Chapter 352: Farming Atop an Icy Cliff (1/2)
I carefully walked toward the edge of the cliff before turning around. From where I was standing, taking even one step backward would result in a long, long fall to my death. When I looked behind me for a bit, I was shocked to find that the ravine was so deep that the bottom was literally invisible to me. Heaven knows how this unnatural formation came to be at the center of Dragonbone Mountain Range.
The bottom of the ravine looked like it was obscure by snow, wind, and something blue. It was impossible to see what was lying behind the mist. One thing was certain though, a fall from this height would almost certainly result in death. There could be icy spikes at the bottom waiting to turn someone into a skewer, or just flat, hard ice that would smash anyone into a pancake. The possibilities were endless, and all of them were tragedies.
Meanwhile, the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf was standing at the front and growling with its teeth bare. It realized that the upcoming battle was going to be a fierce one, and if we won it would get at least half or an entire Snow Rabbit to feast on. Now that I thought about it, I was a stingy master, wasn’t I? I had been collecting Snow Rabbit Meat from the start but my little wolf was still starving even now.
I took control over the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf and moved it so that it would block half the space in front of me. The remaining half was just wide enough for Lin Yixin to fill in once she had finished aggroing most of the mobs in the area. Once she had returned from her little excursion, both her and my pet would use Guard to defend themselves while I rain hell on the enemies from behind. Mn, if everything goes well, our grind efficiency would improve drastically!
……
The whole process took about 4 minutes or so, and I dared not interrupt Lin Yixin even once for fear of breaking her concentration. Right now the girl was swimming through a sea of monsters like a dancing elf, and when space became too tight to round she made quick, decisive zigzags to escape the encroaching horde. A while later, Lin Yixin returned with a sea of Level 115 shadow-rank Snow Rabbits behind her!
“Oooh, Lu Chen, catch me…”
Lin Yixin was charging toward me at almost top speed to avoid being caught by the Snow Rabbits. However, I nearly screamed as my eyes widened in fear. “No… I don’t want to die!”
Where I was right now, I was literally one or two steps away from certain doom. If Lin Yixin hit me like this, we would both fall down the cliff and die!
There was no avoiding the impact though, so some quick thinking later I gritted my teeth and ran toward Lin Yixin in an attempt to cancel out her momentum with my own. If I fail, well, we die. It was that simple.
Lin Yixin’s beautiful eyes widened when she saw me running toward her. Her lips actually spread into a heart-throbbing smile for some reason.
I opened my eyes wide and stretched open my arms to catch her wholesome body.
Thud!
A loud thud later, we both started sliding toward the cliff edge! Our boots were dragging against the ice, but it was still too fast and too little!
Staring at the empty space behind my back, Lin Yixin involuntarily closed her eyes and held me tight, “Ah shit, we’re going to die. Make sure you’re at the bottom when we fall, Lu Chen. I don’t like pain…”
“...”
……
I panicked. There was just too little friction being generated to avoid the inevitable. We’re dead!
With little to no time to spare, I made a snap decision to pull out the Purgatory Sword and slammed the blade into the ice beneath us!
Clang!
Bits of ice flew everywhere as the sword cut a long, deep hole in the floor. We were still sliding backward, but we finally slowed down enough that we stopped when the back of my heels were one step away from hitting thin air. We just barely survived an absolute disaster.
When Lin Yixin noticed we were safe and looked up, she gave the chains on my metal armor a pull before giggling, “Hehe, you look so cool just now, Little Cheat~~”
I didn’t know if I should cry, get angry or laugh at her comment. I couldn’t help myself from saying, “Are you insane, Yiyi? You literally balanced your life on knife’s edge with your stunt just now!”
Lin Yixin was unpredictable if nothing else. She simply smiled and pretended she didn’t hear me. “Come on, the Snow Rabbits are here!”
She turned around and raised her left arm to use Guard. At first, all the aggro were focused on her, but after both her and the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf used Guard, the aggro shifted to me instead!
Standing still and fighting down the rising fear in my heart, I pretended that I wasn’t standing atop a ten-thousand-meter-tall cliff, raised the Purgatory Sword and fired a Rank 9 Thousand Mirage Slash!
Bang!
Chips flew everywhere as the nine sword aura hit the mobs and elicited painful screams from them. Thousand Mirage Slash IX was pretty powerful, and every hit dealt at least 3400 damage or so. Unfortunately, it only had a maximum coverage of 9 yards, and on a long cliff like this, the Ice Flame Slash would’ve been a better choice.
That being said, the 20% splash damage from the Purgatory Sword was more than enough to mitigate all that potential loss in DPS. The splash damage could almost triple the skill damage against such a group and dealt around 12k damage in total to each rabbit. It was pleasing to see the tanky Snow Rabbits lose 25% HP in one go, to say the least!
I then stomped my foot and dealt even more damage with War Crush!
After that, I used Wild Roar and increased the whole party’s Attack by 15%. The moment Lin Yixin received my buff, she suddenly broke out of her Guard and launched Ice Flame Slash. Quick as lightning, she produced her dagger and hit the closest Snow Rabbit with Moon Gaze and Extreme Break!
Thousand Mirage Slash had a cooldown of 15 seconds, and Ice Flame Slash, 10 seconds. Technically speaking, these two AoE skills alone were really all we needed to farm these Snow Rabbits. However, it wasn’t like we had anything better to do, so I copied Lin Yixin’s behavior and fired Dragon Slaying Slash after Dragon Slaying Slash at the Snow Rabbits. Too bad my new trainer, Rinser, hadn’t taught me a real forbidden spell, or it would be fun as hell annihilating these mobs with it. Even if the forbidden spell turned out to be an AoE magic skill, I could still combine it with a physical skill to make it work for me.