MMORPG: Birth of the World's Luckiest Player

Taking in the situation at a glance, the party moved without hesitation.

Marcus’s eyes immediately lit up at the sight of the tightly packed blue-eyed sea lions. Instead of staying safely with the backline, he rushed straight toward the center of the battlefield.

The two Sea Demon Souls each gathered more than twenty sea lions at a time, drawing them together into massive packs. While the girls and their pets unleashed a steady barrage of ranged attacks from a safe distance, Marcus, Pebble, and Blackie charged directly into the middle of the swarm.

Marcus switched to his dual-wielded Mythic Artifact, the Ice-Fire Twin Dragon Hoe, maximizing his attack power. As the sea lions crowded around the Sea Demon Souls, he raised both weapons and unleashed Hundred Phantom Strike.

A storm of overlapping hoe shadows swept outward like an avalanche, covering everything within a six-meter radius. The relentless barrage hammered the sea lions surrounding the Sea Demon Souls as if hundreds of strikes had landed simultaneously.

Damage numbers exploded across the battlefield. The average hit from Hundred Phantom Strike was around eight thousand damage, and Marcus couldn’t help but grin.

Dual-wielding really was on another level. Compared to this kind of damage, a traditional Knight’s offense felt painfully underwhelming.

With Marcus and Pebble chaining together Hundred Phantom Strike after Hundred Phantom Strike while the girls and their pets poured ranged attacks into the packed monsters, the entire group of sea lions disappeared within seconds.

Once the battle ended, Marcus swept through the battlefield with Advanced Gathering, collecting materials from every corpse while the Sea Demon Souls immediately moved ahead to gather another wave.

The rhythm quickly settled into place. The Sea Demon Souls pulled monsters, and Marcus and Pebble charged in with the Ice-Fire Twin Dragon Hoe to erase the pack with Hundred Phantom Strike. Meanwhile, Willow Moran, Talia Quinn, and Professor Tina, the party’s melee fighters, darted around the battlefield gathering the equipment and materials left behind before the next wave arrived.

The cycle repeated over and over without interruption, and more than twenty minutes passed like that.

With the Sea Demon Souls constantly roaming ahead to gather enemies, they eventually cleared almost every blue-eyed sea lion in the enormous basin. Only after the last group fell did the party step onto the suspended stone platform and slowly advance toward the Blue-Eyed Sea Lion King.

The remaining sea lions guarding the platform didn’t last long. Since the monsters only respawned every three minutes, the area within a hundred meters was soon completely empty, leaving them with more than enough room to deal with whatever came next.

About thirty meters ahead, five enormous sea lions slowly patrolled the platform. At first glance they looked identical to the ordinary sea lions, except their bodies were considerably larger and far more muscular. Beyond them, stretched comfortably across the entrance to the Sea Lion’s Tomb, the Sea Lion King slept peacefully, seemingly oblivious to everything around him.

Marcus smiled. ’Looks like it’s finally time.’

Even so, he didn’t let his excitement cloud his judgment. The girls were still far too low-leveled for a fight like this. Amber and Lily, the strongest among them, had only just reached level forty-five, while everyone else lagged even farther behind, and if they were caught by a powerful attack, they wouldn’t survive it.

He gestured for everyone to remain where they were while he scouted ahead alone.

After making sure everyone understood the plan, Marcus activated one of the Wraith Cloak’s Mythic skills: Wraith Shadow. His figure blurred as the cloak rippled around him before vanishing completely. The skill granted three minutes of invisibility and, unusually, only had a one-minute cooldown, the effect ending only if he attacked or took damage.

Moving slowly and carefully, Marcus approached the five massive Sea Lion Guards until he stood roughly ten meters away, then waited. One minute later, Wraith Shadow’s cooldown had refreshed. ’Perfect.’

"Insight."

A faint light flashed as he cast the skill on one of the guards.

---

Sea Lion Guard

Level: 65

HP: 60,000

Guardians of the Blue-Eyed Sea Lion King. They attack immediately when intruders approach. Only when their HP falls below 10% will they roar and summon the Sea Lion King into battle.

---

’So that’s how it works.’ They weren’t ordinary monsters at all, but the Sea Lion King’s personal bodyguards, level sixty-five.

Marcus quickly checked the rest of their abilities. Aside from their higher stats, their talents and skills were nearly identical to those of the regular sea lions. Nothing unexpected, and he could handle them.

Unfortunately, Insight counted as entering combat. The instant the skill activated, Wraith Shadow shattered, revealing Marcus barely ten meters away from the guards.

The five Sea Lion Guards reacted instantly, their eyes snapping toward him as they opened their jaws, preparing to unleash Sea Tsunami. Marcus had already anticipated it, knowing the Sea Lion King was still asleep and there was no reason to wake him before dealing with his guards. That was why he had deliberately waited for Wraith Shadow’s cooldown before using Insight.

The moment the guards locked onto him, he activated Wraith Shadow, and his body vanished once more. He immediately retreated several steps before activating Run for Your Life, cleanly breaking combat.

The five guards stood there with their mouths still open, completely bewildered as their target disappeared without warning. Marcus couldn’t help smiling; that was almost too easy.

More importantly, he had confirmed the most useful piece of information: the guards would only summon the Sea Lion King after their HP dropped below ten percent, which meant he could kill them before they ever had the chance.

Still hidden by Wraith Shadow, Marcus retreated toward the party while giving new orders. The two Sea Demon Souls surged forward and simultaneously cast Taunting Light, the enhanced taunt instantly pulling all five guards away from the sleeping king. The monsters chased the Sea Demon Souls toward the center of the platform, eventually ending up nearly fifty meters from the entrance to the Sea Lion’s Tomb.

The guards hit much harder than ordinary sea lions, each Sea Tsunami dealing roughly a thousand damage to the Sea Demon Souls. Since both summons were sharing the attacks from all five guards, the incoming damage wasn’t insignificant, and any ordinary level fifty player would have been overwhelmed almost immediately.

Fortunately, the Sea Demon Souls inherited Marcus’s attributes, and his natural health regeneration exceeded five hundred HP every second, dramatically reducing the effective damage they suffered. Combined with their enormous health pools of over twenty-five thousand HP each, they could comfortably withstand the guards’ assault for a very long time.

Marcus’s high Agility also caused attacks to miss repeatedly, a cascade of "Miss" notifications flashing across the battlefield. Marcus barely spared them a glance; their damage wasn’t enough to concern him.

The moment the guards were fully occupied, Marcus made his move. "Hundred Phantom Strike!"

He and Pebble burst forward simultaneously, their Ice-Fire Twin Dragon Hoes becoming little more than streaks of light as they carved through the clustered guards. Critical Hit! More than eleven thousand damage erupted above every Sea Lion Guard.

Marcus frowned slightly, the level difference really making itself felt. Against the ordinary level sixty sea lions, a critical strike from the Ice-Fire Twin Dragon Hoe could easily exceed sixteen thousand damage. Against these level sixty-five guards, however, each critical had lost well over five thousand damage.

Even so, Hundred Phantom Strike triggered its additional effect: Stun. Golden damage numbers floated through the air as circles of dizziness spun above every guard’s head, and all five monsters froze where they stood.

Marcus didn’t waste a single second, unleashing another Hundred Phantom Strike, then another, and another. Critical hit, another critical, and another; Marcus couldn’t help laughing inwardly. Today’s luck was incredible. During the three-second stun, he and Pebble unleashed three more Hundred Phantom Strikes, every one of them landing as a critical hit. Together with the opening ambush, they had delivered four devastating attacks in rapid succession, dealing roughly forty-five thousand damage before the guards could even recover.

His pets joined in without mercy, adding their own attacks to the relentless assault, and by the time the stun ended, the five Sea Lion Guards were already dead. The girls hadn’t even fully processed what had happened, and the guards never got the chance to roar for help.

Equipment, materials, and coins scattered across the platform with a series of metallic clinks. The experience reward from five level sixty-five elite monsters was enormous, easily surpassing what an entire pack of ordinary sea lions could provide.

Golden beams of light descended one after another as everyone in the party gained at least one level, with Lily and Amber both reaching level forty-five. At this pace, Marcus had little doubt they would eventually climb onto the Level Leaderboard as well.

Jade’s Twin-Winged Water Demon Cat and Anya’s Twin-Winged Thunder Wyrm were leveling even faster. After less than an hour of hunting sea lions, both pets had already reached level twenty-nine; just one more level and they would enter their first growth phase.

Marcus turned his attention back toward the Sea Lion King. The enormous beast hadn’t moved; it was still sleeping soundly. ’Interesting. Looks like he isn’t naturally aggressive.’

That suited Marcus perfectly: if the boss intended to sleep through the preparations, Marcus had no intention of waking him before everything was ready.

While the two Sea Demon Souls regenerated back to full health, Marcus gathered the spoils from the battle. The five guards had dropped an entire equipment set between them: a Sea Lion Helm, Sea Lion Armor, Sea Lion Bracers, Sea Lion Greaves, and Sea Lion Boots.

Thanks to Marcus’s exceptionally high Luck and increased drop rate, every guard had dropped at least one piece of Golden equipment. Altogether, he now possessed three complete Sea Lion sets, with one and a half of those sets consisting entirely of Golden-quality gear.

He immediately identified the armor.

---

Sea Lion Armor (Golden Equipment)

Required: Level 60, Strength 200

Crafted from the bones, hide, and inner core of a blue-eyed sea lion.

Effects:

Defense +450

HP Regeneration +50/sec

Strength +20

Constitution +20

HP +200

MP +200

Water Resistance +30%

10% chance to inflict Water Bind, reducing an enemy’s movement speed.

---

Marcus nodded with satisfaction. Level sixty equipment with excellent stats, and the requirements weren’t unreasonable either. Sets like these would sell exceptionally well at auction.

He stored the remaining equipment away to identify later. Besides the armor, the guards had also dropped ten Dreamland Gems, and Marcus happily tossed those into his inventory as well.

Only one thing was missing: a weapon. His gaze slowly shifted toward the sleeping Sea Lion King. If his experience was anything to go by, the boss was almost certainly carrying it, and if so, it would most likely be a guaranteed drop.

By the time the Sea Demon Souls had fully recovered, another wave of ordinary sea lions had respawned nearby. Marcus had the party clear them out once more, ensuring the platform remained completely empty before the boss fight began.

The battlefield was clean. The girls took up safe positions well behind him. Marcus looked toward the still-slumbering Blue-Eyed Sea Lion King, tightened his grip on the Ice-Fire Twin Dragon Hoe, and thought, ’Your turn.’