novelraw Chapter 324: Border Prison, the Warden
Chapter 324: Border Prison, the Warden
[Having finished confiding, Kim seemed to set down a heavy stone in its heart. It rallied itself and once again firmed up its goal.]
[Kim asked what you planned to do next.]
[When it learned that you intended to continue exploring Tentacle City, it suddenly told you that many insect-person criminals were imprisoned in the Border Prison, most of them despicable commanders or leaders who had made mistakes on the front lines of the war.]
[After judgment they had been exiled here, locked in a lightless prison to receive cruel punishments in order to atone.]
[Kim leaned close to your ear and quietly told you that it knew a war general was secretly imprisoned there. The general was extremely powerful and happened to be a carapaced insect-person that it could parasitize.]
[Moreover, the war general had endured torture day and night and no longer had much ability to resist. It was a rather good vessel.]
[It had long wanted to sneak into the prison and kill the general to parasitize him, if not for the fact that the warden who controlled the prison possessed power no weaker than the general’s… Alas, it could not beat the warden, so it had not acted rashly.]
[Now that you, a Favored Servant of Firefly, would help, you and it could go to the Border Prison together, kill those zealots of the Despicable Ones, and seize a vessel.]
[Kim invited you to head to the Border Prison together. Would you go with it?]
Lin Xun’s eyes lit up.A war general and a warden sounded like very powerful Shells. He had just obtained the Full-Adaptation Parasite, which could be put to great use.
He was confident that he could solo the early maps of the Hell chapter and had no need of Kim’s help.
He was just about to press the refuse option, then suddenly stopped.
At the moment he had the strength to crush monsters and could flatten the map, but he was only tackling the early maps of the Hell chapter.
As the chapter advanced, the difficulty would rise sharply. Being able to steamroll the early maps did not mean he could do the same later.
Just like in the previous evil god chapter, without help from story characters, it had been impossible to win against certain powerful bosses.
Kim in front of him should be the helper story character arranged by the Hellish game, and it was a teammate with parasitism, which had tremendous growth potential.
If he relied on his strength or wanted to monopolize the loot vessels and did not bring Kim along to strengthen his teammate, he would likely get stuck on later powerful bosses.
Lin Xun saw through the Hellish game’s insidious trick at a glance.
[Seeing you hesitate and not make up your mind, Kim became a little anxious.]
[It pointed at its mask and loudly declared, Did you think Kim was very weak? No, no, no. Its strength, or rather its potential, was beyond your imagination.]
[As a semi-finished product that possessed a parasitic factor, it was far stronger than those one-use defectives.]
[It could parasitize all carapaced insect-people, could control the vessel after parasitism on its own, and could molt to change vessels. It was far beyond those defective products.]
[From beneath Kim’s carapaced mask came a hint of proud boastfulness. It continued, Although you were a Favored Servant of Firefly, what the Lord valued was likely your unique consciousness. In terms of frontal combat strength, you were definitely not stronger than it.]
[If it went with you to the Border Prison, the hard fighting would still depend on it.]
[At that time you would hide behind it. After it eliminated the prison guards, you would draw away the warden. You only needed to hold out for a short while, and it would parasitize the war general’s vessel.]
[After it became the war general, it would immediately return to rescue you. Then, with the two of you combined, you would take down the even more formidable warden.]
According to what Kim said, there were two powerful vessels in the Border Prison.
One was the war general, one was the warden. Although his Full-Adaptation Parasite had no restriction on insect-person type, it could only parasitize one vessel.
Rather than wasting a vessel, it was better to give it to Kim and strengthen his teammate.
Moreover, if he encountered an even stronger vessel later in the game, he could use the effect of Perfect Molting to throw the slightly weaker Shell vessel to Kim.
That would be equivalent to fighting with two Shells at the same time in another way.
“Missionary Kim… hmm, from now on I would call you Kim the Taker.”
[Persuaded by Kim, you finally agreed to go to the Border Prison with it.]
[Missionary Kim was overjoyed and proactively summoned the Courier Mole Cricket.]
[It invited you to sit in the abdominal cavity, fed it with one Milk-Sap Matsutake as the fare, and headed to the Border Prison.]
Along the way, Kim’s mouth never stopped. It could be called the chatterbox among insect-people.
Lin Xun did not mind. It helped relieve the boredom of riding public transport.
He was quite interested in the Milk-Sap Matsutake. He had intercepted one from Kim earlier but had not yet checked the item description.
[Milk-Sap Matsutake (Item): a photophobic fungal organism that commonly grows in lightless underground places. Its the Courier Mole Cricket’s favorite food.]
[Feed this item to the Courier Mole Cricket and you could ride it to your destination without paying Spirit Essence.]
[Seeing how interested you were in the Milk-Sap Matsutake, Kim generously took out a handful of matsutake and gifted them to you.]
[You obtained Milk-Sap Matsutake x10 (Item).]
[It went on to tell you that the Courier Mole Cricket was an unqualified fool of a creature. All it knew was eating, eating, eating. You must never count on it at critical moments.]
[…]
[…]
[After traveling for a long time, the vibrations finally subsided.]
[The flesh membranes on both sides of the abdominal cavity opened. You are in a strange and vast underground space.]
[In the distance stood a low, circular building shaped like a fortress. It was grim and oppressive. Even from far away, you could vaguely hear the shrill wailing from within.]
[The screams echoed again and again through the vast underground space, as if you had not come to a prison but to a hellish inferno hidden deep underground.]
[Sparse phosphorescent fungi grew on the surface of the Border Prison, allowing you to see from afar that two Ascended guards were dozing at the prison gate.]
[Kim leaned to your ear and whispered, You would handle the guard on the left, and it would take the one on the right. Keep the noise small and do not get discovered.]
[With that, it jumped down from the abdominal cavity. The black robe on its body shifted to match the surrounding colors and silently disappeared.]
[Only by straining your eyes and staring at Kim could you make out a faint humanoid outline.]
[Kim’s mimicry ability was in no way inferior to the Moth Mimic you had seen before.]
[In just a moment of distraction, Kim’s hazy outline drifted farther away and grew more and more indistinct.]
“Heh. Such a petty trick, and it dared to show off before an expert.”
Lin Xun decided to broaden Kim’s horizons. A small mimicry sleight of hand could not compare to a true escape art of invisibility.
[You possessed the Shell of the Fire-Worshipping Ninja master.]
[You turned lightly, opened a pair of dim eyes, and your figure vanished completely without a trace.]
[You followed Kim in stealth all the way to the vicinity of the prison gate without arousing the slightest notice from the guards.]
[Missionary Kim cautiously looked back. In the dark and grim underground space there was no trace of you.]
[Even the Courier Mole Cricket that had carried the two of you had already burrowed away. It could not help but mutter in a low voice. Strange. Where had the person gone. It could not be that he had run away.]
[You quietly patted Kim on the shoulder, nearly scaring it into leaping on the spot and exposing itself. Only when you spoke softly did it widen its eyes and try to find your figure.]
[But after searching for a long time, it could only hear you speaking softly behind it and could not see you in an invisible state.]
[Now you were only a little more than ten meters from the prison gate. The slightest disturbance would draw the attention of the two drowsy Ascended Prison Guards.]
[Kim had to set aside its questions for the moment and, according to the plan, crept up behind the prison guard on the right.]
[The black robe suddenly billowed. From beneath it thrust a thin barbed stinger shaped like a western rapier. The sharp stinger was iridescent, clearly laden with a ferocious poison.]
[Kim gripped the stinger and drove it hard toward the guard’s head.]
[The prison guard could not even let out a scream. It convulsed twice and died to the poison.]
[The guard beside it snapped wide awake. It was just about to move when a dazzling sword light bloomed before its eyes.]
[Its body froze. Cracks spread across its carapace, then rippled out to cover its whole body. It became neat chunks of sliced flesh that scattered on the ground.]
[You defeated the Ascended Prison Guard. Experience increased slightly.]
[You obtained the Border Prison Gate Key (Key).]
[Due to the trait of your weapon Golden Roc Raptor Claws, after you killed an enemy in a single strike, you would maintain invisibility.]
[Kim looked around in all directions and still could not see you. It could not help but be shocked and suspicious.]
[According to the mimicry it had mastered, whether or not it killed an enemy, as soon as it attacked or made a larger movement it could no longer blend into the surroundings and would be discovered by the enemy.]
[There was no such thing as remaining in stealth after killing an enemy like you did. It could not help but think of the Complete Metamorphosis of Ascension or the Complete Metamorphosis of Aberration that would be undergone once Ascension or Aberration reached a certain stage.]
[Kim could not help but mutter, Right. You must have gone through the complete metamorphosis stage to possess such an ability that defied common sense. You really were a pervert.]
[You actively released the invisibility state, ignored Kim’s rambling, and used the Border Prison Gate Key to open the main door.]
[After pushing the door open enough for one person to pass, you craned your head to look inside the prison.]
[Dim, flickering candles lit the interior. What met your eyes was an empty hall.]
[Once the door was open, the shrill wails grew clearer. Judging by the sound, they came from deep within the corridor connected to the hall.]
[Seeing you appear in the guise of an old Maggot-Person, Kim froze for a moment, then came to its senses and asked in a whisper if that was the Power of the Favored that the Lord had granted you.]
[You did not know how to answer and could only nod to the green-eyed Kim.]
[It scratched the sparse down on its head. It seemed to want to sigh, yet felt that was not the time, so it quickly told you the following.]
[The first floor of the Border Prison was the activity area of the guards and the warden. At the end of the hall corridor was an entrance to the underground first floor. That was the detention area where criminals were imprisoned. The never-ending screams you heard were cries during punishment.]
[As far as it knew, the war general was imprisoned in the deepest part of the detention area.]
[There were alarm devices on the route from the ground floor into the detention area. It was impossible to sneak into the detention area without alerting the warden.]
[According to the plan, you would first eliminate as many guards as possible on the first floor. However, the warden was too powerful. You were by no means a match, so you could not fight head on. You could only win with wisdom.]
[It just so happened that you had rather perverted mimicry abilities. You would be the one to hold off the warden, while it would cut through to the detention area. After parasitizing the war general, it would return to find you immediately.]
[With a powerful vessel like the war general, it was confident that together with you it could defeat the even stronger warden.]
[Of course, this was only the preliminary plan. If you could not hold the warden, do not worry about it. Just run for your life. It had a way to retreat intact.]
[Did you have doubts about Kim’s battle plan?]
[Looking into Kim’s eyes that shone with the light of wisdom, you could not help but nod, tacitly approving its plan.]
[You squeezed through the door with Kim and stepped into the prison hall.]
[There was no one on duty in the hall. It connected to three dark and deep corridors on the left, center, and right.]
[Without hesitation, Kim stepped into the left corridor and advanced.]
[The corridor was very narrow, so cramped that two people could not pass side by side. On both sides were separate quarters where guards were resting and sleeping.]
[At the bend ahead, a faint light flickered, and a rhythmic footfall could be heard. Judging by the sound, there were at least four or five people.]
[Kim signaled you to enter the quarters and eliminate the sleeping guards, while it would handle the guards on patrol ahead.]
Kim’s strength was indeed good. Taking out several guards at once was easy. Otherwise it could not have cut down Lin Xun’s freshly matured crop of one hundred Guard leeks.
Lin Xun’s job was even easier. He only needed to slip into the quarters and eliminate guards who slept like dead pigs.
It was worth noting that he could not gain experience from monsters that Kim killed, but he could pick up the dropped items and Spirit Essence.
Ordinary small monsters gave too little experience to matter. He did not care much about that. Instead, the drop rate drew his attention.
Perhaps due to being teamed with Kim, monsters killed by Kim still enjoyed the blessing of the Star Lord’s Crowned Diadem, and the drop rate was very pleasing.
Two assassins working together were extremely efficient. In no time they cleared the left and right corridors and shifted to the central corridor.
Only after clearing all the monsters in the central corridor did the two finally face a challenge.
[…]
[The central corridor was unusually broad compared with the two side corridors, broad enough to fit a Courier Mole Cricket or to drive in a large carriage.]
[At the very end of the corridor was a large chamber. A door almost as wide and tall as the passage stood tightly shut, giving off a repressed and suffocating heaviness.]
[Not far from the chamber, set in the passage floor, was a giant gate made of metal plate. Endless wails came from below it.]
[Kim leaned to your ear and quietly told you that the metal gate connected to the underground detention area, which housed even more elite guards.]
[That was not the most lethal part. In its view, those guards only required a few degrees more force on a single stab.]
[Most lethal was that if the detention area gate were forced open without a report, the warden at the end of the corridor would sense it and launch a frenzied attack on the intruders.]
[This was the reason its earlier infiltration of the prison had failed.]
[Kim’s gaze grew more serious than ever. It fixed its eyes on yours and asked solemnly, one word at a time.]
[Were you ready to draw out the warden?]
This was only the early-map boss. Even in a Hell difficulty chapter, Lin Xun still had the confidence to steamroll it.
Bringing Kim was only to cultivate a powerful teammate.
“You just go for the mini boss. Leave the big boss to me.”
He decisively pressed ‘Yes.’