Calamity Messenger

Chapter 212 - 167: Catastrophe Milestone

"Continuation Skull"

"Grade: Earth Fiend"

"Absorption: Absorbing the Continuation Skull increases your Divine Soul by 50 points, granting you Continuous Life. The heavier the damage you take, the faster your recovery speed. When you suffer fatal damage, your recovery speed reaches the maximum, multiplying all recovery speeds by ten times the original. Ineffective after Foundation Establishment."

"Injection: Infuse the Continuation Skull into a relic to enhance recovery authority."

"Refinement: Refine the Continuation Skull with a relic to obtain more desirable recovery authority."

"Click to view combination matches."

/

"Bodhisattva Jade Pendant"

"Grade: Third-Turned Precious"

"Durability: 80/80"

"Equipment Requirement: 15 points of Divine Soul"

"Equipment Effect: +5 Divine Soul"

"Effect: Compassion: When Compassion is activated, all damage you receive is delayed by three seconds before taking effect, and the damage value is reduced by 30% (maximum reduction of 300 points of actual damage). Activating Compassion requires consuming 50 points of Spiritual Power and consumes 3 points of Spiritual Power per second, stopping when Spiritual Power is depleted."

"Effect: Blessing: If you do not have an equipped defensive relic or the defensive relic does not possess damage reduction effects, you receive 15% base damage reduction; if the relic possesses damage reduction effects, you receive 5% additional damage reduction, but the total cannot exceed 50%."

"Evaluation: Witnessing the suffering of all beings, appearing for redemption."

Epic Loot Drop!

The battle rewards dropped by demons are not fixed. It’s normal to just get Spiritual Jade when luck is bad. When luck is good, Yan Qing has even obtained a Second-Transformation Curiosity White Iron Straight Saber from Zheng Shan, which was then refined into a Flame Pattern Long Saber for Ye Si.

Although Earth Fiend items can potentially drop from the Third-Turn Secret Realm, the probability is likely only 1~2%, and one must fight dozens of times to encounter it; Third-Transformation Curiosities are the ultimate reward in the Third-Turn Secret Realm, usually dropping Rare Third-Transformation Relics.

Yan Qing doesn’t think of himself as lucky. If he were truly lucky, he would start as a hero blessed by four deities, or be able to manipulate the global situation at will even from home, or at least be surrounded by sweet princesses, sexy female generals, and cute maids, living a life of happiness and carefree joy, rather than being in the Thief’s House with no sunlight, scheming with a group of thieves, and having to go on frequent missions with them.

However, this evaluation might be a bit unfair to Black Wolf and White Fox, as they are quite reliable teammates, unlike certain others...

If Yan Qing’s guesses are correct, this epic loot drop probably has nothing to do with luck, but is entirely the result of his sweat and effort.

Because when they reduced the Karmic Force of the Skull Tower to zero and then defeated it, the game popped up information that Yan Qing had never seen. At the time, he did not examine it closely due to the urgency. Now he can analyze it slowly:

"You have liberated an Eternal Sinner."

"In this battle, you successfully liberated an Eternal Sinner at challenge level >10, with a total contribution of 36%, exceeding the 25% qualification line but not reaching the 50% doubling line."

"You have absorbed 1 point of Celestial Calamity Karmic Force!"

"You have triggered a Catastrophe Milestone!"

"Catastrophe: You currently possess 1 point of Celestial Calamity Karmic Force, unlocking the ancillary milestone [Calamity]. Accumulate more Celestial Calamity Karmic Force to unlock additional milestones.

Calamity: All your attacks can deal true damage equivalent to the value of Celestial Calamity Karmic Force, currently 1 point."

Yan Qing noticed that it did not show that the Rabbit Heroine killed the Undying Skull Tower, but rather ’liberated an Eternal Sinner.’ Regardless of what an Eternal Sinner is, the connotation of liberation is entirely different from killing, because death is a tragedy, while liberation is joyful for the person in question, conveying a sense of ’I never have to come back again.’

If liberation means completely eliminating this demon, even if the Secret Realm refreshes, it will not reappear, then the epic loot drop makes perfect sense.

After all, if this monster can never be farmed again, why not take the opportunity to drop the best reward now, rather than leave it to honor the game planners during the Qingming Festival? — Yan Qing can even anticipate how forum players would comment.

As for the detailed battle report that follows, it’s quite intriguing. The reason the Rabbit Heroine was able to absorb 1 point of Celestial Calamity Karmic Force is based on the premise that the Undying Skull Tower was 10 levels higher than her and her battle contribution exceeded 25%.

To defeat higher-level enemies and achieve the primary contribution, and these enemies are elite monsters, the requirement is already absurdly stringent. Among the five, perhaps only Rabbit Heroine meets the condition, and even Prajna, who has comparable damage output to her, cannot meet the requirement—all because his level is probably higher than the Skull Tower.

Despite the challenging difficulty, no player would likely think it’s not worth it.

point of Celestial Calamity Karmic Force can inflict 1 point of true damage!

Although 1 point isn’t much, what about accumulating 5 points, 10 points? More importantly, it has no internal cooldown, no prerequisite, and can be effective in any situation!

In this game, there are many high-frequency damage playstyles, and Celestial Calamity Karmic Force can altogether transform these classes!

Moreover, this is just the first effect of the Catastrophe Milestone; if even the first is this powerful, won’t it soar in the later stages? Yan Qing is eagerly anticipating unlocking more Catastrophe Milestones; he’s already confirmed through Ye Si that the Catastrophe Milestone can apply to all characters on the same account.

This is probably the content of the Catastrophe version, Yan Qing thought.

Although he’s only uncovered a corner of the Catastrophe version, Yan Qing already feels the allure of this version.

Without even mentioning the Catastrophe Milestone, being able to permanently liberate monsters and get loot explosions through specific methods is enough to attract players like moths to a flame—who wants to grind dungeons to exhaustion? If you can think of a way to reap without sowing, who would still want sustainable development?

Once a monster is liberated and disappears, it will further intensify player competition. If, in the past, the world’s first kill had no benefits besides fame, this liberation mechanism ensures the ’world’s first’ gets it all, while the world’s second doesn’t even get hot leftovers.

If you’ve managed to crack the BOSS liberation mechanism with great difficulty, but someone liberates the BOSS before you and flaunts their loot explosion in the world channel. Tell me, wouldn’t you just want to stab them in the back?

But whether it’s liberation or Celestial Calamity Karmic Force, they both require players to have an extremely solid foundation. For instance, the Undying Skull Tower needs a Buddhist Sect relic, other demons might require other types of relics for liberation, and even multiple types—without enough resources, even a skilled woman can’t cook without rice.

Celestial Calamity Karmic Force requires the challenge of elite monsters above your level; it’s not easy below Foundation Establishment level, let alone above. Some might think of suppressing their level to accumulate Celestial Calamity Karmic Force, but Rabbit Heroine killing monsters ten levels higher resulted in her instantly comprehending a Secret Technique and leveling up four times, obviously something the game designers anticipated.

If Yan Qing’s guess is correct, when the Catastrophe version first came out, the first to suffer would be low-level dungeons. The veterans would certainly create new accounts to liberate all the bosses in the low-level dungeons first, then the Foundation Establishment dungeons, turning previously overlooked low-level dungeons into popular attractions... Now that I think about it, it’s truly a perfect game plan!

How impressive, being a game designer like him, Yan Qing couldn’t help but applaud the main planner of the Catastrophe version. However, he did faintly feel that there might be some minor issues with this approach, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint what they were.

He quickly dismissed these trivial details and looked again towards the Earth Fiend·Continuation Skull and the Three-Turned Marvelous Treasure: Bodhisattva Jade Pendant in the warehouse.

The Bodhisattva Jade Pendant should naturally be used by Rabbit Heroine first, but how to handle the Earth Fiend?

Yan Qing clicked on the Continuation Skull icon to view matching combinations.

"Celestial Spirit Inversion of Yin and Yang + Earth Fiend Continuation Skull → Life and Death Chaos Dao Foundation"

"Celestial Spirit Heaven-Repairing Sun Bathing + Earth Fiend Continuation Skull → Great Sun Spirit Dao Foundation"

"Celestial Spirit Embryo Transformation and Shape-shifting + Earth Fiend Continuation Skull → Formless Transformation Dao Foundation"

They’ve actually implemented the Dao Foundation combination table into the game...

Yan Qing had previously seen many players on the forum complaining why the developers didn’t put the Celestial Spirits and Earth Fiend pairing hints in the game. After all, not every player checks forums for guides. Many players have no idea how to mix or use Celestial Spirits and Earth Fiend, ending up with irreversible choices once they realize their mistake.

This came in handy for Yan Qing; he looked around but didn’t see the T0T1 Dao Foundation he had seen on the forum, so he planned to let his alt absorb the Continuation Skull. As for which alt... of course, it depended on who had the most potential for Foundation Establishment.

Perhaps Ye Si also had a chance?

He wasn’t in a rush to reach Foundation Establishment; he could wait for his alt to reach Foundation Establishment before seeking the suitable Celestial Spirits and Earth Fiend. After all, there’s no regret after Foundation Establishment, and if there isn’t a T0T1-level Dao Foundation, even the Seventh Transformation Immortal Ascension will be difficult in the future.

Speaking of which, he could remind Pharmacist’s Wish which Celestial Spirits to look for to pair with Earth Fiend’s immobilization, so he switched back to Rabbit Heroine’s account, only to find they were already asleep.

As expected, Rabbit Heroine sat cross-legged on the bed on alert while Pharmacist’s Wish lay sideways in a single layer of clothing beside her. Even though covered with a thin blanket, it could not hide the undulating curves of her landscape. Her sleeping position was ludicrous, with one hand on Rabbit Heroine’s thigh and her right leg seemingly trying to clamp something, drooling down along the corner of her mouth, murmuring something in her sleep.

Yan Qing had never seen anyone with a worse sleeping posture than hers in the Ping City Military Camp. Is she really the Duke’s daughter?

However... despite traveling together for days, it’s the first time Yan Qing saw her sleep so peacefully and relaxed. Was it because tonight was too exhausting, or because she finally saw hope in Foundation Establishment? Or maybe it was just because Rabbit Heroine was by her side?

"Good night," Yan Qing softly said and then shut down the computer, washed up, and went to bed.

To whom was he saying this? He didn’t even know.