“Everyone ready? If so, then I’m going to pull,” asked Nie Yan as he turned to face his team.

“We’re good to go.”

Nie Yan raised his Crossbow of Blood and took aim at the King Manticore.「Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! 」Three bolts flew through the air and directly struck the boss.

The King Manticore discovered Nie Yan nigh instantly and pounced toward him with incredible speed.

Seeing this, Nie Yan hastily dashed toward the location of his team, continuously firing off his crossbow as he fled.

The King Manticore increased its speed, steadily closing the gap between it and Nie Yan.

Nie Yan only needed to take a single glance at the fearsome beast pursuing him from behind to understand that whoever was unlucky enough to suffer one of its attacks would undoubtedly die. Even Violent Waves wouldn’t be able to endure repeated strikes from the King Manticore. If it could build up enough momentum during its charge, then even a Fighter with five hundred health and a hundred and fifty defense would be easily dispatched with a single swipe of its paw.

Violent Waves hadn’t the slightest idea of just how dangerous the King Manticore was right now. He raised his shield and came forward with the intent of intercepting the beast after Nie Yan passed by.

When it was just thirty meters away, Nie Yan brought out a Sheep Transformation Scroll and bit his thumb, then used the blood to activate the magic dwelling inside.

A strange magical energy spilled out of the scroll and into the surrounding area.

By now, the distance between the King Manticore and Nie Yan had shortened to just twenty meters.

Once the Sheep Transformation Scroll’s channeling time of two seconds was up, the scroll suddenly emitted a dazzling radiance as countless magical runes flew out into the sky and began revolving in midair. Then...「Poof!」The scroll exploded and vanished without a trace.

As the scroll disappeared, a bright light fell down upon the King Manticore, enshrouding it. Then, all of a sudden, the gigantic beast began to shrink until it was reduced to the size of a small sheep. Realizing that the situation had changed, the King Manticore attempted to halt its charge, but the sudden change in body mass, coupled with the momentum that it had built up from its earlier charge, made it difficult. It placed its newly acquired hooves firmly on the ground and awkwardly slid forward until... 「Poof!」The King Manticore transformed, regaining its original appearance just two fleeting seconds after becoming a sheep.

The Sheep Transformation magic inside the scroll could transform ordinary monsters into sheep for ten seconds. During this time, if the player were to attack the transformed monster, then the spell would be cancelled prematurely. However, since the King Manticore had a high resistance against transformation magic, the spell’s effects would last for no more than two seconds.

By the time the King Manticore had returned to its original form, its charging speed had been drastically reduced.

And Nie Yan didn’t plan on giving it the opportunity to build its momentum back up either as he pulled out another scroll.

Web Scroll!

Suddenly, a gigantic cobweb appeared out of nowhere and fell on top of the King Manticore, trapping it.

The massive beast roared angrily as it thrashed about underneath the web. Though the web was quite strong, the King Manticore was even stronger, and it broke free just a moment later.

Though the web didn’t last long, it had still done its job by trapping the King Manticore, if even for a moment. Although it hadn’t received any injuries, its previous speed had vanished without a trace.

Nie Yan’s two scrolls had neutralized the most crucial, most ferocious, and most powerful strike from the King Manticore and, in doing so, had averted the imminent catastrophe that was about to befall the team.

At this point, the King Manticore had reached Violent Waves, who had been waiting to engage it with his shield raised. He opted to get the first strike in by fiercely bashing the beast with his shield. Immediately after, two spells, Repel Evil and Radiant Barrier, were cast on him by a Paladin and a Priest respectively.

Taunt!

Violent Waves quickly used the skill to draw the King Manticore’s aggro onto himself.

Enraged by the taunts of the pest, the King Manticore roared as it raised its giant paws and swiped at him twice.

?150

?152

After seeing the damage values float above their teammate’s head, the other team members suddenly realized that the King Manticore on Specialist wasn’t as terrifying as they had imagined. After all, the first time they encountered the King Manticore on Easy, Violent Waves had been sent to an early grave with just its first strike. Of course, this was due to many reasons. The first being that they had allowed the King Manticore to build up enough momentum in its charge, thereby significantly increasing the destructive force of its attack. Under such circumstances, a critical strike was very likely to occur as well. The second reason was because they had never cast Repel Evil while fighting the King Manticore, a spell which was extremely effective at restraining its killing power. The third reason was because the equipment Violent Waves wore at that time wasn’t nearly as good as his current gear. The fourth and final reason was that most of the team members were around Level 3, so they didn’t have Radiant Barrier which could absorb some of the damage.

Yet, right now, Violent Waves was able to endure the King Manticore’s attacks without much difficulty even though it was a Lord-class monster. Thanks to the constant healing of the Priests, his situation was stable, at least for the moment.

At this very moment, Sleepy Fox had an epiphany. It was only now that he realized why Nie Yan had used the Sheep Transformation Scroll and the Web Scroll earlier. The actions which seemed silly and pointless actually had an underlying meaning. It was all for the sake of dispelling the team’s fears which had been left behind from their previous encounters. Only, Nie Yan never said it outright.

Perhaps the Lord-class King Manticore really isn’t as terrifying as we imagined, Sleepy Fox thought as he stared at Nie Yan’s back. If they had a Thief in their team as capable as Nie Yan, then any dungeon would become easy.

Spells arced through the air and battered the King Manticore’s body as they lit up the sky like a brilliant display of fireworks.

Meanwhile, Nie Yan circled behind the King Manticore and unleashed a flurry of attacks, each hit dealing at least seventy to eighty damage. Out of all the frontliners currently fighting alongside him, not a single one was able to match his damage. Those Fighters, Berserkers, and Paladins would only deal forty to fifty damage at most.

It didn’t come as much of a surprise to him though. After all, not only were his equipment and weapons decent, but his stats were also greatly bolstered thanks to the Chapter of Courage. Not to mention, Thieves already possessed innately high attack speed. This, when paired with the fact that he also gained an additional thirty percent attack when striking an enemy from behind, was probably why he had the highest damage output among all the frontliners. It was even higher than some of the Mages in the rear.

As it suffered the team’s fierce assault, the King Manticore’s health gradually fell lower and lower.

80%... 70%... 60%...

Due to his ridiculous damage, the King Manticore suddenly showed signs of aggroing onto him, so Nie Yan immediately stopped his attacks and retreated.

Demoralizing Shout!

MISS!

The King Manticore had the potential to ignore a Fighter’s Demoralizing Shout. And of course, exactly at this moment, it had ignored Violent Waves’ Demoralizing Shout.

Violent Waves cried out in alarm. If he couldn’t keep its aggro, the consequences would be absolutely disastrous.

Before Violent Waves could get in another attack to pull back its aggro, the King Manticore abruptly switched targets and knocked down the nearby Warrior and Thief. It raised its sharp claws and swiped down with a trail light following behind the attack. A Thief and Berserker were instantly killed by the attack and sent to the graveyard. At the same time, it attacked another Fighter, who, after receiving the attack, was only left with a sliver of health as he hurriedly retreated.

Violent Waves finally intervened and struck the King Manticore with Assault followed by Heroic Strike.

Heroic Strike was the most common offensive skill used by Fighters. Its damage was average, but it also had the effect of generating additional aggro.

Despite being hit by Violent Waves’ Heroic Strike, the King Manticore still seemed unwilling to pay attention to this hard-to-chew bone of a player and began pursuing Nie Yan instead.

Out of all the bugs it had to deal with, Nie Yan’s attacks were the most painful, and he also dealt the highest damage. So once the King Manticore saw Nie Yan was nearby, it immediately pounced toward him.

In response to the King Manticore charging toward him, Nie Yan retrieved a pouch of Flash Powder and lobbed it at the King Manticore.「Poof!」The glittering white powder scattered in the air and released a radiance so intense it almost burned and blinded the King Manticore’s eyes. After being struck the by the Flash Powder, the King Manticore thrashed about on the ground.

Nie Yan seized this brief opening and quickly retreated several steps. Then, he took out a Web Scroll and activated it, trapping the King Manticore long enough for Violent Waves to arrive, who struck it several times with his shield and then subsequently used Taunt.

Throughout this string of events, the Mages in the team had adjusted their positions, but even then, they never stopped firing spells. Magic constantly bombarded the King Manticore without end.

Similar to how Sheep Transformation and Web’s effects were reduced by its magic resistance, the King Manticore was merely affected for a short while. When it regained its vision, its attention was once again on the closest enemy to it, Violent Waves.

Nie Yan’s response to such an unforeseen event could be considered satisfactory.