Chapter 210 – Slaughter Fiend Medallion (Thief)
Nie Yan was absolutely confident in his ability to kill a Scaled Frog. After leveling up, his speed had increased a lot, and he could completely disregard even a Lord-class Scaled Frog. Now that there was only a one-level gap between them, he could do massive damage to it on his own.
Under the cover of stealth, Nie Yan crept up to a Lord-class Scaled Frog until he was only ten meters away. The monster still hadn’t noticed Nie Yan, who then scanned it with Transcendent Insight.
Scaled Frog (Lord): Level 30
Health: 50,000/50,000
Nie Yan estimated that it would only take twenty minutes for him to whittle down this Scaled Frog’s health with his current damage output. Back when Tang Yao had first taken down one of these, it had taken him a full ten hours. Although his lower level and damage output at the time was part of this disparity, no Mage’s cast speed could compare to the rapid-fire offense of a Thief like Nie Yan. Additionally, Nie Yan could now induce high amounts of continuous damage using the Splitting Edge to cause bleed and the Scarlet Poison Ring to inflict poison. With these items, just a casual attack could cause an enemy to lose 50 hitpoints per second, which would increase to more than 70 or even 80 health per second when stacked with a bleed skill like Eviscerate. Just the continuous damage alone would take a huge chunk of the boss’s health. Unlike attack damage, continuous damage ignored defense. This made it especially effective on high-level monsters with tough defenses.
“You be careful then,” Yao Yao fretted. She was worried about his safety.
“Don’t worry.” With a faint curve of his mouth, Nie Yan snuck up behind the Lord-class Scaled Frog. The monster had just felt something and was about to turn around to investigate when Nie Yan suddenly rushed at him with a burst of speed and struck out with a Concussive Blow.
The Scaled Frog froze, having been stunned for a couple of seconds.
Nie Yan’s dagger stabbed into the monster’s back with an Eviscerate, cutting it open and causing blood to spurt out.
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A stream of damage values floated up from the Scaled Frog’s head. First came the damage from his attack, followed by bleed from Splitting Edge, then poison damage, and finally Eviscerate bleed damage. This frighteningly high damage output was even greater than that of a mage wearing a high-damage set. Continuous damage was extremely terrifying, especially against monsters like the Scaled Frog with strong defense.
With Nie Yan’s current damage output, he could rightfully look down upon anything equal to his level. Even fighting creatures above his level wouldn’t be much of a problem.
The Lord-class Scaled Frog turned its head and, looking almost like a massive tank, charged towards Nie Yan. Accurately predicting where its attack would land, Nie Yan’s figure flashed as he circled behind the giant frog once more. The dagger in his hand once more easily pierced its hard scales as he quickly used Backstab.
His dagger stabbed into the Scaled Frog’s back repeatedly despite its attempt to turn around and face its foe. Damage values continued to stream into the air above its head one by one.
Nie Yan’s movements were as moving clouds and flowing water1. He was so fast that each time his adversary tried to attack him, he could immediately predict the trajectory of its attack from its starting movements and dodge just enough to avoid the attack.
These flexible maneuvers weren’t much worse than what a true Shadow Dancer could do.
This was what shadow dancing was all about. This level of skill allowed a thief to look down upon all magic users. Even Fighters without impact skills that did area-of-effect knockback would only die before a Shadow Dancer.
His dagger released a dazzling light, as blood gushed out into air like flowers blooming.
The Lord-class Scaled Frog’s health quickly fell, chunk by chunk. Nie Yan’s damaging capabilities were simply too fierce. Even though the boss was recovering 20 hit points per second, that measly healing was no use in the face of massive bleed and poison damage.
As Sun watched Nie Yan’s actions closely, his eyes took on a wolfish glint. This level of skill was exactly what he needed to achieve! Such accurate judgement, and such gorgeous dodges! His mind suddenly had a flash of inspiration as he saw what a true Thief was supposed to be!
The master opened the door, but the step was his to take2. Nie Yan had already shown Sun what shadow dancing looked like. It was now up to him to comprehend it for himself.
Nie Yan’s damage output alone was enough to kill this Lord-class Scaled Frog. There was no need for others to intervene.
However, Yao Yao still waved her staff and cast Holy Smite. The spell struck the Scaled Frog’s body, dealing 15 points of damage to its health. Although this bit of peanut damage wasn’t much, any bit helped. With Nie Yan doing so much damage to it, she had no fear of accidentally shifting the enemy’s aggro onto herself.
Yu Lan, Sun, and Bai Kaishui also took out their weapons and began attacking the boss. Even though they could only do 1 or 2 damage per hit, it was still better than doing nothing.
After about ten minutes, the Lord-class Scaled Frog still had not landed a single hit on Nie Yan. Suddenly, its mouth opened and spat out a scarlet cloud of toxins, which quickly billowed through the air.
When Nie Yan saw this poisonous cloud, he quickly retreated. Because of his excellent timing, the toxin didn’t affect him in the slightest.
Despite the Lord-class Scaled Frog being obscured by the toxic red fog, continuous damage values could still be seen floating up nonstop from its head. Its recovery speed had increased somewhat, but that still couldn’t keep up with the incredible continuous damage inflicted by Nie Yan.
Backing up ten meters, Nie Yan put his dagger away. He replaced it with his Crossbow of Blood and began to shoot a flurry of bolts. With a succession of sounds, three bolts found their mark. However, their damage was minimal. Each bolt only did 5 or 6 damage to the monster, which now had only 23% of its health left. This had gone even faster than Nie Yan had expected.
The cloud of poison quickly spread to cover a fifty-foot radius around the boss, albeit somewhat diluted. During the time, the continuous damage effects wore off and the boss’s natural regeneration began to slowly restore its health. If this was allowed to continue, their efforts for the last ten minutes would have gone to waste.
With a bottle of Junior Antidote in his hand, he stepped forward to test the venomous cloud. Five points per second… It seems that it has truly diluted after spreading this far. However, even though the effect was greatly weakened, 5 points per second was still alarming. At that rate, Nie Yan would lose 300 points in a minute and die in two if he didn’t drink a health potion. Seeing this, Nie Yan chugged the bottle in his hand. Because it had a cooldown of five minutes but only lasted for thirty seconds, the Junior Antidote was not particularly effective against sustained poisons like this one.
Luckily, they hadn’t called over Resplendent Bladelight and the others. Otherwise, they would have had trouble dealing with this powerful poison released by the Lord-class Scaled Frog. After all, Resplendent Bladelight wasn’t high enough level yet. It wouldn’t be until he was around Level 30 that he could safely tank this boss.
Nie Yan did a roll to evade the attack of the Lord-class Scaled Frog, then darted through the cloud of poison to continue his assault.
The Lord-class Scaled Frog rushed fiercely at Nie Yan, but his body flashed to the side. His movements were like the wind as he once more got behind the boss and attacked it with a Backstab followed by Eviscerate.
The giant frog’s leap once more missed. It’s bulky body just couldn’t keep up with Nie Yan’s agility.
Nie Yan instantly unleashed his strongest attacks, bursting the Lord-class Scaled Frog down to five percent in two minutes. The boss became enraged, increasing its speed greatly. Now the that monster’s speed was higher than Nie Yan’s, he could definitely feel the difficulty spike. He couldn’t just casually run circles around the boss anymore.
When the Lord-class Scaled frog tried to ram sideways into Nie Yan, who could only hastily dodge. He retreated backwards at full speed with Swift Retreat.
The Scaled Frog angrily chased after Nie Yan. Although his flight through the woods seemed dangerous, he had careful over the distance between them. Even at its closest the frog never had a chance to land a hit on Nie Yan.
Yao Yao and the others began to step up their attacks. Although their damage didn’t actually increase, the previously insignificant damage now began to take chunks out of its remaining health. After all, the boss only had less than five percent of its health left now.
Nie Yan’s continuous damage effects also continued to chip away at the monster’s health.
It was almost dead!
The Lord-class Scaled Frog suddenly leapt high into the air and descended towards Nie Yan. Just as it was about to crush him, Nie Yan used Shadow Dance and suddenly disappeared.
With a massive thud, the gigantic frog slammed heavily into the ground. Nie Yan suddenly reappeared behind it with a blur, striking out with Assassinate. Immediately, he added yet another Eviscerate to its back and watched the monster’s health rapidly fall from 4% to 3%.
By the time the Lord-class Scaled Frog turned around to attack Nie Yan, he had already retreated over five meters away. His plan was exactly to chip away at the boss’ health with continuous damage until it died!
With only 1% health remaining, the creature continued to furiously storm after Nie Yan. Yao Yao’s spells and the others’ arrows continued to land on the massive frog.
The Lord-class Scaled Frog chased after Nie Yan, catching up bit by bit until he was almost able to attack him.
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Suddenly, its final sliver of health was drained away. Its plump body, having lost support, hit the ground with an immense hud.
“It’s dead,” Sun said.
During the entire fight, the others hadn’t done much at all. The fight was basically carried entirely by Nie Yan. A Level 29 player soloing a Level 30 Lord was truly hard to believe, but Nie Yan had done it right in front of them.
Nie Yan looked at his experience bar, which had risen by 12%. While this was still a significant sum, the gains were clearly incomparable to the ridiculous levelling speed brought about by killing monsters many levels above him.
「Look at what it dropped.」Bai Kaishui curiously sent over through team chat.
What would a Lord-class monster drop?
Nie Yan bent down to pick the items up. There was a skill book, two gems, and a blood-red medallion. The metal medallion was unadorned, with only a Fiend Totem engraved on it. It looked extremely eerie and exuded a bloody stench.
Nie Yan’s heart leapt. He got a Slaughter Fiend Medallion?!
In the previous timeline, he had seen pictures of the medallion as well as its properties, so he had a vague recollection of it. Once he picked it up, a crisp system tone rung out. He opened the message.
System: Are you sure you would like to bind the Slaughter Fiend Medallion?
There were two options below it. He could either hit confirm or destroy. Only he could use this particular Slaughter Fiend Medallion. Nie Yan naturally picked confirm without any hesitation.
1. An idiom that means natural, unforced, smooth, etc. It’s often used to describe calligraphy / fancy writing.
2. Buddhist saying meaning that a teacher can teach, but the student has to learn for himself.