Chapter 99: Ailin's Body

Hm? Why is it Sword Star? Wu Chang was stunned for a moment — hadn't Sword Star just had his inspiration value skyrocket from taking photos of the Earl's Manor, and needed a few days to rest?

How is it that just one day later, he's already gone to the small dock to take photos, and he's even rowed his little boat out so far.

Wait, who is the woman beside him? Although Wu Chang hadn't been in Brifu for long, and hadn't met at least half of the townsfolk on the island, he could be certain that Brifu Island absolutely did not have a tradition of dyeing hair half black and half white.

That woman was a player.

And a player he hadn't seen before.

After a brief thought, he figured it out — the Management Bureau must have noticed the difficulty of the Quiet Little Town, and used some special method to send Sword Star reinforcements.

The instance was already half-done, yet they could still send someone in to save the day on the fly — was it a special item, or the Management Bureau's temporary administrative authority? Whichever it was, being able to break the rules of the Abyss Game to a certain extent meant the Management Bureau was more capable than he'd imagined.

It's just that their eye for picking people wasn't great.

The woman who'd come in to save the day looked even more wretched than Sword Star. At the very least, Sword Star, controlling his flying sword, could still leave some wounds on the giant sea monster — barely qualifying as acupuncture.

But the woman sent to save the day only had energy-type and status-effect skills; she couldn't even draw blood. Facing the giant sea monster divine envoy, the best she could manage was a deep-tissue massage.

Considering they were helping draw out the Inner World, he decided not to watch them embarrass themselves.

He turned his attention back to his True Self. Just as he was about to have Ailin go with him to the small dock, he noticed Ailin staring blankly toward the direction the sea monster had appeared, and said:

"I can feel my body."

"Didn't I already tell you, your body has already turned into charcoal..."

Wu Chang stopped mid-sentence — not because what he was about to say was too hellish and might hurt Ailin's feelings, but because he suddenly remembered that he'd awakened Ailin from the Bishop's Mind Echo.

Ailin's actual corpse, he hadn't seen.

Ailin was a puppet crafted by Professor Ebertt and the Church using every technique and material they had, her body composed entirely of mystical treasures — how could she possibly have been so easily burned into charcoal?

The charcoal was just an artistically embellished scene from the Bishop's Mind Echo. Ailin's real body was very likely "repurposed," put to use in something else.

For example, the sea monster in the Inner World of the small dock, or the giant girl atop the Earl's Manor main house.

Wu Chang asked: "What are you planning to do?"

"I want to take back my body," Ailin said.

"How would you take it back?" Wu Chang pressed. He didn't have Ebertt's craftsmanship, able to pick parts out of a scattered sea monster's body and reassemble a new body for Ailin.

Ailin's body floated up, and the "Blessed Virgin's Blessing" she wore began to shimmer.

"I will contract my consciousness into the pendant. You wear it on my body, and I can reclaim control of my body. I need your help."

"Wait!" Wu Chang reached out to halt Ailin's dissipation, made an exaggerated circle with his hand, and said: "Your body's current state is a bit large — it probably can't wear this necklace."

Ailin: "Then let it swallow it, or stuff it inside its body. Any other questions?"

Wu Chang shrugged. "Nope."

"Then I'll trouble you, Mr. Secos."

Ailin's body transformed into a streak of Bai Guang, merging into the Blessed Virgin's Blessing.

The Golden Sea was right next to the Inner World where the small dock was located. Wu Chang took the necklace, transformed into a giant-whale hulking man, and dove into the sea.

Under the blessing of the ocean, his swimming speed was far faster than traveling on land, and it wasn't long before he reached the boundary between the two Inner Worlds.

Light from the Star Lighthouse shone over, clearing a passage through the regional barrier. He swam along the passage into the small dock.

"Sword Star, haven't we reached the shore yet? I can't hold on any longer!" The Negotiation Master strained to maintain her magic shield, blocking the sea monster's charge again and again.

"I've already given it my all — this stretch of sea is strange, my Sword Heart still hasn't found a weakness!"

Not long before, Sword Star had ignored the danger of inspiration going haywire, gone all-in, and slashed out with a full-powered strike.

That strike did work — it split open the sea monster's eye, and the flying sword shot through the eye into the sea monster's body, smashing its brain.

They'd thought the battle would end there, but before they could find their way out of this stretch of sea, the sea monster that should have been dead came back full of life and gave chase.

Not only was it back at full health, even its damaged eye had regenerated.

After that one strike, Sword Star stopped trying to kill the sea monster and focused entirely on rowing, looking for a chance to escape.

His rowing hands had already become a blur of afterimages, and the wooden boat's speed was on par with an ordinary speedboat. But the small dock was clearly right ahead — no matter what, they just couldn't reach it.

Obviously, this stretch of sea had a special rule that had trapped them in a ghost-wall maze.

Sword Star rowed the boat while using his Sword Heart to sense the rules of the sea.

Sword Heart was the Sword Sect's innate skill, and also its most core skill.

It could not only amplify a player's sword techniques, but also let the player transcend the shackles of mortal flesh, using the sword as a body to observe the world.

Stimulated by the crisis, he quickly spotted the anomaly in the sea. He immediately turned the boat around and charged straight toward a certain reef. Pushing the boat to full speed, the wooden boat skimmed off the water's surface and shot forward.

Mid-flight, he formed a sword seal with his hand, pointed ahead, and shouted: "Open!"

The flying sword pierced the air, slashing once at the sky. Where the sword-light passed, it left a transparent sword-mark in the air.

The wooden boat slammed into the sword-mark — like poking a finger into a layer of plastic wrap, as if a transparent barrier were blocking them, not letting them leave.

If space were intact, the wooden boat would fall back to the sea and be caught by the sea monster.

But now, the "plastic wrap" had been slashed open by the flying sword; poked by a finger again, it only resisted briefly before tearing apart.

The wooden boat smashed through the sea's space and landed heavily on the small dock.

They'd escaped.

Sword Star and the Negotiation Master stepped off the wooden boat, just about to catch their breath and celebrate surviving the ordeal.

But before Sword Star could even finish catching his breath, they saw the sea space behind them being torn open entirely, and the sea monster bursting out of the breach, charging straight toward the shore.

"Shit! This sea monster can come ashore!" The Negotiation Master gulped, her whole body going numb.

Wasn't this supposed to be a vacation instance? Wasn't it supposed to be just one lap around and come back with money? Wasn't it supposed to be a rule-judgment type instance?

This old lady came here to make a quick buck, not to risk her life!

"Sword Star, I'm laying my cards on the table — the outside already knows your Sword Sect realm has had a major breakthrough, and you've dropped the instance's pollution value from 75 to 20. Keep pretending and there's no point!"

She'd originally planned to play along with Sword Star and see how far he could keep up the act. She hadn't expected this kid to really be able to keep his composure — the sea monster was almost at their faces and he could still clutch his broken flying sword and pretend to be weak.

Getting into the role that deep — should go be an actor in the future.

Xiang Jianxing was stunned. "Are you sure you didn't see wrong when you came in?"

The corner of Negotiation Master's mouth twitched slightly — still putting on an act, are we?

"Xu Lao told me personally himself. What do you think?"

Seeing that Negotiation Master was determined not to believe him, Xiang Jianxing had no choice but to flash his badly crippled attribute panel.

"Look, it really wasn't me."

Negotiation Master checked it over and over, especially after seeing Xiang Jianxing's absurdly high 45 points of Inspiration and his remaining 10 points of Will — and finally believed that the reduction of the dungeon's corruption value really wasn't his doing.

Inspiration to Will, 4 to 1 — is this preparing for a closed-door death seclusion? Break through or drop dead on the spot?

With these attributes on her, forget fighting — even at night while sleeping she'd have to play the Great Compassion Mantra in her ears.

This time Negotiation Master panicked. Dragging Xiang Jianxing as she ran, she shouted: "Then who did it? Hurry up and call for help!"

Xiang Jianxing fell silent.

If he knew, wouldn't he have called for help long ago? The inner-world zone of the Small Dock wasn't large, and the two of them soon fled to its end.

The sea monster was perhaps tired of chasing, and glared at Negotiation Master.

Negotiation Master's body jolted, but she immediately returned to normal — only her expression grew even more agitated.

"That damned thing just cast some kind of check on me. Lucky for me my resistance to checks is high. Think of something fast — I can feel its check threshold keeps rising. A few more times and even I won't be able to block it."

Sweat began to bead on Negotiation Master's forehead.

The good news was that Quiet Town really was a check-type dungeon; if some other player had eaten that check skill, their attributes would've dropped by at least thirty percent.

The bad news was that, apart from terrifying checks, the dungeon's BOSS also had an extremely sturdy body.

A dry cough broke the tense atmosphere.

"Excuse me, are you two in some trouble?" Wu Chang, dressed in a black robe, True Self, stepped out from behind a reef beside them.

Xiang Jianxing recognized the black robe on Wu Chang and exclaimed: "You're the player who was on the beach at the very start!"

Of all the players who had entered the dungeon, only the black-robed man before him and another melancholic, artsy guy had he not seen even once since the dungeon began.

Wu Chang didn't pick up the thread, and continued: "Just now, while you two were fleeing in the sea, you dropped something — and I happened to pick it up."

From Xiang Jianxing's reaction, Negotiation Master sensed that the person before them was no ordinary fellow, and asked: "What thing?"

Two necklaces appeared in Wu Chang's hand. He asked: "That, I'll have to ask you. Two brave players — was it this silver necklace you dropped, or this gold necklace?"

He blinked, and took out "The Great Holy Mother's Blessing."

"Or was it this special quest-item necklace — stuff it into the BOSS's mouth and it dies?"

(End of chapter)