Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Crimson Key

No matter how awkward this boss looked, since they had already opened this door, it was only fitting to take it down as well.

The first team to defeat the boss in Dongyuan City's level 10 dungeon—just the thought of it was enough to send everyone into a frenzy.

Although the boss’s level was the same as the elite guardians on the fourth floor, its strength was worlds apart. Zhao Nan didn’t dare take this boss, brimming with a sense of discordance, lightly. Cautiously, he advanced step by step.

“Don’t attack yet,” Zhao Nan ordered. “Let me provoke it and draw out all its attacks once, so we can analyze how to proceed.”

He stepped forward, a breeze whipping around him as a pair of translucent wings unfurled from his back—a level 15 wind magic skill, “Wings of Gale.” This boosted his speed, though it lacked any offensive power.

Why wasn’t Finina the one to test the boss’s reactions? No one could quite figure it out. But Zhao Nan had already moved ahead, so the others could only watch from afar.

Gao Mingyang and the others understood well—compared to the indomitable swordswoman Finina, Zhao Nan was even more frighteningly ruthless.

After entering the room, there was still a short stretch considered a safe zone. Now Zhao Nan had stepped into the boss’s territory, advancing cautiously. The scene reminded him of the first time he’d joined a pickup group to face this monster, equally wary then—a memory that brought a faint smile to his lips.

The boss had already fixed its eyes on Zhao Nan, but remained motionless, its gaze shifting restlessly. It scratched itself, as if itching, and then let out a massive yawn.

With “Wings of Gale” still active, Zhao Nan strode up to the boss and began to provoke it, launching a small fireball straight into its huge face. The explosion echoed thunderously through the room.

The boss’s smile twisted instantly into a gaping maw, its scratching hand swinging back before slamming down as if swatting a fly—the motion so fast it was almost invisible.

The fireball barely scratched the boss, with a red “-12” flashing and disappearing in an instant. The boss’s hand crashed to the floor, sending a tremor through the ground, but Zhao Nan had already darted aside, circling the boss and hurling more fireballs.

Now the Teletubby was truly enraged. It stuck out its round posterior, its short legs kicking and stamping, both hands pounding the ground.

It reached into the pouch on its belly, pulling out a black sphere with a burning fuse—a simple, unmistakable bomb.

Boom!

The bomb exploded violently right beside Zhao Nan. He paused for a heartbeat at the edge of the blast, and the shockwave sent him flying.

“-500!”

The searing damage drew simultaneous cries of alarm from two of the onlookers—both women. They glanced instinctively at each other, then quickly turned away, both riveted by the battle.

But Zhao Nan’s dance around the boss continued, drawing out a barrage of bombs. After about ten minutes, trailing a stream of wind behind him, he retreated to the safety zone—a tiny patch less than a meter from the entrance.

He exhaled, sweat dotting his brow but his face untroubled. Pointing at the boss, he asked, “Did everyone catch that?”

The group nodded.

Zhao Nan continued, “The boss throws a bomb every fifteen seconds or so. The blast is devastating—if I take a direct hit, I’m logging out.”

“Logging out” was the current slang players used for dying in-game.

But no one laughed; their faces grew more serious. Zhao Nan went on, “Even if you don’t take a direct hit, anyone within a two-meter radius will suffer a fixed 500 points of damage... Aside from bombs, the boss only uses simple slaps and kicks. Also, pay attention to its movement range: it won’t chase you if you get more than twenty meters away. If you leave its zone, the fight resets and its health instantly returns to full.”

“So once we begin, there’s no stopping, right?” Jiang Lun was the first to speak up.

Zhao Nan looked at him and nodded. This boy with bangs covering his single eyelid had shown keen perception many times along the way—and Zhao Nan was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

Looking at his teammates, Zhao Nan said solemnly, “Watch your health. If it drops below one-third, crawl out if you have to. Whoever dies, dies—but as long as you leave combat, we can keep fighting. The strategy is the same as before!”

“Let’s hope for a one-shot kill,” Gao Mingyang clapped and shouted, “Here I come!”

As ranged attackers, Gao Xiang and Jiang Lun took up positions at opposite corners, while Finina, Xu Feng, and Gao Mingyang closed in on the boss, unleashing their skills.

Zhao Nan kept a position mirroring the others, managing his attacks and holding the boss’s aggro. He kept up two alternating fireball rhythms to maintain the boss’s attention. Whenever the boss turned to chase him, the others would ramp up their assault.

Pulling the boss back and forth within a limited area was the easiest way to bring it down—though it demanded flawless teamwork.

One had to constantly calculate the boss’s health based on all the team’s attacks. This was no simple task.

Zhao Nan found that since his spirit attribute had increased, these calculations came ever more naturally. Countless lines of data appeared in his mind, as if he were watching multiple computer screens, and his brain would offer the correct predictions.

“Thorny Vines!”

“Thorny Vines!”

It wasn’t that he could cast the skill back-to-back, but rather that he timed the second cast just as the first was about to expire.

Finina’s Star Combo could deliver eighteen consecutive strikes. Before the first “Thorny Vines” ended, she had already cut through ten of them; the remaining eight strikes severed eight vines from the second cast. Gao Mingyang and Xu Feng each took care of one of the last two.

“-100!” flashed twenty times in a row, stripping 2,000 points from the boss’s health—a sliver off its bar.

The boss had around 100,000 hit points—a number only Zhao Nan knew at this stage.

After two consecutive Thorny Vines, Zhao Nan had to drop out of the fight. The 2,000 points of damage had put so much aggro on him that the others couldn’t pull the boss away, so he had to exit combat before resuming the pattern.

Boss fights were a technical challenge, but also a tedious one. This wasn’t just a computer screen—there was no room for laughter or distraction, only heart-pounding focus.

...

At some point, the boss finally collapsed to the ground. Zhao Nan exhaled deeply. Beating a boss with eight people was a bit wild, but better than his original plan—it took less time, though at greater mental cost.

Calculating the attacks of two people versus an eight-man team was a world of difference.

In the end, the boss died to the fixed damage from “Thorny Vines.”

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Zhao Nan was suddenly bombarded by system notifications. His ears rang, so he muted the alerts and switched to text-only messages.

He didn’t need all that noise, but Gao Mingyang and the others weren’t so lucky—the system’s voice was deafening, and there was a mountain of information to process.

They needed time to digest it all.

...

The first delight from beating the boss was the experience points. Gao Mingyang and the other level 15s gained more than half a level, while Zhao Nan and Finina each earned nearly a third.

There was also plenty of loot. The first-time drop from a boss was never disappointing, especially for the player’s first regular dungeon. Looking at the items before him, Zhao Nan found it hard to breathe.

Not because of the purple-glowing gear, but because of a single item that landed directly in his backpack—a special reward for delivering the final blow.

A key. A golden-quality key with no visible attributes.

Back on the first floor of the labyrinth, Zhao Nan had obtained and learned an Appraisal skill.

He instinctively tried to appraise the key, and its true form was revealed.

It was a red key.

“Rainbow Seven-Colored Keys—Red Key (Level 0): One of the legendary keys said to open the Path to the Heavens.”

He’d already inexplicably found a Blue Key earlier, and now he had another.

The red and blue keys lay quietly in his backpack, each occupying their own slot.