Every time the Amethyst War Tiger struck him, his full health was invariably driven below ten, and he would invariably down two special recovery potions at once — or drink an off-cooldown ordinary potion together with a special potion — to fill his health back up. But whether it was the god of luck watching over Ye Tianxie, or the tiger’s damage ceiling against him happening to be exactly 469, each time he’d be struck down to a pitiful sliver of health, twice down to his very last point, yet it never once actually emptied his health outright.
Over that half hour, Ye Tianxie was struck by the Amethyst War Tiger a dozen-odd times in all. Against a powerful enemy whose movement speed exceeded his own by over 50%, while also slipping in firecracker or pollen attacks through the gaps — a number like that was practically the stuff of myth, hard to believe. Not once did the tiger’s lightning attacks land on him; the moment “Heaven’s Thunder Break” began its chant, Ye Tianxie would whip around and dash ten meters clear at top speed, making the lightning that crashed down from the air strike nothing, time after time.
At the cost of being swept once by the Amethyst War Tiger’s tail, Ye Tianxie scattered the last portion of Dark pollen over its body. With that, all twelve portions of Dark Man-Eating Flower’s pollen belonged to the Amethyst War Tiger. Ye Tianxie instantly filled his health back up, fled far off, and took up the Double-Bang Firecrackers he hadn’t used in a good while.
When a Lord BOSS’s HP dropped to a certain level, it would unleash its final skill. At that point, a Lord BOSS’s terror would rise dramatically. So the strongest attacks ought to be concentrated in the final stage of its life, to finish it off at the fastest possible speed — otherwise there was a very real chance of falling short at the last step.
Another three minutes of maneuvering passed, the last portion of Dark pollen’s toxicity faded, and Ye Tianxie at last began flinging the Double-Bang Firecrackers in his hand one after another…
-150, -150, -150, -150…
The toxicity of the twelve portions of Dark pollen had whittled 12,000 HP off the Amethyst War Tiger, and the dozen-odd Double-Bang Firecracker hits had blasted off over 3,000 more. Ye Tianxie’s nerves were held taut every minute and every second as he carefully tallied the tiger’s health.
-150, -150!
The Amethyst War Tiger’s HP finally dropped below 4,000, its furious roars growing wilder and wilder. Suddenly, it halted its pursuit of Ye Tianxie, lifted its tiger head, opened its maw wide, and a huge roar rang out like a thunderclap… But this roar felt entirely different to Ye Tianxie from the “War Tiger’s Roar” it had launched before. He’d just begun to feel doubt when, all at once, six balls of pale-yellow light descended from above and landed around the Amethyst War Tiger at the same time, accompanied by six tiger-roars of identical pitch and frequency.
Those were… six striped giant tigers!
Striped Giant Tiger — Level 20. HP: 1,250. Originally subordinates of the Amethyst War Tiger, they share some marvelous connection with it and will be summoned to its side to aid in battle when it encounters a powerful foe.
Skills: Tiger Rend, Tiger-Tail Sweep.
Companion Summon… the hidden skill triggered when the Amethyst War Tiger’s HP dropped to 20%!
Facing a single Amethyst War Tiger, Ye Tianxie had already met peril after peril; add the interference of six striped giant tigers on top of that, and he’d simply be unable to withstand it. However inferior these striped giant tigers’ mobility was to the Amethyst War Tiger’s, the gap shouldn’t be far.
The six striped giant tigers ringed the Amethyst War Tiger in a perfectly even circle. The seven great tigers didn’t attack Ye Tianxie right away, but roared at the heavens together — as though this were their way of greeting one another, or some summoning ritual… But whatever the reason, their conduct right now was, in Ye Tianxie’s eyes, idiotic beyond all remedy. Narrowing his eyes at the seven great tigers gathered together, he strode closer, took the lighter and a firecracker string from his backpack, lit it, and hurled it with all his might at that optimal position, followed by a second string, a third, a fourth… the last string!
-300, -300, -300, -300, -300, -300…
Each firecracker string was thrown to the exact center of where these tigers stood, and the resulting blast happened to bring all seven great tigers within its sweep. The speed of throwing an item wasn’t related to a player’s own attack speed, but depended entirely on the player’s hand speed. This speed had no intuitive numerical representation in the World of Fate, but showed a positive correlation with a person’s thinking ability.
Those crackling blasts brought no festive atmosphere; rather, they drew up a small chorus of furious roars, and by the time the six striped giant tigers were finally ready to launch their attack, the fifth firecracker string had already gone off, emptying all six striped giant tigers’ health and ending their exceedingly brief and woebegone bit-part careers.
Seeing the summoned tiger cubs wiped out clean in the blink of an eye like this, and its own HP dropped to the edge of 10%, the Amethyst War Tiger glared with wide tiger eyes and let out an incomparably huge roar of rage, frenzied threads of lightning crackling and flickering across its body, its limbs, and its eyes. Ye Tianxie didn’t hesitate; he turned and withdrew, breaking clear of its attack range in the very instant a bolt of lightning crashed down from above, then, across a distance of ten meters, gathered all his focus and flung yet another Double-Bang Firecracker at the Amethyst War Tiger.
In the earlier game Slaying Gods, his class had been a Ranger, wielding a soul-chasing bow whose very name struck terror. Back then, there were many rumors about him, one of which was… that the arrows he loosed hit their mark every time, never once missing.
-150, -150.
-150, -150.
When the Amethyst War Tiger closed in before him once more, two Double-Bang Firecrackers in a row went off on its body, and its HP finally dropped below 10%. Its advancing body suddenly halted — and in that instant Ye Tianxie knit his brows hard and dashed toward the platform at top speed.
Roar…
The furious roar carried an incomparable air of frenzy and rancor, the tiger eyes that had glimmered with purple light slowly turning red amid the roar, an enormous, spine-chilling pressure enveloping the surrounding space. A thick layer of purple light draped over the Amethyst War Tiger’s body, like clusters of purple flames burning across its surface…
War Tiger’s Wrath! Passively triggered when the Amethyst War Tiger’s HP falls below 10%; attack and movement speed all rise by 30%, defense drops by 50%.
Bang!
A Double-Bang Firecracker flying in from a distance went off on the Amethyst War Tiger’s body, drawing up a red number of 300. The tiger whipped its head around, its purple gaze with blood-red hidden within it locking fast onto Ye Tianxie, its huge body kicking up a frenzied wind as it lunged at him like a bolt of purple lightning.
The Amethyst War Tiger, its attack power raised by 30%, was fully capable of one-shotting Ye Tianxie, and its movement speed right now was already approaching double his! Though the tiger now had less than two thousand HP left, every second to come would be a brush with death for Ye Tianxie, each second more than enough to decide his life or death, success or failure.
The tiger claw with its savage purple light grazed past Ye Tianxie’s face, the wind shrieking past his ear leaving a faint ache in his face; as he shifted aside to dodge the tiger’s enraged lunge, the Hour of Eternal Fate in his hand swept out with the motion…
-72!
Facing the Amethyst War Tiger with its defense dropped by a full 50%, Ye Tianxie had at last broken through its defense. Yet with his 200 attack power he’d dealt it only 72 damage — which meant that its original defense could offset around 250 points of damage!
Defensive capability like that — Ye Tianxie was certain that among all the players in the world right now, apart from the physical-defense-ignoring mage class, there was simply no possibility of breaking through it.
(End of Chapter 45)