Player World.
Encountering Abyss monsters during the story immediately triggered a combat sequence.
"What the hell is this?"
Xiao Mu frowned, his mouse sliding rapidly as he controlled Neuvillette to unleash a surging torrent of water.
In the past, a C6 Hydro Archon would be enough to instantly delete any mob in the overworld.
But against this group of purple Abyss monsters, the water pillar hit them without draining a single drop of health. Instead, a white bar appeared below their red HP bars.
The white bar started from the middle and grew toward both sides. Every time Xiao Mu's characters attacked, the white bar would increase.
"Could it be that I need to increase the white bar through attack frequency, and only when it reaches maximum can I actually damage these Abyss monsters?"
Xiao Mu's game sense was incredibly sharp; even before the official tutorial prompt popped up, he had already deduced the truth.
Right then, a pop-up window appeared, introducing the mechanics of the Abyss monsters.
"Just as I thought, it's a hit-count shield that requires a certain number of attacks to break."
Xiao Mu squinted and read word for word: "To break this shield, it is recommended to use Burning reactions or attacks with Nightsoul-aligned properties."
"But I'm using the Dragon King right now. Where am I supposed to get Burning or Nightsoul?"
He couldn't exactly exit the battle, change his team, and swap in the Natlan characters he just pulled, could he?
Just as he thought this, he quickly realized something was off: "Wait, Chuychu is in my party... her attacks are Nightsoul-aligned."
Xiao Mu's current team was the Dragon King's best composition: Kou-Wan-Fu-Te. It was a team where Baizhu was replaced by Chuychu.
After using her Elemental Skill, Chuychu enters the Nightsoul's Blessing state, and her attacks become Nightsoul-aligned.
However, since Chuychu was a character from the previous version's banner and the artifact set hadn't been released yet, her Nightsoul's Blessing state had been completely useless.
Furthermore, in a Dragon King team, she had a talent that allowed for automatic Pyro application without needing to switch her onto the field, leading many people to develop the habit of never switching to Chuychu during combat.
But if Chuychu didn't use her Elemental Skill, she wouldn't enter the Nightsoul's Blessing state, and her off-field Pyro application wouldn't count as a Nightsoul-aligned attack.
"I know what to do now."
Just as Xiao Mu was about to switch to Chuychu, he noticed that Kachina had also joined the fray.
This wasn't the Kachina from his party, but the Kachina from the story.
Kachina pulled out her Turbo Twirly, sat on it, and began glowing with a golden light. She drove it, slamming into the ground repeatedly and dealing AoE Geo damage.
Under the assault, the Abyss monsters' white bars grew rapidly—much faster than the speed at which Neuvillette and Furina were fighting.
"Kachina joins the fight too?" Xiao Mu was surprised by this detail.
The last time he fought alongside a character in the story was probably back in Sumeru's Aranyaka questline.
That was a long and painful memory for many. Ever since Aranyaka, players had to weigh whether their sanity could handle it whenever they saw an NPC in the game needing help.
Even though Kachina could break the Abyss monsters' hit-count shields on her own, Xiao Mu still switched to Chuychu, used her Elemental Skill, and entered the Nightsoul's Blessing state to attack.
"Wait, won't this generate Crystallize shards?"
Xiao Mu saw that after the Abyss monsters were hit by Chuychu's Qucusaurus attacks, they were afflicted with Pyro. Then, Kachina's upward drill attacks triggered Crystallize.
The Pyro Crystallize shard then transformed into a "magma crystal" and was absorbed by Kachina, which then dealt an explosion of damage to the surroundings.
"This story Kachina is even more interesting than the one in the character demo," Xiao Mu said, feeling intrigued.
It was his first time seeing a story character help trigger elemental reactions.
Once the first wave of Abyss monsters' hit-count shields were broken, Xiao Mu quickly switched to his C6 Dragon King. With a 360-degree spinning water blast, he cleared the field instantly.
But soon, a second wave of Abyss monsters appeared.
Just as Xiao Mu thought he'd have to go through the process again and use a Natlan character to break the shields, he heard Paimon's exclamation: "Something is flying this way from the sky!"
The camera suddenly pulled back, showing several blazing meteors streaking across the sky, trailing long plumes of flame as they crashed down like falling stars.
"Holy crap, rockets!" Xiao Mu blurted out.
Seeing this, his first reaction was that they were rocket launchers.
But on second thought, the game he was playing was Genshin Impact. How could there be rocket launchers? He dismissed the absurd idea.
"It's the Pyro Archon's arrows!"
"The Pyro Archon is supporting us!"
Accompanied by the excited shouts of the Children of Echoes warriors, several red beams of light landed on the Abyss monsters, turning both the monsters and their shields into ash.
"That's so OP?" Seeing over a dozen Abyss monsters on the screen getting one-shotted, Xiao Mu's eyes widened in surprise.
It felt like watching a bunch of villains gather to gang up on Ohma Zi-O, only to be obliterated by a single punch.
[Pyro Archon: I sent you some rockets, what do you say?]
[Literal rockets.]
[Abyss monsters: Thanks for the rockets, Pyro Archon. Please don't send any next time.]
[So it was the Pyro Archon helping us. I thought those rockets were meant for us.]
[Is this the first time we've received help from a local Archon during combat?]
[Venti:???]
[Venti just slacks off, but he does step in sometimes.]
[In the future, when fighting mobs in Natlan, can we just go AFK and let the Pyro Archon clear the field?]
[Then we'll just go over and pick up the drops while the Pyro Archon handles all the fighting.]
[Your wish might come true, but the chances of it happening are pretty slim.]
The screen went black.
In the blink of an eye, it entered story mode again.
"Those meteors just now... were they all arrows fired by the Pyro Archon?"
Hearing the warriors' words, Paimon's jaw nearly hit the floor in shock.
"Yes."
The Children of Echoes warriors explained: "Ever since the Pyro Archon ascended to godhood, he has always personally intervened to eliminate Abyss monsters, even launching attacks from extreme distances."
"I've heard from other tribes that before they could even organize a team after spotting Abyss monsters, the monsters were already wiped out by the Pyro Archon from the Sacred Flame Arena."
Hearing that the Pyro Archon attacked from the Sacred Flame Arena, Paimon's eyes widened in disbelief. "From that far away? Can the Pyro Archon really hit enemies with such precision?"
The warriors nodded, their voices filled with pride and respect: "It sounds unbelievable, but that is our Pyro Archon."
"Perhaps it is because he protects us in such a way that we continue to follow him."
...
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