Ryan’s health currently stood at a formidable 1,376 points, making him the highest-HP player in the world.
Though the two gatekeepers hit hard, Ryan’s squad tore through them with ease. The group advanced swiftly, barely breaking stride. But before long, grim news ca through the guild channel.
The second squad that had entered the Corrupted Forest had been wiped out.
They’d managed to bring down one of the gatekeepers, but the other had split off mid-fight, overwhelming the team’s tank. He couldn’t withstand the sheer power of its attacks and fell quickly. Two mbers, who had been near the dungeon entrance, managed to escape in ti. The rest weren’t so lucky.
Of the two squads assigned to attack the Willitan Estate, it was surprisingly SwordSaint01’s team that bypassed the gatekeepers. Evelyn’s squad, the more experienced and better geared group, had been defeated at their feet.
"Damn those specters! Too much evasion! They just wore us down!" Evelyn vented in the guild channel. Her ssages were fragnted and frustrated, but it didn’t take long for everyone to piece together what had gone wrong.
The gatekeepers of Willitan Estate were Specter Wardens—two of them. Their base evasion was already high at 20%, but once their health dropped past a certain threshold, they’d activate a skill that boosted their evasion to a staggering 95%.
And they didn’t just dodge well—they hit like a truck. With most attacks missing and mana draining fast, Evelyn’s squad had been quickly overwheld.
What puzzled everyone was how SwordSaint01’s team had taken them down—especially considering that his gear was clearly inferior to Evelyn’s.
"It was nothing, really. TheUsualMutts is an Arms Warrior, and he’s got a skill called Suppress. It can’t be dodged," SwordSaint01 explained casually.
TheUsualMutts was a quiet, no-nonsense Arms Warrior—almost as silent as Archress Mageress herself. Evelyn had personally recruited him into the guild.
"So... without an Arms Warrior, it’s impossible?" Evelyn asked, her tone uncertain.
"Not exactly," TheUsualMutts chid in, his voice calm over the guild channel. "Actually, after they dodge an attack, they take more damage for a few seconds. If you get so damage-over-ti effects on them before they trigger that evasion skill, you can still chip away their health."
He paused, then added, "My regular Suppress usually hits for less than 100, but against the Specter Wardens, it landed for 500. That wasn’t even a crit. So if you stack so DoTs on them, you’ll still land enough damage to bring them down, even when they’re dodging everything else."
"I see! Winter Lily, when they use that evasion buff, you and I will layer our DoT spells," Evelyn said, her mood lifting as she turned to Mia.
With the Willitan Estate situation resolved, Ryan turned his attention to the other squad’s wipe in the Corrupted Forest.
"Guild Leader, our tank’s a bit too squishy. He couldn’t hold up against the monsters," Smoking Gun, one of the survivors, explained over the guild channel. He was a Hunter—sharp-eyed and quick on his feet.
"AJ only has 900 health. Two Slis hit for over 400 damage each. With their skills layered on top, our healer couldn’t keep him up and heal himself at the sa ti."
AJ was the tank of that team. While Smoking Gun called him "squishy," 900 HP was still a rare high stat for tanks at this stage. Most still hovered around 800.
AJ let out a tired sigh. He’d realized sothing was wrong the mont the Slis struck. One round of basic attacks had already shaved off nearly half his health.
He knew then that the fight was already lost.
"My gear’s pretty good for this stage. Do I really need to grind more quests and upgrades just to survive a dungeon?" AJ muttered, frustration in his voice.
"My health’s only 821, so honestly, AJ’s gear is pretty solid," SwordSaint01 chid in. "Guild Leader, are the monsters in your dungeon really that terrifying? Our gatekeepers only hit for a little over 100. Even two of them together don’t break 300!"
AJ, still licking his wounds from the recent wipe, froze. "Wait—your gatekeepers only hit for that much? Ours were hitting like trucks!"
"Ahh, it’s so comfy running with the Guild Leader," Moonlight Beauty sighed in the guild channel. "With over 1,300 HP, I’m not even scared of another gatekeeper."
Her words caused a ripple of stunned silence across the guild.
Ryan rarely showed his stats, and they were only visible to teammates while grouped. Most guild mbers had no idea their Guild Leader was walking around as a living wall.
"Over 1,300?!" SwordSaint01 stopped mid-stride, staring at his screen. "That’s almost double mine!"
"Guild Leader, please adopt !"
"Guild Leader! Hard carry, please!"
"Guild Leader! I’ll sell my soul for a dungeon run!"
The guild chat exploded into chaos, with players spamming pleas and s at lightning speed.
"Enough." Ryan calmly shut the chat window.
Silence.
After a mont, he reopened it. "Alright. Now, let’s figure out how to solve AJ’s team problem."
", !" Smoking Gun imdiately jumped in.
"When I ran out just now, I noticed sothing. The two Sli monsters were kinda slow. I managed to lose them pretty easily. What if we kite them? The tank wouldn’t need to hold aggro—we just attack from range."
His tone was casual, like tossing out a half-baked plan during lunch. But AJ was quick to shoot it down.
"No. You missed sothing important," he said, shaking his head. "Before the wipe, I didn’t understand it either, but now it makes sense. The Slis have a status effect—’Each ti it attacks an enemy, its speed is reduced by 5% for 5 seconds.’ That’s why they seed slow when you ran. They had already hit ."
He looked at the chat. "So maybe instead of kiting, we can rotate aggro. The tank holds them for a bit, retreats, and lets the debuff stack while he recovers. Then grabs aggro again."
"What if we just don’t hold aggro at all?" Smoking Gun asked, hesitant.
Ryan’s voice cut in before AJ could respond. "If you don’t hold aggro, the Slis won’t get the debuff at all. Their speed stacks up instead. You’ll end up with two turbo-charged blobs that no one can outrun."
He smiled faintly. "Alright. With that, your squad should be able to get past the gatekeepers."
Then his voice turned light again. "And rember—the competition’s still on. Don’t forget my gold."
With that, Ryan closed the guild chat and turned toward the distant monster horde.
This was what it ant to lead a team—identify problems, solve them, and push forward. Loyalty built on success was good, but if the entire group relied on just one person to think, move, and act, then the mont that person wasn’t around, the whole system would collapse.
Leadership wasn’t just about carrying people—it was about raising them to stand on their own.
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