MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Hellscream was a dungeon that required extreme speed, so Thieves with their high SPD were the best candidates to run the dungeon.

Of course, all dungeons necessitated teamwork, and Hellscream was no exception. However, if they chose a party made of ten different classes, it would take at least a fortnight just to get them in sync with each other.

That was why Li Yi chose a unique method that Milky Way Star had come up with.

“Just tell us how you wanna arrange it. We’ll listen to everything you say.”

Right now, The Cat that Sings could not be friendlier to Li Yi. The person she hated the most was Fluttering Snow Purple Water Chestnut, and Li Yi had humiliated Fluttering Snow Purple Water Chestnut time and time again. In a way, he vented The Cat that Sings’ frustrations for her, so she really admired Li Yi.

The Cat that Sings may have a foul mouth, but she was a very loyal person. After a period of interacting her, the members of the Iron Alliance had already accepted her strong-willed nature and, just like Scumbag Wang, they began to call her Sister Cat.

“This dungeon is very simple…”

Li Yi chose the Heroic difficulty dungeon so that they could get used to the flow of the dungeon. Normally, the best way would be to run the Normal difficulty first to get a hang of things, but in order to make up for lost time, he opted to go straight for the Heroic difficulty.

On the dungeon floor, there were countless colorful sphere-shaped Energy Crystals. Players who entered the dungeon would all get a mechanism that allowed them to collect Energy Crystals, so the first thing they did upon entering was to gather every Energy Crystal they could as preparation for the upcoming battles.

The story behind the Hellscream Instance Dungeon was that there was an Orc Chief called Hellhowl who led its people to the Emperor’s Capital. It had intended to have the orcs develop the place and flourish here, but it accidentally shattered an Energy Crystal Bottle that the gods had sealed away. The powerful Energy Crystals had then flowed out, infecting the entire orc settlement and turning them berserk. Now, they were Evil Orcs who only knew how to kill.

The gatekeeper boss of the Hellscream Instance Dungeon was none other than the Orc King, the Mad Hellhowl. At the same time, the monsterlings in here were the Evil Orcs who had been infected and turned berserk by the powerful Energy Crystals.

Gathering Energy Crystals would weaken the Evil Orcs, and players had to keep at it until they killed the destructive Orc King, Mad Hellhowl.

After players entered the dungeon, they would meet a male white elf NPC, Kelrath. He would then give the players a quest item, a bottle of Holy Eternity Water.

Gathering Energy Crystals would make players stronger, but if they collected too many Energy Crystals, the intense energy would also infect players and cause them to go berserk. In order to prevent that from happening, players had to use the Holy Eternity Water.

Whenever a player was about to go berserk, a sprinkle of Holy Eternity Water would remove the Berserk status completely, while the power bestowed by the Energy Crystals would remain.

Of the ten party members, only one could hold the Holy Eternity Water, and as the dungeon progressed, the party members had to split up to collect Energy Crystals. In other words, the player wielding the Holy Eternity Water had to rush to any party member who was on the brink of going berserk and use the Holy Water to remove their Berserk status.

Li Yi went and talked to Kelrath, obtaining the Holy Eternity Water.

Just then, Kelrath began to introduce the flow of the dungeon and its mechanics to the players. Other than Li Yi, everyone else listened carefully.

Xu Man was the first to nod. “I got it. Keep collecting Energy Crystals to continuously increase our own power and weaken the Orcs. Then keep at it until we find the crazy boss and kill it. That’s all for the dungeon.”

Li Yi asked, “Everyone clear?”

The nine Thieves nodded as one.

“Alright, then I’ll start us off.”

Li Yi stepped forth to talk to Kelrath.

“Barroom! Barroom!”

The earth began to shake, and countless Evil Orcs appeared in front of them, wielding axes and clubs. The orcs had blood-red eyes, and they ran back and forth in a mad frenzy.

The Evil Orcs moved very quickly, and they did not stop for even a second. They zipped back and forth around the map like flies, dizzying anyone who looked at them.

At the beginning of the dungeon, every Orc had 100 levels of Evil Energy. If players did not collect the Energy Crystals, they would not be able to harm the orcs. The only way to deal damage to them was to lower their Evil Energy to less than Level 50.

Tens of thousands of orcs ran across the plains, making quite the fearsome sight.

Autumn Blade, a Cyclone Thief from the God Creator Guild, took a deep breath. “I can tell that we have to sneak around them to collect the Energy Crystals. We must never jump in recklessly, because if we end up pulling the Evil Orcs’ aggro, more than just one of will die.”

If they were playing the Normal mode, the white elf NPC Kelrath would teach every player a special spell called Diamond Heart. Using it would turn players into a diamond statue, immune to all damage.

To remove the Diamond status, a player just had to be sprinkled with Holy Eternity Water, and they would immediately be back to normal.

In Normal mode, every player would have a bottle of Holy Eternity Water. Therein lay the huge difference in difficulty between the Normal and the Heroic difficulties.

“Don’t move, you guys. I’ll start first.”

Li Yi boldly volunteered and activated Aspect of the Leopard, venturing forth.

Aspect of the Leopard increased every party member’s SPD by 30%, but in return, getting hit would result in Disorientation. This was inevitable, even to Li Yi, a Territory Master. After he activated Aspect of the Leopard, if he took any attack, he would still be Disorientated.

Beating the Hellscream Dungeon required speed. The Thieves had Cyclone Step, and while the Archers were slightly weaker, their ability to use a movement skill as incredible as Aspect of the Leopard meant that they were necessary for running this dungeon as well.

As the nine Thieves watched, Li Yi darted quickly into the crowd of Evil Orcs.

“Roar-roar—”

“Arrrghhhh—”

“We are the real tribe!”

“For the tribe!”

Tens of thousands of Evil Orcs ran madly in all directions, and Li Yi did not pause for even a moment as he wove through them, advancing or retreating, leaping or ducking, collecting Energy Crystals along the way. By the time he ran back from the herd of Evil Orcs, the nine Thieves were all stunned and slack-jawed.

After his little spin around the map, Li Yi had collected ten Energy Crystals and earned a new buff, Level 1 Evil Energy.

The Cat that Sings was the first to cry out, “The f*ck, I feel like my ovaries are gonna explode. Is that even f*cking human anymore?”

The other Thieves exchanged glances but could not say a word.

Li Yi had just been too fast, weaving back and forth among the Evil Orc Army without getting caught in a battle even once, and he had managed to pick up ten Energy Crystals to boot.

Li Yi asked with a chuckle, “Who wants to try next?”

However, the little bit of time that had passed meant that the rampaging Evil Orcs’ Evil Energy had already risen from Level 100 to Level 101.

The only way to prevent the Evil Energy from adding up was for the ten of them to gather the Energy Crystals together.

When the players collected 100 Energy Crystals, the Evil Orcs’ buff would fall by one level, and it was a permanent reduction, too. Once it fell, it would not rise again.

This first attempt was just a test run so that his party members could get used to the mechanics. Li Yi had never considered that they could pass this dungeon in one go.

Even in the past life, Milky Way Star had used three whole months and died countless times before he finally came up with this all-Thief speedrun.

“I’ll try!” Xu Man was the first to raise her hand.

“Let me try, don’t fight me for this!” The Cat that Sings was very enthusiastic too.

The nine Thieves all raised their hands, all willing to give it a try. They fought over it until they were red in the face, but all refused to give in.

Li Yi thought it over and came up with an idea. “Why don’t we do this? All of you can try at once.”

“At once?”

“Of course. We’re gonna have to go at it together eventually, so even if we don’t do it now, we’ll still have to do it someday.”

“Nine at once? That’s too hard.” Autumn Blade was not confident.

“Yeah, let’s go one at a time.”

“No need for that, you’ll all go. It’s decided.”

Li Yi gave the order and then his body fell back as he lay on the ground in Pseudocide. In order to avoid getting pulled in, he craftily chose to simply leave the battle.

The Cat that Sings flipped Li Yi off and thrust as she swore at him, “F*ck you, what kind of a f*cking leader are you?!”

“The test will start in 10 seconds, starting from now. 10, 9, 8…”

Li Yi lay on the ground and began to count down.

“Screw this. Brothers, charge!”

The Cat that Sings waved her hand and was the first to rush into the herd of orcs…

7 seconds later, all nine of them were wiped out, and they had not managed to pick up a single Energy Crystal.

Not long later, The Cat that Sings and the others corpse-ran back only to see that Li Yi had gotten up. He even had a Repair Robot next to him.

“F*ck you, what the heck is this?”

“I figured you guys would be dying for a while yet, so I might as well fix my equipment first. Also, if you guys want to save on repair fees, take off all your equipment. If you don’t mind spending, you can keep it on.”

The Cat that Sings spat at him. “F*ck, if you’d said so sooner, I’d have found a worn set of armor to wear. Now you want me to strip? You’re takin’ advantage of me! My pretty fair body ain’t free for y’all to ogle at!”

“That’s right, I… I won’t strip.” Xu Man’s voice was even softer.

Li Yi slowly but surely took out nine sets of trash Thief equipment and handed them all out.

He had completed all the preparations before coming here.

“Take as long as you like to try it out. When you’ve mastered this place, you can call me.”

After he said that, Li Yi walked out of the dungeon.

“Where are you going?”

“To make more parties. You guys are the first trial team, but there will still be the second, third, and fourth teams, and so on. The first team to get this right will be the team that has the right to work with me.”

“F*ck, is it that hard to work with you?”

Li Yi left the dungeon, and Autumn Blade made a perverted derp face (lit. a face like Chu Ke-liang, the famous Taiwanese comedian). “Sister Cat, I’m cheap. Match with me, I’m not hard.”

“You? Why don’t you show me by jerking off for two hours? If you can do that without stopping, I might let you do me.”

“…” Autumn Blade retreated in shame.

Li Yi left the party after he exited the dungeon and gathered another group of Iron Alliance members to enter another Hellscream Dungeon…

…