Compared to before, when he had nothing but a [Black Tassel Spear] and ran around practically naked, the improvement was extremely significant.
"One, two, three..."
As Zhongli silently counted, one Narrow Ghost Shadow after another was pinned by golden stone spears falling from the sky, revealing their true forms on the spot.
The weaker monsters that had clustered around them and aided their evil deeds immediately scattered in all directions.
In the blink of an eye, the terrifying black tide had collapsed, leaving only the Narrow Ghost Shadows writhing on the ground and letting out painful shrieks.
Clearly, these monsters possessed extremely tenacious vitality.
The golden stone spears had merely restrained their movements; they were not enough to kill them in a single blow.
"...Eight, nine, ten."
Zhongli's gaze shifted slightly. If his guess was correct, there should have been twelve Narrow Ghost Shadows like these, corresponding to the twelve cursed Maple Leaf Gold Coins.
Yet he had found only ten.
Just then, the Narrow Ghost Shadows pinned to the ground by the Geo Archon, utterly unable to move and capable only of struggling and wailing, began exploding one after another, turning into clumps of black mist.
Drawn by an invisible force, the ominous black mist ultimately gathered and took shape in the center of the storage room, becoming a brand-new pitch-black beast—
[Ogre's Calamity] Lv45.
It was a massive black hound with three heads, each mouth brimming with sharp fangs.
The moment it appeared, all three heads let out furious howls at Zhongli. Its six red eyes held both fear of the golden stone spears and an overwhelming craving for flesh and blood.
"So that was it?"
Seeing this, Zhongli immediately raised his right hand and formed a hand seal before his chest.
Only then did Yin Kong suddenly realize that the golden stone spears the Geo Archon had thrown down earlier had not only pinned those demons and monsters in place, but had also formed a massive Demon-Quelling Incantation on the floor.
The golden seal immediately bloomed with dazzling light, illuminating the entire storage room.
At the same time, it enclosed [Ogre's Calamity] at its center, making it let out a desperate roar.
Unfortunately for it, there was clearly no longer any chance of escape. It simply vanished into nothingness beneath the light of the Demon-Quelling Incantation.
"Is it over?"
Yin Kong could not help asking when he saw this.
Zhongli gently shook his head and looked toward a shadowed corner of the storage room.
There, a tiny black shadow was cautiously creeping toward the window.
Though it believed it had hidden itself perfectly, how could it possibly escape the eyes of the Geo Archon?
"As long as I can reach that place..."
However, just as it reached the gap in the window and thought it was about to escape into the open, it saw a pitch-black raven outside the window speaking directly to it.
"Sorry, but this place is already full."
"Looks like this is another demon that has developed intelligence."
Watching Oz stop the ghostly shadow, Yin Kong sighed inwardly.
Compared with the Narrow Ghost Shadows, this shadow's behavior was obviously far more intelligent.
Yet its level was actually the lowest, only level eighteen.
Perhaps that was precisely why it had not been the leader among the ghostly shadows. Otherwise, their actions could never have been so reckless.
Could this fellow be like Young Barbatos?
As Yin Kong pondered this, the shadow had already revealed its true form—
A lizard covered from head to toe in tiny mouths.
At the same time, it opened its largest red mouth and shot a long, barbed tongue at Oz.
Fortunately, Oz had been prepared. With a flap of his wings, he dodged the sneak attack and spat out a Lightning Bullet in return.
Although Fischl was only level ten, Oz's Lightning Bullet struck the lizard's left eye with pinpoint accuracy, immediately making it roll around on the ground in agony.
It seemed that after gaining intelligence, while it learned to seek benefits and avoid harm, it also became more sensitive to pain.
Yin Kong understood at once.
If it had been an ordinary monster, let alone having one eye burst, even if Yin Kong used a sword to stir its brains into mush, it would only continue attacking through pained roars.
In the end, Zhongli pierced its body with a single spear thrust, thoroughly ending its unbearable suffering.
That should have been the end, right?
Zhongli surveyed the storage room, then carefully inspected it once more. Only after confirming that no evil remnants remained did he dismiss the stone spears he had thrown down earlier.
Though they had inevitably left some holes in the floor, compared with using Vortex Vanquisher and blowing away the entire company building, that was already rather restrained, wasn't it?
Unfortunately, Mantendo Game Company used wooden flooring.
If it had been ordinary ground, Zhongli could naturally have used Geo Elemental Power to fill the gaps with soil or stone.
Of course, if Yin Kong had the chance to pull Albedo in the future, the Child of the Chalk's alchemy could also repair everything with a single click, leaving no need to worry about cleanup.
"The coins should be in here, right?"
Without needing any reminder, Yin Kong and the others had already identified the storage compartment surrounded by the most Narrow Ghost Shadows when they entered the storage room.
"Good. It's just a simple mechanical mechanism."
It was clear that Little Deer had done his share of breaking into homes and picking locks during his past career as a detective. After fiddling with it a few times, he opened the old-fashioned mechanical lock on the storage cabinet.
Yin Kong opened the box and, sure enough, found the target of this trip—
Twelve cursed Maple Leaf Gold Coins.
At the same time, the event interface immediately changed:
[Twelve Trials] has been unlocked. The Traveler may choose between [Easy Mode], [Normal Mode], and [Challenge Mode] to undertake the challenge at different difficulties.
Ogre's Calamity
Yin Kong opened the mission description and studied it carefully, discovering that the rewards for clearing the three difficulty levels were identical.
Or rather, the rewards for this limited-time event had only ever been two Anemo characters.
If this were in a game, he might have tried the highest Challenge Mode first.
But now, Yin Kong did not hesitate in the slightest and directly chose the lowest Easy Mode.
Thank goodness Genshin was famously a game that catered to casual players. Casual-player-friendly was great; it was exactly what he liked best.
After opening the first dungeon, Yin Kong quickly discovered that he had been transported into an entirely unfamiliar mist.
Beneath his feet was a rough gravel path.
"Where is this?"
As Yin Kong observed his surroundings in confusion, his ears suddenly twitched.
He heard what seemed to be footsteps slowly approaching from behind him.
Although the other party's footsteps were extremely faint and they had clearly received relevant training, they could no longer deceive Yin Kong, who had also undergone professional training.
When the footsteps came within three or four meters behind Yin Kong, the other party paused briefly, as though gathering strength.
Then he suddenly lunged at Yin Kong, plunging the gleaming dagger in his hand viciously toward Yin Kong's lower back.
What the attacker had never expected was that the moment he sprang into action, Yin Kong also suddenly turned around. The [Black Tassel Spear] in his hand became an afterimage as he swung it horizontally and smashed it viciously into the man's face.
Yin Kong clearly saw the attacker's appearance as well. She was a young and beautiful foreign woman, her face filled with shock and disbelief—and several teeth that had been smashed out of her mouth as she flew away.
So the first trial was about dealing with enemies attacking from the mist?
Yin Kong suddenly understood, feeling a little relieved.
Fortunately, he had only recently undergone relevant special training.
Otherwise, he might not really have noticed that sneak attack from behind in time.
However, just as Yin Kong braced himself for new enemies, the words [Challenge Successful] appeared out of thin air.
Wait, that was it?
Only then did Yin Kong come back to his senses and stare in astonishment at the beautiful assassin he had sent flying with one sweep of his spear, now lying unconscious on the ground.
So this woman had been the entirety of the monsters in the first trial?
"Easy Mode indeed."
Yin Kong was silent for several seconds before letting out that sigh.
From what he had experienced just now, she had been an utterly ordinary person. She might have received training and therefore mastered some stealth techniques, but she was nowhere near Kuki Shinobu's level.
Even if Yin Kong had failed to react and taken a knife straight to the kidney, he would have lost at most four or five hundred HP. Then, with a backhanded slap, he could still have smacked the ambusher flat, right?
The following trials were all more or less the same.
A rainy night, underwater, a secret room, a ball...
Knives, swords, poison, crossbows...
In every trial, Yin Kong was transported to a different environment and attacked by one or two assassins wielding different weapons.
Naturally, like the beautiful assassin from the first trial, they were all merely trained ordinary people.
The only trials that could possibly be called somewhat difficult were the eleventh and twelfth—the final two trials.
One involved a professional gunman carrying a revolver, while the other did not have an assassin carry out a "frontal sneak attack" like the previous stages. Instead, bombs had been planted in advance at the ball.
But for both of those stages, the system had provided extremely straightforward hints in advance, hints even Paimon could understand. It was remarkably considerate.
All in all, only ten minutes later, Yin Kong successfully cleared [Easy Mode].
Just as he was excitedly about to invite Kazuha into the party, he unexpectedly found the system interface going black before changing once again.
"Once upon a time, there were twelve cursed coins—"
Damn, there was even a cutscene?
Yin Kong froze. Though it was perfectly normal for limited-time events to include cutscenes, he had not expected this limited-time event to have a new one as well.
But he quickly suppressed his shock and focused on the contents of the cutscene.
"Some people with unusual constitutions were astonished to discover that when they held these coins, they could see the phantom of a demon."
The so-called demons came in many forms, but they clearly corresponded to the "Narrow Ghost Shadows" Zhongli had pinned to the ground one by one earlier.
Of course, the ones in the cutscene were much blurrier.
It seemed that even while holding the coins, they could not see those "demons" as clearly as Yin Kong could.
"They were drawn in by the demons' whispers and made deals with them—"
Clearly, the one guiding these people was the lowest-level yet only intelligent lizard "demon."
"The demons bestowed blessings upon humans, allowing them to touch powers that did not belong to them. In exchange, they inherited the demons' frenzied hunger for human flesh and offered them sacrifices in this manner..."
The scenes flashed past rapidly, showing all sorts of people touching the Maple Leaf Gold Coins and making deals with the demons.
Yin Kong also saw the "assassins" he had encountered in the Twelve Trials. Now it seemed that they were not assassins at all; those trials had merely recreated the scenes of their murders.
But supernatural power... was there any?
At least Yin Kong felt that he had not noticed any at all. Could it have been because he had only chosen [Easy Mode]?
While he was thinking, the cutscene continued.
"They soon formed a secret organization and, relying on the demons' power, acted wantonly in the shadows. They slaughtered their own kind as freely as pigs and dogs, and the town of Verona Creek gradually became a paradise of sin..."
The cutscene had clearly been softened to some extent, using pigs and dogs in place of the victims being slaughtered.
But even so, Yin Kong could imagine the bloodshed of the past.
"Yet these people did not know that from the very beginning, what the demons wanted was not the so-called sacrifices offered to them, but their souls, already fallen into utter depravity. Some members noticed the demons' increasingly fervent, greedy gazes and tried to flee, only to be captured and devoured by them as well...
But soon, more and more members vanished without explanation, finally alerting those who remained.
There were also cunning demons who tried to persuade their brothers and sisters to restrain themselves, but to little effect..."
Yin Kong understood. How could those mindless demons possibly understand the principle of playing the long game?
Before you continue