Chapter 670: A Formidable Display

Marcus’s main role was to draw aggro and tank. As long as he could keep the monsters focused on him, there was no need for him to waste time attacking personally. Unfortunately, there was no hiding Goldie’s strength anymore. The moment Marcus locked down the Willow Wood Tomb Guardians, his pet immediately launched into the attack.

"Blazing Dark Storm!"

This was Goldie’s newest attack skill, one it had learned after reaching Level 50. A tremendous vortex of red flames erupted from its body, roaring forward like a raging storm as dark energy and wind-elemental force intertwined within the flames and tore through the Level 50 guardians.

-8,000, -8,200, -17,000!

The Soulfire members and Lydia stared in stunned silence. A single skill from Goldie had stripped more than 8,000 HP from each of the eight Willow Wood Tomb Guardians surrounding Marcus. Two of the damage figures had turned yellow, indicating critical hits, and those two attacks had instantly taken nearly half of the monsters’ health.

’Ferocious.’

For comparison, SoulSync was one of the party’s strongest damage dealers, yet even he could only deal around 6,000 damage with a single spell against these guardians. This was the power of a Grade 9 pet, the strength of the Shadow-Stained Gryphon King, the pet that had dominated the Pet Leaderboard for so long.

The Soulfire members felt their blood run hot as they watched Goldie tear through the monsters. ’Damn. We’re not worthy.’

"Stone, that’s impressive!"

SoulfireBlade had already charged forward and begun tanking alongside Marcus, but he could not help praising him, or rather, praising the terrifying pet at his side.

"Stone, if you ever decide to sell that Shadow-Stained Gryphon King, I’ll pay 500 million gold coins for it."

The other Soulfire members and Lydia, the fire mage, urged their mounts forward as well, joining the attack alongside their pets.

Marcus watched the battle carefully, taking the opportunity to gauge everyone’s actual damage output. SoulSync and Lydia were clearly the strongest. Both were fire mages, and each of them dealt around 6,000 damage per spell against the Level 50 guardians. The other members were slightly weaker, averaging around 4,500 damage per attack.

Their pets added another 3,000 or so damage apiece, so when player and pet attacked together, each pair could strip more than 8,000 HP from a guardian in a single round.

’Genuinely strong.’

A dazzling barrage of spells, arrows, weapons, and elemental attacks swept through the corridor. Under the overwhelming assault, the Willow Wood Tomb Guardians collapsed one after another like a broken dam, leaving Marcus, SoulfireBlade, and the other two knights with surprisingly little to do.

Marcus quietly compared himself with SoulfireBlade and the other knights. Their armor had been upgraded beyond +5 with Dreamland Gems, and because of their exceptionally high defense, each guardian could inflict only around 500 damage on the knights. SoulfireBlade, who possessed the strongest defense among them, was losing barely 400 HP from each attack.

Then Marcus looked at himself, and he could only admit it. ’Formidable. Monstrous.’

Aside from the party-wide support skills he had cast earlier, Marcus had not activated a single personal buff. He had not even used his more powerful defensive abilities. Yet even so, SoulfireBlade’s defensive attributes could not compare with his own.

The Level 50 guardians were dealing less than 300 damage to him per hit. That level of defense left SoulfireBlade, a fellow knight, feeling almost helpless, and from what he could see, Stonehaven had to be running an extremely high-defense, high-HP tank build.

Then he noticed something strange. Five or six guardians had surrounded Marcus at once, attacking him from every direction, yet aside from the occasional pitiful 300-point damage figure, more than half of their attacks simply displayed "Miss" or "Attack Immunity."

SoulfireBlade saw it clearly with his own eyes. Floating above Stonehaven’s head, the gray "Miss" and "Attack Immunity" indicators far outnumbered the red "-300" damage figures.

This wasn’t merely high defense; it was something else entirely.

"Heh..."

Marcus could only give SoulfireBlade an awkward smile. He had already done his best to conceal his actual strength, limiting himself to the party-wide support skills, keeping the Demonic Artifact Face of Nameless Fear unequipped, and not even activating the bonuses from his Corpse Demon Set.

He silently counted himself lucky. Fortunately, he had shown off enough earlier to establish that he was unusually strong; otherwise, if SoulfireBlade suddenly realized just how absurd his defenses really were, the questions and suspicion would be endless.

Unfortunately, there was one person whose curiosity had only grown stronger.

Lydia.

Those seductive eyes remained fixed on Marcus’s back, and her thoughts were racing. ’No wonder he doesn’t bother upgrading his equipment. With defensive abilities like that, ordinary equipment upgrades really wouldn’t make much difference.’

Then another thought suddenly occurred to her. ’If Stone upgraded every piece of his equipment with Dreamland Gems, just how terrifying would his defense become? Would Level 50 monsters even be capable of breaking through it?’

The corners of Lydia’s lips curled upward. ’Interesting.’

She glanced toward Marcus’s profile again, but the ordinary shop mask covering his face prevented her from seeing anything useful. ’How annoying.’

Lydia quietly clicked her tongue. This was getting more interesting than she had expected.

She had always been clever, and she had never been the sort of woman who gave up simply because someone refused to answer her questions. If Stone wanted to keep his secrets, then she would simply have to find another way to uncover them.

Meanwhile, Marcus was watching SoulfireBlade and the other two knights fight. SoulfireBlade’s +7 Mythic-grade longsword was especially eye-catching, its two black halos rotating around the weapon as he swung it through the guardians, each attack dealing more than 4,000 damage.

Seeing that, Marcus suddenly became curious about his own offensive power, so he drew the Corpse Demon Dark Soul Sword and casually swung it a few times.

With his current attributes, each ordinary attack dealt around 5,000 damage, only about 1,000 more than SoulfireBlade, which was reasonable.

But then the critical hits appeared. Four attacks, three critical hits, and the resulting damage numbers made Marcus’s expression change.

’Unbelievable.’

At that rate, if he kept attacking, there was a very real chance everyone would start paying attention to his damage rather than his supposed role as a tank.

He immediately stopped, put away the sword, and returned to spamming Taunt, making sure the guardians remained firmly focused on him.

And so Marcus and SoulfireBlade continued leading the way, with the damage dealers following close behind as the party pushed deeper into Jasper’s Tomb. This was already SoulfireBlade’s third time exploring the tomb, so he knew the route well. The party moved quickly, and the various traps and mechanisms along the way barely managed to slow them down.

Thud, thud, thud.

Amid the dazzling barrage of magic and the flashes of weapons cutting through the darkness, the quiet corridor echoed mostly with the rhythmic sound of their mounts’ hooves, occasionally accompanied by the metallic clink of equipment dropping onto the stone floor.

They were fighting on horseback. Even the mages? Yes.

After the system update, mounted combat was no longer restricted to knights. Any class could fight while mounted, allowing players to attack and use skills without dismounting.

Of course, mounted combat remained a knight’s specialty. After the update, when a knight fought while riding a warhorse or other mount, their attack, defense, and HP all increased by 10%, and combined with the various mounted skills available specifically to knights, this made a knight fighting on horseback considerably more dangerous than one fighting on foot.

Other classes could also fight while mounted, but they received no additional attributes and had very few mounted skills available to them.

Behind Marcus, the mages, archer, and clerics were all riding warhorses as well. These Soulfire elites had long since stopped relying on the Flame Chargers sold at the system Horse Market. They had already tamed their own mounts.

Marcus could not help thinking bitterly about his self-learned Horse Taming skill. He still had not found a proper opportunity to show it off. ’How depressing.’

The monsters on the first level were completely incapable of stopping them, and the party soon reached the second level. The Level 58 Poplar Wood Tomb Guardians were considerably stronger than the monsters above, but even they could not withstand Soulfire’s overwhelming firepower.

They tore through the second level almost as easily as the first, but unfortunately, that ease gave Lydia plenty of free time to bother Marcus again.

"Stone, what exactly is that red cloud spirit you summoned? It’s so cute! Where did you get it?"

"Stone, how do you cast those peach blossom skills? They’re so strange. How did you learn them?"

Marcus’s head began to ache, but fortunately, his ability to make things up on the spot was excellent. Whenever Lydia asked something he did not want to answer, he simply followed his usual routine and gave her a completely convincing stream of nonsense until she could no longer tell which parts were true and which parts were fabricated.

By the time she finally stopped pestering him, they had already reached the third level, the lowest level of Jasper’s Tomb.

SoulfireBlade’s expression immediately became more serious.

"Stone, be careful here. The monsters on the third level are Level 60 and above. They can deal around 600 damage to me, and there are a lot more of them. There are also ranged monsters, including mages and archers. If five or more of them focus their attacks on you at once, things could get dangerous."

"Mm."

Marcus nodded and stepped into the third level. The moment he entered, he activated Insight.

The monsters here were Level 60 Locust Wood Tomb Guardians, and there were far more of them than on the previous floors.

Marcus immediately cast Taunt, drawing two guardians toward himself.

Their attacks landed. -400, -400. Each guardian dealt around 400 damage.

Marcus glanced at his health recovery. 1,250 HP per tick, which was more than enough to keep up with this amount of damage.

He casually drank a Super Health Potion and then charged farther into the monster-filled corridor.

"Blade, have one of the clerics heal me!"

He activated Taunt again, and eleven monsters immediately abandoned their previous targets and rushed toward him.

SoulfireBlade nearly had a heart attack.

"Stone!"

He could not see Marcus’s health recovery rate, so from his perspective, eleven Level 60 monsters had suddenly surrounded Stonehaven. There was no way he could simply stand by and watch.

But there was no time to argue.

"Everyone, follow him! Clerics, keep him healed!"

SoulfireBlade and the other two knights immediately moved forward, drawing the remaining eight monsters toward themselves.

Even as he fought, SoulfireBlade could not help looking back at Marcus with concern. Eleven Level 60 tomb guardians were attacking him at once, yet Marcus remained completely calm.

The monsters swarmed him from every direction, their weapons striking repeatedly. Three of the eleven attacks missed entirely, while a full round of attacks only dealt around 3,600 damage.

Marcus’s natural health recovery alone was already astonishing, and with the Super Health Potion and the clerics’ healing layered on top of it, the eleven Level 60 Locust Wood Tomb Guardians were barely able to make a dent in his health. By the end of each round, they were dealing him little more than 1,000 net damage.

Bang, bang, bang!

A violent barrage of spells and attacks descended upon the monsters from behind Marcus. SoulSync and the other damage dealers unleashed their full firepower, their pets attacking alongside them.

The eleven guardians collapsed one after another, having dealt Marcus only around 4,000 damage from start to finish. Two or three seconds later, even that missing health had completely recovered.

Marcus calmly moved forward. Taunt. Another group of monsters immediately rushed toward him.

Behind him, SoulSync and the others stared for a moment before their expressions slowly changed.

They had finally realized it. This wasn’t merely a tank surviving against a large group of monsters.

This was effortless.