Chapter 31: Chance of Victory
The prepared potion was poured into a container to cool. Su Xiao picked up the container and observed the semi-fluid potion at eye level. The potion showed a dark red color, giving off a strong sense of ill omen.
This potion was brewed using [Ancient Dragon Essence] as the main material. Originally intended to be called "Dragon Soul Secret Medicine," it was now more fitting to name it "Evil Dragon Potion."
The location of the [Ancient Dragon Essence] was provided by the Evil Heart, situated in an extremely dark cave deep within the Ash Land. When the Demon Spirit incarnation found the old dragon, it had already been dead for several years. For dragons of this strength, the dragon blood and soul essence would not decay within a dozen years after death. This process would only begin gradually after 16 to 19 years.
Under normal circumstances, before the dragon blood could decay, keen-scented aberrant beasts would come to devour it. However, the extremely dark cave in the Ash Land had a unique terrain that formed a natural dark seal, allowing this [Ancient Dragon Essence] to survive until now.
But when the Demon Spirit incarnation found the old dragon's corpse, Su Xiao saw through the monitoring device's feedback that this Absolute Strength-level old dragon had severely corrupted dragon blood, pale and rough dragon hide, and unusually turbid pupils that had long lost their luster.
This wasn't actually abnormal. This old dragon must have been severely injured and hid in the Ash Land to recover. Unfortunately, the injuries were too severe, leading to its death. Considering the cursed environment of this world, such changes in the corpse were not surprising.
This [Ancient Dragon Essence] had a bonus effect. Directly absorbing it could permanently increase health by 120,000 points, but it would permanently reduce Willpower by 20 points. Trading 20 points of Willpower for 120,000 health points seemed like a good deal.
The problem was that the Evil Heart had foreseen the location of this [Ancient Dragon Essence]. Moreover, the Evil Heart might have already sensed that its oath lord, the Crimson Lord, was dead. Under these circumstances, the Evil Heart would desperately and unscrupulously try to break free from Su Xiao.
Given the Evil Heart's cunning and treachery, it wouldn't try to break free from Su Xiao in a short time. Instead, it would repeatedly plant hidden dangers, such as this [Ancient Dragon Essence].
Alternatively, using the Evil Heart's foresight of the "Supreme Life Source" as a boundary point, before this, the Evil Heart had been afraid that its oath lord, the Crimson Lord, would come looking for it, or that the Old Lord would suddenly pursue this insignificant character. After all, no one could predict the behavior of void alien beings.
With these two threats present, being bound by Su Xiao was actually a good thing. When the two came looking, the Evil Heart planned to hide behind Su Xiao and let him bear the brunt.
After Su Xiao obtained the "Supreme Life Source," the Evil Heart's oath lord, the Crimson Lord, died, and the Old Lord showed no sign of pursuing this insignificant character. Thus, Su Xiao became the Evil Heart's number one enemy for gaining freedom.
It must be said that this [Ancient Dragon Essence] was indeed well-chosen. If Su Xiao hadn't pursued potion quality and wanted to remove all the debuffs of the "Evil Dragon Potion," he truly wouldn't have discovered the hidden characteristics of this potion.
The "Evil Dragon Potion" had five versions. The first version was:
"Permanently increases health by 85,000 points, permanently reduces Willpower attribute by 1 point."
This made Su Xiao very dissatisfied, both because the gain was too greatly reduced and because there was still a debuff. Fortunately, the brewing wasn't complete, and changes could be catalyzed, leading to the second version:
"Permanently increases health by 100 points, permanently reduces Willpower attribute by 0.1 points."
Su Xiao nearly extracted and stripped all the beneficial parts of this potion. Even so, that 0.1% Willpower reduction clung like an unshakable bone tumor, impossible to remove. This made him realize something.
The composition of this potion was like a gourd-shaped balloon. The large end was the benefit, and the small end was the debuff. Even if you deflated the benefit side, while it could make the small end smaller, it couldn't make the small end disappear. Thus, the "Evil Dragon Potion" had a third version:
"Permanently increases health by 210,000 points, permanently reduces Willpower attribute by 50 points."
As expected, the potion's benefits and debuffs were connected. Su Xiao tried to enhance the beneficial characteristics at all costs, but the expected multitude of debuff characteristics didn't appear. The dozens of anticipated debuffs were all devoured by the single "Willpower Reduction" debuff.
That's right, devoured. This wasn't a metaphor. The potion's debuff characteristics corresponded to some particularly hard-to-detect living entity. Su Xiao tried microscopic observation, but even at maximum magnification, he couldn't detect anything. So he switched to contract testing.
He used the potion's side effects as the cost of a contract, then used the "Contract Codex" to determine the characteristics of this cost. The final result was:
Writhing, Erosion, Parasitism, Precept.
The three characteristics of writhing, erosion, and parasitism basically determined this was a living entity. He tentatively called it a Hidden Leech, reasoning that this living entity would suck the host's Willpower like a leech sucking blood.
The key was the final "Precept" characteristic, which meant that as long as one didn't drink this potion, the Hidden Leech inside would definitely not actively invade. Fortunately, this time, brewing this potion was risk-free as long as one didn't drink it. Thus, the potion's fifth version was created:
"Permanently increases health by 620,000 points, permanently reduces Willpower attribute by 150 points, and has a high probability of causing continuous Willpower attribute decline for a period afterward."
After discovering that the Hidden Leech had the characteristic of devouring negative effects, Su Xiao simply stopped using life-characteristic potion materials to enhance the "Evil Dragon Potion." It was too expensive. He used various materials that were a hundred times cheaper than life-characteristic materials but had strong side effects to enhance the "Evil Dragon Potion."
Su Xiao looked at the potion that emitted an enticing rose-red color. In some situations, using this thing against enemies was more effective than potent poison, especially when dealing with large forces and wanting to eliminate a high-ranking member of that force.
After thinking for a moment, Su Xiao resumed brewing, this time adding extreme potent drugs, finally obtaining the fifth version of the "Evil Dragon Potion":
"Permanently increases lifespan upper limit by 10%, permanently increases health by 300,000 points, permanently reduces current Willpower attribute by 30% + 150 points, and has a high probability of causing continuous Willpower attribute decline for a period afterward."
This thing certainly couldn't be sold as a beneficial potion. Considering this, he would later contact Kaisa and ask him to "enhance" it, making the "permanently increases lifespan upper limit by 10%, permanently increases health by 300,000 points" more prominent, while the Willpower deduction part became almost imperceptible, unless one checked the attributes through Void Tree or Paradise camp certification.
Originally, he planned to deal with the Evil Heart soon. Now, it might be better to postpone it. Take this bottle of "Evil Dragon Potion" as an example. If a high-ranking member of an enemy force drank this thing, the destructive power it would cause would be a hundred times stronger than directly poisoning them to death.
As for relying on high Willpower to resist this thing's debuff, that was impossible. This thing would bore through the Willpower, and the Hidden Leech would continuously suck the host's Willpower, causing the host to have negative Willpower. At that point, the host's behavior would become unpredictable, sometimes angry, sometimes insane, sometimes lustful, sometimes cruel and bloodthirsty.
Baha flew in through the window, bringing back a wooden box. Opening it, inside was a precision core the size of a marble. Su Xiao took out the "Mysterious Eye." The "Mysterious Eye" began to resonate with this core, floating up and unfolding on its own. With a click, it absorbed the core into itself, then closed.
Hum~
The "Mysterious Eye" emitted a loud humming sound of intense operation. Dense runic structures lit up on it, then calmed down after a moment.
The "Mysterious Eye" landed in Su Xiao's hand, looking unchanged. After studying it for a moment, he felt the enhancement of the "Mysterious Eye." First, functions like detection and unlocking were greatly improved. Even the "Spinning Flashbang Mode" he developed had its effect enhanced by more than a hundred times.
Previously, it emitted intense light that caused severe pain in perception. Now, it directly shook the body and soul. Even with Su Xiao's current physique and soul strength, getting hit by it would require a long time to recover. The only problem was that this function was useless.
Flashbangs were useful, but adding spinning characteristics made them completely useless. What was even more infuriating was that this spinning had strong tracking effects. As long as Su Xiao threw it out, no matter how fast he tried to evade, the Mysterious Eye in Spinning Flashbang Mode would precisely track him, ensuring it exploded in front of his eyes.
As for the other functions of the "Mysterious Eye," he still had to develop them himself. Perhaps the few masters of alchemical mechanics who created this thing never considered what would happen when it fell into the hands of an alchemical potion master.
Su Xiao went to the basement of this building. This place had been excavated by Amu into a vertical shaft, and an elevator had been installed. Taking the elevator down, after descending several hundred meters underground, the elevator stopped.
This was an underground space of about a dozen square meters, shaped like a half-circle, like an inverted large bowl. The walls were made of a gray-white chitinous material, which had strong load-bearing capacity.
Dense sealing runes were inscribed on the surrounding walls. After checking that these inscriptions were fine, Su Xiao took the elevator back up. Just as he returned to the bedroom on the third floor, Baha said:
"Boss, the Demon Spirit has reached the Eternal Bell."
"..."
Su Xiao sat on a wooden chair, looking at the image in the projection. The Demon Spirit incarnation stood on a pale white land. A black-blue bell several thousand meters high was suspended in the air by a very thick chain. Clouds and mist flowed above the Eternal Bell. Looking up at the bell from below, the inside of the bell was a chaotic mess.
A few hours ago, the Demon Spirit incarnation arrived at Smile Town on Skeleton Island. The result was that the Demon Spirit couldn't break through this place. The aberrations here were quite powerful, and as a cost, over 80% of them were killed by the Demon Spirit.
In the end, the Demon Spirit incarnation found a secret passage to the deep underground in an old house in Smile Town. After reaching ten thousand meters underground in Smile Town, there was a passage made of bones. Following the bone passage for over a dozen kilometers, then taking the elevator at the end, the Demon Spirit finally reached the secret island corresponding to the hidden mission.
On this secret island was a ruined relic. In the center of the relic was a tall stone tablet, which recorded the method to activate the "Eternal Bell." More precisely, the "Eternal Bell" was actually a kind of trial.
There were three such stone tablets recording the secrets of the "Eternal Bell." One was on "Skeleton Island," which should have been found and destroyed by Shenfu. One was on the secret island. The last one was on the second floor of the dungeon in "Ember Town," guarded by the Dark Spirits.
He knew this because near the stone tablet on the secret island, there was a dried corpse. Inside the bear skin bundle of the corpse was a notebook, recording the corpse's experiences. This was a pilgrim who had fled midway. The guilt of fleeing made him travel everywhere and write this precious notebook. When he was about to return to Ember City to atone, he died on the last stop, the secret island.
The Demon Spirit incarnation went to the secret island and naturally used the "Curse Index Finger" to activate the "hidden mechanism" on the secret island. Through the prompt that appeared, Su Xiao learned what was sealed in this mechanism underground palace. It was the big boss of this world, the Giant Curse Devourer.
This world originally had two major forces, the Soul Ancient Hall and the Radiance Holy Hall. Now, this Giant Curse Devourer was the last leader of the Soul Ancient Hall. There were even rumors that the intensification of the curse was orchestrated by this person.
[Hidden Mission: Curse Origin, Final Stage]
Difficulty Level: Lv.95++++
Mission Brief: Must hold this "Curse Index Finger" to go to the Curse Land: Decayed Blood Sea: Secret Island, and activate the hidden mechanism on the island.
Mission Time Limit: 10 natural days.
Mission Reward: Determined by final cumulative completion rate.
Mission Penalty: Forced execution.
...
According to the process, he should go to the mechanism underground palace and kill the big boss of this world, the Giant Curse Devourer. The problem was that this big boss was over level 170, while the Demon Spirit was only level 90. Even adding the hidden 60 levels, it was only level 150. Considering the environmental buffs for this big boss, the Demon Spirit incarnation couldn't possibly win.
Unless the Demon Spirit incarnation completed the trial of the "Eternal Bell," there was no way to challenge the Giant Curse Devourer. Therefore, Su Xiao didn't plan to have the Demon Spirit incarnation challenge the Giant Curse Devourer. The hidden mission only required activating the hidden mechanism on the secret island; it didn't require defeating this big boss.
Facts proved that Su Xiao's judgment was correct. The mission was indeed completed. However, the completion rate for this final stage was as high as -1132.65%.
From the first to the fifth stage, each stage had a high completion rate, averaging over 240%. The problem was that the highlight of this mission was to activate the hidden mechanism on the secret island, then within a limited time, kill the big boss, the Giant Curse Devourer.
Su Xiao omitted this stage, which meant that he essentially released the big boss originally imprisoned in the mechanism underground palace without dealing with it. This resulted in the magical mission completion rate of -1132.65%.
In the end, Su Xiao completed this hidden mission with an astonishing mission completion rate of 2.65%.
[You have completed the hidden mission: Curse Origin.]
[You have obtained the Curse Chest (upon opening, there is a 1% chance to gain rewards, 99% chance to suffer the curse).]
Su Xiao didn't care at all about the loss from ruining the hidden mission. Compared to the subsequent gains in this world, this loss was nothing. He looked at the Demon Spirit incarnation in the projection and knew the time had come. He drew the sheathed Dragon-Slaying Flash and inserted it into the summoning array on the ground.
Meanwhile, near the Eternal Bell, the Demon Spirit incarnation used a crystal longsword to outline a runic seal in the air. With a single slash, it struck this runic seal. The slash light expanded accordingly, and with a clang, it struck the Eternal Bell.
Instantly, the surrounding area shook violently. The prolonged bell sound scattered the clouds and mist. After a few minutes, the surroundings gradually quieted down.
This silence only lasted a moment. The ground began to vibrate slightly. From an aerial view, countless cursed beings swarmed from the surroundings, surrounding the Demon Spirit incarnation.
Clang!
A ring of black flame slash light expanded, cutting all the cursed beings within a thousand meters in half. Almost simultaneously, the Demon Spirit incarnation died by turning to wood. This was the result of deep cursing.
These cursed beings had a characteristic: if you killed them, their curse would spread to the killer through causality, accumulating curse value. Once the curse value reached 100%, death was immediate.
That is to say, the Demon Spirit incarnation's ring slash killed itself.
At the same time as the Demon Spirit incarnation died, in the bedroom on the third floor of the safe zone, Su Xiao activated the summoning array and pulled out Dragon-Slaying Flash from it. Dark blue smoke emerged, and the Demon Spirit was summoned back. Before the Demon Spirit could react, it was suppressed again and then retracted into Dragon-Slaying Flash.
[Your battle incarnation has died. You will suffer corresponding losses.]
[Prompt: It has been verified that you are the original owner of this incarnation, but you are not the actual controller of this incarnation. When this incarnation died, it failed to fully correlate to your judgment.]
[Judgment complete. The Demon Spirit strength of the Blade Demon Spirit is permanently reduced by 10 points.]
Su Xiao wasn't surprised by this result. He went to the fourth floor and retrieved the four cores from the four arrays one by one. Actually, three were enough, but to be safe, he made one extra.
Arriving at the second floor where the teleportation array was set up, Su Xiao stopped in front of the teleportation array. This time, instead of using the "Law-Destroying Teleportation Array," he used expensive conventional long-range teleportation array materials to ensure the teleportation process was stable enough. To strengthen this, he also increased the teleportation time from 5 seconds to 30 seconds.
Opening the map, the current appearance of the map had been greatly modified. The gray areas represented "Curse Spread Areas," the black areas represented "Abyss Erosion Areas," and the rust-colored areas represented "Mechanical Pollution Areas."
Baha had set up spatial coordinates in the center of these three major areas. Su Xiao first adjusted the scale of the long-range teleportation array to correspond to the coordinates of the "Curse Spread Area." After activating it, he teleported a cylindrical device half a meter thick and three meters high to this area.
After a 30-second teleportation, the cylindrical device arrived on the gravel ground of the secret island. Upon landing, it immediately expanded. The array inside spread out, forming an array several hundred meters in diameter. Upon closer inspection, this was a World Force gathering array.
This world was being invaded by the Abyss. The dark invasion of the Abyss caused this already dead world to have nearly inexhaustible World Force. Simply put, once the saturated World Force of this world was consumed, new World Force would immediately be converted from Abyss energy.
But there was a problem. The World Force of this world had negative characteristics, which was why the curse and mechanical pollution had spread to such an extent.
Now, after this World Force gathering array appeared in the area with the highest curse concentration, the result was that the massive influx of World Force caused the curse intensity in this area to continuously rise. From its originally invisible form, it gradually became gray mist. This was not just an increase in quantity; it was beginning to undergo qualitative change.
The same situation occurred at the World Force gathering array deep in the "Decayed Forest," causing the degree of mechanical pollution in this area to visibly rise. The originally semi-metallic trees began to show rust spots.
In front of the long-range teleportation array on the second floor of the safe zone, Su Xiao's plan was certainly not limited to this. This was just an appetizer. He deployed a giant "World Force Gathering Array" in each of the Weeping Black Nest, the Eternal Bell, and the Ash Land.
With this foundation, he opened the "Book of Original Sin" and stripped out the sealed "Scarlet Scepter." Completely releasing its seal was asking for death, so he used a crystal core cultivated over several days to wrap the "Scarlet Scepter."
Approaching the teleportation array, as he activated the teleportation, he released the crystal-wrapped "Scarlet Scepter" in his hand.
At this moment, above the Ash Land, the "Scarlet Scepter" suddenly appeared, falling vertically, and with a crack, it inserted into the center of the "World Force Gathering Array." After a brief silence, strands of scarlet energy spread out. The next second.
Boom!
A massive amount of scarlet energy spread to the surroundings, as spectacular as a surging scarlet sea. Opening the real-time map to check, on the western side of this world, it was quickly being contaminated by scarlet.
This wasn't the end. Su Xiao stripped the "Sun Mask" from the "Book of Original Sin." Still wrapping it in a crystal core, he teleported it to the "World Force Gathering Array" in the Eternal Bell area.
At this moment, in the central area of this world, the "Sun Mask" was stationary a few meters above the ground. The golden color representing the blazing sun gradually transformed under the nourishment of World Force into a dark gold-red representing aberration, like thick blazing sun blood.
Compared to the surging scarlet, the aberrant blazing sun simply formed a dark red sun in the sky. Wherever it covered, everything began to aberrate. Even the Eternal Bell began to ooze magma and aberrate.
In front of the teleportation array in the safe zone, after confirming the stability of the aberrant blazing sun, Su Xiao once again stripped the "Nether Bone Ring" from the "Book of Original Sin." Because his relationship with the "Nether Bone Ring" was cold, unlike the extremely hostile relationships with the "Scarlet Scepter" and "Sun Mask," he didn't choose an enhanced sealing version of the crystal core.
Applying seals on the crystal core to avoid the invasion of Original Sin objects at critical moments was one of the reasons he had raised Sealcraft to Lv.93.
After checking, Su Xiao teleported the crystal core-wrapped "Nether Bone Ring" to the "World Force Gathering Array" at the "Weeping Black Nest" using the long-range teleportation array.
Just as the teleportation was completed, Su Xiao noticed that the map was being invaded by a dark green color. Compared to the scarlet and aberrant blazing sun, the Nether's momentum wasn't fierce, but its spread speed was extremely fast.
At this moment, within the area where the Nether Mist was spreading.
"Roar!!"
The former Black Nest creatures were now frantically running to the surroundings. After they rushed out of the Nether Mist, Nether Mist began to emerge on their bodies, causing the Nether Mist they left along the way to spread at a very fast speed.
A Black Nest creature eroded to madness charged into a large gathering place of the Carrion Eaters. These Carrion Eaters usually ate anything: humans, nightmare creatures, various beasts, all were their meals. But at this moment, after a Black Nest creature contaminated by Nether rushed into this Carrion Eater gathering place, angry shouts came from inside, then silence.
After about a few seconds of silence, a Carrion Eater looked up and roared. Its eyes showed a creepy dark green glow, and Nether Mist emanated from its body.
In just over a dozen seconds, at this Carrion Eater gathering place, which was about the size of half of Ember City, Nether Mist began to emerge from various exits. Amidst hoarse screams, Carrion Eaters with Nether Mist emanating from their bodies rushed out from various exits of this gathering place, causing the Nether to spread even faster.
What was truly terrifying was that the center point of the Nether Mist's spread, the "Weeping Black Nest," wasn't far from the central area of the curse, the secret island. Therefore, the Nether quickly came into contact with the curse. There was no imagined mutual erosion; instead, the curse was assimilated by the Nether. This caused the Nether to spread across most of the cursed area at an even faster rate. The Nether of this world officially became the Nether Curse.
The same situation occurred with the mechanical pollution assimilated by the blazing sun. An energy called Aberration Pollution began to spread rapidly.
Of course, neither the Nether Curse nor the Aberration Pollution had the qualification to change the characteristics of the "Nether Bone Ring" and "Sun Mask." These two Big Daddy-level Original Sin objects were still pure "Nether" and "Blazing Sun." It was just for the convenience of spreading in this world that they temporarily assimilated the original negative characteristic energy of this world.
The Scarlet was relatively pure, but its spread speed was getting faster and faster. Wherever it passed, the earth turned dark red, and the sky seemed to be burning.
An even more absurd scene appeared on the secret island. The big boss of this world, the Giant Curse Devourer, which had just broken through the giant door of the mechanism underground palace, was now writhing painfully within the Nether Curse. Painful faces appeared on its massive body. After letting out an unwilling roar, the Giant Curse Devourer was powerless to continue surging forward.
This former big boss that fed on curses was thus eroded to death by the Nether Curse. This showed how terrifying the Nether Curse was. A battle incarnation that could resist conventional curses would be even less able to withstand the Nether Curse.
At this moment, in front of the teleportation array in the safe zone, Su Xiao put away the "Book of Original Sin." He brought Fenni, Bubu Wang, Amu, Baha, and Beini to the basement, took the elevator, and arrived at the shelter prepared several hundred meters underground.
The layers of sealing runes here were activated, completely sealing this shelter. This was the main purpose of raising Sealcraft to Lv.93: to hold out until the end of this competition amidst the subsequent spread of Scarlet, Aberration Pollution, and Nether Curse.
Sitting on a velvet blanket on the ground, Su Xiao began to maintain the stability of these hundreds of thousands of layers of seals. Beside him, Fenni, hugging her knees, looked a bit dazed. No wonder she was like this. The warning prompts in front of her had started to flood the screen.
If one opened the world communication platform, they would find the situation even more lively. Opening the contact list of the world communication platform, the avatars and names with normal colors meant they were still in this world. Dim colors meant they had given up on this round and gone to the teleportation transfer station to wait. Gray and white meant death.
In the contact list, one avatar after another became dim. Nearly half of the participants had chosen to give up on this round. It wasn't that they had experienced the power of the Scarlet and Aberration Pollution in such a short time. It was that the Nether Curse spread too quickly, already reaching Ember City. Plus, all the residents here had left for the Lord's Continent. Without anyone to maintain the defensive barrier, it was eroded through in a very short time.
Ember City would cease to exist. The certification based on this city naturally became a castle in the air. So what truly made these participants willingly give up was the series of small safe zones that were about to disappear.
Zelina (Apocalypse Paradise): "Bai Ye, the Scarlet, Aberration Pollution, and Nether Curse outside, is there teammate damage immunity?"
Water Brother (Death Paradise): "You can bravely try."
Goddess (Holy Light Paradise): "Why does everyone think that the Night of Decapitation caused the current situation?"
Yingqin (Death Paradise): "Very simple, because among the violators, except for Moon Witch and the Four Brothers who are unconvinced, the others have all withdrawn. You can understand that we are being implicated by the violators."
Luyingade (Holy Light Paradise): "Shenfu obtained four 'Broken Origins' this round but decisively gave up and left. So, everyone, I'm leaving first. You continue to hold on."
Soul Master (Apocalypse Paradise): "The safe zone is about to disappear. Everyone, see you next round."
Goddess (Holy Light Paradise): "At the Absolute Strength level, even a competition is this absurd. To avoid dying here, I'm also giving up."
Bee: "(????????`)"