Game’s Dogma

The swiftness and unpredictability of his spearmanship was almost uncanny. It looked to them that he had just been swinging his weapon around, yet not a single monster managed to reach him. Some believed that a weapon’s reach was proportional to its strength, and Drako Yau had perfectly demonstrated the advantage of a lengthy polearm.

Moon Gazer didn’t look like an ordinary spear either. It seemed more like a halberd with two crescent-shaped blades on both sides of the weapon’s tip. The four spikes made it possible for Drako Yau to employ special techniques that belonged to unpopular weapons such as a scythe’s entanglement techniques.

Soulsmith was the one who received the greatest shock; Zephyrwolf and Hades had gotten used to how crazy the masked man was at this point. Soulsmith finally came to the realisation why the high and almighty Hades always bore a very slight tint of fear when facing this man. Meanwhile, Greenstone retained that unreadable face of his which made it hard for anyone to read his mind.

Drako Yau sent a long gaze into the distance. Compared to other difficulties, the entire dungeon layout had changed in Hell difficulty. Still, their destination remained the same—Evergrand’s resurrection altar. A purple, demonic aura encapsulated the altar, sending a spiral of purple mist into the sky.

‘Okay, looks like the main road’s a no go this time.’ There was no need to use speech bubbles with everyone present. ‘Should we just jump from roof to roof?’

It seemed like the safest route right now. Seeing that no one objected to his suggestion, he took the initiative to be the first to leap over to a nearby roof. With great power came great responsibility, but it was a responsibility which he was willing to take on. He had been leeching sweet, sweet experience for so long that it was about time he made contributions to the team.

The rooftops weren’t too far away from one another. As such, the jumps were manageable as long as they tried. Surprisingly, the brawny Greenstone made the jumps without much difficulty with how agile he was, even more so than the athletic Zephyrwolf. Seeing the muscular man jump and land gently onto the next roof, Drako Yau couldn’t help but spare him a few more glances.​​​​​​​

While the Demon City dungeon wasn’t present in his version of the game, the general framework of each dungeon was the same. If his guess was right, the system wouldn’t just let them pass through and reach the resurrection altar so easily.

In his design, the Hell difficulty of each dungeon was vastly different from other difficulties. The entire map was accessible by players; you could roam anywhere on the map as long as you could get to the boss area. Its freedom was incomparable to other games. However, monsters would still spawn, no matter how hard you tried to evade them…

Gaaa!

A loud shriek came out of nowhere, startling the squad. They looked up into the sky where the shriek originated from to find a ravon shrieking at them, followed by a dozen of its companions. Of course, their numbers were nowhere as much as during the siege event, but Drako Yau could see a few skeleton archers climbing up the roofs of nearby buildings and readying their bows.

‘Zephyrwolf, hold down the ravons with your demon wolf king. Soulsmith, take care of the skeleton archers with me.’

‘You’re really just gonna toss me aside and make me hunt some bird… Hey! Watch where you’re pecking!’ The boisterous Zephyrwolf made shouts as he took on the role of vanguard together with the demon wolf king. Meanwhile, Drako Yau had already rushed over to the nearby skeleton archers.

Ravons had a numerical advantage, but their attacks had little variability and low damage. Zephyrwolf and the demon wolf king’s Health and Defence should be more than enough to hold them back.

But the skeleton archers… they were basically pseudo-players, which made them really troublesome enemies to deal with, especially in Hell difficulty. Drako Yau was still on his way when a skeleton archer pulled its bow and released an arrow at him.

As the arrow cut through the air and whizzed straight towards him, Drako Yau furrowed his brows. Heart-Piercing Shot… The skeleton archer was using a skill of the hunter class.

He twisted his body aside slightly, but not enough to dodge the incoming arrow. It was intentional though; he wanted to gauge the enemy’s strength and test out his new armour.

The Heart-Piercing Shot landed on his left arm, spreading a flaming pain through his arm and adding a white scratch to his armour. The pain was tolerable for him, but when the damage was converted into numbers for Zephyrwolf and the rest…

Everything turned into data and numbers in his mind. As expected, these archers pose the greatest threat. His mind processed the newly obtained information as he continued with his charge and quickly closed the distance between himself and the skeleton archer. The outcome was obvious when an archer was forced to engage in melee combat.

At the same time, Soulsmith was currently in a sniping contest with other skeleton archers. Hades stood before the hunter, his dagger flicking back and forth as he deflected incoming arrows with lightning reflexes. Luckily, the skeleton archers’ cooldown time for Heart-Piercing Shot was a lot longer than that of players. Hades would be in trouble if that wasn’t the case.

Greenstone also made his importance apparent in this battle. He lifted his long staff, showering rays of light upon Zephyrwolf and Hades. Zephyrwolf was seemingly in a tough spot as he had to deal with 10 or so ravons, but with the demon wolf king’s aid and the healing from Greenstone, the ravons and their simple attacking pattern wasn’t too much of a threat.

Just like that, the battle went on for roughly 10 minutes. After Soulsmith killed the final skeleton archer with a Heart-Piercing Shot and Double Shot combo, their surroundings were finally void of any monsters. Zephyrwolf turned around, gave Greenstone a thumbs up, and said, ‘You’re good! Your skills heal so much!’ Hades also gave the cleric a few long looks.

Indeed, Greenstone’s skills were very potent in healing, and his timing was almostperfect. To sum him up in one word, ‘strong’. Back then, it was hard to believe that this Greenstone person had saved Drako Yau from the devastating palm strike, but it didn’t seem so impossible right now.

Such fine and precise control over each member’s Health… Hades took in a deep breath and sighed. That crazy bastard invited another crazily strong guy over… Birds of a feather do flock together.

Greenstone, however, seemed unmoved by Zephyrwolf's praise as if it had nothing to do with him. He simply said, ‘Let’s move on.’ If not for the plentiful experience and rewards for clearing a dungeon in Hell difficulty, he wouldn’t have joined the squad in the first place.

Drako Yau also nodded and said, ‘Right, let’s go.’

The five of them leapt from roof to roof in the direction of the resurrection altar. The four major cities were designed to house tens of thousands of players, so it would take them a while to get to their destination even when heading there in a straight line.

As Drako Yau had anticipated, they encountered several more waves of monsters on their way, and the monsters also grew stronger every wave. Greenstone was now the core of the team with how important his healing was. There were several moments when Hades and Zephyrwolf almost died, but his well-timed Heal always landed at the crucial moments. He even took care of the demon wolf king’s health whose health was not visible in the squad interface. The outstanding performance was a full display of his accurate foresight and quick mental arithmetics.

Perplexed, Hades thought, where did a cleric with such great technique come from?