MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

There were Blademaster Skeletons and God-Chastised Paladins, whereas all details regarding everything in-game could be found stated here. This was the Ancient War Ruins in King of Pantheon’s background story.

The Ancient War was one that lasted for hundreds of years, a battle royale between the Gods. As the war reached finally ended, many Gods and Deities had fallen and countless species extinct.

‘No wonder the Dwelling of the Undead was classified as one of the Seven Secret Places. So this was the secret it was hiding.’

Li Yi soon understood the the origins of the Dwelling of the Dead.

This was the burial grounds of the Gods!

Li Yi tried his best to avoid the Blademaster Skeletons and God-Chastised Paladins, slowly but methodically clearing out the smaller monsters that he could defeat.

The small monsters were in small groups of three to five. Their HP all varied, ones with relatively lower HP would be finished off with a couple of arrows, whilst the battle with those with higher HP could last for more than 5 or 6 minutes. The gap in their potential was like heaven and earth, some only knew how to charge forward mindlessly, whilst others could even use magic to counterattack.

Facing creatures that he had no information on, Li Yi’s combat style was increasingly cautious. As soon as he felt that the subjugation target was too strong, he would immediately use Camouflage to escape from the battle, never taking a chance.

Luckily, the respawn rate of the monsters here were extremely slow. After Li Yi grinded here for more than eight whole hours, the monsters he had defeated still had not respawned.

Deliberately picking his fights and only attacking monsters he had confidence in beating, he completely gave up on looting the corpses. This was due to him noticing that the monsters here could not drop any items.

Drinking an Invisibility Potion, Li Yi risked being noticed by a Blademaster Skeleton as he moved ahead to open the nearest treasure chest in front of him.

“Ding!”

[You opened the treasure chest and found a Wish Stone.]

‘That’s a good start!’

Li Yi was instantly energized. It was at this time, a Blademaster turned over, making an eery cracking sound. An arrow instantly zipped through the air, flying straight towards him.

When the level gap between two parties was too high, the Invisibility Potion’s effects would be rendered useless. It had the same traits as a Thief’s Stealth after all.

Li Yi had already prepared himself for this outcome. He dodge-rolled onto the ground and instantly used Camouflage, successfully escaping the battle.

After a short while, the Blademaster Skeleton’s head turned back around with similar cracks, now ignoring him completely.

‘Looting treasure chests in this place is so dangerous.’

Li Yi wiped off his sweat and waited for his Camouflage skill to go off cooldown before chugging another Invisibility Potion. Then, he silently retreated, as long as he was not too close to a monster, the Invisibility Potion would still have an effect.

Just as he retreated to the safe zone, all the small monsters he had killed off finally respawned. Gathering around with the Blademaster Skeletons and God-Chastised Paladins, they started patrolling the area once more.

‘Bloody hell! This is gonna be annoying.

‘Cleaning up this place once already took around seven to eight hours, and there’s still the matter of hiding from the Blademaster Skeletons and God-Chastised Paladins, what bullsh*t is this? There are at least twenty Blademaster Skeletons and up to 50 God-Chastised Paladins over here, even if I can clear out all the small monsters, I can at most loot three more treasure chests.

‘Something’s not right here, maybe my method isn’t correct?’

Li Yi started looking through his memories of the Dwelling of the Undead from his past life.

In the eight years that the King of Pantheon servers were online, there were at least thousands of players of all classes who entered the Dwelling of the Undead. However, there were barely a handful of players who managed to successfully take away the treasures hidden within the Dwelling of the Undead. Most of the players already gave up when they were at the entrance, which was precisely where Li Yi was at this moment.

‘The monsters here are so tough. An Archer can still fight like this, but what about the other classes? Can they also solo this place like this? It seems impossible.’

The Dwelling of the Undead was open to all players, so it was impossible that only Archers could solo this place. There must be some secrets hidden within this place.

Li Yi temporarily gave up of grinding and started to patiently investigate the locale.

After three whole hours of searching, he stillhad nothing to show for it…

“Ding!”

[Someone sent you a challenge, do you accept?]

A challenge message appeared in front of Li Yi. It was from the Blade Peak Arena.

Without even a hint of hesitation, Li Yi declined.

The Dwelling of the Undead was not an ordinary map, once the player dies or leaves the area, they will no longer be able to enter again.

Li Yi decided to go offline for now. He then opened the official site to scour for the bits and pieces of information regarding the Dwelling of the Undead.

[It was a Land of the Undead, with countless warriors who had been forgotten by the world roaming around, preventing mortals from reaching the Land of Sleep.]

There was only such a short description with nothing else written.

After searching for more than an hour, Li Yi got increasingly frustrated. For places as mysterious as the Seven Secret Places, the developers had always kept it as secretive and vague as possible. In their own words, everything awaits the players’ own discovery.

Still frustrated, he went back online. Li Yi sat down on the ground and glared at the Undead Army from afar.

Jiaojiao had also come online. It seemed that her rage had subsided and she returned to her normal self.

“What’s up?” Looking at the skeletons and undead walking around, Li Yi sent a message to Jiaojiao to sate his boredom.

“I’m carrying a friend to boost her levels.” (TN: Author did not specify gender.)

Li Yi’s heart dropped, he did not pursue any further.

‘Jiaojiao did not have many friends, most of them Li Yi already knew. Out of those friends, no matter who you pick, they were all much higher-leveled than Jiaojiao. A friend that Jiaojiao had to carry… Could it be her?’

Li Yi did not do anything for the rest of the day. He just continued to sit there having a stare-down with the undead. Naturally, he ended the day with no further progression.

The next day he came online, he went to search for clues once more, but he still could not manage to find any.

‘Preventing mortals from reaching the Land of Sleep. Does it mean that I should get killed by the monsters, then corpse run inside? F*ck, that doesn’t seem right too, is there even a temple here?’

The treasure was placed right in front of him, just barely out of reach. It was so close, yet so far, Li Yi’s current emotions need no be explained.

…

Shen Lang was truly a capable man. Within just a day’s time, he managed to find out who was the person who bought off all the Universal Keys at Blade Peak. Just as Li Yi suspected, it was that Human Paladin called Smiling Dummy.

Although the time frame had changed, the person of choice did not.

He had already wasted two days over here, so Li Yi made a difficult decision. He decided to to just take a risk to test his hypothesis out.

Summoning Mutated Small Wild Boar, he made it use its ultimate suicidal skill, aggro-ing all the skeletons and undead in the area. Taking this opportunity, he activated Wind Shield’s Protection and ran straight into the map.

The treasure chests nearby were all very tempting, but the biggest secret of the Dwelling of the Undead lied within the Land of Sleep. After deliberating briefly, Li Yi decided to give up on these treasure chests and head over to check out the legendary Land of Sleep that no had entered before.

In his past life, there were countless players who had entered the Dwelling of the Undead, but there were barely a handful of players who ever successfully reached the Land of Sleep.

As the Mutated Small Wild Boar once again used its skill, pulling aggro from every monster in the area, Li Yi started running like a madman. A pitch-black cathedral soon appeared in front of him, with countless spirits hissing as they wander above the cathedral.

Whenever the spirits noticed Li Yi, they descended from the skies. Li Yi immediately dropped to the ground playing possum, but it had no effect. He then tried to escape the battle using Camouflage, but that also had no effect. Being surrounded by a group of spirits, the HP bar on top of his head continuously got lower. Within just a few seconds, he dropped dead onto the ground.

Li Yi did not dare to release his soul yet. He was surveying the area, desperately searching for a temple.

Without a temple, players could not revive, they would definitely be sent to another area. This was a guarantee from Li Yi’s eight years of experience playing this game!

Unfortunately, other than this black cathedral in front of him, Li Yi did not see any temple that can house souls.

There were no temples here!

Li Yi lied flat on the ground, waiting for the spirits to leave before finally uttering a word in his head, ‘Revive!’

“Bzzz——”

The Holy Light Protection Scroll came into effect and Li Yi stood back up alive.

“Camouflage!”

Out of the three Holy Light Protection Scrolls gifted to him by the Holy Light Envoy, Elenor, other than the one he used in the raid, Li Yi was always unwilling to use them. At this moment, he finally used it after some long deliberation.

The number of spirits in front of the black cathedral was even more terrifying. It was multiple times more than the enemies outside. Conversely, there were also countless treasure chests placed inside, causing Li Yi to unconsciously drool.

He only had one Holy Light Protection Scroll left, in other words, only one more chance of revival. Li Yi patiently started to think up a plan on how to use it to get into the cathedral.

He only had one shot, he could not afford to make any mistakes, otherwise, the Holy Light Protection Scroll would have all gone to waste.

Li Yi called over the Mutated Small Wild Boar and had it follow him. Riding the Ice Toad King, he rushed forward. When the spirits finally noticed him and moved over, Li Yi had the Ice Toad King squat down before leaping up straight towards the pitch-black cathedral.

“Bam!”

The Ice Toad King flew sixty plus meters forward with a single leap. It did not stop when it landed either. It continued to jump forward, cautiously dodging the countless Blade Auras of the Blademaster Skeletons.

After Li Yi jumped three times continuously, a giant blood-red cross appeared on his back, constantly sucking up his HP. He could not even remove it with Dark Devour. Once he landed his next jump, he had already died due to having his HP sucked dry by the cross.

This was the God-Chastised Paladin’s Cursed Cross. It was even more OP than the Blademaster Skeletons’ Blade Auras.

This time, Li Yi died at the entrance of the pitch-black cathedral. With that, he received a system notification message.

[Congratulations, you are the first player to arrive at the Land of Sleep. This event has been recorded in the Pantheon Hall of Fame.]

‘Worth it…’

Li Yi let out a breath of relief.

The Holy Light Protection Scroll did not go to waste. By getting another Pantheon Hall of Fame event, he had earned back all his losses.

Li Yi started to look around once more, surveying the black cathedral as he lied flat on the ground.

The sizes of the undead here were much larger than the ones outside. They were also much better equipped. Not only did they wield weapons, they even had armor. If the undead outside were considered elites, the undead inside here were the elites of the elites.

There were not any average undead, they were either Blademasters or God-Chastised Paladins.

Glancing into the deeper parts of the cathedral, a large amount of black gas was being released from the inside. Li Yi finally understood why this place was so dark, the black gas enveloping this cathedral originated from the deepest parts of the cathedral.

Advertently, the secrets of the Land of the Undead all lied in the innermost part of the cathedral.

‘What exactly is inside? Legendary equipment? Maybe an Epic-Level skill’

Li Yi was excited. He patiently observed the movement patterns of the undead around him, preparing to revive and move at the earliest opportunity.

There were at least ten thousand undead swarming around this area, all of them moving in groups. After one wave left this area, another wave moved in once more. The window between each wave was so small that Li Yi could not help but to scream foul play. He did not have a chance at reviving at all. With so many Blademaster Skeletons and God-Chastised Paladins keeping an eye on him, he would die almost instantly as soon as he gets up.

After waiting for more than half an hour, Li Yi’s patience ran dry. He decided to risk it and just revive. Just as he was about to use the Holy Light Protection Scroll, a gigantic undead clad in black armor walked out from the pitch-black cathedral.

All of the undead in the area immediately kneeled down. The hissing from the sky also silenced completely, all the spirits flew down and knelt before the black-armored undead.

When Li Yi looked up at the black-armored undead, he was shocked.

Clad in a full set of black armor and carrying a Rune Greatsword on his back, all of these characteristics pointed to one thing.

This was one of the hidden classes in King of Pantheon – the Dark Paladin!