223: Chapter 223 Burning

"What do we do now?" Hu Gualing sensed that the current situation was not very optimistic, and he couldn't help but ask Xiao Niao loudly during a brief pause in his attacks.

"This..." Xiao Niao looked at the pitiful damage numbers they were inflicting on the Millennium Tree Demon, and for a moment, he didn't know what to do either.

If it were any other BOSS, it would be fine. Even if the damage was low, as long as they could break through its defense, they would eventually succeed in killing it; it would just be a matter of how long the battle would take and the cost incurred.

But the Millennium Tree Demon BOSS they were facing now was different from a typical BOSS. Its main characteristics were its thick skin and rapid HP regeneration. Previously, when the pale white protective shield hadn't appeared around the Millennium Tree Demon's body, they had to output damage non-stop to keep its HP steadily decreasing. But now, with this protective light shield around it, the party's damage output had plummeted to an extremely low level. Even with frantic attacks, the damage caused couldn't keep up with the BOSS's HP regeneration.

Xiao Niao watched as the health bar above the Millennium Tree Demon slowly crept back up. The HP they had painstakingly whittled down to the last sliver was recovering bit by bit, without any suspense or way to stop it. Xiao Niao was incredibly anxious but felt helpless. Facing Hu Gualing's question, he could only sigh in resignation. He thought about holding on a little longer; perhaps the Millennium Tree Demon's protective shield was just a temporary status skill that would automatically disappear once its duration ended. By then, even if the Millennium Tree Demon's HP had recovered significantly, there would at least be hope of victory. Of course... this was just the most ideal outcome. If the Millennium Tree Demon's protective shield didn't disappear, or if it disappeared temporarily only to reappear once its HP dropped below ten percent again, then they would truly have no options left.

Once Xiao Niao understood the crux of the matter, he stopped worrying about it so much. Now, the main strategy was to do their best and leave the rest to fate. The final outcome was no longer something they could decide themselves; it all depended on luck.

Just at this moment, a soft 'pop' sound suddenly appeared on the field. Xiao Niao frowned and looked toward the source of the sound, only to discover that the longsword in Tang Yao's hand was flashing with a brilliant red light, as if flames were Burning on the blade. With one slash, it sank into the protective shield that had been blocking all their attacks as easily as cutting through butter. Then, the tip of the blade grazed the Millennium Tree Demon's trunk, causing a -7 normal damage, and immediately after, a cluster of flames ignited on the spot where the Millennium Tree Demon was attacked, and another number, -10, with a flame effect, popped up.

Seeing this, Xiao Niao was momentarily stunned.

It took a couple of blinks for the thought to process in his mind before he realized that a special trait attached to the longsword in Tang Yao's hand had been triggered.

He had seen the attributes of the two pieces of equipment Hu Gualing had crafted. He remembered that the full name of Tang Yao's longsword was 'scorching sharp longsword'. Sharpness naturally referred to its cutting ability; when attacking, it had a chance to ignore a certain amount of the target's defense. Although the trigger rate for this trait wasn't very high, since leaving Xiao Huang Village and fighting for a good portion of the day, Xiao Niao had seen this 'Sharpness' trait trigger several times.

As for the 'Scorching' prefix, it corresponded to another trait: 'when attacking, there is a small chance to inflict Burning damage lasting 10s'. This small chance might be truly minuscule; in Xiao Niao's memory, it seemed that apart from this time, it had never triggered before, to the point that he had even forgotten that the longsword in Tang Yao's hand had such a trait.

However, triggering it at this moment gave him a glimmer of possibility for defeating the Millennium Tree Demon.

"Speed up the output!" Seeing hope, Xiao Niao shouted excitedly, clenching his fists. He raised the water bowl in his hand and gulped down all the remaining fresh water, hoping to seize the time to recover a bit of mana to provide some support for Tang Yao and Gualing.

Tang Yao was also stunned after withdrawing her longsword. She paused for a blink or two, watching the brilliant firelight on the blade dim and turn into dark red starlike fragments embedded in the sword's body, which restored the longsword to its original appearance. It was only then that Tang Yao realized that the dark red fragments Hu Gualing had added as a superfluous touch when crafting this longsword actually had this function—not only could they cause Burning damage, but they could also emit a bright red firelight, which looked quite beautiful! It was just that the trigger rate was a bit too low; she had been fighting with this sword for a long time, and this was the first time it had triggered.

As Tang Yao thought about this, she heard Xiao Niao's shout and immediately swung her longsword to slash at the Millennium Tree Demon's trunk again. However, to her disappointment, the protective shield enveloping the Millennium Tree Demon's body was not broken by the fact that her longsword had pierced through it when the 'Scorching' trait triggered just now. Instead, it closed up and mended immediately after she withdrew her sword, without leaving the slightest trace of having been sliced open. This caused Tang Yao's longsword to land on the protective shield around the Millennium Tree Demon again, and accompanied by the sound of metal striking stone, only a -2 damage number popped up.

As for Hu Gualing, his fists moved rapidly, raining down blows upon the Millennium Tree Demon. Although it looked very inspiring, and the damage numbers were as numerous as raindrops, they were all uniformly -1. It was flashy but useless. The only commendable thing was that due to the protective shield, Hu Gualing's fists no longer had to strike the Millennium Tree Demon's incredibly hard bark and trunk, so there was temporarily no reflected damage. But thinking about it carefully, this might not necessarily be a good thing, because without the reflected damage, the healing-when-injured trait of the 'pants of the vibrant white boar' he was wearing couldn't be utilized, and he could no longer heal himself.

Fortunately, the Burning effect caused by the 'scorching sharp longsword' in Tang Yao's hand just now was not a one-time thing; it continued to burn on the Millennium Tree Demon's trunk. Even with the protective shield outside, the wound on the Millennium Tree Demon's trunk inside continued to burn, and a '-10' damage number with a flame effect kept popping out at a frequency of once per second. Furthermore, as the flames burned and caused Burning damage, the Millennium Tree Demon's HP regeneration speed seemed to be not as fast as before, as if it had been suppressed by the Burning damage.

Ten seconds passed. The Burning damage, at a rate of -10 damage per second, dealt a total of 100 points of damage to the Millennium Tree Demon, causing the Millennium Tree Demon's HP, which had previously been healed to 210 by Xiao Niao casting six 'Recovery Spell's in one breath, to drop back down to 100.