Afterlife Dream

Aurendiria was generally in charge of raid set-up, but she had leveled past 90 so she could no longer participate in the level 50 raid. She thus handed the task for level 50 raid set-up to HellWitch. HellWitch, Lazarus, and I sat together at the cave entrance starting from 8 AM to put the parties together. Even after we gathered the runners from Twelve, Domination, and Adventurers, we could not get enough people to run with us. In the end, I decided to contact Livina and ZhaoYun at the last minutes. I knew that they were good from the run I had with them. Although they were surprised, both were excited to come.

We finally finished setting up the squad formation ten minutes before 9 AM.

At 9 AM sharp, HinoKun arrived with his two level 89 friends who wanted to loot helmets. JunHo and Lilianne were both Elemental Mages. HinoKun patted his two friends on their shoulders and introduced them to us.

"These two dear friends of mine have been playing with me since the first day. They would like to exit the game after this raid concludes," he said.

My mouth dropped open. What, another two? Agathea and Timothy were also planning to exit the game after the raid! This Fire Golem raid was supposed to be their last!

"Okay, I don't get it," HellWitch said with a frown. "Have you collected all the Life Points that you need for the next life? Why are you leaving so early?"

Both JunHo and Lilianne laughed.

"Yes, we have been farming the precursor raids until we get enough Life Points. Unfortunately, it is only possible to exit the game through one of the loot raids, so here we are, hehehe."

Oh. I didn't know that.

"Yeah but the amount of Life Points is so meager. Like 1-3 points at most."

"Yeah, we have been doing both precursor raids every day for the past six months."

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"Woah. Six months???"

"So you have like..."

"Around 1000 points."

HellWitch pursed her lips.

"That is not much. Have you traded the Life Points away?"

"Yes!" they both answered excitedly.

"I want to be a girl, and I also want to be artistic. Heheee," Lilianne giggled.

"I want to be a boy, and I want to be athletic!" JunHo said, winking at us.

HellWitch said nothing.

"And those cost 1000 Life Points??" I asked.

"Yupp hahaha. We never wanted more. Those two advantages were more than enough for us."

Agathea and Timothy arrived soon after with the other players. They immediately clicked with JunHo and Lilianne, chatting only about what they traded their Life Points for and what kind of life they wanted to be born into.

HellWitch set up the squad and made me the Squad Vice Leader.

"What can I do?" I asked her.

"You can move people between parties. You also can invite and kick people. You just cannot appoint anyone as Vice Leader or Leader."

"Fair enough," I muttered.

Livina and ZhaoYun were very happy to join the run. They had never before talked to any player from the three big guilds, so naturally they were quite nervous and anxious.

10 AM arrived in no time. HellWitch and I waited until everyone entered before we also clicked ourselves into the Lair. Every party consisted of six players, and we put at least two experienced players in each party. The Healers were also quite good. We had Agathea, Hime, and me from Twelve, then KikiSan from Dominion, Yankee from Adventurers, and lastly Healie from Friends.

I was the only Healer without a helmet. To be more precise, I was also the only Healer in the squad. The others were High Priests.

The run went very smoothly. And by very smooth I meant VERY SMOOTH.

We did not have to re-organize the squad at all because no one died. Everyone knew what to do. They did not need to be told to share their team buffs. They also did not cause the Healers or Priests to chase them around like mothers trying to feed the toddlers some food.

Our attackers were also fairly strong because all of them had helmets. All but JunHo, Lilianne, Lazarus, and me.

The Fire Golem was literally bombarded from all sides and was not able to gain upper hand. His HP quickly went down to 50%, and I heard KikiSan shout, "WATCH OUT! 50%!!!"

All of us had been anticipating this. The Fire Golem went berserk twice within the raid. The first time was when he hit 50% HP, and the second time was when he hit 20% HP.

At 50% HP, the Fire Golem let out a deafening roar and lifted his arms to the sky. Lightning bolts shot down from the sky toward the players. When hit by the lightning bolts, players would suffer from a lot of damage. It was not impossible for a player to be struck by two lightning bolts in quick succession before the player managed to heal up. This was why it was especially important for the players to stop attacking and stick to their Healers during this time.

Before the lightning bolts even appeared, my team obediently returned to my side and I healed like insane. Players all around me, and even I myself was hit by the bolts a few times. Thankfully the shock from getting hit did not prevent me from doing my job. After two minutes, the lightning attack concluded and everyone returned to their spots to continue attacking the Fire Golem.

50% went to 45%. 45% went to 40%.

I could feel the adrenaline rushing up my system. We were going to make it! We were definitely going to make it!

When the HP went down to 25%, KikiSan again tossed out a warning.

"Watch out!!! 20%!!!"

At 20% HP, the desperate Fire Golem at the brink of death summoned a bunch of Shadow Fire Golems that went around to attack the players. These Shadow Fire Golems did not hurt very much compared to the real one, but they caused players to lose focus. If players continued attacking the fake ones, time would run out and the real Fire Golem remained undefeated. The key to overcome this issue was to pay attention to the Fire Golem that had the red HP bar strip over his head. The fake ones did not have any.

The challenge of the Healers and High Priests was to move around quickly while avoiding bumps with the fake fire golems while trying to heal. I wanted to point out that this was the part where most squads failed if they fully relied on Healers to keep them alive. When the HP hit 20%, everyone must drink potions to keep themselves alive. There was no guarantee that the Healers would be able to get to them in time.

Thankfully, everyone knew this rule. While I struggled to reach my teammates, I saw that their HP bars quickly filled up as soon as they lost HP. I thus stopped running around frantically and took a safer route to reach my teammates without risking being ground between two fire golems into mushy flesh pulp.

5%... 4%... 3%... 2%... 1%...

I was so happy that tears started to form in my eyes. By the time the Fire Golem's HP bar went to 0%, it flickered once and then burst into thousand pieces. While those who had succeeded tens of times merely smiled at the successful run, those of us who had not completed any successful run at all jumped frantically on spot and started to hug each other.

The Afterlife Dream God must have looked favorably upon us. Three helmets dropped. I sucked in my breath in anticipation. As promised, JunHo and Lilianne got the first and second helmets. And the third helmet? It naturally went to Lazarus. I clapped with everyone when the three players wore the Fire Golem Helmets on their heads.

On the next run, I would be able to loot my helmet.

We completed the run within an hour. The game gave us ten minutes to sort out the loots, and then it asked every player to choose between two individual rewards.

"Dear Adventurer, please choose. Would you like to receive a Life Points box that contains a random amount of Life Points (5-10 for the raid that you just completed) or a Surprise Raid Gift box?"

The Surprise Raid Gift box contained potions, foods, scrolls, or stones. While those were also very valuable, most people would pick Life Points. I moved my trembling finger and chose the Life Points box. My very first Life Points.

The Life Point box spun in the air and opened up in front of me. A shining number floated in front of me.

"Congratulations, Adventurer! You have earned seven points from this raid!"

I smiled and extended my hand to touch the floating number. It quickly disappeared after touching the tip of my fingers and entered my system. I opened my user interface screen and saw the number seven under Life Points.