A Color More Brilliant Than Gold

What I always thought was 'good luck' was actually a bumper harvest? Or perhaps a bountiful harvest?

The girl's voice still seemed to echo in his ear. The demon hunter, who had just awakened from his "divine connection," awkwardly cracked his knuckles.

Mistaking a deity's divine office is no less than asking someone to mispronounce their name.

No wonder even Meritellie in her old woman form laughed.

Fortunately, He is a benevolent deity who has a very good temper in all three forms: a young girl, a pregnant woman, and an old woman.

Otherwise, given Ailin's actions, being struck dead by lightning wouldn't be an exaggeration.

"Yes, the Goddess Meritellie is indeed a rare and kind deity," the demon hunter thought.

otherwise...

How could He say, and demonstrate at the level of the church and temple, that 'human beings do not need gods'...?

This kind of idea is completely blasphemous, whether in novels or in reality.

Therefore, even Ailin, who was born with a systematic upbringing and harbored strong doubts about the gods, did not doubt Meritellie's statement about letting humanity develop on its own.

"For a god to blaspheme against himself is also a betrayal of his own class, isn't it?"

Ailin chuckled softly.

But then he thought of what Meritellie had told him, the cruel facts that had happened, were happening, and were about to happen.

The Witcher's smile gradually faded.

"We really can't stop for a moment..." he sighed.

The threat of the annihilation of the school of thought in the defense of Kaer Morhen had just been resolved by King Haxor of Kedwen.

There are still many male witches and nobles who harbor ill will towards the School of the Wolf.

As a result, the "Conjunction of the Spheres" during the resolution of Haxor attracted the Wild Hunt, which had once conquered all realms.

Those Ain El were far too powerful for the current Ailin and School of the Wolf to handle.

Once they find the Ancient Sea Fortress, the school's demise will be imminent.

There's no need for those treacherous sorcerers and nobles to incite a mob to launch the defense of Kaer Morhen.

And now.

The campaign against the Wild Hunt has just made good progress, winning over Arland... no... given Duke Mason's royal status, it could even be said that he has won over half of Temeria...

As a result, the ultimate disaster in the Witcher world, a disaster that even the gods were powerless against— the White Frost —suddenly reappeared.

Meritellie presents a choice, a balance on either side of the scale...

Just thinking about it briefly is enough to make one breathless.

"Can't we take it one step at a time?" he gritted his teeth. "Don't stories usually start by dealing with the small fry and minor bosses before moving on to the big boss?"

"Couldn't I deal with the threat from the Kedwen school first, then have a few Wild Hunt challenge me, and finally, once I've improved enough, then take on a big boss like White Frost..."

"There's no way you can just put all the pressure and all the enemies on top of you right from the start."

"Phew~"

After venting his frustrations, the Witcher took a deep breath, trying to dispel the gloom weighing on his heart.

When no one is around, finding a tree hollow to vent to can indeed be effective in relieving stress.

"Reality is not a fabricated story."

"I have no choice but to use all my advantages to guide the enemy into a line..."

"First come, first served, and follow the order."

"Of course, the most important thing is one's own strength. We must do everything we can to improve our strength as quickly as possible."

With this thought in mind, the Witcher opened his Witcher's Handbook.

The nine one-eyed demon Nekker's Chest lay quietly in the inventory, waiting to be visited.

Thinking of the golden light that merged into his body when he left the divine kingdom, Ailin took a deep breath.

"Homage to the Mother of All Things, Goddess of fertility, harvest, and childbirth, eternal maiden, mother, and guardian of the old..."

[Ding! The One-Eyed Demon Nekker's Chest *9 has been opened]

A blinding golden light burst forth from the treasure chest the very first moment after the Witcher System Notification sounded.

Immediately afterwards.

It was a continuous stream of golden light.

Ailin felt his eyes were dazzled.

Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, purple, gold.

Eight gold and one purple!!!

The enormous gains instantly swept away the gloom in his heart.

After all nine treasure chests were opened and emitted a golden-purple light, the Witcher involuntarily held his breath.

Eight gold-quality and one purple-quality @#￥%&'s Chest should have nine cutscenes.

"I wonder if we'll be able to see who the One-Eyed Serpent Giant's true enemy is?"

However, as he gazed expectantly at the nine treasure chests before him, something unexpected happened.

[Ding! Treasure chest quality meets requirements: Gold/Gold; quantity meets requirements: 8/7; type meets requirements: System Skill/System Skill. Merge chest?]

Um?

The Witcher was stunned.

He rubbed his eyes and carefully read the suddenly appearing red text several times from beginning to end.

"A fusion treasure chest?"

"The Witcher's Handbook has this function?"

"Ailin exclaimed in surprise."

He always thought that gold-quality @#￥%&'s Chest were the highest level, never imagining that there was such a thing as fusion treasure chests.

But to be honest...

The Witcher looked at the system notification again.

It's already extremely difficult to open @#￥%&'s Chest gold quality.

Even though he prays to the goddess of abundance and harvest, Meritellie, every time he opens a treasure chest, he still fails to open a golden treasure chest four or five times out of ten.

Not to mention opening seven gold-quality items at once.

If it weren't for the blessing of abundance from the Goddess Meritellie after he left the divine realm, he might have had to wait a long time to collect hundreds of treasure chests at once and then open them all at once.

That's how Ailin got the chance to see this feature.

Given his past habit of opening treasure chests in small groups and testing the odds, it's hard to say whether he would have ever seen this feature appear in his lifetime without Meritellie's help...

"And a systematic set of skills..."

The Witcher thought of the skill he had used last time, "Battle Cry: Berserk".

"Perhaps only One-Eyed Nekker, which once possessed a similar infamous monster, could meet the requirements."

Thinking about this...

The witcher couldn't help but sincerely express his gratitude once again in his heart:

"Homage to the Mother of All Things, Goddess of fertility, harvest, and childbirth, eternal maiden, mother, and guardian of the old..."

As for whether or not to merge?

Are you kidding me!

With such stringent requirements and an outrageously low probability, it's as if they're deliberately trying to hide it from everyone. How muddled must one's brain be to choose no?

The Witcher couldn't wait any longer and his mind raced.

The next second.

The @#￥%&'s Chest that was bursting with golden light before their eyes almost simultaneously began to tremble with light.

Then, under immense force, like repulsive magnets, they resisted and trembled as they slowly moved toward the center.

Not only was the purple @#￥%&'s Chest pushed to the edge of the screen, but the extra eighth gold treasure chest, although lagging behind the other seven, was also moving towards the center.

The Witcher felt he could intervene in the process and stop the fusion at any time.

You could even exclude the eighth treasure chest.

However, after thinking about it, Ailin did nothing.

The eight golden beams drew closer and closer until they almost overlapped.

At the center of the dazzling light, it seemed unable to withstand some powerful force and suddenly collapsed into a black hole.

The eight golden treasure chests suddenly stopped and paused for a moment.

In an instant, they were sucked into the black hole.

Ailin's perspective was suddenly plunged into darkness.

"Um?"

After two or three seconds, the black hole remained motionless, as if it had completely banished his @#￥%&'s Chest to another world.

This made the Witcher gradually become worried.

He even started to recall if the system notification he had just received contained any mention of "probability-based corruption"...

But thinking about it, even if the prompt doesn't say "probability of damage," it doesn't mean that it actually doesn't exist.

After all, the Witcher's Handbook doesn't provide warnings for everything. For example, just now, someone forcibly broke into the God Kingdom without warning. Is that something that can be described as merely dangerous?

"Don't mess with me!" Ailin clenched his fists, not daring to blink.

The loss of eight gold chests, along with the loss of eight gold chests, has significantly weakened the Witcher.

fortunately.

Just as Ailin was worrying like this...

The black hole has changed!

Without a sound, a faint red light shot out from the black hole.

Then within a second.

It quickly turned from pale red to a bloody and glaring color.

Looking at the somewhat eerie red light, the Witcher could almost smell a faint scent of rust.

This strange phenomenon...

The anticipation has been heightened!

"Sizzle~"

In the silence, it was as if steel chains were being pulled by a colossal giant, producing a violent grinding sound.

"Sizzle~"

The red light grew increasingly blinding, until it turned the entire black hole into a vortex of blood.

The smell of blood grew stronger.

The sacred iconostasis seemed to transform into the scene of some massacre.

The next moment.

"Bang--"

A tremendous roar, and a blinding crimson light leaped out with lightning speed.

Before the Witcher could even see what was in the light,

"Roar!"

An intense pressure, mixed with a furious roar, emanated from the black hole stained with an ominous blood red.

It sounded like some enormous creature roaring and howling.

"What is that—"

The witchers were all stunned into a blank mind by this oppressive aura.

Its whole body was stiff, like a bird that had been stressed.

for a long time.

Only when the black hole hastily closed amidst the roar and the red light gradually dimmed did Ailin come to his senses.

"What... what the hell is that thing?"

A faint but real pressure, a heart-wrenching roar, and a stench as heavy as if submerged in a sea of blood...

That's definitely not a special effect, and it's definitely not an animation of the treasure chest changing from gold to red.

The demon hunter swallowed hard, still shaken.

But then he thought that the Witcher's Handbook might have been snatched from the jaws of that unimaginable monster, and he couldn't help but feel an extremely strong curiosity about what was in the red light.

But then, everything went completely dark in front of him.

"The Path of the Beast Roar is a gift from the Great Shagdarzhab," an aged voice came from the darkness, "He teaches us how to wield the power of a behemoth in human form..."

Um?

The Witcher blinked.

Wait until you open your eyes again.

He was already surrounded by a circle of "people," or rather, the cubs of the One-Eyed Serpent Giant.

After a moment of stunned silence.

Ailin realized he was in the red-quality cutscene, and immediately perked up, looking around.

A massive, pale animal skeleton supports an even larger, grayish-brown skin.

A subtle yet undeniably powerful ancient aura emanated from within.

In addition, there was a faint smell of dust mixed with the putrid odor of freshly plucked fur.

It was extremely depressing and chilling.

The One-Eyed Serpent Giant was already quite large, but this nomadic-style dwelling house housed over a thousand enormous One-Eyed Serpent Giant.

And hundreds of cubs, like Ailin now, only a quarter the size of an adult One-Eyed Serpent Giant.

"Homage to Shagdarzhab, god of roar, hunting, and taming..."

The thousand or so One-Eyed Serpent Giant around him suddenly began to chant fervently, and the Witcher, after a moment of surprise, followed suit.

Smell, sound, image, pressure, and even the slight movement of air blowing the fur on your body.

The scene before me was too real.

Ailin, whose mind had just gone blank from the roar in the black hole, dared not treat everything in his field of vision as a transitional animation.

"Homage to Shagdarzhab, roar, hunt..." he shouted, mimicking the cubs of the One-Eyed Serpent Giant around him.

Etc!

The Witcher suddenly looked up.

I actually understood what the One-Eyed Serpent Giant was saying!

"Very good!" The aged voice was gentle. "We revere Shagdarzhab, for he brought us the Path of the Beast Roar, the wild power to coexist with the world..."

Ailin looked in the direction of the sound.

A gigantic, but very old, One-Eyed Serpent Giant was standing in front of a huge beast skeleton.

Its body was thin, and its huge, snake-scale-like scales were no longer shiny.

Instead, it was grayish-brown, with gaps in many places, or even completely missing, revealing the hideous flesh beneath the scales.

but.

The large, single eye on that aged face, though somewhat cloudy, held a glimmer of wisdom.

Moreover, the way they looked at these One-Eyed Serpent Giant cubs was kind and gentle.

"Is he a wise man or a priest from the One-Eyed Serpent Giant tribe?" the demon hunter wondered.

"Gamendia," the aged One-Eyed Serpent Giant summoned a One-Eyed Serpent Giant who appeared to be middle-aged, "Take the hope of your race out to train..."

"Yes, Chieftain!" Gamendia respectfully patted his chest and then roared in the direction of Ailin and the others, "You little brats, let's go out and practice!"

"Knock knock knock~"

The ground was shaking violently.

Three or four adult One-Eyed Serpent Giant, each with a cub, walked out of the tent.

"Wow!" Upon seeing this, Ailin couldn't help but exclaim inwardly, "Three teachers and one student? Is the teaching staff of the One-Eyed Serpent Giant tribe that strong?"

After reflecting on his feelings, he stood there and waited.

However, after a long time, all the baby One-Eyed Serpent Giant around him were led out of the animal bone and skin tent, and no one "took him away."

"Could all of this be an illusion? A cutscene? Or am I just imagining things?"

The tremors gradually subsided.

Ailin looked around, hesitated for a moment, and then followed.

This was obtained by exchanging eight gold chests, so even if it's just a cutscene, not a single second can be wasted.

At least let's see what the outside of this towering tent looks like...

Why does Cyclops cub need three or four teachers to accompany it when learning this Path of the Beast Roar...?

"Knock knock knock~"

The daylight outside the tent was getting closer.

Just as he could vaguely see the green shadows of the grass outside, an aged voice suddenly sounded behind him:

"Italino, where are you going?"