Hundred Demons' Night Parade

One-Ear supported his unlucky roommate all the way to the cemetery exit.

People could change quickly, but often not that quickly. At least, One-Ear still did not want to give up on this roommate of his.

He had made the wrong choice at the wrong time, but he was also the friend who had come over immediately to bandage him when he was shot.

And whenever they ate at the cafeteria, he always got extra meat dishes, then claimed he could not finish them and made One-Ear eat them instead.

The unspoken understanding between men had made One-Ear accept his help with gratitude. Now, as long as the guy did not get water in his brain and pull some stunt, One-Ear would not easily abandon him.

Thanks to Cheng clearing the way in advance, and the fact that empty graveyards did not spawn zombies, the two of them only had to deal with the Red-Eyed Ravens. Phone Guy was empty-handed and covered in dried blood, but One-Ear had a weapon. As long as they were cautious enough, a one-handed axe was more than enough to drive off fewer than ten crows.

Phone Guy had naturally awakened a talent of his own. It was not merely unrelated to combat—it was useless in pretty much every other situation too. That was the main reason Greenie had not supported him.

In fact, this was the norm for ordinary Chosen Players. The greatest significance of the Chosen Evolution Space was that it gave those with mediocre talents a chance to defy fate.

Of course, the chosen players' own wishes were not all that important.

As for Cheng... One-Ear and the others had watched his battle with the Red Arremer from afar the whole time, and very wisely chose not to interfere.

It was not some decision made after weighing the pros and cons. They simply had a feeling that if they messed around, Cheng Tian might take them out too.

If Greenie had been there, his jaw probably would have hit the floor. Cheng Tian's flawless battle against the elite Red Arremer had already revealed qualities that many veteran players did not possess—

He felt absolutely no fear toward a life-or-death struggle with dungeon monsters. If anything, he even seemed to enjoy it a little.

Yeah, he had genuinely enjoyed that fight with the Red Arremer.

The flawless victory was real, though there had been many reasons behind it—some were his own, some were the Red Arremer's, and luck had played a major part as well. But none of that stopped him from enjoying the process.

Now that he had enjoyed the process, it was time to reap the rewards.

Once the Red Arremer's pointy head had become a flattened head, Cheng Tian also completed this dungeon's side quest, "Kill the Red Arremer," and received the full reward on the spot.

Four free attribute points, along with a random skill stone that, theoretically, could be dropped by a "Red Arremer."

The form this skill stone took was rather interesting. It was actually the Red Arremer's heart. After its death, its body permanently turned into a stone statue, and the chest area peeled away like flaking wall paint. Then the heart, like a red crystal, sprang directly out of the remains and landed in Cheng's hand.

Red Arremer's Heart: Blue, Fine. Skill Stone. Consumable. Method of use: Crush it. Formed from the heart of an elite Red Arremer, it contains everything the Red Arremer possessed in life.

After use, you will randomly obtain one skill originating from a "Red Arremer." The skill's rarity is random, and its level will be Lv1.

Additional note: Before using it, you must ensure that you have an empty skill slot.

Cheng Tian, who had already been prepared to crush the stone, paused slightly when he saw the additional note. His five fingers then loosened.

As an old Dota player, he had played plenty of random hero modes. That was why he cared even more about skill selection. A completely random skill set would simply ruin the gaming experience for himself and his teammates.

With a why-not mentality, and considering that he currently had no proper innate skills beyond his talent and Pink Strawberry Muscle Man's approval, random skills were fine. If it turned out to be total garbage, he could just choose not to use it.

But that additional note clearly revealed an extremely crucial piece of information.

The players' skill slots probably had a numerical limit, just like their inventories.

That immediately led to even more questions. How many skill slots did players have? Would learning a new skill overwrite an old one? Was there a cost to forgetting skills? Could the number of skill slots be increased? And so on.

...Why the fuck am I worrying about all this?!

After a brief period of thought and silence, Cheng Tian suddenly crushed the crystal-like Red Arremer's heart to pieces!

Saving skill points for targeted allocation? Waiting until he found a good skill before learning one? All of that was meaningless to him right now!

I want to walk out of Demon Village alive, damn it!

Crushing the heart felt like squeezing a clump of wet sand. The fragments of the shattered Red Arremer's Heart began swirling around Cheng Tian before all flowing into his body. In his skill bar, a new icon appeared—a pointy-headed figure nearly identical to the Red Arremer itself.

But when Cheng Tian opened his panel and finished reading the description of his new skill, his expression gradually turned strange.

This skill from the Red Arremer had indeed exceeded his expectations.

Hundred Demons' Night Parade: B-rank Skill/Lv1. Active Skill. An exclusive skill possessed only by the Red Imp King, who stands at the pinnacle of the Red Arremer Clan. It possesses the peculiar ability to reveal a target's true form.

You may actively cast this on a monster unit with a "Normal," "Leader," or "Elite" template whose HP is in single digits or below 10% of its maximum. A dual check of Spirit and Charisma will then be performed. The base chance is 50%. For every 1 point by which your Spirit or Charisma exceeds the target's, the chance increases by 1%. For every 1 point by which your Spirit or Charisma is lower than the target's, the chance decreases by 1%.

When the check succeeds, the target's race will be forcibly changed into a "Demon" or "Yokai" unit possessing traits from its original form, and it will become your temporary summon in the current dungeon, temporarily under your command.

When the check fails, you will suffer a certain degree of backlash. You will randomly transform into a "Demon" or "Yokai," while generating a massive amount of aggro toward the target. This backlash form will last until you kill the target that failed the check, or for 60 minutes.

If you continue and kill the target after failing the check, the target's corpse will also transform into the corresponding "Demon" or "Yokai," and its item drop pool will expand to include its death form.

You may command only one "Hundred Demons' Night Parade" unit at a time.

Activating the skill requires 50 MP. Whether the check succeeds or fails, the skill will enter a 1-hour cooldown.

Additional evaluation: Red Arremer's "Hundred Demons' Night Parade," Athena's "Primal Beast Form," and Demitri Maximoff's "Darkest Joy" are all famous meme and Easter egg generators in the 2D fighting game world.