Boss Battle (Part 4)

"Is this a pattern of unleashing super skills?"

Feng Luo's facial expression changed. He immediately dismissed this guess because the Beetle Boss's condition seemed to indicate another scenario.

"No, this is… self-destruction!"

Some Bosses used the self-destruction skill as a counter-attack when dying in War. Self-destruction didn't just cause great damage to surrounding enemies. More importantly, if players could not stop it in time, the Boss's most valuable energy crystal core or mechanical core would be destroyed when the Boss died.

This was undoubtedly a sneaky plan by the gaming company! The only way to stop the Boss from self-destructing was to attack its vital point and cause lethal damage, due to the fact that most active skills in War could be halted by a vital-point attack. This was also why lethal damage had a higher value than normal damage in War.

However, no one could stop this Boss's skill because, during the boss's self-destruction, an energy shield slightly darker than the previous one appeared over its body, blocking the attacks made by all the players.

Boom!

Less than ten seconds later, the Beetle Boss's originally black shell turned red, and there seemed to be flames burning within it. When it turned extremely red, a loud boom quaked sky above the entire Town of Exiles.

The power of self-destruction from the Level-45 Boss was indescribable. A spherical yellow energy storm started to spread rapidly, as overwhelming as a sandstorm. Debris weighing thousands of kilograms was swept up by the shock wave, creating craters and holes on the ground and the surrounding buildings. People could feel the earth rumbling from the strong impact!

Although he was in a prone position on the ground, at the top of a building almost 100 meters away, and even though the building blocked most of the impact, Feng Luo's HP still dropped more than 1,000 points from this self-destruction. If he hadn't used a blood tonic to recover his HP above a safe level after being damaged by the energy blast earlier, perhaps he would have sustained a heavy injury or even ended up with a Game Over.

"Level-45 Boss killed," said a voice over Feng Luo's player terminal. "6.3 percent kill contribution. 3,015 experience points awarded. 1,890 Town of Exiles 1022 Medal Points awarded!"

Listening to system's audio, Feng Luo leaned on the top floor of the heavily damaged building while holding the M110. Fear lingered in his heart.

"Phew, I've finally downed this Boss!"

Then his face turned sour. In the square below, following the Boss's self-destruction, many energy crystals, shining pieces of equipment, and rare consumable supplies which were not available in most markets were being blown around by the residual energy from the self-destruction storm.

Bosses would drop equipment after self-destruction. Even though there would not be energy crystal cores, the equipment that did drop would not be of common value. Not only would there be rare pieces of equipment, but there would also be special materials that were not dropped by most common monsters.

The problem was, Feng Luo was standing on the tenth floor of the building, and it was impossible for him to grab those things.

Scratch!

Feng Luo felt so dejected that he wanted to shoot himself with his M110. Especially given the fact that his kill contribution was as high as 6.3 percent. 6.3 percent! Subtracting the NPCs' contributions from the total, he was most likely at the top among the players. However, the player with the highest contribution could only stare at the items dropped by the Boss. Many players who were too scared to advance into battle and hadn't made any contribution stormed out greedily to loot the items dropped by the Boss.

Feng Luo was truly bitter. "F*ck," he said. "Why didn't I think of this before?"

Clink!

Even as Feng Luo was feeling despondent, a clear clink was heard from the rooftop beside him. It sounded as if something had fallen onto the ground and flipped twice. Feng Luo turned his head and realized that it was a silver, half-transparent chip the size of two fingernails.

"This seems to be an item dropped by the Boss," he said.

Feng Luo's face went blank. Could it be that one of the drops by the Boss fell to his side because it was blown to this building by the power of the self-destruction?

"Um, no," he concluded. "It doesn't seem likely."

He gazed through the M110's scope and realized that, based on the trajectory of the items scattered after the explosion, other players who had attacked while he was attacking the Boss were also receiving drops.

"If so, I suppose the system intended to divide the drops following the Boss's self-destruction!" Feng Luo guessed.

Even though the Boss had not spawned for very long, it had caused a flurry of activity on the square and caught the attention of all the players from the Town of Exiles. When the Boss had been nearly dead, many players had called their acquaintances over through the communicating system with the intent to loot the Boss's drops. After all, dropped items were not bound to anyone during this kind of huge mission. Anyone could loot those items. Therefore, if items dropped by the Bosses were picked up by lazy Light Armor Warriors or even taken by new players who arrived only for the drops, it would be too unfair for those players who had actively participated in the battle.

Feng Luo suspected that the Boss's self-destruction had been preset by the system, as most of the credit for damaging the Boss belonged to the Guards. If not for the huge damage dealt by the Guards' electromagnetic cannon, which had destroyed the Boss's morphed safety shield, it would have been impossible for these red-name players with their varied motives to kill this Boss. That was why it was impossible for the system to drop the expensive energy crystal core. Instead, they chose to let this Boss self-destruct instead and distribute the drops according to contribution points earned in killing the Boss.

"I think that must be it!" said Feng Luo.

Holding the silver chip—which was slightly hot—in his hand, Feng Luo discovered a few question marks in its attribute column. This situation only happened in cases of unidentified equipment. This had clearly been dropped by the Boss!

There were no Appraisers in the Town of Exiles, so he would have to wait until he returned to Silvermoon City to learn what this thing was.

He placed the chip in his anti-gravity spacial backpack and focused his attention back on the square. Battles had erupted down there. No new monsters were spawned; it was the players PKing each other instead.

Thump!

In a corner of the square, fire meteorites were falling from the sky and hitting the ground, producing flames. Clearly, some Fire Manipulator players were attacking using the "Meteor Rain" skill in an attempt to loot the drops from the Boss. Not just that, but there were also machine gun noises, Warriors' shouts as they used their class skills, and curses voiced by some players. It was obvious that combat hadn't erupted solely in one area.

People would die for money, not to mention Boss drops with uncommon value. The pieces of equipment that had been dropped around the square, especially five or six of them that were shining, had drawn too much attention. After all, drops by Bosses of this level had a 100 percent chance of being Rare-grade equipment, and each would cost at least thousands of credits.

Even though the system had warned players not to fight against each other earlier, some of them obviously couldn't help it when they saw the equipment dropped by the Boss. However, the fighting did not last long. Several new military vehicles drove over from the side of the square. Subsequently, six electromagnetic machine guns on the vehicles started to operate, dishing out fatal barrages and reducing the troublemaking players to Swiss cheese, transforming them into flashes of white light.

"The rebels are attacking from the outside, yet you are all killing each other in here!" a sergeant-ranked Guard officer shouted angrily. "Do not think that you can ignore the military's orders just because you are temporarily recruited. You are all Federal soldiers as soon as you step into the battlefield. This is the consequence for those who dare to defy the orders and fight among each other!"

Behind him, on the military vehicles, Guard soldiers stood emotionless one after another, holding their guns.

The few players who had initiated PK to loot items ended up with horrible fates. After they were shot to death, all their equipment, crystals, materials, and supplies were scattered to the floor and destroyed. Perhaps when they resurrected, all they would have left was their underwear.

Feng Luo placed his M110 on the rooftop. He actually enjoyed the scene. If the drops truly were distributed according to contribution points, he assumed that the item he got was the best. The chip with unknown attributes in his backpack must have been even more valuable than the other Rare-grade equipment.

He'd been worried that if the system didn't stop the fighting in time, someone with bad intentions would notice that he'd gotten the best item and cause him trouble.

Beep. Beep…

Feng Luo's communicator beeped, and a male voice came from the battle command channel.

"Hey, is this Feng Zhi Luoye? The Commander has demanded your presence at Battle Command Department at Number 35, New South Street. You have a new mission!"