Chapter 131: The Abnormal Black and White Qi

When Wu Chang first entered the Abyss Game, he purchased ten paid articles on the forum.

One of them once mentioned that clearing a dungeon is not merely about fighting and killing, nor is it a mechanical comparison of stats; having levels and attributes high enough to a certain degree does not guarantee completing a dungeon of corresponding difficulty.

To achieve higher dungeon completion, you must treat the dungeon as a real world, not some simple beast arena.

Players need to simulate the thoughts of the dungeon plane's natives, communicate with them more, and fully utilize their roles to better uncover the plot and explore the dungeon world.

Wu Chang deeply agreed with this theory, so he had always enjoyed communicating with the natives of the dungeon planes.

Especially those dungeon natives mentioned in hidden side quests, such as Professor Ebert from Silent Town, and the current gravekeeper, Han Er.

From them, Wu Chang could learn many little-known dungeon secrets, bringing great help to clearing the dungeons.

These dungeon natives were just like that; if you didn't communicate with them, they would pretend to be full of secrets and watch the show from the sidelines, but if you mobilized their enthusiasm, they could always bring you some different surprises.

The method to mobilize their enthusiasm was simple: just let them face danger just like the players.

For example, Han Er before him looked depleted in both qi and blood, staggering even when walking, but if a frenzied tree monster were placed behind him, he would dodge faster and more smoothly than a cannonball.

"Brother Xiao En, come out quickly, I really can't hold on!"

"I can't catch my breath, Brother Xiao En, help me quickly!"

"Help!"

Han Er cried out miserably, but after he had led the tree monster on a chase for five minutes, the monster had exhausted all its moves without managing to touch Han Er once.

In this pursuit and flight, neither Han Er nor the tree monster noticed that the sky was beginning to darken.

Heavy dark clouds gradually obscured the sky over Graveyard No. 44.

Through Han Er's probing during this period, combined with the resentment of the cannonball within the tree monster, Wu Chang had already figured out all of the tree monster's attack patterns; now it was time to close the net.

Perhaps because the red moonlight was blocked by the dark clouds, the tree monster's movements gradually slowed down, and the distance between it and Han Er widened.

It sensed something dangerous accumulating above its head, yet it could not look up to observe, just as it could not see the moonlight above.

The next moment, Wu Chang formed hand seals in the corner and chanted, "Summon a Thousand Thunders!"

"Skill Name: Summon a Thousand Thunders"

"Skill Description: Accumulate thunder clouds, borrowing the majesty of heaven and earth to continuously strike the target with heavenly thunder; each bolt of heavenly thunder consumes a large amount of the user's energy, and when energy is exhausted, it switches to consuming willpower; the damage of the heavenly thunder is influenced by the user's energy and inspiration. Heavenly thunder deals double damage to yin-evil and cursed targets, with the damage of each bolt increasing by fifty percent."

"Note: Legend has it that completing the fragmented thunder technique allows one to command a thousand thunders to fall simultaneously."

Summon a Thousand Thunders was the ultimate move unlocked after upgrading the Fragmented Thunder Technique to C-rank; Wu Chang had raised the Fragmented Thunder Technique to C-rank but had never had the chance to use it until now.

With a boom, lightning fell from the sky, a blinding white that swept away the red light enveloping the great graveyard.

The heavenly thunder struck straight down on the tree monster's head; the speed of its descent was so fast that the tree monster had no time to react, and its crown instantly turned to ash, turning the bald head that had finally achieved some success in "hair transplantation" back into a bald head again.

The tree monster let out a wail, and the many faces on its trunk turned their gaze toward Wu Chang not far away.

This single bolt did not cause much damage to it; at least compared to previously swallowing a whole string of grenades and having half its body blown apart, the damage was not significant.

But the energy attached to the heavenly thunder caused it to feel a burning pain originating from its soul; this intense pain made it fearful, and it also made it go mad.

The lower half of the tree monster, composed of human hands and feet, became congested to a black-purple color; just as it was about to use the catapult start it had employed against the cannonball, Wu Chang, having already figured out the wind-up for the tree monster's catapult start, showed no intention of dodging and formed hand seals with his hands again, causing the second bolt of heavenly thunder to fall instantly.

The second bolt of heavenly thunder was far more fierce than the first, turning the upper half of the tree monster's body into charcoal; blue-white lightning traveled along the bark-like grooves on the tree monster's surface, producing a series of explosions and sparks.

Heavenly thunder was the nemesis of yin-evil and cursed things; the intense pain scattered the power gathered in the tree monster's lower body, causing it to scream and collapse to the ground.

Lying on the ground, the tree monster looked up at the sky; there was no blood moon it had been searching for, only dark clouds obscuring the sky and the dazzling, blinding third bolt of heavenly thunder.

The third bolt of heavenly thunder, with power greater than the sum of the first two, blasted straight through the tree monster's body, turning it completely into charcoal.

Looking at the tree monster which had temporarily stopped moving, Wu Chang let out a long breath and dispersed the dark clouds above his head.

If the tree monster hadn't fallen soon, he would have collapsed first.

Summon a Thousand Thunders was a cultivation technique skill; compared to ordinary skills, the performance of cultivation technique skills relied more on the user's attributes, having a lower floor but a higher ceiling. A higher ceiling meant greater consumption; even though Wu Chang had obtained the Game-Breaker Master bonus and possessed as high as 45 points of energy, he could not withstand such consumption.

The energy consumed by each bolt of heavenly thunder would double; the first bolt had used up twenty percent of his energy, and the second bolt had used up forty percent.

By the time he summoned the third bolt of heavenly thunder, it not only emptied the energy within his body but also inflicted upon him a "Lightning Conductor" effect.

"Status: Lightning Conductor"

"Status Effect: You overdraw your own energy and willpower, using yourself as a conduit to summon heavenly thunder; while in the Lightning Conductor state, your maximum willpower is reduced by 9 points. Duration: 24 hours."

Calculating this way, if he forcibly summoned a fourth bolt of heavenly thunder, the Lightning Conductor state would deduct another 36 points from his temporary willpower cap; at that point, even with his willpower attribute, he would have to worry about an inspiration backlash.

However, the powerful consumption brought equally powerful effects.

Without borrowing any power from nature, three bolts of heavenly thunder had completely carbonized the tree demon, an effect far superior to that string of grenades from the cannonball.

Looking at it now, it was no wonder he couldn't withstand Seeing Chiyuan's Summon a Thousand Thunders back then; even if an elite monster from a B-rank dungeon on the verge of losing control faced it, it wouldn't be able to withstand it either.

Wu Chang dug at his ears, which felt stuffy from the thunderous noise, and walked toward the tree monster.

Turning the tree monster into charcoal was not the end; under the blood moon, if left unattended, it would recover after a while.

!

He took out the Soul-Cleansing Banner from his personal space; to make the tree monster completely quiet, he had to perform some follow-up processing.

Activating the Soul-Cleansing Banner, he entered the spirit-wandering perspective, and the world in his eyes turned black and white.

The living were white, the dead were black.

When he had used the Soul-Cleansing Banner on Liu Ning in the Peace Year After Year dungeon, Liu Ning had appeared as a mixed gray of black and white because his soul had been led away by a chang ghost.

But right now, inside the tree monster's body, he saw not only the three colors of black, white, and gray, but also a red color binding the three together.

This red color manipulated the tree monster's qi of life and death, forcibly keeping it in a bizarre state between life and death.

As long as this trace of red did not disappear, the tree monster would remain in a muddled state where it could neither be saved nor killed, its soul unable to sleep yet unable to wake.

If one had to put it into words, this state would place the tree monster in a state of immortality, but in Wu Chang's view, this form of immortality was absolutely a punishment, not a reward.

The red color manipulating the qi of life and death was extremely stubborn; even heavenly thunder could not remove it, but since all things generate and overcome each other, the Soul-Cleansing Banner was its natural nemesis.

Since Wu Chang's energy had been exhausted while using Summon a Thousand Thunders, in order to drive the Soul-Cleansing Banner, he had to use the method Seeing Chiyuan had once taught him.

Stepping in the Gang Bu pattern, chanting incantations, and waving the banner three times, he pointed it at the tree monster's slowly recovering body.

A stream of pure white qi surged out from the banner; with a gentle swipe, it scrubbed the red color manipulating the tree monster's qi of life and death completely clean.

The tree monster's struggling body suddenly went still, its grotesque form made of countless corpses slowly collapsing, the scattered corpses sinking into the earth the moment they hit the ground.

A moment later, where the corpses had vanished, large clusters of tender sprouts brimming with vitality sprouted forth.

The green sprouts stood out strikingly under the blood-colored moonlight.

Without the strange red control, the three energies of black, white, and grey within the tree monster's body were no longer restrained, slowly rising as the tree monster's body broke apart; before they could fly into the sky, they were swallowed whole by Wu Chang's True Self, who had been waiting nearby.

The innate skill Whale Devour activated.

The tree monster was an elite among B-rank near-loss-of-control instances, and on the stronger end of elites at that, its strength surpassing that of Doctor Charles in the Moonlight Sanatorium.

Devouring the tree monster directly raised True Self's Strength stat by 15 points, and increased height by one and a half meters under the Giant Whale transformation.

Equivalent to devouring 15 mermaids at once, but only deducting 0.5 from the Will cap.

True Self smacked its lips, still unsatisfied — what a tonic!

The moment the tree monster was thoroughly dealt with, the blood-colored dying words left by the cannon — 【Grind it to dust for me!】 — likewise dissipated.

It was time for Wu Chang's favorite part: opening treasure chests.

He wondered what good stuff the cannon could drop for him.

(End of chapter)