39: Chapter 39 Wait... why is your normal attack damage so high?!

As a Hero-grade boss, Iron Jaw already possessed a certain level of intelligence.

Seeing that his damage completely failed to break defense, question marks slowly surfaced one after another in his mind.

This... isn't right, is it?

He was, after all, one of the top powerhouses in the entire Goblin Lair!

Under normal circumstances, how could a Tier 0 professional completely fail to break defense?

This human was only at level 9!

Iron Jaw's small brain couldn't comprehend the current situation, and he stood frozen in place for a moment.

The bonfire's light danced upon his menacing skull helmet, casting flickering lights in the triangular eyes within the helmet's gaps; his gaze contained a bit less cruelty and a bit more bewilderment.

Compared to Iron Jaw, the minds of Rebecca and the other three were completely blank.

Especially Rebecca.

She stood in place holding her half-shield, her dark blue eyes beneath her faceplate wide open.

What... How much defense must one have to make a Hero-grade boss with an attack as high as 185 fail to break defense even when using a skill?!

And this guy didn't even defend!

He took the damage purely with his raw stats!

She considered her own defense to be extremely strong, but she wouldn't even dare to imagine that she could be immune to a Hero-grade boss's damage!

Who on earth was the tank here?!

This guy... Having powerful attacks and an extremely long attack range was one thing, but why was his defense so absurd as well??

How could there be such an all-around, dead-angle-free rookie professional??

Shen Qingci, Lance, and Zhu Tongchen were equally shaken beyond measure.

Shen Qingci stood not far from Rebecca's side and rear, the crystal at the tip of her staff still faintly glowing.

She pursed her red lips, her pure and bright eyes fixing unblinkingly on Lu Yang, the brilliance in her eyes layering one upon another.

Shock, curiosity, admiration, worship... various emotions intertwined together.

As for Lance and Zhu Tongchen, they were completely convinced at this moment.

There was even a look of worship in the eyes of the two as they looked at Lu Yang.

Comprehensive!

Too comprehensive!

No wonder even a top Genius like Lady Shangguan came to act as his guardian!

Brother Lu was simply the most powerful Genius in human history, right?!

As long as Brother Lu did not die, his future self would at the very least be a Tier 6 Galaxy-grade powerhouse!

Even... it was possible to surpass Tier 6!

If Brother Lu could truly surpass Tier 6, then their Blue Star Alliance would become the first race in the Milky Way to possess a Tier 7 Star Domain-grade powerhouse!

At that time, the entire Blue Star Alliance would become a faction of its own tier, and human civilization would completely surpass the other three top civilizations, completing a true civilizational leap!

Compared to the shock of Rebecca and the other three, Lu Yang's inner heart was quite calm.

After all, his current defense was stacked with full layers of War Frenzy.

Currently, Lu Yang's defense had already exceeded six hundred points!

With such a high amount of defense, it was completely reasonable that Iron Jaw's mere 185 attack points could not break defense even when using a skill.

He had originally planned to tag along for a few hits and watch these four people's performance in the boss battle, but he didn't expect that Iron Jaw would directly attack him.

It seemed that this short spear throwing skill should be cast at long-distance targets; he just didn't know if it was randomly designated or prioritized locking onto the farthest target.

Just as Lu Yang was pondering, Iron Jaw had already snapped out of it.

His small brain couldn't figure out why his skill failed to break defense; since he couldn't figure it out, he simply stopped thinking about it.

He squeezed the giant wolf's belly with his legs, and the giant wolf let out a thick, low roar; the airflow squeezed from its chest abruptly blew the bonfire's flames down by half.

Iron Jaw gripped that nearly five-meter-long pitch-black lance with both hands, violently twisting his body with the power of his waist and abdomen, sweeping the lance horizontally.

The lance pierced through the air, and the dull whistling sound it brought along exploded in the cavern.

Veins bulged violently on Iron Jaw's two thick arms, and dark brown muscles bulged between the gaps of his iron armor; where the lance swept past, it even stirred up a fierce wind, blowing the gravel and bone fragments on the surrounding ground clatteringly outward.

Rebecca had also snapped back to her senses.

Facing the aggressive horizontal sweep of the lance, Rebecca showed no panic, striking the most standard defensive posture: knees bent, center of gravity lowered, legs standing front and back, holding up her half-shield, the shield surface slightly tilted at an extremely small angle to block in front of her.

The huge lance landed on the half-shield, and a piercing sound of metal clashing rang out, sharp enough to tighten one's eardrums, echoing in the empty cavern.

The sun rune on the shield surface was struck into splattering golden light, and a terrifying force penetrated through the shield surface, surging all the way along Rebecca's arm into her shoulder and torso.

Rebecca's expression changed slightly; under this immense force, she retreated two steps in succession, her boot soles dragging two shallow scrape marks on the rocky ground before she completely unloaded the force.

At the same time, a damage number floated above Rebecca's head.

"-102! (Block)"

This damage made Rebecca's expression a bit more solemn.

Her shield was, after all, a Legendary-grade shield; even with a successful block, she still lost this much HP, which showed just how terrifying this guy's attack was.

Fortunately, her attribute allocation was entirely in Stamina, combined with her full set of Legendary equipment and the maximum HP bonus brought by [Unyielding Holy Body].

Her current maximum HP exceeded two thousand points!

This also gave Rebecca sufficient fault tolerance!

Just as Rebecca was pondering, the giant wolf beneath Iron Jaw suddenly opened its bloody maw, its mouthful of sharp teeth gleaming with a turbid luster under the bonfire's reflection, each tooth as long as a finger.

The giant wolf lunged fiercely, the grayish-black mane on its neck bristling up one by one, its upper and lower jaws opened to a huge angle, viciously biting down toward Rebecca.

Rebecca had just been knocked back by Iron Jaw and hadn't stabilized yet, making it difficult to set up a defensive posture; she could only barely dodge sideways.

Even so, the giant wolf's sharp teeth still landed on the plate armor of her left arm.

The teeth and metal rubbed against each other, producing a teeth-aching squeaking sound, and a sharp pain surged from her arm.

At the same time, a high damage number floated out.

"-155!"

As the damage floated out, a thread of blood seeped from the gaps in the plate armor on Rebecca's left arm, and an unnatural dark red glow flickered at the wound, waves of continuous sharp pain spreading from there toward her whole body.

She quickly glanced at her negative status effect and immediately frowned.

Torn!

The giant wolf's bite had a tearing and bleeding effect!

Just as Rebecca saw this effect, a number floated above her head once more.

"-40!"

In just a single round of attacks, Rebecca had already lost close to three hundred HP.

She let out a cold snort and did not retreat, flipping her right wrist; the sun pattern on the golden longsword suddenly lit up, its tip wrapped in a layer of scorching Holy Light, thrusting toward the giant wolf's left eye.

The giant wolf let out a low roar, wanting to back up and dodge.

But Rebecca's thrusting speed was extremely fast, clearly also a skill; although it failed to hit the giant wolf's eye, it still fiercely grazed across the giant wolf's left cheek.

The golden blade cut open the grayish-black fur, leaving a horrific bloody gash deep enough to see bone at the cheekbone position.

"-100!"

Unfortunately, Rebecca was not an output class after all; even though the weapon in her hand was Legendary-grade and she used a skill, the damage dealt was still not very high.

Of course, Rebecca's skill was not meant for output; the [Holy Pierce] skill was a single-target aggro skill.

Once it hit the target, the target would experience the excruciating pain of Holy Light burning the Soul, and at the same time, even their consciousness would be affected, causing them to frantically attack her for a short time!

Sure enough, the eyes of the giant wolf instantly turned blood red after being pierced.

It let out an angry roar that resounded through the cavern, its four giant paws scraping the ground as it frantically bit down at Rebecca like a madman.

Iron Jaw on its back was also implicated in his mind by this strike; the rationality in the triangular eyes beneath his helmet receded a bit further, and gripping the lance tightly with both hands, he smashed down at Rebecca wildly, lance after lance.

Just at this moment, an ice-blue light abruptly cut through the dim air above the battlefield.

That was an incomparably sharp ice spear, nearly two meters long, with white cold mist entwining around the spear shaft; it ripped through the air at an extremely fast speed, piercing straight at Iron Jaw's chest.

Although Iron Jaw noticed the attack, this ice spear was simply too fast; moreover, Shen Qingci's spell-casting timing was captured with extreme precision, choosing precisely the instant when Iron Jaw's lance had just smashed down and his center of gravity hadn't been retracted yet.

He was completely unable to dodge, and could only watch helplessly as the ice spear landed on his breastplate.

Bang!!

The ice spear shattered, countless tiny ice crystals blooming into a white flower in front of Iron Jaw's chest.

A thick layer of white frost instantly covered the surface of the black breastplate.

"-402!"

A high damage number of over four hundred floated out from Iron Jaw's head, and his health bar finally moved visibly to the naked eye.

However, Shen Qingci frowned, somewhat dissatisfied.

She was also outfitted in a full set of Legendary equipment; under the blessing of [Frost Piercing Bone], Ice Spear could only deal a little over four hundred damage?

This boss's defense was so high!

Almost at the exact same moment the ice spear shattered, Zhu Tongchen revealed himself from the darkness.

He had no superfluous charging actions; the whole person seemed to have grown directly out of Iron Jaw's shadow, a dim light flashing on his two short daggers as they cleanly and neatly stabbed into the giant wolf's hindquarters.

"-224! (Critical Hit) "

"-222! (Critical Hit) "

The moment he appeared, Zhu Tongchen's hands swung out afterimages.

That pair of slender and powerful hands thrust out continuously at a dazzling speed, the frequency of the daggers going in and out being extremely fast; damage numbers floated out from Iron Jaw's body continuously one after another, and nearly half of the damage were critical hits!

While clearing the small monsters just now, the stack count of Zhu Tongchen's [Killing Instinct] had already been fully stacked.

It increased critical strike rate by a full 50%, critical strike damage by 200%, and attack speed by 100%!

At this moment, his single-target output firepower was fully open, and the damage from his dagger's strikes was densely packed beyond compare.

Even Shen Qingci, under this kind of single-target combat, might not necessarily compare to Zhu Tongchen in terms of output!

And just as the battle entered a white-hot state, Lu Yang leisurely ran over to Iron Jaw's side.

His pace was unhurried, his posture as leisurely as if he had just finished a meal and came out for a walk to digest food, forming a sharp contrast with the surrounding sparkling battlefield where clanging and banging echoed everywhere.

He glanced at his own attack power.

Under the blessing of [War Frenzy], it had reached over 980 points.

Mm...

With this single sword strike down, who knew how much damage it could cause?

It should still hurt a little bit, right?

Lu Yang felt a bit curious in his heart and intended to try it out with full force first.

Then he planned to weaken his power and slowly tag along with Rebecca and the others.

He grasped the hilt of the two-handed sword with his right hand, raised the sword and stepped forward, swung his arm, and then the sword disappeared.

Lu Yang's attack speed was simply too fast.

Under the blessing of the golden Legendary-grade Soul Talent [Streamer Speed], he had increased his attack speed by a full 150%!

This was faster than the attack speed of Zhu Tongchen, who was an assassin and had fully stacked [Killing Instinct]!

The giant wolf didn't even react to the fact that it had been slashed.

Until two bone-deep sword scars emerged on its waist, the grayish-black wolf fur curling up along with the torn flesh, and scorching wolf blood splashing onto the rocky ground with a faint sizzling sound, did it feel that delayed, excruciating pain.

"-702!"

"-702! (Double Basic Attack)"

With just a single strike, accompanied by the talent damage of a double basic attack, Iron Jaw's health bar dropped by a huge chunk.

He only had 13,000 HP in total, and this single strike directly dealt 1,400 HP of damage, which already exceeded one-tenth of his health bar.

Lu Yang himself was slightly stunned for a moment, a trace of oddity welling up in his heart.

He found... that his melee capability seemed not bad either, especially after stacking [War Frenzy] to the max, alongside his dual auras whose damage was already off the charts.

Just when Lu Yang was a bit surprised, right beside him, Zhu Tongchen—who was frantically poking the giant wolf's butt—slowed down his attacks by half a beat.

On his usually calm face, which almost never had superfluous expressions, a twisted expression resembling having seen a ghost surfaced at this moment.

"Come on, Big Brother... Your basic attack deals over seven hundred damage???"

"...On what grounds?!"

"How are we supposed to play like this?!"