Shi Feng simply smiled at everyone's astonishment without offering any explanation.
His massive damage output wasn't just due to the Super Dark Gold-grade Flying Star of Blazing Fire — it was also because of the Ring of Fire effect from the Seven Luminaries Sun Ring. The Ring of Fire boosted a player's damage by 40% while reducing the target's Defense by 40%, making it an extraordinarily powerful effect.
However, the Seven Luminaries Sun Ring was something he needed to keep secret, so naturally he couldn't reveal that.
On top of that, Shi Feng himself was a Tier 1 Blade Saint, meaning his base Attack Power was already extremely high. Dealing over a thousand points of damage per hit was perfectly normal for him.
Thanks to Shi Feng's attacks, the party's combined damage completely outpaced the Flame Guard's combat recovery rate. The Flame Guard had no way to cope — it could only roar in fury, using its fire warhammer to block incoming attacks while frantically launching Flame Spears at them.
Both sides fell into a stalemate.
However, the Flame Guard's attacks were dodged before they could land, making them entirely ineffective.
The only thing dealing damage was the Flame Domain, but at 300 HP lost every three seconds, a single healer per person could easily cover it. As for Shi Feng, he didn't even need a healer — his fire resistance of over 60 points meant he could completely ignore the Flame Guard's Flame Domain.
Meanwhile, Shi Feng's side was attacking with devastating speed. Even though the Flame Guard blocked a fair number of strikes with its fire warhammer, the accumulated damage was still substantial, steadily draining its HP.
95%… 94%… 93%…
As time crept by and the Flame Guard's health continued to drop, its attacks grew increasingly frenzied, forcing everyone to scramble just to evade. The frequency of their own attacks decreased as a result, which in turn slowed the rate at the Flame Guard's HP was falling.
What should have taken roughly ten minutes to burn through 700,000 HP stretched into half an hour — possibly even longer.
Despite the monotony of dodging Flame Spear after Flame Spear, everyone remained motivated by the knowledge that they were actually taking down a Flame Guard. Moreover, the dodging practice itself was sharpening their evasion skills — a win-win that made the other guild members, watching helplessly from beyond fifty yards, green with envy.
After more than half an hour, the Flame Guard's HP finally dropped to 15%.
Suddenly, the Flame Guard's eyes blazed with an intense crimson glow. The flames engulfing its body surged and swelled several times over, burning so fiercely that the surrounding air itself trembled and warped.
Inside the Cave of the End, everyone except Shi Feng was struck dumb by the Flame Guard's overwhelming aura.
As the Flame Guard opened its maw, gathering a violent torrent of fire elemental energy within, Shi Feng sprang into action, dashing to the front of the group.
"Everyone, get behind me! Healers, increase your output!"
He shouted the order quickly, swapping the Ring of Fire on his Seven Luminaries Sun Ring to the Ring of Illusion. Instantly, all his attributes surged by 30%. At the same time, he activated the Phantom World skill, rendering himself immune to all magical damage for twenty seconds.
The reason the Flame Guard was classified as a Lord-rank monster was because it possessed power that ordinary creatures couldn't compare with — its ultimate ability, Wrathful Flame Roar, dealt catastrophic damage to everything within a cone-shaped area in front of it, incinerating all in its path.
Even someone like Ke Le, a Tier 1 Guardian Knight with Protection Blessing active, wouldn't survive that hit.
Water Scarlet and the others received Shi Feng's command and immediately moved to stand behind him.
The moment all seven managed to get into position behind Shi Feng, the Flame Guard let out a deafening roar and unleashed a searing beam of white light that instantly devoured everything within a fifty-yard radius of the Cave of the End. The dim cavern was turned into blazing daylight in an instant, and the temperature skyrocketed.
The sight that greeted them sent shockwaves through everyone's hearts.
It was like the end of the world. Even the healers standing over seventy yards away saw their HP plummeting — chunks of four hundred or more with every tick — and had to rely on healers positioned a full hundred yards back to keep their health stable. One could only imagine the kind of damage anyone within that fifty-yard zone would have suffered — they would have been obliterated in the blink of an eye.
The Wrathful Flame Roar lasted a full six seconds, turning the entire cone-shaped area into an inferno.
After the roar subsided, the ground within fifty yards of the cave entrance was scorched black. The only area untouched by the burning was the space directly behind Shi Feng.
Everyone besides Shi Feng was left unscathed but critically low on HP — Water Scarlet and the rest had been reduced to near death.