ushernet Chapter 147 - Ding! Your Cheat Has Arrived
Chapter 147 - Ding! Your Cheat Has Arrived
Chapter 147 - Ding! Your Cheat Has Arrived
Half a minute later, the hall fell into utter silence, with a few white scarab stragglers aimlessly crawling across the ground.
The amber-colored pool water gently rippled. The pool was deeper than Cassius had imagined—at least five meters deep. Rather than floating, he was bizarrely anchored to the bottom, a powerful suction force holding him firmly in place.
Thud!
The veins in Cassius’s legs bulged as he used everything he had in him to jump out of the water. But the intense gravity felt like thousands of hands were dragging him back. His heart sank as he realized something was wrong.
A leap that should have propelled him three to four meters into the air was completely negated. He barely managed to jump thirty or forty centimeters before succumbing to the force and falling back down.
After a moment of contemplation, Cassius noticed something else strange—his skin was helping him breathe. The amber liquid around him seemed to be constantly permeating his body with oxygen, allowing him to breathe freely underwater.Nôv(el)B\\jnn
They're not letting me leave, but they’re also keeping me alive?
Cassius was puzzled, but he wasn't about to sit idly by at the bottom of the pool. He began to shuffle along, his gait like an old man, as he tried to locate the edge of the pool. If he could find something to grab onto, he might be able to climb out.
A few minutes later, he touched the cold wall of the pool. Leaning closer, he was startled to see that the wall was covered with numerous mouths—some open as if speaking, some snarling, some pursed. The entire expanse of it was etched in various expressions.
Cassius took two steps back in shock, then cautiously examined the wall again. They turned out to be carvings on the pool wall, but they were so lifelike that they looked eerie and unsettling.
Should I try climbing up? He grabbed onto the indented mouths and started climbing. This time, he managed to get slightly higher than before, about half a meter above the bottom, but he still couldn't hold on. The suction force grew stronger the higher he climbed, and his muscles began trembling. His fingers could barely grip the indentations, and he had no choice but to let go and drop back down.
Cassius sighed in frustration and continued to circle the pool, noticing that the carvings on the walls had changed. The carvings depicted various sensory organs: a mouth, eyes, a nose, ears, and hands—the five senses humans use to perceive the world.
Meanwhile, a hazy mist began to form in the vast hall above. The fog grew thicker by the second, and soon the entire hall and surrounding passages were shrouded in white mist.
A shadowy figure emerged in the mist, hovering near the edge of the pool as if to peer down at Cassius. The black runes on the ground that had previously dimmed suddenly flared up again at the figure's appearance, the intense red bathing the entire hall in light.
Cassius noticed the red glow even from the bottom of the pool. He looked up sharply. "What's happening up there?"
"Survive... Hiss... Hiss... Survive..." A sudden static-like noise crackled in his ears.
What do you mean survive???
Cassius was bewildered, lowering his head only to see that the carved mouths on the pool wall had started to move. The expressions, once varied, morphed into a single roar: "Aaaahhhh..."
Buzz!
Cassius felt as though he had been struck by lightning, his mind going blank in an instant.
Starting from the mouths, the eyes, noses, ears, and hands all began to shift, each sensory organ activating simultaneously, and overwhelming Cassius with a deluge of sensations.
His body convulsed, blood pouring out from his seven orifices. Soon, his skin began to bleed as well, his pores oozing out thin streams of blood. At that moment, a torrent of fragmented information crashed into Cassius’s mind, with images and perspectives constantly shifting. It was like watching a movie that had cobbled together other films into one, their frames jumping out of sequence.
The chaotic images were surreal yet vividly real. All the sensory information humans used to understand the world—smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch—were all present.
Cassius felt as if he was living through various moments in history, experiencing them through different people’s eyes. One moment, he was in one person’s body, and the next, he was in another. His mind got so hot it felt like it was on the verge of exploding.
He seemed to be everywhere at once—the past, present, and future.
His vision kept rising higher and higher until he saw a river running through the world. But instead of water, the river carried fragments of history and images. The river's upper reaches were narrow and thin, but at a certain point, it widened abruptly.
After all this time, Cassius was mentally and physically exhausted, and his face had visibly grown more haggard. The constant need to wake at the slightest sound, due to the dangers within the ruins, had also made him increasingly irritable.
Exhaling, he glanced at the upper right corner. The wisdom rune showed no change, offering no feedback. It just hung there, and was simply a waste of space.
What the hell is this thing good for? I'm getting annoyed just looking at it.
With no outlet for his frustration, Cassius slowly extended his hand, using his fingers as a blade to carve a cross into the wall. At the very least, this could help him figure out his way out of the ruins. It was better than doing nothing.
He stopped carving. Holding his breath, he listened intently. A few seconds later, Cassius pressed his right cheek against the wall. His brow furrowed, but his eyes seemed to gradually brighten. His pupils turned blood-red.
Boom!!!
The rock shattered and scattered as the wall shook violently. His iron fist, fully unleashed, rammed into the hard wall like a pile driver and stretched out like a black giant python. His five fingers clutched something oval and pulled it toward him.
A Blood Race youth's head was stuck in the hole. His eyes rolled back, looking as if his neck was about to be torn off.
"Good!" Cassius laughed loudly, slamming the head back into the hole. Then, his rock-white muscles swelled and bulged, his massive figure charging forward like a wild bull, and smashed into the wall forcefully.
Boom! Crackle, crackle, crackle...
Dust rained down as he came out and entered a parallel passage. Three Blood Race youths, their faces pale with shock, stood beside him.
"Finally... finally... What a long detour this was..."
Relieved, a slight smile tugged at the corners of Cassius's mouth. Seeing his arrogant demeanor and the fallen companion on the ground, the three Blood Race youths roared in fury and charged at him, their bodies swelling and transforming until they became monstrous black-and-red bat creatures.
Cassius clenched his fists, eager to fight. Maybe it was because of the long and frustrating journey, but he found these ugly, blood-gifted Blood Race creatures strangely endearing now...
Endearing enough to make him want to crush their bones inch by inch with his fists, to sever their powerful muscle fibers with his hand blade. And those three round heads looked so much like fragile watermelons...
Cassius yearned to unleash the violent killing intent that had been building inside him. It had nothing to do with the Shadow Demons this time. Probably...
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The wall echoed with three muffled thuds as the heads of those Blood Race creatures were violently slammed against the wall, leaving bloody dents and cracks. Cassius had pressed too hard on one of them, crushing them to death by sheer force against the sturdy wall.
"That felt good."
Shaking the blood off his hands, Cassius cracked his neck, a series of joints popping audibly. Just as he was about to pick up the two still-living Blood Race creatures, he noticed something different in the upper right corner. The wisdom rune had finally changed—it was no longer the same!
A long and thin blank progress bar had appeared on the right side of the coiled snake-shaped rune. On closer inspection, there was a small red dot at the end of the bar, indicating a minuscule bit of progress.
Cassius was suddenly struck by a realization. Is the essence of calamity related to dark creatures?!
He blinked. There were even more changes.
[Stone Armour Technique: Heavy Armor Mastery (Total Two Stages+)]
There seemed to be a faint plus sign after "Total Two Stages." Cassius’s heart raced.
Ding, your cheat has arrived...
He shook off the auditory hallucination. His throat felt slightly dry. Cassius then tried focusing on the plus sign, and the entire Stone Armour Technique entry began to blur in an instant.