MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Li Yi stood a short way away, watching the two of them fight. He shook his head helplessly.

He knew both of them.

One was the Cyclone Thief, Old Green, who was also known as the Dog-skin Plaster. The other was the Armored Warrior, Unending Unmatched, known as the Pursuing War God.

Old Green was famous for his stubbornness, but there always had to be one or two people in the world who were similar in personality.

When a stubborn person met another stubborn person, what was the result?

The answer was right before his eyes.

Neither side would give up. Even if they fell ten thousand times, they would still stand up determinedly and refuse to admit defeat!

There really was not that much of a conflict between Old Green and Unending Unmatched. All that happened was Unending Unmatched had not seen Old Green when the latter was hunting a monster in Stealth Mode, and so the former used Charge on the monster. As a result, he took a hit from Old Green’s Blunt Object that nearly killed him outright.

As usual, Old Green was not going to let that slide, but it just so happened that this Unending Unmatched was also one of his kind. Neither would give even an inch of way, in the sense that if you dared to get up, I would immediately kill you. The two of them went back and forth in that vein, and there was no stopping them once they got started.

“Whoever runs is a sunnavabitch, and whoever calls for backup is a sunnavabitch.” Those were the only words Old Green gave Unending Unmatched.

“If I don’t beat you into submission today, I’ll castrate myself and become a eunuch in the palace!”

The two of them were as stubborn, obstinate, and hard-headed as the other and that was how this long battle of tug-of-war began.

Old Green was no match for Unending Unmatched at all. The difference in their equipment and levels was just too wide. Unending Unmatched killed him again and again, causing his level to plummet continuously. After three days, he had dropped a grand total of 24 levels. If it was not for the fact that the system would automatically reduce the EXP lost from deaths after a player lost 10 levels within 24 hours, Unending Unmatched would have long since slaughtered Old Green back to Level Zero.

“Do you submit!?”

Unending Unmatched roared as he pointed the tip of his sword at Old Green, having defeated the latter once more.

“Submit my *ss!”

Old Green would sooner die than give in, and he continued to corpse run.

Unending Unmatched was so angry that his hands shook. They had been at it for three days and three nights. Although he had only died a couple of times, it was starting to take a toll on him, be it mentally or physically…

“Whoosh!”

A Feathered Arrow flew at them. Unending Unmatched reactions were lightning-fast and he blocked it with his shield, sending the arrow flying.

“Whoever calls for back-up is a sunnavabitch. Dwarf Thief, do you still have anything to say?”

Unending Unmatched spat at Old Green’s corpse and ran toward the direction the arrow had come from.

“Whoosh!”

Another arrow flew at him. Unending Unmatched blocked it again and continued the chase.

Old Green corpse-ran back, but when he did not see Unending Unmatched there, he instantly flew into a rage, yelling, “Stupid Warrior, whoever runs is a sunnavabitch, you sunnavabitch!”

Li Yi lured Unending Unmatched further and further away with his arrows, keeping the perfect distance so that Unending Unmatched could see him but could not reach him with the Charge attack.

These were the perks of having an extremely long shooting range.

“If I don’t kill you today, I’ll castrate myself and become a eunuch in the palace!”

Unending Unmatched was infuriated. He put his weapon into his Backpack and put away his shield. He even took off his plate armor and put on his light clothing instead. As a result, his SPD did increase drastically, and the wind even whipped by as he ran. He caught up to Li Yi in an instant.

Li Yi was bemused to see this and shot a small fireball at him. (This was an additional skill that came with Blazing Heart. It was very weak in ATK, but it was a lock-on skill that had a hundred-percent hit rate.)

“Pfft!”

[−128]

Li Yi stopped, and Unending Unmatched caught up to him. He swung his fist at Li Yi as soon as they were close enough, and the fist made contact, dealing [−6] in damage.

Only then did Unending Unmatched realize that he could not equip his weapon, shield, or even his plate armor…

When in Battle Mode, players could take off their armor, but they could not put it on.

Li Yi held his Fine Gold Longsword in both hands and leaped up, swinging it with all his might.

“Beast Strike!”

[−361]

He instantly cleared out Unending Unmatched’s HP, and the Dizzy effect was activated at the same time. Unending Unmatched immediately became dizzy.

However, Li Yi did not continue attacking. Instead, he just looked at Unending Unmatched with a smile and kept watching until the latter recovered from the Dizzy effect.

“You took off all your equipment, so if I kill you now, I wonder how many pieces will you drop?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. Also, I’m not in cahoots with that Dwarf Thief, the only reason I’m doing this is because I want to pull you two apart. Goodbye.”

He did not care whether Unending Unmatched believed him or not. Li Yi turned around and left.

Unending Unmatched put on his equipment and gave chase. “Gimme a reason!”

“I was bored out of my mind.”

Unending Unmatched stopped chasing. No one knew whether he understood what Li Yi meant.

Li Yi came back to him, riding the white horse and smiling at Unending Unmatched as he said, “Do you have a guild yet?”

“No.”

“Then join mine. The benefits are decent, but the best part is that we’re united.”

“What’s your guild called?”

“Little Drunk Cat.”

“Not interested.” With a twitch of his mouth, Unending Unmatched rejected him.

He was not playing the game alone. Instead, he had a small group of his friends and family, five in total including himself. They ran dungeons together, and only separated when it came to grinding levels in the wild.

There were no rules or restrictions, and they had decent armor as well. It was much simpler than being in a guild.

“Add me as a friend, and you can come find me whenever you feel like joining.”

Li Yi sent Unending Unmatched a friend request, and the latter accepted it.

After Li Yi had left on his little white horse, Unending Unmatched stood there for a moment, dazed. Suddenly he remembered something, and he instantly ran back the way he came to continue his deathmatch with Old Green…

The Pursuing War God, Unending Unmatched, was one of the top ten most famous tankers in the past life. Although he could be rather extreme, he was a generous kind of guy who was very clear on the division between friend and foe. If you provoked him, he could chase you down to the corners of the earth and the ends of time, refusing to give up until he beat you into submission. If you helped him once before, he would give everything to help you endlessly, eternally, without a single regret…

He was quite an interesting BAMF, and the classic story about him was his PK war with Old Green that lasted for several years.

Every time they fought, it would go on for several days. Anyone who saw it could not bear to watch and anyone who heard about it would be rendered speechless. Only the two fighters would continue going at each other, killing each other with all their might.

Even if he put aside Unending Unmatched’s sharp skills as a main tank, his clear-cut personality alone would have been enough for Li Yi to try and recruit him without hesitation.

If Li Yi did not recruit Unending Unmatched and the events of this life went the same way as they did in the past life, he would eventually become Star Fire’s Chief Main Tank.

…

System Notification: [You are now entering the Level 30 Map, Wild Beast Plain…]

Green grass carpeted the ground as far as the eye could see, and all sorts of rare and strange beasts littered the land. Sabertooth Tigers, Silver Wolves, Giant One-horned Rhinoceroses…

The monsters that spawned here were Level 30 at the very least and could reach up to Level 40. Elite-level Leaders were mixed in with the rest, so if you attacked recklessly, you would definitely die an excruciating death.

The Wild Beast Plain was only open to players who were Level 30 and above. Those who were lower than Level 30 were not allowed to enter.

Although Li Yi wasted quite a bit of EXP on his Apothecary, his current level was not too shabby either. Ever since King of Pantheon opened its servers, only slightly over 300 players had reached Level 30.

Since there were not that many players who had reached Level 30 and the monsters in Wild Beast Plain were more densely populated, making it harder to fight, very few people came here. As for the three bosses, no one had ever defeated them before.

The Wild Beast Plain had three bosses in total, namely the Silver Wolf King, the White Deer King, and the Crimson Tiger King. Li Yi’s current target was the Crimson Tiger King.

Out of the three bosses, only the Crimson Tiger King dropped mounts. However, it was a rare boss, and its respawn times were random, unlike the Silver Wolf and White Deer that would consistently respawn once every seven days. The Crimson Tiger King was a rare sight indeed, and the probability of it dropping a mount was only a mere 0.2%. That was why having a tiger as a mount was something that was decently worth showing off.

[White Military Horse: Increases SPD by 60%.]

[Crimson Tiger King: Increases SPD by 100%, passively increases each of its master’s attributes by 3 points.]

The Crimson Tiger King’s impressive look and practicality turned the Wild Beast Plain into King of Pantheon’s second battlefield. More than ten million players died here, all so that they could get a Crimson Tiger King. King of Pantheon ran for eight years, and players killed each other here for eight years…

In the past life, Li Yi had tried his luck here a few times as well, but the result simply exasperated him.

The drop rate was just too low. The official site said that the drop rate was 0.2%, but the actual drop rate was much lower than that.

Li Yi came here as soon as he reached Level 30 because he had heard a rumor that getting the first kill of the Crimson Tiger King meant that the mount was guaranteed to drop.

He could not be sure if the rumor was true or not, but he had personally seen the chick who had gotten the first kill in the past life strut around the Celestial Capital on her Crimson Tiger King mount.

There was no way to discern if the rumor was true or false based solely on what he heard. The only way to be sure was to try it out himself.

The monsters in the Wild Beast Plain spawned densely and quickly. It was common to see the second batch of monsters spawning before you even defeated the first batch.

Li Yi took every step with great care, heading slowly toward the Crimson Tiger King’s spawn point based on his memories from the past life.

The Wild Beast Plain was very large. In the past life, Star Fire and the Dream Guild had launched into an all-out war here. More than two hundred thousand players clashed while tens of thousands of others watched. And even then, they did not take up more than half of the map.

“Roar—”

A Sabertooth Tiger charged up to him. The Mutated Small Wild Boar rushed at it and used Tackle, whereas Li Yi fell to the ground, using Pseudocide.

The Sabertooth Tiger brought its nose to the ground and sniffed around before it slowly wandered off into the distance.

A herd of snow-white Silver Wolves wandered over and just happened to walk past Li Yi. The Pseudocide state instantly lost its effect, and the Mutated Small Wild Boar immediately used Solid Ice, applying the Taunt effect that came with it. However, in a stroke of extraordinarily bad luck, the Miss notification appeared above the heads of four Silver Wolves, which meant that they were not successfully taunted.

Using Camouflage again did not work, so Li Yi was chased by four Silver Wolves that tried to tear at him with their teeth. He had no choice but to activate the Fiery Boots’ special skill, darting forward abruptly. Before he had even taken a few steps forward, however, the four Silver Wolves and a bunch of other monsters that were nearby all rushed him at once.

His vision went black. Li Yi lay on the ground, but he was lucky as the equipment he was wearing had not dropped. If they had and the monsters had taken the equipment away, it would have been extra difficult to get them back.

He corpse-ran back quickly, and the instant he resurrected, Li Yi used Camouflage.

90% of the monsters in Wild Beast Plain could use Charge, and their senses were especially astute as well. Sometimes, even if one successfully used Pseudocide, one still would not be able to escape certain death.

Thank goodness he had Camouflage. This was an Ultimate Move that was almost a bug in itself. As long as the monsters did not get too close to him, as long as they were at least three meters away, he would certainly be able to use Camouflage. And as long as he used Camouflage, he would definitely be able to leave the battle, no ifs or buts about it.

That one death made Li Yi even warier. He would rather spend slightly more time waiting around instead of recklessly moving forward. He carefully calculated the difference in the distance between himself and the monsters in order to avoid the monsters’ Change attacks. Just like that, he continued to delve deeper in with nothing more dangerous than a few scares.

He had walked for more than four hours when a giant white wolf that was several dozen times larger than a normal white wolf appeared in front of him. It was one of the Wild Beast Plain’s three great bosses, the Silver Wolf King.

For now, it was not Li Yi’s target, so he did not attack it. He just circled around it carefully and continued forward.

“Roar—”

A terrifying tiger’s roar came from ahead. Although Li Yi had not seen the target yet, Li Yi could tell by its voice alone that it was the roar of the Crimson Tiger King!

“Hua’er, don’t heal so quickly. We’ll take turns healing, just make sure you don’t run out of mana.”

“Okay!”

The voices of two players from up ahead made Li Yi freeze in his tracks.

Could someone already be fighting the Crimson Tiger King?

He ran up to it quickly…