Volume 2 Chapter 12: Entering the Imperial Mausoleum (3)
Entering the imperial mausoleum, there is a long square bluestone passageway, which is very spacious and can accommodate ten people walking side by side. The ground is flat, and there are relief patterns on the walls on both sides. It looks much more comfortable than a dark cave. However, this place is much more dangerous than a dark cave! Since the tomb door was successfully opened, everyone was a little relaxed and walked into the tomb passage with laughter. Before we had time to gather and line up in battle formation, we were greeted by a row of hidden arrows!
Perhaps some mechanism was triggered, and there were a series of "swoosh" sounds, and a row of arrows flew towards me, fierce and fast, and everyone was terrified. Fortunately, I was the one who opened the door, so I was walking in front, and I didn't dare to dodge, and tried to stand in front of everyone. I took seven or eight arrows and lost more than half of my blood; but there were still more than ten arrows flying past me on both sides. On my right was Wenxin, and I guess he was okay, but on my left were Feiniao and Wanxing, who were holding hands, whispering and laughing loudly. They couldn't stand it!
It happened in a flash. With his agility, Han Jiang took a step forward and stood in front of the two women, taking most of the arrows for them. The rest were mostly dodged by Wanxing and Feiniao, so each of them was only hit by one or two arrows.
Han Jiang groaned. He was hit by five arrows and his HP dropped to the bottom instantly! Wen Xin was fine. He was hit by six arrows but still looked fine. The Blood Bull Warrior was really amazing.
As soon as we entered the imperial mausoleum, we encountered danger and almost lost our troops. This undoubtedly sounded a warning bell for everyone, and we dared not be careless again. After the injured team member was replenished with blood, everyone concentrated on their positions, with the soldiers outside, the auxiliary personnel inside, and the mage archer in the middle; Awei and Shi Zhongyu cooperated to cover the rear, and Wenxin and I led Wanxing to open the way.
Of all the members, the one who works the hardest and is in the most danger is Qian Qian Wan Xing. Although she has low defense and low HP, she has to be on the front line. We must rely on her scout skills to find the path, and her mechanical skills to find and dismantle traps. Although Wen Xin and I are protecting her from both sides, we cannot guarantee her safety 100%.
We advanced cautiously for a distance. No monsters appeared, and no traps were found. The silence in the maze, which seemed to have accumulated for thousands of years, surrounded us, the intruders. Even the occasional conversations between us at the beginning were unconsciously interrupted. The only sounds were the "thump thump" of footsteps on the stone slabs, and the occasional crackling of torches in our hands.
There is a fork in the road ahead. According to the guide, you should choose the road on the right, but we cannot rule out the possibility that the system has changed the map after the public beta. Wanxing left a marker stone (a special item, specially used by thieves in conjunction with trap skills, a must-have for maze exploration. The marker stone left behind will be retained by the system for 24 hours without being refreshed, but if another thief player comes here and removes it for you, there is nothing you can do).
Keep moving forward... Suddenly, Wanxing pointed straight ahead and made a gesture, saying, "Attention!"
I gazed and saw three vague black shadows at the farthest point of the torch's illumination. They couldn't be players, so they must be monsters in the maze.
The sound of metal friction was heard, and three black shadows began to move and walked towards us. They turned out to be three armored guards.
I thought about it, these guys are very similar to the seal guardian I encountered at the end when I completed the second job hidden mission! So their strength should be similar? They are only at the level of the Goblin King, so it shouldn't be difficult to deal with them. But just in case, I told everyone not to do anything yet, I'll go and check them out.
Walking forward, I raised my gun and stabbed a guard right in the chest. There was a "ding" sound of metal clashing, resonating in the passage, extremely clear and melodious. A few sparks flew on the guard's chest. The tip of the gun penetrated the armor, but there was no feeling of piercing flesh and blood, as if the heavy armor was just wrapping an empty ghost.
However, the system prompts that my shot took away more than 1,600 health points from the armored guard, which means that physical attacks are still effective against this guy, and its defense is only average; however, it is not an undead monster, and the sacred +1 attribute of my armor is invalid against it.
After trying the defense, it was time to look at the attack of the armored guards. Three guards raised their bronze giant swords and slashed at my head at the same time.
I calmly slid sideways and dodged two swords, but one of the huge swords hit my right shoulder. I felt a slight pain and lost more than 200 lives.
Fortunately, it is slightly stronger than the Seal Guardian, but not higher than the level of an H-level Boss. Converted into an ordinary monster, the level of the Armored Guard should be around 45. Among the combat members of our team, even Liu Badao can fight alone, and the rest can deal with two without any problem.
Making a gesture to attack with confidence, I raised my spear and started fighting with the three guards. In less than two seconds, the fat man's explosive flames, the blue crystal's chain lightning, and the bird's icy arrows flew at the same time, and Wenxin, who was closest to me, had already pounced on me and swung his axe to chop down fiercely!
The armored guards were not very strong, but they had a lot of HP. Under such intensive attacks, they actually lasted four rounds until Hanjiang, Jimo, and Badao rushed up and chopped them a few more times before they fell!
We exchanged glances. Although no one spoke, we were all a little scared. Although this battle was easy to resolve, the armored guards were only the lowest-level guards in the emperor's mausoleum, and there were only three of them this time. If there were more than a dozen, it would be difficult to deal with them. Moreover, as we went deeper into the imperial mausoleum, the monsters would only become stronger and stronger.
After rearranging the battle formation, everyone became more cautious. I said in a deep voice, "Next time, if Wenxin and I can handle the monsters that appear, we will only need the mages and archers to provide long-range support. Soldiers should not rush forward and should pay attention to protecting non-combatants. We would rather be slower and absolutely cannot allow any mistakes!"
We walked a little further, and only occasionally a few armored guards appeared, and there were no more than five at a time, and we easily dealt with them all. Suddenly, Wanxing gestured to stop moving forward. She stood on tiptoe, crouched down, and took two steps forward gently. She squatted down, buried her head in the ground and fiddled for a while, then turned back and said, "It's a flip-up trap, with iron sticks at the bottom of the pit... I have dealt with it, you can move forward without worry."
Not far away, there was another three-way intersection. Following the guide, we chose the middle intersection.
After moving forward for more than ten minutes, killing several groups of guards on the way, a crossroads appeared in front of me. I said in a lost voice: "No, according to the guide, this should be a double fork. The system map has been changed!"
Everyone looked at each other when they heard this. Damn, this is a big problem. If the map is changed, then we have to explore the maze by ourselves? Although the maze guide does not provide detailed instructions, and the author probably does not remember the second half of the route very clearly, so he only gave a rough idea of the route, it is still much better than exploring without any clue!
I asked Wanxing, "How many skill points do you have left? What's your level of mechanical skills?"
Wan Xing frowned and said, "In order to improve the level of thieving, I used up all my skill points. I only kept the points from the subsequent upgrades, and I only have about 60 points left. You have to go to the Thief Academy to practice mechanical skills (similar to knight riding). I have been busy upgrading these days and don't have much free time. I only practiced to level 2."
I said, "If we put all the skill points into Scout, we should be able to level it up to level 3, right? There's no other way. The scale of this maze is beyond imagination. Without a thief with a high level of Scout skill, we can't find a way out at all... If we get lost in there, we can't even use the scroll to return to town. There's no other way except to hang back. So we might as well find a way out now, go back and level up, and come back next week."
Wanxing thought about it and thought I was right, so she used all her skill points at once, and her scout immediately reached level 3, and her sensing range was greatly expanded. However, this way, she could not take into account the mechanical arts, and she could only rely on luck when encountering high-level traps.
Wanxing closed her eyes and used the scout skill. Based on my experience of playing a thief in the internal test, a three-dimensional virtual image of all the terrain and monster distribution (except for high-level monsters with skills such as "hide") with her own location as the center and extending outward within a radius of about 400 meters (with each level of skill increase, the radius expands by 100 meters) should appear in her mind. Haha, it's equivalent to the function of half a GPS.
After a while, Wanxing opened his eyes and said, "The maze is too big. I can't tell if we are on the right path now... But I feel that the density of monsters is much higher on the right side of the wall. If the deeper you go, the greater the danger, then we should go to the right."
Since there were no other clues to determine the path, we had to do as Wanxing said. The annoying thing was that the walls of this maze were not continuous, otherwise we could always find the exit using the one-handed rule.
The passage twists and turns, but judging by the direction and distance, we have indeed arrived at the place "separated by a wall" as Wanxing said. The monsters here are indeed much denser. Almost every few dozen meters forward, there are groups of seven or eight armored guards appear. Fortunately, everyone cooperates well and it is not too difficult to solve the problem. It's just that the speed is much slower. No wonder the guide says it takes more than twenty hours to get through the maze!
Following the instructions of the evening star, we passed several more intersections, and suddenly, four guards appeared in front of us.
"Be careful!" I shouted loudly. Years of online gaming experience made me intuitively feel that something was wrong. Usually in a map, the deeper you go, the more monsters there are. The Armored Guards appeared in groups of seven or eight before, but this time there were only four. Unless we took the wrong path and turned back to the periphery of the passage; but the more likely possibility is that the level of the monsters has been increased, and they are a stronger species than the Armored Guards!
Sure enough, when several guards came closer and took a closer look, they found that although they looked similar, the armor on these four guys looked different, shining brightly and of much higher quality. What was more obvious was that the weapons in their hands had been replaced with spears!
Wenxin and I rushed forward at the same time, thrusting out with spears, sparks flying, and the resistance on our hands became much greater. The system prompted: Your attack on the Armored Guard was successful, and the Armored Guard's health -1452.
Oh? This guy is called the Armored Guard. Well, according to the guide, he is a second-level soldier in the imperial mausoleum that is slightly stronger than the guard. However, this "slightly stronger" means that his defense is increased by 150! The strength of the third-level soldiers, fourth-level soldiers, bosses, etc. is even greater.
Fortunately, in general, both the guards and the guards have high offense and defense, but their agility is not very good. Maybe it is the armor that restricts their activities and their movements are not very flexible. As long as you pay attention to dodging, you can avoid a considerable part of the attacks. In addition, with the support of my favorite fish "enhanced healing technique", I don't need to take medicine!
One spear, one axe, four spears, clashed back and forth, making dense metal collision sounds, plus the arrows of the archers, the fireballs and lightning of the mages whistling down from the sky, it was really lively; among them, the chain lightning of the blue crystal was the most spectacular, a bright electric shock tore through the space, fell on the guards, and immediately burst into a large area of blue lightning, which extended out and also caused damage to the nearby guards. Perhaps because metal conducts electricity, the total amount of life points deducted by one of Crystal's magic is often more than 3,000, but her magic consumes the most MP, if it weren't for the pharmacist accompanying her, it would never be wasted like this.
In fact, if the team is strong enough, the Emperor's Mausoleum may be a good place to level up. The basic experience of guards is twice that of zombies! However, it is difficult to break the door to level up here, and the team must have all the professions. If there is no thief, even the highest-level warrior will get lost or run into traps here. Therefore, few people come to the Emperor's Mausoleum during the internal test. In addition, the monsters here do not drop money, and the explosion rate of equipment is also very low. It costs a lot of money to come here every time.
After killing the guards, we continued to move forward. There were obviously more mechanisms and traps. Wanxing had to stop from time to time to deal with them. This consumed a lot of our time. We often could not even walk one thousand meters in half an hour!
By 3:00 in the morning, I had forgotten how many forks in the road I had passed and had completely lost my sense of direction. The only difference was that we were now dealing with the third-level troops: the Armored Guards!
This guy holds a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. When you attack, he will use the shield in his hand to block your weapon. If the block is successful, it can offset 50% of the attack power! This is clearly a skill, the "Iron Wall" that can only be learned by knights above level 42!
Its swordsmanship is also not ambiguous. The "Sword Energy" skill that high-level warriors are good at is extremely powerful. The key is that the sword energy emitted from the blade can hurt people from a distance, and the attack distance is as long as 5 meters, which is considered a long-range attack skill of the warrior profession. This makes it greatly difficult to dodge. No matter how high Wenxin and I have high defense, under the continuous attacks of the sword energy, the enhanced healing technique of eating fish alone cannot replenish blood, and we must drink a bottle of life water from time to time.
After killing more than a dozen groups of guards, the passage became quiet. I thought we had been fighting for several hours straight, and was about to suggest that we sit down and rest for a while, when Wanxing suddenly said, "Be careful! I sense a very powerful monster coming!"
When I heard this, I was not surprised but happy. Ha, it's a very powerful monster, most likely a boss. According to the guide, the place guarded by a boss is often the correct intersection!
With the sound of "clang clang clang" footsteps, a figure about two meters tall walked out. He was wearing fish-scale chain mail and holding a golden Fang Tian Huaji in his hand. He had a face like an iron crab and a bulging beard. He looked so majestic!
"Who are you, the scoundrel, to dare to trespass into the imperial mausoleum? I, the Iron-Armored General, am here to make sure you never return!"
Monsters can speak? This is the first time I've encountered one, except for the seal guardian. If the guide hadn't mentioned this, I would have thought it was a quest NPC!
“Damn it, it’s just a boss? He acts like he’s so powerful. Brothers, let’s kill him!” Lonely had the hottest temper. Although he was behind me, he was the first to rush up when he heard this.
"Be careful!" I exclaimed, but before I could finish my words, the iron-clad general swept his halberd and loneliness flew out!
Lonely flew into the wall, bounced off the ground, rolled twice, and lay on the ground motionless. We were shocked, thinking, could it be killed instantly?
Fortunately, the light spots transformed from the player's soul after death did not fly out of Lonely's body. After a few seconds, Lonely turned over and got up, cursing: "Damn it, it hurts! Be careful, this guy's attack has a stun effect!"
I hurriedly told Wanxing to step back. Jimo was so badly hit by that one blow, she was probably killed instantly.
Relying on our high defense and long health, Wenxin and I rushed forward to attack together. We must not let this guy break through our defense. If the mage and archers are attacked by it, we will suffer heavy casualties.
I used all my strength to thrust the spear out, but with a loud bang, I couldn't penetrate the general's armor, only leaving a scratch and deducting 800 HP from him. Wenxin's attribute distribution was more physical, and his attack power was far inferior to mine, but the characteristic of the axe was that the upper and lower limits of attack power were very different, so his axe just played a higher attack, barely breaking the general's defense and deducting less than 100 HP.
At the same time, the Iron-Armored General yelled "Wenhou Halberd Technique!", and the long halberd chopped across the air like lightning. I felt a chill on my body, and four streams of blood spurted out of my arms and ribs at the same time. At this time, I felt a sharp pain. Damn, it actually cut more than 1,600 blood from me! If it weren't for my HP being over 2,000, other teammates would have been killed in seconds, except for those who were conscientious.
But this Boss is too rude. Just fight me, why are you yelling? If I wasn't distracted, I could at least avoid one or two halberds, right?
However, my injuries were not limited to this. The crescent blade of the Fang Tian Hua Ji had the effect of tearing wounds. Two of my wounds split open and bled profusely, causing me to lose 200 HP per second!
I could not linger in the fight, so I quickly withdrew, first took the Small Huandan, then drank the Water of Life, and finally used the Golden Cure Medicine. Fortunately, Wenxin did not retreat even a single step and held on to the general, otherwise I would have been dead. Fortunately, the general's skills were not activated continuously, otherwise Wenxin would not have been able to hold on.
At the same time, the mage archer's long-range attack also arrived. The crystal's lightning still had some effect, but the fat man's explosive flames could only deduct a pitiful 100 HP (this was still the damage bonus of fire magic on metal armor), and the bird's arrows could not break the general's defense at all. Three consecutive shots were just a system-forced deduction of 3 points of health!
What a powerful Boss! His strength is far above that of the mutant giant lizard. I’m afraid he has reached the level of an E-level Boss!
I shouted, "Little Bird, don't attack to avoid wasting arrows. Fatty, use ice arrows instead! Ah Wei, quickly release the Substitute Talisman. Lonely, Hanjiang, and Ba Dao, don't go up. It's too dangerous! Bad Bad, use your special move! Stone, use the Fiery Curse. This guy should be of the Gold Attribute! Fish, give me a blessing (attack bonus)!"
Before we set off, we had agreed that as the captain, all members must follow my command. Therefore, although Lonely, Hanjiang, Xiaoniao and Badao were dissatisfied, they obeyed the order and did not move forward. They automatically retreated to the second line to prevent any sneak attacks from monsters. Awei kept throwing out substitute talismans. Although this phantom could only withstand one or two attacks from the general before being reduced to ashes, he had a lot of talisman paper anyway, so he could kill one and create another, which relieved a lot of pressure on Wenxin. The naughty Jinpeng spread his wings and shot countless golden rays directly at the general. This one attack deducted more than 3,000 HP, which was much more powerful than when fighting the Wolf King. It was a pity that it could only be used once every five minutes. Shitou's fire spell was effective. As long as he kept casting the spell, the flames would continue to burn on the general, deducting more than 50 HP per second. Shitou was in the protection circle of Lonely and the others, so even if there was a refresh, the spell should not be interrupted by monsters. It's just that his MP loss was considerable, but he couldn't care less now.
I love eating fish and gave it a blessing. I took out a level 38 equipment "God's Arm Bow". The other attributes of this bow are relatively poor, but I took a fancy to its attack power +20%. I took out a poisoned arrow and put it on the bow. I strode forward and shot it hard at close range. Humph, no matter how high your defense is, I am also a well-known attack abnormality. With the blessing and the weapon's attack bonus, I can still exert the maximum power of the bow and arrow at close range. Although I don't have the 260% attack power of the thrust skill, I can still break your defense, right?
Sure enough, the arrow hit the abdomen, and the system prompted the general to lose 12 points of health. That's enough, as long as you can break the defense, there is a certain probability that you will be poisoned!
After shooting three arrows in a row, the blood gushing out of the general turned green. Done! Now with poison and fire, it will lose more than 100 blood per second. Although I was hit hard by the general's painted halberd twice in order to shoot these three arrows, it was definitely worth it.
Wenxin was in danger at this time. After all, the general's attack was too strong. Although he had the dual support of potions and the healing spell of his favorite fish, his HP could not be replenished. He could be killed instantly by the general's critical hit at any time. I said, "Wenxin, you retreat first to replenish your HP, and let me take over!"
I retreated as I was told. I was about to change weapons and counterattack the general when suddenly the general used the "Sweeping the Army" move, which was the move he used to deal with loneliness in the beginning!
The halberd was swung down with a force as powerful as thunder and unstoppable. The phantoms created by Awei's substitute talisman and I were swept away together. The phantoms were annihilated directly, and I experienced the feeling of loneliness at that time. My body flew into the air involuntarily, and it seemed that all the bones were broken where I was hit (exaggerated, after all, the pain simulation was only 10%). I felt dizzy, as if I had collided with several hard objects. I was dizzy and it took me a few seconds to regain control of my body. I got up and looked, damn, without Wenxin and I to stop me, the general rushed over!
Fortunately, Awei reacted in time and created another substitute who rushed forward. The general casually cut the phantom into two pieces with two halberds, but it was delayed for two seconds after all. Wenxin didn't care that his blood was not replenished yet and attacked again!
I also aroused my pride and pulled out a two-handed greatsword from my backpack. This was a level 37 gold equipment that was dropped by the Boss when I was leveling up with Wanxing in the Dark Cave. Because its level is much higher than the Bloodthirsty Demon Spear, its attack power is also higher than the Demon Spear. It’s just that I preferred the blood-sucking attribute of the Demon Spear when leveling up, so I never changed weapons. But this time when I broke into the Imperial Mausoleum, I had to bring backup equipment, and this golden greatsword "Armor-Breaking Sword" has a 10% chance of armor-breaking among its attributes, which means ignoring defense. It is definitely the nemesis of high-defense monsters. Therefore, I used the Demon Spear as regular equipment and only took out this secret weapon when I met the Boss!
With the Armor-Piercing Spear in hand, I stepped forward with my sword and slashed the general on the waist, deducting more than 900 HP. It was slightly better than the Demonic Spear, but the Armor-Piercing attribute was not utilized.
It doesn't matter. I'm lucky. One of my seven or eight swords will be able to seriously injure you, right?
On the fifth sword, the armor-piercing sword hit the general's chest, truly breaking through , and blood splattered immediately. The system prompted: You attacked the general successfully, breaking the armor successfully, a critical hit, double the damage, the general's life -6233!
Haha, you are so lucky, you have armor penetration and critical hit, isn’t that great for you?
This attack greatly boosted everyone's morale, and everyone cooperated better and better. Whenever Wen Xin and I couldn't hold on any longer, we would retreat to replenish our HP. Fatty and Crystal's magic never stopped. Occasionally, Fatty's ice arrows would have a freezing effect, which was a great opportunity to beat the general. The bad Jin Peng Zhan Chi would also deal a heavy blow to the general every five minutes. There was also the continuous damage caused by Shi Tou's Fiery Curse and my poison arrows...
After more than twenty minutes of hard fighting, we finally defeated the Iron Armored General. However, this guy didn't drop a single copper coin, but only dropped two pieces of equipment. What a poor guy he is!
Well, our purpose is not to make money or get equipment. If we can pass the general level, it means we are one step closer to the center of the imperial mausoleum, so our efforts are not in vain.
We stepped over the general's body and walked in the direction where it appeared. We didn't walk far before we found that we had reached the end. It was a dead end!
However, Wanxing pointed to the ground in surprise and said, "Look!"
There is a circle of patterns on the ground, but we can all see that it is a teleportation magic circle. Haha, that’s right, if we teleport out of this magic circle, we should reach the second level of the maze.
Everyone couldn't wait to stand on the teleportation array. A white light flashed, and then everything went dark before our eyes. When the light of the torches illuminated the surroundings again, we looked at each other in bewilderment.
There is a three-way intersection ahead, but the problem is that there is a shining marker stone.
