novelraw Chapter 340-2: Shadow Dancer, Test Subject (2)
Chapter 340-2: Shadow Dancer, Test Subject (2)
[The trembling stops. The meat membranes on both sides of the abdominal cavity open…]
[Howling wind and snow instantly rush into the abdominal cavity, bringing with them bone-piercing cold.]
[Nightmare Yuri lies limp in the seat beside you, its eyes full of despair.]
[You grab Nightmare Yuri and hurl it into the swirling snow…]
[You possess the Shell of Desire-Bearing Greedy Wolf Star Lord!]
[With a pinch of your sword seal, the Celestial Sword Starshift turns into a shrill streak of sword light, piercing through Nightmare Yuri before it even lands.]
[You have defeated Ascended Shadow Dancer Nightmare Yuri. Your experience points increase greatly!]
[You have obtained Faint Spirit Essence of Profound Unfathomability x 1]
[You look at the twisted corpse lying in the piled snow…]
[Shell of Ascended Shadow Dancer Nightmare Yuri: A loyal servant appointed by Flanda to manage and rebuild Bush Cricket City. Because of a moment’s greed, he tried to conceal his master’s private attempt to seek favor from the Wet Nurse and, after being betrayed by the steward, suffered an extreme punishment. Compatibility: 78% (+55%)]Nightmare Yuri’s Shell compatibility was not high enough, so Lin Xun could only let the Parasite take the stage.
First he shed the Warden Shell, then parasitized Nightmare Yuri’s Shell.
[…]
[Nightmare Yuri’s Ascended Shadow Dancer Shell has not been dead for long and still retains vitality. Will you parasitize it?]
[Special skill Perfect Parasitism activates!]
[You merge into this dead, tall, thin Shell, connecting to all of its ganglia…]
[…]
[Parasitism successful. You have perfectly taken control of this vessel!]
[Your Shell Ascended Full-Adaptation Parasite is temporarily replaced by Ascended Shadow Dancer Nightmare Yuri!]
Lin Xun opened the Shell panel to check its stats.
[Shell: Ascended Shadow Dancer Nightmare Yuri]
[True Name: Yuri grin]
[Compatibility: 137% (23%)]
[Shell Quality: Legendary]
[Shell Level: 70]
[Shell Equipment: Nightfall Dagger (Epic+ Weapon): … A sharp, hollow-bladed dagger. Each attack draws a portion of the enemy’s blood and inflicts additional damage.]
[Shell Equipment: Shadow Dancer Exoskeletal Mask (Epic Equipment): … When you wear this equipment, a shell that wraps around your whole body will automatically form once you enter combat. The streamlined shell greatly increases your Agility and movement speed.]
[Shell Skill: Blood-Drinking Piercing Siphon (Legendary Skill): Using this skill deals massive damage to an enemy. All damage dealt is converted into your HP and has a chance to inflict the negative statuses Weakened, Diseased, Bleeding, and so on.]
[Shell Skill: Phantom Waltz (Epic+ Skill): With this skill, you will leave a phantom double behind when dodging to confuse the enemy. Their attacks may strike the phantom instead and deal no damage to you.]
Nightmare Yuri’s panel stats were extremely strong.
If Lin Xun did not have compatibility bonuses to raise his Shell quality, then using the Ninja Master or Star Lord to one-on-one this BOSS would undoubtedly have ended in his death and defeat.
However, Nightmare Yuri had only dropped three hundred thousand Spirit Essence and nothing else, which did not quite match a BOSS of that power.
After thinking about it for a moment, he understood why.
The main damage leading to Nightmare Yuri’s death had been done by Flanda. He had only chipped off the last sliver of HP, so the reward quality had dropped.
“In the future, if I run into something like this, I should try having a healer top the enemy back to full first, then go for the kill…”
“Would the drops be better that way?”
“Tsk, I’ve never tried healing enemies before. No idea if I can even do that…”
Now that he had obtained Nightmare Yuri’s Shell, the Shadow Dancer Tuning Fluid in his inventory seemed useless.
Staring at the item, Lin Xun suddenly thought of something.
His parasitic ability was bestowed by Flanda.
If the two Flandas were the same person, then knowing he could parasitize Nightmare Yuri’s Shell, why would the Flanda in the castle still give him the tuning fluid?
Wouldn’t that be completely redundant?
Facing someone with Perfect Parasitism, Flanda did not need to give him tuning fluid at all. At most, she only needed to give him the Wax Seal.
Unless that young girl Flanda did not know he had parasitic ability in the first place.
Which meant the two Flandas were not the same person.
Thinking of this, Lin Xun immediately set out for the Ancient Nest.
To be safe, he did not go directly to the third floor to find Flanda, but first went to the second-floor respawn point of the Nest and teleported back to the Monastery starting area.
After setting the Monastery’s confessional as his respawn point, he teleported back.
This way, even if his guess was wrong and caused Flanda to turn on him, he would not be dying over and over in the Ancient Nest with this super BOSS camping his corpse.
Once Lin Xun was sure there were no loose ends, he headed for the third floor of the Nest in search of Flanda…
[…]
[The lift stops. Oathbreaking Flanda hangs in the hollow space of the circular platform.]
[Many thick pipelines are connected to her gigantic, twisted lower body, imprisoning her in this lightless underground depth.]
[Flanda’s upper body is that of a naked girl. Her arms are crossed over her chest and her eyes are shut.]
[Feeling your arrival, she slowly opens her eyes. Her gaze is somewhat dazed, as if your frequent visits have disturbed her slumber…]
[Even so, Flanda shows not the slightest displeasure and is still delighted that you have come to see her.]
[Will you tell Oathbreaking Flanda what you have seen?]
“If this is just acting, then not going to pick up an Oscar would be a crime.”
“Wait, no, maybe this is some kind of split-personality thing…”
Lin Xun’s imagination ran wild. With the answer faintly forming in his heart, he decisively pressed ‘Yes.’
[You tell Oathbreaking Flanda before you in detail about meeting the girl Flanda in Belatu Estate…]
[…]
[Flanda quietly listens to you until you finish, showing not the slightest trace of surprise.]
[Her eyes turn a bit distant, as if recalling something. Only after a long while does she begin to explain the reason…]
[Oathbearer, do you still remember the false memories the Wet Nurse once implanted in you?]
[Your body will become nourishment to moisten the soil of the Divine Kingdom. Your soul will return to the Wet Nurse’s embrace. Your glorious achievements will be remembered by posterity and carved upon immortal stone.]
[Death does not mean the end. Under the Wet Nurse’s nurturing, you will be reborn and begin the next cycle of life…]
[To say these memories are false is not entirely correct.]
[The Wet Nurse indeed possesses the power to begin a next cycle of life, and the girl-shaped figure you saw is precisely what the Wet Nurse recreated.]
[After she helped the parasitic being named Kim escape the Nest, her elder brothers and sisters exposed her, and the Wet Nurse stripped her of the right to continue controlling the Nest.]
[Later, as the war suffered defeat after defeat, the Wet Nurse made a desperate gamble and finally decoded Firefly’s life factor.]
[Although this made the Wet Nurse even stronger, She lost Her divine body.]
[The Wet Nurse was desperate to fuse the known life factors and create a new divine body. But how could such a powerful divine body be so easily made?]
[The Wet Nurse needed test subjects, and a traitor to the Wet Nurse like her was the best test subject.]
[This also fit the Wet Nurse’s usual style. To become a test subject is both favor and divine punishment.]
[You have seen what she looks like now… She is a failed test subject.]
[The Wet Nurse continued Her experiments. She opened a new life cycle and created the next test subject Flanda. In the terminology of their original civilization, this should be called cloning.]
[The Flanda you saw, in human girl form with no trace of insectfolk, means the Wet Nurse has already fully fused Firefly’s life factor.]
[She will soon be able to create a truly divine body, a divine body more powerful than any before…]
[If that happens, Firefly has no chance of defeating a Wet Nurse with a new divine body. The divine war is about to end… and you and she will vanish along with Firefly’s devouring.]
[By the time Flanda finishes, she is already in tears. It is as if she has foreseen the Wet Nurse devouring Firefly, then leading Her children away from this doomed world to the next world in the endless starry void.]
“So in other words, it is not just that there are two Flandas, but that there are many Flandas?”
“And the one who has shown herself is the perfect test subject…”
“What about the other test subjects? Were they destroyed, or hidden somewhere?”
Lin Xun suddenly realized that Firefly probably was not going to fall so quickly.
The reason was simple. This ever-faithful Firefly Apostle had delivered yet another new life factor to the Wet Nurse.
If the Wet Nurse wanted to create a divine body more powerful than ever before, She would definitely spend even more time trying to fuse this brand-new life factor.
“Does this count as drinking poison to quench thirst, or as a stroke of unintended good fortune?”