The Three-Headed Ape Demon King let out a roar and stomped the ground with one massive foot.
BOOM!
The earth shattered instantly, and a shockwave rippled outward in all directions. Ke Le had less than twenty thousand HP, so he had no choice but to activate Protection Blessing right away, cutting the damage in half. Even so, a damage number of nearly eight thousand popped up above his head. Every player within a sixty-yard radius took damage as well — the farther away, the less they suffered. But even so, the ranged players still took five or six thousand points of damage each.
Then the Three-Headed Ape Demon King swatted Ke Le with its palm. Ke Le hurriedly raised his shield to block, and the impact forced him back two or three steps before he could steady himself. His HP dropped by another five thousand.
In the blink of an eye, Ke Le's HP was below five thousand. If not for Protection Blessing, he would have already been a corpse.
But after the Demon King's assault, several healing effects cascaded down onto Ke Le, restoring his HP above twenty thousand — barely above the safety line.
By now, Huo Wu had circled behind the Three-Headed Ape Demon King. She thrust her Thousand Transformations into the ground, and a torrent of water burst forth from the surface, quickly flooding past the Demon King's feet.
"Go!" Huo Wu yanked Thousand Transformations out and swept it lightly toward the Three-Headed Ape Demon King.
Water Bind!
Instantly, the flowing water around the Demon King's feet coiled into rope-like tendrils that clamped onto its body and limbs. No matter how the Three-Headed Ape Demon King thrashed, the water ropes surged up again and again, making its movements excruciatingly difficult — it could barely even land hits on Ke Le standing in front of it anymore.
Even when it did manage to strike Ke Le, the water's restraint sapped its strength so much that the damage was only about seventy percent of normal, posing no real threat.
"That's a high-rank grand leader — that skill is insane!" Everyone stared in astonishment at the Three-Headed Ape Demon King's drastically reduced combat power.
While they were still gawking, Huo Wu made an even more stunning move.
She flicked her weapon toward midair, and a water whip erupted from the ground, lashing straight at the Demon King's fist.
BOOM!
The water whip shattered on impact, but the Three-Headed Ape Demon King's attack was also forced to a halt.
Huo Wu swung again, and a second water whip cracked across the Demon King's back, dealing over ten thousand points of damage. The onlookers were completely dumbfounded.
"What kind of skill is that?" You Lan watched Huo Wu's actions, her small mouth twitching involuntarily.
Huo Wu was simply standing in place without moving, swinging her weapon with both hands, yet the water on the ground seemed to be under her complete control — as if the entire flooded area was her personal domain. Even as powerful as the Three-Headed Ape Demon King was, it couldn't break free.
If anyone on the battlefield was more shocked than the spectators, it was Huo Wu herself.
She had never imagined that the Water Bind skill she had learned was this powerful. She had only raised it to Tier 1, Level 1, and it was already enough to initially contend with a high-rank grand leader. If she upgraded it to Tier 2, it would absolutely be able to suppress one completely.
"Good! Everyone go all out on the Three-Headed Ape Demon King!" Shi Feng said excitedly after seeing what Huo Wu could do.
In the Divine Realm, skills were generally divided into damage skills, healing skills, and restriction skills. But there was also a rare category known as domain skills — and they were exceedingly scarce. Typically, only a fourth-tier class would begin to gain access to them.
That very scarcity was what created the enormous gap between third-tier and fourth-tier classes.
That said, the domain skill Huo Wu had just learned had its significant drawbacks: she couldn't move while using it, and its duration wasn't long either. In his estimation, ten minutes would be the absolute maximum. They needed to whittle down the Three-Headed Ape Demon King's HP as fast as possible.
With Huo Wu's assistance, the team's battle against the Three-Headed Ape Demon King became instantly much more manageable.
The Three-Headed Ape Demon King's defenses were nothing compared to the Corrosion King, and being a dark-type creature meant that even without activating his burst mode, Shi Feng's damage was off the charts — two or thirty thousand per hit, easily claiming the top spot on the boss DPS chart.
Finally, thanks to Huo Wu's Water Bind, they brought the Three-Headed Ape Demon King down to around fifty percent HP.
"All DPS, pull back and deal with the other two Two-Headed Ape Demons. Healers, watch your mana — use mana potions as soon as they're off cooldown, don't hold back," Shi Feng ordered the moment the Demon King's HP hit fifty percent.
The Three-Headed Ape Demon King, as a high-rank grand leader, was already difficult to handle. Once its HP dropped below fifty percent, it would randomly charge any player on the field. That charge was far more devastating than a Berserker's charge — even a tank with defensive skills active would be one-shot.
After the charge, the Demon King not only moved at terrifying speed but could also stun the player and unleash a brutal combo.
Unless you had something like an Elementalist's Ice Barrier, which granted long-term immunity to all damage, or could dodge the charge trajectory the instant it began, there was no escape.
However, if they took out the two Two-Headed Ape Demons first and their HP dropped below seventy percent while the Three-Headed Ape Demon King still had above seventy percent HP, the twin apes would go berserk, boosting their attack speed and damage by thirty percent.
For the team's safety, the plan was to first stabilize the Three-Headed Ape Demon King at fifty percent HP, then clear the other two Two-Headed Ape Demons. Once the twins were nearly finished, they would turn back to finish off the Demon King. This required extremely high positioning and coordination from the entire team, and being a prolonged engagement, it would be an enormous test of the healers' mana reserves.
As for the Three-Headed Ape Demon King itself, Shi Feng assigned four Guardian Knights to assist Ke Le.