Chapter 482
Chapter 482: New Legends Always Rise Upon The Fall Of The Old Ones, Don’t You Agree? King Gnawbone
“Don’t go over there, watch out for its bite! With a mouth that big, one bite and you’re gone!”
“Stop it, it’s barely breathing, how could it have the strength to bite me? You guys stop screaming over there, I might slip and fall to death here, my girlfriend is waiting for me, I don’t want to make her sad.”
On the ruins of Plague Town, Niuniu, covered in bandages, carefully carried a giant rock egg found in the ruins of the sorcerer’s tower, taking cautious steps towards the swamp giant snake that lay half-buried in the debris.
This wasn’t him being suicidal, but rather a task specifically entrusted to him by his six dormitory brothers who had already logged off.
They asked Niuniu to return the egg they had stolen to this giant snake they had exploited.
Behind Niuniu, Khaki Tony Tai and Path of Mud and Oil stood aside, making various strange noises and loudly intimidating Niuniu. Having witnessed this creature’s power firsthand before, they absolutely wouldn’t risk getting close.
Although this legendary snake was on its deathbed after being hit by dozens of Combustion Gold high-explosive bombs in Plague Town and being frantically attacked by the Gnoll sorcerers, who knew if it might have a final burst of energy?
If it really went berserk, probably everyone currently in town would have to die with it.
But Niuniu didn’t see it that way.
As he carefully approached carrying that giant rock egg, the giant snake lying in the ruins and maintaining its last breath struggled to roll its eyes.
Those human-height black onyx-like eyes stared at him, revealing quite complex feelings of hatred.
This made Niuniu realize this legendary creature’s intelligence was not low. When he placed the giant egg under the swamp snake’s front claw, Ningkinanka still struggled to try to get up, but it was truly too weak and could only crawl up, only able to emit waves of mournful cries.
That was the sadness of life passing away.
Observing the giant snake up close, although Niuniu wasn’t a biology major student, he also realized this giant beast had definitely persisted alone through time for very, very long.
This could be seen from the traces left by history, like tree rings, that covered its unique jewel-like scales.
Like an elephant about to die, that kind of sad emotion could be easily sensed by people.
“Are you feeling sad for it?”
Amber’s voice came from behind.
Niuniu turned his head to look at his paper wife and nodded saying:
“We may have done something wrong. It wasn’t a killing machine, but we brought it into a place of slaughter.”
“Indeed, in the old church’s records, Ningkinanka was almost the most peaceful legendary creature, it would never actively leave the forbidden area deep in the swamps.
There were even several records of lost people who accidentally wandered in but returned safely.”
Amber stepped forward, took off her gloves and placed her hand on the giant snake’s abdomen.
She felt the life ebbing away from this enormous body, probably using some kind of witch hunter’s secret technique. After a moment of sensing, she said to Niuniu:
“It wouldn’t have died normally. The spirit of the swamps would slowly recover from any serious injury as long as it didn’t leave this land, but this giant snake’s situation is a bit special.
It was injured before.
That strange injury prevented it from recovering at all, and then the Gnoll sorcerers kept using vicious methods to wear it down until it finally collapsed.
This is a legendary creature, my warrior, even its process of dying is destined to be long.
Perhaps we can save it?”
“Huh?”
Niuniu had just finished giving his last respects to this giant snake, but now you’re saying it can be saved?
Well this is awkward.
However, Niuniu realized he might have triggered a hidden quest from Amber, so he immediately shared this news with the other members of the Beast Team.
After hearing the giant snake could be saved, the student players quickly gathered around.
They were still young after all, so they were kindhearted, and with the crazy urging from the six dormitory members who had already logged off, they finally accepted Amber’s rescue mission.
This was clearly a quest chain mainly involving running errands.
Because the first step was to figure out the origin of the strange injury preventing the giant snake from healing itself, they had to find out exactly who had hurt the snake before they could treat it properly.
While Amber and her witch hunter teammates used nature spirit energy to maintain the giant snake’s weakened state from worsening, the players ran around looking for someone who could clarify the source of the injury. After searching here and there, they eventually found their way to the young lady.
Femis was still hiding on the outskirts of Plague Town, fiddling with the forum on her computation bead and fulfilling her daily duties as a member of the development team. When she heard the players wanted to rescue the giant snake, she was stunned for a moment, seriously doubting if these guys were having a savior complex attack.
Hey!
Wake up you guys!
You lured the giant snake out of the forbidden area which directly led to it being severely injured like this.
If the giant snake really has intelligence and emotions as you say, then the first thing it will do after recovering is kill all you bastards!
Oh, wait, you’re not afraid of death?
Then never mind.
“Sigh, having so many lives really is the capital for recklessness.”
Femis lamented in her heart, then used a teleport to send herself and the little players back to the giant snake’s side.
She floated up leaning on her Night Howl Staff that was taller than her person, circling to the huge wound on the giant snake’s back, which had already been cleared by the solo players who had come after hearing about and being shared the hidden quest.
Little Rich Brother was even directing his manticore to use its claws to move aside those heavy ruins debris nearby, allowing the giant snake’s wound to be exposed for better examination by the young lady.
Perhaps because he was a summoner, Little Rich Brother just couldn’t bear to see these beautiful and powerful beasts suffer, he might have had better prospects if he had become a druid instead.
“Hiss, this wound is a bit strange!”
The young lady carefully examined the tear wound on the giant snake’s back and quickly discovered something wasn’t right.
Large chunks of flesh around the swamp giant snake’s wound had rotted and showed strange bluish-purple bruising, and blood samples taken from it had also been severely contaminated into terrible poison blood.
Although the giant snake’s blood was originally poisonous, that purple liquid contained other things mixed in besides natural toxins.
Femis held it up before her eyes to analyze with spirit energy, while Little Rich Brother beside her looked left and right before leaning over to whisper to the young lady:
“It was bitten by an astral realm creature!”
“Hmm?”
The young lady looked at Feel You Poor and asked:
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
“There are two reasons!”
Little Rich Brother held up two fingers and said:
“First, I can sense some astral realm aura from this wound, because I’m an astral realm summoner apprenticed to Lord Murphy, so I’m quite sensitive to astral realm auras.
Second, my manticore is unwilling to get too close to the giant snake’s wound, clearly there’s some smell here that makes it feel disgusted or fearful.
Astral manticores are already upper-middle tier in the astral realm ecosystem, so I dare say it must have been some powerful and terrible astral beast that bit the giant snake into this state.
But it lives in the material world, how did it get involved with astral realm beings?
This wound is fresh.
Obviously it was injured recently!
Perhaps the Gnolls summoned an astral beast?”
“Don’t be silly!”
The young lady shook her head and said:
“If the Gnolls could really summon this level of beast, they would have steamrolled the swamp front line long ago. Perhaps some kind of accident occurred? But since we’ve confirmed this is an astral realm scar, then next we just need to remove the astral realm taint from the giant snake’s wound and purify its contaminated blood to let it recover.
I can handle the latter.
But for the former purification ritual, you’ll need to seek out the priests of the Avalon Church.”
“Ding”
The rescue giant snake quest line successfully progressed to the next link.
The vampires who could fly immediately flew out from the ruins to the southern front line camp, the Avalon Church priests were all there, perhaps they had a way to complete the astral realm purification ritual.
Femis who remained at the original spot and Amber who was soothing the giant snake below exchanged glances.
The two of them collaborating to create a quest chain represented that these two were already very familiar with the correct way of dealing with little players, with the unique tacit understanding and cooperation of high-level NPCs already fully demonstrated without words.
This scene was also observed by Murphy in secret, making him feel satisfied with the cooperation system in this quest publishing framework he had personally established.
As for why the swamp giant snake would encounter an attack from an astral realm creature, Murphy was crystal clear about it in his heart.
He touched the “Myriad” device hanging on his wrist, thinking this must have been caused by that cultist explorer from before.
However, the forced teleportation of the astral realm guide staff form of the Myriad device was unexpectedly so powerful that it could banish a legendary creature like the swamp giant snake to the astral realm?
The power upper limit of this thing was truly terrifyingly high.
“This device contains the coordinates from when Ningkinanka was previously banished to the astral realm”
Murphy turned back to tell Tris who was collecting and examining King Gnawbone’s remains behind him:
“What do you think, should I patrol that area as an astral realm summoner? Maybe I could discover the culprit that bit the giant snake.
Being able to injure a legendary creature to this extent fully proves their powerful strength.
If I could sign a summoning contract or something…”
“Then you would instantly die, my poor little Murphy.”
Tris said without raising her head:
“Almost all contracts that astral realm summoners can sign follow power equivalence exchange. You can easily summon astral wolf packs because your strength is higher than George and his companions, but if you want to summon an astral beast that could seriously wound Ningkinanka, your fate would only be having your spirit energy and flesh instantly drained as a ‘sacrifice’.
Is your apprentice Feel You Poor’s current awkward situation not enough to remind you?
To safely summon astral beasts into the material world, you need to at least touch the edge of the golden rank to withstand that kind of power backlash.
Therefore, my advice to you is, for the sake of your life, please stay steady.”
“That’s under normal circumstances, but my situation is clearly not normal.”
Murphy gripped the cube box of the Myriad device, touching its switch to restore it to the staff form of the astral realm guide staff, pointing it to the ground as he said to Tris:
“This Creator’s key can help me easily open astral realm rifts without any consumption, which means I don’t need to bear any pressure from the astral realm and material realm planes when performing summonings.
As long as I can find that beast and persuade it to sign a contract with me, then I can summon it at critical moments without suffering any backlash.”
“…”
Tris looked up speechlessly at the smugly smiling Murphy, thinking for several seconds not knowing what language to use to describe it, finally could only stamp her foot angrily and curse:
“You damn cheater! I told you to practice summoning earnestly not to learn how to cheat! You bastard apprentice.”
“She’s mad, she’s mad, the Spirit Sovereign is mad.”
Murphy leaned on the astral realm guide staff chuckling and laughing haha, angering Tris so much she wanted to grab King Gnawbone’s thighbone in front of her and give this guy a whack.
However after that bout of anger dissipated, Tris still very seriously reminded:
“Fine, I admit you inherited quite terrifying power from the Creator, this thing is practically the perfect ‘graduation weapon’ for astral realm summoners, but you can’t go seeking that mysterious astral beast at this stage. Didn’t you say Lord Payne warned you about this aspect?
Any astral realm summoner who can make it will carefully choose their first transcendent contract partner.
The other party’s attributes and power characteristics will affect you through the contract’s resonance, your spirit energy characteristics will be changed by this contract, so you must be cautious enough.
I once heard a story about a barbarian summoner.
It’s said that hundreds of years ago in the Ice Bay region, a clan gave birth to a genius summoner who could sign contracts with powerful beings from the elemental plane.
She was too young to know the pitfalls in this aspect, immediately completing a transcendent contract with the first elemental regent she sensed after detecting powerful resonance from the elemental plane.
This should have been a good thing.
However when that summoner summoned her elemental partner, she despaired.
Because the one who signed the contract with her was a powerful and ancient fire elemental regent, and the powerful elemental regent appearing in the material world reduced her tribe to ashes within ten seconds.
But that wasn’t even the fire elemental’s destructive intent.
It was merely because the fire elemental was very unsuited to Ice Bay’s cold weather, and the fire elemental regent’s power also affected that rash summoner, making her lose winter’s blessing and become a unique fire barbarian, finally could only dejectedly leave her homeland never to be heard from again.”
Tris wanted to use this story to warn Murphy not to mess around, but Murphy blinked his eyes and asked back:
“Fire barbarian, that sounds so cool! If we make the protagonist of this story into a ‘rare skin’, it would definitely sell well!”
“Slap”
Tris slapped her own eyes and said despairingly:
“Forget it forget it, pretend I didn’t say anything, do whatever you want.
Here, I’ve processed King Gnawbone’s remains. Those undead constructors injected giant snake venom into its body, causing severe corrosion of its internal organs and skin, but this also saved us the trouble of complicated embalming work.
We just need to wait for it to naturally weather to get King Gnawbone’s skeleton remains.
Considering this guy was the king of Gnolls, we might as well call it the ‘Skeleton King’.”
“Hey, others won’t get that reference.”
Murphy criticized.
He stepped forward to look at King Gnawbone’s skeleton remains laid out before him. Under Tris’s gaze, Murphy reached out to grab the thighbone and swung it in his hand, turning his head to tell her:
“This thing can be crafted into a bone warhammer with good weight, such high quality material can definitely make extremely powerful weapons, right?”
“Damn!”
Tris exclaimed:
“You won’t even let the dead rest now?
Didn’t you say you wanted to give this to Hog as a ‘family heirloom’? Aren’t you afraid taking away his ‘grandfather’s’ bones to make weapons will give Hog some psychological trauma in the future?”
“That’s fake, Hog himself knows it’s all fake.”
Murphy tossed King Gnawbone’s shin bone into his spirit bag without any psychological burden, saying:
“Just having a complete skull is enough for a family heirloom. If King Gnawbone knew in the underworld, it would also thank us for helping it escape the pathetic fate of being desecrated by its own descendants. But all thanks aside, can you get something for nothing?
For such great kindness, it’s very reasonable for us to collect some compensation, right?
Look, I’ve planned it all out.
Give King Gnawbone’s left hand bones to Colonel Frayzer to send to King Louis as a birthday gift, give the right hand bones to Andrei to please his wolf sister in the Ice Palace.
Return the complete skull to Hog as a family heirloom.
The rest are ours.
King Gnawbone’s skeleton is very large and sturdy, which means just from this set of bones we can craft a whole ‘Echo of King Gnawbone’ series of high-level or even graduation weapons, and can even polish and craft a series of accessories and rings to serve as rewards for high-level quests we’ll issue later.
And this!”
Murphy took out a shriveled eyeball from his bag and handed it to Tris, saying:
“King Gnawbone’s eyeball, this is excellent material for crafting spirit energy artifacts. Look, the Sacred Blood Festival is coming up soon, and I don’t have anything good to give you, so…”
“Hmph, and I’ll have to help you turn this thing into a ring or necklace, then you’ll give it to me, right?”
Tris rolled her eyes dramatically.
But she ultimately couldn’t refuse Murphy’s pleading eyes, she always found it impossible to refuse Murphy when he was like this.
And just as the two were discussing how to handle King Gnawbone’s “gifts” while flirting and bickering, Bonnie, who was standing guard at the door while eavesdropping with great interest, poked her head in and said:
“Hog is here, my lords, shall we let him in?”
“Of course, quickly invite in the noble grandson of King Gnawbone to pay respects to his never-met great grandfather! The strong proclamation is already in hand, now it’s time for Lord Hog’s performance!”