novelraw Chapter 314-1: Aberration Prefix, Dragon Knight at the Divine Kingdom’s Border (1)
Chapter 314-1: Aberration Prefix, Dragon Knight at the Divine Kingdom’s Border (1)
Lin Xun’s Shell Slots numbered twelve. Apart from his eight main shells, all the rest could be discarded and replaced, so the empty slots on hand were basically sufficient.
He discarded the scapegoat shell that had just died and decided to equip the initial gifted Monk shell to dive into the Sea of Corruption and run another test.
Based on the information the Abbot had revealed earlier, those who failed their Ascension would degenerate into demons and be driven into the Sea of Corruption.
Perhaps entering the sea with a Monk who had failed Ascension would trigger a different event.
[…]
[You control the sword to fly as you overlook the sea beneath your feet. Your gaze falls into the depths of the ocean…]
[However, apart from the bottomless amber seawater, you discover nothing at all.]
[Do you want to attempt to dive into the Sea of Corruption?]
[You possess the shell of the Ascended Monastery Monk!]
[Without the flying sword beneath your feet, you instantly fall into the vast sea…][The amber seawater engulfs you. A sharp, intense pain comes from the skin over your entire body.]
[This intense pain goes from the surface of your skin deep into your bones, as if countless ants were gnawing on your body…]
Lin Xun furrowed his brows. He had originally thought that using a Monk who had failed Ascension would trigger a different event, but to his surprise, the text was exactly the same.
While the Monk had not yet died, he prepared to switch to the little dragonkin shell and give it a try.
If the seawater was filled with deadly toxins, perhaps the little dragonkin could hold out a while longer and see clearly what that huge shadow at the bottom of the sea was.
[The pain so intense it is enough to drive you mad quickly weakens. The agony of ten thousand ants gnawing on your body recedes like the tide…]
[Soaking in the seawater, you actually begin to feel a strange sense of warmth and comfort.]
[It is as if the seawater around you was filled with lethal toxins one moment, and the next it has become the amniotic fluid in the womb of a mother.]
[Not only does the seawater make you feel peaceful and at ease, it also fills your near-death body with vigorous vitality!]
[You are being tainted by an unknown power and are undergoing aberration…]
[…]
[You have successfully completed the first stage of aberration!]
[Your body changes from thin and bony to bloated and fat, growing large masses of greasy flesh.]
[Unlike the Ascended Monastery Abbot, however, the color of your flesh is not gray-white but a terrifying pitch black!]
[The shell Ascended Monastery Monk has transformed into Aberrant Monastery Monk!]
[You are being watched by an unknown existence!]
[You are being watched by an unknown existence!]
[A voice rings out faintly from somewhere in the dark. A great existence bestows upon you a sacred mission: enter the realm of the despicable and wipe out all heretics!]
Lin Xun’s eyes widened.
Before he could react, the game text continued to scroll.
[A gigantic shadow has appeared behind you at some unknown moment. It is a colossal arthropod monster that roams the deep ocean!]
[The monster appears behind you without a sound. It is so close that you cannot take in the entirety of its massive body at a glance.]
[Two compound eyes the size of houses stare fixedly at you. Its chewing mouthparts squirm nonstop, and every piece of food residue that falls from them is larger than your shell.]
[The monster’s entire body is pitch black, its whole form covered in layer upon layer of thick carapace. Its scorpion-like body is as massive as a mountain, and the stinger-like claw that grows from its head is enough to tear open a bottomless ocean trench in the depths of the sea.]
[You have discovered the Aberrant Ancient Broad-Winged Horseshoe Crab!]
[You feel an immense pressure!]
[The gigantic monster suddenly thrusts its head forward and swallows you whole in a single bite!]
[Your vision goes black, and you lose all consciousness…]
[…]
Lin Xun was completely dumbfounded.
From the Monk shell transforming from Ascended to Aberrant, to being watched by an unknown god and given a mission, then being swallowed by the monster, a string of special events happened in succession without giving him any time to react.
“So this is a sneak attack, huh?”
“Just you wait until I respawn and switch back to the Star Lord shell; then I will have a life-and-death battle with you!”
When the game text displayed ‘You feel immense pressure,’ that had been while he was possessing the weak, trashy Monk shell. If he switched to the Greedy Wolf Star Lord to fight, that line of text might not appear.
Whether he could defeat the monster or not, he had to at least try to find out.
“Huh, why is the death text not appearing?”
Lin Xun waited a long time but still did not see the glaring red word for ‘noob’ appear.
Having fought in the game for so long, he knew the cursed game did not have bugs. Anything that felt unreasonable was still in line with the game’s rules.
In other words, he was not dead yet and was still in a state of being alive.
Lin Xun tried switching shells, but after pressing the option, there was no response for a long time.
The game text still remained frozen on the state of ‘your vision goes black.’
With no room to operate at the moment, he could only scroll back through the previous text and carefully think through the entire sequence of events.
After pondering for a long while, he deduced that the Abbot and the others driving those who failed Ascension into the Sea of Corruption was likely a form of punitive judgment against heretics.
They made heretics who refused to commit suicide suffer intense pain and die in agony, then finally sink into the sea.
It was just that this Monk, whether because of luck or exceptional talent, endured the pain and shifted from the Ascended prefix to the Aberrant prefix.
After becoming Aberrant, he immediately came under the gaze of an unknown god.
The god bestowed a mission: ‘enter the realm of the despicable and wipe out all heretics.’
The ‘realm of the despicable’ in the first half evidently referred to the divine kingdom of the Desire Wet Nurse, while the second half was the mission that the unknown god had granted.
The Aberrant prefix was most likely part of the unknown god’s faction, standing on the opposite side from the Desire Wet Nurse faction with the Ascended prefix.
He filled in the blanks in his mind for a long time before ultimately shaking his head.
“Trying to make me work for free without giving any benefits, huh? In your dreams.”
[…]
[You gradually regain consciousness…]
[The salty sea breeze brushes across your face. The sound of the rising and falling tides echoes right beside your ears.]
[You slowly open your eyes. The first thing you see is a sky packed with dark clouds. Grayish light shines down on the earth, illuminating the beach beneath you.]
“Hm? I can move again!”
The game text had been stuck in the ‘your vision goes black’ state for more than ten minutes before finally beginning to scroll again.
[There is a layer of disgusting mucus clinging to the surface of your body, and the stench is overwhelming.]
[You hurriedly stand up and clean off the slime stuck to your bloated body.]
[You busy yourself for a long time and finally clean off the mucus. You look around, checking your surroundings…]
[You are on a deserted beach, and near your feet are several chunks of rotten meat larger than your shell.]
[Those chunks of flesh look somewhat familiar. They seem to be the same residue that fell from the giant sea monster’s writhing mouthparts.]
[You realize that the giant sea monster was not treating you as food just now, but was intending to transport you to a certain destination.]
[You gaze out toward the sea. The amber ocean looks just as it did before, with rolling waves, only the Aberrant Ancient Broad-Winged Horseshoe Crab is nowhere to be seen.]
[You turn your head to look at the land under your feet. Your gaze passes over the beach and the barren terrain…]
[At the far limit of your sight, there is a majestic mountain range stretching across the land from one end to the other. In the northern part of the range there seems to be a ravine, which might allow you to cross the mountains.]