novelraw Chapter 98: Temple Moth?
Chapter 98: Temple Moth?
Lin Xun shrank the Giant Shell into the form of a young boy and mounted the Three-Headed Lion to continue the game’s progression.
It took a long while to traverse the ‘shadowy forest’ and return to the shed behind the cemetery.
After resetting this location as the new resurrection point, he exited the shed.
[Apostle who has endured many hardships, continue riding along the road for half a day, and you shall reach the final destination of this chapter—the Church of Divine Light’s Temple Ruins.]
[Would you like to continue forward?]
[You gallop atop the lion, advancing along the desolate road…]
Lin Xun waited idly as the Three-Headed Lion trudged onward. With nothing else to do for the moment, he glanced out the window of his rented apartment. The sky had grown dark. Unconsciously, he had spent another full day cultivating in-game.
Only when the moon hung high overhead did the game’s narrative finally update.
During that time, his soul strength had recovered, so he casually reshaped half the Shell for the Paladin of Discipline.
[Bathed in radiant moonlight, you raise your hand to gaze into the distance and see the ruins of an ancient town up ahead.][The once-sprawling town has long crumbled under the erosion of time, leaving behind only broken walls and scattered rubble. At the center of the ruins stands a dilapidated temple.]
[Perhaps due to its construction from special stone, this temple—its outer walls covered in carvings of enormous moths, remains the only structure in the ruins that has not collapsed.]
[Do you wish to enter the ruins and proceed to the Church of Divine Light’s Temple Ruins?]
Lin Xun opened the Shell Panel. The Blood Pineal Gland skill of the Earth Giant had already grayed out.
The Shell Level had also reverted to Level 28, as the temporary +10 level buff had vanished.
“Looks like I’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning to resume fighting.”
Without the illumination of the Blood Sun, his Shell Level instantly dropped by ten. Facing the chapter’s final boss like this would definitely put him at a disadvantage.
After observing the surroundings for a while and confirming no wild monsters were nearby, Lin Xun issued a guarding combat command to the Three-Headed Lion, then logged out of the game.
Only when a Shell dies does it immediately return to the Resting Page.
If one logs out in the game’s wild areas, the Shell will remain where it was.
This approach carries some risk, if there happen to be monsters in the area, and the Shell is killed while the player is offline, the Apostle will be greeted with a familiar Resting Page upon logging back in.
Fortunately, there were no monsters around here, and with the Three-Headed Lion standing guard, as long as a boss didn’t drop from the sky, there would be no danger.
He opened the Apostle Forum and began browsing the posts made by other Apostles.
Most of the rookie Apostles frequently got stuck, often dying mid-chapter, and even after struggling through more than a dozen chapters, many still hadn’t cleared a single one.
As a result, those who had actually encountered a chapter’s final boss were rare. Lin Xun could only rely on those rare walkthrough posts to learn about the strength of the end-of-chapter bosses.
After going through many guides, Lin Xun came to a conclusion.
In general, end-of-chapter bosses were absurdly powerful, and most Apostles couldn’t brute-force their way through with just their own strength.
However, there were rare cases in particularly difficult game worlds where, despite a high base difficulty, the final boss was unexpectedly weak or even a freebie.
The Blood Sun world Lin Xun was currently in was one such high-difficulty major volume (ten chapters), a hellish grind that practically guaranteed players would get stuck.
As for what kind of boss awaited at the end of Chapter 323, since there were no related guides, Lin Xun had no way of knowing.
—
The Next Day.
Just after dawn, Lin Xun was already up and diving back into the game.
If he’d had this much motivation back when he was a student, he might’ve made it into Tsinghua or Peking University… actually, no, probably not.
The Book of Salvation – Activate!
After logging in, his Shell remained right where he had left it.
The game text indicated that a few corpses of minor Blood Sun monsters now littered the ground.
[The Corrupted Three-Headed Lion crouches low, its three heads rubbing against you as if vying for credit.]
Clearly, the little lion had taken out the stray mobs.
[The Corrupting Blood Sun slowly rises, its eerie crimson light blanketing the earth.]
[Bathed in the light of corruption, the mutated organ in your mind begins to stir.]
[Blood Pineal Gland skill activated. Current Shell receives a temporary +10 level boost!]
[You have grown stronger!]
Lin Xun opened the Shell Panel. The Earth Giant Shell was back to Level 38.
[You gaze toward the distant ruins. Do you wish to enter and proceed to the Church of Divine Light’s Temple Ruins?]
He used his Shell Talent to shrink the Earth Giant down to normal human size.
With the 10-level boost, he was brimming with confidence and decisively pressed ‘Yes.’
[You step across the rubble and broken stones, advancing toward the Church of Divine Light’s Temple Ruins…]
[The majestic temple before you is encased by colonnades. The outer wall of the sanctuary is covered in carvings of massive moths, all swarming upward toward the top of the wall where divine light from the sun and moon has been engraved.]
Lin Xun raised an eyebrow. That had to be symbolic.
Because the Earth Giant had died from soul annihilation, its Shell retained no memory at all.
He tried possessing the Yellow-Robed Bishop to see if it would trigger any extra plotlines.
[As you gaze upon the stone carvings, memories within the Shell begin to awaken…]
[Before the Church of Divine Light split, the world believed in the divine light. The Church praised its faithful as moths drawn to the light, moths symbolized devotion itself.]
[At the time, the Church’s followers embraced the tradition of breeding moths. As the center of worship, the Church of Divine Light naturally played a leading role in this practice…]
Big moths?
Lin Xun furrowed his brow. Could it be that the final boss of Chapter 323 was a giant moth?
Didn’t sound like something with much combat prowess. Was he finally getting a freebie fight?
Having played through this cursed game for so long, Lin Xun knew better than to let confidence swell his head.
One could look down on the enemy in strategy, but never in tactics.
[You have possessed the Shell of the Corrupted Earth Giant.]
He switched back to the powerful giant Shell and entered the temple.
[You ascend the stone steps, pass through the empty, crumbling colonnade, and arrive in the temple’s sanctuary…]
[Inside, the sanctuary is desolate and ruined. The divine statue has crumbled into scattered rubble, and the surrounding walls are covered in countless massive white cocoons.]
[Looking up, you see in the center of the temple’s dome a single enormous cocoon hanging upside down, filling the entire ceiling.]
Welp. It really was a giant moth.
Lin Xun couldn’t help but wonder. If he had arrived earlier, would he have only faced a bunch of baby silkworms?
[The white cocoons in the sanctuary seem to sense your presence and begin to tremble…]
[Brownish fluid leaks from the top of the giant cocoon, corroding a massive hole. From within, a creature begins to emerge…]
Lin Xun narrowed his eyes. The temple was already a ruin with nothing of value, so he didn’t have to worry about losing potential loot by wrecking the scene.
He swiftly opened the Shell Slot menu and, using the Earth Giant’s talent, expanded his body to the maximum.
[With your Shell Talent: Earth Form, your body begins to grow with the wind…]
[In the blink of an eye, you burst through the temple’s dome, transforming into a towering thirty-meter-tall giant!]