MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Among all twenty 5-man dungeons within the Ancient King Quest Series, the City in the Sky was ranked among the top three hardest. Presently, there were already plenty of players who had cleared the Heroic difficulty of the other eighteen dungeons, but there was not a single player who had claimed the first kill for the City in the Sky.

The whole quest took over eight hours to complete, and should they fail the quest halfway through, they were forced to redo everything. Due to this special mechanic, many players were unwilling to so much as touch the dungeon.

Back in Li Yi’s past life, players who wore a complete set of Empyrean Equipment would definitely garner the respect of most players. Not only was the Empyrean Equipment Set rare, but it also among the rarest within the Ancient King Equipment Series.

Even if players had godly skills, they would find no use for their abilities when solo-ing the dungeon. There was a simple reason for this, as all players had the same ATK within it. As such, there was a huge difference between playing as a team of five or playing alone.

Just take Li Yi’s current situation as an example. By having the four ladies attack synchronously with him, they were able to finish off each Empyrean Guard in a single blow. Before the Empyrean Guards had even made sense of the situation, they had already been wiped out.

When the five of them used Sudden Impact at the same time, their damage was just enough to finish off a single Empyrean Guard. This was because when all party members struck the same target simultaneously, their hits were guaranteed to crit.

The moment the battle began, ten Empyrean Guards would appear one after another, and when players were rid of them, new mechanics would be introduced to the battle. Dark clouds would begin to congregate above the players, and above each cloud, stood an Empyrean Guard. Additionally, there were also azure pearls under each of the guards.

The azure pearls would radiate a faint glow as they continuously absorbed in the energy within the air. Furthermore, the energy they absorbed was sent to a point high above the clouds, and from there, players were also able to make out a blurry silhouette.

That figure was none other than the ruler of the skies, the Sky Emperor, and what Li Yi and his party were currently tasked with, was to prevent it from being resurrected.

By crushing the azure pearls, they would be able to prevent the Sky Emperor’s revival!

Tch-tch-tch—

Light rays shot out from the azure pearls, connecting them to one another and forming a wide net to protect the Sky Emperor.

In order to destroy the pearls, Li Yi and his party would first need to finish off the Empyrean Guards. Then, two members would have to work together to destroy two interconnected pearls. If they only destroyed one of the pearls, the remaining pearl would emit a light ray that reconstructed the shattered pearl.

The initial phases of the battle were easy, as there was only at most two pearls that were interconnected. However, as the battle progressed, the difficulty would ramp up, cases like three interconnected pearls or four interconnected pearls would become commonplace, and at times, there would even be six interconnected pearls!

The moment Li Yi led the party to assault the net of light, a timer began to count down. If Li Yi and his party were unable to destroy all pearls within thirty minutes, the Sky Emperor would revive, and their dungeon run would be deemed as a failure.

Li Yi had paired up with Jiaojiao to attack one of the Empyrean Guards, whereas Qian’er had paired up with Pale Blue Elegance to attack another Empyrean Guard. Little Elf from the Magical Realm was relegated to the support role, and when she saw that one of the guards was about to perish, she would charge ahead and aid the others in finishing it off.

With that, two of the Empyrean Guards that protected the azure pearls were taken care of. Together, Li Yi and Qian’er thrust their lances forward, shattering two interconnected pearls at the same time.

Upon the destruction of the two pearls, the Sky Emperor, who was situated within the net of light, let out a pained moan, and its massive body shrank.

“Protect the king! Kill the intruders!”

Ten Empyrean Guards popped out of nowhere, and they hurtled towards Li Yi and his party.

Not only did the players need to defeat the Empyrean Guards, but they were also tasked with destroying the azure pearls. Furthermore, the players only had a timeframe of thirty minutes to complete their tasks. In other words, even a minute blunder from the players in this phase would result in all their efforts going to waste.

“Assemble and line up!”

Li Yi thundered, and all five players quickly gathered to face the imminent threat heading towards them.

By the time the party had gotten rid of the ten Empyrean Guards, five minutes had already gone by.

However, when they looked around them, there were still around thirty azure pearls remaining.

“We need to speed things up. Each of you, choose your targets and attack them. Except you, Little Elf, you’re in charge of picking up the slack.”

Since destroying two pearls at a time was taking too long, Li Yi was forced to changed tactics.

The five players split up. Aside from Little Elf from the Magical Realm, everyone else was attacking their chosen Empyrean Guards, so that they could destroy four azure pearls at the same time.

Despite that, their efforts were still not good enough, as they had taken three whole minutes just to destroy four azure pearls.

Once again, the Sky Emperor let loose a low groan. Its body then shrank, and its appearance had become even fainter.

“Protect the King! Kill the intruders!”

Another ten Empyrean Guards had appeared, and once again, they charged directly towards Li Yi’s party.

Li Yi’s eyes suddenly lit up. He had figured something out.

No matter how many pearls they destroyed, the number of Empyrean Guards that appeared was constant.

‘This must be it!’

“Don’t bother attacking the newcomers. For now, we should focus on attacking the pearls. Just like before, everyone should target different pearls, and Little Elf, go and lure the ten newcomers away.”

“Why should I…”

“This is my order!”

The Missus grumpily flew ahead and lured the ten newly arrived Empyrean Guards away.

As for Li Yi and the others, they focused on destroying the azure pearls, and before long, they had destroyed another four azure pearls.

Li Yi’s hypothesis had been spot-on. This time, after they had crushed the pearls, no new guards appeared. The ten guards that were chasing the Missus around was all there was to the Sky Emperor’s response crew.

“Continue destroying the pearls!”

Naturally, now that Li Yi had discovered the method for clearing the phase, he was extremely ecstatic. Jiaojiao and Qian’er, on the other hand, did not share the same sentiments.

“After being here for so long, it turns out that you have no idea what to do as well, huh? And you were even leading us as if you were some kind of messiah, scr*w you!” Jiaojiao flashed her middle finger at Li Yi.

“Scr*w you!”

Qian’er had also pointed her pinky finger at Li Yi to express her disappointment in him.

Four players would target the interconnected pearls, while the remaining one would focus on luring away the Empyrean Guards. Now that they had their game plan settled, the following pearls could be handled much easier than before. Whether the pearls were connected three by three or four by four, to Li Yi and his party, they no longer posed a challenge.

However, when they arrived at the final pearls, Li Yi was dumbstruck, as the pearls were connected in a group of six.

Back in his past life, Li Yi had little interest in the City in the Sky. As such, the tactics that he was using up until the present had only been hearsay. In other words, one could say that his knowledge was extremely limited, and when it came to stuff like the six interconnected pearls before him, he had no clue what to do.

Destroying four pearls at one go was easy, but the problem was that once Li Yi and his party had destroyed the four pearls, the remaining two pearls would continue to emit their light rays, which would quickly reconstruct the shattered pearls.

In a blink of an eye, the six pearls were as good as new…

“This isn’t working. It’ll always end the same way no matter what we do,” said Jiaojiao worriedly.

“Then what better idea do you have?”

“Call in another person and have everyone attack the pearls. That’ll do the trick!” Jiaojiao shook her tiny cranium, delighted with her plan.

“Ahem ahem…” Qian’er let loose two loud coughs. “Lil Jiao, this is a five-man dungeon, so how are we going to bring in the sixth member?”

Jiaojiao’s faced turned beet red and she went silent.

The maximum number of players that five-man dungeons could take in was five. As such, having someone join the party was basically nonsense, and only someone like Queen Jiao would come up with such an absurd answer…

“Can you guys hurry up? I can’t take this for much longer!”

Little Elf from the Magical Realm who had been kiting the Empyrean Guards around was now panting in exhaustion. Although King of Pantheon had no such thing as stamina parameters, the players’ avatars were based on the rules of reality. Thus, when players ran for a long time, they would start to tire out, and when they were surprised, they would perspire. Basically, the avatars would mirror reality.

Panicking, Jiaojiao pressed, “Whatshouldwedo? Whatshouldwedo? We’ve only got four minutes left, and if we fail here, we’ll need to start all over again.”

All four ladies were looking at Li Yi now. It was an unconscious reflex. Even though Li Yi himself was unsure of the tactics to use in the City in the Sky, in the eyes of the four ladies, Li Yi was the most trustworthy person.

“A way for five people to destroy six interconnected pearls?”

Li Yi stared long and hard at the ray emitted by the azure pearls. He then extended his hand to experiment on them. Upon doing so, he immediately broke into laughter.

“What’s up? Have you figured something out?”

“Yeah, we can use our bodies to temporarily block the light!”

“1,2,3, attack the pearls!”

Li Yi gave the order, and together, the four of them crushed four pearls. Then, by using his body as a shield, he blocked the light rays behind him from ever reaching the shattered pearls.

Tch-tch-tch—

The light rays continued to be emitted, and it caused Li Yi’s to take on an azure shade. The debuff, Sky Emperor’s Sacrifice had been cast on him and he could no longer move. At that moment, Li Yi was basically filling in the role of the azure pearls.

“What are you guys waiting for? Hurry up and destroy the final two pearls. I can’t move right now…”

“Ohh okay…”

A light bulb went off above the ladies’ heads as they finally understood the situation. They then urged their Pegasi to approach the remaining two pearls, and then they shattered them with their lances.

All six interconnected pearls had now been destroyed!

“My king…”

The Empyrean Guards that had been pursuing Little Elf from the Magical Realm let out a disheartened sigh as they disappeared into thin air.

At that instant, the Sky Emperor’s silhouette that was located high above the clouds disappeared along with the clouds.

They had successfully prevented the Sky Emperor’s revival!

The Empyrean Warhorses neighed in unison as they descended onto the ground.

With that, City in the Sky’s first phase was over.

The white elf NPC, Carine had clasped her hands together and was offering a silent prayer. However, when she saw Li Yi and his party’s return, she immediately broke into a wide grin. She was extremely pleased.

“Thank you, brave warriors. You have prevented the Sky Emperor’s revival and saved this world. Please accept my most sincere blessings.”

Krakoom! Krakakakoom!

Hngggg…

At that instant, another horn resounded from the clouds, followed by an ear-splitting loudness that swallowed Carine’s words.

Carine stared in terror at the clouds. “No… this… this can’t be. You’ve already stopped it, so why has the Sky Emperor… revived?!”

The Sky Emperor stood imposingly above the players. It had a crown on its head, donned armor with cloud-shaped patterns, and it wielded a Cloud Spear with an exaggerated design in one hand.

Why? This can’t be possible! Didn’t you heroes already stop it? …” Carine’s eyes were filled with disbelief.

“Die…”

The Sky Emperor hurled its Cloud Spear directly at Carine.

“Pale Blue!”

Pale Blue Elegance waved her hand and a Giant Magic Rock appeared in front of Carine.

Crack—

The Cloud Spear pierced through the Giant Magic Rock and stopped right before it reached Carine’s chest.

Carine had been mere moments from death.

According to the normal flow of the dungeon, once Carine perished, the rewards players received would be halved. As such, Li Yi and his squad had to do whatever they could in order to prevent Carine from dying.

“Sky Emperor, I’ll never submit myself to you! Brave warriors, please assist me in defeating it!”

Carine hopped onto an Empyrean Warhorse and flew towards the Sky Emperor.

“Get on the horses!”

Li Yi shouted as he went after Carine.

[Current objective: Protect Carine and defeat the Sky Emperor!]