The Great Thief

An exceptional commander would be able to control the dynamics of the battle. When the squad needed to relax or focus, they would adjust accordingly as per the commander’s instructions. Otherwise, they would not be at peak condition when dangerous moments in the battle arrived.

Azure Sea Breeze and the rest didn’t know what made these monsters so strong, so they were perplexed as to why Lu Li paid so much attention to them.

The monsters in the hall were pulled out, controlled, then cleared. After clearing the monsters, the empty hall suddenly resonated with a sound that was similarly to the panting and growls of wild beasts.

The party gathered their focus at the end of the hall and saw that a tremendously large shadow was approaching them.

The Beast!

This was a Giant Core-hound from the innermost areas of Molten Core. Although it was only a hound, it was not a simple beast to handle at all. The Beast had a large and muscular body, with limbs that were just as muscular. It had two fierce heads, perched on top of its neck, and its body shone bright with the flames that surrounded it. Within the cracks on its body, the molten lava that flowed through its insides glowed.

From the battles between the Army of Black Dragons and the Fire Elementals, the Black Dragons

knew and remembered the immense strength of these Core-hounds.

They captured these hounds from the inner areas of the Molten Core, then used them in research to create stronger creatures to defeat Ragnaros’ Fire Elemental enemies.

The Beast was one of these hounds that was captured from Molten Core by the Blackrock Clan, then transported to Blackrock Spire. It was said that the method of capture was extremely cruel, which led to the Beast massacring and eating the corpse of countless Orcs that got close to him.

However, the Beast was not the strongest experiment subject.

In the depths of the Blackwing Lair, Nefarian successfully created Chromaggus, another beast. Its strength far surpassed the likes of The Beast.

However, The Beast was not an easy opponent either.

“#￥%…@&”

No one understood the language of the Core-hounds, but they could all sense its deep-rooted rage and insanity.

“Is everyone ready?” Azure Sea Breeze asked as he raised his shield. He was very well-suited to playing as the Main Tank. Besides his inherent talent, his mental fortitude and ability to adapt was commendable. After the arduous battles with the last Boss, the Main Tank would be the most tired. However, he had already managed to recover from any fatigue.

“Don’t waste time. Let’s go,” Lu Li said as he rubbed the poison onto his daggers.

His poison levels were a little low at that moment. After all, he didn’t need to use poison for the Instance Dungeons, so the damage that he could do with it was minimal. Furthermore, he also needed to command the squad while simultaneously battling, so his DPS dropped behind the Magic-based classes.

Moonlight, the Berserker, didn’t seem to fall behind in DPS either.

In this version of the game, a Berserker’s DPS was extremely high. In the hands of a skilled Manual player, the DPS was even greater.

It was said that Dawn’s son were Mages, and the godson were Thieves. Lu Li believed that Thieves had a future in Dawn.

Azure Sea Breeze’s Legendary shield smashed into the lower jaw of The Beast. If this strike was aimed at a player or a smaller monster, it would be a guaranteed stun. However, on a Boss like this, it could only be used as an aggro-pulling technique.

Azure Sea Breeze successfully pulled the aggro of The Beast. One head was focused on Azure Sea Breeze, while the other head was spewed molten lava everywhere.

A reddish-yellow liquid covered the hall. As a melee player, Lu Li couldn’t avoid the lava splashing onto his armor. After making contact with his armor, he immediately heard a fizzling sound. The lava that landed on his skin dealt a considerable amount of damage. March Rain desperately casted an AoE healing ability.

“This Boss is disgusting, spitting everywhere like that!” Azure Sea Breeze roared as he wiped his face clean, then rushed forward with rage.

Fortunately, this was only a game, and the game designers weren’t into explicitly disgusting features. Otherwise, the lava would have melted their faces, creating an horrific, grotesque scene.

“Wow, disgusting indeed. This also melts the durability on our armor as well,” Lu Li said as he frowned.

Repairing armour was not that bad as this only required gold. As an Engineer, Lu Li could also construct a repair bot to repair the armour. The repair performed by the bot was even better than the normal blacksmith.

However, Lu Li’s greatest fear was running out of durability during the battle.

Besides a few special equips, the items in Dawn wouldn’t just ‘explode’ when they ran out of durability. However, the quality and effects of the items disappeared when the durability reached zero.

Imagine a squad without armor – even if the Boss had 10% HP, it would be impossible for them to defeat it.

“Take cover on the walls. Breezy, pull the Boss towards another direction. Do you still need my reminder for a Boss like this?”

Lu Li took all the melee combat players and took cover on the walls. This Boss was too versatile. It was only a dog, so how did it know to use its hindlegs to kick out?

Just then, Sakura Memories was struck by the Boss’ hindlegs and flew across the room.

It was a truly powerful kick. When she fell, she immediately died.

Azure Sea Breeze then pulled the Boss to face another direction so the melee classes were just dealing damage to its backside. If the Boss decided to kick again, at least they would only hit the walls, which reduced the damage dealt. Although it was still a considerable amount of damage, it was not enough to one-shot them.

“Hachi, revive Memories,” Lu Li instructed.

Hachi Chan immediately ran over to Sakura Memories and revived her.

“Sakura Memories! Get up! My husband has returned!”

Caw…caw…caw…

Everyone was stunned. What did Hachi Chan just say? A loli still in highschool had a husband? Where did he come from?

In the last update, a Call system was introduced when using skills.

This system bound voice recordings with the casting of skills. When the skill was used, the player would automatically say the pre-recorded phrase. This was introduced for better communication between players. For example, Sakura Memories would say, “Under my ancestors’ blessings, you will all become red and strong,” while using Bloodlust.

Some others were even more perplexing, and even Lu Li did not understand what they meant.

Another example was Wandering. When he used Riding, he would say: “Shook, Shook, Shook, Shook the Pilot!”

Azure Sea Breeze also had a call for his Riding skill as well.

“I am a Berserker! I spin and spin like a fan, but my cooldown is a minute and a half!”

Azure Sea Breeze was a defensive warrior, so Moonlight showed his displeasure every time Azure Sea Breeze cast this skill.

Could someone explain why a cute little girl would yell something like this?

The whole party just stood and remained speechless.

“Oi! Hachi, once we return, change your call!” Lu Li yelled strictly.

If Lu Xin was the one that said something like that, he would definitely punish her. He already promised Hachi Chan’s parents that he would take care of her and not lead her astray. However, now that something like this happened, he thought that he’d failed her parents.