Chapter 106: Crossbows, Roads, Battle Souls, and So On...

What is the most painful thing in the world? My dear Voidfarer friends would give a splendid variety of answers.

It is when you are bursting with such a desperate urge to relieve yourself that your vision turns blue, the ratio of water and salt in your body drastically exceeds the danger zone, and catastrophe is imminent at any second, only to realize you are stranded in the most bustling heart of the metropolis, and the nearest restroom is still more than half an hour's drive away.

It is when you have just finished a normal yet urgent round of complete metabolism inside a restroom stall, pat down every single pocket on your body, and suddenly discover that the only paper-based item in your possession is a hundred-dollar bill.

It is when you drive your wife and kids out on a self-guided road trip into some desolate wilderness where there is no village ahead and no store behind, only for your engine to stall and die, and then you suddenly realize that the jerk who lent you the car the day before only left you with about half a bottle of cola's worth of gasoline.

It is when you have exhausted all sweet-talk, showered pure gold and silver, endured demands and extortion, and pulled off every trick in the book, finally securing that crucial moment to be alone with a pretty young maiden for a wild rendezvous, only to suddenly remember this morning when you changed your pants that you completely forgot to take out the condom you had hidden in your pocket for half a year...

...

All of these answers belong to another world entirely unrelated to me, far too distant from my daily life. I have not the slightest direct experience of their pain, making it difficult for me to objectively evaluate them. Yet I believe that when you are holding a powerful crossbow capable of vastly increasing your combat strength, but can only drool and stare blankly because you lack any bolts, this heart-gnawing vexation is surely no better than any of those agonizing experiences mentioned above.

Since no one could directly convert the formidable attribute data of the Spirit Bone Crossbow into combat power, we had no choice but to settle for the next best thing: scheming to convert it into productivity as quickly as possible. Fairy Descending with Face Plant temporarily stored this murderous weapon, intending to set up a stall and sell it as soon as we returned to the city, splitting the profits evenly among everyone.

Although doing so was somewhat regrettable, none of us were ranged attackers who relied entirely on bows and crossbows in combat. To treat such an exceptionally performing crossbow merely as an auxiliary combat tool felt a bit too wasteful—and besides, when the attributes of an auxiliary weapon surpass those of your primary weapon, it really feels a bit improper.

Continuing along the path indicated by Baron Binc, we passed through a stretch of ruined houses where only outlines remained, traversed a rugged and narrow corridor, and climbed a steep uphill slope, shaking off countless bloodthirsty walking corpses along the way. Finally, we crossed through a damaged city gate and entered the inner keep of the Rubble Fortress.

Although toxin-infected corpses filled the entire outer ward, once inside the inner ward, not a single trace of a corpse could be seen. Just as Baron Binc had recounted, this area was firmly occupied by the regular troops of the Doomsday Empire. Directly facing the inner gate were three distinct paths leading respectively to the fortress's dungeon, graveyard, and temple—the three domains entrenched by evil spellcasters. Guardian squads composed of the decayed, trolls, and vampires respectively guarded each path, protecting the magical geniuses of their respective races. These paths interconnected while simultaneously leading straight to the fortress command tower where the Black Baron Arthur Dhengot was located. This meant that if we wished to defeat the master of this fortress, we would have to eliminate at least one of these evil magical minions first.

"Which way should we go?" Unfolding the magical map, I asked hesitatingly. On the map, the locations entrenched by the three evil magical geniuses were each marked with a light blue symbol. As for the stronghold of our ultimate enemy, Arthur Dhengot, it was clearly designated with a deep blue marker.

"Let's head to the temple first..." B-flat Minor Nocturne merely glanced casually at the map and decisively recommended the stronghold of the Vampire Marquis Dobbs. Seeing our questioning and puzzled gazes, he paused for a brief moment, then explained without a shred of shame, "...This route is a bit shorter..."

Being able to state such a frivolous reason with such righteous confidence was truly something only the short-legged Gnome race could pull off. The only unsettling part was that while we all knew this was a shortcut to battle, no one could be certain whether it might also be a one-way street straight to death—especially when the survival of the world depended on the outcome of this battle. I greatly feared that Nocturne's hasty decision would directly send the entire continent of Faelve onto an express elevator straight down to the eighteenth level of hell.

"I object! Making such a casual decision is far too reckless..." Fortunately, among my comrades, there was at least one level-headed person of insight who took the bigger picture into account. The moment the Orc Warlock Diding Xiaoge opened his mouth, he launched a merciless verbal critique of the Gnome bard's willful decision:

"Choosing which path to take is a life-or-death matter that requires careful deliberation. What if we pick the strongest boss and get wiped out, failing the quest? Then all our effort for half a day goes down the drain!"

Diding Xiaoge argued eloquently, every point making sense, which had us nodding in agreement one after another. The Gnome bard was left completely speechless by his rapid-fire rebuttal, lowering his head deeply in shame.

"Then... which path do you think we should take?" The Elven Druid Fairy Descending with Face Plant lacked any sense of agency and asked Diding Xiaoge timidly.

"If it were up to me, we should choose... right here!" Diding Xiaoge extended a finger and confidentally drew a circle over the location of the fortress graveyard.

"Why pick this place?" Fairy Descending pressed on, puzzled. "Is the troll boss easy to kill?"

"I have no idea if he's easy to kill, but..." At this point, Diding Xiaoge's face lit up with excitement, "...I scouted out quite a few rare purple-gold ores along that route!"

I don't know when it started, but the Orc Warlock, whose greatest joy in life was mining, had already whipped out his shovel and pickaxe, brandishing them eagerly as a greedy, gold-like luster reflected in his pupils.

"Hah, how much better than me are you, you selfish bastard? What right do you have to criticize me?" Severely rebuked, B-flat Minor Nocturne instantly flared up and loudly protested.

"At least I can earn back everyone's equipment repair costs after a wipe." Diding Xiaoge replied leisurely.

"You're just doing it to level up your mining skill..." Nocturne was not afraid to attribute the worst possible motives to the Orc miner.

"That's just a bonus, a mere bonus..." Diding Xiaoge didn't even blush.

Fine. I had to face this pathetic reality: among my unreliable Voidfarer comrades, not a single one heartbreakingly kept the grand task of saving the world at heart. And yet, an adventuring party as devoid of ideals and cohesion as this was the very last shred of hope remaining for the continent of Faelve.

In my helplessness, a sigh from centuries ago—uttered by the prince of a small peninsular kingdom when he resolved to avenge his father, who had been murdered by his queen and uncle in a conspiracy—involuntarily echoed in my mind: *The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!*

This phrase was the absolute spitting image of my thoughts at the moment...

The Orc warlock and the Gnome bard were still bickering endlessly. It seemed that unless someone gave them a sensible choice, they might just keep arguing like this until the end of the world—though given the tense situation we currently faced, the end of the world was probably only a few days away.

"Ahem..." I gave a light cough, cutting short their bickering. "...If I were you..."

.A. Vessali guarded the fortress dungeon:

"...This is probably the best choice..."

The two bickering individuals instantly abandoned their argument, crowded around the map, looked here, then there, and secretly compared them.

"Is there any difference?"

"Yeah, yeah, it pretty much looks the same no matter how you look at it..." Unexpectedly, on this issue, these two unprincipled fellows reached a consensus so quickly.

"Of course you can't tell any difference from the map. But..." I pointed to the Imperial guards patrolling back and forth on the road outside the city gate:

"Haven't you noticed that the undead guards are a lower level?"

For an adventuring party like ours—small in number, low in level, and at risk of being hacked into minced meat by swarming enemies at any second—this reason carried more than enough persuasion. Diding Xiaoge and B-flat Minor Nocturne looked at the vampires and trolls, most of around level fifty-two, then turned back to look at the decayed ones hovering around level fifty. They exchanged glances and nodded in silent, tacit agreement.

Just as we finally unified our opinions and were about to set off, our Tauren Paladin Niu Baiwan suddenly discovered a major issue:

"Hey, why must we go over there? Where is this? Haven't we not been here yet?"

As he spoke, the Tauren's thick finger pressed heavily down on a red marker at the other end of the map.

A wave of near-debilitating powerlessness washed over my forehead. I frowned fiercely, fighting hard to restrain myself from looking at Niu Baiwan with too contemptuous a gaze.

Regrettably, I failed.

Suffering the same failure alongside me were Diding Xiaoge and B-flat Minor Nocturne.

"Hey, why are you looking at me like that?" Under our gaze, Niu Baiwan inevitably grew a bit flustered, yet having no idea why we reacted this way, he could only ask in bewilderment, "What? Did I say something wrong?"

"Um... Brother Niu..." Fairy Descending with Face Plant blushed, stammering softly, "...That... That's the dungeon entrance. That's where we just came from..."

"Oh..." The direction-challenged Tauren Paladin raised his head, gazing up at the sky at a pure forty-five-degree angle. The afterglow of the sunset reflected on his cheeks, dyeing them with a flush like a shy, bashful face.

...

"Ouch, Jeff, didn't you say the monsters here were easy to deal with!" The heavy, thick-boned "Bone Guard" swept his two-handed greatsword horizontally, slicing across the waist—by his own waist's standards, of course—and landing a heavy blow on B-flat Minor Nocturne's temple. Yelping in pain, Nocturne clutched his head and loudly complained to me.

"I only said the monsters here were the lowest level, I never said they were necessarily easy to deal with!" I argued defensively while raising my shield to deflect a magical fireball shot at me from afar by a distant "Bone Elementalist." The scorching fire element exploded with a *bang* against my shield, and a searing sensation instantly transferred to my hand.

Ever since setting foot on the Hitvenia Lowlands, my luck in combat had never been particularly good. The enemies encountered along the way were either zombies or skeletons, constantly failing to let my trusty sword unleash its maximum destructive potential. These decayed ones possessed bones as foul and hard as iron, and some even wore heavy armor, offering extremely strong resistance to piercing sword attacks. This left me feeling bound hand and foot during battles, perpetually trapped in an impotent, frustrating state where I couldn't exert my strength.

"Ah... Brother Niu, come help me, I can't hold on much longer!" Transformed into a giant bear form, the Elven Druid maiden was engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with two Bone Guards simultaneously. Harboring a natural fear of the eerie decayed forms, the elven girl looked utterly panicked, shrinking her neck and half-closing her eyes as she flailed forward with a pair of heavy bear paws. She cried out at the top of her lungs for help to the seemingly reliable Tauren muscle-man—though her situation was far less miserable than she imagined. Those two Bone Guards had been scratched and clawed by her bear paws to the point of being riddled with holes and utterly battered, looking on the verge of biting the dust, whereas she still had a full quarter of her health remaining.

"Hold on for one more minute!" Niu Baiwan raised his massive obsidian pillar and smashed it fiercely toward a "Bone Archer" holding a bow and arrow. To his surprise, this nimble-footed fellow sidestepped, causing that surefire blow to miss entirely. Deeply feeling his miscalculation, Niu Baiwan immediately re-evaluated the strength of these opponents and shouted again to Fairy Descending:

"It might take three minutes!" As he spoke, taking a heavy strike to his right flank, Niu Baiwan swung his backhand, slamming the obsidian pillar toward the "Bone Guard" behind him. The blow came with fierce momentum, leaving the Bone Guard with no way to dodge, taking the hit squarely. But much to Niu Baiwan's dismay, this skeletal warrior clad in heavy leather armor possessed astonishingly high defense; that ferocious strike only shaved off a little over one hundred and twenty points of health. It seemed Niu Baiwan's notion of a quick victory was out of the question.

"I'm afraid you'll have to hold on for another five minutes..." Niu Baiwan shouted breathlessly, though his voice was no longer loud.

Just at that moment, a flash of white light suddenly appeared behind him, sinking deeply into his spine. Then a burst of red light flared, and over one hundred and seventy points of health vanished into the wind. A dark, chilling black shadow of a "Bone Lurker" suddenly materialized behind Niu Baiwan, taking advantage of his blind spot to deal him a heavy blow. This sudden extra enemy immediately threw Niu Baiwan into a panic, leaving him parrying wildly and in complete disarray.

"Little Fairy, you'd better pray for yourself, I can't help you anymore. Jeff, I'm done for, come save me..." The Tauren Paladin wailed and howled...

Through the intense combat, we endured a grueling half hour. Amidst the flashing blades and soaring swords of that half hour, the only comforting thing was that none of us had died—though this was largely thanks to that hidden attribute, "Character Value," which, much like the Supreme God, was omnipresent yet untraceable. If we glanced back now, we would find that our forward progress was truly pathetic, with the inner gate practically glued to our backs. Such turtle-paced advancement was soul-crushingly depressing.

"We can't keep fighting like this!" Having finally dealt with another guard squad, B-flat Minor Nocturne looked at his equipment, which was beginning to show signs of wear and tear, and complained loudly with a crying face:

"If we keep fighting like this, I'm going to have to run naked to meet the boss..."

"At our current rate of advancement, by the time we see the boss..." Niu Baiwan sat cross-legged on the ground, sticking out his long tongue and panting heavily, wearing a thoroughly dejected expression.

"Um..." Fairy Descending with Face Plant rummaged through her magical pouch, then frowned helplessly and whispered, "...If we keep fighting like this, our magic potions might run out..."

If the complaints of the others were merely off-hand grumbling when facing setbacks that no one took seriously, the issue raised by the Elven Druid was one that could not be ignored.

As one of the two healing classes in the party, Tauren Paladin Niu Baiwan frequently had to charge valiantly into the fray, using his formidable defensive and destructive power to engage our enemies head-on. This forced Fairy Descending to shoulder the vast majority of our rescue work alone. In fact, most of the time, this darling of the Goddess of Nature had completely abandoned combat to become a pure medical professional, scattering the radiance of various healing and buffing magic upon us.

In this dangerous zone fraught with peril at every turn, if the loss of any other member could still be mended, the loss of the Druid maiden's powerful support would undoubtedly leave us completely paralyzed and unable to move an inch.

Therefore, if Fairy Descending's magic potions were truly depleted, it would undoubtedly spell the end of our adventure. Even if we could shed blood and fight to the death for the continent's survival, and my Voidfarer friends could even resurrect and charge forward wave after wave, we all knew full well that throwing our lives away solved nothing; at best, it would merely leave a few more tiny yet unyielding martyrs in this beautiful world before its destruction.

...Not to mention that while my comrades often treated courting death as routine, they apparently lacked enthusiasm for the lofty deed of dying for our homeland...

"I have an idea, maybe we can give it a try..." After a brief silence, Orc Warlock Diding Xiaoge, presumably unwilling to see this adventure end right here, suddenly offered a suggestion:

"I learned a skill when I reached level forty-eight that can summon a 'Nether Hell Battle Soul' of my same level. It should be quite a bit stronger than other minions and might actually come in handy, except..." At this point, Diding Xiaoge suddenly faltered, looking at us with a troubled expression.

"What's with the 'except'? Is there anything worse than right now? Just spit it out if you have a way." B-flat Minor Nocturne urged.

"Except..." Diding Xiaoge scratched his head, "...every time I summon the Battle Soul, it randomly kills a party member..."

The Warlock truly was a dark profession that traded with demons. If I hadn't heard it with my own ears, I would never have believed there existed such a selfish, malevolent skill that required sacrificing a comrade's life and blood to use.

"You're worried about *that*?" Hearing Diding Xiaoge's reservation, Niu Baiwan shouted as if he had been insulted. "Isn't it just dying once? It's not like I don't have resurrection magic, no need to make them waste time running back to their corpses." He slapped his chest heroically and took full responsibility. "I'm right here, go ahead and summon it!"

Upon hearing this, all of Diding Xiaoge's hesitation vanished instantly. He half-closed his eyes, held his staff high above his head, and began chanting a lengthy incantation. Everyone watched him with a curious mindset, dying to see what kind of powerful minion required sacrificing a living soul to summon. I felt a vague sense that something was wrong with this plan, as if an important detail had been forgotten by us. But soon, my gaze was also drawn by the Orc Warlock's powerful magic, leaving me no time to ponder what flaws the plan might hold.

About ten paces in front of Diding Xiaoge, space seemed to tear open, revealing a black fissure. As his chanting grew louder and heavier, the fissure widened and stretched until it formed the shape of an arched doorway. A huge red claw with long nails slowly stepped out of the archway, and then a giant, towering shadow appeared on the other side of the door. Two crimson claws grabbed the edges of the magical spatial gateway, followed closely by a red head with massive nostrils and long tusks, bearing a wrinkled and ferocious expression. With the Battle Soul's massive frame, forcing its way through the shackles of space seemed to require considerable effort. Its shoulders heaved, teeth clenched, and it let out a terrifying roar as it struggled to burst forth from the archway.

Just at the moment when this crimson-skinned "Nether Hell Battle Soul" was about to charge out of the spatial gate, a blinding red light suddenly flared from within the door, piercing straight into my eyes. For a split second, I felt as though my pupils had been punctured, and my vision became nothing except a thick sea of red. This vibrant, eerie blood-shadow pressed against my optic nerve, making thought nearly impossible. For a fleeting moment, I even thought I had died, becoming the sacrificial offering to summon that otherworldly battle soul.

Yet, having experienced death more than once, I quickly realized I was still alive. Moments later, the red light dissipated, and my vision gradually recovered.

"Am I dead? Am I dead?" B-flat Minor Nocturne sat on the ground with his eyes closed, shouting in panic as his hands fumbled wildly over his body, apparently searching for proof that he was still alive. A moment later, he blinked hard, stretched his hands out in front of him, and shook them back and forth, instantly growing excited:

"Haha, I'm still alive..."

"It seems... I'm alive too?" Fairy Descending with Face Plant didn't seem very confident in this obvious reality until we all nodded vigorously at her, proving she was indeed not dead, which finally let her heave a sigh of relief.

Very well, B-flat Minor Nocturne wasn't dead, Fairy Descending with Face Plant wasn't dead, and I was very lucky to still be alive—so then, who was the lucky winner of the one-in-four death lottery?

We instantly turned our heads toward the spot where Niu Baiwan had just been standing.

Beside the blue flagstone path where a few wild weeds grew out of the cracks, Niu Baiwan's soul-deprived, towering body lay sprawled upward, fast asleep. His thick cow tongue hung far out of his mouth, his two giant bovine eyes rolled upward into whites, and his cow tail was pulled taut—displaying the accidental expression of someone who had overeaten indigestible food and choked to death, looking extremely surprised that he had actually died here.

His surprise was entirely understandable: when the probability of a piece of bad luck happening to you is less than fifty percent, a vast majority of people firmly believe it will never happen to them. But such is reality—no matter how small the odds, there is never a shortage of unlucky fellows in this world.

Looking at Niu Baiwan's corpse, I suddenly realized what issue we had overlooked.

"If we die, he can resurrect us..." I looked at Niu Baiwan's corpse, asking somewhat troubled, "...but what on earth are we supposed to do with him now that *he* is the one who died?"