Retrograde Gaming

Chapter 37: A Strange Finding

Translator: Henyee Translations

Editor: Henyee Translations

Li Huailin decided to test the boss’ attack and defense first. It turned out that his normal slash caused 491 damage, which was about 2% of the boss’ total health points. It seemed that the boss’s defense wasn’t high, however, it had an unusual amount of health points, at least over 20,000.

The Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas used normal attacks to fight back. It lifted its staff and thrusted it at Li Huailin.

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The damage was obviously high, but Li Huailin could still bear it. At the very least, he didn’t need to worry that the boss could kill him with just normal attacks alone. What really mattered was the boss’ skills.

“Feel my rage!”

The Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas immediately launched its first skill. Its left hand reached out before waving once, then, three green balls rushed towards Li Huailin, Red Moon, and Red Pennant.

-228. This was the number above Li Huailin’s head.

-291, -466(Critical Hit). These were the numbers above the two ladies’ heads.

Besides the direct damage, Li Huailin’s status bar quickly showed an icon.

Poison: Increases 75 Health Points every 5 seconds, continues for 15 seconds.

Li Huailin believed that this must’ve been tough for the two ladies.

“Drink Water, focus on healing them. Just ignore me,” Li Huailin looked back and told her. His health points were slowly restored due to the boss’ skill. However, the attack was too dangerous for the two ladies, this was especially for Red Pennant. Because she was a hunter and didn’t have much health. If she wasn’t carefully healed, she might die.

“Okay.” Red Face Drinks Water nodded seriously. She immediately threw a restoration spell at both Red Moon and Red Pennant. Meanwhile, she started to cast another healing spell for the latter.

Basically, the first skill was of no threat to Li Huailin. Although the damage caused by skill was a little more than the health points restored, the difference was only about a dozen health points, it wasn’t something that he should watch out for.

Li Huailin hurriedly slashed the boss a few more times to stably hold the aggro. He looked back and shouted, “Red Moon, Misty Rain, Pennant, come up! Let’s kill it as fast as possible.”

“Go all out! We don’t need to worry about OT.” Red Moon quickly gave the order. As experienced as she was, Red Moon immediately knew that no matter how hard attacked, the boss’ aggro wouldn’t be pulled away from Li Huailin because his damage output was very high.

Red Dust Misty Rain started to cast a Fireball Spell and Red Pennant shot arrows. Red Moon attacked the boss at Li Huailin side, as she was a defensive warrior. Even though their damage couldn’t be compared to that of Li Huailin’s, they were still able to help him. Within 30 seconds, the boss had lost about 25% of its health points.

“Feel my rage, mortals!” The Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas suddenly shouted and waved his hand again. The two intertwining snakes instantly came back to life and quickly dashed towards Li Huailin.

“This is good!” Li Huailin was surprised.

Upon seeing the incoming monsters, Li Huailin knew that this was going to help him. Obviously, the two vipers were elite monsters. Without any hesitation, Li Huailin attacked both of them and held the aggro.

“Don’t attack these monsters. You gals just focus on the boss!” Li Huailin shouted.

“Alright!” Red Moon nodded.

Li Huailin checked his status bar. As expected, Li Huailin saw a buff:

Poison: Increases 35 Health Points every 5 seconds, 5 maximum stacks.

Li Huailin already had 2 stacks which made him very confident.

While dragging these two monsters around, Li Huailin kept attacking the boss. Because the aggro was on him, the boss mainly focused on Li Huailin. From time to time, it would throw out Poisonous Arrows which could hit 3 targets at the rest of the party members. The arrows indeed put some pressure on them, but so far, all of them were still alive.

“My servants will tear you into pieces!”

When the boss only had half of its health points left, it summoned its helpers again. Now, another two elite monsters appeared on the battlefield, this was a huge surprise to Li Huailin. Because the elite snakes could only cause 40 damage to Li Huailin and heal him for 175 health points, it was absolutely incredible!

“Let’s keep the pace. We should be able to kill it soon!” Li Huailin shouted.

The boss’ health points kept reducing at a very fast speed. Very soon, only 25% was left. Li Huailin thought that the boss was going to summon another round of monsters. For some reason, things went differently this time.

“Feel my power!” The Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas exclaimed aloud. At the same time purple light flashed in its hand, its black snake eyes immediately turned red. The eyes of the 4 elite vipers also turned red.

Li Huailin instantly noticed the difference. The Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas’ attack had increased to about 100, its attack speed had also improved too. This same improvement was also applied to the 4 elite snakes. Basically, they all went berserk just like the first boss, Great Snake Duras.

For the very first time, Li Huailin felt pressure. Because the healed health points were still the same and the damage the enemies could do to him were much bigger now, even though it wasn’t fast, his health points started going down. He couldn’t help and start to feel excited, This was the feeling of tension he wanted to enjoy in a game!

“Little Water, watch over Huailin,” Red Moon immediately told her.

“Don’t worry.”

Because the overall pressure on Red Face Drinks Water wasn’t high, her mana points were still barely enough, she then drank a potion that slowly recovered her mana points.

“All of you will die!”

The Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas hit Li Huailin, Red Pennant, and Red Dust Misty Rain with its Poisonous Arrows. Li Huailin noticed that although the attack remained the same, the frequency had actually increased. The skills had also been strengthened.

“Why does the Poisonous Arrow always get you, Red Pennant? What did you do to it?” Red Face Drinks Water suddenly asked her.

Indeed, Red Pennant was always one of the three random targets. Her luck was incredibly bad.

“I… I don’t know…” Red Pennant hurriedly tried to explain.

“Don’t talk right now, we should finish the boss first.” Red Moon interrupted them.

The boss still had 10% of its health points left. By now, the final stage arrived. Since Li Huailin’s health points stayed around 50%, Red Moon had enough confidence that they could complete this mode.

“Pa! Pa! Pa!”

Another three Poisonous Arrows hit Red Pennant, Red Moon, and Red Face Drinks Water. At this time, the boss’ health points had dropped to 6%.

“Red Pennant, Little Water! You two drink Health Potions! Little Water, watch over Huailin! Concentrate on him! Hang on! We’re gonna make it!” Red Moon said as she quickly drank a potion.

“I understand!” Red Face Drinks Water nodded and also finished drinking one. She then started to focus on healing Li Huailin.

“Filthy mortals, you will pay for this!”

The boss growled its final words when its health points finally reached 0. With purple light flashing the area, Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas slowly disappeared in the air.

“We did it!” A big smile appeared on Red Moon’s face.

“Yeah!” Red Face Drinks Water exclaimed excitedly and ran to Li Huailin to grab his arm. “Brother-in-law, we passed Abyss Mode!”

Li Huailin was also quite excited, this was the sense of achievement he looked for in a game.

System Notice: You’ve killed the hidden boss in Viper Cave, the Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas, minus 1,550 Experience.

The system notice instantly ruined Li Huailin’s mood. He had completely forgotten that his experience would be deducted.

System Notice: Dungeon cleared, calculating final evaluation…

System Notice: Dungeon clear time, 17 minutes and 42 seconds, 95% completion, final evaluation – S, minus 3,000 Experience.

At the same time, Red Moon also received the system notification.

System Notice: Your party has become the first to pass the dungeon, “Viper Cave”. Please name your party.

After thinking about it, Red Moon transferred the party leader’s rights to Li Huailin.

Li Huailin was still feeling heartbroken because of his lost experience. All of a sudden, the system notified him that he had become the leader and asked him to enter the team name. Li Huailin turned around and looked at Red Moon strangely, he asked her, “Huh? Why?”

“Well, I’ve given this some thought. Our guild shouldn’t become too famous right now. Most of our members are women and have no intention in joining competitions. Also, we don’t have enough people or money to rival any of those big guilds. I think our guild should stick to strengthening ourselves silently. When we finally appear, the other big guilds won’t dare to bully us. If the others know that our guild is the first to pass Abyss Mode, we will definitely draw lots of attention, this isn’t any good at all.” It seemed that Red Moon had set the direction for their guild.

“I see.” Li Huailin also knew that Red Moon was right, but he didn’t really care about it. After all, he wasn’t the one who was in charge of the guild. He decided to give the party a kickass name.

Li Huailin gave it a bit of thought before entering the name of the party. As soon as he confirmed the name, a huge global announcement popped out on every player’s screen.

Global Announcement: Party, “We’re So Kickass”, has successfully completed Abyss Mode; Viper Cave. Final evaluation – S. Dungeon clear time: 17 minutes and 42 seconds. Party members: Open-Minded Like A Forest(Leader), Red Moon, Red Pennant, Red Face Drinks Water, Red Dust Misty Rain. Reward 10,000 experience, 2 Gold Coins. This achievement is recorded in the Continent’s Glory History.

This huge announcement repeated itself three times in a row and immediately caused a huge stir.

At the same time, something surprising happened. As soon as the notification popped out, all five members flashed with a golden light and leveled up. This was extremely unexpected to Li Huailin since he just lost 10,000 Experience, how did he level up?