"You runt, I'm right here!"
Although Ye Weiming's artificial taunting skill couldn't produce a system-recognized judgment effect, it successfully attracted the attention of the BOSS, who immediately raised his crossbow and fired without any hesitation.
However, Ye Weiming's movement technique surpassed that of any ordinary player at this stage, and with his Inner Strength, he was extraordinarily swift. He managed to evade a couple of crossbow arrows shot by Chen Ming and took refuge behind another stone pillar several yards away.
While Ye Weiming had successfully managed to grab Chen Ming's attention, Yoyou had stepped from behind the stone pillar. Just as Chen Ming was about to turn his crossbow, Ye Weiming revealed himself from behind the stone pillar and rushed towards him with the swift movement technique of 'Eight Steps to Chase the Toad'.
When two targets appeared simultaneously, Chen Ming recognized Ye Weiming, who was attempting to approach him, as the biggest threat. He turned his crossbow again, but before he could attack, Yoyou's crossbow arrow hit him first.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!..."
All six crossbow arrows hit, and learning from the previous experience, Yoyou intentionally slowed down her attack. She made use of the 0.2-second aim time gap required by the BOSS before shooting. This provided Ye Weiming with more time while also deducting 324 points from Chen Ming's HP, leaving him with 6176/6500 left.
What about the HP lost by Yoyou's previous barrage of attacks?
Even her severe injuries had already healed, so wouldn't the HP recovery of the boss be faster than the player?
Naturally, the fact that Yoyou's six successive arrows took away a considerable amount of the BOSS's health wasn't the key point. The crux was that she had managed to distract the boss for almost five seconds for Ye Weiming!
These five seconds were more than enough for Ye Weiming to approach the boss from the edge of the hall and follow up on Yoyou's attack.
The BOSS felt overwhelmed when facing the continuous attacks from two players. To protect himself, he wielded the Zhuge Crossbow defensively the moment he was able to break free from the attack's rigidity.
According to Yoyou's previous explanation, this Zhuge Crossbow was made by a senior member of the Tang Sect based on the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow, using the world's best gold. It took them ten years to create, enhancing the performance of the repeating crossbow to its extreme and making it strong and unbreakable.
Ye Weiming anticipated that the opponent would block him in this way, so he flipped his wrist, changing his attack from stabbing to slashing. The sword edge charged with Inner Strength swiftly cut across the wrist of Chen Ming, who held the crossbow.
"Ouch!" Chen Ming screamed in pain, dropping the Zhuge Crossbow on the ground, then hastily retreated, hoping to widen the distance between him and Ye Weiming.
Ye Weiming, however, took advantage of the fact that his opponent was unarmed and thrust forward with his longsword, striking the opponent's heart directly with the most damaging move of the Yue Maiden Sword Technique, "The West Lake's Heart Holding".
-326!
Despite being the same type of critical hit, the damage dealt by Ye Weiming was more than double of Yoyou's!
Once he had the upper hand, Ye Weiming relentlessly kept attacking, one assault following another, all while shouting.
"The West Lake's Throat Holding!"
"The West Lake's Eye Holding!"
"The West Lake's Temples Holding!"
"The West Lake's Kidney Holding!"
...
He kept using the most powerful move, "The West Lake's Heart Holding", over and over, only differing where he aimed his attacks each time. This barrage of assaults hit critical areas, and after seven range of attacks, it took away more than two thousand HP from the BOSS.
The reason he was able to produce such an outcome was not due to a glitch allowing him to use "The West Lake's Heart Holding" unlimited times. In fact, this attack was straightforward and simple to deal with. His audacity in continuously using this move was due to the fact that the BOSS didn't have a weapon and was weak in using hand-to-hand combat techniques.
After seven sword strikes, the BOSS finally managed to draw the ghost-faced machete from his back and slashed it at the sword edge of Ye Weiming's "West Lake's Abdomen Holding".
"Clang!"
With a resounding clank of metal hitting metal, the enormous power of the BOSS forced Ye Weiming to retreat three steps, breaking his combo!
When his attack was interrupted, Ye Weiming quickly turned his attention towards the place where the Zhuge Crossbow had previously fallen. Seeing that Yoyou had already picked up the artifact, he let out a sigh of relief, brandished his longsword, and rushed towards Chen Ming once again.
The BOSS now had a sword in hand, and Ye Weiming didn't dare to blindly use the West Lake's holding technique again. Instead, he cautiously started to display the Yue Maiden Sword Technique and cautiously engaged the opponent. Approximately another ten seconds passed, Yoyou's reinforcement hadn't arrived, but Ye Weiming didn't mind. He relied on his superior swordsmanship level, and in this short time, he managed to unleash two more backstabbing attacks on the BOSS, deducting nearly 200 more HP.
By keeping up this rhythm, Ye Weiming felt that he could possibly try to solo the BOSS.
However, his plan to solo the BOSS fell through eventually. Because just when he was preparing to tire out the BOSS in a war of attrition, Yoyou's attack finally arrived.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!..."
With a sharp whistling sound of the crossbow arrows breaking through the air, a series of red damage numbers floated above the BOSS's head.
-734!
-721!
-1465!
...
With every hit of the seven arrows, Chen Ming was pushed back a bit, and a breathtaking number floated above his head. Two of these hits were critical and inflicted a terrifying damage of nearly 1500 points.
Although it's called seven arrows, the BOSS's health bar was depleted by the time the sixth arrow went down. Strictly speaking, the last arrow could be considered as desecrating the corpse as it nailed the BOSS's body to a stone pillar behind him.
Ding! Successfully killed the Level 30 BOSS Chen Ming, obtaining 4000 experience points and 400 cultivation points.
Ding! You have leveled up to Level 14.
Ding! You successfully killed the leader of the West Lake Water Bandits, Chen Ming, and perfectly completed the task of "Clearing out the West Lake Water Bandits". Rewards received: 6000 XP, 600 cultivation points, 2 gold and 50 silver.
As expected, the reward for eliminating all the water bandits is much more considerable!
System announcement: The player, a disciple of the Divine Detective Division, Ye Weiming, and the disciple of the Tang Sect, Yoyou, killed Chen Ming, the Level 15 BOSS and leader of the water bandits nesting in the underground palace of Leifeng Pagoda, achieving the first kill. First kill reward: 100 points of Jianghu reputation, 100 sect contribution points.
System announcement: The player, a disciple of the Divine Detective Division, Ye Weiming....
...
The system announcement kept flashing three times, but what Ye Weiming was more concerned about was: "Why is your damage against the boss higher than the boss's damage output, even though you both are using the same artifact?"
"Because the BOSS doesn't know how to use it." Yoyou answered matter-of-factly, "When the crossbow is in the hands of the Boss, he can't even guarantee basic accuracy, let alone the added damage from martial arts skills. Whereas the technique I've cultivated, 'Startling Feather Tactic', specializes in hand crossbow."
Thinking about his own Yue Maiden Sword Technique, which added 70% sword attack power, Ye Weiming sighed in relief. Previously, he was too shocked by her instant kill that he didn't even think about this fact.
Shaking his head, Ye Weiming suddenly said, "Can you share the attributes so I can have a look?"
Although Yoyou was holding the Zhuge Crossbow at the moment, it wasn't hers and had to be returned to the Tang Sect after the mission. As such, she had no reason to hide its attributes and generously sent a screenshot to Ye Weiming.