Player world.
When encountering Abyss monsters in the storyline, it immediately entered the combat phase.
"What the hell is this?"
Mu Yang furrowed his brows, swiftly moving the mouse to control Neuvillette to unleash a surging water column.
In the past, a C6 Hydro Dragon King was enough to instantly one-shot any small monsters in the open world.
But facing this group of purple Abyss monsters, the water column hitting their bodies didn't deduct even a drop of blood, and below the red health bar, a long white bar appeared.
The white bar generated from the middle, continuously growing toward both ends. Every time Mu Yang's characters attacked once, the white bar would grow.
"Could it be that we need to grow the white health bar through attack counts, and only when the white bar grows to its maximum value can we deduct these Abyss monsters' health?"
Mu Yang's game understanding was nothing if not sharp; before the official prompt even popped up, he had already figured out the truth of the matter.
Then, the official popup appeared right on cue, introducing the mechanics of the Abyss monsters.
"As expected, just like I thought; it's a count shield that requires attack counts to break."
Mu Yang narrowed his eyes and read word by word: "To break this shield, it is recommended to use Burning reactions or attacks with Nightsoul properties."
"But right now, I'm using the Dragon King; where am I supposed to get Burning or Nightsoul from?"
He couldn't just exit combat first, then swap teams and put all the newly pulled Natlan characters on, right?
Just as he was thinking that, he quickly realized something was off: "Wait, no; in my team, Chuychu's attacks have Nightsoul properties."
Mu Yang's current team was the optimal lineup for the Dragon King: Chuuyunfufufu. It was the team with Baizhu replaced by Chuychu.
After using her Elemental Skill, Chuychu could enter the Nightsoul's Blessing state, and the attacks she released would have Nightsoul properties.
However, because Chuychu was the featured character from the previous version, and the Brave Heart set hadn't come out yet at the time, Chuychu's Nightsoul's Blessing state was completely useless.
On top of that, in the Dragon King team, she had the talent to automatically apply Pyro without needing to switch in, which led many people to form the habit of not switching Chuychu into battle.
But if Chuychu didn't use her Elemental Skill, she wouldn't enter the Nightsoul's Blessing state, and the off-field Pyro application naturally wouldn't be attacks with Nightsoul properties either.
"Got the hang of it."
Just as Mu Yang was preparing to swap Chuychu in, he noticed that Kachina had also joined the battle.
This wasn't the Kachina from his team, but the Kachina from the game storyline.
He saw Kachina pull out a drill that could carry a person, then sit in the seat on the drill, her whole body emanating a golden-yellow glow, driving the drill to repeatedly slam into the ground, causing area-of-effect Geo damage.
After the Abyss monsters suffered the attacks, the white health bar grew rapidly, much faster than Neuvillette with Furina farming monsters.
"Kachina joins the battle too?" What surprised Mu Yang was this aspect.
The last time he had fought alongside characters in the game might have to be traced back to Sumeru's Aranyaka.
That was a long and painful memory for many people. Ever since experiencing Aranyaka, players had to weigh whether their liver could handle it whenever they saw an NPC in the game needing help.
Although relying on Kachina alone could break the Abyss monsters' count shield, Mu Yang still swapped Chuychu in, used her Elemental Skill to enter the Nightsoul's Blessing state, and attacked.
"Wait, won't this generate Crystallize?"
Mu Yang saw that after the Abyss monsters took Chuychu's Qucusaurus attacks, Pyro was applied above their heads, then triggered a Crystallize reaction from Kachina's Soaring Drill Sprite attack.
The Fire Crystals then converted into "Molten Crystals" and were absorbed by Kachina, followed by another explosion dealing damage to the surroundings.
"The Kachina in the main quest is even more interesting than in the character demo." Mu Yang said with a sense of novelty.
It was the first time he had seen a storyline character help trigger elemental reactions.
The count shield on the first wave of Abyss monsters was broken in no time, and Mu Yang quickly swapped in his C6 Dragon King for a 360-degree spin spray of water, instantly clearing the field.
But soon, the second wave of Abyss monsters appeared.
Just as Mu Yang thought they had to go through the motions again, with Natlan people breaking the count shield, he saw Paimon's exclamation: "Something's flying over from the sky!"
The camera suddenly pulled back, revealing several blazing fire meteors streaking across the sky, dragging long tail flames, crashing down like meteors.
"Interesting, rocket artillery!" Mu Yang blurted out.
Seeing this scene, his first reaction was rocket artillery.
But upon second thought, the game he was playing now was Genshin Impact; where would rocket artillery come from? So he dismissed the absurd idea.
"It's the Pyro Archon's arrows!"
"The Pyro Archon is providing support to us!"
Accompanied by the excited voices of the Children of Echoes warriors, several red beams landed on the Abyss monsters, turning both them and their shields to ashes in one go.
"So fierce?" Seeing over a dozen Abyss monsters on the game screen all get one-shot, Mu Yang widened his eyes in surprise.
This feeling was just like seeing a bunch of villains gather to gang up on Fuuuma no Kamen, only for Fuuuma to punch them all to bits.
======
[Pyro Archon: Sent you rockets; what do you say?]
[True. Rockets]
[Abyss monsters: Thanks to the Pyro Archon for the rockets; don't send any more next time]
[So it was the Pyro Archon helping us; I thought those rocket barrages were coming to smash us]
[Is this the first time we've gotten help from the local Archon during battle?]
[Venti: ??]
[Venti just slacks off, but he does make a move]
[In the future, when fighting monsters in Natlan, can we just AFK the whole time and let the Pyro Archon clear the field?]
[Then we'll just go pick up the drops, and leave all the monsters to the Pyro Archon]
[Your wish might come true, but realizing your wish is a bit unlikely]
======
The screen went black.
In the blink of an eye, it entered plot mode again.
"Those meteors just now were all arrows shot by the Pyro Archon?"
After hearing the warriors' words, Paimon's jaw nearly dropped to the ground in shock.
"Yes."
The Children of Echoes warriors explained: "Ever since the Pyro Archon ascended to Archonhood, he always personally eliminates Abyss monsters himself, even able to launch attacks from extremely far distances."
"We heard from people in other tribes that after they discovered Abyss monsters, before they could even organize their manpower, the monsters were all eliminated by the Pyro Archon at the Stadium of the Sacred Flame."
Hearing that the Pyro Archon launched the attacks from the Stadium of the Sacred Flame, Paimon widened her eyes in shock and said incredulously: "From such a far distance, the Pyro Archon can still precisely hit the enemies?"
The warriors nodded, their tones carrying pride and respect: "Although it sounds unbelievable, that's our Pyro Archon."
"Maybe it's precisely because he protects us in this way that we continue to follow him."