Chapter 22 Part 1

When the Sunflower Pendants emitted their light, the sky cleared up.

This was the Evil God Inson’s broken Divine Domain—an Alternate Space. There shouldn’t have been a sun here.

Even if there were a sun, only one dim sun remained in this world.

Yet, there were two suns in the now-clear sky.

One was orange-red, like the setting sun; the other was golden-yellow, like the morning sun. They hung not too close, not too far apart across the azure sky and soft white clouds, gazing at each other, as if it were before the Apocalypse.

The Evil God Inson let out a beast-like roar, wanting to fly into the sky and tear the suns apart.

But he could only stretch his arms in vain, unable to leave the ground, much less touch the suns.

Xia Xifeng stepped out from his hiding place: 【Qin Lang, the story is triggering! Heck, what are you doing?!】

What was Qin Lang doing? He was, of course, still fighting the boss.

Such a perfect damage window—how could a technical high-level player miss it?

The first phase of the Evil God Inson was quite easy to solo.

Most of the skills he used were melee-range; he took damage everywhere; only his few AOE skills required slight attention. Once familiar with his few attack patterns, it was just a matter of memorization and execution, no significant technical skill required, just practice.

In the second phase, the boss showed the truly “annoying” qualities expected of an Evil God.

When he summoned the ground-covering thorns, the thorns also covered his body, leaving only his face exposed.

During this phase, attacking anywhere other than directly hitting his face resulted in white damage numbers; critical hits were impossible.

As everyone knew, when melee classes fought gigantic bosses, they could only position themselves at the crotch, becoming foot-trimmers.

This mechanic practically nullified over half the damage output of melee players.

So, was it any better for ranged players, especially spellcasters?

No, it wasn’t.

During this phase, the Evil God Inson would absorb the mana from magical attacks, accelerating the cooldown of his Rose Mine ultimate and increasing his threat against spellcasting players.

If soloing, a spellcaster would face a merciless bombardment of Rose Mines. If in a group, the spellcaster’s threat level might exceed that of the tank player meant to absorb damage, potentially causing a party wipe.

Using bows wasn’t much better.

In Fantasy Realms, arrows had to be enchanted to deal damage. Once enchanted, arrow damage gained a magic damage component, essentially making it half a magic attack.

The standard strategy here was for melee physical players to slowly chip away at the boss’s HP with white damage, cautiously grinding it down. Only near the end of the second phase would they unleash magic attacks and enchanted arrows to burst into the third phase.

Players like Qin Lang, who soloed while aiming for speedruns, needed to find opportunities to use physical skills to directly strike the boss’s face for massive critical hit damage.

To add enjoyment for technical players, the game developers had intentionally placed a vine net on the Evil God Inson’s chin, serving as a foothold for players. Players could climb up the rose vines wrapped around Inson’s body, or use “Levitation” or “Flight” spells to reach his face directly.

But during this phase, the Evil God Inson’s movements were extremely fast, and he used cheap tactics like homing spells.

When players tried to strike his face directly, there was no room to dodge on that tiny foothold.

Moreover, during this phase, Inson could read the player’s skill input commands, resulting in “delayed attacks.” Technical players aiming for a spectacular speedrun video often died hundreds of times.

Just as Qin Lang couldn’t understand the joy Xia Xifeng found in clicking to farm in the game from morning till late night, Xia Xifeng couldn’t understand the joy Qin Lang found in repeating a cycle of dying and reviving in front of a boss, clearing the same boss thousands of times.

Now that the Evil God Inson had transformed from a computer-controlled boss into a real being with independent consciousness, in Qin Lang’s eyes, he hadn’t become stronger.

A computer-controlled boss could not only read player input commands but also linked skills with optimal calculations, seamlessly chaining them without any wasted movements.

The real Evil God Inson was affected by emotions and terrain. His skill usage wasn’t optimal, and he couldn’t predict the skills Qin Lang would use to counter them beforehand.

When the Evil God Inson was distracted by the suns, Qin Lang quickly judged that striking his face now was low-risk and high-reward.

Why wouldn’t he rush for a face-strike immediately?!

As for triggering story content, Qin Lang hadn’t considered it at all.

During combat, even if story content triggered, as long as the game didn’t force players to stop moving, it was all just a damage window for the player.

Maybe he’d miss the story? No problem. The Evil God Inson still had a third phase. Just depleting his second-phase HP bar wouldn’t kill him.

Xia Xifeng tilted his head back, watching as the Evil God Inson screamed madly at the suns as if insane—no, he was insane; he was the God of Madness.

Qin Lang, with incredible boldness, leaped onto Inson’s upturned chin, his twin swords dancing, leaving afterimages.

A string of yellow critical hit damage numbers bloomed like the withered rose vines blossoming anew with yellow flowers.

Xia Xifeng scratched his head, sheepishly retreated to his hiding spot, and gave Qin Lang a fresh round of buffs.

Knowing Qin Lang, it was probably best not to disturb his damage output now.

Sorry, Perila, you’ll have to suffer a bit longer. We’ll do the story in the third phase.

Only when the Evil God Inson’s second-phase HP bar was down to one-third did he finally stop howling at the suns and try again to crush Qin Lang, that hopping little insect.

Qin Lang executed a roll, falling from the sky. His HP dropped by half—the largest hit he’d taken in this boss fight.

The moment his HP dropped, Xia Xifeng’s healing potion hit him.

Qin Lang applied the minor healing spell he’d been saving, bringing his HP back to three-quarters.

He ran circles around the Evil God Inson’s feet, employing the “crotch-hugging” cowardly tactic to its fullest, successfully lasting until the cooldown for his minor healing spell ended.

Qin Lang healed himself again, and Xia Xifeng also threw a slow-healing potion onto him.

Danger averted. Qin Lang continued dodging skills while trimming the Evil God Inson’s feet.

The light from the Sunflower accessory dimmed. Although it still floated in the air, the suns in the sky had been obscured by dark clouds. The vines on the ground once again blossomed with white roses.

While slowly grinding down the Evil God Inson’s HP with white damage, Qin Lang also pulled out fire-enchanted arrows whenever he was too far to trim feet, igniting the vines on the ground to reduce the damage of Inson’s upcoming ultimate skill.

Xia Xifeng also slinked around, using various obstacles as cover, creeping closer to the vines.

He took out a weapon with an inherent fire spell, set the vines alight, and then ran away.

Sneaking around, peeking left and right… Hehe, Inson’s chasing Qin Lang again. Time for another go.

Switch to another weapon with an inherent fire spell, ignite, and run.

Sneaking around, peeking left and right… Another opportunity! I ignite!

While Qin Lang was rolling around the ground being chased by the Evil God Inson, he took a moment to glance at Xia Xifeng.

His own HP bar rose and fell like a roller coaster, a heart-stopping sight.

In such a dangerous moment, seeing Xia Xifeng’s furtive, sneaky demeanor made him laugh out loud.

Qin Lang: 【Boss is casting, hide.】

Xia Xifeng: 【Got it! Running away now!】

Qin Lang used a few more leaps to get in front of the Evil God Inson again. Inson finished his incantation. The thorny vines on the ground trembled slightly, and white roses floated into the air.

Some roses exploded on the spot, some flew towards Qin Lang, and a few even chased after Xia Xifeng.

Xia Xifeng was prepared.

Every time he tagged along on Qin Lang’s boss fights, he didn’t need to deal damage, just needed to master dodging.

Xia Xifeng used the terrain to block the roses while pulling out a weapon with an inherent protective barrier, just in case.

Although with his current defenses and HP, those few roses would probably only chip a sliver off his HP bar, it was still better to be safe.

As Xia Xifeng expected, even when hit, he only lost a tiny sliver of HP.

Qin Lang, on the other hand, was much worse off.

He got greedy for damage output, pushing the Evil God Inson into the third phase, but also leaving himself with only a sliver of HP.

Xia Xifeng’s eyelid twitched violently at the sight of Qin Lang’s HP reduced to just four digits.

While frantically healing Qin Lang, he complained: 【What happened to being cautious and not getting greedy?!】

Qin Lang replied calmly: 【I wasn’t greedy. If this were the game, my HP would be in the double digits right now. Anything over double digits means my damage window utilization was too low.】

Xia Xifeng: 【You’re not playing a game right now!】

Qin Lang: 【Hence why there are still four digits left.】

Xia Xifeng was so angry he nearly choked: 【What’s the difference between four digits and two?! They’re both just one hit from the boss!】

Qin Lang: 【I can tank two roses or three glancing blows from the boss. Error margin perfectly maxed out.】

Xia Xifeng was speechless. Did you have to calculate it so precisely?

Were they still slaying a god here? Oh, wait, no, you were just fighting a boss.

Given that Qin Lang already had an informational advantage against the Evil God Inson, and the Sunflower accessories came out to assist, Xia Xifeng felt that fighting the real boss was actually easier than when Qin Lang fought the computer boss?

Qin Lang thought so too, and felt somewhat unsatisfied.

If he could record this fight, he would surely have cut the speedrun record for the Evil God Inson in half.

It was just the second phase of the Evil God Inson that wasted so much time.

By now, the Evil God Inson had entered the third phase.

His body shrank, his form gradually becoming hunched.

The evil divine power swirling around him dissipated. An ugly, twisted Halfling face and body appeared within the dissipating giant divine form.

The Sunflower Pendants flew in front of Xia Xifeng and Qin Lang.

The two reached out, each grasping one pendant.

【Special Accessory Equipped.】

【Special Effect: Immune to all damage from the Evil God Inson.】

They hung the pendants around their necks.

Now immune to all damage, the next part was a story event.

Qin Lang put away his weapons with great regret and slowly restored his HP to full.

It looked like the record was unbeatable now.

Xia Xifeng ran to Qin Lang’s side, hiding behind him, craning his neck to look at the ugly Halfling who kept hurling spells at them. “He doesn’t look anything like Perila. What do we do now? Talk-no-jutsu?”

Qin Lang said, “Let’s try getting closer first.”

Qin Lang walked ahead; Xia Xifeng followed closely behind him.