Chapter 61: Gargoyle Leader

Gargoyle Chieftain: Level 60 Gold Boss. Physical attack 3240-4450, physical defense 1700, magic defense 1300, health points 550,000. Skills—Petrification, Deadly Pierce, Flame Breath! The Gargoyle Chieftain was another proud creation of Oner. Fashioned from the remains of a demon's corpse, it possessed formidable defense and magic resistance. However, being transformed from a hellish creature, its resistance to holy attacks was negative, causing it to take double damage from light-based assaults.

"This guy's stats are insanely overpowered!" Lin Zheng shook his head. To deal with this creature, it was impossible to survive without using Ghost-God. The maximum physical attack of 4450 was simply too high; even parrying wouldn't save him, let alone the fact that the boss possessed two ultimate moves that clearly looked like offensive skills. Who knew if they could deal a one-hit kill? Therefore, for safety's sake, Lin Zheng activated Ghost-God right away!

"Ghost-God!" Lin Zheng shouted aloud. A roaring black phantom materialized and attached itself to his body. Taking another look at the boss's stats, they had already been halved! "I'll go first. Watch your output, and don't pull the boss's aggro the way you did with the Abomination!" With that, Lin Zheng split the Crescent Moon and charged at the boss. Seeing Lin Zheng rush forward with a reckless disregard for his life, the boss unceremoniously slashed at him with a sword. To save time, Lin Zheng couldn't even be bothered to dodge. He took the boss's attack head-on, then fiercely thrust his sword straight into the boss's navel. -4550! A remarkably impressive amount of damage! Lin Zheng's eyes instantly lit up. He hadn't expected a random strike to actually hit the boss's weakness and deal critical damage!

Having its weakness attacked, the boss roared in fury, raising the greatsword in its hand to stab Lin Zheng. The greatsword emitted an eerie red glow, clearly not as simple as a basic attack—it was likely that so-called Deadly Pierce! Lin Zheng noticed it, but didn't pay much attention. He currently possessed a 110% damage reduction effect, which basically allowed him to ignore any attack! However, Lin Zheng's carelessness cost him dearly!

"Swish—" The boss pierced right through Lin Zheng with a single sword thrust, -8267! A massive damage figure floated up from above Lin Zheng's head, instantly slashing his full health bar down by 90%! Lin Zheng's expression changed drastically. This Deadly Pierce was actually direct damage, completely ignoring damage reduction effects! Moreover, it took 90% of his health in a single hit; that was simply too savage! Fortunately, this type of attack was caused by a boss skill, and every skill had a cooldown. However, since Lin Zheng didn't know the exact cooldown of this damn skill, he had no choice but to start devouring roasted snake meat to recover his health, lest he get instantly killed by another follow-up strike!

Seeing Lin Zheng lose 90% of his health in a flash, Xiao Mo was also startled and immediately raised her sword, preparing to rush forward! Seeing this, Lin Zheng shouted instantly, "Don't come over! The moment you attack, you'll pull the boss's aggro!!"

"You're about to die and you still won't let me come over?!" Xiao Mo stomped her foot, but still brought her steps to a halt.

"Relax, the boss just used a skill a moment ago. Look, its basic attacks can't hurt me at all!" Lin Zheng wasn't just putting on a tough act; it was the truth. Seeing the greatsword the boss hacked onto Lin Zheng cause only single-digit damage each time, Xiao Mo finally let out a sigh of relief! Lin Zheng, who had nearly been killed in one hit by the boss, turned fierce as well. He aimed all his attacks precisely at the boss's navel, each strike stripping away over 4,000 health points from the boss! This was a savage and extremely unfair duel. Every single one of Lin Zheng's attacks stripped away a massive amount of the boss's life, whereas the boss's attacks could merely deal single-digit damage to him. In the blink of an eye, a fifth of the boss's health had already been beaten away. Without Lin Zheng needing to say anything, Xiao Mo had already rushed forward at this point. With a round of continuous stabbing, nearly 18,000 health points of the boss were instantly shaved off! This damage was truly terrifying; Lin Zheng even worried that the boss's aggro would be snatched away by Xiao Mo again! This time, however, Xiao Mo had learned to be smart. She paid attention to the damage output of Lin Zheng's strikes, which were basically around 4,500. Therefore, after every attack session, Xiao Mo would wait for Lin Zheng to hit the boss four times before she continued her assault, thereby avoiding pulling the boss's aggro onto herself!

When the boss's health dropped to half, it began to go berserk. It opened its mouth and spewed out a massive wave of flames. Moreover, this spewing wasn't a one-time burst, but a continuous stream. In a short moment, the entire platform was covered everywhere with raging fires! The instantaneous damage of this Flame Breath wasn't very high—even Xiao Mo could withstand it—but the continuous damage was fatal! It drained 700 health points per second, and the damage reduction effect was completely ineffective against it!

This move would undoubtedly be extremely tricky for an ordinary dungeon raid team! Every single member would suffer health drain, and at a very rapid rate! No healer could manage healing anyone because they simply couldn't keep up! To survive the onslaught of the Flame Breath, one had to carry high-tier health-recovery cooking items! The two of them were undoubtedly very fortunate! Because Lin Zheng carried a whole pile of roasted snake meat, although the health recovery speed of 600 points per second couldn't quite keep up with the rate of health loss, it managed to hold the line, suppressing the health-drain speed to a fully manageable 100 points per second! However, they couldn't afford a war of attrition either! Because the raging flames all over the ground showed no signs of extinguishing, keeping this up for long would be enough to cost both Lin Zheng and Xiao Mo their lives!

Fortunately! The two of them dealt extremely high damage to the boss! The boss's health was soon beaten down to just a tenth. At that moment, like a lesser gargoyle, the boss underwent petrification in an attempt to rapidly recover its health! This move would definitely cause a massive headache for players challenging the dungeon in the future! The boss's defense reached 1,700 points, and with an additional 50%, it could hit 2,550 points! The vast majority of players would find it hard to stack their attack stats this high around level 60! And if they failed to kill the petrified boss in time, the boss would recover all its health, plunging them into a vicious cycle! However, for Lin Zheng, who possessed the "Meridian-Sealing Pulse-Breaking" attribute, the boss's petrification was undoubtedly courting its own doom! With a single dagger thrust, the boss couldn't recover a single drop of health, and under Xiao Mo's tempest-like onslaught, it was battered into a pile of shattered rocks across the ground!

"Swish! Swish!" Both of them leveled up! Crossing over a dozen levels to kill a Gold Boss yielded exceedingly generous experience! Lin Zheng rose by one level, while Xiao Mo came close to leaping two levels!

Killing the Gargoyle Chieftain took less than 3 minutes. Lin Zheng didn't want to waste the nearly two minutes remaining on his buff duration, so he instructed Xiao Mo to clear out the treasures dropped by the boss, while he himself immediately stepped into the portal and left the spiral staircase! The next moment, Lin Zheng appeared in a dimly lit hall. According to the instructions of the quest log, this stage required slaying 12 Elite Black Warriors and the Black Warrior Commander boss!

As soon as Lin Zheng appeared, before he even had time to scout the area, 12 swordsmen clad in full black armor charged at him. Almost simultaneously, Lin Zheng was hacked by 12 black heavy swords. Although he didn't lose any health, it hurt! A depressed Lin Zheng immediately stomped his foot down onto the ground. "Burst!"

"Boom—" Raging flames wreaked havoc within this warrior hall, and massive damage figures of -22,600 floated above the heads of all the Black Warriors surrounding Lin Zheng. To Lin Zheng's astonishment, however, this damage—which would have instantly killed even a gargoyle—did not trigger a fatal effect on the Black Warriors, whose health had been halved. One by one, they were still full of vigor as they raised their swords to greet him! In this brief moment of distraction, he had already been hacked 24 times. Fortunately, he had activated the Ghost-God state; otherwise, he would have been killed instantly by now!

"Damn it! This is too ridiculous!"

……