Calamity Messenger

Chapter 381 - 312: Ascension Dragon Attendant and Penetrating the Nether

"I told you, let me handle it. I’m really good at Five-in-a-row, I know all the killer moves for Puyue Array and Repel Moon Array. Even Grandpa can’t beat me. Now you know you were wrong, right?"

"Yes, yes, next time it’s all yours."

"Let me handle other games too, I’m great at games! What reward did we get this time?"

In the Demon Gathering Land, Yan Qing and Murong Hui stood in front of a giant Five-in-a-row board. When five white stones aligned, the other black stones let out a wail and disappeared from the board with a crackle—playing Five-in-a-row here had quite an impact.

Yan Qing glanced at the bracelet and his eyes lit up: "It’s a transformation card ’Blood Sacrifice Ascension’, sacrificing half of the puppet card’s health to gain half the ascension progress."

"What is ascension?" Murong Hui asked curiously.

"We’ll find out soon enough."

Yan Qing used "Blood Sacrifice Ascension" on the Dragon Attendant, and a ghastly scar suddenly burst out on the Dragon Attendant’s skeletal body. Emerald blood dripped from it, which Murong Hui curiously reached out to catch, but the emerald blood vaporized upon contact and disappeared.

Yan Qing wasn’t surprised. In previous battles with other puppets, he discovered that these puppet creatures had a ’self-cleaning mechanism’. When injured or killed, they would disappear instantly, preventing the game environment from becoming polluted.

From a coding perspective, reducing the buildup of bodies also decreases the load on players’ computers. After all, the Demon Gathering Land is simply too large, and optimization must take precedence over ambiance.

But in Murong Hui’s eyes, it was different: "Not even the blood remains... It’s really different from other Secret Realms; this Secret Realm creates and devours magical creatures."

"Creates magical creatures?" Yan Qing was taken aback.

"You didn’t know? After midnight, the magical creatures in the Demon Gathering Land undergo changes. No matter how many were killed before, new ones quickly appear from all over," Murong Hui said seriously. "Unlike other Secret Realms, this Secret Realm is alive! It doesn’t need time to reverse; it continually creates magical creatures by devouring life!"

Yan Qing twitched his lips. This was merely the difference between timed refresh and reset refresh. Yet, in the eyes of the locals, it became the formidable ’devouring life’ and ’time reversal’.

However, thinking about it, this game’s regular mechanism of Secret Realm refresh indeed seems absurd in reality, akin to creating life out of nothing, and extremely powerful entities at that. In any mythology, this would be supreme power, so it’s understandable that locals would elevate the refresh mechanism to such heights.

The Dragon Attendant let out a silent roar, grayish mistes burst from its entire skeleton, the green flames in its eyes boiled intensely, and its jagged bone wings stretched maximally. The Dragon Attendant’s size increased, and its dim bones turned bright white, with decayed muscles regenerating.

It didn’t return to life, but it was walking further and higher on the path of death!

"Second-Turned Corpse Demon Dragon Race: Ascension Dragon Attendant"

"Initial Attack Power: 800 (1300)"

"Initial Health: 200 (700)"

"Trait: Death Return and Resurrection: Each time you summon an Ascension Dragon Attendant, it permanently gains a 200/200 attribute boost (wherever the Dragon Attendant is)."

"Ascension Trait: Soul Transcendence: When the Dragon Attendant dies, it turns into a soul to continue fighting until the current battle ends (enemies won’t attack the Dragon Attendant in soul state)."

"Damn!?" Yan Qing couldn’t hold back and uttered a herbal expletive.

"What, what?" Murong Hui squeezed next to him, pressing his shoulder, staring at the Ascension Dragon Attendant puppet card: "What does ascension mean?"

"Ascension is..."

The doubling of basic attributes and trait effects was within Yan Qing’s expectations. After all, Flesh Ascension was so cumbersome, either playing various games to gather ascension progress or killing dozens of the same monsters. The former seemed somewhat easier, but the problem was that many games had a daily limit, meaning players could only earn limited rewards per day. Killing monsters, by contrast, had no such restrictions.

However, he didn’t expect an Ascension trait to appear after ascension. To be honest, ’Soul Transcendence’ isn’t particularly strong, but it suits the Dragon Attendant and his [Death Return] mutation too well.

[Death Return] first kills the Dragon Attendant on entry, summoning a Soul Dragon Attendant, a resurrected Dragon Attendant, and an Original Dragon Attendant. Then, when the resurrected Dragon Attendant dies, it summons another Soul Dragon Attendant. When the Original Dragon Attendant dies, it summons a Soul Dragon Attendant and a resurrected Dragon Attendant... Yan Qing calculated on his fingers, although he now only had one Flying Dragon Attendant, theoretically, four Soul Dragon Attendants could appear simultaneously under extreme conditions, and this process triggers Death Return three times, maxing out attributes!

This was just the situation where Yan Qing could only activate one puppet card. When he gains more puppet slots in the future, his combinations will become more varied and terrifying.

Moreover, according to Yan Qing’s observation, the puppet card races in the Demon Gathering Land number at least over five, and the Dragon Attendant is just one card among the Corpse Ghost and Dragon Race, not even the core!

Previously, Yan Qing wondered why the Demon Gathering Land imposed a five-day confinement on players. Clearly, it could mirror the Mansu Forest Land and simply require players to participate in daily activities. Forcing players into confinement seemed overly controlling.

However, after a preliminary understanding of the puppet card gameplay here, Yan Qing faintly guessed the official’s reasoning.

Because the puppet card gameplay in this instance is so varied, interesting, and complex. To truly get into puppet cards, players must at least roughly understand the traits of various puppet cards to find their desired team composition.

If this were a card game like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Shadowverse, or Auto Chess, that would be fine, but it’s just a limited-time dungeon in an MMORPG.

Just like some games won’t offer a skip button for the plot, forcing players to watch the storyline to understand the characters, Demon Gathering Land confines players for five days to force them to spend all their time studying puppet cards. They are so confident, believing that as long as players continue to play, they’ll surely like puppet card battles.

If you don’t like it, they’ll lock you up for five days until you do, a model example of being forced into love by a domineering CEO.

No wonder the company ended up adopting his audacious Thief’s House design proposal; it turns out there are even more aggressive planners in the company, treating players completely like guinea pigs.

"Let’s quickly find a demon to test soul salvation!" Murong Hui quickly understood the Ascension Dragon Attendant’s data and eagerly wanted to test it out.

Yan Qing was perfectly agreeable, since it was not long until midnight, and if the Ascension Dragon Attendant didn’t die soon, there’d be fewer triggers of the Death Return; moreover, he also had something he wanted to test.

They found a trio of demon combination, and the Ascension Dragon Attendant quickly perished under the demons’ assault. From the corpse arose a ghostly green Soul Flying Dragon, charging towards the demons, but the demons passed through the Soul Flying Dragon and attacked Yan Qing. It wasn’t until they killed all the demons that the Soul Flying Dragon slowly extinguished like a burning candle, disappearing into the air.

Yan Qing’s heart stirred, discovering something intriguing: even if all the puppets were annihilated, as long as he wasn’t dead, the battle wasn’t over.

Then if he chose to flee, wouldn’t the Soul Dragon Attendant continue to exist indefinitely?

"Huh?" Murong Hui scratched at the spot where the Soul Dragon Attendant disappeared: "It’s gone already? I wanted to feel what a soul feels like..."

"Why didn’t you touch it just now?" Yan Qing’s mood was good, so he asked casually.

"We were in a battle just now, what are you talking about?" Murong Hui said with a serious face: "How can one fool around during a battle? Little brother, that thinking is quite dangerous."

Yan Qing stumbled, feeling he’d been wrongly accused, but couldn’t refute it. After all, Murong Hui, despite being noisy along the way, was reliable when needed.

"Let’s find a Dragon Attendant; I need one."

"As for the Dragon Attendant... we can find one via this path." Murong Hui looked at the map, "It’s not too far, we’ll reach it soon."

Though they had known each other for only a few hours, Yan Qing had to admit, Murong Hui indeed was quite helpful, not only comparable to a navigation system but also very worry-free during battles.

This worry-free aspect not only referred to her outstanding combat ability but also her almost never being in danger: her profession as a Shadow Dance Messenger boasted unmatched speed in the Third-Transformation, she had Lightning Battle Saber which offered both single and group long-range attacks, and her defense artifact was also of Third-Transformation Curiosities level... How should I put it, if she uploaded her setup online, the title would surely be "Dog Feeding Team’s Delightful Build, Even Clumsy Players Can Mow Down Enemies Without Thinking".

Yan Qing originally thought his Sword Dancer build centered around Bingzi Pepper Forest was mindless enough, standing still and able to fight against thousands. He never expected there would be someone even superior, and compared to Murong Hui’s High Mobility + High Ranged Output + High Defense Izreal build, his Sword Dancer was still somewhat reliant on skill.

Teaming up with Murong Hui, he never had to worry about her encountering danger and could freely let her handle the enemies.

It was just a bit noisy.

"I helped you so much today, how do you plan to thank me?" Murong Hui walked backward, eyeing Yan Qing’s Flesh Cage Bracelet with blatant envy: "Can you let me play with your treasure?"

"Aren’t you returning my favor for saving your life?" Yan Qing was speechless.

"But I also helped you fight so many battles, you got all the benefits, even if there’s no credit, there’s at least some effort!" Murong Hui shook Yan Qing’s arm: "Let me feel it, I won’t mishandle it, okay? If you’re afraid I’ll run away, I can pledge all my artifacts to you, you can hold onto me to prevent me from escaping!"

"No." Yan Qing calmly said: "Besides, it won’t have any effect on you even if you wear it."

Murong Hui pouted, unwilling to accept: "Then what about next year? Will you let me try it next year?"

"I won’t be here next year." Yan Qing thought if I can’t achieve Foundation Establishment within a year, I might as well let Shang Xinlei step on me with stockings to death. After Foundation Establishment, he naturally won’t be able to enter the limited-time dungeon of Demon Gathering Land again, as those with combat power above Foundation Establishment could defeat the most superior Flesh Puppet and beat the game on the very first day by reaching downtown.

Murong Hui kicked the rocks on the ground aggressively, with this not working and that not working, his tone so indifferent, she didn’t want to deal with Yan Qing anymore... To think she believed they were already friends...

However, Murong Hui stops being angry after a while, since she’s already used to it. When she befriended Little Fox initially, it was like this too; she always got so angry her chest grew larger, and it took nearly half a year before she could successfully bathe and sleep together with Little Fox. She used to be the Little Demon Child of Yanzi Military Town, getting whatever she wanted and being spoiled by Grandpa, and her good temper nowadays was nurtured by Little Fox.

She slowed down to walk alongside Yan Qing: "By the way, you haven’t told me your name yet—"

At this moment, Murong Hui suddenly felt goosebumps all over her body, as if she were immersed deep underwater. Meanwhile, Yan Qing felt a string in his mind being gently plucked, the world in his pupils swiftly transforming into interwoven black and white lines, with the particles in the air becoming remarkably clear, drifting at an extremely slow pace!

Although it was the first time triggering this phenomenon, Yan Qing found it very familiar, as he had seen this effect in countless videos—

Link of the Realm!