The river blocking the route was extremely wide, but along the path closer to Demon King's Castle stood two river islands, one large and one small. Their presence split the originally broad, raging river into three channels—one wide and two narrow.
On the surface of the widest channel was a circulating platform controlled by magical power, while the two narrow channels could be cleared with a single sprinting jump.
However, crossing the river itself wasn't the problem. The real problem was the malice from Chosen Evolution Space and the producer of Demon Village that came along with it.
The producer of Demon Village was named Tokuro Fujiwara. After leaving Konami, where his FUCK mentality had already begun to show, he immediately joined what was then still called Ka(bitch)Pukong. While making Demon Village, this guy had already revealed his devious nature of "taking pleasure in tormenting players."
From the very beginning, the level design of Demon Village—which had never been intended to receive a sequel—had been aimed entirely at killing every player.
Fujiwara had even set up a testing station at an arcade near the company, shoved the in-development test version into a cabinet for people to play free of charge, and then secretly observed the players' progress from the side by taking advantage of his position at the company.
Whenever he discovered a place where players could pass smoothly, without showing any sign of getting stuck, Tokuro Fujiwara would immediately record it and sprint back to the company, revising the code overnight and adding yet more obstacles to the players' path toward clearing the game...
Clearly, Chosen Evolution Space had faithfully reproduced even this devious aspect.
Now that's the authentic experience!
The instant Cheng Tian leaped down from the moving platform on the river, he inexplicably sensed something and immediately got goosebumps.
At the same time, six or seven shield-bearing suits of armor suddenly appeared in the distant emptiness, gradually solidifying into existence. Floating completely in midair, they swayed toward Cheng Tian and the others along an S-shaped path that rose and dipped like wave crests and troughs.
Specter Armor: Ordinary template, ghost unit. HP=1, MP=120. Strength 1, Agility 5, Spirit 12, Charm 0. Monster Trait—Puppet Armament
If Arthur, rather than Cheng Tian, had been the one seeing them at that moment, he would have immediately recognized these floating suits of knight armor as the armor of the kingdom's knights who had sacrificed themselves while storming Demon King's Castle alongside him.
Now, all of these human knight armors had been put to wasteful use, driven by ghost units capable of making dead objects move, to intimidate any reckless intruders.
The Specter Armor's attack method was rather special. The empty armor they controlled was basically incapable of launching normal attacks. It could only use the armor's own weight and the shields in its hands to physically pressure intruders through something resembling telekinetic control. Its ultimate purpose was actually to push people into the water, which was also why Cheng Tian and the others had triggered the Specter Armor's spawn chain the moment they stepped onto the river island.
At that moment, Cheng Tian and the others were completely trapped on the small island in the middle of the river, caught between a rock and a hard place.
These ghosts controlled by the Demon King's side had little intelligence. They only loyally carried out every order according to their spell commands, and the Demon King's battle order for them could essentially be summed up in one word—disrupt.
The group of Ghost Armor simply hovered above the river island, circling back and forth without approaching or retreating. But the moment anyone tried to move near the island's edge to cross the river, they would immediately dive down and smash them with a shield bash that lacked great force but was still enough to throw someone off balance.
That would be fine if one was still standing by the riverbank. But if one was already jumping or riding the moving platform, there was a high chance of being knocked into the icy river water.
The Specter Armor's durability depended entirely on the durability of the armor it possessed. Even if the armor broke, the ghost itself usually wouldn't be harmed. To them, all they needed to do was change into another suit of armor and return to the battlefield.
It could be said that for players lacking information, the Specter Armor, whose role was "delaying and disrupting," was truly bewildering.
However, faced with the Specter Armor in the air, the two college students clearly grew nervous, while Cheng's expression first showed confusion before suddenly dawning with realization.
Cheng Tian suddenly raised his hand and fired a Great Wilderness Imprisoning Sky Finger at one of the Specter Armor in the air.
"Transform for me!!!"
Cheng Tian shouted loudly.
The Specter Armor he pointed at was struck as if by lightning and froze in place.
You activated 'Hundred Demons' Night Parade' on the ordinary template unit "Specter Armor." The difference between your Spirit attributes and the target's is 0. The difference between your Charm attributes and the target's is +9. Your skill success probability is 59%— Success.
The Specter Armor that had passed the skill check began visibly developing countless fine cracks.
When the Specter Armor had spawned and floated over just now, Cheng Tian had already begun to feel that temporarily uninstalling the Vampire Hunter template had been the right decision.
The river island terrain he was currently on was a classic area where Hit Evasion terrain kills occurred frequently.
Taking a normal hit wasn't a problem. With 140 HP, he couldn't possibly be killed in one blow. But if he took a hit and uncontrollably hopped backward, then seamlessly followed it with Water Solubility, Cheng Tian feared he might become the god of cursing and offer every swear word he had learned in his life to Chosen Evolution Space during the one or two seconds before he drowned.
Fortunately, he still had the Knight Throwing ability granted by his macho strawberry underwear. He wasn't in a state where he could only take hits.
Even if the Knight Armor on his body shattered and accidentally bounced him into the water, he should still have a chance to climb back ashore.
Still, with the mentality of "it's a holiday" and "since I'm already here," Cheng Tian decided to try out his new skill before preparing to throw.
Unexpectedly, after he selected a target, the skill icon was highlighted and ready for normal use!
Cheng Tian's expression turned subtle at that moment.
A newly introduced enemy naturally couldn't have less than 10% HP remaining, so only one possibility remained: the opponent's total HP was in the single digits.
This was clearly wrong. Whether according to the game's original settings or the conventional understanding that dungeon difficulty increased as one progressed, the Specter Armor should have more HP than a zombie. Thus, Cheng Tian came up with two guesses.
One possibility was that the Specter Armor's HP was similar to that of the Knight Armor he wore, displayed as "absolute HP." Damage didn't matter; only the number of effective hits mattered, and it required a fixed number of attacks to destroy.
The other possibility was that this shabby flying armor itself had additional settings such as shields or armor values, which had to be pierced before he could damage the single-digit-HP body hidden inside the armor.
Thus, with the thought that the worst that could happen was transforming himself into a monster, Cheng Tian directly used Hundred Demons' Night Parade on the Specter Armor in the front row.
At the cost of nearly half his MP, the Specter Armor began to change.
However, when he saw the Specter Armor he had transformed into a "monster" unit, Cheng Tian himself was the one who froze.
The cracked armor, which should have peeled away and fallen off, instead underwent extensive self-reassembly and morphological changes. In the end, it became... a strange creature with a white crescent-moon halo above its head and the distinct head and torso features of an insect, while also giving off an utterly hollow feeling.
'Hundred Demons' Night Parade' transformation complete. You became the temporary Trainer of the Pocket Monster/Pokémon "Shedinja."
Before you continue