Chapter 551: Butchering the Rhinos

Translator: alyschu

"Oh, a set? And it’s even a 2-star Outstanding Purple Gold–grade set at that. Not bad..." Li Chengfeng said.

He grinned as he chopped away at a Star Rhino. "Lu Chen, equip it and check out what the set effects are. We’re gonna find a lot of them here, so we might as well find out what the effects are."

"On it!"

I swiftly equipped the Split Galaxy Gauntlets and focused on them again. The set bonuses immediately leapt out onto my HUD and they were shocking—

Split Galaxy Set:

2 piece: Increases user’s hit rate by 20%

3 piece: Weakens the damage of all attacks received by 10%

4 piece: Increases user’s max HP by 7000 and Defense by 2000

5 piece: Increases mount’s stats by 25%. Increases user’s Attack by 40% and gives the user 20% splash damage.

......

I immediately shared it with the rest of the party. High Fighting Spirits was stunned when he saw those set bonuses. "What the fuck, what an incredible set of armor this is..."

"Yeah, it’s strong as hell!" Li Chengfeng whistled appreciatively.

Beiming Xue stuck out her tongue and giggled. "We’re about to strike it rich! If a magic knight were to equip this set of armor, they’d be completely broken! If we can gather ten complete sets, our cavalry corps will become invincible at this stage of the game with Gui Guzi using Knight God!"

I nodded my head. "Right! Everyone, we need to work hard and kill these rhinos! We can divide all the other items among us but all of the Split Galaxy pieces that we find will go straight into the guild warehouse! We’re going to create the strongest troop of magic knights in the game!"

"Alright! Let’s work hard everybody!" Li Chengfeng yelled with a grin on his face.

After that, we started killing the Star Rhinos at an even more frenzied pace. My DPS was still way ahead of everyone else, so my squad could finish off a Star Rhino in about half a minute. My Luck stat was high too, so I soon found another piece of the Split Galaxy set. This was great!

He Yi’s voice rang out in the guild channel at this precise moment.

"Hey, has everyone heard? The people from Snowy Cathaya found a drop called the Split Galaxy War Boots! I heard that it's part of a Level 125 equipment set that’s really strong!"

I immediately answered in a dry voice, "Yeah, we know."

He Yi continued, "Then we need to work hard too! I also heard that Candle Dragon, Warsky Alliance, and Purple Lily are killing these Star Rhinos at a crazy pace and that the Star Dragon Domain has become a battleground where all the big guilds are competing to get as many Split Galaxy sets as possible! It seems as if everyone has come to the same conclusion, because these sets will be crucial in the upcoming wars for dominance."

Gui Guzi said, "That’s right! I think everyone has realized how important mounted players are now that they have witnessed the impact and destructiveness of a mounted rider’s charge! Everyone has also realized how sturdy we’ve become after mounting. In the upcoming Nation Wars and fights over territory, riders will still make up the main force of each guild. Because of that, all the big guilds know that there is nothing more important than creating a super cavalry unit right now."

I nodded my head. "We only need to dispatch a few assassins to find the boss and monitor its movements. We need to sweep this map clean of Star Rhinos, even if it takes us several nights to do so! We can’t afford to gather less Split Galaxy sets than Candle Dragon or Warsky Alliance."

Chaos Moon: "That’s right, that’s right! Everyone, good luck with your grinding! I’ll be cheering you on from the distance!"

I replied, "Chaos Moon, what are you even doing right now?"

Chaos Moon said, "I’m going around picking herbs and making some Rank 9 potions to sell. My Alchemy is almost at Rank 10!"

Xu Yang replied in admiration, "Ah, you really are a good and dutiful lady..."

Li Chengfeng shouted, "That’s right! Date me please!"

Chaos Moon’s guard was up. "Cut it out! The both of you are clearly looking at my Rank 10 Alchemy and not me!"

......

I closed the chat window and continued grinding Star Rhinos. These monsters with both high HP and formidable Defense were a pain in the neck to kill, it didn’t feel good grinding them at all. This was especially true because of their Heaven Vortex skill. It meant that only a few melee fighters could press in to kill them at the same time. If a few more joined in, our priests wouldn’t be able to keep up their healing and the continuous damage of Heaven Vortex would inevitably kill a few of them. I mean, it even dealt slightly over ten thousand damage to me, and that was despite my high Magic Resist, to say nothing of the other members.

After we grinded for a while, Beiming Xue suddenly pointed at a corner of the plains and grinned. "Big bro, look there. Don’t you feel like saying something after seeing something like that?"

"Oh?"

My eyes followed Beiming Xue’s fingers to the spot that she was pointing at. To my shock, I discovered an enormous set of dragon bones strewn across the corner of the mountain range. The bones were arranged against the mountain in such a way that it resembled the opening of a wine gourd. This opening was facing the outside and the area within could hold quite a few people. This was practically a naturally formed choke point! A choke point that could be blocked with a single player! This was something we needed the most right now.

My eyes immediately lit up with joy as I grabbed Beiming Xue’s shoulders. "Hahaha! Well done! Alright, let’s do this! Everyone, let’s start sweeping away these mobs! Killing them one by one nearly bored me to death!"

Beiming Xue laughed. "Yeah, I was bored out of my mind!"

"I’ll clear us a path. Beiming, get the rest of the party into the safe part of the choke point. I’ll go lead the monsters to us. Pure Love, be a darling and buff me please. I need high HP and Defense to go lure these mobs!"

"Okay!"

Pure Love waved her staff in the air and applied several buffs. My HP, Defense, and Attack had all been boosted by 49%. As a high-level bard, Pure Love had gotten the best bard equipment Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls could find, so all of her skills were boosted considerably. Her Tactics stat was also higher than most bards and she could very nearly boost all of a player’s stats by 50%.

After her buffs, my HP was nearly 40000, and my Defense had reached 5500. I’d become an unkillable tank! Bards also had a unique skill called Magic Charge that raised a player’s Magic Resist by 25%. Given Pure Love’s Tactics and other passive bonuses, she could practically boost my Magic Resist by 50%. This would allow me to deal with the Star Rhino’s Heaven Vortex ability. I was now completely invulnerable to all of the Star Rhino’s attacks.

......

After an innumerable amount of buffs had been applied to me, Beiming Xue led the thirty-odd people in my party into those dragon bones. All of them assembled in the natural safe zone formed by the lattice of dragon bones. Only flying monsters could enter this area freely. Everyone else had to enter through the choke point. As long as I held the choke point, the ground-bound Sky Rhinos would have no way of hurting anyone inside.

Crunch...

My war boots crunched against some brittle pebbles as I flew across the ground and through a crowd of Star Rhinos. I made a sharp pivot after I had drawn all their aggro, causing a small herd of Star Rhinos to stampede after me as their angry bellows reverberated in the air behind me! I did this to several more groups before I started to sprint back to the choke point.

The entire basin was soon filled with the sound of thundering hooves as hundreds of Star Rhinos chased after me, their furious bellows echoing in their wake. Even Li Chengfeng’s party, which was quite a distance from us, turned shocked expressions toward me as they stared at me sprint madly toward the choke point.

Li Chenfeng couldn’t help but ask in the guild channel, "Ahem, what exactly is happening right now? Why are there clouds of dust and smoke coming from your area? Did all of you get wiped up by the Star Rhinos?"

𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Beiming Xue giggled. "No, we didn’t. Big bro is luring a group of Star Rhinos toward us, we’re preparing to clear them all in fell swoop!"

Xu Yang forcefully swallowed his saliva as he exclaimed incredulously, "What, you’re mobbing a group of them? What the hell?! Even killing them one by one is hard enough, but this punk Lu Chen is clearing them as a group!? He’s... way too OP!"

Gui Guzi let out a hearty laugh. "Heh, I already knew how great Boss Broken Halberd was for a long time now! Hahahaha!"

He Yi laughed as she said: "Actually, it’s really easy to see how Lu Chen can pull this stunt off. He has both the Crimson Rock Dragon Armor and the Soul Suppressing Cloak, which are both Outstanding Earth-grade items, so he has a huge amount of Defense in the first place. Furthermore, he has Pure Love in his party, so once he found a suitable choke point, he knew he would be able to hold it with the help of her buffs. With all of these advantages, I believe that Lu Chen is skilled enough to hold that choke point by himself.

Beiming Xue nodded her head. "Yeah, I think that big bro can pull this off, no biggie."

Chaos Moon chimed in. "I really wish I was leveling with Lu Chen right now..."

......

I soon returned with the huge herd of Star Rhinos at my back. I could see that Beiming Xue, Moonlight Stone, and Moon Dew were standing about twenty yards away from the entrance. That was the safe zone and the Star Rhino’s Heaven Vortex ability wouldn’t be able to hit them from that distance. Furthermore, their attack range was forty yards, so they could freely attack the Star Rhino’s without any inhibitions or worries.

"Okay, get ready! Big bro’s HP has already dropped below 50%, all the priests have to do their job and then some! Archers, prepare to use Shock Arrow to stun the monsters that are attacking him with melee attacks." Beiming Xue was giving out instructions as my squad prepared for battle.

This girl was really clever. I was most afraid of the Star Rhino’s Heaven Vortex ability, but only the Star Rhinos who were engaged with me in melee combat would use this skill. If they could stun the three Star Rhinos that could engage me in close combat, I would be very safe.

Thud!

My combat boots slid across the gravel-filled ground, sending sparks flying into the air. My calculations were perfect, so I stopped exactly at where the choke point was. I immediately spun around and brandished the Heaven-Stealing Sword as the Star Rhinos charged at me.

I was very confident in my high Strength stat. As long as I stood here, the charging attacks of these Star Rhinos wouldn’t be able to shift me a single inch.

Dust flew up in the air as the huge herd of Star Rhinos stampeded around this gourd-shaped opening. The area in front of me was thick with mobs and I braced myself as three of these bellowing beasts struck me at the same time. I immediately used God Binding Art to bind up one of them before I used Burning Blade Slash. Three fiery crescents of sword energy smashed into a group of mobs and exploded, revealing a string of shocking damage numbers above their heads.

8283!

11092!

15271!

......

Basically, a single Burning Blade Slash would deal more than 35000 damage to a lone Star Rhino. But now that the Heaven-Stealing Sword’s splash damage passive was activated, the damage dealt to each rhino would increase by at least three times. As a result, a single Burning Blade Slash shaved off nearly half the HP of the dozen Star Rhinos that had been struck by it. This incredible damage made the jaws of everyone in my squad to drop to the ground. None of them knew what to say after witnessing that ridiculous feat.

"Hey, how about some healing over here..." As I endured a Heaven Vortex, I had no choice but to use Tenacity of the Dead to pull myself back from the brink of death.

It was only at this moment that Moon Dew and the rest of the priests shook themselves out of their stupor. They hurriedly threw out heal after heal, continuously bathing me in holy light. My HP slowly climbed back up to above 75% and remained there.

Right, as long as I had lifesteal, Regeneration of the Undead, and Blood Fiend, I should be able to endure simultaneous attacks of three Star Rhinos.

I sent a Thousand Ice Slash howling out of my sword, causing a bunch of Star Rhinos to violently shudder. After that, Beiming Xue and her archers started attacking with Multi Arrow and Volleys as Moon Dew also threw one Galaxy Storm after another into the crowd of mobs. The furious bellows of the Star Rhinos soon turned into wails of agony. By the time we finished killing a bunch of mobs, the system UI’s DPS counter showed that our total damage had increased by 9.4 times! This number stunned us silly but we soon started cackling in glee.