Chapter 455: 455
With that, the shadow in Snared Soul’s eyes turned and slowly disappeared. Soon, the flames around Snared Soul turned back to red and it continued to speak through its jaw. “Feng Bujue, looks like you have left a deep impression on our king…”
Brother Jue patted the dust from his body as he stood up and returned to his arrogant expression that was not afraid of anything, “Your consciousness is still present during that possession?’
“Of course.” Snared Soul replied.
“Good!” Feng Bujue nodded. “Since we are now on the same boat, you gotta lend me a hand.”
“Who are on the same boat with you…” Blood-crazy shade was quite to draw the line.
“Ha ha ha…” Snared Soul laughed. “Yes, you’re right, you are one of us now.”
“What?” The three heads of Blood-crazy Shade all turned to Snared Soul. “Leader… he…”
“I know what I’m doing.” Snared Soul titled his head slightly to signal the shade to shut up. Then he turned back to Feng Bujue. “I understand… what you were trying to hint at earlier.” He paused then asked, “You wish to obtain some ‘actual’ help from us, correct?”
“Indeed.” Feng Bujue replied.
“Hmm… Okay!” Snared Soul answered. The next second, the giant skull swayed with an explosion of ghostly energy and a ball of spiritual fire shot out from its eyes. The flames gathered to materialize into a powerful relic.
…
Several seconds later, an object the size of one’s palm that looked like a hexagonal coffin floated in the air. Blood-crazy shade’s expression changed drastically while the Repentant responded with a soft ‘hmm’.
“Then I shall thank you in advance.” Feng Bujue took on step forward and grabbed the object disregarding the residual flame around it.
“You travelers from another world…” Snared Soul continued. “Should have the power to assess the property of this item, yes?” Feng Bujue used 5 seconds to quickly read the item description. Without saying anything else, he stuffed it inside his inventory and then said, “Thank you.” After that, he turned and left.
“I don’t care who you plan to use that against…” Snared Soul’s voice echoed behind Brother Jue. “But remember… to return it to me when you’re done.”
[Oh, you wish…] That was Feng Bujue’s real thought but his expression was still unreadable as he turned his head over his shoulder to say, “Don’t worry, I will return it.” After saying that, he added in his heart, [about 10 years later…]
Seeing Feng Bujue leap away… Blood-crazy Shade could not help himself anymore, “Why did you help him?” He glared at Snared Soul. “I cannot see how that weakling can be of any use to us.”
“hah…” Snared Soul turned with a smile. “The potential of these travelers is much stronger than you can imagine… and don’t just think of now. Furthermore… brute force might not be the most important.” His tone slowly turned dark. “This person… will be useful in the future. I am only thinking on behalf of our king.”
…
And back to now, the battle between Feng Bujue and ROOT. Feng Bujue took out the mini coffin from his inventory and waved it around.
“When I first saw you, I knew, this is your trump card.” ROOT said darkly. “If you believe you can use that defeat me… why not give it a try?”
Feng Bujue responded in an equally taunting tone. “Hmph… you think I don’t dare to?”
Name: Soul Coffin
Type: Others
Quality: Legendary
Special Effect: Allow your summoned creature to gain temporarily the immense power of the abyss nether (Last for 5 minutes, cooldown is 12 hours, can only be used on one summoned creature)
Whether it can be taken out of the scenario: Yes
Remark: A relic that seals the souls of millions. The souls’ intention was to drag everything in the living world into the nether abyss.
Since Bason could last as long as the special effect of the Soul Coffin and he was a summoned creature that was meant for battle, Feng Bujue naturally chose him to inherit the power from this relic of the underworld. As 15 percent of his Sorcery Point was exhausted, the figure of warrior floated behind Brother Jue. In that instant, the wind of the souls blew and the soul of the warrior descended on the world. This Bason’s face was shining like gold, and his eyes sparkled like stars; with a thick waist, strong arms; a purple-golden three-pointed helmet on his head, purple-golden link armor over his body; and a mantle that flickered like a burning sun hanging from his shoulders. At the same time, he was summoned, Feng Bujue waved the Soul Coffin in his grasp…
Instantly, a ball of spiritual energy escaped from the Soul Coffin and surrounded Bason who only had an upper body. Several seconds later, Bason roared in a sound of thunder. “Ha!”
The power of the dead exploded and it lashed at the surrounding like palpable winds. Instantly, dust flew on the battlefield and the atmosphere turned dark and eerie. When Bason showed up again, he appeared to have grown three times larger and it was surrounded by a collection of golden energy and dark energy of the dead… these two drastically different energies melted into one as they complimented each other, giving this summoned creature incredibly powerful and scary power.
“Hey, Brother Nu!” Feng Bujue turned around to call at Vishnu further down the battlefield.
“Hmm? Are you calling me?” Vishnu turned around to answer. He was not under that great of a pressure anymore. With the help from 23, Sharp Gale and Matcha Cookie, the four from Brahman had escaped from their danger and they were already punishing the Anomalies from Origin.
“if you don’t mind, can you lend me a Guan Dao (Chinese pole weapon) to toy with for a while?” Feng Bujue asked.
“Ah? Oh…” Vishnu hesitated for a moment before he reacted. He then transmuted a piece of copper into the shape of a Guan Dao and controlled it to fly towards Feng Bujue. After this was over, about one minute later, Vishnu would only realize Feng Bujue must have did his homework and seen a lot of recordings of his matches to be able to tell that he had the power to transmute the copper material that he possessed into cold steel of any shape and form.
“Thank you.” Feng Bujue caught the Guan Dao with his hand. With a focus in his gaze, he shouted. “Bason!”
“Oh!” Bason answered seriously. He understood Feng Bujue’s intention. He opened his arms and instantly a Guan Dao appeared in his grasp. This one man one soul, one in front one at the back, they stood with their weapons, ready to take on the world. Just in terms of presence, they were not lacking compared to ROOT.
“Is your cosplay over?” ROOT looked at Brother Jue and asked in a sardonic tone.
“Hmm… I merely wanted a Guan Dao to compliment Bason’s skill. What’s wrong with that?” As Feng Bujue replied, he smoothed down his dishevelled hair and pulled the hair at the back of his head into a small ponytail. “And how can you tell that I am cosplaying anymore, there is not even a Yin Yang pattern on my Guan Dao is there?”
“Even at this stage, you’re denying you’re cosplaying that character… Hmm… never mind…” ROOT halted. She quickly collected herself and replied in her calm tone. “I will not be taunted by your irregular actions and words and ridiculous tactics…”
“Oh… so that means you refuse to mock me is it…” Feng Bujue said, “he he… That’s your choice after all.”
As he finished, both the man and the spirit moved at the same time. Feng Bujue dragged the sword on the ground before he leaped into a jump. This slash was aiming at the head. ROOT was not afraid of Feng Bujue but… behind Brother Jue was a Bason. Looking from the front, Bason’s blade… was pulsing with the energy of the death and the aura was as powerful as a landslide; and from the perspective of the data level, the strength within this blow from the blade was not weaker than the ‘snap explosion’ that ROOT herself had been using.
Even though she hated to be on the weaker side before a mere player, ROOT at that moment had no choice but to evade. Suddenly, the butterfly wings behind her fluttered. She morphed into multiple shadows as she flew swiftly backwards. Feng Bujue landed with his Guan Dao cutting into the ground. The aura exploded and it split the street, building, even the air before him… half into two.
This enormous power was just from a mere simple and most direct heavy hit, it was not even from a skill.
“snap” went the fingers. After avoiding the slash, ROOT immediately mounted a counter. The white pillar of light resurged. But this kind of attack would not work on Brother Jue. At least before his Life Points dropped down to 2 percent, he could use Body Enhancement Spell-upgraded repeatedly for evasion.
“Hmm… I have the general idea of the power now.” While Feng Bujue evaded the attack, he said and analysed calmly. “Then… the warm up shall be over now.” It turned out his first attack was just to find out how powerful Bason was under the effect of the Soul Coffin. He was using zero time simulation to calculate that and used it to control the force and measurement of his action.
“Don’t be too cocky now!” ROOT hissed angrily. The butterfly wing fluttered and blew up gusts of powerful winds. Feng Bujue slithered through the air and spun while charging forward. In the blind of an eye, there was less than one Zhang between the two.
“Chuka Zanmai!” Feng Bujue suddenly expanded his moves. He lingered in the air and the Guan Dao speared forward for multiple times, splitting into shadows of itself. Bason followed closely behind him, he used the same skill and instantly the world turned and rocked.
Seeing that the butterfly wings were unable to stop the adversary, ROOT instantly changed her tactic. The metallic liquid around her body started to peel like layers of flower petals. Hundreds of metallic petals flew to meet the wall of spears. Every small collision between the spears and the petals would create a small light explosions. Bang bang bang… the explosions rang out constantly and insistently.
Feng Bujue was standing away from the effect of the explosion because his attack was merely symbolic. Bason was the one who was doing the heavy lifting. Bason and the weapon itself was a spiritual summoned object, the giant Guan Dao would not be destroyed. Even though it would be corrupted temporarily by the explosions, it would be fixed instantly by the power of the dead.
As fast as ROOT’s self recovery rate was, she was not fast enough to compare to the continuous surge of energy of the dead. Under this super high speed combat, she was slowly forced back.
“What the… Since when does the man has a level S summoning skill? This thing is even more powerful than King of Shadow’s Blood Golem already.” Vishnu looked at the battlefield that was pretty much a firework of explosion and he could not help but gasp.
“By the way… that thing called ROOT is now in her second form, isn’t she…” Shiva continued. “Based on what is happening… it is entirely possible that Brother Feng could destroy both of her final forms with one single skill…”
…
On the other side, Xiao Tan had carried Red Iron and Phantom Dawn far away from the battlefield. Even though Wang Tanzi was at least 1.8 metres tall, it was not that easy for the man to carry two people at the same time. Phantom Dawn was not the problem, he was thin and was only 1.6 metres tall, at most he could be considered medium weight but Red Iron was a muscly brute. It really took a lot of effort to carry him for such a long distance.
Thankfully Xiao Tan was now a player of level 35. His basic strength and speed was much stronger than a normal person or else he would not know what to do at that moment. It did not take long for Xiao Tan to escape to several streets away. After they had left ROOT’s line of sight, they should be temporarily safe. Xiao Tan sought out a broken corner and dropped the two on the ground. Without saying a word, he took out the medicine that Feng Bujue gave him earlier and popped it into Red Iron’s lips.
After Red Iron swallowed SCP-500, white light of data flow immediately lit up his eyes. Several seconds later, he bounced up from the ground and gave a quick look around his surroundings. Then he quickly found some material from the nearby broken building and scrapped away the shit like substance and continued to slather them generously all over his body.
“Phew… you have been a great help this time.” Once Red Iron’s wounds were covered by those substance, they started to wiggle strangely but from the expression on the man’s face, this appeared to be a good thing. “By the way… quick go and wake that kid up!” At this point, he turned to look at Phantom Dawn who was lying on the ground.
“But I only have one pill…” Xiao Tan replied.
“Who said you need any item to wake him up.” Red Iron explained as he hustled towards Phantom Dawn.
“Erm… it does not look like his unconsciousness is caused by something normal.” Xiao Tan reminded. This was not a prognosis he gave as a doctor but it was a simple analysis… if Phantom Dawn was simply knocked out, then he would have woken up from the numerous explosions, the lights or the rocky movement when he was moved.
“Ah, I know.” Red Iron said as he knelt down on one knee. He reached his hand behind Phantom Dawn’s neck and held up his head.
“Hey… what are you doing…” Xiao Tan instantly had a very bad feeling surging in his mind. “If you want to do CPR, I suggest you first lay his body flat on the ground… if you wish to mimic some fairy tale method to wake him up, I would advise you…”
Kat cha
With a strange sound, Red Iron pulled out a block of something from the back of Phantom Dawn’s neck. The thing looked like a spine that had long legs on its. It was made from a silvery metal, similar to the things that made up the body of ROOT. Xiao Tan could see that once Red Iron removed this thing from the back of Phantom Dawn’s neck, it carried several drops of blood with it.
“What were you trying to say earlier?” Red Iron tossed the disgusting creature away and the thing soon dissolved into a puddle of liquid.
“Erm… nothing.” Xiao Tan replied awkwardly.
“Haaaaa—” At that moment, Phantom Dawn lying on the ground suddenly had his eyes flew open. Then it was like he was suffering from intense asthma, the breathing was catching unevenly in his chest and the pain was clear on his face.
“Do not worry.” Red Iron signalled for Xiao Tan to calm down. “He is merely getting back used to his own internal organs.”
Hearing that, Xiao Tan contemplated for 2 seconds before saying, “You mean… the thing that you pulled out earlier was an external body homeostatic device?”
“Hmm, I suppose you can call it that.” Red Iron concurred.
“Ergh!!” Phantom Dawn supported himself against the wall and started to dry heave but other than stomach acid, nothing came out. “ha ah… ah ha…” His breathing started to get even and once that happened, he started to curse the world wide over. “That bastard… ha ah… ha ah…” A desire to fight soon appeared on his face. “I was too careless earlier, I should have jumped into my strongest status when I joined the battle…”
“Hey, kid, to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding, let me first introduce myself…” Red Iron soon started to explain, he wanted to explain the stance of Organization Z and the three Anomalies to Phantom Dawn just in case he started to attack them for no reason.
“You are K1-Red Iron.” To his surprise, Phantom Dawn cut him off directly. “you, R2-Sharp Gale and X-23 are all Anomalies who are hostile against ROOT. I know about everything that has happened earlier.” He paused for a moment before he hacked out a mouthful of spit. “My consciousness is always there, I was merely unable to move my body.”
“Since there is no problem here anymore, then…” Xiao Tan said as the double blades appeared in his arms. He turned around and started to move. “I am not going to stay here and chat anymore…” As he finished, his figure had already more than several metres away.
“Hah… he is more reliable than he appears.” Red Iron commented with a chuckle. “We should follow him.”
Creak crack creak crack.
“Ah…” Phantom Dawn cracked his knuckles. “I do have plenty of score to settle with ROOT…”
…
Back to the battlefield… in these few short minutes, Feng Bujue carried on his ride of victory and the longer he fought, the stronger he became. With Bason behind his back, Brother Jue fought ROOT back little by little. The latter was unable to do much to counter.
“Chou Golden Chūka Zanmai!” The skill was used and instantly the idol of a golden god appeared in the sky. Under the colourful slashes, ROOT was cornered. She was at the last leg of her life.
“It is so impossibly strong… This is ridiculous…” On ROOT’s tactic analysis menu, her own Survival Rate was continuing to drop. Obviously, the effect carried over by the legendary relic Soul Coffin was beyond her calculation.
“Okay… with another Tōgen Kyō, I should be able to force out her first form…” Feng Bujue had already predicted the loss of his enemy. Instantly, the murderous aura rose and he continued to press forward. Feng Bujue knew that no matter how great the advantage he had built for himself, once the five minutes was up, everything would evaporate like dust blown by the wind. This ‘time limit’ ROOT was extremely familiar with as well so she was trying her best to try to hold on past this time limit. The battle between the two was more than just a mere battle of the force, it was also a battle of the wit. When facing an enemy whose ability to collect information as far better than he was, Feng Bujue’s thought had to venture further and into many more variations.
“Tōgen Kyō!” Feng Bujue caught an opening and extended the Guan Dao forward. The huge blade Bason was holding followed. At the same time, the golden image of more than 10 weapons appeared in the air. They formed a jungle of swords, as they plunged towards ROOT.
“Do you wish to see me in my first form that much… fine, I will make your dream come true!” ROOT ultimately was pushed to the spot where she could not evade anymore. The final step that she could not was to hope that she could bring down her enemy in a self-destructive move… She took the damage head on as the weapons cut through her. She snapped her finger and summoned an extremely powerful light pillar that erupted at the spot where she stood.
Hong—
The white glow exploded and shook the clouds and sky. Wild energies rushed everywhere, rolling through the eight corners of the world. The savage energy storm expanded and the circular impact blasted everything in its place. This blast was not weaker than the blast that caused the Blast Tunnel to appear.
But this time… the players were ready. After all, they caught sight of the light pillar first before the impact of the blast wave became, between these two events, there were one or two seconds for them to reaction. Therefore, the four from Brahman, Phantom Dawn, Xiao Tan, Matcha Cookie and the 3 members from organization Z all made some defensive measure. Thankfully no one was blasted away or injured from this blast wave.
But Feng Bujue who was closest to the light blast…
“Lost 21 percent, is it…” He looked at his own Life Points and said. “hmm… I suppose it is still within acceptable range.”
By then, Feng Bujue had already retreated into the air, using the skill of Geppo. In that final moment, Bason’s spirit moved to block before Brother Jue and used his own body to shield Brother Jue from the harm of the light explosion. Of course, even without Bason’s sacrifice, the time of the summoning was almost up. Therefore, it was hard to tell… whether this Bason who was empowered by the Soul Coffin was annihilated by the blast or he had faded away after the time limit was up while he was blocking against the blast.
“This future…” ROOT’s voice travelled out from the dust that was slowly settling, “Is truly a giant mess…”
The moonlight showered down to reveal her exceptionally beautiful face. Her first form was a pure human form. There was no wings, no strange appendages and her proportion was no different from a normal human. She had become a person of blood and flesh. She wore a simple grey outfit and looked startlingly similar to her 15th, or weakest form. But… this ROOT in her first form had a face that no one would have missed in a crowd. She was like a goddess who had descended from heaven.
Her face appeared to have some kind of mysterious magical energy that caused one to look at it. It drew one’s eyes towards it. But after several seconds of staring, one would feel ashamed of being in direct with such a beauty and one would voluntarily move one’s eyes away. This kind of beauty had surpassed the limitation of gender, race and even the normal definition of beauty… Just like the King of Nether Abyss”fear aura’, ROOT’s appearance seemed to forcibly impress the spiritual notion of ‘beauty’ into every creature that was within her presence. It was a kind of unreal and hard to kind type of beauty. No one was able to be used as comparison to her. Even an idol like Xu Huai Shang would only appear like a third rate character with numerous flaws when placed in comparison to ROOT in her first form… that woman would not even deserve to be mentioned in ROOT’s presence.
Perhaps this was the interruption of the system, the players seeing through the livefeed was unable to sense this strange feeling. For the audience who was looking in from the outside, she merely had a beauty face. It was not so different from the beauties that graced that front page of those 3d magazines and games.
“But…” ROOT smiled and even her smile caused the moon to hung its face in shame. She continued from earlier. “it is indeed very interesting.”
By then, all the Anomalies from Origin who had followed ROOT to this scenario had all died, there was none that survived. ROOT at her first form was the players’ last enemy. Once they defeated her, everything would return to normal. Those who died would be teleported away in a white light and those who survived would be able to leave normally.
“Do not be tricked by her appearance…” 23 warned Feng Bujue in a severe tone. “Compared to all of her previous form… their combination is not as scary as this current form.”
“Now why would you say something like that? How am I scary?” ROOT asked with a smile. Then, she suddenly appeared before 23. 23’s eyes widened and her face was flushed with shock. An indescribable power had caused her to lose her power of mobility. As she finished, ROOT’s hand had already caressed around 23’s chin. She slowly lifted up her face and looked into her eyes. “Take a closer look. Such a perfect face, how could you even relate it to the term, scary?”
“Ran…” Sharp Gale who was closest quickly used his skill to help. ROOT smiled and raised her other hand and snapped her finger at Sharp Gale’s direction. The next second, Rankyaku was torn apart by an invisible and soundless energy. Before that mysterious energy faded away, it tore off Sharp Gale’s right left without a sound and shattered the building behind him…
“Are you blind, 23?” ROOT continued to tell 23, “You must be blind to mistake me as scary… then you will have no use for your eyeballs anymore since you are not able to use them properly anyway…”