That single swift stroke of the boss had not only cleared a large number of NPC soldiers, but also unfortunate players who had miscalculated the trajectory of the attack. What's more, after they revived at the nearest graveyard, they were not allowed to reenter the castle region! They were blocked by a familiar wall of air.
Some things are best experienced yourself. During the counterattack attempts of the other nations, almost all the audience had not noticed the tiny details. Obviously, the system had already predicted a scenario where players will try to sabotage their own nation. They had indirectly made it easier to surviving players to fight Angus. In a sense, weaker players who allow themselves killed by Angus will be permanently removed from the battle. It was a good way to help stronger players who were actually trying and succeeding in killing the boss. Weaker players would only be "food" for the boss.
Hence, once all the Spectre monsters were killed, players had lost the ability to revive continuously and rejoin the fight. It was a fair way of things. During the fight with the Spectre monsters, players can have their fair share of experience points and during the boss fight, weaker players will be kicked out, preventing stupid people from doing stupid things to jeopardize the entire battle.
Serena was stood in front of the entire army. Next to her were all the other seven Barons. Zhang Yang stood beside them. He only dared to fight Angus because he had already prepared his hired elite NPC soldiers, along with 100 healers to heal the elite NPC soldiers behind. Since each of the elite NPC soldiers will help Zhang Yang take 1% of the incoming damage, Zhang Yang could last longer in the fight against Angus. At most, Zhang Yang would take 5 times the damage from Angus due to his level while each of his soldiers would take at most, 40,000 damage each! With Zhang Yang's meticulous arrangement of healers, they will be able to heal with one hand behind their back!
"Stay back. You guys cannot survive tanking the boss even if you have a 50% damage reduction. Save your Transformation skills first." Zhang Yang spoke out in the party channel. Besides Zhang Yang alone, the rest of the party had only 50 or so elite NPC soldiers. They would still take a heavy attack. Without Transforming, they would not survive a single hit! Everyone nodded and obeyed. Even the battle crazed little Wei Yan Er understood the gravity of the situation and nodded her head without showing any signs of being disgruntled.
"Merlinda. It's our time!" said Zhang Yang.
"I hear you." Merlinda nodded and smiled at her savior. At Zhang Yang's command, he had Merlinda command Thea and Aweena to stand with the elite NPC soldiers behind to be redundant healers. At the very least, they were extremely strong healers.
The Phoenix roared with all its might and flew towards Angus. The Unicorn followed along and shed its disguise, the horn on its forehead grew longer, and wings burst out of its body as Merlinda soared to the sky.
The sight of fiery trail in the sky, left behind by the Phoenix was a sight that everyone had already gotten used to. However, the unicorn was different. At then, everyone was stunned at the sight of Merlinda soaring through the high sky as she followed Zhang Yang.
That was a Legendary Beast! The Unicorn! It was the same as the Phoenix and the Red Dragon! Could it be, that Lone Desert Smoke was holding all the Legendary Beast in their ranks?! Who was that player riding the Unicorn? Why would she hide her profile? Was she afraid of people chasing after her?!
"They may have Legendary Beast mounts and what not, the boss is still too strong for them!"
"Yes. It's a suicidal run for them."
"Heh. So much for China's number 1 player. He can't even tank for more than a minute!"
Despite their scorns coming out from their mouth, it was obvious that jealousy and envy were building up in their hearts.
"Blade of Obliteration!" Angus roared and swung his sword, releasing thousand of swords in the air, attacking Serena, the seven castle Barons, Merlinda, and Zhang Yang, causing high damage. The NPC were still doing good since they were all at the right level to only take normal damage. Unlike then, Zhang Yang was rather unlucky to receive 5 times the intended damage! At then, Defense, Armor, damage absorption was all useless. Amongst all the defensive passive skills, only the 20% damage reduction skill was useful. From 3,829,935 damage, only 3,036,553 was taken, after 92% damage shared with all the 92 elite NPC soldiers, the final damage that landed on Zhang Yang was only 306,494.
Despite being reduced by a large amount, it was still high for Zhang Yang. At that point, with the Phoenix giving Zhang Yang close to 1.8 million HP boost, 300,000 damage was almost 10% of his entire HP. That was the reason why Zhang Yang had not allowed the rest of his party to join the battle. He had 92 elite soldiers and he had still taken a large damage, what more of 50 soldiers?
Still, he was pretty unlucky to receive the quintuple damage. Under normal circumstances, he should only receive double to triple damage.
With quick reflex, Merlinda clapped her palms together and cried, "Higher Regeneration!" She had cast {Higher Regeneration} not only on Zhang Yang, but also on herself, Serena, and the rest of the Barons!
[Higher Regeneration]: Restores 5% HP every second. Maximum restoration cannot exceed 200,000 HP. Lasts for 20 seconds.
As expected, {Higher Regeneration} had a limit cap to its healing. Even so, 200,000 HP per tick was still high. In fact, Angus' {Blade of Obliteration} could only be cast every 2 seconds. Even though it hit Zhang Yang for quintuple its damage, Zhang Yang would take only 150,000 damage per second. At that point, Zhang Yang had over 3 million HP. 5% of that would roughly be 150,000. Since each healing tick would restore 150,000 HP, his HP would hold out indefinitely! If the healers behind the NPC soldiers do their job without a problem, and Merlinda herself remains alive throughout the entire ordeal, Zhang Yang would be the same as the boss, an unkillable entity!
At then, when something drastic had happened, no eyeballs were averted then. When players from all around noticed Zhang Yang had received the {Higher Regeneration} skill, they could not help but to feel both shock and envy.
What was that powerful healing skill!?
The strongest in-game skills would either damage or heal by percentage! Since the skill was not affected by a player's own attack power, there was no reason for them to get stronger damage stats. If a healer could have that {High Regeneration} skill, he or she would not need to pump Spirit or Intelligence! Even with a full set of Level 1 White-Wood equipment, they could still technically, fully restore a player with 4 million HP within 20 seconds. There was no need for anyone to hunt for strong equipment, then!
Then again, not all players were stupid. One look, and they would know that Merlinda was not a player, but an NPC. They knew that the system would not simply put out skills that would simply break the game. The skill {Higher Regeneration} as shown by Merlinda was not a single target, but a multi-target skill. That was not OP. That's Deadpool's level of game-breaking skill.
With the skill healing Zhang Yang like never before, Zhang Yang finally dared to rush into the boss fight and have him taste his Reaper's Scythe. Merlinda was the same as she was when he rescued her from the depth of the dungeon. She would keep on repeating the same healing skill over and over again. On the side note, Merlinda had gained a new weapon, a new magic staff that she could use to attack as well! She was not like before where she would just heal, heal, and just heal. That time, Merlinda could cast {Punishment Ray} to attack.
Queen Serena was astonished by the healing skill she had received. She turned to examine Merlinda and turned to Zhang Yang. "Is she your ally?"
"Yes, my queen."
"Wonderful. Perhaps she could remain by my side to strengthen the Empire's forces." Said Serena with a strong sense of ambition.
Zhang Yang had a complicated feeling about her wants. If Merlinda remains in the Empire, the entire race of Elves would be brought to light. Zhang Yang had merely pretended to be busy as he continued to attack Angus.
Zhang Yang's {Eagle Eye} could passively ignore 85% of the target's Defense permanently. Hence, Zhang Yang would only need to land one single strike of {Cripple Defense} to ignore all Defenses.
'-82,302!'
Zhang Yang basic attack lower limit was supposed to be around 160,000. However, despite having to ability to ignore all Defense, his damage was severely reduced. 80,000 damage was something that Zhang Yang found to be low, while the other players of the world would have already dropped their jaws to the ground.
{Charge Up Strike}!
{God of War Devastation}!
'-456,229!'
Sadly, the combined skill had suffered a 30% reduced damage. If it had not, the stacked skill damage could reach at least over a million damage! Still, the damage was enough to have Queen Serena praise Zhang Yang for his strength. That was because besides herself, even the rest of the Ascended tier Barons could deal only a fraction of what Zhang Yang had just dealt.
Zhang Yang only nodded his head to acknowledge Queen Serena's praise. In reality, he was rather happy. Such a powerful blast of power can only come from combining {Charge Up Strike}and {God of War Devastation}. Despite being able to deal 900% normal damage in a single hit, it had a 1 minute cooldown. It was not long, nor too short to be used as a chaining skill.
Other than the players in his party, all other players around could not observe the damage number inflicted on Zhang Yang, nor his overall HP in general. They could only see the long red bar on his head and a slight drop of it. Weirdly enough, the 10% emptied HP bar was refilled immediately in a blink of an eye. Could it be, that the boss' attack was getting weaker?
At then, a few players that had noticed Zhang Yang's endurance in the battle had rushed into the fight, thinking that if Zhang Yang could, they could as well. In the end, they were instantly obliterated by Angus in a single swing of his sword. Zhang Yang was frustrated by the stupidity of the players. They had wasted all his efforts by "healing" Angus HP from 99% to 100%.
If there are more imbeciles, might as well have them all come at once to let the boss end their lives, there and then. It would be better to have them die earlier than when the boss is at his last 10% HP.
When so many players had died, all the other hot-headed players stopped their tracks. Only then, they knew the real reason why Zhang Yang could endure long enough. The boss' attack was not getting weaker, it was Zhang Yang who was getting stronger! Just how many Military Points did Zhang Yang own!? How many elite NPC soldiers did he manage to hire, to allow the damage to be negated to such an extent?
1,000 Military Points was only enough for 10 elite NPC soldiers, which was only enough to reduce 10% of the oncoming damage and distribute them to all the 10 soldiers. 10% damage was nothing! NOTHING! When the players had finally accepted the truth of how strong Zhang Yang was, it was already too late for them.
Zhang Yang was not bothered by the players. He was busy calculating and averaging out the damage per second of the boss to find out the rough estimated time needed to kill Angus. When he was finished, he needed to calculate the right time for his party member to use their Transformation skills and enter the fight.
Amongst all the NPC present there, Queen Serena was obviously the one dealing the most damage. With Merlinda healing everyone, Serena and her seven Barons were able to hang on far longer. Although they would still receive damage faster than they could heal, it would be much better than just taking damage! As such, Zhang Yang roughly estimated that the fight can be dragged as long as 20 hours, or more! That is, if there are no more bird-brained players rushing into the fight to "heal" Angus, prolonging the entire fight. If that happens, Zhang Yang feared that not even two Merlinda (s) could save them.
The light of victory was just right there! There is hope!