confused Fox shouted vehemently, but Li Yi ignored him. Instead, he swayed the chain with even more strength. After all, how would a light practice help them to take down a Eukana under the influence of Eternal Darkness?

After being satisfied with the degree of swaying, Li Yi hopped off to another chain and began to sway it as well.

“Come here, then hop back. We’re going to do this repeatedly.”

Words still in his mouth, he whipped his body around and made it back to the initial chain.

“Arghhhh…”

Due to the large magnitude of the chain’s oscillation, Nirvana Inaction had lost his balance. He fell straight down, and though they were just practicing, Resurrection Spells were unable to save him if he fell to the bottom and he would be forced to corpse run.

“Death’s Grasp!”

Jiaojiao extended her tiny hands and shot forth a purple ray that pulled Nirvana Inaction back.

“Thank you, Clan Master…” Nirvana Inaction was extremely touched.

“What’s there to thank? Start jumping, otherwise, you’re going to fall off again.”

Jiaojiao turned around to jump onto another chain. She made a firm landing, and it was just as Li Yi had said, her god-given long legs had not gone to waste, as she was adept at dealing with bouncing gimmicks.

Jiaojiao hopped a full circle via the edges of the chains as if she were boasting. On her return, she delightfully asked, “Lil Li Yi, aren’t I amazing?”

Li Yi smirked, “That’s the advantage of having long legs.”

Jiaojiao was in bliss after hearing Li Yi’s praise, but very quickly, she sensed something amiss. She private messaged him, “Why did you say that via a private message?”

“Cause I’m talking about the benefits of your long legs.”

“And I’m asking you why you used the private message to say so?”

“Cause I want to sandwich myself in those long, thick legs and….”

“Bug off!”

The practice carried on, and since Jiaojiao’s Death’s Grasp had a cooldown time, she could only rescue one person within a set time frame. The party hopped from chain to chain, and due to the vigorous rocking of the chains, many had lost their balance. Thus… they fell one after another, and the situation continued for some time.

Each member of the party was painstakingly selected by Li Yi after some deep thought. As such, all of them were amazing players and their plays would determine whether or not they were able to clear the dungeon.

Two hours had passed, and aside from Li Yi and Jiaojiao who had yet to die, every member of the party had already died several times.

The fruits of their training were starting to show, as all ten of them were able to successfully hop back and forth between the two rocking chains, and all of their landings were firm ones.

“Jump in a circle via the chains. Remember not to get too close to the center, otherwise, we’re scr*wed if the boss is startled.”

Li Yi issued the training instructions.

All ten of them hopped around in a circle. Among them, Jiaojiao was the fastest and the steadiest. On top of that, she was also boasting non-stop…

“Hurry up! Tch, you’re all too slow. Why am I cursed with such skill? What do you guys think? Hahahahahah…”

Everyone else in the party responded with wry smiles. After all, they all knew that Lady Jiao held no ill intentions. She was only speaking her mind, like the happy-go-lucky person she was. Who would be petty enough to get mad at her?

Another hour had passed, the party’s chain hopping skill had improved yet again. They were dying way less times than before.

“Brother, can we start now?” Confused Fox was starting to get impatient.

“We’ve already started.” Li Yi answered.

“What? How?” Confused Fox gave a rapid response.

“We’re practicing our hopping skills, man! We need three days at the very least.”

“… Are you serious? We still need to hop for three more days?”

“Three days is actually quite little.”

No one in the party responded.

“Oh, so you think we’re good to go? Okay, give me a moment!”

Li Yi called for Jiaojiao, and together, they went to activate the switch for the Eternal Darkness mode.

“Okay, start jumping! If no one falls, we’ll start the battle now.”

“What the f*ck? I can’t even see what’s in front of me! How are we supposed to fight?”

“Don’t shake! Who’s shaking the chain! Goddammit, don’t shake … Ahhhhh…” Nirvana Inaction let out a bestial wail, and had plunged into the bottomless pit below once more…

Maintaining balance in a pitch-dark chamber devoid of any light was a hundred times more difficult than maintaining it in a well-lit environment. Nirvana Inaction’s death had stunned the party silent.

Even Lady Jiao was stunned. She shakily stumbled onto the metal chains and her long legs were clamped shut. Hopping was not even an option as she dared not to even advance forward.

Creak! Creak!

The metal chains were still swaying, but nobody had any confidence left in them…

Confused Fox coughed, “Ahem, Brother, please turn the lights back on. Sigh, I think practicing with our eyes close in a well-lit environment is better than our current situation. What a pain.”

“Nobody has any objections about continuing our practice, right?”

“Nope.” All nine of them answered in unison.

The switch for the Eternal Darkness mode was switched off, and light flooded back into the area.

“Close your eyes when you hop. Take it slow.”

Creak! Creak!

The metal chains were swaying once again, and they continued their training…

In a blink of an eye, a day had passed. During that period, the party only did one task, which was hopping back and forth on the metal chains.

During the night, Li Yi did as he had said, and had sandwiched himself between Lady Jiao’s long legs and ….

…

On the second morning, the party members logged in one by one and continued their practice from where they left off yesterday.

The process of closing the eyes and allowing oneself to acclimatize to jumping blindly was an arduous one. However, embracing challenges was one of the core aspects of the game, and being able to persevere was one of the factors that separated the pros from the noobs despite having the same level.

Another five hours of training had gone by, and the party no longer had any problems blindly hopping. The switch for the Eternal Darkness mode was turned on once again, and the area plunged back into darkness.

“Take it slow. First, we practice walking, then we hop.”

While giving instructions, Li Yi attempted to hop to another metal chain. During his jump, he had no confidence at all, and his nerves were only calmed when he felt the metal chain underneath his feet.

It was exhilarating as much as it was exciting!

Players constantly fell, but fortunately for them, everyone in the party had already reached the level cap. As such, they lost no EXP, dropped no equipment, and aside from the small equipment maintenance fee they needed to fork out, they had suffered no major losses.

A full set of Purple Quality Equipment required around 1 to 5 Gold Coins per maintenance, and though it was a meager sum to Li Yi, to most players, it was a heart-breaking fee.

Not every player was as rich as Li Yi. As a matter of fact, most of the wealthy people in real life were poverty-stricken in the game.

Practicing for Eternal Darkness mode was an absolute pain in the arse. Had everyone not reached the level cap already, the number of deaths they suffered would have been too much to bear.

Li Yi had died several times already as well. Thankfully, he had already stored his Orange Quality Bow inside the EXP Pearl, otherwise, he would have been heartbroken by the loss of Orange Quality Bow’s durability.

Since there were two seals on the Orange Bow that had yet to be unlocked, maintaining its durability was still a huge problem. Li Yi studiously looked for clues every day, but until now, he had yet to locate a single one.

Every class could receive their own Orange Quality Weapon within King of Pantheon by doing quests. However, due to the discrepancies between classes, each Orange Quality Weapon had different limitations. Among them, the Orange Quality Weapon of the Priests was the easiest to remove, and the hardest ones were the ones that belonged to the Archers and the Summoners.

Anyone could get their hands on Orange Quality Weapons. However, those who always had their Orange Quality Weapon by their side was a small minority.

Another day had gone by, and since their practice was done in Eternal Darkness mode, it bore little fruit.

Three whole days had passed, and the party’s blind hopping skills had improved visibly. As long as nothing unexpected occured, nobody would fall down.

“We’re good to go.”

After another hour of practice, Li Yi said the long-awaited words. However, what he said next squashed everyone’s mood.

“Let’s try our hand at the normal Eukana first. Just make sure not to kill her.”

“More practice? Is there any end to it?!” Jiaojiao hoisted up her greatsword and pursed her slender lips unhappily.

Jiaojiao’s personal opinion was ignored, the Eternal Darkness mode was abolished, and Unending Unmatched had raced towards Eukana.

The normal Eukana was already plenty strong, but the Eternal Darkness Eukana was a strengthened version of its normal self. If they are unable to even defeat the normal one, they should forget about the Eternal Darkness version, as it would just be pointless.

‘Practice! Keep on practicing!’

The battle had begun in earnest. The training they spent three days on had delivered splendid results, as everyone was able to dodge Eukana’s attacks while healing or dealing damage.

“That’s enough! Stop the battle and suicide!”

Li Yi ordered right as Eukana was about to die.

Everyone hurriedly plunged into the bottomless pit, killing themselves and quitting the battle.

All except for Li Yi that is, as he had run far away and used Pseudocide. With that, he had successfully fled the battle. This was the specialty of the Archer class, and it was one of the points that made the other classes envy it.

Everyone who had corpse-run-ed back shown Li Yi the middle-finger to express their current emotions.

Without so much of a blush or shame, Li Yi replied, “All of you pass. Time to switch on Eternal Darkness and get to work.”

Eternal Darkness had been activated, and as usual, Unending Unmatched charged forward. After casting ‘Mislead’ on Unending Unmatched, Li Yi raised his bow and started firing.

“Who are you all? Why have you come?” Eukana’s raspy voice could be heard echoing from the darkness, and due to its odd tone, it sounded highly menacing.

Eternal Darkness Eukana had a new set of dialogue, unlike the normal one which started off the battle with “Did that Angust fail?”

“Are you here to eliminate Medusa? Then show me your true strength!”

Eukana waved her staff repeatedly, shooting out a series of head-sized green orbs which dispersed to the surroundings.

Several hundred green orbs drifted in the air, and they were barely visible. They were like wisps that only revealed themselves in the darkness.

“Do not let the green orbs touch you! Or else we’ll need to deal with a chain reaction of explosions! Everyone in the party, please take note!”

Li Yi yelled out a friendly reminder and let loose a barrage of shots from his Orange Quality Bow.

Initially, the hundreds of green orbs drifted gradually in a clockwise direction. It was easy to dodge them during this stage, as all they needed to do was to run in the same direction as the orbs was drifting. Meanwhile, when Eukana’s HP was below 100 million, the orbs would rotate in an anti-clockwise direction, which was also easy to evade by hopping in the same direction. However, when Eukana’s HP dipped below 80,000,000, the true killer challenge began.

The green orbs flew in random directions, sometimes to the left, and sometimes to the left. There was absolutely no pattern to their movement.

Unending Unmatched aggressively rattled the chains, inflicting pain to Eukana, and forcing it to lock on to him.

Controlling Eukana’s aggro was a messy affair, and getting its attention was not easy. However, it was the main tanks’ role to take on any damage that might be inflicted onto the team, and Unending Unmatched understood this very well.

Green blood gushed out from Eukana’s body. However, during Eternal Darkness Mode, players were unable to see the blood. As such, they needed to dish out as much damage as possible and finish off Eukana before the green blood enveloped all the chains.

“Do any of you understand my suffering?”

Eukana held her staff up high and unleashed Group Fear. Seeing this, Nirvana Inaction used Group Dispel immediately to dispel the debuff.

The debuff that followed Group Fear was Group Blood Stasis. It constantly drained everyone’s HP. Thinking quickly, Little Elf from the Magical Realm unleashed Breath of Fresh Air to bring everyone’s HP to a healthy level.

“That damned woman Medusa. She envied my looks and backstabbed me, locking me here, leaving me in this pitiful state. I can’t wait to eat her heart, hahahaha. Her heart is most definitely black in color, I’m sure of it!”

Eukana continued to cast spells as she howled. All her dialogue options were directed at Medusa, and the tone was drenched with hate.

“Come, come! Defeat me! Defeat me and earn the right to meet Medusa!”

Eukana hurled another series of green orbs, which started off moving in an anti-clockwise direction and moved in a clockwise direction towards the end of the spell’s duration.

The ten party members anxiously hopped about the metal chains. Since the poisonous blood was already starting to leak out, the melee classes could no longer attack at close range. Being a Warrior, Unending Unmatched could equip flying knives and bows, but since he had no corresponding skills, he could only use normal attacks, which dealt low damage. On the other hand, Jiaojiao, who was in the Dark Paladin class, fared slightly better than him. She could use a skill called Dark Charge, which was a long-range attack that had no cooldowns and could be used continuously.

“Hahahaha, I can feel myself nearing Death from your attacks! Will I finally attain freedom soon? Hahahaha…”

The hundreds of green orbs spun at a faster rate. At long last, someone was finally unable to keep up, and the Wizard, Wang Wang Dumplings had plummeted into the bottomless pit after jumping at a wrong angle.

Fortunately, he did not touch the green orbs, which spared his party from dying along with him.

“Do not panic, do not blunder! Keep it up and try to dodge!”

Since they were shrouded in darkness, nobody knew where the others were. As such, they were only blindly attacking and hopping.

“Boom”

Within the darkness, someone had accidentally touched the green orbs, which set off an instant chain explosion.

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom…”

The shockwaves from the explosions sent all the players in the air flying…

Team-wiped…

Depressed, Li Yi asked, “Who did it…”

“I-I accidentally bumped into brother Confused Fox just now. I lost my balance and hit the green orb,” answered a Wizard named Ghost Shadow shamefully.

“Time to corpse run.”

They had shaved off 40,000,000 HP from Eukana in Eternal Darkness mode, which was a satisfying result for Li Yi.

“Guys, don’t jump at random. Remember to jump perpendicularly to the next chain when you’re avoiding the green orbs. When the green orbs start to drift randomly, arrange yourselves in this position; The Wizards should stand at the edge, with Confuse Fox at position 1, Ghost Shadow at position 2, Dumplings at position 3…”

After their failed attempt, Li Yi gathered up the party and reorganized the combat strategy.

Challenging Eternal Darkness mode was much more difficult than their initial run. If they did not properly plan out a strategy, all their attempts would undoubtedly end in failure. As such, after each attempt, they would need to tweak their strategy and incorporate the lessons they had learned from their failed attempt. Only by doing so would they be able to take down the boss for good.

Confused Fox nodded his head. “Alright, so we’ll position ourselves this way. Please be extra careful of the green orbs, as I have determined that touching the orbs would result in a hundred percent chance of a team wipe.”

“Those who want to pee, go. Those who want to drink water, please do so. We’re starting five minutes from now.”

Five minutes later, the party was once again challenging Eukana.

No one could have imagined that they fared much worse than their first attempt…

At least three players had touched the green orbs just as Eukana had released them. With a series of ‘booms’, the team was wiped out instantly.

“What on earth happened? Who touched the orbs just now? Report yourselves!”

“Wang Wang Dumplings!”

“Nirvana Inaction!”

“Invincible…” Jiaojiao was too embarrassed to speak up.

” Enough, enough, blame yourself for making such a long name. ¹ All three of you, take note, if you ever commit such a low-level mistake again, I will immediately deduct your Guild Points!”

Another five minutes had passed.

“Is everyone ready? Alright, charge!”

Eukana released her green orbs again, and once again, someone had touched it.

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom…”

Team-wiped!

Jiaojiao shouted, “Who did it? Report yourself!”

“Dark Wing…”

Jiaojiao was pleased, she had gotten a chance at payback. “Man your name is stupid. Dark Wing, why don’t you call yourself Black Wing instead? Or Red Wing? Or White Wing? How could you even make such a low-level mistake like this? Don’t bother to explain, just deduct your own Guild Points.”

Another five minutes went by, and the battle began once more.

The party was finally in the zone. Nobody touched the green orbs and the battle progressed smoothly.

Fury Potion, Advanced-level INT Potion, Advanced-level WIL Potion, Advanced-level Mana Recovery Potion, Advanced-level HP Recovery Potion, Divine Essence, and various other potions were used. When challenging a High-difficulty boss, the first thing that a party must prepare was a large reserve of supportive items.

The party operated in total synchrony, taking down Eukana’s HP rapidly. Before long, it was already at 80,000,000 health, and the green orbs had entered the randomly drifting mode…

At that instant, the party’s heart had lept into their mouths, as evading them was quite a difficult task. They had already taken precautions to evade the vertically-moving ones by walking front and back. However, no one had said anything about the horizontally-moving green orbs.

All they could do was to rely on their intuition to prevent themselves from getting stuck in an attack from four fronts.

They were pretty lucky in their current run, as Eukana had released fewer orbs than before. Furthermore, the party members were doing extremely well, and no mistakes had been made. Even the carless Confused Fox had somehow made it through the difficult randomly-drifting orb phase.

Group Fear, Group Blood Stasis, Group Silence, Group Weakening…

The berserk Eukana was constantly using all sorts of team-wiping skills, burdening the party as if they had a rock on their chest, and giving them no room for breathers.

When Eukana’s HP had fallen below 50,000,000, she entered her most vicious cycle.

The green blood seeped through the metal chains, engulfing two-thirds of each chain, reducing the space that the party could traverse on.

“Drink the antidote!”

Li Yi yelled out. Everyone frantically took out their Super Antidote and chugged it down.

Super Antidote would reduce 90% of all poisonous damage, and its effects lasted for ten minutes. In a sense, without the antidote, nobody stood a chance in defeating Eternal Darkness Eukana.

The green blood had spread even further, enveloping all the chains. The damage counter kept popping up above the party’s heads, and despite having Super Antidote to reduce their damage by 90%, the damage counter still showed 1,000+ damage per tick of poison.

The one who was damaged the least was Li Yi. Aside from Super Antidote, he had also equipped Zangila’s Anti-poison belt, which had a poison-damage reduction effect as well. The two effects stacked upon one another, allowing him to take less than 100 damage per tick.

“Enough is enough! I’ll participate in these childish games no longer! None of you have the strength to challenge Medusa, I’ve had enough of this!”

Back within the darkness, Eukana let loose a feral cry. She lifted her staff up high and began to chant in a loud voice.

“Ancient Dark Spirits, heed my summons…”

[Warning! Curse Storm will be unleashed within 60 seconds!]

The countdown had begun!

‘Eukana still has 46,000,000 HP. Can we take her down within 60 seconds?’

“Everyone! Use your ultimates! It’s do or die!”

“Wind Miracle!”

“Undead Army!”

“God Mode!”

“Arcane Mastery!”

“Frozen Heart!”

None of them held back. Everyone activated their strongest skills…