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Chapter 161: The Protagonist's Advance (Part 6)
Chapter 161: The Protagonist's Advance (Part 6)
Inside the Abandoned Shrine, the chrysalis' surface shifted from white to beige, then gradually darkened until settling into a blood-crusted brown resembling scab tissue.
After the color stabilized, several minutes passed before the chrysalis suddenly shattered. Thousands of fingernail-sized fragments collapsed to the ground, dry and crisp. Not a single shard clung to the man emerging from the husk.
This Level-3 Derivative Being appeared in his early thirties—soft-featured, with shoulder-length hair, exuding an air of quiet refinement. Strangely, his attire matched a player's newbie set.
Stepping free of the chrysalis, he rotated his neck expressionlessly. His right arm remained absent, leaving only a smooth, glowing cross-section at the shoulder. Up close, tiny streams of data flickered across the surface like restless fireflies.
"Tch... Same as always", he muttered sourly, striding to a corner to retrieve a Clay Jar.
His right arm couldn't materialize with the rest of his physical form upon entering this scenario. Each time, he had to manually retrieve it post-transformation.
The jar's mouth concealed a narrow spatial pocket akin to a player's satchel. However, once the arm emerged, this pocket vanished. For this Derivative Being, his right limb functioned like irremovable luggage—always forced through spatial rifts in physical form upon scenario entry.
Extracting the arm, he pressed it against his shoulder. Where the two glowing cross-sections met, his entire right side warped like heat-hazed air. Without physical contact, the adjacent wall suddenly indented, its surface rippling irregularly.
Testing his restored limb with a few swings, he observed dryly, "After so many times... the synchronization time hasn't shortened by a second." Though he could sense the arm's position without attachment, the data required precisely the same duration to harmonize with his body post-connection.
In short, this Level-3 Derivative Being wouldn't reach peak combat effectiveness for some time. Though the arm seemed fully integrated, it couldn't yet unleash full power.
"Pain..."
"Agony..."
"Help me..."
Suddenly, overlapping groans erupted around him. Frowning slightly, he glanced downward. The shrine floor now crawled with grotesque, blood-soaked ghosts.
Emerging from walls like drowning wretches sinking into quicksand, they protruded variously—some only heads, others half-bodies. Their hair hung in matted veils over pallid faces, eye sockets black voids, mouths slack-jawed, arms outstretched like drowning victims grasping at nothing.
Though faint, their anguished cries carried an eerie quality—the more pitiful, the more unsettling.
Now, the entire floor swarmed with these spirits. The Derivative Being had scarcely room to stand. Hands seized his ankles and clothes, tugging insistently.
"Is the scenario's boss using hallucinations?" His eyes glowed faintly, pupils shimmering. "Hmph... Seems cunning enough."
In one fluid motion, he crouched and leapt. The seemingly effortless jump wrenched free of ghostly grips. Executing a flawless straight-body one-and-a-half flip, he landed lightly on the ceiling beam.
A gray specter lurked above—identical to the monster Feng Bu Jue once faced. Before it could attack, his left fist shattered it into nothing.
Level-3 Derivative Beings perceived scenarios differently from players. They viewed environments as semi-data, semi-physical forms, with extended sensory awareness. To them, hallucinations held no power—only brute force and speed posed threats.
"Strange... Hasn't that level-4 being eliminated the boss yet?" Musing, he lifted his leg in a casual kick, foot arcing past his head. The shrine roof exploded outward, a man-sized hole torn open by raw force.
Leaping onto the rooftop, moonlight bathed his silhouette. Light mattered little to Derivative Beings—his vision functioned equally well in pitch darkness.
Below lay the shrine courtyard, centered around a dry well.
Perched on its edge rested the head of a level-4 Derivative Being.
"What a joke..." He murmured, springing forward. A blur in the air, he alighted silently before the severed head.
"You can speak, can't you?" He addressed it, unsurprised by its viability.
"I... crossed to the other... world..." The head's voice crackled like a broken radio transmission.
Though weakest among Derivative Beings, level-4 entities theoretically equaled or surpassed most scenario bosses. (Note: Not all worlds accommodate Derivative Beings—Pili realms, for instance, never see them.) This situation defied all logic.
"I... data... fragmented..." The head couldn't complete sentences. "It... placed me... here... to warn..."
Before it could finish, skeletal claws erupted from the well, dragging the head downward.
The Level-3 Derivative Being stood at the well's edge, encountering this anomaly for the first time. Immediate analysis followed:
First, scanning players and Gms' positions—they remained ascending the mountain path, unrelated to current events. Next, attempting data-layer communication with the boss (Level-3 Derivative Beings typically command lower-tier scenario bosses—X-23 once controlled Dr. Ashufude's mutated form). The attempt failed utterly.
"If you haven't grasped my meaning..." A resonant voice boomed from the dry well, "I placed his head here to warn you—don't oppose me."
(End of Chapter)
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