55 The graveyard of Longsoul 3

Lich Longsoul was calmly walking towards Li Wei's party. Its two hands were raised and black sparks kept dancing around his arms. After its first attack, Lich Longsoul simply stood in the middle of the graveyard and watched as its minions attacked the invaders. However, now that it was severely injured, it could no longer afford to stay passive!

Above its head, dozens of ghouls were moaning while charging at Li Wei's group. They had a semi-ethereal body causing them to take reduced damage from physical attacks and so Li Wei could no longer charge at them.

However, it was all part of the strategy. Now that the boss Lich Longsoul was no longer floating in mid-air out of range of melee attacks, that meant that it was time for Li Wei and the Paladin to go on the offensive.

A major change happened in the party's formation. Cai Jing disregarded the boss and turned towards the ghouls, he was the only one able to deal full damage to these monsters. At the same time, Li Wei charged at the boss together with the Paladin.

But Lich Longsoul would not allow the invaders to do as they wished. It was well aware of its frail body, despite being a boss, it only had a total of 400HP and he was now left only with 122HP. The lich suddenly opened its hands, allowing sparks to shoot towards the charging Li Wei.

[Unmovable Mountain]

The Paladin reacted almost instantly, jumping in front of Li Wei, he activated his skill he obtained from his family. It had a similar effect to making his body extremely resistant to any form of damage and act like a living shield, however, during the duration of the effects, he had to remain still. "-10" and "-6" appeared above its head as the two sparks struck his body.

As for Li Wei, he quickly used Gliding Steps to dodge the Paladin's body and charge towards the Lich. His two swords were already raised and ready to strike, but there was still 4 meters between him and the lich as he saw the latter grin and raise its palm towards him.

Another black spark danced around the lich's fingers but before it was able to launch the spark, a bright arrow pierced through the lich's arm instantly disrupting the spell casting.

While Li Wei was charging towards the lich, the rest of the party was not staying idle. Cai Jing was firing his spells as soon as his cooldowns came off, while the priest was using his skills to assist Cai Jing. As for the ranger, he was shooting his arrows at the remaining zombies when he noticed the lich's situation.

He originally only wanted to deal some more damage to the lich but as he saw the paladin tank the two sparks, he easily deduced that Li Wei would not make it in time before the lich would cast another spell and so, he predicted the position of its arm and aimed there.

Li Wei let out a sigh of relief as he saw the lich's arm being knocked off. However, he did not relax, if he did not hurry, the lich could simply cast another spell.

[Blade Draw]

He quickly used his skill as he continued to move forward, just in case the lich would cast another spell but the latter did not, it only took the blow, decreasing its HP by 20.

Before the lich was able to do anything, Li Wei was already in melee range of the lich. But as he swung his swords, the lich also reacted, the black sparks surrounded its body, acting like a shield.

Li Wei furiously swung his swords while circling around the lich, but the latter's shield was effective, only small numbers appeared above its head, "-9","-6","-7".

The lich seemed to be ignorant of the sword strikes as it did not even react as he took damage. It simply stood there still but Li Wei already knew what was his next move and prepared to quickly retreat upon seeing the hints.

And surely, a few seconds later, all the sparks on the lich's body suddenly went crazy, they wildly moved around its body and finally, they exploded in all direction. It was like the lich was the center of an explosion, but the lich itself did not suffer from any damage.

Li Wei was fully prepared since this was written in the strategy guide he obtained before the Time Attack. As soon as he saw that the sparks were moving abnormally, he quickly used the Gliding Steps and moved as far as possible from the lich.

The ranger shot some arrows, but they simply bounced off the sparks. The black sparks were about to hit Li Wei when suddenly, the Paladin appeared in front of him and raised his shield. He arrived just in time, the effects of [Unmovable Mountain] were finally over.

His body trembled as the sparks violently hit his shield and since he did not have any damage reducing effect this time, two large numbers appeared above his head, "-30","-35". This was a huge amount of damage but this attack was also the Lich's ultimate attack. After having used it, it would become passive for a while or until it's HP reaches a critical level.

Li Wei naturally instantly charged at the Lich. Now that there was no more danger, he had to quickly bring the Lich's HP down. Without hesitation, he wildly swung his swords but unfortunately, the ghouls would not continue to attack Cai Jing as their master was suffering.

There were about 8 ghouls floating in mid-air, 6 of them were harassing Cai Jing and the priest but the remaining two were rushing towards Li Wei.

After all his attacks, Li Wei finally brought down Lich Longsoul down to 30 HP, 10 more and he would trigger the lich's last struggle. But before he could strike, he suddenly felt a cold behind him. But before he could react, "-21","-19" suddenly appeared above his head as 2 transparent arms pierced through his shoulders.

He quickly turned to see 2 grinning ghouls floating right behind him. It was his first time experiencing this feeling, the cold and gloomy but did not feel threatening and therefore he did not expect it to be an enemy. It was his first time encountering ghost-type monsters aside from the Ghost Farmer that he did not even get to fight and so, that feeling did not alarm him.

However, the paladin quickly reacted and activated [Taunt] attracting their attention and dragging them away from Li Wei. At the same time, the ranger shot out 2 arrows directly at the Lich. "-7","-8".

The lich was closer to death than ever with only 15 HP left, however, this also triggered the lich's final struggle.

Li Wei was still standing close to the Lich Longsoul when he suddenly felt a huge amount of pressure coming from the lich's body. The lich was now surrounded by a blackish red aura! It was its final attack at the same time, as long as they were able to survive this attack, it would result in the team's victory. That was because the last attack was, in fact, a self-destructing attack!

The lich was already severely injured and weakened, however, it forcefully focused all its remaining energy, causing its body to be covered with a red aura! The reddish light condensed and gathered around the lich's heart. The light became brighter and brighter until it detonated, dealing damage to both allies and foes.

Li Wei immediately backed off as he noticed the lich's reaction. All he needed to do now was to get as far as possible from the lich's body. Fortunately, the game was fair, the lich's self-destruction would deal more damage to targets close to his body. The furthest the players were, the less damage they would receive. As long as the players did not dumbly stand still, they would usually take less than 30 damage from this explosion.

But the problem was the ghouls! They did not seem to care about the danger and kept harassing Li Wei and the Paladin as they rushed back. Fortunately, Cai Jing quickly came to their rescue by firing his [Mana bolt].

5 seconds after the lich's body changed colour, it finally exploded sending waves of energy in all direction.

The priest immediately raised his staff, activating [Light Barrier] to reduce the damage and in the end, the party endured the self-destruction without taking too much damage. Li Wei was still standing with 43 HP and even the Paladin who tanked for so long still had 69 HP.

As for the ghouls, as soon as the lich's body exploded, they all vanished from the graveyard. At the same time, the system prompt came in:

[System prompt: Congratulation for completing the Time Attack: The graveyard of Longsoul. Your final time is 33:18]

Everyone was panting, after so much effort, they had finally completed the Time Attack. However, no one was happy. They were satisfied with their performance but it was still very far from the world record or even just the city's record. It was their first time working together and both Li Wei and the paladin actually never attempted this Time Attack and so, it was not too depressing.

"This is good for a first try! However, we are here to grab the record! We should attempt it again after we've recovered our HP and Mana" declared Cai Jing.

Despite being far from the record, their team still appeared on the leaderboard of the city at the 67th position. It was an honorable position, especially considering that none of them used their item's skills that had high cooldowns. It was one of the orders of Cai Jing, he already predicted that they would have to run through the Time Attack several times and so, wanted to preserve these skills for the later run when everyone would be familiar with the environment.

...

2 hours later, Li Wei once again came out of the painting with his party. It was already the 4th time they attempted the Time Attack and slowly but surely, they shaved seconds after seconds off their final time. Their record was now 32:19. It was listed all the way at the 29th place on the city's ranking. At the same time, a lot of changes occurred on the list, many players noticed that the Fleeting Clouds Sect was repeatedly attempting the Graveyard of Longsoul.

Now, the 2nd place actually belonged to a group of the Wang Family. The 4th place belonged to a group of the Li Family, the 5th one belonged to the Zhan Family. In just a few hours, the leaderboard completely changed and naturally, the other guilds were informed of that and rushed to claim back their original rankings.

Not far from the top, at the 13th place was the Cai Family's main group which included Cai Wenji, King of Champions and Bright Sun.

As Li Wei was about to enter the painting once again, Cai Jing raised his hand and said: "This is the last time we'll attempt this Time Attack! This time, don't hold back! You should even use your item's skills!"

Time Attacks were limited to 5 attempts per day and it was the last entry for Li Wei's group. During the briefing session, he had previously informed Cai Jing about his ring's skill: Earth Wall and was told to use it to hold off the zombies. He naturally did not mention the Ring of Chaos since it was his trump card.

"Ok let's do this! No holding back this time!" declared Cai Jing as he stepped into the painting.

...

25 minutes later, Li Wei's party successfully triggered lich Longsoul's second phase. Zombies were flowing out of their tombs and rushing towards the group. They were able to reach that far so quickly all thanks to Cai Jing and the Ranger for using their ring's skills. They were able to trigger the second phase with just one wave of attacks.

Now, Li Wei quickly raised an Earth Wall to force the zombie to go around it to reach them. At the same time, the paladin's activated his own ring's skill that contained a defensive skill.

3 minutes went by and finally, the 3rd phase triggered. Immediately, the priest used his own ring's skill to refresh [Empower] and quickly used it on Li Wei. The latter dashed at the lich and endlessly swung his sword.

This time, the party definitely took some risk; compared to the first time where they cleared most enemies to make it easier to fight the boss, this time, some skeletons and zombies were still lurking around as Li Wei was rushing towards the lich.

The Paladin was facing a lot of pressure but it was necessary if they wanted to get a decent time.

About one minute later, the lich covered its body with defensive sparks!

About another minute later, the lich used its final skill.

[System prompt: Congratulation for completing the Time Attack: The graveyard of Longsoul. Your final time is 31:51]