"What?"
Seeing the string of misses pop up above the Green Snake's head, Lin Mo was stunned.
The "miss" indicator only appeared when an attack was dodged.
But Lin Mo's attacks had clearly hit the Green Snake. How could the damage have been nullified?
Could it be that this "petrification" gave the Green Snake temporary invincibility?
But then why, when Lin Mo had used the magic scroll Lethal · Spatial Annihilation earlier, could it still damage those petrified Green Snakes?
Just as Lin Mo was unable to figure it out.
Up ahead, the Green Snake returned from its petrified state to normal.
It opened its huge mouth and spat out a mass of green venom, spraying it straight toward Lin Mo.
Lin Mo reacted quickly and swiftly leaped aside to dodge the attack.
A large...
MISS!
....appeared above his head.
This was what a normal miss looked like.
At the same time, behind him, Ning Xi had activated the Hellfire skill from the Yama set.
Boom!
She lightly waved her staff, and an S-grade Fireball descended from the sky, accurately striking the Green Snake.
Under the tenfold damage amplification from the SSS-grade talent Supreme Emperor.
A huge damage number appeared above the Green Snake's head, one that made Lin Mo sigh every time he saw Ning Xi's damage...
-1279208!
The level-75 venomous snake had only 600,000 HP. Under this attack, which dealt more than twice its HP and was enough to kill it twice over, it died on the spot.
"Strange."
Lin Mo wondered, "Why can it immune my attack damage while petrified, but not the damage from the magic scroll?"
"Could it be that it is immune to physical and magic damage, but because the SSS-grade Lethal · Spatial Annihilation deals 100% HP-cutting true damage, it can't be immune to it?"
Next, Lin Mo tested it and indeed confirmed his guess.
He discovered: All the venomous snakes in this dungeon had a Petrification ability.
When actively activated, it could enter a petrified state lasting 3 seconds. While petrified, the venomous snake itself couldn't move, while also becoming immune to physical and magic damage.
In addition, this ability could also be triggered passively. Before each time a venomous snake was attacked, it had as high as a 50% chance of entering a petrified state lasting 1 second.
Petrification could nullify physical and magic damage.
But it couldn't nullify true damage.
Swish! Swish! Swish! swish!
Just as a Green Snake entered a petrified state, leaving both Lin Mo and Ning Xi helpless against it.
Ah Li suddenly charged over, unleashing a storm of rapid normal attacks. A large number of white true-damage numbers exploded above the petrified Green Snake's head.
-21682!
-21682!
-21682!
Who cared whether it was immune to physical or magic damage?
True damage, ignored defense, ignored resistance and ignored damage reduction.
It would always be the highest-priority damage in the Divine Oracle world.
Thus, Ah Li was the protagonist this time.
Lin Mo and Ning Xi could only watch as the enemy that had left both of them, the two number-one players on the Heaven Ranking and SSS-grade talent holders, completely helpless was slaughtered by Ah Li in a flurry of attacks.
"An ordinary mob couldn't possibly have such an overpowered ability."
Through his SSS-grade Eye of Insight, Lin Mo indeed discovered that the [Petrification] possessed by these Green Snakes wasn't a skill at all, but actually a talent.
And this talent was shared by the leader of the Snake Clan, the [Medusa Queen].
On the Divine Oracle Continent, all Snake Clan members could share the Medusa Queen's Petrification talent.
Then another problem arose.
Because the venomous snakes seemed to know that their opponents this time were very strong, they hardly fought Lin Mo and Ning Xi at all.
From then on, whenever Lin Mo and Ning Xi attacked them, they immediately activated Petrification and became immune to damage.
Although this talent could only last 3 seconds when actively activated and had a 10-second cooldown, leaving a full 7-second gap in between.
It also had a passive trigger: every time they were attacked, they had a 50% chance of becoming petrified for 1 second.
Anyone who played games understood.
When it came to probability, it was always the concept god.
Even if the probability was defined as 50%.
It could get infinitely close to 100%.
And it could also get infinitely close to 0%.
Ning Xi waited for 3 seconds until the Green Snake in front of them ended its petrified state.
S-grade Fireball!
S-grade Ice Spike!
S-grade Hurricane!
S-grade Lightning!
S-grade Dragon Control!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Five consecutive S-grade skills came down.
Every single attack passively triggered Petrification.
All five skills were nullified.
After the round of skills was thrown out, the Green Snake's Petrification finished its cooldown.
Whoosh!
Facing Ning Xi's SSS-grade ultimate skill World-Ending · Frozen Heaven and Earth, which she threw out in frustration, the Green Snake actively activated Petrification.
The 3-second Petrification perfectly canceled out the 3-second duration of the ultimate skill.
Once everything returned to normal, Ning Xi had emptied all her skills.
Yet the Green Snake remained completely unharmed.
It was still wildly twisting its body. It didn't attack Ning Xi, but merely stuck out its tongue at her, as if provoking her.
This scene, nearly made Ning Xi cry from frustration.
Seeing Ning Xi looking so irritated, how could Lin Mo stand by?
"Wait!"
"Xiao Xi, I'll avenge you!"
With that, Lin Mo locked onto the Green Snake that was provoking Ning Xi.
SSS-grade Ice and Snow · Grip of Extreme Cold!
SSS-grade Burning Heaven · Blazing Starfire!
SSS-grade Judgment · Soul Devouring Arrow!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
MISS!
MISS!
MISS!
The air suddenly fell silent.
Originally, only Ning Xi had been upset.
Now it was fine.
Both Lin Mo and Ning Xi were upset.
'Damn it!'
'Is this what a 50% petrification chance looked like?'
Lin Mo was completely dumbfounded.
"I seriously suspect the system is rigging the game against us!"
Lin Mo's mindset instantly collapsed.
He nearly pulled out an SSS-grade magic scroll to annihilate that Green Snake.
It was still Ah Li who stepped in.
Relying on her true damage, which couldn't be nullified, she finally took down that smug and unbelievably arrogant giant spicy strip.
It took half a minute from start to finish just to kill a single Green Snake.
This made Lin Mo completely realize: "Physical and magic damage are useless. We can only use true damage to deal with them."
Of course, it wasn't that they couldn't fight them at all.
At worst, they would simply have to reduce their monster-killing speed to that of ordinary players.
Normally, a five-player party of level-70 players would take roughly half a minute to a minute to kill a level-75 monster.
But if they really killed monsters at that speed.
For Lin Mo and Ning Xi, it would simply be a waste of time.
Twice the effort, half the result.
Ning Xi slightly furrowed her brows, "But Ah Li's damage is still far from enough. Relying on her alone would also take a lot of time."
Lin Mo said decisively, "Then let's put the dungeon on hold for now and prioritize upgrading Ah Li."
"The Snake Clan leader, Medusa Queen's Petrification talent, is shared by the entire race. That means—"
"Even if we spend time and effort clearing this Serpent Demon Hinterlands dungeon, we'll still face the same problem of all the monsters being able to petrify in the other four dungeons."
Looking at Ah Li ahead, who, even after going all out, still needed quite some time to kill a single spicy strip and was already panting heavily after each battle.
Lin Mo said, "Rather than spending a whole day clearing one dungeon at our current speed."
"We might as well use that time to first raise Ah Li to Ancestral rank and max out her strength. Once her true damage can instantly kill level-75 to level-80 snakes, we'll come back."
"By then, we'll only need one day to clear all five dungeons!"