Chapter 16: Aftermath [1]
"I'm very sorry for my failure, Great One."
"It's fine."
'Who would've expected that the "World" is trying to make its attempt again.'
"The Brain" Keir, one of the Twelve Seats, thought.
'A Deity-Realm puppet for the price of foiling its plans, it's all worth it.'
It turns out, the one that made the space crack and the one who rescued Xyphur from the enemy lines is just a puppet of Keir.
When he waited on the other side of the crack, he didn't plan to interfere in that world, as "they" would definitely sense it and his Deity-Realm puppet would return with grievous injuries.
But then, the situation turned for a worse all of a sudden. The one who made all that mess is a B Rank Combatant, an ant.
He also noticed that not only is he wearing "his" armaments before, his body also contains a mysterious "thing". It was then that he decided, it's all plot of the "World" to create a new "Protagonist".
'Since those armaments has the characteristic of being Unbreakable plus it being greatly damaged, might as well just kill the root of the problem. Even though I don't know how it repaired itself, the cause of that should be the "Protagonist".'
He didn't hesitate to kill that ant, no, the soon to be "Protagonist", resulting in his puppet suffering a serious injuries due to "their" counter-attack.
"Their" refers to the Will of that Planet, the Will of the Civilization, and the strongest of them all, the Will of the "World".
Since he attacked and caused a damage in their domain, a "connection" is created. After tracing that "connection", they're able to counter-attack once. As a Deity-Realm Zerg, Keir has his own capabilities, thus cutting the "connection" itself after an attack.
Still, he didn't mind his losses much.
'As long as I stopped it. By all means possible, we will stomp all its attempts into dust and conquer this world!'
*****
I woke up from what seemed a very deep sleep. The last thing that I remembered is that a mighty force landed on me, making me unconscious.
[Warning! Warning! An attack exceeding the Ten-times limit had killed the user! Exp needed for Revival has been increased to times 8!]
[Exp deduction complete. The revival has been initiated.]
So I died. What the heck? I didn't even have the moment to feel pain as I died too quick!
With all the preparations that I did before doing the boss battle, I still died?
Since that Xyphur couldn't be killed, all I planned to do is to force him to retreat. If he gets killed once, he will drop from SS to A, which will enable me to kill him again! After some spawn kills, he would choose to escape. That is supposed to be my plan..
Yikes, this world is really very fucking dangerous.
Yes, I made three preparations when I revised my plan. Firstly, I repaired the <Savior's Armament> to A+ Rank. I spent 1,078,000 Exp in total.
With that, I can use [Space Transfer] for a couple of times. Since the Energy Reactor is fixed, it recovers even faster.
Next, I upgraded my Vessel stat to A- Rank; my Strength and my Stamina stat to B- Rank, which costed 160,000 Exp in total.
Lastly, I gave some more Exp to Xiao Song, which in turn replenished the Energy Reactor to its fullest. This costed 200,000 Exp.
In the end, I have around 1.28M Exp under my belt. Right now, its..
[Exp: 482,400]
Yep, it's now like this.
To be honest, I didn't plan to upgrade the <Savior's Armament> to A+ Rank before. But then, as soon as I've seen that crack appear, I did.
My Sixth Sense warned me to take SERIOUS precautions against it, so I did. I was very confident with its defense being SS+ Rank, plus its various unlocked modules. But I still got fucked up.
I got the feels of "Getting stared to death". As if I am an ant, all he did was to squash me to death.
It's quite depressing, to be honest. Oh wait, [Decisiveness] isn't activated anymore, I see.
Anyways, I scrolled through the hundreds of notices from before. I only sorted out the important ones.
[Killed a being B- Rank and above. Lucky Hit triggered. The talent roulette will be activated.]
[The talent roulette contains all the traits of the being killed.]
[Activate?]
A talent roulette appeared in from of my sight. Wait, [Resilience]? Isn't this from the immortal fatty earlier?
It seems that I lucked out. Maybe if I do get this talent, I would have to die less.
Let's see.. 5 talents? [Resilience], [Stone Scale], [Acid Production], [Damage Offset], and [Earth Control].
That [Resilience], I want that. On the other hand, what will happen if I get [Acid Production]? Would I now spit acid?
[First Spin costs 16,000 exp. Continue?]
What? It's more expensive? I guess it is reasonable with [Resilience] being there. Not minding it anymore, I started spinning it.
'Stop'
The roulette pointer stopped closely until I got..
[Acid Production]
Fuck. Wow. ⅕ chance and I got this? My luck is gone now, I guess. Spitting acids we go.
[The trait [Acid Production] has been detected to be not suitable for a Human Race. Modifying the trait for Human Race..]
[Modification Complete. You have received the trait [Poison Body].]
Wait, that works? This is the first time I'm learning of this..
[Poison Body (LV1)]
-Allows the holder to control his body to be poisonous. Your touch can burn others' skin, your saliva can burn through alloys, your bites can infect others of your poison, and so on.
-Poison is in your body, and so is the antidote.
Wha- This is.. I can control it, I see. If not, I would be very scared to touch my parents or friends. Nevermind, let me spin for the time being.
I initiated the second spin. The roulette started to spin fast again.
'Stop.'
This time, the pointer pointed at..
[Damage Offset (LV1)]
-Increases the resistance to physical damage by 20%, the resistance to Energy-related damage to 25%, and the resistance to mind and spiritual damage to 15%.
-You have the ability to offset 50% of your overall damage once a day.
A Tank ability. I can finally survive more!
Without minding the 64,000 Exp cost, I spinned the roulette again. I am hellbent on taking that [Resilience] away.
'Stop.'
A ⅓ chance.. Please get it, please get it...
[Stone Scale]
[The trait [Stone Scale] has been detected to be not suitable for a Human Race. Modifying the trait for Human Race..]
[Modification Complete. You have received the trait [Stone Skin].]
[Stone Skin]
-Makes the skin as hard as stone when willed. In this state, your resistance towards physical damage increases by 40% while the resistances towards other type of damages are increased by 25%.
FU- ... Yes, it's a good skill, but I. WANT. RESILIENCE. Please, do not let me hit the pity on this one. This is a ½ chance..
128,000 Exp. I didn't hesitate once more, and spinned the roulette.
'Stop.'
Please. Please. Please. Please.
[Resilience]
-Increases your natural regeneration rate by 50%.
-Your resistances towards injuries are increased by 50%.
-The more injured you are, the higher the amplification rate of the trait would be.
If you're at 80% Health, the effects would be increased by 1.5 times.
If you're at 60% Health, the effects would be increased by 2 times.
If you're at 40% Health, the effects would be increased by 2.5 times.
If you're at 20% Health, the effects would be increased by 3 times.
If you're at 5% Health, the effects would be increased by 5 times.
FINALLY? I GOT IT!
A huge sense of relief washed through me. At least, I didn't need to pay 256,000 Exp!
Just look at this! It's so broken! The balance isn't taken into consideration AT ALL!
This should also be the reason why the fatty survived 2 Tribulations in one go.. At least, I insta-killed him without going through the 5% one. Imagining the need to pierce that guy for many more times gave me the chills!
The Talent Roulette notice disappeared after I'm done with it. Time to move with the next notices..