Chapter 527: Island of Devil’s Maw (33)
The lighting function of the compound anti-gravity gun was undeniably better than a normal flashlight. Not only the light was stronger and thus could travel further, it ran on an unlimited source of energy. Therefore, with Feng Bujue leading the pack, at least it could be guaranteed that he would be able to see further than any other member of his group. Furthermore, Brother Jue was devoid of the sense of fear. When facing sudden and startling changes, he would not hesitate or halt due to the instant fear. Also the most crucial point was… The Soul’s Eye that was possessed by Feng Bujue—zero-time simulation. With the support of this ability, no matter the situation that he ran into, he would be able to come up with the most correct respective solution. In conclusion, just like what Brother Jue thought in the previous chapter, after you have factored in all the elements, he was indeed the most suitable teammate to take the lead.
With regards to the additional mental pressure… it did not matter to the man, because his brain would not have any break time anyway. He was constantly thinking and ruminating over stuff that might not even be related to the things that he was doing…
Without even realizing it, they had walked for almost half an hour. Suddenly Ambitionist who was walking at the back of the group said, “The walls appear to have changed.”
“Yes, I have noticed that as well.” Uncle Worthless concurred. “Even though in terms of color, it has no difference to the walls that we have been passing by but… the stone wall on this stretch of the road appears to have the ability to absorb light.”
“Eh? Is that true?” Pegasus asked as he used his flashlight to shine at the wall next to him. “In any case, I do not notice something like that…”
“That is because my sleuthing mastery is higher.” Ambitionist explained as he pushed on his glasses. “So my eyes are more sensitive to these changes in the light.” Uncle Worthless though pointed at the sunglasses on his face in terms of explanation. “My sunglasses is a unique item so it too can pick up these differences.”
“So… what does this change represent?” Atobe could not help but ask.
“Ha ha… do you even need to ask?” Feng Bujue who was at the front of the group answered without even turning his head around. “Something is about to happen soon.”
“That’s right, this is probably the system using a more subtle way to inform us that there probably will be danger in front of us.” Ambitionist agreed.
“Do not worry, I am more reliable than the system.” Feng Bujue added in an easy tone. “When the danger arrives, just listen to my command and order.”
…
“Well, just keep on bluffing…” Atobe mocked as he narrowed his eyes.
“No… Brother Feng is definitely not bluffing, he is indeed very impressive…” Uncle Worthless corrected with a serious tone. “In this tunnel, the pressure that is under the leader is much higher than the rest of us who follows behind him.” When his spoke, his eyes that were under the pair of sunglasses turned meaningfully to look at Brother Jue’s back. “All I can say is that if it was me, I probably would not have the ease of mind… to still chat with the rest of you if I am in his position.”
“Ah ha! Look, there is still someone who knows what he is saying.” Feng Bujue chuckled and added, “Brother Worthless, such brilliance.”
“Qie… I am not under much pressure either, what is so impressive about that. La la la la~” Atobe was still not satisfied. He purposely worked himself up just to deliver a few more jabs at Brother Jue.
“Yo~ It feels like you still quite spirited, aren’t you?” Feng Bujue’s lips curled up into a cold smirk and he scoffed. “Fine~ if you are that free, to raise our low morale, how about we come and sing a song…”
“You are going to sing some horrible song that you made up on the spot again, aren’t you?” Ambitionist face-palmed himself and groaned. Reality proved that he was right.
“Brother Jue~ Brother Jue~ You are too precious! Beauty player can’t win you and you get no love in return~” Feng Bujue used the lowest register that he could muster to sing, “Wherever you go, there is danger waiting for you, wherever there is danger, there you will be. Warrior of thousand years experience leading the way, punishing justice and delivering evil with a heart of the devil~”
“My lord, do you even know the word shame!” Atobe roared as he clamped both of his ears with his palms. The other three members also glanced at his with condescension. The voices of complaint rose endlessly and they were all directed at Brother Jue. Instantly, the tunnel was as noisy as the wet market. Such was a person whom Brother Jue was. When his teammates’ affection and confidence was accumulated to a certain level, he would easily lower them to a new low and overrule all of your good expectation and wish of him…
Whether this person was reliable or not, it was always an impossible thing to tell…
“Hah… this tunnel even comes with its own echo system, that is not bad.” After Feng Bujue finished his tune, he said with a chuckle, “It is like we’re at a bathhouse.”
“If you did what you just did at a bathhouse…” Uncle Worthless warned, “At the very least, you would be given a damn good beating…”
“Yes, if I was there, I would definitely grab you and press your head into the water and have you drowned in it…” Pegasus added.
Feng Bujue chortled with joy. “Oh, I do not deserve such a praise… I know what you all are thinking but I am really not a professional singer.”
“Who the beep is praising you!” Atobe shouted, “Can you not understand English?”
Just as this bunch of people were busy ridiculing each other, suddenly…
Puf ke… puf ke puf ke puf ke puf ke… A strange noise started to erupt. It sounded like someone playing the xylophone but the sound was not that crisp. The sound drifted further in from the distance and it came from the top of the tunnel. Hearing that, Feng Bujue turned serious immediately and raised his flashlight to aim above him. Several seconds later, a few black shadows entered his line of sight.
“Butterflies?” This was Brother Jue’s first reaction. A few more seconds later, more and more shadowy butterflies appeared…
As the distance between them drew closer, their appearance became clearer. Upon closer inspection… The wings of each ‘butterfly’ were shaped like a ‘blade of leaf’, each of them was glinting with the chill of cold steel; the body of the butterfly itself was as thick as the finger of a human being, and it was completely dark green in color; at the top of the butterfly’s head, there was a pair of antennae that was shaped like a pincers. If there were only one or two of such insect flying towards them, the players would not have cared about them, with a few slaps, they would be dead, but the problem was, it was a great wave of butterflies that were fluttering down at them from the top of the tunnel…
“Turn back and run!” Feng Bujue only contemplated the situation for a second before he shouted out this succinct instruction. The teammates behind him did not dawdle. Once they heard the order, they turned and ran….
“How fast should we run?” At this point, it had turned into Ambitionist who was leading the group so naturally he needed to know what kind of speed he should maintain as the best in this situation.
“Don’t need to run too fast but don’t be too slow either.” Feng Bujue said as he took out Miss Moxxi’s Bad Temper from his inventory and turned back and unloaded the bullets on the waves of butterflies.
“Well, thanks for nothing…” Ambitionist groused but his legs never stopped moving. “You might as well say, ‘follow your feeling’!”
“Stop distracting me! Can’t you see that I am busy with my hit and run tactic (A tactic that was famously popularized in the game Starcraft. Basically it is a skill where you control a long distance attack unit so perfectly well that you could escape from the incoming threat while firing back at them. In the later MOBA game like Dota and LoL, it became better known as ‘kiting’)?” Feng Bujue shouted loudly. Just this quick exchange of sentences and Brother Jue had already finished a full round of magazine.
“Hey, Pegasus!” While Feng Bujue reloaded, he used the opportunity to ask Pegasus who was running before him, “I have something to ask you.”
“What is it?” Pegasus turned his head back to answer while he kept running.
“Is it possible that you can unleash Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken inside this tunnel without accidentally harming the stone wall?” Feng Bujue uttered the question.
“Ha! That shall be as easy as pie.” Pegasus confirmed confidently. Actually Brother Jue also knew that the man was probably capable of something like that but under that circumstance, just in case, he’d figured it was better to ask beforehand.
“Perfect, then we will switch places, you will cover our retreat.” Feng Bujue said as he slowly caught up to Pegasus. He used his elbow to knock on Pegasus lightly as leaned his body against the wall to allow Pegasus the space to pass.
“This is just my plan!” Pegasus twisted his body around to face the wave of butterflies. He announced with heroic spirit. “How could a hero even turn his back and run away from a danger?!” In just a split second, he had assumed his pose and aimed at the wave of butterflies… and unleashed his skill!
“Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken!” As someone who would feel so uncomfortable without yelling out loud the name of his skill, you knew he was going to shout out the skill’s name whenever he got the chance.
Bang bang bang… the sound of collision rang one after another and then it was swiftly followed by the cling clanging of the sound of metallic objects falling to the ground.
“very good, just hold them off like that!” Seeing the effectiveness of Pegasus’ attack, Feng Bujue shouted loudly, “Ambitionist, you guys can stop running. Pegasus has done held all of them back.” When the three at the front heard that, they all stopped moving and turned back to look.
“What are those things anyway?” Atobe asked. “I never even got a chance to take a good look at them.”
“It is some kind of monster that is similar to a butterfly. There were more than several thousands of them.” Feng Bujue used a very fast speed to relay all the information that he had observed. “They flew slightly faster than normal butterflies and their method of attack is currently unknown…” He paused before continuing, “Their wings are almost as tough as steel and they manage to survive multiple shoots of bullet. I have finished a whole magazine of bullets but the number of butterflies that I have managed to kill is in the single digit… that was why I decided to have a second person to give it a try.”
“Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken appears to be very effective against them…” Uncle Worthless looked over Feng Bujue’s shoulder to glance at Pegasus. “And the man really had such control over his skill that not one stray punch landed on the stone wall…”
“Yes… I do not think I will be able to do the thing that he did with Rankyaku.” Feng Bujue followed Uncle Worthless’ gaze and continued, “Even though we do not know whether this tunnel is counted as part of the shrine or not but it is best to avoid attacking the wall directly if it is possible. If we trigger some kind counter trap in this kind of situation, we will be in serious danger…”
“Be careful! A small part of them have leaked through my attacks!” Pegasus suddenly turned back to shout and that caused his teammates who had just relaxed to have their hearts pulled up to their stomachs again.
“I have already expected this.” Ambitionist said calmly as he took one step forward. He pulled on his long bow and the light arrow gathered at the tip of his finger. “Watch closely… I will show you what is called consecutive high accuracy attacks.” His plan was to use super high speed light arrows to shoot down every single strange butterfly that manage to sneak through Pegasus’ attacks. This tactic was extremely dangerous and risky, because if one of the arrows missed or brushed past the target, the light arrow would definitely hit the stone wall. But from Ambitionist’s expression, he was bursting with confidence, there was no trace of hesitation in his eyes as all.
“There is no need to make things so complicated, is there?” To everyone’s surprise, Atobe-sama…. Suddenly walked to stand before the rest of the group. Facing such a threatening danger, he was as calm as ever and he took out his weapon again…
Name: Peacock Fan
Item Type: Weapon
Quality: Perfect
Offense Point: Slightly Strong
Element: None
Special Effect: Comes with the skill ‘Fan Gales’, cooldown time is 10 minutes
Equip Requirement: Fighting Mastery A
Remark: After activating ‘Fan Gales’, Peacock Fan will get double attack buff in the next 10 seconds. During this period, waving the fan itself can unleash gales of strong winds and cause area of effect damage.
“If I knew it was just a bunch of butterflies, you guys should just leave it to me.” Atobe said as he walked to about 2 steps behind Pegasus and told the later. “Brother Pegasus, mind stepping to the side, let me!” In this team, only Feng Bujue knew the extent of Atobe’s real power, while the rest of them thought this young man was also one of the experts. After all, they all believed that… as the leader of Hyotei, Atobe’s fighting ability should at least be higher than any of the member of the trio Qu Ming Nan. So… Pegasus stepped to the side without any hesitation.
The person who was most worried at that moment was Feng Bujue, he was really concerned that Atobe might screw this up, but to his relief and surprise… things went surprisingly well. Atobe held the giant fan before him, holding the hilt of the fan by both of his hands. Then he started to spin it clockwise like he was playing with a baton. Layers of strong gales whipped in front of the fan, it slowly inched forward like an invisible drill, successfully grinded all the strange butterflies that stood in the way into dust. In just 5 to 6 seconds, Atobe had managed to clean up all the butterflies. After he was done, he even had the ease to put the fan down handsomely, placed it inside his inventory and turned back to say proudly, “see, it’s not that complicated.”
“Well, I am impressed…” Feng Bujue put away the rifle and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “As the saying goes, a scholar who has been away three days must be looked at with new eyes. You have improved a lot since the last time we met.”
“Naturally~” Atobe answered. “Do you think we are still at Chang Lin Town? The current equipment that I own has been upgraded several times already.”
“Okay then, if we run into similar problem in the future, we will hand it over to you to solve directly.” Feng Bujue said as he returned to the front of the group. “Come on, let us continue.” The five collected themselves, returned to their original team arrangement and resumed their journey. After walking for another 6 to 8 minutes, Feng Bujue finally saw… a bright purple light that came from a place that was quite far away.
“Phew… that ahead of us is probably the exit.” Brother Jue announced while gasping for air. By then the slope of the tunnel had reached about 45 degree so it was taking a great toll on the climbers. “In terms of time… we should have reached the destination anyway.” He was naturally not saying that out of thin air. There was basis behind his statement. In the previous half an hour, Feng Bujue had used another instance of Yakyuken. Therefore, from the cooldown timer of his skill, he could gauge pretty accurately how much time was left in the quest timer.
“Hmm… we probably have around 5 minutes later.” Ambitionist added. It appeared like he too was silently making note of the time. “By the way… did you guys notice that in the most recent two quests, the quest detail did not mention the specific warning that ‘if you do not accomplish the quest within the set time, you will be eliminated’ anymore.” He paused to take a breather. “Has the system omitted it?”
“Hah… of course the system would not have done something like that…” Feng Bujue chuckled. “The answer is simple. That is because there will not be any more elimination.”
“What?” The group was startled when they heard his pronouncement.
“Just think about it yourselves… The quest ‘within the next 15 minute, use the altar inside the shrine of faith to summon and defeat Walker, the god of travel’…” Feng Bujue continued, “One will only fail this quest under two conditions. The first one was, ‘You fail to summon Walker in the 15 minutes time limit’; and the second one is ‘you fail to defeat Walker’.” He licked his lips. “I do not think I need to give further elaboration for the second scenario, since Walker have already killed all of us, then why would the system still have the need to eliminate us? And for the former scenario… I predict it will probably trigger some kind of insta-death plot line.”
“you mean… if after 15 minutes, and we still had not completed the summoning of Walker, then some kind of change might happen inside the shrine?” Uncle Worthless asked as he followed Brother Jue’s train of thought.
“Correct, for example…some kind of super defensive mechanism inside the altar will be activated and all of the players will be killed or something like that.” Feng Bujue answered. “To put it simply… if we fail that mission, what awaits us is most likely some kind of tragedy that will easily wipe all of us out, so there is no need for the system to intervene to eliminate us anymore.”
At this point, Ambitionist added with plain reflection on his face. “Then… Does the same theory apply to this current quest that we’re doing, ‘Travel through the tunnel behind the shrine and arrive at the Crystalline Maze within an hour’?”
“Correct.” Feng Bujue confirmed. “Perhaps once the time limit has been reached, this tunnel itself will collapse and bury us alive or it might explode… the system will not need to do anything.”
“You seem to have a point there.” Ambitionist nodded. “This is a rule that is worth observing… In the future, we only need to see whether the quest detail has the term ‘eliminate’ and we can hypothesize from there, the way that we might die should we ‘fail to complete the quest’.”
“Actually, I personally think it does not have much meaning to fall attention to those things anymore.” Feng Bujue shrugged and said, “I believe… in the succeeding missions, the term ‘eliminate’ will probably not show up anymore.”
“And why is that?” Uncle Worthless asked.
“That is because the further we advance into the plot, the more dangerous our situation will be.” Feng Bujue uttered plainly in a darkened tone. “Based on my prediction… for the succeeding quests, they will not only take away the threat of being eliminated, even the time limit will be removed as well…”
“Hmm… are we finally entering…” Pegasus finished the thought for him. “…the phase where every step of the journey will be accompanied by the threat of death?”
While the group conversed among themselves, they had reached the end of the tunnel. Before they even stepped out from the tunnel, Feng Bujue caught a glimpse of the strange and magical scenery made up by the crystals outside of the tunnel. When he was still 10 meters away from the exit, he already put the compound anti gravity gun away, because there was more than enough source of light outside of the tunnel. After trekking through the last few steps, the five finally finished walking through this tunnel that appeared to be endless and arrived at a brand new section of the map.
Their eyes wandered… and as far as they could see, endless crystal columns stood majestically like mountain ranges, creating a giant crystal maze. A kind of bright purple light emitted from the crystal itself, lighting up the surrounding. The strange refraction of light and the twisting maze instantly gave people a sense of misdirection and dizziness. And the strangest focal point of this place was undeniably the sky… the sky here was not shrouded by a purple mist but the moon could not be seen either. Against common logic, once the players lifted their heads, the thing that they could see was a piece of land.
The piece of land looked like it was far above in the sky but at the same time, it felt like it was close enough for the players to touch it. And when they paid it a closer attention… they felt like they had been to that place before.
When the system announcement of ‘current main quest completed’ had arrived as expected, the weight on the players’ shoulders had been promptly removed.
“Ha ha… hah hah… Ha ha… How much of your Stamina Points still remain?” Atobe was the one who was the hungriest for air among the group. Once he stepped onto firm ground that flattened out, his knees gave out and he sat down to the ground.
“Not much is left…” Feng Bujue replied. “But it should be slightly better than yours…”
“Before the new quest appears, I think we better take this time to catch up and rest.” Even Ambitionist had decided to plump himself down on the ground. He licked his dry lips and said, “Even though we have had some thing to eat before this, we have not ingested any water since the start of the scenario. The influence of thirst will naturally increase the loss of Stamina Points when we are inside this scenario…”
“He he… This is such a rare occasion. I have so many guests among my midst?” Suddenly a woman’s voice rang out. Needless to say, she was naturally not one of the players. “The last human being who successfully arrived at ‘Reverse Isle’ was a very exceptional explorer so I could not help but wonder… who do we have here this time?”