THE STRONGEST THUNDER SWORD, VOLUME 4 - Season 7 Episode 22

“Look! That’s the teleportation gate for Hell Mode!”

“That’s impossible, right? Is Zero Wing actually challenging the Hell Mode Ruins of the Crow God? Have they lost their minds?”

“I heard that the Ruins’ Final Boss is a Great Lord. It’s many times stronger than a High Lord ranked Boss. There’s no way any of these Guilds can beat something so strong. Could Zero Wing’s team leader have chosen the wrong difficulty?”

When everyone outside the Ruins of the Crow God saw the pair of pitch-black teleportation gates and the flickering skull behind it, their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

The Final Boss of Hard Mode already made them feel powerless. None of them even humored the thought of raiding Hell Mode.

Shortly after Shi Feng and the others entered the Dungeon, the news quickly spread throughout White River City.

No one who heard it could bring themselves to believe that it was true.

Meanwhile, if one had to point out who was most shocked by the news, then it would be White River City’s various large Guilds.

Now that White River City’s long period of development had come to an end, the city contained well over a hundred Guilds. Meanwhile, as White River City’s overlord, Zero Wing constantly received attention from many of these Guilds.

“They actually dare challenge Hell Mode even though they still haven’t cleared Hard Mode. I never thought that Black Flame would be so foolhardy.” When Feng Xuanyang received the latest news regarding Zero Wing, he could not contain his mocking smile.

Underworld’s information network covered over a dozen kingdoms and multiple empires. As part of Underworld’s middle management, Feng Xuanyang knew exactly what the Hell Mode of a 50-man Team Dungeon represented.

Despair!

Of all these kingdoms and empires, there were several top-tier large Guilds that had already conquered the Hard Mode of a 50-man Team Dungeon. Yet, out of all of these Guilds, not a single one had managed to defeat the First Boss of Hell Mode; they had not even managed to drop the Boss’s HP below 90%. No matter which MT they tried, everyone died from a single hit. It was useless, regardless of how many healers the team had. In the end, these top-tier large Guilds had no choice but to give up on raiding the Hell Mode of their respective 50-man Team Dungeons and had to shift their focus to 100-man Team Dungeons instead.

Previously, Zero Wing had only reached the third phase of the Bluefire Crow King, yet, now, they were actually trying to challenge Hell Mode. Even with three or four Shi Fengs, they still had no chance.

—

Meanwhile, inside the Ruins of the Crow God…

Regarding the environment, there were not many differences between the Hell Mode and Hard Mode Ruins of the Crow God. Collapsed shrines and towering statues littered the Ruins.

At this moment, however, Fire Dance and the others were extraordinarily tensed. Every one of them wore somber expressions.

“Haven’t you guys fought up to the Final Boss of this place already? Why are you all so nervous?” Shi Feng could not help but laugh as he looked at his teammates. He was the only one who had not drawn his weapons, ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

Team Dungeons were different from 6-man Party Dungeons. Team Dungeons only refreshed once every three days. It did not make a difference if one cleared Normal, Hard, or Hell Mode. Moreover, in Team Dungeons, Bosses and monsters would not respawn even if the team decided to change difficulties midway. Teams would not be able to kill Bosses that they had already defeated. Depending on which Boss a team fought up to, they would simply continue from the same Boss after switching difficulties. Only, the strength of the remaining monsters and Bosses would change according to the new difficulty.

There was a difference between the Team Dungeons in God’s Domain and those in other virtual reality games. Unlike other virtual reality games, the difficulty setting of Team Dungeons could only be increased, not decreased. In other words, if a team raided Hard Mode and defeated the First Boss, but failed to defeat the Second Boss, they were not allowed to lower the difficulty to Normal Mode to continue raiding the Dungeon from there. If they wished to change the difficulty of the Dungeon, they could only raise it to Hell Mode.

Previously, Fire Dance and the others had fought up to the Final Boss. Now that they had selected Hell Mode difficulty, the path to the Final Boss was quite safe.

Everyone felt a little embarrassed when they heard Shi Feng’s questions.

They had an instinctive fear of Hell Mode.

“Alright, let’s take a look at the Bluefire Crow King,” Shi Feng said, laughing.

Fire Dance then led the way towards the Final Boss’s nest.

Meanwhile, as Shi Feng followed, he called up the system interface.

He was currently Level 34 and was already far above the maximum level limit, Level 30, to obtain the Dungeon’s First Clear. He needed to reduce his level.

Moreover, the Hell Mode Bluefire Crow King was not a trivial opponent. Even if he had four additional levels of Attributes, it would not make a huge difference. Converting those Levels and Attributes into combat power would be far more beneficial.

Shi Feng selected his Skill window and clicked on Flame Burst. He leveled up the Skill without hesitation.

At Level 9, Flame Burst was already an impressively domineering Skill. After the Flame Burst icon flashed a few times, the Skill upgraded to Tier 1, Level 5. The Skill’s stats increased significantly as well.

[Flame Burst]

Tier 1, Level 5 (Requires 480,000,000 EXP to upgrade to Tier 1 Level 6 skill)

Channeling time: 1 second

Gathers the power of flames to a single point and causes 900% damage to the target.

Attack Count: 15 times

Cooldown: 3 minutes

Originally, the Level 9 Flame Burst had an Attack Count of 12, and every attack dealt 750% of Shi Feng’s damage. Now, not only did the Attack Count increase by three, but the damage each hit dealt also increased significantly. The Tier 1, Level 5 Flame Burst’s damage far surpassed the Level 9 Flame Burst.

At the same time, however, Shi Feng’s level fell rapidly. In the blink of an eye, he dropped to Level 30, which was in line with the requirement of obtaining First Clear of the Dungeon.

As expected of a super Skill. If I want to upgrade Flame Burst further, I’ll have to wait until I am Level 40 at the very least. Shi Feng inwardly calculated.

Flame Burst required 480 million EXP just to reach the next level. With Shi Feng’s current level, if he upgraded Flame Burst to Tier 1, Level 6, he would most likely drop to Level 25. Any other player would most likely lose many more levels; Shi Feng’s saving grace was his class’s high EXP requirement.

However, upgrading Flame Burst to Tier 1, Level 5 at the cost of four levels was still a worthwhile exchange.

With this Skill alone, Shi Feng was confident of heavily injuring even a full HP Lord.

In the future, he would have a much easier time killing Lord ranked monsters.

Half an hour later, Shi Feng and the others arrived before the Crow God’s Shrine, the Bluefire Crow King’s nest.

“It’s huge!” Blackie gaped as he gazed at the Bluefire Crow King in the distance.

In Hard Mode, the Bluefire Crow King was roughly 30 meters tall. That was already an intimidating size. Now, however, the Bluefire Crow King before them stood over 50 meters high. The Hard Mode Bluefire Crow King was a child compared to the Hell Mode Bluefire Crow King.

[Bluefire Crow King] (Great Lord)

Level 30

HP 27,000,000/27,000,000

“How are we supposed to fight that? Its HP alone is already more than double that of the High Lord ranked Bluefire Crow King.” Cola gulped, his prior enthusiasm dissipating.

Although they were now capable of activating the Power of Darkness and increasing their Basic Attributes by 30% for 10 minutes, the Bluefire Crow King’s Attributes had increased by more than 30%. The gap between them now was even wider than before.

Fire Dance frowned. Even she was not confident of taking down such a powerful Boss.

“Leader, are we still going to fight it?” Aqua Rose asked as she turned to Shi Feng.

Initially, due to Shi Feng’s leadership, everyone had possessed a shred of confidence of conquering the Hell Mode Ruins of the Crow God. However, they had terribly underestimated the horrors of Hell Mode. Even with Shi Feng, it was impossible for them to defeat such a powerful Boss.

“Fight! Why wouldn’t we? What else do you think we came here to do?” Shi Feng rolled his eyes at his team.

This was not the first time Shi Feng had experienced the horrors of Hell Mode.

Even if Shi Feng went all out, he would require a long time to finish off the Crow King’s 27,000,000 HP. Not to mention, the Crow King would also recover 1% of its HP every five seconds. The Great Lord’s battle recovery alone made for a frightening weapon.

This was why an individual’s power was extremely limited inside a Team Dungeon. Even though Shi Feng was capable of withstanding the Crow King’s attacks for a short period, he and his team could not deplete that much HP within such a short time.

Of course, since he dared to come here, he naturally had a certain degree of confidence of emerging victorious. Otherwise, he would not have chosen to challenge Hell Mode.

“Time to put you to good use.” Shi Feng opened his bag and smiled at the Bible of Darkness.