MMO: Pierce Heaven Til' It Breaks

He chased it again, again, and again, whereas it fled again, again, and again…

Li Yi constantly gave chase to the Fire Dragon Sword within Flame Dragon’s Lair, and he made sure to always fire an Overlord Arrow during every encounter. Despite that, Fire Dragon Sword did not retaliate and would flee immediately upon being hit. That was how the grand chase between man and sword started.

Three hours had gone by, and Li Yi was tired beyond words. On the other hand, the Fire Dragon Sword was more energetic than ever. With each strike it took, it immediately opened up a portal with movements as swift as flowing water.

“You’re a real sonuvab*tch you know…”

Once again, Li Yi bore witness to Fire Dragon Sword’s escape. He cursed under his breath and plopped his butt onto the ground. The 3-hour long chase was not just taxing to his body, but it had drained his spirit as well.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

The Fire Dragon Sword was hovering not far from him, and it emitted its clanging sounds from time to time as if making fun of Li Yi.

Using the Divine Looking Glass, Li Yi inspected Fire Dragon Sword. To his surprise, however, it could not even display Fire Dragon Sword’s level. In other words, the Fire Dragon Sword was a Divine Weapon whose quality even surpassed the Divine Looking Glass’.

‘Should I use the Dark Contract Scroll or not?’ Li Yi mentally struggled to come to a conclusion, but in the end, he still could not make a decision.

There was only one Dark Contract Scroll left that was still unused, and should it fail, his plans would all crumble to ruin.

‘The next sealing must not fail! I must keep at it!’

Li Yi motivated himself, and he decided that unless the Fire Dragon Sword shows signs of an abnormal status, he would refrain from using his final Dark Contract Scroll.

“Who killed Wicked Flaming Dragon? No… this can’t be real. This…”

A shaky voice echoed from behind, and when Li Yi whipped his head around, his body froze.

For some reason, the gates to Flaming Dragon Lair was now open, and Flaming Skeleton Caitley — who he shrugged off just now— was now in the lair.

Though Caitley was also a boss within Flaming Dragon Lair, she was not an underling of Wicked Flaming Dragon. Her only desire was to slay Wicked Flaming Dragon, but now that it was dead, how could not she be shocked?

“That human over there, was it you who killed Wicked Flaming Dragon?”

Flaming Skeleton Caitley walked forward and she inched closer to Li Yi.

Li Yi felt an ominous premonition. So, he chugged down a bottle of Divine Essence and stood up from the ground.

“Did you intend on taking Fire Dragon Sword for yourself? This evil sword has caused too many deaths, and I absolutely forbid you from doing so!”

“Flaming Blast!”

A gust of wind blew past an ember, and by borrowing the wind’s strength, the ember evolved into a blaze. Caitley had taken the first move.

Li Yi hopped back and shot an arrow into Caitley.

“Thud!”

[−9088]

Caitley thrust out her staff and flames that resembled a dragon’s head slithered out. She intended on striking Li Yi with Flaming Dragon Spell.

“Overlord Arrow!”

Li Yi was already prepared beforehand. Before Caitley had even raised her staff, he had already fired Overlord Arrow into her.

He masterfully controlled his timing, and the Overlord Arrow landed squarely into Caitley the moment that she was about to use Flaming Dragon Spell.

[Skill Interrupted!]

Caitley involuntarily took a step back, and a violent “boom” followed closely after. A terrifying critical damage of [−1021223] appeared above her head.

“Human, it seems that I have underestimated you.” Caitley’s tone was filled with astonishment, but she continued to attack Li Yi with Flaming Blast. She was much smarter compared to Wicked Flaming Dragon, as she responded immediately after being struck, whereas the latter stood still like a rock whenever it took a hit.

In the battle against Caitley, Li Yi moved about much more frequently. Caitley was no Wicked Flaming Dragon; her attacks were extremely agile, and she had a high intellect. When faced against Li Yi’s attacks, she dodged whenever she could, and when she could not, she would cast a Shield to soften the blow.

Li Yi called out Lightning Leopard, and upon its summon, Lightning Leopard immediately lunged forward with Stealth. It unleashed a flurry of swipes at Caitley, and though it came nowhere near Li Yi’s damage, it had slightly held back Caitley’s attacks.

Lightning Leopard was not a brute force meat shield like Violent Bear King. Its attacking style was extremely agile, and the moment it sensed its opponent’s attacks, it would dodge aside, and not stand there like a log. With Lightning Leopard drawing Caitley’s attention, Li Yi found that a huge strain had been lifted off.

Lightning Leopard circled behind Caitley and launched its attacks from time to time. Due to this, Caitley was forced to focus on it. Seizing the opportunity, Li Yi chugged down an Advanced-level Fury Potion, activated God Mode, and shot down a hail of arrows.

Master and pet had sandwiched Caitley from both sides, and Caitley was starting to falter. Since most of her attacks only covered a fan-like area, her biggest fear was a pincer-attack.

Caitley stopped her attacks and held her staff up high.

“Awaken! Spirits who dance within the flames, use your flames and cleanse the evil before you!”

Caitley’s low voice resonated through the air, and a dozen of fire elementals scurried out from the tip of her staff…

“Overlord Arrow!”

“Thud!”

Li Yi’s Overlord Arrow had hit its mark. Unfortunately, he was slightly off in his timing and was unable to proc Skill Interruption. All he managed to do was to cause [−35663] damage to Caitley, and though he still wanted to fire off more arrows, it was too late, as the fire elementals had already completely wrapped around Caitley.

Caitley had never brought down her staff, and the fire elementals were still spewing forth…

“Song of Flame!”

“Powered-up Arrow!”

Tch-psh-bish-tst-pst-brrrr—

“Overlord Arrow!”

Li Yi charged up his bow to fire off a Powered-up Arrow and he followed up the attack with an Overlord Arrow.

Overlord Arrow blazed forward, and fortunately for Li Yi, he had Hamar’s Bone Necklace on him, which provided him with a 5% punch-through effect, and when coupled with Powered-up Arrow, the punch-through effect had become even more prominent, which allowed it to penetrate the hundreds of Fire Elementals and into Caitley’s body.

When casting ‘Song of Flame’, the caster must maintain a ‘Guidance’ state. However, due to the attack she received, the Guidance state was abruptly dispelled, which interrupted the Song of Flame.

Just as Caitley was about to continue using her Song of Flame, the Overlord Arrow from before came hurtling over, which procced the Skill Interruption effect. With a thunderous boom, both Caitley and her summoned fire elementals had received a grievous wound.

Each fire elemental only had 10,000 health, and altogether, the hundred or so of them did not even amount to a million HP. On the other hand, the damage from Overlord Arrow’s explosion matched this figure, and as a result, all the fire spirits were annihilated from existence after the explosion. They had all died from that skill alone.

Lightning Leopard pounced forward and unleashed its Finishing Blow at Caitley. The skillset of the leopard was basically that of a watered-down Thief, as it was able to use both Stealth and Finishing Blow. Even then, its low-damage swipes were not to be underestimated as well, as they were unleashed at alarming speeds and could easily reach ten thousand damage within mere seconds.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Li Yi continued to attack, and Caitley’s HP continued to fall.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Just as Li Yi and Caitley were in the thick of it, the Fire Dragon Sword came cruising over and placed itself between the two of them. It flitted around in the air and constantly emitted its clanging sound.

“You root of evil! I’ll make sure to destroy you!”

Once Caitley spotted the Fire Dragon Sword, her aggro quickly shifted to it. She thrust out her staff, pointed it at the Fire Dragon Sword and unleashed Flaming Blast.

Flaming Blast smashed into Fire Dragon Sword, but it did not damage it whatsoever. Instead, a green figure of [+19021] popped out from its head…

Since the Fire Dragon Sword was the Divine Weapon of Fire, Caitley using fire magic on it was equivalent to healing it…

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The Fire Dragon Sword perked up enthusiastically. It then flew towards Caitley and swung down on her.

Tch—

A ray of flames sliced down from Caitley’s head to toe, and it dealt a critical damage of [−17654435]…

All it took was a single blow to bring Caitley to her knees. Though she was also a fire boss with high innate fire resistance, her measly fire resistance was nothing in the face of Fire Dragon Sword.

With that single swing, Caitley’s HP was reduced to below 3 million!

“Thud! Thud! Thud!”

“Elimination Arrow!”

Seizing his chance, Li Yi unleashed 11 Elimination Arrows in a single breath, and only stopped once he had exhausted his mana reserves.

It was a great opportunity, and whether he could bring down Caitley had all came down to this moment.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Just as the Elimination Arrows were about to hit Caitley, the Fire Dragon Sword went back into action. It slashed around in mid-air and cut down all 11 Elimination Arrows.

Caitley’s gaze was fixed at the Fire Dragon Sword. She was stunned, and so was Li Yi. They both had no idea what Fire Dragon Sword was trying to accomplish…

Swoosh!

Fire Dragon Sword swung itself in mid-air and unleashed a crescent-shaped flame onto Lightning Leopard which was boring down on it.

[−204556]

Lightning Leopard was lying helplessly on the ground.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Fire Dragon Sword proudly spun around Li Yi as if it was boasting.

The moment Li Yi saw its taunting actions, his nose twitched with anger he felt. It was not that the damned sword could not attack, it was just toying with Li Yi…

“With my body as a sacrifice, I summon thee, Wind Goddess! Awaken from your slumber at the far shore!” Caitley chanted in a high-strung voice and a huge avatar of the windstorm goddess appeared behind her.

Caitley did not give up despite suffering grievous wounds. She had realized that using fire-element attacks against Fire Dragon Sword was a dumb idea, and thus she summoned forth gale-force winds again and sacrificed her own body as a last-ditch effort to crush Fire Dragon Sword.

Fire Dragon Sword weaved around in the air, and it only stopped moving once Caitley completed her incantation.

A gust of violent winds surged forth from the ground and rapidly evolved into a tornado, with Fire Dragon Sword caught within it.

Li Yi turned tail and ran. He had to quickly leave the tornado’s area of effect. Certainly, he had also made sure to fire three arrows into Caitley during his retreat, and had successfully cut down 50,000 of her HP.

Damage counters constantly drifted out from the Fire Dragon Sword, and the duration of the tornado’s channeled attack was pretty long. After a whole 30 seconds had passed, the tornado finally began to slow down.

The avatar of the Wind Goddess had vanished, and Caitley had exhausted her mana supply and was huffing and puffing while kneeling down.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The Fire Dragon Sword proudly maneuvered itself in mid-air. From this action alone, it was evident that the attack just now had been totally ineffective…

“You source of evil! What should I do so that I can finally annihilate you!?”

Caitley cried in frustration, and with a ‘ka-thump’, her skeletal limbs dropped onto the ground. What she had used just now was sacrificial magic, and the cost for using it was her own body.

Creak! Crash!

Caitley’s body loosened up, and the flames on her body vanished. She was now a pile of bones that had been scattered about.

Li Yi did not even need to kill her, as she had committed suicide…

Ka-thump!

After Caitley had completely broken down, Fire Dragon Sword, which was still acting boastful a while ago dropped from mid-air. Its luster had darkened, and after expending considerable efforts, it finally lifted off again after a few attempts.

‘The damned sword is injured!’

‘This is my chance!’

Li Yi’s despair was converted into elation. He hurriedly took out the Dark Contract Scroll from his inventory and used it on the Fire Dragon Sword…

…