novelraw Chapter 300: The Lucky Apostle No. 24, The Red Armor army in Saint Rance
Chapter 300: The Lucky Apostle No. 24, The Red Armor army in Saint Rance
[Do you wish to enter Moonlight’s Hometown – Saint Rance?]
[On the metal drawbridge at the city gate, there are many passers-by. You see quite a few merchants driving horse-drawn carts piled with melons and fruits into the town…]
[A line of lightly armored city guards collects the entry tax one by one.]
[You notice that inside the gate there is also a squad of fully armed silver-armored knights and a black-robed priest on guard.]
[You carefully blend into the crowd…]
[Very soon, the soldiers stop you, size you up from head to toe, and demand an entry tax of 10,000 Spirit Essence.]
[While waiting to enter the city, you deliberately pay attention to the entry tax others are paying. Some hand over one or two copper coins, and some even enter the city by giving only a few vegetables or fruits.]
[It seems the soldiers saw that you looked like an out-of-towner and decided to open the lion’s mouth.]
[Will you pay the entry tax of 10,000 Spirit Essence?]
Shang Xiaoyuan subconsciously wanted to click on the weapon C-14 Anti-Materiel Gauss Rifle and turn the city guards into experience with a few shots.His Shell was the Corrupted Seal Legion Commander, a relatively rare gunslinger class template.
This Shell of Epic+ quality was obtained by blind-boxing from a Shell item called Clone Incubation Pod.
The Shell’s overall strength was very formidable. Apart from combat being rather costly due to pricey ammunition consumption, it could be said to have no other drawbacks.
But he was not in a single-player canonical chapter now. He was in a multiplayer Slaughter Mode. If he clashed with the city guards, he might draw an Apostle lying in ambush.
He suppressed the impulse and chose to pay Spirit Essence.
[The soldier takes the 10,000 Spirit Essence, looks you up and down in surprise once more, then allows you to enter.]
[You follow the crowd into the town…]
[The most eye-catching building inside the town is the towering clocktower in the distance. At the very center of town stands the White Moon Church…]
[Where do you wish to go?]
From the moment he entered the town, Shang Xiaoyuan’s nerves were taut.
The hint from Absolute Luck telling him not to enter Saint Rance meant it harbored immense danger and a strong killing intent hidden within.
But this was the Easter Egg Chapter of Slaughter Mode, and Saint Rance was the main area of exploration in the chapter. It was only normal that many powerful Apostles would be concealed here, along with danger.
“I must quickly find a lone candidate and stack the buff as much as possible.”
Shang Xiaoyuan habitually invoked his talent, preparing to make a choice.
[As you walk, you suddenly see a razor-sharp sword light!]
[That sword light was dazzling to the extreme, as bleakly beautiful as a gale sweeping through cherry trees, scattering petals.]
“An ambush!”
In a split second, he had no way to respond and could only pray the Shell would dodge on its own.
[The sword light was unstoppable, as if it could cut through anything in its path. You tried to dodge, but the sword light was so fast that it was upon you in the blink of an eye!]
[Your foot slipped on a fruit peel discarded by some passer-by. You stumbled involuntarily and happened to avoid the sharp sword light.]
[The enemy failed to kill with one blow and immediately revealed himself.]
[The Apostle flickering with red light had a short stature, wore a bamboo hat, and was dressed in tight ninja garb.]
[Unknown Apostle No. 18 held an especially keen ninja blade. An ethereal jade at the hilt glimmered with emerald light.]
[You feel an extremely heavy pressure!]
“What is this?!”
Shang Xiaoyuan turned pale with shock.
Previously, he only saw ‘You feel an extremely heavy pressure’ when facing some bosses whose strength was monstrously high.
For the hellish game to display such a prompt meant the difference in strength between the two sides was too great, with not the slightest hope of victory.
In plain terms: Run.
Shang Xiaoyuan had no time to think. With Absolute Luck only upgraded to +5, saving him once did not guarantee saving him twice.
At the fastest speed of his life, he opened the Inventory and clicked on a lifesaving item.
[Unstable Quantum Teleportation Device (Item): …Using this item, you will teleport to a random location within 10 kilometers.]
[Note, this device cannot guarantee whether an object exists at your teleportation coordinates. If you randomly teleport into a solid object, it is highly likely to cause a life-threatening accident. Please use with caution!]
If another Apostle used this item, there was a chance of being stuck inside a wall or having half the body fused with a monster.
But in the face of Shang Xiaoyuan’s Absolute Luck, this item was an out-and-out lifesaving artifact.
He decisively pressed ‘Use.’
“So what if you are strong?”
“See you.”
[Unknown Apostle No. 18 taps the ground with his toe and lunges at you. Before his figure arrives, the sharp sword light is already close at hand!]
[You used the Unstable Quantum Teleportation Device. Quantum-state stealth transmission initiated!]
[Your body becomes a patch of nothingness, avoiding the enemy Apostle’s lethal strike. Then your figure flashes and disappears…]
Shang Xiaoyuan curled his lips in a smile. With Absolute Luck, he did not worry about fatal teleport accidents.
[Teleportation successful!]
[You open your eyes. The surroundings are very familiar. Nearby is the city gate of Saint Rance. You see again a squad of Guardian Knights and a black-robed priest.]
[Not far ahead, Unknown Apostle No. 18, with his back to you, is resheathing his blade. As if sensing something, he suddenly turns around.]
Shang Xiaoyuan: ??
What happened to teleporting up to 10 kilometers away?
[Unknown Apostle No. 18 is clearly startled, then swiftly draws his sword…]
[The gorgeous sword light fills your entire vision!]
[You have time only to slightly curl your finger and pull the trigger…]
[Powerful electromagnetic force launches the bullet, trailing a beautiful azure arc.]
[The unstoppable sword light splits the armor-piercing depleted uranium round in two…]
[Your view suddenly rises. Then the world spins wildly, everything in sight tumbling violently.]
[At last, you crash to the ground and see a headless corpse holding a firearm…]
[…]
[You are dead!]
The three bright red characters sent a chill to Shang Xiaoyuan’s bones.
He could not help trembling all over, and only by clamping his mouth shut did he avoid screaming in despair.
Shang Xiaoyuan’s attention was entirely on the text about the wandering soul about to revive. He did not even notice an item he had dropped.
[A feeble wandering soul is reborn on the summit of Peak of the Fading Afterglow…]
[You are under the Death Penalty of Slaughter Mode. During the one-hour Death Penalty, you cannot use soul strength to Reshape your Shell…]
Shang Xiaoyuan stared fixedly at the text that followed. His pupils suddenly shrank.
“I know. I know why those Apostles’ souls are annihilated right after their Shells die!”
[…]
[You suffered death in the wandering soul form. The maximum soul strength is permanently reduced by one point!]
[Current soul strength 1/1!]
Halfway through speaking, his face suddenly went ashen as if his head were splitting, like a great force tearing a chunk off his soul.
Shang Xiaoyuan collapsed in pain, curling into a ball, completely unable to operate the game.
[The soon-to-dissipate wandering soul is reborn on the summit of Peak of the Fading Afterglow…]
[You are under the Death Penalty of Slaughter Mode. During the one-hour Death Penalty, you cannot use soul strength to Reshape your Shell…]
Shang Xiaoyuan knew everything was over.
The scythe of death was about to fall. No one could stop the game’s annihilation mechanism.
His vision grew darker and darker. In his hazy consciousness, he heard a door being forced open and the Fisherman’s anxious shout.
He felt something long and paper-like being stuffed into his hand. In his final moments, he instinctively gripped it tightly…
—
Lin Xun was a bit baffled.
Just as he was about to finish off that Apostle No. 24 with the high-tech firearm, the enemy suddenly slipped underfoot and miraculously avoided the Ninja Master’s lethal strike.
He had played the hellish game for so long and had never seen anything so absurd.
Unconvinced, he attacked again.
Just as the Ninja Master was about to behead the enemy, Apostle No. 24 seemed to use a lifesaving item, and his figure suddenly vanished.
Seeing this, Lin Xun ground his teeth in anger, thinking the cooked duck had flown away. Yet Apostle No. 24 suddenly appeared behind him again.
“So it was not a lifesaving item, but a stealth item… planning to ambush me from behind?”
Though he did not know why Apostle No. 24 suddenly broke stealth, Lin Xun would not stumble twice in the same place.
He decisively commanded the Ninja Master to attack.
[…]
[You have defeated Unknown Apostle No. 24!]
[Because your invasion permissions are high, you may plunder one piece of loot from this Apostle.]
[Please choose the loot category you wish to plunder…]
[The fierce battle near the city gate draws the attention of the Guardian Knights. They draw their cruciform swords and rush here swiftly…]
“This Easter Egg Chapter is truly strange. Not only is the stage flow off, even the candidate Apostles are odd. They clearly can escape, yet insist on trying to ambush and get themselves killed.”
Lin Xun smacked his lips, pressed the stealth skill, and avoided the Guardian Knights.
The Slaughter option flashed again. He was used to it and could not even be bothered to open it to check Apostle No. 24’s survival status.
Barring accidents, it would show Under Death Penalty, then soul annihilation.
This time his luck was very bad. He drew a very trashy piece of equipment.
[Infrared High-Definition Night Vision Device (Ordinary equipment): An unremarkable external night sight. It illuminates the target with an infrared spotlight and receives reflected infrared radiation to form an image. Wearing this equipment, you can see clearly in dark environments.]
This kind of junk equipment probably was not being worn by Apostle No. 24 but was a spare carried in the Inventory.
“Better than nothing.”
In the game, apocalypse chapters set in the modern or future era were relatively rare, and related high-tech equipment was uncommon. Hence, few Apostles followed a similar enhancement path.
In the early days, when official Apostles obtained high-tech gear, quite a few would hand it over to the research department for study. In the end, nothing meaningful was learned and the matter fizzled out.
Lin Xun put the equipment away and was about to keep fishing at the city gate.
He suddenly frowned, feeling something was off.
“Why is there no death announcement from the hellish game?”
He hurriedly opened the Slaughter option to check.
[…]
[Unknown Apostle No. 24 Left the chapter!]
???
“Crafty rat.”
The other party had most likely used a rare item like the Escape Bookmark at the very instant of death to exit the chapter and run away.
Lin Xun let out a long sigh and continued fishing at the city gate.
This time, he waited a full half hour. Just as he was about to give up on guarding the tree stump, he finally ran into another lucky one.
After killing the Apostle, the Slaughter Feast buff level increased, rising from an all-attributes 20 percent boost to 40 percent.
Lin Xun guessed the pattern. Perhaps every three Apostles killed increased the level of Slaughter Feast.
Previously, Apostle No. 16 had fished three Apostles at the gate to acquire Slaughter Feast. By killing Apostle No. 16, he inherited the buff.
If he calculated the kill count in that manner, it was equivalent to him having killed six Apostles.
Now the candidate list thinned again, dropping from the original twenty-four to thirteen.
From entering the Easter Egg Chapter until now had been less than three hours. In three hours, the number had been reduced by eleven.
Such a fierce reduction showed that the activity range in this chapter was not large. Likely, only Saint Rance was worth exploring. Places like the royal capital were probably just scenery.
Therefore, the Apostles could only circle around Saint Rance, frequently encountering each other and breaking out into fights, thus causing a large reduction.
Now, fishing again, he waited a long time without a bite.
He had entered Saint Rance relatively late. Presumably there were no candidate Apostles left outside the city. To eliminate other Apostles, he would have to go deeper into the town to search.
“Picking them off one by one is too troublesome. Since guarding the tree stump does not work, I will drag you all out.”
There were not many rewards in the Slaughter Mode Easter Egg Chapter. Stacking Slaughter Feast was Lin Xun’s primary goal.
Rather than wasting time on exploration, it was better to think of ways to eliminate the other candidates.
Although his strength was great, he was still very weak in the face of a war between demigods and did not even have the ability to protect himself.
If he did not quickly stack Slaughter Feast to raise his strength, he might have to use the Escape Bookmark to leave the chapter at the final event.
Lin Xun opened the Inventory and clicked on the Ogiwara Clan Command Banner.
[You drew out a long black banner and silently recited the ancient seal script on its face: Swift as the wind, gentle as the forest, fierce as fire in assault, immovable as the mountain…]
[Red Armor army total headcount: 730. Maximum army morale: 100.]
[Because you consumed 2 points of soul strength, this summoning is at the second tier.]
[Number of troops responding to your summons: 730. Morale: 50.]
[Thunderous war drums resound through the town known as Moonlight’s Hometown. Blood-stirring shouts and roars fill the air…]
[A blood-colored expanse appears behind you…]
[Masses of elite samurai respond to the summons. They wear crimson armor, some mounted, some on foot, some with spears, some with blades.]
[The sudden appearance of the exotic army startles the soldiers and Guardian Knights garrisoning the gate into panic. They seem to be trying to take out horns and blow them.]
[At your command, the Red Armor army’s archers draw their longbows and quickly turn the soldiers and Guardian Knights into hedgehogs.]
[The townsfolk scream and scatter in all directions…]
[You wave the Command Banner and order the more than seven hundred Red Armor samurai to spread out into the town, find your enemies, and cut them down!]
It should be noted that the Red Armor army were Lin Xun’s special summons. In the eyes of the Red Armor samurai, hostile Apostles would also display the invader glow.
Lin Xun did not need the samurai to kill the candidate Apostles. He only needed to know where the enemies were. That would be enough.
“I wonder, given the strength of a sixth-difficulty Apostle, whether I need to summon the Nine-Tailed Fox…”
[T/N: Poor guy keeps meeting Lin Xun xD]