"How is this? Are you confident enough?" asked FallenMoon.
FallenMoon and LadyDragon led the members of the Blooming Dream to the area. They did not participate in the Boss fight right away. Instead, they observed the situation first.
"It should be fine." LadyDragon nodded. She took out a bronze shield and strode towards the bandit leader.
"Sisters, heal on my command," said FallenMoon.
"Yes, leader!" a group of female Priests answered in a single voice.
FallenMoon brought around a hundred players which consisted mostly of Priests and then Sorcerers, followed by Warriors, to the scene.
"Here comes LadyDragon!"
The players around the bandit leader were more or less wiped out and LadyDragon's appearance made heads turn right away.
As LadyDragon got closer, the bandit leader swung his wooden club at her.
Bang!
LadyDragon raised her shield, blocking the bandit leader's blow. At the same time, it glimmered slightly in white.
Ever since the bandit leader was on a killing spree, the damage he inflicted on the players was never less than 100 HP, but this strike on LadyDragon's shield was only a little more than 50 HP.
At the same time, a damage of more than 50 HP popped up above the bandit leader's head.
"[Reflective Shield]! Has LadyDragon officially changed her occupation into a Holy Knight? It seems like the rumors about changing occupations before Level 10 is real!"
Mohai's heart raced as he thought of a rumor when he saw LadyDragon's actions.
He had heard about the rumor when he first entered the game but had not paid attention to it.
He had been late to the game by a month, and by then, leveling up from Level 1 to Level 10 was something easily achievable. In fact, one could easily achieve it within a day. Although he heard that changing one's occupation in advance could lead to one acquiring the reward of an equipment skill earlier, it was not necessary.
Changing one's occupation would require one to randomly meet the corresponding NPC in the wild and complete the NPC's test. Whenever one's luck fell short or one was not strong enough, he or she would fail the test. However, if one had the time for that, one could already level up to Level 10.
Based on Mohai's knowledge, a Holy Knight on Level 10 could learn a skill called [Provoke] which was a single target provocation skill.
If he remembered correctly, [Reflective Shield] could only be learned through a skill book.
Now, it seemed like changing one's occupation in advance had its perks since LadyDragon was able to learn [Reflective Shield] at such a low level.
With [Reflective Shield], not only could she tank the bandit leader's attack, but killing him was also possible!
It was one of the strongest skills a Holy Knight could possess!
As a result of [Reflective Shield], with a successful block of the enemy's melee attack despite having newly learned it and not having invested skill points, the Holy Knight could reflect 50% of the damage and enjoy an instant cooldown.
Because of this skill, Holy Knights were known as the bane of Assassins.
If a Holy Knight was skillful in using [Reflective Shield], Assassins, whose skill set was mostly single-targeted, would be heavily restrained.
To be deemed skillful, Holy Knights would be able to block most of the attacks with [Reflective Shield] although Mohai had never heard of players with a 100% block rate.
LadyDragon would eventually become the top 10 Holy Knights of the game. Her [Reflective Shield] barely made mistakes, but she was currently a fresh Holy Knight. Furthermore, it might have even been less than 2 hours since she learned the skill, so how much block rate could her shield have?
"Heal! Those who I don't name, stay put!" LadyDragon's HP was chipped away, but upon FallenMoon's command, three [Healing] skills were cast on LadyDragon, healing her HP to the fullest in the blink of an eye.
The bandit leader furiously attacked LadyDragon a second time while FallenMoon nodded.
"Not bad." Mohai also nodded at FallenMoon and the other Priests' reaction.
Based on the game settings, if several Priests used the [Heal] command on a single target, the Priest would confuse the monster's aggro target and attract the monster themselves.
In the case of the bandit leader, if there were five Priests healing LadyDragon at once, the bandit leader would ditch LadyDragon and prioritize the healing Priests first.
FallenMoon was experienced in this and her control was superb.
[Reflective Shield]!
As Mohai shifted his attention for a moment, the bandit leader unleashed a second attack which was beautifully blocked by LadyDragon's [Reflective Shield], so some of the damage was reflected onto the bandit leader as well.
Before this, the bandit leader had lost a little over 300 HP, and with two successful [Reflective Shield] blocks, the bandit leader's HP fell to 4,500 HP.
Roar!
The bandit leader shouted furiously and called for the six bandit goons for help, including Mohai.
"You guys, get the aggro from the other bandit goons!" FallenMoon responded quickly. The dozen of Warriors who were on standby jumped in.
"We'll join them too!"
After seeing LadyDragon block the bandit leader's attack, the other restless players wanted to join the battle and get a fair share of action themselves.
Of course, they were not that stupid so as to attack the bandit leader. The bandit leader still had a healthy level of HP left. Since they could not sustain the damage, stepping in blindly was suicidal.
A large group of players swarmed towards Mohai and the other bandit goons.
With that many players gaining on him, Mohai was ready to get serious. Otherwise, he would be in danger.
To his surprise, the bandit leader did not care about the other goons being attacked, but when Mohai was surrounded, the bandit leader ditched LadyDragon and swung his wooden club over, killing a player as Mohai continued to attack.
Mohai understood why. The bandit leader still needed him to find the black iron ore, so he could not afford losing Mohai.
"Back off! This mob is special. Don't attack him first!"
Two players who gained on Mohai were killed, but the others were fine. FallenMoon noticed their unusual reaction, so she quickly ordered her men to stand down.
The players from the Blooming Dream quickly drew a distance from Mohai while the other players dared not even get close after seeing what happened.
Mohai was left idle after that.
As for the other bandit goons, they were killed by the players one after another, so only Mohai and the bandit leader remained.
The bandit leader vented his fury on LadyDragon, attacking furiously.
According to one of the settings for the monsters in the game, when a player could not block the monster's attacks, its threat level would rise. Once the player could steadily block the attacks, the monster would be less threatening.
LadyDragon's technique impressed Mohai. Her actions did not look like those of a fresh Holy Knight as her defensive stance was almost perfect and her attack points were grasped masterfully.
Mohai had not been a Holy Knight in his past life, but he knew the tricks that revolved around [Reflective Shield]. In order to successfully master [Reflective Shield], one must precisely locate the monster's attack points while the body and shield must be in the defensive stance.
LadyDragon's performance was impeccable. She blocked every single hit from the bandit leader gracefully.
The bandit leader's HP soon dropped to 50%. He shouted and unleashed his second skill.
[Heavy Bash]!
The bandit leader swung his wooden club down at LadyDragon at astounding speed!
If a player's head was struck by the [Heavy Bash] skill, the player would be stunned for five seconds.
Five seconds were not that long, but when the player was stunned, the bandit leader could use another skill, Snatch, to steal an item or equipment from the player with a high success rate!
If the player was able to kill the bandit leader, the drop rate of the snatched equipment would be 100%, but if the player could not proceed with the kill, it would end in tragedy.
During the early stages of the game in the past life, some ignorant players who were clueless about the bandit leader had their equipment snatched before getting wiped out. They ought to cry but failed to shed a tear. Therefore, there was a time when a lot of players would stay away from the bandit leader.
The attack point of such a skill was difficult to locate and the chance only appeared for an instant!
If LadyDragon was stunned by the [Heavy Bash] skill, her shield would be snatched away, and a Holy Knight without a shield was as good as a cripple. She might not even suffice as a tank.
However, LadyDragon's reaction was swift. She raised her shield and successfully blocked the bash.
The bandit leader's [Heavy Bash] returned empty-handed and went into cooldown mode as his HP continued to fall.
Mohai was standing beside the bandit leader, acting like he was fending off the players who tried to attack the bandit leader, but he would still never attack LadyDragon.
LadyDragon was barely able to keep up with the bandit leader's attack, and if Mohai joined the battle, she would have too much on her plate.
However, the bandit leader was not an idiot. He shouted and signaled the loafing Mohai to attack LadyDragon.
Mohai delayed his response intentionally and glanced at FallenMoon before he headed toward LadyDragon.
However, before he could get close, the Sorcerer of the Blooming Dream shot a [Fireball] out and it landed on him.
Nice! Mohai commended FallenMoon in his heart.
FallenMoon knew that LadyDragon was almost at her limit, so when she saw Mohai's movement, she told one of the Sorcerers in the guild to get Mohai's aggro.
Mohai played along and ran towards the Sorcerer. Upon FallenMoon's command, the Sorcerer stopped the attack and quickly retreated, showing no intention of killing Mohai.
The reason was actually simple. The bandit leader clearly displayed his attention for Mohai, and if the latter was killed, it would only mess up the bandit leader's aggro. They kept the little mob alive for the aggro because they could easily kill Mohai after dealing with the bandit leader.
The Sorcerer left the aggro radius and Mohai ran back to the leader. After that, the Sorcerer then came back and attacked Mohai with a [Fireball].
Back and forth, Mohai and the Sorcerer were in a stalemate.
As expected of her! Mohai praised FallenMoon's response greatly.
The game had barely started, yet FallenMoon's reaction far surpassed most of the commanders in the game. There must be a reason the Blooming Dream could grow under such pressured conditions and FallenMoon must be one of them.
There were only so many skills in the bandit leader's skill set. After that, he used [Heavy Bash] on LadyDragon two more times, but both attempts were perfectly blocked and reflected.
As the situation carried on, the bandit leader's HP was decreased to 10% by LadyDragon's [Reflective Shield].
The ultimate was coming!
Mohai made his move, ignoring the Sorcerer of the Blooming Dream as he dashed towards the bandit leader swiftly.
FallenMoon saw Mohai's unusual action and her heart skipped a beat. She quickly reminded LadyDragon after she reacted to the situation, "Be careful, LadyDragon! Priest, step back!"
Right after FallenMoon's voice subsided, the bandit leader swung his wooden club and used [Powerful Sweep]!
The yellow flash fanned out and LadyDragon raised her shield with the [Reflective Shield] again.
A 140-odd damage counter popped up from LadyDragon's head. With the [Reflective Shield] active, the damage she received was halved, but the shield did not gleam in white which meant that it did not reflect the damage.
The [Reflective Shield] could only block a single target skill and it could only help reduce damage against an area of attack, but the damage from it could not be reflected.
More importantly, before changing occupations, the Priest's healing range was only a pitiful 15 meters and those Priests who healed LadyDragon were all within the range of [Powerful Sweep].
Even with FallenMoon's swift reminder, the Priests could not fall back in time and two of them were killed instantly by a [Powerful Sweep].
The cooldown of the [Powerful Sweep] skill was reset and the bandit leader raised his weapon up, intending to unleash another [Powerful Sweep].
LadyDragon turned pale. Her [Reflective Shield] was in cooldown mode, and even if FallenMoon commanded the Priest to heal her right away, assuming that she was hit by the second [Powerful Sweep], she would die.
"The Boss's HP is low! All Sorcerers, scatter out and attack!" FallenMoon's commands were decisive.
10% of the bandit leader's HP was 500. A single [Fireball] from a Sorcerer could chip 20 points off his HP and a single round of concentrated fire could kill him.
Apart from the Sorcerers of the Blooming Dream, the other Sorcerer players in the area also raised their weapons for a [Fireball] attack while some Warriors were even brave enough to charge forward.
Even if their damage per second or DPS was not enough, if they could secure the last strike and kill the Boss, they would also gain the rights to acquire XP and pick up the spoils from the Boss!