Chapter 26: Subduing the Bat King; A Debt Settled in Death (With gratitude to Moore for the Silver Sponsorship)
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Dachun tossed in a stone, and the clinking impact stirred up a chorus of echoes.
The next moment, the red orb representing the bat moved. A burst of red light exploded before Dachun’s eyes.
Warning! You have provoked the Demonized Bat King...
And, of course, the game did not freeze.
Dachun’s scalp prickled. “It’s coming!”
“I’ll handle it!” Eileen shouted.
Dachun’s body was taken over once again. Spinning on one leg like a ballerina, he began whirling the stone around like a discus thrower!
But Dachun’s screen was like a rolling flight simulator during pilot training. Forget aiming the stone—he could barely even make out where the bat’s glowing orb was!
He had to admit it: this was an operational hurdle he could never overcome. If he couldn’t manage it now, he probably couldn’t have managed it when he was young, either. Perhaps this was the unbridgeable gap in control between ordinary players and super players. Fortunately, he had Eileen’s AI to make up for his shortcomings!
Suddenly, the bat’s glowing orb on the large screen expanded in an instant, until the entire screen was filled with the red light representing the bat.
What the...?
At the same time, the stone in Dachun’s hand flew out. The skill name “Radar Alert” suddenly appeared above the orb’s head. With a smack, the stone struck it squarely in the head, knocking it backward!
-87!
System Notification: Congratulations! Your exceptionally precise throw struck a powerful flying target, allowing you to successfully comprehend Beginner Throwing, Level 1! Achievement rewards acquired: Carrying Capacity +1, Stamina +1, Accuracy +1%. Throwing damage is related to attack power, as well as the weight and hardness of the thrown object. Throwing distance is related to carrying capacity.
Holy crap!!!
Wasn’t this exactly like the sudden enlargement that had occurred when he disarmed the hoe?
Once the entire screen was filled with the glowing orb, what need was there for aiming? And what was this nonsense about an “exceptionally precise” throw?
The only difference was that enlarging the hoe had required Grandmaster-Level Mining Pick Proficiency, while enlarging the orb required Eileen’s assistance!
The bat tried to emerge from the cave again, but the glowing orb exposed its movement ahead of time once more. Another stone went flying.
Another line of “Radar Alert” appeared above the bat, and it was knocked backward yet again!
Dachun’s Throwing skill rose by two levels in succession, but that was not the important part. The important part was that this Radar Alert was extremely strange. It was not as “fragile as a bubble” as he had imagined. No matter how often he hit it in the head, he could never strike its belly. He had seriously underestimated it.
When all five stones had been thrown—
System Notification: Congratulations! You have successfully comprehended Beginner Throwing, Level 10...
He was stuck at the intermediate level!
The quality of this bat-bashing was far inferior to whale fishing!
Eileen gave a cold snort. “It alerted itself to every single one. Your luck is not very impressive!”
With that, Eileen did not pause for even a moment. She launched straight into a dizzying sequence of spins and somersaults that Dachun could not even follow with his eyes, then landed neatly at the mouth of the hole in the wall with a smack.
The next moment, the bat came flying toward them like a blazing lamp.
Eileen said in a deep voice, “Now we’ll see how lucky you are.”
System Notification: Warning! You are being directly irradiated by the Blood Poison Aura. Health -50! -50...
Dachun felt as if he had collided head-on with a motorcycle shining its high beams at him in a dark tunnel. The light vanished, and the screen went black.
Did he die!?
For an instant, Dachun could not process it at all. After all, with Eileen possessing his body and performing far beyond his normal limits, he had not actually been all that tense.
Eileen’s voice came through the darkness.
“Together!”
The screen was like a narrow crack of light appearing in the darkness as a door opened. A hand seized Dachun and dragged him headfirst into the radiance.
System Notification: You have entered Soul Form. Your soul, accompanied by the evil spirit Eileen, has invaded the soul consciousness of the Demonized Bat King!
Holy crap, this was the second time he had entered Soul Form!
Did that mean he had died again?
The scene changed. Dachun found himself in a world shrouded in hazy blood mist. When he turned his head, he saw a...
A beautiful woman formed from blood, standing beside him without any clothes on—though the details were impossible to make out.
Dachun felt a little excited. “Eileen? Is this what you look like?”
Eileen wasted no time on pleasantries. “This is the bat’s soul world. It is extremely simple and pure, which means that the Bat King in Soul Form is probably not much stronger than you. Hold it off with everything you have. I’ll gather my bloodline first. When I died, it sucked all the blood from my body. Once I reclaim my bloodline, I can defeat it and take possession of—”
As she spoke, a massive shadow, as large as a passenger plane, swooped through the blood mist toward them.
Holy crap!
Dachun was stunned. “It’s that huge? You said it really wasn’t much stronger than me?”
“That’s just a hallucination caused by the drugs!”
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Eileen shoved Dachun forward. “Go! You’re more intelligent than it is!”
Like a sparrow colliding with an airplane, Dachun crashed head-on into the shadow. Both sides trembled and dispersed like two clouds of vapor.
Dachun was completely dumbfounded. Was this what fighting in the soul world amounted to? Cloud colliding with cloud?
Before long, Dachun’s cloud re-formed first. He immediately tore into the passenger plane’s body before it had finished gathering itself, but the bat’s advantage was the sheer volume of its cloud. It was already trying to wrap itself around him!
Holy crap!
What would happen if he lost a soul battle? Would his entire game account be ruined?
Dachun had no choice but to fight with all his strength, tearing open a path through the encirclement!
Sure enough, intelligence was an enormous advantage. He recovered faster than the bat did. At present, intelligence was the only attribute his soul possessed. Would souls gain other attributes as well?
Just as he was tearing into the bat in a battle that shook heaven and earth, a beam of blood-red light tore through the gloom like the sun.
“Your luck isn’t very good either. Go on ahead. I’ll look after and collect whatever you drop...”
The next moment, the scene rapidly shrank away, and Dachun’s vision went black once more.
System Notification: Congratulations! Your soul has gained combat experience. Soul Toughness increased. Spirit +1.
Spirit: Increases spell effects, the recovery speed of mana and stamina, resistance to magical interference and mental attacks, and resistance to abnormal mental states such as stun, sleep, and fear.
System Notification: Regrettably, you have been killed by the Demonized Bat King. Your holy artifact, “Spiked Collar,” has dropped. Your Level 1 S-Rank pet, “Fish King Pet Egg,” has dropped. Your equipment, “Dance Garment,” has dropped. Your item, “Diary,” has dropped. You have lost a large amount of experience, and your level has been reduced to Level 7.
Blackiron City Announcement: Player Dachun has been killed by the Demonized Bat King. Holy artifact “Spiked Collar” and S-Rank “Fish King Pet Egg” have dropped.
...
Huh?
The next moment, Dachun revived in the prison, like someone waking from a nightmare.
System Notification: Warning! You have entered the period of detention and forced labor. At 6:00 tomorrow morning, you will appear in court in response to the theft charges brought by Count Ramir Khan’s household. You must log in and defend yourself at that time, or you will be tried in absentia.
Holy crap, he was back in prison again!
What the hell, what the hell, what the hell!
After fighting for so long, he still could not escape death!
His holy artifact! His S-Rank pet!
And the scale of the loss was so outrageous that the entire world had to be notified, as if they were afraid someone might not hear about it!
Dachun hurriedly contacted Eileen. “Eileen, are you there?”
There was no reply. Perhaps she was exerting herself to the utmost to reclaim the bat?
He had to admit that although he had already prepared himself for the possibility of equipment dropping in the boss’s lair, actually seeing his gear fall still left him indescribably miserable. All he could do was hope that Eileen would successfully defeat the bat and preserve his equipment.
At that moment, the red-name prisoners around him erupted into an uproar.
Dachun came back to his senses. Perhaps this was for the best. Once a person died, all debts were erased, after all. Otherwise, with everyone eyeing his holy artifact and S-Rank pet, would he ever be able to eat or sleep in peace?
He checked the time. It was already a little after six in the morning. He had slept for only two hours the entire night, and he truly felt as though he were at his limit.
In that case, he would complete the usual red-name procedure of going down into the mines to idle, then head out for breakfast.
...
The moment Dachun reached the first floor, all the experts there stood up and shouted in unison:
“Brother Chun!”
Dachun could only smile helplessly and wave his hands. “Don’t say anything. It all dropped. It was nothing but a dream!”
“Where did it drop? Are you going after it once you’re out?”
“What’s the point of asking? Who in the world doesn’t want to look for it? Don’t ask!”
Dachun smiled. “Take it easy. It doesn’t matter.”
“Brother Chun, even though your equipment dropped, you’re still a Level 2 VIP honorary citizen. Maybe you’ll be the first person to establish a guild. When that happens, all the brothers at the Internet café can join you! Having a guild channel will make chatting much more convenient too.”
Dachun froze. “I can establish the first guild? Isn’t there already a number-one maritime trade guild?”
“You mean the Right Takamaru Guild, the one with the ridiculous name? That doesn’t count. It’s just a charter-boat contractor. The owner doesn’t even have a single ship under him, and the organization isn’t listed among the official guilds.”
Being a guild master came with a salary!
Dachun was genuinely tempted. “I’ll give it a try once I clear my red-name status.”
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When he reached the door, the young woman behind the bar also called out, “Chun... Mr. Ding, um...”
Dachun turned in surprise. “What is it?”
The girl looked extremely awkward. “It’s nothing now.”
Dachun could more or less guess. “Is it about the holy artifact? Does some big shot want to buy it?”
The girl sighed. “Yes.”
It had to be the professional team on the third floor!
Dachun became interested. “How much did they offer?”
The girl was not entirely certain. “Roughly... five or six zeros.”
That meant anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands!
Dachun felt his heart clench with regret at having asked, but he still pretended to be indifferent.
“Ah, what a pity. What a pity.”
Once he had gone some distance outside, Dachun could no longer hold back his emotions. They exploded completely. Even while eating noodles at the noodle shop, his chopsticks continued to tremble!
The noodle shop owner was already an acquaintance.
“Teacher, are you feeling unwell?”
Dachun smiled. “Bring me two small bottles of liquor. I just got off the night shift. Is it all right if I lie down here and catch up on some sleep?”
“No problem at all, Teacher. Sleep easy...”
He drank to steady his nerves and help himself fall asleep. The noodles made excellent drinking food, and the more he drank, the better they tasted.
...
At the headquarters of the Divine Frontline.
After seeing the system announcement, the Divine Frontline team breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The Young Lord had truly been worried that Dachun might possess some strange item capable of killing the Demonized Bat King. Fortunately, he had brought about his own demise.
One team member reported, “Dachun is currently mining with the three Red-Name Groups, but he doesn’t know Mining, and he still has bite wounds on his feet.”
The Young Lord was in excellent spirits. “He doesn’t know Mining? Continue monitoring him.”
The team member reminded him, “Young Lord, once a boss becomes demonized, it may reach the intelligence level of an NPC. It might be capable of picking up equipment dropped by players.”
The Young Lord spoke gravely. “From this moment onward, the sewers are our territory. No matter how powerful the boss is, we’ll beat it to death.”
“The president of the maritime trade guild, Right Takamaru Noto, reports that he has successfully gained Amy’s mother’s trust. She is willing to accept our financial support.”
The Young Lord was very satisfied. “Excellent. This is a rare opportunity to meet a great noble in person. Go meet the count yourself! Our maritime trade guild is still an empty shell sustained by chartering ships. We urgently need to become an officially recognized organization. Perhaps the count has the power to make that happen.”
“Right Takamaru acknowledges. However, our incident involving the fish buckets and the wall may have some influence.”
The Young Lord snorted coldly. “Being able to discover his attitude toward our guild is itself a gain.”
“Understood.”
...
Dachun slept at the noodle shop until noon and felt considerably more refreshed when he woke. He ordered another large bowl of noodles for lunch, then leisurely returned to the Internet café.
As soon as he arrived, a group of experts called out to him.
“Brother Chun, something huge happened! The Bat King, Rat King, Strong King, and Little Strong King ate the corpses of the Fish King and Dog King, then evolved at midnight!”
“Previously, stray dogs spread rabies. Now there’s a curfew, and the entire city may even be sealed off tomorrow morning!”
Holy crap!?
Midnight?
That was right. It was currently midnight in the game, supposedly the time when certain monsters were at their strongest.
The Rat King, Strong King, and Little Strong King could be set aside for now. As for the Demonized Bat King, it had almost certainly broken through thanks to Eileen!