"It must be a clone skill. This is going to be a problem."
Xue Fengqing frowned slightly as she watched the Steel Butcher split in two, a very uneasy feeling settling over her.
The most annoying thing about fighting bosses was clone skills—especially ones like this, where the clones' stats stayed the same and only their HP was shared. That was far harder to deal with than a berserk stat boost.
Nearly half their hundred-person raid team was already dead. The odds of defeating two High Grand Leaders were astronomically low.
First, only half their tanks remained. Second, the combined combat power of two High Grand Leaders wasn't simply one plus one—if their attack ranges overlapped and their damage doubled, no amount of healing could keep even a tank like Ke Le alive.
"If those two High Grand Leaders use that same move again, we'll have no choice but to give up." You Lan stared at the two Steel Butchers, her crescent brows knitted tightly. She never expected a High Grand Leader to be this troublesome.
"Guild Leader, what do we do now? Should we activate Burst Mode?" Shui Se Qiang Wei whispered in the private channel.
"Ke Le, you tank the white boss. Ban Ji, provide support. The other three tanks, go draw the black boss's aggro and separate them by at least fifty yards. All healers, form a triangle with the two bosses—stay at maximum range and keep both tanks topped off,"
The Steel Butcher was a critical gatekeeper boss—the system wasn't going to let players breeze through the entry trial.
And just as You Lan had guessed, when the Steel Butcher's HP dropped below thirty percent, both of them would unleash Annihilation Thunder, and the power wouldn't be diminished in the slightest. Countless expert teams had been wiped out by that very move.
Though no one understood why Shi Feng was giving these orders, he was the raid leader. Thanks to his commands earlier, so many of them had survived. This had earned You Lan and the others considerably more trust in his judgment, and without hesitation, everyone sprang into action.
Soon, everyone had gotten into position.
Ke Le held the Steel Butcher off without too much trouble—a normal attack dealt only five or six thousand damage, and even a skill hit came in around fourteen to fifteen thousand. With a shield from a Priest or Oracle layered on top, he could absorb a good chunk more. But the other side was a different story. The Moonlight Knights tanking the other Steel Butcher were hanging by a thread.
A single normal attack dealt over eight thousand damage. The Moonlight Knights only had about nineteen thousand HP—nearly three thousand less than Ke Le. One skill hit without any shields would insta-kill them. While they could use technique and positioning to dodge, the gap in strength and speed against a High Grand Leader was simply too large. The boss's attack range was massive as well—making up for the difference through skillful movement alone was nearly impossible when you weren't an agile class built for speed. It ultimately came down to raw tanking.
Fortunately, with three tanks rotating aggro, they barely managed to hold.
"Everyone, focus fire on the white boss!" Shi Feng shouted.
Under his command, the entire team unloaded their skills onto the Steel Butcher. However, the Steel Butcher's defense was extraordinarily high, and as an elemental creature, it had innate magic resistance. Most attacks only dealt around two thousand damage, with criticals reaching about four thousand. Even powerful DPS like Xue Fengqing and Qi Lin, who wielded Epic-rank weapons, could only manage four to five thousand per skill on the Steel Butcher—critting for just over ten thousand.
You Baiye's total damage output was somewhat higher than Xue Fengqing's.
But compared to heavy hitters like You Baiye and Xue Fengqing, the damage from Shi Feng and Huo Wu left everyone stunned.
You Baiye and Xue Fengqing, wielding Epic-rank weapons, were already figures to look up to—yet Shi Feng and Huo Wu outperformed them by a wide margin.
Shi Feng slipped behind the Steel Butcher and unleashed a rapid series of swings with the Holy Sword Thunder Slayer. Numbers began popping up—six thousand plus, one after another—and those were all normal hits scoring criticals. Using skills would push damage into the tens of thousands.
The damage was so extravagant it left mouths agape.
If it were just Shi Feng, that would be one thing, but Huo Wu beside him was a Humanoid Lord as well. The two of them claimed first and second place in overall boss damage by a commanding lead, with Shi Feng holding a narrow edge for the top spot.
Although Huo Wu held a Legendary-grade item fragment,
Moreover, both of them possessed exceptionally high Strength stats. When they attacked, they would coordinate strikes to hit the same point. One person's strength alone might not dent the Steel Butcher, but combining both of their force into a single impact actually produced results. The coordination was extremely difficult, however—without a certain level of skill from both parties, it was impossible to pull off.
Shi Feng and Huo Wu repeatedly struck at the Steel Butcher's joints, significantly reducing the pressure on Ke Le's side. The healers could now devote more attention to keeping the other tanks alive.
"How did those two pull that off?"