Chapter 135
Looking at the sneaky look of those three people, Xia Mo knew that they would not behave themselves.
However, discussing the dungeon was the most important thing right now, so he withdrew his gaze and looked at He Ye Xiaoxiao and several other core members: "Let's get started."
He Ye Xiaoxiao nodded.
"The dungeon isn't difficult at first. Once you enter, you need to rescue four poisoned villagers. Once you've rescued them all, you'll gain a +3% defense buff. Further inside, you'll encounter the first boss."
"The first boss isn't difficult to defeat; we can take him down with focused fire. Then there's the second boss. He has a lot of health and a skill that summons a poison bubble. If the player touches it, it explodes and deals heavy damage to the surrounding 3-meter area. This requires quick reaction and positioning."
Hearing this, Xia Mo suddenly interjected, "How many of you died here at Lao Er's place?"
He Ye Xiaoxiao was stunned for a moment, then quickly looked up the dungeon history records: "There are... 13 people who died."
13, this number is a bit too much.
Although you can rely on the priest and warlock to revive after death, which will not affect the fight against the third boss later, there is actually a saying about the second boss in the previous life: the fewer players who die from being touched by the poisonous bubble, the greater the chance of defeating the fifth boss later.
This is not just a casual remark, but has a theoretical basis.
Because the fifth brother also has a similar turbid air explosion skill, the turbid air is released more frequently than the second brother's poisonous bubbles, moves faster, and has a wider damage range.
If a team can lose more than ten people on the second guy's side, then when they go to the fifth guy, won't the whole team be wiped out?
Seeing her lost in thought, He Ye Xiaoxiao spoke nervously, "Isn't this mortality rate too high?"
Xia Mo turned his gaze towards her and said, "Well, it's best to limit the number to 3 or less. Only then will there be hope of defeating the boss later."
"Three?!" He Ye Xiaoxiao was shocked. Then she took a deep breath and shook her head. "That number is too low. We probably can't do it."
Xia Mo was not surprised. After all, Qingyaozhishang currently has only 98 members, and half of them were picked just for this copy.
Among this half, many are ordinary players, with neither outstanding levels nor combat power. If nothing unexpected happens, most of the 13 people who died are them.
"Send me the second brother's death list."
Although she had a definite idea in her mind, she still had to confirm it through the list.
He Ye Xiaoxiao hurriedly sent her the list.
Xia Mo took a quick look and found it was true.
"The combat power of these 13 people is a bit low. Can you replace them with higher ones?"
He Ye Xiaoxiao paused, a little embarrassed: "This is already the third tier of our guild. If we change it again, there will only be fourth tier players."
Needless to say, she and Qingshui are firmly at the head of the first echelon, and Pastor Latiao Xiaohuahua also shows signs of rushing towards the first echelon.
The second group includes more than ten old acquaintances such as Salad with Meat Sauce, Ripe Tomato, Lotus Leaf Xiaoxiao, Laughing Until Your Face Is Paralyzed, and Bobo Chicken.
Next is the third echelon, who joined Qingyao Zhishang later. Their strengths are uneven, and they have not yet developed a particularly good tacit understanding with Qingyao Zhishang. Once they encounter a slightly difficult boss, various problems are exposed.
These problems should actually be discovered and solved in advance during normal leveling, but it is useless to say them now. The most urgent task is to quickly promote the people in the third echelon.
But is it really that easy?
"Mo Se, why don't you take command of the Burning Abyss?" He Ye Xiaoxiao suddenly spoke.
Xia Mo pondered for a moment: "Okay, you replace someone."
She was just about to ask to see how the third echelon performed in the dungeon, and now that He Ye Xiaoxiao brought it up, she naturally agreed.
Entering the Burning Abyss for the third time.
Since they were already familiar with the previous steps, everyone easily defeated the first one and reached the second one.
The second one is a boss with bumpy bodies and a toad-like appearance. As long as its cheeks bulge, it means that it is about to spit out poisonous bubbles.
"The poison bubbles don't move very fast. If you're far away, you can use your skills to blow them up first. If you're close, don't attack them. Just move and avoid them."
As soon as he faced the second brother, Xia Mo immediately discovered the problem with the team.
When facing poison bubbles, everyone's strategy is to hide rather than attack. In fact, these poison bubbles can be blown up with skills, as long as there is no one within a radius of 3 meters before the poison bubbles explode.
After being touched by her, several ranged players at a distance immediately used their skills.
"Oh my gosh, Miss!"
"Oops, mine too, missed!"
An elementalist and a star official lamented behind Xia Mo.
Xia Mo glanced at the IDs above their heads and, as expected, they were from the third echelon.
"If you miss, run quickly. Be careful or you might get caught up by the poisonous bubbles."
The long-range player has short legs, so in this stage he must fight in the mobile mode and keep running.
When the two heard the order, they ran away to both sides.
Xia Mo accelerated to chase the poisonous bubbles that had not been shot down yet. Her hit rate was very high. She could shoot down one with just one raise of her hand. The poisonous bubbles that threatened the entire field were quickly eliminated by her alone.
"Wow, none of us died!" Yun Yao exclaimed excitedly as she saw that everyone was still alive.
"Yes, the pressure on our treatment has also been reduced a lot." Latiao Xiaohuahua followed up, and her words were nodded in agreement by several pastors behind her.
"Don't be careless, there will be one or two more rounds of poisonous bubbles. Let's concentrate our fire quickly and kill the second one before the third round comes." He Ye Xiaoxiao reminded everyone in time.
Everyone returned to their positions, either focusing their fire nearby or a few meters away.
More than 20 minutes later, the second brother fell down before he could release the third round of poison bubbles. Everyone couldn't help but cheer and began to look forward to whether they could pass the level today under Xia Mo's leadership.
"As expected of our pillar of support, once the boss makes a move, we know whether it's effective or not!"
"Haha, none of us died today. I feel like we're the first to get the kill~"
"Go, go, go, let's take first place in one go!"
…
The team atmosphere was very warm, but Xia Mo remained calm.
What she didn't say clearly was that no one died in this battle because of her presence. If she hadn't taken action to resolve the situation and had hidden with everyone else, the same number of people in the team would have died.
He Ye Xiaoxiao also realized this. She looked at the happy expressions on the team members' faces and couldn't bear to expose them, so she kept it to herself and continued to lead the team forward.
On the way to the third brother's nest, there were three forks in the road. Xia Mo stood in front of the fork and turned back to ask He Ye Xiaoxiao: "Which one did you choose before?"
He Ye Xiaoxiao said without hesitation: "The first time I chose the leftmost one, the second time I chose the middle one."
After a pause, he asked, "We're going to choose the far right today?"
When faced with a fork in the road map, players' general thinking is to choose one of the options to advance. The planner saw this and deliberately set a trap in this dungeon.
In fact, none of the three paths will work. The team must send people in together to kill the elite monsters and leader monsters on the three paths at the same time, so as to eliminate the accomplices of the third one in advance.
Xia Mo couldn't say it directly, so he asked indirectly: "Did you encounter any monsters when you entered the left and middle paths?"
He Ye Xiaoxiao immediately nodded her chin: "Yes, there are 5 elite monsters and 1 leader monster on the left, and 9 plus 1 in the middle."
Xia Mo hummed, pretending not to understand, and asked, "Judging from the number, there aren't many monsters. There are 50 of us, so it shouldn't be difficult to deal with them, right?"
"...It's still quite difficult..." He Ye Xiaoxiao looked a little embarrassed. "These three paths are very narrow. We can't enter them all at once. We can only go in three abreast at a time. So we actually have three people against one monster. It's not easy to fight."
"Then the rest of the people are just gathering in the back?" Xia Mo glanced at He Ye Xiaoxiao intentionally or unintentionally.
He Ye Xiaoxiao was suddenly stunned, and after a few seconds, a golden light flashed in her eyes!
"You mean to let them disperse and go to different forks?!"
The child is teachable.
Xia Mo raised the corners of his lips in relief: "Yes."
When she first proposed this strategy, no one in the Absolute Dynasty believed it, thinking that it was a waste of their potion reserves.
She didn't argue too much at the time and let them stick to their own opinions and choose one of the three.
Until the end, they were stuck with the third boss and were wiped out. The president Lingyun Huangtian had no choice but to adopt her three-pronged tactic, dividing the 50 people into three routes to attack, eliminating the monsters on the three routes, and finally successfully defeated the third boss.
After receiving her affirmation, He Ye Xiaoxiao's brows relaxed immediately: "Okay! I'll arrange it right away!"
There were 14, 20 and 16 people arranged to enter the left, middle and right lanes respectively.
The middle path has the most elite monsters, so the most manpower is allocated to it. Xia Mo also went to the middle path.
Before entering, He Ye Xiaoxiao gave her final instructions: "We're going to play a round-robin battle in this phase. If your teammates in the front can't hold on, they must retreat immediately. The players in the back row with full health will take over, and the cycle continues. Healers, remember to keep a close eye on the people in the front row and don't let them die. Everyone, try to get out of the small path within 40 minutes. Do you have confidence?"
Everyone gripped their weapons tightly: "Yes!"
The 50 people dispersed on the spot and went in three directions.
On the middle road, Xia Mo took the lead and led his men all the way inside.
A green elite monster stopped them.
Xia Mo said without further ado: "Hit!"
All the players in the front row raised their weapons, using Furious Sweep, Hundred Steps Away, Trickster Stab, and Justice Pursuit... The narrow passage was instantly illuminated by the skill light effects!
"Warlock, give the front line a defensive spell! Healer, heal!"
Although He Ye Xiaoxiao had given everyone a heads-up in advance, telling them to retreat if they couldn't hold on any longer, the front row's health dropped rapidly after just a few hits, and they couldn't hold on for more than a few seconds.
Upon hearing the sound, the warlock and the priest kept throwing protection to their teammates with both hands.
A priest's powerful health recovery skill [Energy Infusion] suddenly fell on Xia Mo's head.
Her health was already full, so it was a waste to give her this health recovery skill. Xia Mo frowned slightly and turned around to look at the person who gave her the skill - it was from the third echelon again.
The young priest who threw the wrong person knew he was in the wrong and bowed his head in apology. Xia Mo didn't know what to say, so he just reminded her in the command channel: "When each nurse throws a skill, pay attention to the target before releasing it, and don't waste any meaning and increase the CD time."
"Doubao, give me some milk!" Just as he finished speaking, a soldier in the front row suddenly shouted.
Doubao is the priest who just threw the wrong skill at her, a little boy with a somewhat childish face.
Hearing his teammates' shouts, Doubao's face flushed red: "Wait, wait a minute, my energy infusion is still cooling down."
"Ah? I can't hold on any longer!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the elite monster used a skill to hit the warrior, and he fell to the ground.
Doubao was about to rescue the other teammate when he saw the situation, but Xia Mo stopped him: "Don't rescue them yet, save other teammates who need to recover."
Every time someone dies, you have to use [Holy Resurrection]. This skill consumes a lot of mana and has a long CD time of 1 minute. A powerful skill like this should be saved for critical moments.
But Doubao didn't have this awareness. He just used whatever skills he had, regardless of how they were distributed.
After Xia Mo finished speaking, he saw Doubao was confused for a few seconds, then he nodded blankly and turned to heal other teammates.
It took them a full 8 minutes to finally kill the first elite monster, and there were still 7 more monsters plus 1 boss monster waiting for them.
Xia Mo looked silently at the group of third-tier players behind him who were fighting in a mess. He had a hunch that at this level, Qingyao would never be able to defeat the third-tier player, let alone clear the level and get the first kill.
However, she couldn't bring up this matter directly, and had to let the commander He Ye Xiaoxiao decide for herself what to do next.
It took another 43 minutes, or a total of 51 minutes, before Xia Mo brought 20 people out from the middle.
When they came out, their faces were all dejected. He Ye Xiaoxiao noticed that the atmosphere was not right and hurried forward to ask, "What's wrong? You came out fine, why are you looking so sad?"
Pastor Doubao raised his head, first looking at Xia Mo in front of him, then lowered his head and said in a muffled voice: "Except Mo Se, all of us died in there..."
What? !
He Ye Xiaoxiao looked surprised: "Then how did you get out?"
Doubao raised his hand and pointed at Xia Mo cautiously: "The seven elite monsters and the leader monster at the back were all killed by Boss Mo..."
Everyone's pupils trembled!
What did you say? She did it all by herself?!
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