93: The "Gua Sha" Art of the Poison God
The "three-dimensional assault" tactic proposed by Lin Mo was undoubtedly crazy, imaginative, and could even be said to violate the traditional philosophy of MMORPG raiding.
Traditional tactics emphasize the Shield Warrior holding the aggro, the Healer keeping the Life up, and the Ranged DPS outputting damage—a stable, three-point line of attack.
However, Lin Mo's tactic required melee classes to leave the Healer's range, climb onto the Boss like assassins, and perform "attachment-style" damage output.
To any orthodox game commander, this would be considered pure nonsense.
But, none of those present were "orthodox" players.
They were the most elite and unruly group of formidable individuals in the entire Chinese server!
Adventure and the thrill of challenge flowed in their very blood!
"Damn it, let's do it!"
"Climb onto the Boss to fight? That sounds exciting!"
"I've been playing games for so many years, and I've never fought a Boss like this! Count me in!"
After a brief moment of shock, the melee classes in the team burst forth with wolf-like excitement in their eyes.
"One Sword to Seal the Throat! You go left, I go right!" another swordsman in the team, "Wind's Whisper," shouted.
The two, with perfect synergy, simultaneously activated their acceleration skills, turning into two streaks of light and rushing toward Hydra's massive body from two different directions.
"Rogue group, follow me! Let's see who can climb to the head first!" a Rogue with the ID "Ghost Shadow" low-roared, activating Sprint, and leading the other three Rogues like shadows hugging the ground, close behind.
Even Iron Wall, the off-Shield Warrior, felt his blood surge.
He flung his shield behind his back and roared, "Brother Mo! I'm coming too!" With that, he also started running toward the Boss.
For a moment, the entire battlefield presented a magnificent yet incredibly bizarre scene.
Led by Blazing Red Lips and Every Calculation, the Ranged DPS scattered into a huge fan shape, unleashing full firepower, firmly suppressing Hydra's three snake heads.
Streaks of dazzling magic and arrows, like the grandest fireworks of a festival, exploded on the snake heads, forcing them to struggle to cope, with no time to spare for the "fleas" on their bodies.
Meanwhile, the melee group, led by Lin Mo, put on a stunning "rock climbing" performance.
They each displayed their unique skills, like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea.
Lin Mo, needless to say, used Ghost Shadow Step combined with the hilt strike of his dagger, allowing him to flip up and down the Boss like a nimble monkey, constantly searching for gaps between the scales to inject his Deadly Poison layer by layer into Hydra's body.
The two swordsmen, One Sword to Seal the Throat and Wind's Whisper, embodied "gracefulness" to the extreme.
The longswords in their hands were no longer just instruments of killing; they were more like ice axes for climbing.
Each swing was precisely wedged into the connection points of the scales, allowing them to leap upward, their movements so fluid that they seemed to be dancing on a cliff face.
The Rogues leveraged their class advantages to the fullest.
Like maggots clinging to bone, they stuck tightly to the shadowed side of the Boss, using Shadow Step for short-distance warps, silently climbing upward, their poisoned daggers continuously dealing massive damage to the severed necks of the Boss.
The most astonishing, however, was Iron Wall.
This honest Shield Warrior had no fancy techniques; he chose the most clumsy, yet most direct, method.
"Ha!"
With a loud shout, he directly activated Recklessness, abandoning all defense and pouring all his strength into his arms.
Then... he literally used his bare hands to pry into the gaps between Hydra's scales, step by step, forcefully "pulling" himself up!
"Holy cow! Iron Wall, are you even human?" Every Calculation exclaimed in the team channel when he saw this.
"Hehe, I don't have much else, just a lot of strength!" Iron Wall's honest laughter was particularly noticeable amid the fierce battle.
Just like that, with the near-perfect cooperation of all members, this seemingly impossible battle was actually stabilized!
Hydra fell into complete frenzy.
Its massive body twisted wildly, trying to shake off the ants clinging to it.
But the members of the melee group were like the stickiest taffy; no matter how it rolled, they clung tightly, their weapons constantly aimed at the hideous severed necks, outputting damage frantically!
"-6021! (Weakness)"
"-5899! (Weakness)"
"-250 (Poison)"
"-250 (Poison)"
A string of damage numbers poured out like a waterfall from Hydra's six severed necks.
And Lin Mo, as the chief director of this "abrasive" art, was in a league of his own regarding damage dealt.
Every one of his attacks accurately triggered a weakness critical hit.
His core damage method was the unpredictable Endless Poison Source.
In less than a minute, he had successfully stacked over fifty layers of Deadly Poison on the severed neck he was responsible for!
"-1250 (Poison)"
"-1250 (Poison)"
"-1250 (Poison)"
Every second, thousands of Deadly Poison damage ticks erupted from the Boss's weakness.
Although the single-hit damage was not as earth-shattering as Blazing Red Lips' Fireball, its strength lay in its continuous, unending nature!
This was the most terrifying aspect of the Poison God!
His damage had no upper limit!
As time ticked by, Hydra's health bar, which was originally displayed as "???", finally slowly revealed itself under the group's frantic assault.
95%... 90%... 85%...
The health was decreasing at a slow but incredibly determined pace!
The dawn of victory seemed to be right before their eyes!
However, the moment Hydra's health dropped to 80%, a sudden change occurred!
"Roar—!!!"
A shriek, more agonizing and furious than any before, erupted simultaneously from all of Hydra's snake heads!
A visible dark red shockwave violently spread out, centered on its body!
Ancient Rage!
"Damn it! It's the Boss's Berserk skill!" The alarm bells went off in Lin Mo's mind.
"Everyone! Activate damage reduction! Hold on tight!"
His warning was a step too late.
The dark red shockwave, containing an irresistible immense force, slammed into all the melee players.
"-10000!"
"-10000!"
A fixed damage number, enough to instantly kill any squishy class, appeared above the heads of all melee players!
Even with their excellent gear and high Life pools, their health bars instantly bottomed out from this single blow!
More critically, the immense shockwave directly flung them off the Boss's body, like kites with severed strings!
"Splash!" "Splash!"
A series of splashing sounds rang out; all the melee players, including Lin Mo, were shaken off into the underground dark river below!
The icy cold river water instantly submerged them, and a powerful undercurrent tugged at their bodies, threatening to drag them into the endless abyss.
"Damn it!"
Lin Mo barely managed to stabilize himself in the water, but a terrifying debuff appeared in his status bar.
[Surging Undercurrent: Your mobility is greatly reduced, and you lose 5% of your maximum Life every second.]
"Quick! Get ashore!" The frantic shouts of the melee players echoed in the team channel.
However, would Hydra give them that chance?
The three massive snake heads now had blood-red eyes; they abandoned their attack on the Ranged DPS group and uniformly turned toward the melee players in the river!
Fire, Deadly Poison, Frost!
Three streams of world-destroying energy began to fiercely converge in their mouths!
"It's over!"
These two words flashed through the minds of everyone who witnessed the scene.
Falling into the water, restricted movement, suffering a continuous damage debuff, and now facing a Trinity focused attack from the Boss... this was a checkmate!
"No! There's still a chance!"
Just at this critical moment, Lin Mo's voice once again exploded in everyone's ears like thunder!
"Summer Rain! Drinking Alone Under the Moon! Abandon us! Use Leap of Faith on the Ranged DPS group! Pull them to the opposite bank!"
"What?!" Summer Rain and Drinking Alone Under the Moon were stunned.
Leap of Faith is a Priest's top-tier skill, which instantly pulls a teammate to their side.
Lin Mo's meaning was to have them abandon the melee group and save the relatively safer Ranged DPS group?
"Stop talking nonsense! Execute the order!" Lin Mo's tone brooked no argument.
Although confused, out of absolute trust in Lin Mo, the two god-tier Priests immediately complied.
Two streaks of pure white light flashed, and Blazing Red Lips and Every Calculation were instantly pulled from this side of the river to the other!
"Team Leader, you..." Blazing Red Lips was both shocked and angry, completely unable to understand why Lin Mo would do this.
And in the very next second, she understood.
After giving his final command, Lin Mo did not try to get ashore; instead, he took a deep breath and deliberately submerged himself in the river bottom!
Simultaneously, he uttered one last word to everyone in the team.
"Burst!"
Poison Burst!
He detonated the over one hundred layers of Endless Poison Source he had previously stacked on Hydra's severed neck!
"Boom—!!!"
An indescribable dark green energy violently erupted from within Hydra's body!
Those one hundred-plus layers of Deadly Poison, under the 100% damage bonus from his talent, were instantly detonated simultaneously!
A jade-green damage number, which silenced the entire cavern and left everyone stunned, slowly floated up from above Hydra's head.
"-528888!"
A terrifying damage of over five hundred thousand!
"Roar...!"
Hydra let out the most painful and bloodcurdling shriek since its birth.
Its vital spot, its weak point, felt as if the most violent Deadly Poison in the world had been injected into it, frantically eroding its Life essence!
In the midst of the extreme pain, the skills of its three snake heads, which had already finished charging, instantly went out of control!
Fire, Deadly Poison, and Frost—the three energies violently exploded in its own mouth, blasting itself into a bloody mess!
And its massive body, due to the terrifying internal explosion, completely lost its balance and crashed down like a falling mountain of gold and jade!
The direction it fell was precisely the area where the melee players had fallen into the water!
"Rumble—!"
The colossal body smashed into the river, stirring up monstrous waves.
The originally turbulent dark river was, incredibly, completely... cut off by its massive body!
The river water vanished, exposing the muddy riverbed and the melee players who were desperately struggling in the muck, having lost the water's buoyancy.
The crisis, in this instant, was resolved in a way no one had ever anticipated!
Everyone stared blankly at the scene, their minds empty.
They looked at the man who slowly rose from the mud, covered in filth, yet whose figure stood like a god or demon, and only one thought remained in their hearts.
This man... is he still human?
Using himself as bait, making an extreme prediction, and using a suicidal Poison Burst to not only deal world-shattering damage but also use the Boss's body to cut off the river and resolve the team's desperate situation... this was no longer something that could be explained by skill and awareness.
This was art!
It was the bloody yet magnificent art of combat, belonging solely to Lin Mo, the Poison God!