MMORPG: The Elementalist

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

A cold, magnificent aura submerged the entire tunnel.

Under the effect of the overly-powerful frost current, the sixty-meter-long corridor where Qin Ruo was standing in, immediately became covered with a layer of smooth, solid ice. The floor, walls, and ceiling all turned into a glossy reflective surface of ice following the powerful spell.

All the specters that Qin Ruo previously killed using the Million Arrow Sleet had completely vanished.

Qin Ruo and the Darkspirit Archer, which was revealed to be fifty meters away from him, were all that was left in the entire corridor.

Qin Ruo clearly remembered that he saw and sensed nothing in that spot a second ago.

"Just as I thought." Qin Ruo became more vigilant.

'The Darkspirit Archer before me isn't merely a top-tier Archer-Type Boss. It also possesses the rare Stealth ability…'

Yet another unique gifted Boss!

Qin Ruo got himself to focus. Before the Darkspirit Archer escaped the effects of the Frozen Realm, he retracted his wings and dropped to the ground steadily. It was best to use a micro-managing fight style when up against an Agility-Type Boss.

Other than that, Qin Ruo felt it had been a while since he last fought a Boss alone. Ever since the Graveyard of the Gods event was launched, he had become too reliant on Poochie and the Amethyst Orc. The opportunity to strengthen his own personal fighting grew much lesser due to the dominance of his Pet and the summoned Boss. If not for the Elemental Ring mission, he could have just forgotten about how it was equally important to boost his own personal ability.

So this round, Qin Ruo planned to fight the Darkspirit Archer singlehandedly without getting any help from his Shadowfox.

***

As soon as he reached the floor, the Darkspirit Archer was coincidentally freed from the Frozen Debuff at the same time. The creature turned around, and a sense of cruelty flashed in its hollow eyes. A suffocating aura could be strongly felt around the terrifying Boss monster.

In that instant, Qin Ruo knew that the seemingly ordinary Skeleton Warrior had finally shown its true colors as a Boss monster.

The Darkspirit Archer kicked its legs and jumped to the front like a rabbit. It dashed forward rapidly, the thick layer of ice not slowing it down.

Its imposing manner and extraordinary speed almost made Qin Ruo out of breath. 'It's so quick!'

As a response, Qin Ruo instinctively wanted to go back to his old ways—summoning Poochie.

However, in the end, he resisted the temptation. He stood his ground and quickly created two Frostramparts on both of his flanks while he rapidly compressed the pre-arrayed Water Element.

Schhwaff!

The Darkspirit Archer's speed was slightly faster than Qin Ruo had thought. Before he managed to fully charge the Compressed Bullet, the creature had already entered Qin Ruo's range, carrying with it its faint shadow.

Qin Ruo squinted his eyes. Despite the pressing danger, his mind was unbelievably calm as he entered a transcendent state.

He no longer relied on his eyes to follow the Darkspirit Archer's movement. Instead, he used Elemental Perception to catch the Darkspirit Archer's every action and deduced where its next attack could come from. The Water Element was being compressed at an even faster rate on his palm.

Schwaff!!

The Darkspirit Archer halted abruptly once it entered its effective range of attack. The crisp sound of a released bowstring was heard as the creature successfully launched an attack with extremely minimal movement.

A bolt of dark lightning was unleashed.

However, the moment the Darkspirit Archer dragged its bow, Qin Ruo had also responded with a small gesture of manipulation. The two Frostramparts beside him were quickly pushed out under his command and crossed in front of him.

Qin Ruo then moved his feet and slid sideways from his original position to avoid the target-locked arrow.

Poof!

A hole was punched through the Frostrampart and the dark light buried directly into one side of his Frostbarrier.

Attack sustained from Darkspirit Archer.

Barrier Defense decreased by 214 points.

Qin Ruo's heart dropped after he heard the system notification. 'Screw it. I forgot that the Barrier could also be attacked.'

Qin Ruo did not stop in his motion despite the shock. With a flick of the wrist, the Compressed Frost Bullet he had just charged shot out through the gap between the two intercalated Frostramparts.

With the help of his Elemental Perception, the Darkspirit Archer was unable to evade Qin Ruo's homing attack. While it charged its second skill, the monster's speed was drastically slowed down because it was affected by the icy aura of the incoming Frost Bullet.

As a result, the Frost Bullet accurately hit the slackened creature.

Target has been hit; Darkspirit Archer received 972 damage.

Status Effect: Chill; lasts for 2 seconds

Chilled duration extended to 3 seconds.

The passive attribute of the Frostplain Greaves was triggered, and it promptly lengthened the time of the Frozen Effect for another second.

The three-second span was long enough for Qin Ruo to perform a lot of things…

Boom!

Rapid Explosion!

Target has been hit; Darkspirit Archer received 1,076 damage.

Status Effect: Laceration has not been triggered.

Qin Ruo sighed silently. After all, the Darkspirit Archer was a Boss-Tier spectral creature, so the third wave of attack did not cause any additional effect. Otherwise, the monster would have certainly lost another 500 HP.

Nonetheless, it did not really matter now…

Within the three seconds that the Darkspirit Archer was stuck under the Frozen Effect, Qin Ruo had successfully created another Frostrampart in front of him. The three Frostramparts now moved in a zig-zag manner.

Three howling water wolf skulls then dropped from the sky and blasted the Darkspirit Archer successively just as it was freed from the Frozen Effect.

A single wolf skull from the Lycan Barrage skill now had a Magic Attack close to 410 points. The powerful wolf skulls hit the projected Tier 5 Agility-Type Elite Miniboss consecutively, causing the monster to bend backward slightly. Consequently, the specter was unable to displace the strong impact of the Lycan Barrage, which came at it non-stop.

Howl!

After the last wolf skull attack finally passed, the Darkspirit Archer straightened itself up and wailed at Qin Ruo in a repulsive manner. It seemed to have realized Qin Ruo's intention, so the Archer gave up on attacking from afar and began to march towards the Frostramparts.

After several clashes, Qin Ruo had roughly caught on to a few important points in the battle log and system feedback regarding the Darkspirit Archer's stats. Although he still did not know much, the newly acquired data was more than enough to boost his confidence.

Qin Ruo summarized the info in his mind. 'The Darkspirit Archer's strength must be its high Physical Attack and Defense. In comparison, its Magic Defense and Magic Attack aren't that outstanding. The monster's Magic Defense most probably caps at about 200 points so it'll be tough for it to endure my spells head-on continuously. That's exactly why it decided to give up on ranged attacks and chose to close in.'

To the Darkspirit Archer that only had about 10,000 HP, a single spell with 1,000 damage was too much of a threat.

Unfortunately for the monster, Qin Ruo was not going to let it approach him so easily.

Under Qin Ruo's exceptional manipulation, the second round of water wolf skulls quickly took form. The wolves caught up to the Darkspirit Archer's tail in a swish and pounced heavily on its lower back, one after another.

Pong! Pong! Pong!

The three wolf skulls hit at different intervals and crushed the dashing Darkspirit Archer's legs.

After the first hit, the Darkspirit Archer's lighting quick speed was stopped short, and it almost fell down due to the inertia. Before it could readjust, the second wolf skull arrived and caused the monster to completely lose its balance. Soon after, the third wolf skull reached and caused the Darkspirit Archer to tumble and fall down head first.

Pong!

The fallen Darkspirit Archer smashed up piles of ice flakes as it crashed hard into the flat surface of the icy ground.

"Condense!"

Qin Ruo did not let the opportunity slip by. He rapidly reconstructed the Water Element from the first shattered wolf skull in the air…

He then gradually distanced himself and continued to attack the Archer, which had just gotten back on its feet, relentlessly with the reconstructed wolf skulls.

With two prior experiences, Qin Ruo had now completely mastered the manipulation of his Lycan Barrage. The attack of the wolf skulls was rhythmically-linked under Qin Ruo's command. One after another, the wolf skulls, which were reconstructed at such an insane rate, were proven hard to parry. Every time the Darkspirit Archer struggled to get up and attempted to shorten their gap, the Lycan Barrage would manage to slow it down tremendously. Qin Ruo would utilize it to once again widened their distance effortlessly.

The Lycan Barrage's Attack was very high, to begin with. After several bombardments, the Darkspirit Archer had lost close to 10,000 HP.

The Boss monster finally gave up on drawing near to Qin Ruo.

After it stopped moving forward, the monster forcefully condensed magic while it withstood the heavy wolf-skull attack.

The Frostramparts began to move in front of Qin Ruo again, while the wolf skulls continued to pinpoint the Darkspirit Archer. Qin Ruo had completely taken over the fight at that moment.

Schwaff!

Three explosive black lights suddenly erupted from the Darkspirit Archer's bow.

Qin Ruo was shocked because he did not have the feeling of being locked on.

The next.. moment, three arrows that resembled skulls directly pierced through two of the Frostramparts in front of Qin Ruo.

'For god sake!

'The Boss is targeting the Frostramparts! What a sneaky attack!' Qin Ruo realized the Boss' true intention a tad too late and only managed to slide one Frostrampart away while the other two were directly hit by the skull-like arrows.

The corrosive arrows quickly dissolved the Frostramparts at a perceivable rate and exposed Qin Ruo, who was hiding behind the ice barrier. With only one Frostrampart left, Qin Ruo would no longer be able to evade or shield himself against the Darkspirit Archer's attack.

A frightening glare flashed past the Darkspirit Archer's eyes after its successful attack. He opened up his ink-black bone bow neatly, stood firm on the ground to withstand Qin Ruo's water wolf skulls, and started to condense its magic for another round of deadly attack.

This time, if its attack was able to penetrate the Frostrampart, then it would definitely be able to shatter Qin Ruo's outer defensive barrier and even inflict a great deal of damage on the pesky human adventurer.

However, as its skill was fully charged and about to be released, a low chant sounded behind the Frostrampart, "Explode!"

The only Frostrampart left that separated Qin Ruo from the Darkspirit Archer suddenly burst into a large area of the Frozen Realm before the Archer's arrows could leave the bow's string.

Boom!

***

A move and a counter move!

After the Frostburst, Qin Ruo regained his composure and calmly moved to a new position. He gave up on the Lycan Barrage and turned to recharge his cooled-down Compressed Frost Bullet instead.

The Darkspirit Archer reacted in time as well. After it was affected by the Frostburst, the monster retreated beyond the range of the Frozen Realm and decisively pointed his next attack towards the sky. The string on its bone bow was stretched to the maximum, with the arrow aimed at the ceiling above the snowy zone. A massive amount of magic energy and Dark Element rapidly concentrated on the tip of the arrow.

Nevertheless, Qin Ruo was still slightly quicker.

In less than two seconds, a Compressed Frost Bullet was shot through Frozen Realm.

Frost!!

Qin Ruo retreated quickly. Several Frostramparts appeared in front of him once again. When the Archer finally broke free from the Frozen status, it was once again trapped by the ferocious Lycan Barrage.

***

"I finally understand why people call him the Winter Demon." Behind the long corridor, two players floated in the air and observed the fight closely. The one who mumbled was Black God. He then stared at Majestic Hero on full alert. "Don't you dare compete with me."