Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Fortunately, with Phase Willow’s water flow suppression,.players felt at most like they were in a sauna and wouldn’t get cooked to death.

But Phase Willow wasn’t having it easy either.

Facing the close combat of the Molten Mountain Dragon, even with the protection of a vast amount of water flow, its body suffered large patches of burns, and even three of its nine snake heads were torn and broken.

Thankfully, the battle was almost over.

Phase Willow’s massive snake heads wrapped tightly around the Molten Mountain Dragon, fixing each other tightly together, and large amounts of venom mixed with muddy water flowed into the Molten Mountain Dragon’s body.

The Molten Mountain Dragon struggled desperately, causing the ground to shatter, but its roar gradually weakened, and its struggle became weaker and weaker.

When Phase Willow released its snake heads, the Molten Mountain Dragon had lost all its strength and slowly collapsed in everyone’s sight, heavily falling to the ground.

The earth shook once again.

The passionate and surging symphony turned into a grand elegy, announcing the end of this magnificent life.

The battlefield was suddenly quiet for a moment.

Before everyone had time to feel emotional, numerous Achievement trophies appeared before them, completely confirming the death of the Molten Mountain Dragon.

But the battle was not over yet, and it was still too early to celebrate!

Players who were still in the air and struggling to siege Phase Willow were the first to loudly remind everyone:

“Switch targets!!”

“Next one! Phase Willow!”

“Last 28% of blood!”

…

Even though many players had made great efforts to attack Phase Willow, trying to level the bloodline of these two behemoths.

But the cost of large-scale combat was a lack of tacit coordination.

Especially when the Molten Mountain Dragon’s blood volume had fallen to 10%, it had been met with countless players attacking it, causing Phase Willow to still have 28% blood volume when it died.

This blood control level was obviously not very high.

Players who had briefly been stunned by the fall of the Molten Mountain Dragon quickly reacted and collectively switched their fire,

But despite seemingly not having much of 28% blood left, finishing it off proved to be quite a challenge.

Without the Molten Mountain Dragon serving as the main damage source and chief tank, the difficulty of the battle suddenly increased a lot.

Although the Molten Mountain Dragon was fierce, it wasn’t fast-moving, so everyone would use their grappling hooks to fly back and forth as long as they didn’t get caught on any loose rock spots, and they wouldn’t fall.

Even if the rock spot came loose and they fell, in the process of falling, they would still have a chance to catch a second spot.

But Phase Willow was different; the remaining six snake heads were incredibly agile, whirring and hissing in the air, with almost no grip for the grappling hooks, and it could even dodge if found.

Warehouse Bird had already landed at the junction between Phase Willow’s neck and abdomen and withdrew his grappling hook, stabbing his double knives into the snake’s neck and following its position all the way up.

A number of players chose the same tactic, climbing higher and higher, resisting the water flow and dodging other snakehead attacks, trying to complete the beheading.

Lance, meanwhile, used his hook claw to secure himself and kept slashing at Phase Willow’s chest, trying to break open the ribcage.

Countless players densely covered the ground below, forming a circle of encirclement and continuously pouring damage on it.

After the Molten Mountain Dragon went down, all the remote attacks were poured on Phase Willow.

With the quantity transforming into quality, the water shield around Phase Willow’s body was quickly shattered by the excessive ranged attacks, and the replenishment speed couldn’t keep up with the speed of its breaking.

Shuihua, Camille Victoria, and Queenie stood together, attacking while waiting for the battle to end so they could decide whether to use fire or water materials to upgrade their Seventh Tier weapons.

During the conversation, Camille Victoria glanced at the Molten Mountain Dragon’s corpse.

Something felt a bit off to her.

She blinked and looked again.

It still seemed off.

She stopped attacking and tapped Shuihua, who had been constantly watching Lance’s situation. “Shuihua, look at the Molten Mountain Dragon, doesn’t it look smaller?”

“It shouldn’t be.” Shuihua looked over as she spoke, “Isn’t it Cloud Dream’s rule that everyone participating in large-scale battles gets rewards? It wouldn’t be this urgent to take materials, would it?”

But as soon as her words fell, she was stunned.

The Molten Mountain Dragon’s corpse seemed… indeed a bit smaller?

The huge corpse of the Molten Mountain Dragon looked like a small mountain, and it only looked like it had become smaller. This meant that it had certainly lost more than just a little!

Were many people secretly taking materials?

Were they that anxious?

Before they could ask in the public chat, the answer appeared abruptly — Warehouse Bird, along with six other players, successfully ambushed and once again beheaded a snake head of Phase Willow!

Suffering this heavy blow, it could no longer bear it. The four remaining snakeheads stretched straight into the sky, emitting an extremely piercing hissing sound.

All the water within a five-kilometer radius surged towards it.

A massive water column connecting heaven and earth sprang up!

For a moment, only Phase Willow, raising its head to the sky, and the fallen Molten Mountain Dragon’s corpse were left in the huge water column with a radius of more than 100 meters.

Through the water curtain, everyone was shocked to see: a bright line of fire emerged from the Molten Mountain Dragon’s body and slowly drifted away in the direction of the water flow.

And the source of this fiery line was none other than the heart that Phase Willow had somehow torn open from the Molten Mountain Dragon’s chest—

A Heart of Molten Fire.

Before the watching players could react, Phase Willow’s four heads swooped down and devoured the heart.

Almost instantly, a bright yellow glow began radiating from its chest.

The five broken snakeheads started regrowing from where they had been severed.

As if it wasn’t enough, the remaining four snakeheads began to bow down and tear and devour the body of the Molten Mountain Dragon with big bites.

This action finally woke up the stunned players:

“NOOOOOOO!!!”

“My materials!!!”

“Seventh Stage Armor! Seventh Stage Weapon!!”

“Ahhhhhh…!”

“Don’t!”

…

The players wailed as they rushed forward, trying to stop Phase Willow.

Or possibly “rescue” some of the materials.

Under the influence of the Heart of Molten Fire, Phase Willow’s power began to change:

Its toxic and foul-smelling blood lost its toxicity, turning as red and scorching hot as the Molten Mountain Dragon’s.

The once-cold water flow began to heat rapidly, releasing a large amount of steam, as if it were going to boil.

Its health was constantly regenerating, and the broken snakeheads were growing rapidly. But the heads that grew back were no longer snakeheads but dragonheads!

Even the dark green necks turned into a brilliant yellow of flames.

The next moment, the bright yellow necks glowed, and five scorching fire pillars spewed out of the dragon mouths, splashing on the players who rushed up to stop it.

The original four intact snakeheads also opened their mouths wide, spraying out toxic water columns.

At this moment, the powers of water and fire were both in one body!

Boiling waves and exploding fire rings rippled out in circles.

All the players who tried to approach were pushed far away, unable to get any closer, and could only watch Phase Willow unleash its full power from a distance.

“Has it… evolved?”

“How do we fight this?!”

“Where’s the GM? Call the GM! Let’s rollback!”

…

The players present couldn’t figure out how to defeat this creature.

But the next moment—

“Cough! Cough! Cough!”

A violent coughing sound suddenly rang out.

It was coming from the five dragon heads!

The ring of fire that blocked the players’ path instantly dissipated.

“Cough, cough, cough… cough, cough, cough…”

The coughing wouldn’t stop, and the Heart of Molten Fire in Phase Willow’s chest grew brighter and brighter, to the point where even the blood it pumped out became so bright and dazzling that the dense blood vessels appeared like cracks on its body!

Soon, even the water ring began to collapse, unable to be perfectly controlled.

The players saw hope once again and charged forward without saying a word.

But the next moment, a giant fireball with a diameter of over 50 meters fell from the sky. It exploded before hitting the ground, blasting away a large group of players.

A huge flow of water fell like a waterfall from the sky, but it dispersed after only three seconds upon touching the players, pouring all over the ground.

As Phase Willow coughed and roared, it began moving again, heading towards its lair.

“It’s stronger now, but it can’t control its power!” Super Tomato immediately saw through it, “Don’t let it escape!”

Today, he had brought a large group with him, with 200 members just from his own team. A large group of people immediately rushed up to intercept.

Not just them, many other players also noticed this problem and bravely rushed forward, using their lives to stop Phase Willow.

This highly lethal struggle lasted over 10 minutes.

The cost was huge, but the results were obvious: Phase Willow couldn’t even walk one kilometer away.

And its loss of control began to become even more apparent.

It meant that its plan to escape back to its lair and slowly digest the new power had completely failed.

Finally, Phase Willow had no choice but to stop. It ignored the damage inflicted by the players and once again formed a circle with its nine heads facing the sky, roaring at the center of the circle.

Blue and bright yellow light intertwined, pulsating strongly like a beating heart.

At first, only the light pulsated.

But soon, the water flow around it began to pulsate, and the pulsation spread out with the flow of water.

Accompanied by the release of this new power, Phase Willow’s body began to decline rapidly.

At the same time, balls of flame appeared out of nowhere. At first, they were only around Phase Willow’s body, but they quickly spread out to the surrounding areas of the players chasing after it, and even to distant areas where no one was present.

Wherever the water flow spread, flames would also appear out of thin air, covering every visible spot on the ground.

Soon afterward, even the flames began to pulsate.

This massive pulsation affected the players’ hearts, making them beat in sync with it.

The air vibrated, the trees vibrated, and the earth vibrated!

It was as if the entire island were shaking!

All the players’ hearts raced, and their bodies froze, unable to move.

Only their mouths remained unaffected—

“Are we… doomed?”

“It’s not the Molten Mountain Dragon and Phase Willow perishing together, but Phase Willow and us perishing together?”