MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

The Archer class could equip two types of weapons, namely the bow and the crossbow. Of these, the bow was high in damage and shooting range, but slower in its attacks. The crossbow was the complete opposite in that its shooting damage was relatively low and the range short, but the attacks were extremely quick.

Although the Murloc Crossbow was not extremely rare in and of itself, it was still much better than the +13 Frost Longbow Li Yi was currently using. Li Yi switched his weapon to the Murloc Crossbow and gave it a try. It felt decent.

He had the Magic Crystal now, so Li Yi skirted around a few waves of monsterlings and arrived in front of the Big Murloc Rudderman had mentioned.

The Big Murloc was called Goska. It was more than thirty meters tall, a failed product from the Vile King’s experiments on transforming murlocs. Goska did not differentiate friend from foe, fighting anyone it saw, which was why it was tied down by a thick steel chain.

Li Yi took out the Magic Crystal and aimed it at Goska. A powerful beam of light shot out from the crystal and went into Goska’s head. In no time at all, Goska was crouching down obediently in front of Li Yi.

Li Yi leaped onto Goska’s shoulder. Goska roared furiously, and exerting force in both its arms, it tore free from the steel chains tying it down.

Right now, Li Yi had entered the mode where he controlled Goska. Just like with the airplanes, he could not use his own skills, but his arsenal now included three skills specific to Goska.

[Rage Hammer: Hammer the ground with its fists, dealing damage to all enemies within a 30-yard radius ahead. Cooldown time: 3 seconds.]

[Murloc Feast: Capture a murloc and eat it. Recovers 30% of own HP. Cooldown time: 3 seconds.]

[Furious Strike: Punch the enemy with 200% of its own ATK, may disorient enemy for 20 seconds. Skill cooldown time: 30 seconds.]

Other than its own attributes, Goska also enjoyed an additional boost of 50% of its pilot’s attributes. The culmination of both created quite a formidable destructive force.

“Awooo— Goska’s really strong!”

Goska howled and rushed forward.

Although Goska could not fly, now that they were underwater, Li Yi controlled it just like he had flown those planes. This was because its large size meant that Goska moved very quickly in the water. One large stride was already several dozen meters.

Three Elite Murlocs spotted Goska and rushed up to surround it. Li Yi controlled Goska and made it use Rage Hammer.

[−36,780]

[−32,156]

[−37,865]

The Elite Murlocs rapidly lost their HP. The monsters that took Li Yi forever to fight could easily be defeated with a mere few blows from the terrifying Goska.

The three Elite Murlocs died. Goska leveled up once, but Li Yi only received 20% of his usual EXP.

He could not loot the bodies either. The main purpose he was using Goska to fight was to clear away the monsterlings in the Tidal Throne Dungeon.

Murlocs were pack creatures. Once he entered a boss battle, all the monsterlings would jump into the fray as well. If he did not kill them all first, things would get very hairy when he fought the boss later. This task was much easier with Goska around, too. He was overwhelmingly powerful and invincible, pulverizing every monsterling he saw.

“Awooo— Goska’s really strong!”

More than ten Elite Murlocs rushed at it, brandishing their spears. Roaring, Goska used Rage Hammer to smash them, ending the battle in the blink of an eye.

The murloc monsterlings surrounding Goska increased and increased. There were only two or three at first, but now there were more than a hundred of them. Meanwhile, Goska proceeded on as usual, relying on its high HP and ATK to smash every incoming enemy to death.

Without Goska, the players would find it more than a little troublesome to clear away all these monsterlings. Of course, if the pilot was not well-versed with the control methods and allowed Goska to die, things would get much harder from then on because Goska could not be revived after dying once.

The most concentrated wave of monsterlings was done and dealt with, and very few monsterlings remained in the dungeon. Li Yi took a patrol around and did not see a single one. Only then did he relax and lead Goska toward the location of the first murloc boss.

The first murloc boss was about the same size as Goska. It was called Zambo and its HP was ten times more than Goska’s, totaling up to a terrifying 10,000,000HP.

Just like Goska, Zambo was a murloc that the Vile King had transformed, but Zambo was considered a success. Not only was he extremely powerful, but he could also tell between friend and foe. That was precisely why the Vile King placed a lot of importance in him, putting him in charge of guarding the first Magical Crystal.

“Failure, why have you come here? Go back now!” Zambo waved his large fist at Goska.

Scared, Goska took a few steps back and was about to run when Li Yi used the Magic Crystal again, controlling his mind.

“Awooo— Goska’s really strong!”

Roaring, Goska rushed up to Zambo and used the Furious Strike to render Zambo dizzy for 20 seconds.

[−88,905]

“Failure, you dare attack me!” howled Zambo angrily.

[−35,312]

[−35,672]

Li Yi could not care less about him. While Goska was still 100% controlled, he kept using the Rage Hammer to smash it. By the time the 20 seconds were up, Zambo’s HP had already been reduced by 10,000,000.

“Damned failure, I’ll never forgive you!” Zambo used the same move to retaliate against Goska.

“Furious Strike!”

Li Yi controlled Goska, dodging this skill which guaranteed the Dizzy effect. Immediately after Zambo’s fists crashed onto the ground, he began to use Rage Hammer.

[−100,000]

[−100,000]

Zambo’s Rage Hammer took 100,000HP off with every hit, and it was an AoE skill as well. If Li Yi was too close to it, there was no way he would able to dodge it.

After nine hits, Goska only had a pitiful 100,000HP left. Just then, however, the cooldown for the Furious Strike ended. At the first chance he got, Li Yi used the skill and rendered Zambo dizzy.

More than 50 Little Murlocs with only 1,000HP had begun to swim up to them. These were all the reinforcements Zambo had summoned. They had low HP and average ATK, so the main reason they showed up was to allow the boss to eat them and recover his HP.

The boss could eat them, but so could Goska. He grabbed one and stuffed the fodder into his mouth, his HP instantly jumped up by 30%. By the time he finished eating three Little Murlocs , Goska’s HP had already completely recovered.

“Rage Hammer!” Li Yi aimed at the remaining Little Murlocs and killed them all, without exception. He must never leave them alive, or else Zambo just had to grab and eat one to recover all of his HP as well.

Once he finished off all the Little Murlocs, Li Yi controlled Goska to turn around and smash his fist into Zambo.

Dodging the Furious Strike, eating the Little Murlocs to regenerate HP, knocking the boss dizzy — As long as he repeated this process without error, defeating Zambo was merely a matter of time.

When Li Yi reduced Zambo’s HP to about 40,000, he leaped down from Goska and shot at Zambo madly using the Murloc Crossbow.

“Crippling Shot! Chain Arrow!”

The murloc’s ATK SPD was extremely quick. A long line of damage notifications floated up from the top of Zambo’s head, and soon he had less than half of his initial HP left.

“Zambo’s gonna kill you!”

Zambo flew into a rage, aiming at Li Yi and using Rage Hammer. Just as the shockwave was about to envelope Li Yi, the Mermaid Princess appeared, taking him away to safety.

“Pfft-pfft! Pfft-pfft!”

The Murloc Crossbow continued to fire shot after shot. Within a mere dozen seconds or so, Li Yi had already knocked away the last of Zambo’s HP.

Zambo gave a dull “hmph” and fell to his knees.

Li Yi obtained 300,000 EXP. Since he did not kill Zambo by controlling Goska, he received all of the EXP as well as the right to loot the body.

“Ding!”

[Congratulations, you have obtained Zambo’s Fang…]

Li Yi could only shake his head in exasperation and tossed the Fang away casually. It was a useless miscellaneous item that was worth one Silver Coin at the most, and keeping it would have just been a waste of inventory space.

Zambo was a boss with a blue name, which meant that its drop rates were low to begin with. Add that to Li Yi’s terrible Trash Hand, and what were the chances of getting anything good?

“Wow, Human, that sure was well done. You actually beat the murlocs’ strongest warrior, Zambo! Do you want to destroy the Magic Crystal it’s guarding? If you shatter this crystal, your ATK will rise by 30%.”

The Little Murloc Rudderman leaped out again, explaining the uses of the first Magic Crystal.

If he shattered the crystal, Li Yi would obtain a sustained buff that increased his own ATK by 30%. If he did not destroy it, this buff would go to the Vile King instead.

Li Yi did not shatter the Magic Crystal Zambo guarded. Instead, he took back control of Goska and went in search of the second murloc boss.

The second murloc boss was small in size and rode a red seahorse, holding a gold-colored crossbow in its hand. Its name was Prais, and it was a Shooting Archer who could use all the archery-related skills below Level 60.

Just like Zambo, Prais’ name was also blue.

Li Yi leaped down from Goska, got onto the Mermaid Princess, and began to engage Prais in battle.

He could not use the Big Murloc for this fight. Prais had a mount that moved rather quickly, so if he used Goska, it would just become a huge target.

Upon killing Prais, there was a 5% chance to receive his mount, the Deep-red Seahorse that increased underwater SPD by 180%. However, while Prais could ride the Deep-red Seahorse into battle, it became a non-combat mount when players obtained it. If a player entered a battle, it would be dismissed automatically.

The Deep-red Seahorse would passively increase its owner’s INT by 10 points, and the player’s INT was directly connected to their max MP limit. By increasing their INT, it would also increase their max MP limit. To Li Yi, the biggest benefit of obtaining the Deep-red Seahorse would be that he could shoot a few more arrows when using Shoot at Random.

“Give Prais’ archery a shot!”

Prais waved the gold-colored crossbow in its hand and used a Forced Hunt Target on Li Yi.

The boss’ version of the Hunt Target was rather over-powered. Players who got hit by this move would automatically lose some HP every 30 seconds. The first time they would lose 10 points, the second 20, the third 40, and so on, doubling each time. The longer the battle went on, the more disadvantageous it became for the player.

The battle between two archers began. Li Yi used the Murloc Crossbow to launch into a long-range shooting battle with Prais.

Prais was a Shooting Archer by class, so he could use all the Shooting Path techniques. He even had Heart of the Archer, the skill that Li Yi had always desired but never obtained, upgraded up to Level 20. Not only could Heart of the Archer increase an Archer’s damage, but it also increased the shooting range by 5 yards for every skill level. A max Level 20 skill meant that his shooting range had been extended by a whole 100 yards.

Going head-to-head in a long-range shoot-out with such an Archer was just suicidal, right?

“Finishing Shot! Resounding Shot! Triple Chain Arrows!”

Prais’ attacks were relatively ferocious, and his skills nearly made Li Yi drool. Compared to Prais, even an over-powered player like Li Yi felt the blow to his ego. In other words, his skill repertoire was still not as comprehensive as Prais’.

Li Yi hid behind a coral and began his counterattack against Prais.

“Powered-up Spiralling Arrow!”

A spiraling crossbow shot came whizzing toward him, shattering the coral. The waves from the momentum crashed into Li Yi’s body, instantly reducing his HP by 10%.

The Powered-up Arrow’s final form was ridiculously powerful.

“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Prais used the Powered-up Spiralling Arrow several dozen times in a row, shattering all the obstructions around them. It then chuckled a few times coldly, riding the Deep-red Seahorse to the center of the watery area. Its body shone with a layer of golden light.

“Shoot at Random!”