CH 16

Murphy gazed upon the colossal skeletal dragon depicted in the orb, a pleasant surprise beaming across his face. Judging from its size alone, the beast was already the same size as him. With a mere two steps separating its boss level from his own, perhaps it could slay the raiders.

Meanwhile, all the adventurers surrounding him grew pale with fear. This scenario was not a part of their plan.

Only Dawn Excalibur retained his composure. “Everyone, buff me! I’ll draw the boss’s attention! Wait three rounds before attacking,” he commanded, and the adventurers complied without hesitation.

They unleashed a flurry of buff spells upon Dawn Excalibur as if they were of no cost.

Bull’s Strength!

Blessing of Might!

Valor Blessing!

Divine Favor!

Mark of the Wild!

Unyielding Stamina!

Dawn Excalibur’s body grew visibly larger, bursting with a rainbow of colors as he charged towards the boss, wielding a giant dragon-slaying sword.

The colossal bone dragon roared, swiping its claws and causing Dawn Excalibur to swiftly dodge to the side.

Boom! The white bone dragon’s claw slammed less than two meters away from him, bones scattering in every direction. Dawn’s sword sliced through the dragon’s claw, dealing only a meager -421 damage. The bone fragments flew, but the damage was truly lackluster.

The bone dragon swiped once again, and Dawn Excalibur narrowly avoided the attack.

Suddenly, the dragon opened its maw and chomped down with a mighty bite – a dragon bite! But Dawn’s sword held its ground, rolling out from under the dragon’s mouth.

He rose into the air – Rising Dragon Slash! – then slased the bone dragon’s jaw with his sword.

As the aggro table stabilized, the other adventurers began to attack remotely.

Murphy’s expression gradually froze as he realized something was wrong. How could Dawn Excalibur conceal so much? He felt that this person was very familiar with the Dragon Clan’s attack modes, almost to the point of knowing them like the back of his hand.

Dragons were different from humans and were unable to perform many tricks in hand-to-hand combat. For example, human monks could spin and kick at 360 degrees, or human swordsmen could dance with their blades and make dazzling and gorgeous sword moves.

But dragons couldn’t do it. They were so big and couldn’t hold weapons, so there were only a few types of attack modules they could use.

Dragon Claw Swipe, Dragon Tail Swipe, Dragon Wing Pounce, Dragon Bite (Dragon Mouth Attack), and at most, Dragon Tackle. Basically, these attack modules were used interchangeably.

Generally speaking, these moves were enough. After all, a large body also had a large attack range. A dragon tail swipe could sweep a distance of more than ten meters, and a dragon claw slap could cover a range of three or four meters.

It was not easy for even a purely agility-based adventurer to avoid them.

However, as he observed his opponent’s fighting stance, it became apparent that he had fully mastered these.

Despite the apparent danger in his swift dodges and movements, he managed to evade each attack with hairbreadth precision, as if he had predicted them beforehand.

It seemed that he had a history of slaying dragons in the past.

Nevertheless, without a shield to protect him, even one accidental hit would leave him badly wounded, and no matter how skilled he was at dodging, it was impossible to evade every attack.

Before Murphy could dwell on the thought any further, the giant skeleton dragon charged towards our group of adventurers after realizing that it could not withstand the power of Dawn Excalibur.

As it hastily pursued, trying to quell its anger, the skeleton dragon abruptly turned around and attacked with a swift claw slam.

This time, Dawn Excalibur was caught off guard and had no time to dodge. He was about to be ensnared by the dragon claws, but he quickly lifted his massive sword and blocked the attack in front of him.

With a resounding boom, the dragon’s claws landed heavily on the giant sword, causing Dawn Excalibur’s legs to sink into the ground from the sheer force of the impact, but he remained standing.

“Block!” The bright red text that appeared stunned Murphy.

Those five simple letters were more shocking to him than the incredible fight that had just unfolded before his eyes.

In the game of Firmament World, weapons could be used for parrying, but they were not capable of blocking, a function that was reserved only for shields.

“What kind of concept is this?” Murphy wondered to himself. “This guy can use a weapon as a shield?”

However, upon closer inspection, the Dragon Slaying Sword was over two meters in length and half a meter in width. It was made entirely of metal and resembled a door panel. Was it not, in essence, a natural shield?

Murphy’s heart sank. His own hand-to-hand combat skills might not be higher than those of the skeleton dragon.

At least with Death Fury turned on and Behemoth of War form activated, he should be more powerful than the skeleton dragon. However, he was not as confident in his ability to win that fight as he had been before.

The battle raged on.

The skeleton dragon did not seem to have any discernible vital points. No matter where it was hit, it shed bone fragments and lost a small amount of health. After fighting for over ten minutes, it had sustained numerous hits to the chest and head, yet it remained standing, having lost only a third of its health.

Dawn Excalibur showed no signs of fatigue either. Every time his condition dropped, the adventurer would quickly cast over a dozen healing and buff spells, bringing him back to full strength in an instant.

The battle between the two sides was fierce, with both the dragon’s health and the adventurers’ mana steadily decreasing.

However, the adventurers had the upper hand. They were able to replenish their mana by drinking potions, whereas the skeleton dragon had no means of recovery.

Eventually, the dragon’s health dropped to 50%.

The giant skeleton dragon swung its tail, forcing Dawn Excalibur back. Its bones were shattered, and its body was filled with lifeless energy, clearly indicating that it had been seriously injured.

“In the name of Master Morpheus,” the skeleton dragon, Santazak, declared, “at any cost, wake up the dead who have passed away. Sleeping warriors, you will once again fight for Lord Morpheus!”

The dragon violently spread its wings and exhaled a deadly breath, causing its blood volume to decrease by 10% instantly. As a result of the death magic, the bones on the ground trembled, moved, and fused together, forming skeleton warriors who grabbed rusted weapons and charged in groups towards the adventurers with a cracking sound.

Dawn’s face darkened as he was caught off guard by this move.

“I’ll take on the BOSS. Everyone, focus on clearing out the mobs quickly,” he said.

With a sweep of his sword, Dawn Excalibur shattered a skeleton that charged towards him into pieces. He then rushed towards the skeletal dragon, which was already weakened. Meanwhile, Midnight Dharma God and the other adventurers confronted the skeleton army.

The sharpshooters took the lead in shooting arrows, but were embarrassed to find that their attacks did little damage to the skeletons. Arrows often passed through gaps in the bones, resulting in frequent misses, and sometimes failing to harm the skeletons at all.

On the other hand, the spellcasters were more effective, and their magic easily shattered the skeletons into pieces.

However, they soon discovered that things were not so straightforward. Under the influence of the death magic, the broken pieces of the skeletons regrouped and continued to be resurrected.

“It’s the death magic! The skeletons are being resurrected by the power of death,” exclaimed one of the adventurers.

“Do you think I didn’t notice? Can someone give me some useful advice?” Midnight Dharma God shouted, “Priests, disperse them!” He repeated his order twice, but no one moved.

“Black River, why don’t you disperse them? Aren’t you a priest?” he asked.

“I’m a war priest who believes in Odin. Can’t you see I’m holding a hammer?” Black River wore plate armor and held a war hammer, looking more like a warrior. He smashed the skulls of the skeletons one by one with his hammer.

“Kumquat Lemon, aren’t you also a priest?” Fashen asked.

Kumquat Lemon shook their head and replied, “I believe in the Mother Earth Goddess and don’t have the ability to disperse the undead, but I can do this—” As they spoke, they hurled a rock ball at the skeletons, knocking over several of them. However, the fallen skeletons quickly rose up again.

Midnight Dharma God was at a loss. Among the fifteen caster professions and four priests in the team, none of them had the ability to disperse the undead.

In this game, the abilities of priests are determined by the gods they believe in. Only the gods of the Holy Light faction, such as the Sun God and the God of Light, bestow upon their believers the power to disperse the undead.

This time, the team was primarily focused on the black dragon as the main target, and their configuration was based on the dragon’s fire-breathing ability. Dealing with these unexpected undead enemies was proving to be a difficult challenge.

“Dharma God, use your amplified magic!”

Midnight Dharma God sighed helplessly, “The cooldown isn’t over yet.”

His Fire Storm was incredibly powerful due to being a hero skill. However, hero skills had a lengthy cooldown time in this game. It was believed that the skill would only be used once during a BOSS battle, so the team had been waiting for the cooldown while clearing the mobs on the road. Unfortunately, the dungeon design proved to be extremely cunning. The team spent the first hour clearing mobs and navigating through the maze. The three boss battles that followed were all connected, and the first two were too brief to allow for the cooldown of their skills. The situation was becoming increasingly difficult.