Chapter 11: Daughter of the Abyss
The great tree hollow was filled with black mud, resembling a swamp, and one with strong corrosive power.
It turned out that pure combat strength would suffer in many situations. For example, this time, if Su Xiao didn't have his attainments in Alchemy, he would have been blocked outside the great tree hollow.
Su Xiao sank in the black mud. This feeling wasn't pleasant. As he sank, the pressure and binding sensation from the surroundings grew stronger. Fortunately, the great tree hollow was nearly vertical, so he only needed to keep falling.
After sinking in the black mud for about five minutes, Su Xiao felt his feet suddenly meet empty space. His body then leaked out from beneath the black mud and fell freely downward. It seemed the black mud only sealed the upper section of the great tree hollow.
During the fall, Su Xiao grabbed a tree root and, using the luminous rocks on the surrounding soil layers, looked down to survey the situation below.
The originally tangled tree roots below had been cleared away, though a thick root nearly 2 meters in diameter remained above.
A crystal javelin formed in Su Xiao's hand. He wore the Black King Bracer on his left arm and swung it, driving the crystal javelin into the root above. A Spirit Shadow Thread connected to it.
Su Xiao grabbed the slender but tough Spirit Shadow Thread with his left hand and descended rapidly. Spirit Shadow Thread could not only be used to suture wounds; as long as Su Xiao had sufficient Cyan Steel Shadow Energy in his body, he could form very long Spirit Shadow Threads.
After descending for a long time, Su Xiao returned to the bottom of the great tree hollow. The metal door he had kicked a hole through appeared ahead.
He walked in through the hole in the door and proceeded along the corridor. Soon, he reached the second Sealed Slumber Door.
"It's you again. With the 'Dark Devouring Ghost' blocking the entrance, you still managed to get in."
The face on the door looked somewhat surprised. Then, it sighed and spoke earnestly:
"Outsider, give up. Without the secret password, you can't see the Queen. Besides... the Queen's condition isn't good. My existence is actually the Queen's last resort to trap herself. We... ultimately cannot escape the erosion of the Abyss. The stronger we are, the closer we are to the Abyss. It... is too terrifying, and too beautiful."
The face on the door had a look of nostalgia in its eyes. Once upon a time, it had joined the ranks of those resisting the Abyss with full confidence. But the final result was no struggle, no enemy. All of them, like-minded powerhouses, were unknowingly eroded by Abyssal Force. This made it understand one thing: in this world, pursuing strength was equivalent to embracing the Abyss. No one could escape.
The Abyss had no consciousness, no distinction between good and evil. It wasn't even a defined place; it was more like a conceptual existence.
What about the Silver Moon Wolf? When facing the erosion of the Abyss, it could only use its own body to suppress it. After being ambushed, it ended up being eroded by Abyssal Force.
In the Treeborn World, the more one pursued strength, the closer one got to Abyssal Force. And the Queen, as the strongest on the Northern Continent, had been heavily eroded by Abyssal Force in her early years. That was why she had sealed herself at the bottom of the great tree hollow.
"The secret password: Eternal Slumber."
"You!"
The face on the door showed a moment of shock and anger, then became expressionless.
[Silver Moon Blade] appeared in Su Xiao's hand. He used this silver dagger to cut across his right palm. No wound or blood appeared. Moonlight Force was bestowed upon him and upon Dragon-Slaying Flash. The two effects, [Moon Oath] and [Moon Blade], were successfully applied.
Su Xiao then took out [Spirit Blade]. [Spirit Blade] attached itself to the back of his right hand, forming light orange patterns.
Snap~
Su Xiao snapped his fingers with his right hand. A soul vibration sensation appeared, resonating with Dragon-Slaying Flash, successfully applying the [Soul Resonance · Sharpness] effect.
[Moon Oath Effect: True Strength +4 points, True Agility +4 points, Willpower +10 points, Health Points increased by 4200 points. Effect lasts 30 minutes.]
[Moon Blade Effect 2: Increases weapon sharpness by 135 points, increases weapon attack power by 20 to 32 points (lower limit to upper limit). Effect lasts 30 minutes.]
[Spirit Blade Effect: Increases weapon sharpness by 50% of your own Soul Strength. Effect lasts 25 minutes.]
Although the door ahead hadn't opened yet, the seals on it had been removed. The aura of the Ghost Clan Queen spread out. The moment he sensed this aura, Su Xiao applied the 'Dual Blade' effect to himself, i.e., Silver Moon Blade + Spirit Blade.
From the current bonuses, Spirit Blade was slightly stronger. However, this equipment was nearly maxed out. In contrast, [Silver Moon Blade] could still grow three more times, provided he found three burial sites of the Silver Moon Wolf and offered fresh meat as a sacrifice.
"Outsider, this is the final warning. If you insist on entering the Queen's bedchamber, there's no turning back. Either you die in the bedchamber, or you defeat the Queen. Only then will the bedchamber door open again."
"..."
"Sorry, I seem to have said something unnecessary. Looking at your eyes, there's no hesitation at all."
After the face on the door said this, raised lines and grooves appeared on the metal door it was on. After these raised lines and grooves shifted and interlocked, a crisp click sounded from both the top and bottom of the metal door. Two rows of bolts retracted.
The Sealed Slumber Door opened with a deep metallic grinding sound. As soon as a crack appeared, biting cold air drifted out.
When the door was fully open, Su Xiao walked inside. As soon as he entered the Queen's bedchamber, the metal door behind him slammed shut. The sound of mechanisms working came from within the door, clearly indicating it had been locked again.
Either kill the Queen or die here. There was no other choice.
The bedchamber was over a thousand square meters in size. The reliefs and pillars on the surrounding walls gave the place a sense of antiquity. At the center of the floor was a 2-meter-wide, worn red carpet. Following the worn red carpet forward was a huge bed.
The bed was over 7 meters wide. In front of it were translucent curtains. These curtains were as thin as cicada wings, gently swaying with the wind caused by the closing of the metal door.
Behind the curtains on the bed, a figure lay on her side, pillowed on ice. She wore a pure white long dress, and beside her head rested a crown.
Seeing the Queen for the first time, she didn't seem imposing while asleep. However, she was nearly 5 meters tall, yet didn't look giant-like. Her body proportions were very balanced, giving one the feeling that she was truly a huge, beautiful woman.
The Queen's eyelashes moved as she lay there. She opened her eyes. The background of her eyes was pitch black, while her pupils were white.
"Did the Prophet send you?"
The Queen sat up slowly, exhaling cold mist from her mouth.
"No."
"Then..."
The Queen's eyes narrowed slightly, as if she let out a soft sigh.
"Every time I wake up, I can only stay clear-headed for a short while. If the Prophet didn't send you here, do you have a way to leave?"
The Queen's voice was gentle, very different from the imposing figure one might imagine.
"Yes."
"That's good."
"Killing you would allow me to leave."
"Then that's not good."
The Queen smiled. She sat with her legs to one side. Due to long-term erosion by the Abyss and cold, her long hair had long turned icy white.
Su Xiao stepped forward to the bed. Crystals spread beneath his feet, forming a crystal chair behind him. He sat down.
"You didn't just slash at me directly. That's different from what your aura suggests."
The Queen looked down slightly at Su Xiao. There was no helping it; the size difference between them was quite large.
Su Xiao took out [Blood Fragrant Fine Wine] from his storage space. Seeing this bottle of wine, the Queen's gentle expression faded considerably.
Ignoring the Queen's change in expression, Su Xiao took out two wine cups, one large and one small. The cups were very thin, resembling jade, and were slightly translucent.
Su Xiao poured [Blood Fragrant Fine Wine] into both cups. He picked up the slightly smaller one and looked at the Ghost Clan Queen.
The Queen's gaze was very complex, seeming to contain nostalgia and some anger.
"This is the last of the Fragrant Wine. Won't you drink it?"
"Of course... I'll drink it."
The Queen picked up the larger cup. Just as Su Xiao was about to down the wine in his cup, the Queen extended her cup forward, meaning to clink glasses with him.
"..."
Clink~
The cups touched. Su Xiao drank the Fragrant Wine in his cup. Although it was a strong liquor, it was slightly sweet on the tongue. Only after reaching the stomach did it reveal its true nature as a strong spirit.
No wonder the Ghost Clan Queen liked this wine. It was like her: usually gentle and approachable, only showing ferocity and strength in battle.
The Queen covered her mouth with her sleeve and drank the wine in her cup. The Queen was impeccable in etiquette.
"A taste that makes one both nostalgic and resentful."
The Queen slowly exhaled the wine's vapor. After drinking the strong liquor, a faint flush of color appeared on her cheeks.
"Outsider, did you come here just to defeat or kill me?"
"I came to find the Soul Severing Shadow Stone."
"This?"
The Queen raised her hand, showing Su Xiao a ring on her little finger. The gem on this ring was exactly the last Soul Severing Shadow Stone that Su Xiao lacked.
"The Soul Severing Shadow Stone cannot be given to you. It belongs to the Law Destroyers, though I've never seen one."
"I am one."
"Huh? Lying~"
"..."
"Are you really a Law Destroyer? Do natural elements favor you?"
"..."
The natural elements around Su Xiao gathered toward him.
"You can actually make elements actively come closer. This is the first time I've seen a living Law Destroyer."
The Queen leaned in closer to observe Su Xiao. She looked like she wanted to poke him with her fair, slender index finger.
"Hey, returning it to its rightful owner."
The Queen took off the ring from her hand. The main body of the ring was damaged. The Soul Severing Shadow Stone on it was pried off and floated toward Su Xiao.
Su Xiao caught the Soul Severing Shadow Stone floating toward him. A prompt appeared.
[You have obtained Soul Severing Shadow Stone · Fragment.]
Su Xiao had finally gathered all five Soul Severing Shadow Stone · Fragments. Once he synthesized them, the inheritance stone of Soul Severing Shadow would be in his hands.
"Law Destroyer, do you know where the Abyss is? Are the outer worlds many? Does the Void really exist? What is there?"
The Queen had many questions, but her aura became increasingly chaotic. She could no longer maintain her rationality.
"I... can't stay clear-headed any longer. Next... don't hold back. Just go all out and kill me. I wish you... success, Law Destroyer."
After saying this, the Queen's white pupils were gradually eroded by the darkness in her eye background.
Boom~
A shockwave spread. Su Xiao was pushed back dozens of meters by the cold current. He landed steadily, unharmed by the impact.
On the huge bed, the Queen had stood up. Her eyes still had black backgrounds, but her pupils had become white vertical slits.
Crack, crack, crack~
Metal-like ice armor attached itself to the Queen's body. This silver-white thin armor clung to her form, extending past her neck to just below her cheeks.
Click, click.
The hilts of two long blades protruded from the bed. The Queen grasped a hilt in each hand and drew out two long swords, each nearly 2 meters long.
The grips of these two swords had a slight curve, making them comfortable to hold. The base of the blades was about 10 centimeters wide, but as the slightly curved edge went upward, the blades became narrower.
Two long swords nearly 2 meters long were unusable for ordinary people, but with the Queen's nearly 5-meter tall, slender figure, these weapons suited her well.
One sword was black, the other white. One emitted black smoke, representing darkness, while the other gave off a glowing white smoke, representing light.
A powerful oppressive aura spread outward. The Queen's combat power, size, and aura all brought pressure.
Zheng~
Su Xiao drew the long blade at his waist. This battle required utmost caution. The Demon Blade had already been used against the siege of the Violators and was now in its cooldown phase. A single mistake in this battle would mean death here. No, even without mistakes, the odds of victory weren't high.
The Apostle's Eye floated behind Su Xiao, scanning the Ghost Clan Queen's information.
[Comparing both parties' Intelligence attributes... Due to the environment, only 37.5% of the enemy's data has been detected.]
Name: Queen · Yuro
Category: Ghost Clan / Abyss First Daughter
Health Points: 97.62%
Extreme Ice Force: 45600/45600 points
Abyssal Force: 92000/92000 points
Strength: 252 (True Attribute)
Agility: ??? (True Attribute)
Stamina: 249 (True Attribute)
Intelligence: 167 (True Attribute)
Charm: 251 (True Attribute)
Skill 1, Abyss Blood (Abyss Passive, Lv.80): Health Points +82000, ignores all control effects, reduces 27% physical damage, reduces 75% light damage, reduces 75% dark damage, reduces 90% ice damage.
Skill 2, Light · Extreme Radiance (Abyss Passive, Lv.79): When attacking with the left-hand weapon (Light), if the attack successfully hits the enemy, it deals base slashing damage + 650 points of Light attribute damage, and has a 50% chance to cause the enemy to suffer the [Light Stun] effect. Within the next 20 seconds, if the enemy suffers Dark attribute attacks, damage is increased by 100%.
Skill 3, Dark · Annihilation (Abyss Passive, Lv.79): When attacking with the right-hand weapon (Dark), if the attack successfully hits the enemy, it deals base slashing damage + Dark cutting damage equal to 13% of the enemy's maximum Health Points. Within the next 20 seconds, if the enemy suffers Light attribute attacks, their movement speed is greatly reduced.
???
Skill 5, Daughter of the Abyss (Abyss Passive, Lv.82): The Queen continuously absorbs Abyssal Force. At the cost of continuously consuming the Abyssal Force within her body, she recovers 15% of her Health Points per second.
Note: This recovery has priority and can only be suppressed by a few methods.
Skill 6, Lingering Hatred of Betrayal (Passive, Lv.82): Enemies within 300 meters of Queen · Yuro are identified as traitors (requires combat power above a certain level). For each additional traitor near the Queen, the damage intensity of the Queen's attacks increases by an additional 10% (up to a maximum of 167% damage intensity increase, which is the limit of weapon and body energy overdraft).
Note: After killing five traitors, the Queen's anger subsides for a moment, and this ability enters a 3-hour cooldown period. During this time, this ability becomes ineffective.
Note: When the Queen's anger subsides somewhat, she will suppress her absorption of Abyssal Force, causing the recovery effect of [Daughter of the Abyss] to stop.
???
Skill 8, Dual Blade Grandmaster (Technique Passive, Lv.65): Blade-type weapon attack power increased by 650% (Dual Blade Grandmaster, attack power bonus is lower). Each time attacking an enemy, whether hitting or being blocked, increases attack speed by 10% and defense reduction by 4%.
Note: This effect can stack up to 10 layers. After stacking 10 layers, this effect lasts for 300 seconds.
Note: Due to Queen · Yuro's chaotic rationality, all ultimate abilities derived from this ability have been disabled.
???
Skill 10, Extreme Ice King (Ultimate Passive, Lv.53): When Queen · Yuro's Health Points fall below 50%, she loses her Light and Dark abilities and enters the Extreme Ice King state.
???
Skill 12, Melee Grandmaster (Technique Passive, Lv.61): Melee body attack power increased by 720%, base nerve reflex speed +41 points, base dynamic vision +41 points...
???
???
Skill 15, World · Freeze (Ultimate Ability, Lv.47): Queen · Yuro instantly consumes all Abyssal Force within her body, causing an extreme freezing pulse within a 400 to 600 meter radius. This freezes the energy, space, and even the thoughts of living beings within this area. The frozen domain lasts for 3 seconds. During this time, Queen · Yuro can move freely within this domain.
Note: This ability can only be activated after entering the [Extreme Ice King] state.
...
The Ghost Clan Queen's Abyssal Force was a notch higher than the Moon Wolf's back then. This was normal. The Moon Wolf was stronger than the Queen, so its resistance to Abyssal Force was stronger, naturally resulting in less Abyssal Force within its body.
The Queen's strength was obvious. Her black/white dual blades had Light and Dark properties. The Light blade could stun + increase damage, while the Dark blade dealt explosive damage + a slowing effect.
If struck by a combo of Light and Dark dual blades, even gods would find it hard to endure. What was worse was that the Queen was a Dual Blade Grandmaster. Her Grandmaster trait was that the more she attacked, the faster her attack speed became, plus she crazily reduced defense.
A Dual Blade Grandmaster combined with the properties of the black and white blades meant that once suppressed by the Queen, one could basically say goodbye to this beautiful world.
Besides these, the Queen's Agility attribute was ???, indicating she leaned more toward a speed type.
This was only the Queen's first combat state. After entering the second state, Extreme Ice King, the Queen would gain the ability to freeze energy, space, and even the thoughts of enemies.
The current situation was that not only was the Demon Blade in its cooldown phase, robbing Su Xiao of his strongest trump card, but the other participants outside the great tree hollow were also a huge hidden danger.
The Queen was clearly not an enemy that one person could handle. She was too deeply eroded by Abyssal Force. Her [Daughter of the Abyss] ability had an absurdly powerful recovery, recovering 15% of Health Points per second at the cost of consuming Abyssal Force. Even if her Health Points dropped below 10%, she would recover to full in less than 7 seconds.
Fortunately, this ability wasn't unsolvable. Enemies near the Queen would be automatically considered traitors by her irrational self. After killing five traitors, the latent anger buried in her heart would subside somewhat, causing her to reject further erosion by Abyssal Force. This would naturally make the [Daughter of the Abyss] ability temporarily ineffective.
Only by suppressing the Queen's monstrous recovery ability could there be a fight. Otherwise, there was simply no way to fight.
If he hadn't prepared a backup plan in advance, Su Xiao would have had no choice but to use the escape item [Drifting Bait] and retreat. Alone, he couldn't defeat the Ghost Clan Queen, who had nearly infinite recovery of Abyssal Force and could recover full Health Points in 7 seconds, especially since the Queen was also a powerhouse with dual Grandmaster abilities.
The Queen was already strong, and this was her bedchamber, her super home ground. Throughout the entire Northern Continent, no place had a denser concentration of Abyssal Force than here.
Fortunately, Su Xiao had a backup plan. Otherwise, he wouldn't have ventured alone to the bottom of the great tree hollow.
According to the message Bubu Wang had just sent via the team channel, besides Wood, Ona, the Three Brothers of National Football, and Gulu, Sacred Hymn, the Ghost Brothers, and others had also arrived.
At this moment, outside the great tree hollow, there were at least a dozen participants. It was time to cooperate with his 'good teammates' once.
Su Xiao took an eyeball from his storage space. This was secretly given to him by Wood earlier, with the purpose that if there was an unsolvable situation, he could cooperate with the other party, and they would split the spoils afterward.
Crushing the eyeball meant he only needed Wood himself to come, cooperating with Su Xiao to resolve the risk. If he input energy into this eyeball, Wood would have to find a way to trick more people into coming, then use the Abyssal Jar to forcibly tear through space and arrive near Su Xiao.
Taking advantage of the Queen ahead not charging directly due to wariness of his blood energy, Su Xiao injected a trace of Cyan Steel Shadow Energy into the eyeball in his hand. This was equivalent to sending a signal to Wood, telling him that the more people he could trick into coming, the better, so there would be enough for the Queen to cut down later.
This opportunity to gang up on a super big boss naturally had to be 'shared' with others. If the Queen didn't kill enough traitors, Su Xiao simply couldn't fight her.
Since those participants outside wanted to come in so badly, let them all come in. When the time was right, Su Xiao would have a decisive battle with the Queen.