Chapter 193: Skeleton King Leoric
“Holy crap, that movement, amazing!”
“Wow, awesome, half of them are down, keep it up!”
“No health left, quick, take a potion, take a potion!”
“Good, it’s coming back up, don’t go over there, there are more monsters over there!”
The onlookers gasped and shouted, even more anxious than if they were playing themselves.
Zou Zhuo slammed the keyboard and clicked the mouse frantically. After a flurry of actions, he finally took down all the monsters.
As the golden monster fell, several yellow equipment pieces, a large pile of gold coins, and potions burst out, scattering across the ground.
“Wow, amazing!”
The onlookers were extremely excited, even crazier than if they were playing themselves.
Zou Zhuo also let out a long breath. He had to admit, he almost yelled out himself when the golden monster hit the ground. It was such a tough fight. When this kind of monster appeared, it always brought a horde of minions with it. Encountering them suddenly in a dark, narrow cave like that was enough to scare you to death without even killing you.
Swapping in three yellow equipment pieces at once, Zou Zhuo’s confidence swelled like never before.
“Charge into the cathedral, capture Leoric alive!”
With such a grand goal in mind, Zou Zhuo eagerly continued playing.
Nearly two hours later, he was finally about to face the Skeleton King Leoric.
That was actually quite a long time. Mainly because Chen Mo had increased the game’s difficulty, so you couldn’t just breeze through without pressure. Zou Zhuo also had a bit of a completionist streak; he had to scour every cave thoroughly before moving on, so his progress wasn’t very fast.
He returned to town, repaired all his equipment, cleaned out his inventory, and bought some supplies.
Zou Zhuo took a deep breath and used the teleportation portal to reach the third floor of the cathedral. He searched around, looking for the Royal Crypts.
In the dark underground tomb, there were no monsters at all. In the center of the floor, a lone two-handed sword was stuck into the ground.
Leoric’s sword.
Zou Zhuo clicked on the sword, and around the demon hunter, several ghost-like apparitions appeared, reenacting a scene from just before Leoric’s death.
The demon hunter moved forward. The empty underground tomb felt like no one had been there for hundreds of years, but the air still seemed to carry the faint, mad whispers of Leoric.
Suddenly, Leoric’s shadow appeared before the demon hunter.
“How dare you bring the warm breath of life into my tomb?!”
With the Skeleton King’s roar, stone pillars were activated one by one, and countless skeletons suddenly awakened, crawling up from the ground and charging straight at the demon hunter!
“Holy crap!”
Zou Zhuo was startled. He quickly maneuvered the demon hunter, rolling left and right, while his dual crossbows unleashed a torrent of arrows. After a burst of attacks, he finally cleared out all the small skeletons.
“Phew, I gotta say, that was pretty thrilling.” Zou Zhuo let out a long breath.
Unlike Warcraft, Diablo had more monsters, and they were denser. Although the player could only control one character, with so many skills, maximizing the character’s combat effectiveness still required a certain level of combat skill and technique.
After passing through layers of obstacles, he finally reached the Skeleton King’s tomb.
Under the erosion of countless years, the entire tomb had largely collapsed. The demon hunter moved forward along the only remaining path.
After dealing with a large number of skeleton minions, he finally stood before the Skeleton King.
In the spacious hall, Leoric’s corpse sat on the throne. His body was nothing but bones, still maintaining the posture he was in when he was assassinated.
Zou Zhuo tried clicking on the Skeleton King’s corpse, placing Leoric’s crown back on the Skeleton King’s head.
The entire screen suddenly shook violently. Countless ghost-like cyan lights converged from all directions into the Skeleton King’s body. His broken armor pieces flew up one by one, and the war hammer that had fallen to the ground returned to the Skeleton King’s hand.
Accompanied by somewhat manic laughter, the Skeleton King awakened. He stood up from his throne, his eyes burning with ghostly flames, glaring at the demon hunter before him.
“Damn, we’re fighting the boss!” The onlookers all widened their eyes, afraid of missing anything.
Zou Zhuo quickly created distance, terrified of being one-shot by the boss.
As the first major boss, the Skeleton King Leoric’s skills weren’t too complicated. He only had two key abilities: continuous slashing and summoning skeleton minions.
Zou Zhuo was playing a demon hunter, so he definitely wasn’t going to go toe-to-toe with the Skeleton King. He kept using skills to maintain distance, attacking the Skeleton King from range with his mercenary.
But the Skeleton King had way too much health. Occasionally, if he got greedy and stayed for a few extra hits, one smack from the Skeleton King would instantly take half his health. If he failed to dodge a single skill, he could die. So Zou Zhuo played very tensely, his concentration razor-sharp.
“Watch out, he’s about to use a skill again, dodge, dodge!”
“Clear out those little skeletons quickly, or they’ll pile up and cause trouble.”
“Keep it up, he’s only got a third of his health left!”
“Holy crap, this is so tense!”
The onlookers were all sweating bullets, even more nervous than Zou Zhuo.
Finally, with a mournful howl, the Skeleton King’s body crumbled apart. His full suit of armor scattered across the ground, and a huge pile of gold coins and equipment burst out.
Accompanied by a very crisp “ding,” an orange beam of light appeared beside the Skeleton King’s corpse.
Zou Zhuo quickly moved his mouse over to check: “Leoric’s Crown? Orange equipment?!”
The onlookers were also shocked.
“Holy crap, orange equipment! Is this the first time we’ve seen orange equipment?”
“Awesome, it looks really powerful.”
“Quick, check the stats.”
“No rush, put it on first!”
Zou Zhuo quickly identified it and put the crown on.
It increased dexterity and vitality, with much better stats than his previous yellow helmet. But most importantly, it had a special property: “Increases the effect of any gem socketed into this item by 100%.”
“Any gem’s effect is increased by 100%? That means if I socket a yellow gem that increases magic find, that chance will double?”
“Holy crap, I’m rich!”
Wearing Leoric’s Crown and carrying a full bag of loot, Zou Zhuo happily returned to New Tristram to rest and reorganize.
“This feels so fun!”
“Yeah, even though it’s still a third-person perspective, it’s completely different from those old-school RPGs.”
“And killing monsters is really satisfying. Did the boss get the idea for this game from the Warcraft RPG maps?”
“I really feel like this game is more fun than those big RPGs. Especially the atmosphere—it’s amazing, it really gets you in the mood to fight.”
“And the skills, items, boss fights, and story—there are so many details. If this were a first-person perspective game, it would definitely be a masterpiece!”
“Yeah, why did they use a third-person perspective? I don’t get it.”
“Boss, we want to play too!”
The onlookers all surrounded Chen Mo, demanding to play Diablo as well.
Chen Mo handed over the portable hard drive. “Go ahead and install it yourselves. This game supports multiplayer. Give it a try.”