Chapter Eight: Mutual Ruin
Suddenly, the Dark Night Cat Demon leaped into the air, abandoning Moonlight Slumber—whom it had been attacking all along—and swiped its claw at another teammate, Yang Guan.
“Ah, sorry!” Yang Guan, a newcomer, had no way to dodge such a swift strike. Yet he still hurriedly apologized, all because Moonlight Slumber had been lecturing the three new players along the way, instilling in them the team discipline that OT was definitely the DPS’s fault and could never be the MT’s.
“Stop, don’t attack,” Moonlight Slumber quickly stopped Yang Guan from retaliating, rushing in to reclaim aggro. But in that brief moment, after scratching Yang Guan a few times, the Dark Night Cat Demon lunged again at yet another teammate.
“What the fuck, chain OT?! Are you screwing with me?” Moonlight Slumber roared in frustration. The targeted teammate was also in a panic, and as a cloth-wearing mage, being scratched by the enraged Dark Night Cat Demon was catastrophic—his health plummeted rapidly. Ye Xiu reacted instantly, directing Jun Moxiao to start healing him. Unfortunately, some things couldn’t be solved with skill alone. A cloth-wearing mage tanking an enraged hidden boss—even with healing, how many seconds could he last?
The answer came quickly: seven seconds. Jun Moxiao’s healing skills had cooldowns, while the enraged Dark Night Cat Demon’s scratching and biting came in a seamless flurry. Moonlight Slumber tried to rescue the mage, but it was too late to reclaim aggro. The mage teammate died.
In Glory, dying during a dungeon meant leaving it immediately—there was no corpse-running or restarting. In other words, the original five-man team was now down to four.
“Damn, OTing one after another—you might as well just kill me!” Moonlight Slumber was on the verge of a breakdown. After the mage fell, the cat demon’s aggro didn’t return to him but sharply turned to a third teammate.
The third teammate was also a cloth-wearing mage, but this time Ye Xiu simply didn’t have Jun Moxiao heal him. Instead, he redirected the healing back to Yang Guan.
Even if he healed the mage, it would only buy seven seconds against the Dark Night Cat Demon. But in those seven seconds, Yang Guan would certainly die. Because the enraged Dark Night Cat Demon not only had increased attack speed and damage but also inflicted a status effect: Bleed.
Unfortunately, Yang Guan was bleeding from the cat demon’s attack. Ye Xiu kept a close eye on his health. Healing the mage now would only buy seven seconds, but within those seven seconds, Yang Guan would die, and the mage would follow seven seconds later—unless Moonlight Slumber reclaimed aggro within that time.
Ye Xiu seemed to have lost faith in Moonlight Slumber and abandoned healing the mage to focus on Yang Guan. This decisive move infuriated Moonlight Slumber, who erupted in a rage: “What the hell is the healer doing?!”
Ye Xiu didn’t reply. Over there, without support, the mage collapsed instantly. Amid Moonlight Slumber’s cursing, the Dark Night Cat Demon wasted no time pouncing on Yang Guan.
Yang Guan, alarmed, asked, “Should I fight back?”
“Fight my ass, you’re all just messing around!” Moonlight Slumber’s pent-up frustration boiled over, though it was unclear exactly what he was resenting. Cursing, he chased after the cat demon to reclaim aggro.
Thirteen seconds.
Ye Xiu calculated a timeframe in his mind. Yang Guan, as if touched by bad luck, had just recovered from a previous Bleed status when the Dark Night Cat Demon struck again, inflicting Bleed once more. These status effect attacks were probability-based, but Yang Guan seemed to have a 100% chance aura. Curse, Bleed—every possible status the cat demon could inflict was on him. Death was his only fate.
Thirteen seconds was the maximum Ye Xiu could keep him alive. Only if Moonlight Slumber reclaimed aggro within that time could Yang Guan be saved. But what about Moonlight Slumber?
The once-astute Moonlight Slumber kept fumbling now, his sword strikes missing again and again, accompanied by incessant cursing and swearing. Finally, Yang Guan fell.
The Dark Night Cat Demon finally turned its attention back to Moonlight Slumber, while Jun Moxiao’s aggro was at the bottom—thanks to Ye Xiu’s impeccable control, no extra actions meant aggro stayed minimal.
“Hold on, buddy! Still got mana?” Moonlight Slumber charged forward, trying to encourage Ye Xiu.
“You’re the one who needs to hold on,” Ye Xiu typed back.
“Don’t worry, with good coordination, we can take it down,” Moonlight Slumber declared bravely, only to fumble again, his sword missing as the cat demon’s claw slashed across his face.
“Heal, heal, heal!!!” Moonlight Slumber screamed.
No response. Jun Moxiao, whose actions had been precise and timely, did not cast a heal on him.
“Can’t heal—it’ll cause OT,” Moonlight Slumber saw Jun Moxiao type out.
“You…” Moonlight Slumber spun around to see Jun Moxiao standing calmly under a tree outside the forest, watching him coldly. Moonlight Slumber sensed something was off—this Jun Moxiao was no noob. OT wasn’t imminent, so how could he miscalculate?
“It won’t cause OT—hurry up and heal!” Moonlight Slumber shouted. Yet there was still no response.
The Dark Night Cat Demon’s claw struck again. Moonlight Slumber’s reflexes suddenly sharpened; he raised his sword to block the attack, parrying the claw. After sliding back, he immediately followed up with an upward strike—a smooth combo he’d shown at the start of the fight. His hands suddenly stopped slipping.
But this time, his combo wasn’t as seamless. The cat demon was in its enraged state now, and its accelerated movement and attacks left Moonlight Slumber struggling to keep up. The upward strike was followed by a thrust, but it missed, and the cat demon bit him instead.
“Heal me now!!!” Moonlight Slumber panicked. Though more resilient than the cloth mages or Yang Guan, he wasn’t invincible.
“Heal what?”
“Health!”
“What’s health? I only see you bleeding.”
“You…” Moonlight Slumber was seething.
“Too bad. If you could solo a hidden boss, you could’ve switched the loot distribution to leader-only before pulling it. That way, even if teammates left in dissatisfaction, the hidden boss would still be yours.”
“Unfortunately, your skills aren’t up to par, so you still rely on teammates to kill the boss. So you deliberately control aggro, letting the Dark Night Cat Demon OT at the right moment to wipe out the teammates, leaving the boss at low health for you to finish off alone. That way, the loot goes straight into your pocket. As for clearing the dungeon—that’s far less important than the hidden boss.”
The two lines sent by Junmoxiao left Yuezhongmian sweating profusely. He hadn’t expected the guy who’d only spoken once the whole time to see through his entire plan. Indeed, the deaths of Yangguan and the other two were exactly what he’d orchestrated—he’d deliberately controlled the aggro so that the Night Cat Demon would over-aggro and kill them. His original plan was for the healer to build up threat while frantically healing all three, but he hadn’t anticipated Junmoxiao abandoning treatment for one of the mages. Could it be that this guy had seen through his plan back then? Knowing there was no way to save the others, he’d intentionally managed his own aggro, pushing his threat to the top, only to later withhold healing from himself—letting him die under the Night Cat Demon’s claws?
“Brother…” Yuezhongmian could tell this guy wasn’t easy to deal with, so he quickly tried to persuade him. “At this point, let’s not dwell on it. After all, we don’t even know those three. If we team up to take down the Cat Demon, we both have a 50% chance at the loot. Isn’t that fair?”
“Fifty percent? I prefer a hundred!”
“Fine…” Yuezhongmian gritted his teeth secretly. “Materials usually drop more than one. You can pick what you need first, and I’ll pass. For the rest, we’ll roll for it, and you can have all the equipment.” Without healing support, Yuezhongmian knew he wouldn’t last long, so he had to make concessions.
“That’s hard to believe!”
“Then what do you want?” Yuezhongmian’s speech sped up—his health bar was already more than half gone. He couldn’t handle the frenzied Cat Demon, and now he had to negotiate with Ye Xiu while distracted. It was beyond embarrassing. He’d already committed the name “Junmoxiao” to memory, swearing he’d make this guy pay.
“Don’t worry about what I want. Just die in peace!”
“You… you’re insane! If I die, you won’t survive either! Then no one gets the loot!” His health was down to a quarter.
“Buddy, there’s no need to go down with the ship!” A fifth of his health remained.
“Are you an idiot?!” One-seventh left.
“Junmoxiao, do you want to be blacklisted? Know the power of our Moonwheel Guild?” One-ninth left.
“You’re done for!” The last sliver.
“Screw you…” One swipe from the Night Cat Demon, and the world fell silent.
Junmoxiao never moved to attack, but neither did he leave combat. Once the Night Cat Demon finished off Yuezhongmian, it immediately lunged at him.
Ye Xiu smiled slightly. His left fingers danced across the keys on the keyboard in a flurry, while his right hand slid the mouse. On screen, Junmoxiao swung the Sky Umbrella, but suddenly, its canopy sprang open—and to an exaggerated degree. The umbrella ribs flipped completely upward, converging at the tip until the Sky Umbrella looked unmistakably like a spear.
The conjoined ribs had pierced straight into the Night Cat Demon’s body.
Battle Mage skill: Dragon Tooth.