38: Chapter 38 Damage That Cannot Break Through Defense

"Clear the minion mobs first, just in case! Furthermore, find a good escape route. If the aggro of these minion mobs and the boss is linked, having an escape route is the only way we can guarantee our safety to fight again another day!" said Rebecca, her tone calm and completely different from her usual giggly self.

For Professionals, preserving one's life was the first lesson to learn, and also the most important one!

Zhu Tongchen spoke quietly, "I've memorized the path we walked earlier. There are three narrower fork roads, each about two meters wide. All three of those fork roads can lead to the dungeon exit."

Hearing this, the eyes of several people immediately lit up.

Lance clapped his hands and said excitedly, "That makes it simple! In case the aggro is linked, we'll just head down the narrowest fork road. As long as classmate Rebecca blocks the exit, we might just be able to clear this boss directly by leveraging the terrain."

Rebecca rested her golden longsword on the edge of her shield, her tone spirited and quite confident as she said, "I have no problem with that, as long as you keep my health healed up, Lance."

...

The discussion among the four was quite intense, with each adding details back and forth.

Just in case, they rattled off several tactical plans in one go—ranging from frontal assault and protracted attrition to extreme escape—with corresponding countermeasures for every single scenario.

Even their final retreat route was specified down to the exact fork in the road, who would retreat first, and who would cover the rear.

Although simulation strategies for dungeon clearing were taught in school, being able to face an unknown boss and terrain in an actual dungeon and flexibly formulate multiple interlocking tactics was quite a difficult feat in itself.

Evidently, the simulation strategy class scores of these four must all have been quite good.

None of the four factored Lu Yang's strength into their plans for this boss fight; clearly, they intended to simulate clearing the boss independently without Lu Yang intervening.

Regarding this, Lu Yang was more than happy to see it happen.

He leaned steadily against the rock wall, waiting for them to finalize the plan.

The firelight from the huge bonfire in the center of the cave cast a flickering glow upon his face from afar. His expression was quite leisurely, making him look more like he was on a picnic rather than tackling a dungeon.

After a long while, the four finally finished their final discussion.

Shen Qingci looked at Lu Yang, a pure and sweet smile on her pretty face, and asked with a hint of small smugness in her tone, "Classmate Lu Yang? How is it? Is our tactic acceptable?"

The other three turned to look at Lu Yang one after another, waiting for him to give an evaluation.

Lu Yang smiled slightly and said sincerely, "You guys have already summarized it very well. To be honest, my scores in dungeon simulation strategies might not necessarily surpass yours."

Although Lu Yang wasn't stupid, he didn't consider himself a strategic Genius with an exceptionally sharp mind.

His dungeon simulation strategy classes only ever got upper-tier ratings; they couldn't be considered top-notch.

Back then, several students from No. 4 High School had exceptionally outstanding dungeon clearing strategies. Some of their ideas were unconstrained and their trains of thought so tricky that even the teachers praised them in admiration. Their answers were even used by the school for a whole-school exhibition for all students to study.

Lu Yang felt admiration upon seeing them, and could only say that people's brains are just built differently.

That being said, no matter how good a dungeon strategy was made, one still needed to undergo an Awakening into a combat class in order to fully unleash this talent.

Otherwise, everything was just empty talk on paper.

As for Lu Yang, it was a completely different story.

He was a hybrid monster of stats plus mechanics.

Since he could simply overpower everything, why bother using his brain?

If he truly possessed super intelligence, that super intelligence would definitely tell him that it was time to use his super strength.

Lu Yang thought to himself with a bit of self-mockery, unable to help chuckling in his heart.

Seeing Lu Yang say this, Shen Qingci and the other three all smiled.

Rebecca took a deep breath, her expression turning serious.

She pulled down the visor on her helmet, concealing her bright and captivating pretty face, and said in a solemn tone, "Let's begin! Zhu Tongchen, go draw the monsters!"

In fact, the best candidate for drawing monsters was a shooter-type class.

It was a pity their team didn't have a shooter.

In that case, an assassin-type class was also acceptable.

After all, an assassin made relatively little commotion and wasn't prone to attracting the attention of a large area of monsters.

Zhu Tongchen nodded silently, sneaking lightly toward the edge of the large camp with nimble steps.

His leather boots stepped onto the gravel ground with almost no sound, his entire body hugging the rock wall as he blended into the dimness.

Before he had taken many steps, black mist surged from around his body to swallow him whole, leaving behind only a wisp of dissipating dark vapor in his place.

Under the cover of stealth, he crept to the edge of the camp.

Protruding his figure from beside a collapsed tent, he picked up a small pebble the size of a fingernail from the ground and gently tossed it to the feet of the Hobgoblin closest to the cave entrance.

That Hobgoblin, who was wandering around blindly holding a broken axe, looked down and uttered a muffled, confused nasal sound, "Hmm?"

The next moment, as if pretending not to see it, it intended to continue wandering around blindly.

Just at that moment, a stone landed on its lower leg.

The Hobgoblin abruptly raised its head, its triangular eyes glaring toward the cave entrance, and emitted a low rumble in its throat.

Afterward, it turned around and muttered a few words to several elite Goblins near the tent behind it.

Soon, around seven or eight elite Goblins near that tent followed this Hobgoblin and walked toward the cave entrance.

Zhu Tongchen had all along remained hidden in the dark, his steps nimble as he continuously tossed stones.

Very quickly, he lured this group of elite Goblins to a position about a hundred meters away from the large camp.

Right at this moment, a platinum-gold light suddenly lit up from the dim corner of the cave.

Rebecca transformed into a white afterimage, rushing out from the dark like a cannonball as her half-shield slammed fiercely into the chest of the foremost Hobgoblin.

Immediately following that, her golden longsword traced an arc, its blade sweeping horizontally across to completely engulf the surrounding several elite Goblins who hadn't had time to react.

Simultaneously, an azure-blue ice ball whizzed in from behind, landing precisely in the exact center of the few Goblin hunters and Goblin slingers in the back row.

Boom!!

The ice ball shattered, countless ice shards shooting out in all directions, tracing dense blue trajectories through the dim cave.

Almost in an instant, aside from the three thick-blooded and high-defense Hobgoblins and the two Goblin hunters hiding behind the rocks, all the other elite Goblins were instantly killed.

Although the remaining Hobgoblins and Goblin hunters were still alive, under Shen Qingci's continuous Spell bombardment and Zhu Tongchen's flanking dagger strikes, they didn't last even a few seconds.

Because the minion mobs and the boss did not have linked aggro, the subsequent operations to clear the minions became extremely relaxed.

It only required Zhu Tongchen to go out and lure the elite Goblins over, and then the several of them could gang up and beat them together.

As for Lu Yang, to prevent his aura's damage from alarming the elite Goblins ahead of time, he even reduced his aura's range down to ten meters.

It took close to half an hour to clear out all the minion mobs within the entire large camp, including the two chieftains mixed among them.

Currently, only the Goblin Knight, Iron Jaw, remained leaning against the giant wolf's back, dozing off.

Perhaps due to the restrictions of the dungeon rules, this Goblin Knight's aggro range didn't seem to be very large.

Over a hundred lackeys were lured away in batches and beaten to death a hundred meters away. Screams and explosions echoed in the cave for half an hour, yet this Lord Knight actually still had the mood to close his eyes and doze.

If it were Lu Yang, he would have rushed out to beat people up long ago.

Facing the final Hero-grade boss, Rebecca took a deep breath and said in a serious tone, "According to the previous tactics, let's begin."

Lance nodded, waving the staff in his hand repeatedly.

Clusters of soft, milky-white light flew out from the tip of the staff, landing successively onto the bodies of Lu Yang, Shen Qingci, Rebecca, and Zhu Tongchen.

The light transformed into a pale-white, translucent barrier of light that gently clung to the surface of each person's body, shimmering with a faint fluorescence.

Lu Yang glanced at his status bar.

This skill was called [Holy Light Shield], which could block 500 points of damage.

This surprised Lu Yang a bit.

To be able to block 500 points of damage at the beginner stage was already quite good.

You must know that many tank classes might not even have such a high amount of health in the early stages.

However, after the Holy Light Shield was broken, it took 30 seconds before it could be reapplied.

This could also be considered a weakness.

Lance re-applied the buff effects for the few of them.

He checked the buff statuses one final time, and after confirming nothing was missed, he let out a breath, his small round face filled with seriousness: "We're good to go!"

Rebecca took a deep breath, a sharp glint carried within her blue eyes beneath her visor.

The next moment, she let out a low shout, transforming into a stream of light interwoven with gold and white as she charged toward the dozing Goblin Knight, Iron Jaw.

Every step she took on the ground produced a dull metal impact sound, her speed growing faster and faster while the wind she kicked up wailed through the spacious cave.

The instant Rebecca closed in to about fifty meters from Iron Jaw, Iron Jaw abruptly opened his eyes, a flash of cruelty flickering within them.

The giant wolf beneath him opened its eyes at almost the exact same moment.

Iron Jaw and the giant wolf stood up simultaneously, and then Iron Jaw vaulted onto the giant wolf's back. Riding atop the equally massive mount with his nearly three-meter-tall giant body, the sense of oppression he brought was practically tangible. A large swath of the bonfire's light was blocked by his figure, casting a long shadow on the ground.

Just as Iron Jaw reached out to pull out that pitch-black lance stuck in the rock, Rebecca had already rushed right in front of him.

Running at full sprint in her heavy battle armor, the impact force Rebecca brought was extremely terrifying. Coupled with the weight of her suit of plate armor, her momentum was comparable to a flying car driving at full speed!

Rebecca's shield smashed fiercely toward the giant wolf's waist.

However, the giant wolf was far more agile than she had anticipated.

The instant the shield was about to smash into its flank, the giant wolf imperceptibly adjusted its posture. Sinking its shoulder blades, its massive wolf head abruptly lowered, meeting the shield's impact head-on with the hardest cranium of its entire head.

Bang!!

A dull impact sound exploded in the cave, and the giant wolf emitted a low, painful growl.

The firelight was shaken a few times by the aftermath of the impact, kicking up a small patch of dust from the ground.

Simultaneously, the four of them—Shen Qingci, Zhu Tongchen, Lance, and Lu Yang—also ran toward the direction of Rebecca and Iron Jaw.

Compared to the nervousness of Shen Qingci, Zhu Tongchen, and Lance, Lu Yang ran leisurely at the very back.

Right at this moment, Iron Jaw let out a deafening roar, his voice harsh and violent: "You have invaded a knight's territory!"

Amidst the roar, Iron Jaw reached out and pulled a javelin out from the leather pouch on the giant wolf's flank.

His arm was incomparably thick, yet the instant he swung it out, it was unimaginably fast, with the naked eye only able to capture a blurred afterimage.

The javelin whistled out wrapped in a sharp wind-breaking sound, its spearhead tracing a cold glint under the reflection of the bonfire.

The target of that javelin was Lu Yang, who was running at the very back and strolling leisurely as if he were out for a walk.

Lu Yang completely hadn't expected this javelin to shoot toward him, and he was momentarily stunned.

He was neither the tank rushing at the very front nor the DPS throwing Spells in the back row; how did this boss happen to fancy him?

Yet in this split second, the javelin had already landed on the Holy Light Shield.

The pale-white light barrier quivered slightly, and then the javelin bounced off.

A damage number floated out from above Lu Yang's head.

-0!

Iron Jaw: "?"

Rebecca and the others: "?"

Lu Yang: "…"

The atmosphere grew quiet for a moment, and everyone silently looked at that damage that failed to break defense.