Zhan Long
chapter-434

“ShaSha……”

My battle boots slid down the slope covered with sand and stones while my Emperor Qin’s Sword dragged across the ground to keep my balance. I was the first to drop onto the fourth level of the Grave of the Warring States. After falling for almost hundred meters, my view suddenly brightened. The fourth level was also another world. In the distance, the sun was bending in the west while the boundless wilderness had no beasts or any other small animals, and there were only decayed and rotten battlefield relics.

“Shua!”

Behind me, Wan Er also slid down and bumped into my back softly. She then held my arm and flashed a smile, “Quick move forward, otherwise we’ll be knocked down by General Li Mu!”

I pulled her up and hurriedly walked several steps away. As I looked back, the Grave of the Warring States entrance from the third level to the fourth level was embedded within a small pathway through the mountains. It looked like a small hole that was dug out by a pangolin.

Li Mu, Matcha, Wolf and Dong Cheng Yue entered the fourth level’s world one by one. As they stared at the magnificent scenery blossoming with lights in the distance, every one of them was slightly amazed. The landscape of this level was a lot nicer than the third level.

“Why can’t I see any monsters?” Wolf asked in surprise.

I held up my sword, and walked forward with my Flaming Tiger God and grinned, “We’ll know when we advance forward. There are definitely monsters here though. It’s……Err..it’s 3 a.m. now. Everyone, do your best. Let’s try and finish this level within four hours and complete this SSS rank quest. Actually, the difficulty level of this Grave of the Warring States isn’t that high. We completed it within such a short amount of time. Usually, it would take at least 48 hours to complete a SSS rank main storyline quest, but I estimate that this one will be completed within 24 hours.

Dong Cheng Yue chuckled, “That’s because our equipment, skills and levels have all elevated. If it was our previous standard, then Meng Chang Jun would have been able to destroy our team more than ten times just now.

Wan Er gave a soft smile and agreed,”Dong Cheng is right this time. Even I didn’t notice the growth of our strength.”

I lifted my sword as I stepped up a dirt slope. The moment I looked forward, the scenery in the midst of the wilderness shocked me.

A small cavalry slowly got closer to us. When they were around 40 yards away, I was able to read their stats. They were truly quite a bit stronger than normal Phantom Tier monsters——

[Warring States Armored Horsemen] (Thunder Tier)

Level: 93

Attack: 3200-4050

Defense: 3500

Health: 150000

Skills: [Halberd Throw] [Charge Break] [Iron Heel]

Introduction: Ancient Warring States Armored Horsemen, elite armored horses pick out their own riders who then undergo extremely harsh training and have the strongest killing skills. They are under the command of Xin Lin Jun. These Warring States Armored Horsemen attacked the Qin Army south of the Yellow River, and broke through the defense of the Qin General Meng Ao’s army. They pursued them all the way to Han Gu Pass, and the story of their might shook the world Now, these elite Warring States Armored Horsemen have slept under the dirt for thousands of years always dreaming of vengeance. Any living thing that trespasses upon their territory will be cut into a thousand pieces.

……

Li Mu mumbled, “So cruel! These monsters aren’t even BOSSes, and yet they have 4000 attack. I don’t know what effect they’ll have on my 3000+ defense….”

I grinned, “Of course they’ll break through your defense. What else is there left to say? They’ll probably even break through my 4200 defense. Li Mu, how much is your MaxHP?”

“8500+….”

“That’s pretty good, you can take them on with that amount. In a second I will lure a team of Armored Horsemen over. Let’s have a taste and see if we can really kill them efficiently. There are just too many though. I’ll use [Binding Chains] to grab one, Wan Er and Little Wolf can stun another, while Little Dance can use [Beast Trap] to trap another. After that, I’ll signal to one of them, Dong Cheng, Thousand Suns and Little Dance will all attack that one. Let’s try and kill one within 10 seconds. That way, there won’t be too much danger. Darling Duck and Springs, just make sure you keep on healing us. Li Mu, Matcha and I will block their attacks!”

“Alright!” Everyone was excited. This was the first time we’d ever seen a Thunder Tier monster, so it was impossible to not be so.

……

Pulling out the Emperor Qin Sword and Cold Iron Sword from the sheaths on my back, and stepped forward. From a distance, I raised my Emperor Qin Sword and activated [Great Realm of Desolation]. Three blades appeared and pierced one of the Armored Horsemen!

“4473！”

There wasn’t too much pressure when it comes to breaking their defense, that was good. The Armored Horseman gave out an angry cry, and rushed over with his halberd. The 14 other horsemen followed behind, shouting, “We will defend the dignity of our country!”

I quickly retreated. At the same time, I turned around and swung my sword down, activating [Binding Chains]. Like that, the very first horseman was bound to his original place while the rest rushed past him. The movement speed of these armored horsemen was just too fast, it was almost practically twice my own. I couldn’t even run away from them. Li Mu and Matcha caught up with me to help. I turned around and threw a [Seven Star Fragment Slash] to get some of the aggro. After that, my Cold Iron Sword flew out, as I threw [Blade Spin] into the crowd of horsemen.

Matcha softly called out, using [Justice Provocation] to lure another one. Li Mu on the other hand used [Covering Sword Slash]. Wan Er and Little Wolf stood beside the road and trapped another one of them. With the attacks of Dong Cheng Yue, Thousand Suns over Snowy Lands, and Dancing Forest, the first Armored Horseman fell with a cry within 7 seconds!

“Use your AOE Skills!”

I commanded the Cold Iron Sword to fly out once more, and added onto the aggro that was already on myself.

“Hummmm….”

One after another, the Armored Horsemen raised their halberds and activated [Halberd Throw]. At that moment, I felt a chain of sharp pains in my chest and multiple damage numbers flew up!

“1128！”

“1094！”

“1273！”

……

Within seconds, my health was cut in half. Behind me, Darling Duck immediately yelled out, “[Grip of Compassion]!”

“+8754！”

My health jumped back up to full. Hehe, fourth advancement Healers are so helpful!

The attack power of an Armored Horseman is just too strong. They rushed our team and used [Iron Heel], a skill that had a splash damage effect. The people in the first row lost a lot of health, increasing the pressure on the two Healers a lot. I was continuously signaling which Horseman to attack. Everyone’s pets also joined in on the attack, as we brought down the armored horsemen, one by one. This was the moment the benefits of great teamwork really stood out. In reality, our Healers needed to consider every healing spell’s cooldown and the amount of damage that we were suffering. Darling Duck was extremely smart, and always chose me as the first healing target. Even if I had full health, her heals were always locked onto me, because she knew that I had the most aggro. Over 50% of the attacks from the next wave of monsters was focused on me. Just one attack from them made me lose over 1000 HP. It was just too painful. The heals must be locked onto me or else I would lose my life.

“Ding!” a “Level +1” popped up in front of me. My [Blade Spin] rose to Lv 7. After 30 seconds, there was another pop up, [Wall of Dou Qi] also rose to Lv 7. Like this, my defense rose by quite a bit. With a Lv 7 [Wall of Dou Qi] I would have 140% defense, and my parrying ability would increase as well. Now, it won’t be that easy for enemies to break through!

As expected, once [Wall of Dou Qi] rose to Lv 7, the damage that the Armored Horsemen dealt to me dropped to 900+ and didn’t break a thousand. Looking at these damage numbers was much more pleasing. The only problem was that the two skills used up mana way too quickly. A Lv 7 skill used up 490 mana, and the two together would use around a thousand. I only had around 3700 MaxMP. Like this, I could only use Lv 1 [Wind Blade] and [Fierce Ice Blade] to attack. Reserving mana was also an art.

……

After cleaning up these 15 Armored Horsemen, we gained a lot of experience from these Thunder Tier monsters. It was practically 2-3 times that of a Phantom Tier, and their drop rates were also pretty high, as 15 of them dropped 3 equipments. I picked them up, and there was a Silver Tier, a Gold Tier, and there was even a chest plate that had a slight purple tinge to it. Looking at the stats, I was stunned, “This….. handsome men and beautiful women, this time we seemed to have gotten lucky. This map can actually drop an equipment like this…..”

I waved my hand over it and the battle plate’s stats appeared. Little Wolf and Li Mu all jolted when they saw them——

[Desolate Sky Armor] (Purple Tier)

Type: Heavy Armor

Defense: 590

Strength: +51

Endurance: +44

Agility: +40

Additional: Increases the user’s defense by 11%

Additional: Increases the user’s attack by 9%

Outfit part: Desolate Sky Armor Set – Chest Plate

Introduction: Desolate Sky Armor, legend has it that during the Warring States period, in order to get more territory, each of the kingdoms would invite hermit smiths to create elite armor. One of those smiths used Cold Iron to create an insanely durable armor, which would then come to be known as the Desolate Sky Armor. Afterwards, it was scattered all over China, no one knows where it ended up.

Level: 80

……

“F*ck…” Li Mu took a deep breath, “A Purple Tier chest plate with stats like this? That’s really rare…. who knows what stats bonuses the entire outfit would have. How many pieces are there?”

I looked through the stats for the Desolate Sky. At that moment, the entire outfit’s effect appeared——

[Desolate Sky Outfit]

2 pieces: Attack +15%

3 pieces: Defense +30%

4 pieces: Attack speed +20%, Natural HP Recovery Speed +50%

5 Pieces: MaxHP +3000, attack +40%

……

F*ck…..” Little Wolf made a fist, “Aren’t these stats too OP?”

I nodded with a smile, “Yea. If there were all five pieces, I feel like the stats would practically be equivalent to a set of Emperor Tier equipments, maybe even stronger!”

Wan Er smiled, “Honestly, you would need all five pieces for it to be worth it to equip. Otherwise, it’d be pointless. The entire set’s stats are just too strong, with 3000 health, and 40% increase in attack power, that’s practically a God Tier equipment’s stats.”

I looked up at the other Warring States Armored Horsemen, and smiled, “Alright then, let’s keep this up. Maybe if we keep fighting, we’ll get some more. This time we have a goal. Get more pieces of this Desolate Sky outfit, so that we can help get more top tier close combat players in [Zhan Long]!”

“Ok!”

……

And thus, our ten man team continued through the plains, killing armored horsemen under the mutual agreement that we could take out around 20 horsemen at once without dying. Darling Duck and Thousand League Springs’ control over our health was starting to get more and more flawless, and there weren’t any more dangerous situations.