MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Pft tst —

Pft tst —

As tentacles shot out of the ground, those with quick reflexes jumped away while those with slow reactions ended up like Shangguan Bailu, a barbeque skewer in the air.

The trick to dodge these tentacles was to leap in the air the moment the tentacle struck out of the earth. If it was too early, the tentacle would rear its head upon landing or if the timing was too late, the tentacle would penetrate them.

In a party of 25, 15 were pierced through and suspended in midair, dangling back and forth…

“Healers heal, those with DPS aim at one single tentacle!”

With a tentacle wigging in Shangguan Bailu’s mouth, she was restricted from speech and commanded the whole team through typing.

Players who survived the tentacles concentrated their firepower on a single tentacle and it was then, a troubling fact appeared.

Ineffective! Ineffective! Ineffective!

The tentacles which drilled through players ignored all attacks, deeming them ineffective…

“Ineffective, how do we save them?”

“F*ck me, don’t tell me once it’s out, it’s game over?”

It was then, the remaining five free tentacles were on the move, sneaking into the ground at the sound of King of Souls’ cold snort…

“Watch out, prepare to jump!” Shangguan Bailu’s fingers flew as she typed.

Pft tst pft tst —

It was a waste of breath as this time, another five were penetrated…

These tentacles did not pierce through the ground simultaneously but only when it was right underneath a player’s feet. In order to evade such invasion, the leap has to be taken in that less-than-a-second instant as it sprung out or else there was no escape.

Twenty pierced party members lay impaled in the air.

“Become my servants. Abandon your weak souls and I will grant you eternity!”

As it spoke in a low voice, curls of black smoke surged from King of Souls’ body, following the tentacles towards the twenty pierced players.

At the point of its body turning pale, the bodies of the twenty players turned darker.

“Bp!”

Li Yi drew his hand back for a shot, aiming straight for King of Soul’s forehead.

[-12344]

It could be hit!

“Get it!”

Following Li Yi’s shout, the last five players who were saved from being skewers began blasting King of Souls.

Diverting its divine powers to control the pierced players, King of Souls’ was fatigued. Attacking it at this point would not trigger the Thunder of Divine Punishment.

The quintet blasted for two minutes yet King of Souls’ HP remained at 100%. This guy’s HP was so over the top that could not be calculated in value.

“Master, I’m willing to sacrifice my soul to you.”

Pft!

Crying out in pain, the body of a Violent Warrior in the party turned black before it was released by King of Souls from the tentacle.

The black figure stunned Li Yi with Charge before slashing Li Yi to the ground with his two swords. Without much HP left, how could Li Yi resist against the attack of this Violent Warrior?

Li Yi activated Dark Devour when he was rammed into disorientation but it could not disperse Disoriented effect as similar to King of Souls, his brainwashed party member was brimming with divine energy.

With the main DPS down, the dark figure did not stop there and continued to launch a vicious attack on the remaining four players.

“Charge! Charge! Charge! Charge!”

The dark figure continuously issued Charge on Confused Fox, ramming him to death…

“Master, I’m willing to sacrifice my soul to you.”

Pft!

At the sound of another shrike, charcoaled Ouyang Qian fell from the tentacle and raised Orange Quality Scepter high to ignite a dark flame, setting the entire Soul Abysson on fire…

Apart from the pierced players who were still alive, the remaining five died…

“How do we play this?”

“What do we do? Can we still go on?”

The players who were penetrated by tentacles communicated through typing, each one of them feeling helpless about the situation…

“Master, I’m willing to sacrifice my soul to you.”

Pft!

“Master, I’m willing to sacrifice my soul to you.”

Pft!

As the number of shrieks grew, all twenty pierced players turned black and it was only then, TPK notification was displayed…

“F*ck, what a trap. How do we kill it if we can’t rescue those who were stabbed?”

“F*ck me, this… this… this…”

Many were at a loss of words.

At the retreat of King of Souls, Soul Abyss resumed to its silence. Li Yi selected resurrection in whole and all members stood up.

In the second attempt, King of Souls still wound up in full health…

The party exchanged glances in silence.

The strength displayed by King of Souls was a call of concern.

“We definitely have to avoid being penetrated at all costs,” Brother Windcloud Nine shared his opinion.

“But the problem is, if we don’t get stabbed, King of Souls won’t inject its divine energy, making it Invincible all the time. How can we do about it? Moreover, it’s not like we can all just evade easily in that stage.”

“Yeah, those tentacles are really hard to get away from. I was pierced just when I was about to jump.”

“I got it worst, I jumped too quick and by the time I landed, the tentacle got me like a skewer.”

“Sigh…”

The party spoke one after another, providing their view on the matter.

Shangguan Bailu asked Li Yi, “Guild Master Dark Wing, what do you think about it?”

Li Yi thought about it before adding, “Avoiding the piercing segment at all cost should be the way to go.

“If we’re penetrated, we can’t escape and once we turned to the other side, we wouldn’t be able to pull through a strong boss.”

Shangguan Bailu nodded, “I think so too but if we avoided the penetration part, how can we attack King of Souls then?”

“There must be another way. Let’s just put this aside and get on practicing our reflexes.”

Li Yi took out a pile of mini land mines from his backpack, running around to place them under his teammate’s feet.

“There’s a short fuse on these mini land mines, in less than a second. Think of these mini land mines as tentacles, I’ll detonate them at random and you’ll all have to evade.”

“Ah ah? This is too hard…”

“Hard, my *ss. This thing’s so much easier compared to real tentacles.”

There were some who called out on the difficulty while some found it easy. With different views came different results.

Li Yi commented, “You can practice on your own and we’ll begin the real deal five minutes later.”

Li Yi’s Engineering may have reached Legendary level but the Archer class was not in need of Engineering support.

These land mines he created was just a toy. Due to its less-than-preferable impact and complicated means of release, these things were not a desirable choice in a real battle.

Explosive Thieves were the only class who could bring Engineered explosives to its full potential. The reason was simple — Explosive Thieves has a special skill called Firearm Mastery which was similar to Archer’s Pet Mastery. With this skill, the impact of the firearm would multiply.

The foul-mouthed Cat that Sings was an Explosive Thief specialized in firearms.

The end of five minutes marked the beginning of the trial. Putting the practice to full speed, Li Yi randomly ignited the mini land mines underneath his party member’s feet, with extra attention on Ouyang Qian in particular.

As dodging the random exploding mini landmine was no hard task, the trial ended rather quickly. Apart from a minority with one or two mishaps, all of them cleared it after a few more attempts.

Ouyang Qian was unhappy, “Unfair! Why is there only one land mine under everyone’s feet but I have around four?”

Li Yi smiled, “Then tell me, what’s considered fair?”

Ouyang Qian was fuming, “I want only one!”

“Oh, okay.”

“Okay?”

“Well, you should have said so earlier you only wanted one.”

“You you you… how dare you fool me! What’s the point of saying this after it’s over? You…” Ouyang Qian stomped her foot out of frustration, revealing a feminine side of her.

“Hahaha…”

At the start of the second trial, Li Yi has his back facing everyone as he planted the mini land mines underground. He then had them stand on it to trigger randomly.

True enough, the end result lay between being visible and non-visible, even if it was the same thing.

The detonation of land mines blasted at least seven or eight into the air. It was a complete world of difference from the earlier evasion with ease.

These mini land mines planted underground only warranted a slight hint when it would explode and that was the instance the ground trembled at the moment of explosion…

Chen Yang who flew from the impact twice whimpered, “Brother Yi, this thing’s more insane than tentacles.”

“We’ll begin when all of you can dodge them.”

“No fair no fair!” Ouyang Qian started shouting.

“What’s up with you again?”

“Why aren’t you here? Why aren’t I the one who detonates the land mines?”

“You wish to detonate the land mines and me standing in there?”

“Of course!”

“You should have said so earlier. Come here, I’ll give you the land mines.”

Li Yi traded a pile of mini land mines to Ouyang Qian. These low-quality toys did not require those with an Engineering background to handle them. The only problem was, the chances of them exploding were not high.

A while later, Li Yi walked into the minefield after Ouyang Qian was done planting them.

“Let’s begin.”

With explosion show in full swing, Li Yi leapt to the left and right, even gliding in the air at times. Over fifty land mines buried by Ouyang Qian were avoided by Li Yi.

Staring at Ouyang Qian’s face in disbelief, Li Yi chuckled, “So now do you get why I’m the one trigger these land mines and you’re the one standing there?”

“Humph!”

Li Yi’s performance not only put Ouyang Qian’s mind at ease but the rest of the guild members as well. This time, everyone took the practice seriously with no complaints after Li Yi planted the land mines to detonate.

They went at it for two hours. Li Yi even took out materials from his personal mail to refine land mines twice before the trial ended satisfactorily.

As long as there were no mess-ups, everyone should be able to get by easily…

Shangguan Bailu issued an order, “Take a ten-minute break and we’ll start the battle afterward!”

It was then, the System spamming in red suddenly broke out in their screen…

[The party led by player, the Cat that Sings has successfully killed King of Souls and reward of an Epic-level soul mount obtained!]

[Player, Invincible Jiaojiao has successfully killed King of Souls and reward of an Epic-level soul mount obtained!]

[Player, Sister Windcloud Nine has successfully killed King of Souls and reward of an Epic-level soul mount obtained!]

[Player, Fengxi has successfully killed King of Souls and reward of an Epic-level soul mount obtained!]

[Player, Out of Print has successfully killed King of Souls and reward of an Epic-level soul mount obtained!]

[Player, Dingding Dongdong has successfully killed King of Souls and reward of an Epic-level soul mount obtained!]

“F*ck me!”

Reading the System spam, Li Yi and Brother Windcloud Nine cussed out in unison.