Chapter 85 A Bountiful Harvest: Inventorying the Spoils, New Shops, New...
Zhou Fangdong opened the [Evil God Disguise] interface.
The animation in the upper half of this interface has changed again.
The pixelated figure that looked so much like him had emerged from the shrine, standing on a mountain of bald pixelated figures, against a backdrop of a pitch-black sky where lightning kept striking.
The shadow on the pixelated figure's face hadn't disappeared; it still wore an evil expression. He held a lump of black slime in one hand, the other on his hip, laughing wildly, looking like a world-destroying demon king.
The four skills in the lower half have all been unlocked: [Ritual Inquiry], [Disguised Oracle], [Disguised Evil God's Descent], and [Eroding Evil God's Authority].
Zhou Fangdong clicked on the [Erosion of Authority] function to check the skill effect.
How to use the skill: When using the [Erosion Authority] function, you can directly devour cultists and offerings near the ritual through [Ritual Inquiry]. This applies to both rituals that have not been responded to and those that have been responded to by the evil god. When using this function, you can also select a location through [Ritual Inquiry] to directly perform [Disguised Evil God Descent].
Skill effect: Devours the faith and incense points of the evil god in the native world, erodes the evil god's authority, takes its place, and completely prevents the evil god's power from spreading in the native world.
Translation: The more cultists you kill, the more faith points and incense points you gain. Consuming the core of an evil god's clone allows you to more quickly erode the evil god's authority, gain priority in responding to rituals, completely expel the evil god, and prevent its power from invading again.
(Note: Try not to use this skill consecutively, and remember to replenish your stamina bar after use.)
Hmm, the system is getting more and more considerate; it even added translations in case he couldn't understand.
The newly unlocked features perfectly compensate for his lack of mobility. Now he can not only kill cultists through rituals, but also actively choose the location for [disguising himself as an evil god].
Now he wouldn't need to trouble the Inspectorate to help purge the members of the Bone Inheritance Society; he could kill them one by one himself. As long as those cultists dared to use the ritual, they wouldn't escape his pursuit.
If he kills quickly enough, the cultists won't have time to perform the resurrection ritual.
I feel like completing the second main quest is just around the corner.
Thinking of this, Zhou Fangdong opened the task panel and dragged out the main task 2 to take a look.
[Main Quest 2: Find the evil god of the Bone Inheritance Society, expel the evil god from this world, destroy all of the Bone Inheritance Society's bases in Linjiang City, and kill all cult members.]
Looking at the mission description, Zhou Fangdong suddenly realized something and frowned.
Finding the evil god of the Heirs of the Bone Society... this means that the evil god's body is already in this world, but his consciousness has not yet awakened.
Those cultists went to great lengths to prepare the resurrection ceremony in order to bring the consciousness of the evil god into this world.
Therefore, while preventing these cultists from performing the resurrection ritual, it is also necessary to destroy the body of the evil god.
It's not particularly troublesome, it just takes a little more time.
He killed them one by one, and by exhaustive search he could always find the location of the evil god's body... If those cultists had the guts, they would never use rituals again.
After closing the Evil God Disguise interface, Zhou Fangdong continued to watch the live video broadcast on the Dungeon Erosion interface.
The entire village of Fengrao, both above and below ground, has been corrupted by cat demons. Tiny black cats, no bigger than a palm, run all over the village, chasing and biting the cultists as if they were toys.
After Hou San stole the source of the supernatural power beneath the ancestral hall, the ancestral spirits within the villagers all dissipated, the power that had imprisoned the ancestral hall disappeared, and the villagers all became ordinary people.
The villagers sat on the ground, dazed and disoriented, under the gaze of the giant cat ghost. Their expressions were blank, their eyes lifeless, as if they were nothing but empty shells, as if their souls had vanished along with their ancestors.
Hou San found a way out of the underground space, walked out of the back courtyard palace, and met up with Hong Zhong and the other two in the east wing.
The three missing paranormal livestreamers were locked in the east wing. After the ancestral power disappeared, the chains on their bodies also disappeared. When they tried to escape, they happened to encounter Hong Zhong and his group.
Remembering the core of the supernatural power of Fengrao Village that Hou San had given him in the underground passage, Zhou Fangdong took the red jade stone out of his inventory.
This red jade stone is about the size of a fist. It feels warm and smooth to the touch, carrying the warmth of a human body, and has a faint pulsating sensation, as if you are holding a real heart.
As Zhou Fangdong examined the jade, a system pop-up window appeared:
【Curse Item: Longevity Stone】
Prop description: Immortality, immortality, even when the body decays, one remains immortal; ageless, ageless, a child becomes a grandfather, and a grandson marries a grandmother.
Looking at the prop's description and recalling the old man's condition in the underground ancestral hall of Fengrao Village, Zhou Fangdong sighed softly.
Whether that kind of immortality is a blessing or a curse is unknown.
Moreover, the description of this prop is quite chilling upon closer inspection...
Could it be that the tradition in Fengrao Village, where "for every birth of a young person, one of the older generation must die so that the spirit of the elder can protect the newborn and help them grow up safely," is actually the elder's spirit directly taking over the newborn's body?
Are the ancestral spirits that the villagers carry on their backs all queuing up for reincarnation?
What a bizarre way of life! I wonder how many years it's been going on. The power of this longevity stone is truly terrifying.
Just as Zhou Fangdong was reviewing the description of the Longevity Stone, the system's electronic voice suddenly sounded:
[Host, may I give this item to the system? Once the system obtains this item, it can accelerate the repair process of the host's body.]
Zhou Fangdong agreed without hesitation: "Okay."
After all, it concerns his own revival. Maybe if the system has enough energy, he can leave the apartment area even if he hasn't completed the main quest.
Please return this item to your inventory; the system will automatically reclaim it.
Following the system's instructions, Zhou Fangdong put the Longevity Stone back.
[System is processing... Please wait...]
Seeing that there was no longer any need for him in the dungeon's corruption, Zhou Fangdong stood up and continued smashing the bathroom with his hammer, searching for the corpses hidden in the room while waiting for the monster corruption in the dungeon to end.
Although the cat ghost finished its cast ahead of time, it kept playing, and its efficiency in the Corruption dungeon was about the same as that of the Dismemberment Ghost in the mall.
Unlike the Abundant Village instance, no ordinary people suffered any casualties in the Mall instance from start to finish.
This instance was designed by the main god to target Xiao Xiaoyu, and all the killing moves were also set up specifically for her.
In a sense, Xiao Xiaoyu is the only player in the mall instance; all the other human customers are just her bargaining chips.
Because the results are only tallied after the game ends, the customers in the mall are safe during Xiao Xiaoyu's game.
The mall instance mechanism is a Monopoly-style game where Xiao Xiaoyu needs to play against ghosts, roll dice, and seize mall resources.
Xiao Xiaoyu's victory condition is: when the game time ends or the other side goes bankrupt, the total value of her human shops and assets is higher than that of the ghosts in the instance.
When the ghost in the instance has more supernatural shops and assets than Xiao Xiaoyu, she will be eliminated by the main god.
The mall's shops and pedestrian areas have all been transformed into a grid by the power of the main god. Xiao Xiaoyu and the ghost need to take turns rolling dice and move forward on the grids connecting the shops in each area according to the number rolled.
Xiao Xiaoyu can use her initial human chips to purchase shops, place her initial human customers into the shops, and turn them into normally operating shops to generate a stable cash flow.
The ghost she plays against will transform the shop into a haunted shop, which can produce ghost coins. When Xiao Xiaoyu passes by the shop, it will trigger negative effects.
There are reward squares in the advancing squares where one can obtain human chips x. When Xiao Xiaoyu triggers a reward square, the power of the main god will teleport humans from the outside world to the mall, increasing the chips in Xiao Xiaoyu's hand.
Whether it was intentional or not, throughout the entire game, after Xiao Xiaoyu triggered the reward grid, the people teleported by the main god were all cultists of the Heirs of the Bone Society.
Their signature bald heads and bloodstains perfectly distinguished them from ordinary customers.
Xiao Xiaoyu had heard Miao Zheng talk about the evil deeds these cultists had committed. If it weren't for winning the game, she would have deliberately let these cultists lose to the ghosts in the dungeon.
In addition to reward squares, there are also trap squares designed by the main god that allow you to advance.
This trap only targets Xiao Xiaoyu; once triggered, Xiao Xiaoyu will suffer negative effects.
However, trap grids are a buff for ghosts.
The entire game is more about ghosts and monsters. If an average player with bad luck tries to complete the game, they can be controlled to death by these negative effects.
However, the player who cleared this dungeon was Xiao Xiaoyu.
Xiao Xiaoyu is an experienced player of dice. Because she has the [Yin-Yang Eyes], she can see the flow of Yin energy and can manually control the dice rolls.
She even had the title of 'God of Gamblers' lit up in the Main God Space because she used the [Death-Defying Dice] too many times to win against ghosts.
Because Xiao Xiaoyu had good luck with the dice, and because Zhao Dawei and Miao Zheng didn't have the points system and weren't controlled by the dungeon's power, they could help clear the haunted shops and trap squares from outside the game, so Xiao Xiaoyu won very smoothly.
Seeing that Xiao Xiaoyu was about to clear the dungeon, the main god simply stopped acting and directly took over the game by changing the game mechanics. He changed the six squares before and after Xiao Xiaoyu's next move into trap squares, and turned all the shops into ghost shops run by ghosts.
There were only two of them, Zhao Dawei and Miao Zheng, and they didn't have many tools to deal with ghosts, so they couldn't clear so many traps.
Xiao Xiaoyu's leg-severing technique, using the Soul-Binding Lock and the Voodoo Doll, also requires time. If she doesn't move after the countdown ends, she will be directly eliminated.
Just when they were about to be driven to the brink of despair, the dungeon corruption cast ended, and the Dismemberment Demon appeared just in time.
Coincidentally, the cultists who had been tricked by the main god were also providing divine assistance. They were likely core members of the Bone Inheritance Society, attempting to summon an avatar of the evil god in the instance in order to save themselves.
The moment the aura of the evil god appeared, the dismembered demon's ghostly hand emerged from under the summoning circle and snatched away the clone's core.
The ritual was forced to be interrupted, and then a torrent of pale, ghostly hands appeared in the mall, stuffing all the monsters and cultists from the dungeon into black plastic bags.
The Mall instance and the Abundant Village instance both completed their raids simultaneously, and the system reward panel popped up:
[Congratulations, host! All three main god dungeons have been successfully corrupted! Rewards: 6000 Ghost Coins, one guaranteed lottery ticket (guaranteed to draw one Ghost Tenant), 4 Kerosene Lamp Repair Materials, and Evil God Avatar Core]
[Energy overflow detected... unable to be digested in time...]
[Automatically using overflowing energy to construct a ghost market teleportation point within the apartment; the battle for ownership of the ghost market shops is underway...]
[The hidden room on the second floor, the Ghost Market teleportation point, has been completed.]
[Congratulations, host, on acquiring ownership of the Ghost Market Paper Craft Shop! The rental agreement has been automatically signed. Congratulations, host, on acquiring the Ghost Tenant - Paper Craftsman!]
The Ghost Tenant - Paper Craftsman has been placed in Room 208. The new tenant's profile has been unlocked. Please claim your profile unlock experience as soon as possible.
[The ghost tenant, Paper Craftsman, is currently depressed and withdrawn, making him unfit to be the shop manager. Please assign a tenant to act as the acting shop manager to maintain operations and earn ghost coins.]
Upon seeing the reward pop up from the system, Zhou Fangdong stopped smashing the house.
After seeing the details of the rewards, he was speechless for a moment.
It's clear that the system's energy is becoming increasingly abundant, evolving from secretly taking advantage of loopholes to outright robbery... Not only did they seize the shops, but they even took the shop managers.
No wonder the paper craftsman was so downcast. His shop was robbed, and he was forced to sign a contract of servitude. It was truly a case of misfortune falling from the sky when one is sitting at home.
After closing the system reward page, Zhou Fangdong dragged the body out of the bathroom mezzanine and threw it onto the toilet.
He patted the plaster off his hands and breathed a sigh of relief.
The bodies in room 207 have all been found. We'll talk about the ghostly derivatives later. After staying in this room full of corpses for so long, Zhou Fangdong felt he needed to breathe some fresh air.
He also wanted to see the newly unlocked Ghost Market teleportation point in the hidden room on the second floor.
The apartment has a Ghost Market teleportation point, which is very convenient. He can go to the Ghost Market during the day, saving him from wasting the teleportation opportunities of his Stand at night.
If the teleportation point works smoothly, Zhou Fangdong plans to use his slime body to make a trip to the Ghost Market and buy back the shackles and uniforms needed by the lamp oil workers.
However, to Zhou Fangdong's surprise, as soon as he opened the door to room 207, something leaning against the door fell into the room.
Looking down, I saw a familiar black plastic bag.
The plastic bag wasn't sealed properly, and a bald head rolled out of it.
Zhou Fangdong paused for a moment, then fully opened the door to room 207.
The corridor in front of us was completely filled with black plastic bags.
Five cleaners were all in the corridor, miserably taking the corpses out of plastic bags and stuffing them into their own bodies.
...The body parts in the plastic bag were all cult members who appeared in the mall instance.
The female ghost in Room 109 is really thrifty and hardworking. Even after the Corruption Dungeon ended, she brought back all the body parts, perfectly keeping the good stuff in the family.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com