Chapter 238: The Great Hammer

According to the system's description, the fifteen discounted items refreshed in the Personal Mall using the VIP Card would persist indefinitely until the player chose to refresh them away.

With over ten thousand game coins in inventory and ample funds, Li Cheng pondered briefly before using the card.

The Personal Mall's item interface flipped like trading cards, refreshing entirely; discount tags appeared before the price of every item, ranging from forty to fifty percent off at best, to twenty to thirty percent off at worst.

Furthermore, the quality of all items was Premium or higher, including two Perfect-grade artifacts.

"This direct discount promotion method is truly simple and crude,"

Li Cheng complained: "If an internet company ran this, they'd definitely make you deal with price hikes followed by cuts, require claiming every follow coupon, member coupon, and registration coupon before getting a discount, or force you to post on social media and get a hundred friends to slash the price before you can order."

With such massive discounts, the prices were even lower than the Auction House or the slum black markets; reselling them would instantly yield a profit.

"Let's see what we have here."

Li Cheng carefully browsed the item list; the first was a Premium-quality 【Electric Holy Water Sprinkler】, identical in appearance to a ten-yuan electric watering can,

capable of converting poured pure water into blessed holy water, extremely effective against dark monsters like vampires, werewolves, and evil spirits, with the usage condition being a strong religious belief.

【Blackbeard's Blade】, a pair of pirate cutlasses featuring inherent black magic effects, able to manipulate zombies and venomous snakes; if the user was aboard a seafaring vessel, they could also control rigging and anchor chains.

【Hermit's Blindfold】, a ragged cloth that, when worn, greatly enhanced hearing, smell, and taste, allowing one to perceive the surroundings through hearing like Daredevil, at the cost of permanently losing vision with no possibility of compensation by other means.

As expected of a VIP Card with an extremely low drop rate, the refreshed artifacts were all relatively useful, lacking those pieces of equipment that looked meaningless at a glance and made one's testicles tighten in frustration.

Of course, the main event remained the two Perfect-grade artifacts.

【Item Name: Skull-Crushing Power Hammer】

【Type: Weapon】

【Quality: Perfect】

【Effect 1: Stubborn Iron. Extremely sturdy; self-repairs after taking damage】

【Effect 2: Skull Crusher. After swinging forcefully and hitting a target, the Power Hammer releases a shockwave with power equivalent to that strike】

【Consumption: None】

【Effect 2 Cooldown: 5 seconds】

【Usage Conditions: None】

【Note: The dwarf city-state of Stoneheart, isolated amidst towering mountains, was surrounded by hundreds of thousands of orc troops; its three thousand defenders held out for twenty-two years until annihilated. Yet the orc warlords who occupied the city constantly received rumors of hauntings in the underground mines—a dwarf clad in a black cloak, wielding a giant hammer, wandering the mines to crush the skulls of the orcs occupying his homeland】

【Note: My blood is fire, burning across the plains unextinguished. My heart is iron, tempered by a thousand hammers. My body is an anvil, standing firm and unyielding】

The original price of this equipment was 12,000 game coins; discounted by fifty percent to just 6,000, there was no reason not to buy it.

Li Cheng decisively placed the order, purchasing the Power Hammer; the moment he retrieved it from his inventory slot, his hand suddenly sank, nearly dropping it on the ground. "Damn, so heavy?"

The entire long-handled two-handed hammer stood about one and a half meters tall, made of an unknown alloy; its black hammer body was covered in rough, bark-like textures for easy gripping,

while the surface of the silver square hammerhead was engraved with numerous flame patterns, along with mottled scratches left by prolonged combat.

Li Cheng's current Strength attribute was a full 10 points, far exceeding mortal limits, and he was accustomed to wielding a rusted cleaver as thick as a door panel, yet this 【Skull-Crushing Power Hammer】 weighed as much as an entire sedan.

"No wonder no usage conditions were listed; the weight itself is the condition. Anyone with less than ten points of Strength couldn't even lift it; at least fifteen points of Strength would be needed to use it normally."

Li Cheng thought for a moment, went to the study to call out Grey Rain, who was scrolling on her phone, and together they entered the three-dimensional warehouse; he tossed the hammer to Grey Rain. "Give it a try, see if you can swing it."

"Oh."

Grey Rain lifted the long-handled hammer to test it; realizing its substantial weight, she raised an eyebrow and slightly thickened her arm by a circle.

Human strength is limited by the distribution of bones and muscles, meaning force transmission naturally suffers loss, whereas liquid metal forms a single whole with far less loss.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Grey Rain spun the long-handled hammer like an electric fan, a look of pride on her face. "Ah-Cheng, how's my strength? Watch my Chaotic Cape Hammer Technique—ouch—"

Before she could finish speaking, she lost her grip; the hammer flew off, precisely smashing into her skull with a splat, crushing her head.

The headless corpse stood swaying in place, fell to the ground a few seconds later, struggled to crawl a short distance, then shakily extended an arm to hand her phone to Li Cheng.

On the phone screen was a Taobao shopping cart, containing items including but not limited to an 8K monitor, a graphics card, a flagship VR headset, HiFi headphones, figurine models, and electronic cigarettes.

The meaning was obvious: she wanted Li Cheng to fulfill her last wish before death.

"Maliciously acting cute, huh?" Li Cheng rolled his eyes, decisively pushed the phone aside, and inspected the Skull-Crushing Power Hammer lying on the ground.

"Tch."

Grey Rain's head popped back out from her chest cavity, while the pools of liquid metal scattered on the ground wriggled and merged back together. "Actually didn't fall for it."

"Let's test it in actual combat."

Li Cheng picked a stack of solid steel plates from the shelf and had Grey Rain strike them one by one.

The test results were terrifying: two hundred millimeters of solid homogeneous steel shattered in a single blow; three hundred and four hundred millimeters were easily penetrated; only when using nine hundred millimeters of composite armor did it barely withstand the strike.

"The sheer weight of the Skull-Crushing Power Hammer alone couldn't achieve something so exaggerated; the real key lies in the 【Skull Crusher】 effect."

Effect 2, Skull Crusher, releases a shockwave with power equivalent to the strike upon hitting the target.

The shockwave does not explode directly on the object's surface but conducts and penetrates into the object's interior, creating an internal detonation effect that greatly enhances destructive power against sturdy objects.

"This differs from the APFSDS (Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot) rounds used by tanks, and also from HEAT (High-Explosive Anti-Tank) shaped charge rounds."

APFSDS is essentially a steel rod with fins, while HEAT relies on a shaped charge explosion to generate ultra-high pressure, forming a metal jet to penetrate armor.

Both types of shells are more than sufficient against tanks, but perform poorly against reinforced concrete."

The strength of the Skull-Crushing Power Hammer lies in possessing armor-piercing capabilities while also having siege-breaking power.

The shockwave can penetrate reinforced concrete, shaking apart the internal structure, making demolishing buildings as easy as smashing a cake.

As for the recoil force from the hammer handle cracking the palms at the Hukou, this posed no problem since Grey Rain herself was a liquid metal robot.

"Why does it feel like this is basically a custom-exclusive weapon the system made for Grey Rain, when I'm the one who actually got the VIP Card?"

Li Cheng muttered to himself as he looked at the second Perfect-grade artifact, and then, his expression collapsed.

"Are you kidding me?!"

The second Perfect-grade artifact was named 【Sigh of Athel Loren】, an exquisite suit of armor defense; its effect was to form an invisible protective shield covering the entire body surface, greatly reducing incoming damage until the shield overloaded.

At first glance it seemed serious, yet inexplicably, its appearance was that of the extremely revealing female armor worn only by blonde, pointy-eared elf female knights in Japanese anime works.

The thighs, chest, and waist were exposed in large patches, with armor plates only covering the necessary parts, and the plates were connected only by a few thin cords.

It was hard to say whether it was armor or a fetish outfit, instantly calling to mind the kind of fanservice CG that cheap online games had stolen from somewhere.

"The greasy senior sister is somewhere, right? What ancient cliché."

Li Cheng only felt a faint ache in his skull and rubbed his temple.

What was even more maddening was that this 【Isoloran's Lament】 specifically noted that the user was not restricted by gender, but no matter who it was, after putting it on, they had to wear only this one outer garment and could not layer any concealing clothing over it, otherwise the protective shield would not take effect.

【Note: The bigger the armor, the bigger the gaps at the connecting parts. The bigger the gaps, the smaller the armor. Therefore, the bigger the armor, the smaller the armor.】

Although Li Cheng usually had no sense of propriety, he wasn't so lacking in propriety as to wear a fetish outfit,

so he decisively bought this prop and immediately listed it on the auction house.

No matter how you looked at it, it was still a perfect-quality piece of armor, so someone would definitely buy it for personal use... right?

(End of chapter)