The Great Thief

Translator: Halcyon Translations  Editor: Halcyon Translations

Thus, everyone began discussing how to enter the room without dying.

“Why do we have to enter?” Lu Li interrupted them, “Just keep going; maybe it’s the next room.”

In reality, nobody knew what was inside this room. Paladins could use their invulnerability skill to explore the room, but it didn’t last long enough to reach the end. Additionally, the room was very poorly lit, so it was difficult to navigate..

They realised that Lu Li could be right and stopped thinking about how to get into the trap room.

Only Azure Sea Breeze was still hung up about it. Even though it was a game and he had experienced death many times from tanking the most powerful Bosses, that experience of walking into a dark room and being instantly killed was terrifying.

“Dont’ worry,” Lu Li comforted him, “I’ll go into the next room first.”

Azure Sea Breeze was grateful and felt bad about trash talking Lu Li earlier on. In reality, he knew that Lu Li was a nice guy because he was willing to do these dangerous tasks himself. However, he forgot that Thieves were meant to be the best scouts in the game.

Lu Li rushed in and brought back with him a small pack of monsters.

Azure Sea Breeze drew aggro, but felt like it was unfair. Why was it that when he entered a room, he died instantly, but when Lu Li entered, it was only a few small mobs?

Lu Li was trying to hide his smile while killing the monsters. He knew that the second room was the right path; this was the advantage of his rebirth.

When the room was cleared out, the small door inside the room opened by itself. Inside was a large hall with more groups of monsters. Most of them were the guards that could use charge from before.

Without Lu Li’s instructions, they still knew what to do.

Many teams would often wipe here because they would let their guard down against small mobs. Some players would get charged into another group of mobs, causing the team to lose its formation and eventually drawing so many mobs that they were swarmed to death.

Lu Li instructed them to lead the monsters to the corner and face their backs against the walls.

After the monsters were cleaned up, Goraluk Anvilcrack, the Blackhand Legion Armorsmith appeared. He looked like an ancient Orc with greyish skin and big, sharp tusks jutting out of his lower jaw that made rest of his face seemingly smaller.

Lu Li was focused on observing his armor; he wanted to know what a famous Armorsmith was capable of crafting.

However, he quickly realised that Goraluk Anvilcrack was wearing cloth armor, which was a bit ironic considering that he was the Armorsmith for the Blackhand Legion.

Goraluk was holding a torch in one hand. The light dimly shone upon his face, causing him to look even more intimidating. In his other hand, he was holding a long spear.

They didn’t have to kill this Boss and he didn’t really drop anything good.

Lu Li decided to fight him only because he dropped the second half of a recipe for Armorsmithing called Advanced Armour Smithing: Volume I.

Lu Li already has the second half of Volume II from defeating Crimson Hammersmith, the second half of Volume III from the Black Guard Swordsmith, the First half of Volume II dropped by killing Rattlegores in Scholomance and the first half of Volume III from Urok Doomhowl in the Blackrock Towers.

He had already collected Volume II and III.

All he needed was the first half of Volume I from King Gordok and the second half of Volume I from this Boss.

Lu Li mainly focused on Weaponsmithing because the equips crafted from Armorsmithing weren’t good enough for him.

However, there was nothing wrong with learning a bit of Armorsmithing because you never knew whether it could be put to use in the future.

Goraluk Anvilcrack wasn’t very strong; it only took them a few minutes to defeat him. Fortunately, he dropped the recipe that Lu Li wanted.

He also dropped an Armorsmithing Hammer.

Although the hammer wasn’t as good as Lu Li’s, it could still be put to good use for a beginner Armorsmith.

After they defeated him, they turned right and came across some stairs with a few Dragonkins Orc Guards standing alongside.

The terrain made it very difficult to fight because of the limited amount of space and the tower was poorly lit.

Orc Guards could charge and Dragons could deal massive amounts of damage with fire breathing.

Luckily, Lu Li’s party was very skilled mechanically and had the equipment to back it up. The tournament players were especially good at dodging the fireballs. After this, they arrived at an open hall, similar to an arena map.

“Who are those two guys? Are they the next Bosses?” Azure Sea Breeze asked as he looked ahead.

There were two figures standing in the distance; one was a Human and the other was an Orc. There was also a Dragon next to them, but it appeared to be a mount of some sort.

“That’s Nefarian,” Lu Li said as he pointed at the human.

“Ne…Nefarian.. Isn’t he supposed to be a black dragon?”

Azure Sea Breeze was scared. Even he knew who Nefarian was and couldn’t help but feel respect for that name.

“Do you not remember Onyxia, the Black Dragon Princess? She went undercover in Stormwind in her human form. And Krasus, who was a powerful Mage in human form, is also Alexstrasza’s youngest partner,” Lu Li explained.

“Youngest partner?” Fat Monkey was confused.

“Whether it’s the Crimson Dragon or the Emerald Dragon, they have all had multiple partners throughout their lifetime. Krasus who was one of the most powerful Mage that ever lived was merely one of Alexstraza’s many male concubines,” Lu Li elaborated.

“Okay, we’ll prepare for battle,” Lu Li announaced as he raised his hand and signalled the start of the fight.

“A group of adventurers huh? Good timing – the arena needs to be brightened up with some blood. Rend, you’ve got this,” Nefarian said in a cocky voice.

“Leave it up to me!”

Rend Blackhand bowed and shouted at Lu Li and the others, “If you want to challenge Nefarian, you’ll first have to get past me. Now, show me what you’re all capable of!”

Waves of monsters began spawning in the arena.

“Jump!” Lu Li commanded as he kicked Azure Sea Breeze down into the arena. Fortunately, March Rain managed to cast Levitate on him.

There was nothing that he could do except to tank the monsters in the arena.

Everyone followed closely behind and jumped in. If they wanted to challenge Rend Blackhand, they first needed to defeat the monsters in the arena. There were a total of ten waves with increasing difficulty.

In Nightmare mode, they needed to kill each wave of monsters in the allocated time, otherwise, monsters would spawn continuously once that time was up.

There was no time to take breaks in between, unlike in Hard mode. In Hard mode, there was a very short resting period where players could replenish their HP and mana. However, in Nightmare mode they didn’t have that luxury at all.

“Don’t use your skills too soon. Treat this more as a marathon rather than a sprint since there is a total of ten waves of monsters.”

“Should we use our cooldowns? I think we’re a bit slow,” Lonesome Flower questioned.

“No, save them for later because we never know what’s going to happen. This is still just the beginning.” Lu Li wasn’t worried about the small mobs at all; he was more focused on how to defeat Rend Blackhand. The title of Warchief meant that he was the leader of an entire tribe, meaning that he was quite powerful.

The previous Bosses were quite easy, but Lu Li expected the team to wipe a few times here.

While fighting, Rend Blackhand and Nefarian continuously taunted and trash talked them. Lu Li and the others had no choice but to ignore them because the small mobs were giving them too much pressure.

If someone died here, then the next wave of monsters would be even harder.

They managed to hold on until they defeated the 10th wave. Lu Li was pleased because his team had managed to hold onto their long-cooldown skills and didn’t use too many ultimates, leaving all their firepower for Rend Blackhand.

“Impossible! Rend, finish them off,” Nefarian cried out.

“It is my honor to serve you. I will personally take them down,” Rend said humbly.

Nefarian continued watching from above; they wouldn’t face off against him until the later dungeons.

Rend Blackhand got on his dragon mount and descended down to the arena.

During this short period of time, Lu Li and the others took the time to heal up and replenish their mana.

When the Horde was defeated in the second war, as the Warchief’s son, Rend Blackhand led the surviving troops back to Blackrock Tower and invaded the Dark Iron Dwarves. Rend lead the Orcs, Nefarian and the Black Dragon Legion to defeat the Dwarves, overtaking the Blackrock Tower.

Rend’s father was a very powerful chieftain.

For his own personal gains, he began working together with Gul’Dan to become the Horde Chieftain, but in reality, he was just a puppet controlled by Gul’Dan. When Durotan wanted to leave the clan because of disagreements, Blackhand sent his sons Rend and Maim to assassinate him. This made Orgrim Dommhammer infuriated and he killed Blackhand during his slumber, eventually becoming the Warchief.

No matter how much of a ruthless dictator he was, he was still one of the most honored warriors in the Horde.

Blackhand’s two sons Rend and Maim continued leading their own clan called the Black Tooth Grin Clan and ruled over Blackrock Depths, which they had taken over from the Dark Iron Dwarves. After Maim was killed in an accident, Rend Blackhand eventually became the Warchief of Black Tooth Grin Clan.

He planned on living a peaceful life, ruling over a land that he can call his own. However, Nefarian was also interested in this land and Rend Blackhand had no other choice but to bow before him.

Nefarian treated him nothing more than a slave and spared his life in order to gain control and power over the Black Tooth Orcs.

Although in Nefarian’s eyes, Rend Blackhand was very weak, to the players, he was one of the most powerful Bosses in the game right now.

Rend Blackhand descended into the arena on his dragon mount called Gaith.

Gaith? More like Gay.

When everyone saw its name, they burst out laughing.