The Cyclops, the Main Story's Final Objective

The Cyclops, the Main Story's Final Objective

After leaving the cemetery and crossing the river, Cheng Tian and the others successfully entered a jungle filled with towering trees.

Blocked by the dense canopy, the already pitch-black jungle appeared even darker.

Fortunately, they had kept the lighter One-Ear and the others found while crossing the river. Otherwise, the group would probably have had to feel their way through the jungle in search of a path.

They cut down sturdy branches, tore several strips of cloth from the resentful-looking Blood Scab, then used the temporary campfire and Cheng Tian's helmet to melt some freshly scraped resin. After putting everything together, they had torches that were clearly quite durable.

One for each person.

As for how to find the correct path leading to the end of the stage... they had to rely entirely on the Man-Eating Plants scattered along the jungle floor on the routes they had to pass through.

It was probably another act of mercy from the Chosen Evolution Space. Since it had already given the new players a tough time with the enemies, it was being lenient when it came to finding the way.

These Man-Eating Plants, which served as signposts, naturally attacked any living creature indiscriminately. The fireballs they occasionally spat from their mouths to kill small animals stood out especially sharply in the pitch-black jungle.

...Weren't they afraid of setting themselves on fire too?

Although Cheng Tian was puzzled, he never stopped working with his hands. As he explored the map, he used the straight sword in his hand, imbued with holy damage, to precisely pick off the Man-Eating Plants and a new batch of monsters.

They were ghost-type monsters of the same species as the Ghost Armor. They looked like tiny wizards wearing cloaks with only their hoods visible, their eyes faintly revealed beneath the shadows.

Compared with the zombies that spawned in the graveyard, these Ghostly Mini-Wizards had the advantage of being able to fly, meaning terrain did not restrict them at all. They also possessed a ranged attack that involved throwing peculiar projectiles shaped like green onions.

They were the kind of enemies that would become troublesome once they gathered in numbers.

However, their weakness was similar to that of the zombies: their HP was extremely low. They might even have less than the zombies, which at least had blood (dried) and flesh (rotten).

Cheng Tian simply reloaded the Vampire Hunter template and added the Vampire Slayer's holy damage to the plain straight sword. That successfully gave him enough attack power to kill them in one hit.

Like Strength, Spirit also had a self-replenishing mana effect. With the support of the Gentleman's Cane in his off-hand, Cheng Tian's 14 points of Spirit provided a recovery rate of roughly 1.4 MP per minute. The Knight Throwing attached to his underwear cost 5 MP each time, so theoretically, Cheng Someone needed three minutes of sage time to replenish the MP consumed by Knight Throwing.

But one shouldn't forget that Cheng Tian also had a template skill called Soul Salvation. This skill allowed him to obtain "Innocent Soul" while killing monsters.

Loading and unloading the Vampire Hunter template did not reset the souls Cheng Tian had accumulated, leaving Cheng Someone with nearly a hundred Innocent Souls in hand.

What pleasantly surprised Cheng Tian was that the "Innocent Soul" from the "Vampire Hunter" template had an extremely high compatibility with the "Knight Throwing" from "Arthur's Proof."

Just one Innocent Soul could directly offset the 5 MP cost of Knight Throwing.

Cheng Tian estimated that this was because, under the stacking of the templates, Arthur's throwing ability had been judged as Simon using a sub-weapon.

In the original Castlevania, players could use a long whip for melee attacks. They could also throw sub-weapons—the knife, Hand Axe, cross, and holy water bottle—for ranged kills. There was even a devastating weapon like the "Time-Stop Pocket Watch," whose effect was exactly what its name suggested!

...Well, calling it "time stop" was a little exaggerated. After activation, however, it could temporarily halt the actions of the vast majority of non-BOSS monster units throughout the current Castlevania scene, while the user could move and attack without restraint.

These sub-weapons required Innocent Souls as casting materials.

Sub-weapons such as knives and Hand Axes only consumed one soul each time. Even the insanely powerful Time-Stop Pocket Watch only required five souls.

Cheng Tian's maximum MP was 140, and he had accumulated more than 90 Innocent Souls. He could continue obtaining souls from monsters at a certain rate, and his damage had even reached the point where he could kill small monsters in a single hit.

As a result, after fighting for a while, his reserves actually began increasing instead of decreasing. Since he alternated between using MP and souls, his MP barely fell, while the occasional Innocent Soul (Large) caused his overall stockpile to grow larger and larger.

This situation left Demon Cicada utterly bewildered.

The world of Pokémon certainly had no shortage of capable Trainers. Trainers who knew martial arts and psychokinesis were also everywhere. But a Trainer like Cheng Tian, who refused to let Demon Cicada take the field just to save its MP and instead chased after enemies the entire time, could only be described as rare.

One-Ear and Blood Scab once again firmly resolved to cling to this powerful ally.

From the river island where they had fought the Ghost Armor to the main gate of Demon King's Castle, where this stage's BOSS was located, the straight-line distance was only about five kilometers. However, the jungle path was not straight. Even with roads trampled out by the bodies of the fallen Kingdom knights, it was still quite rugged overall.

Not only was the road rugged, but darkness that seemed to carry an evil will constantly shrouded everyone overhead. With the harassment of the Man-Eating Plants and Mini Ghosts, only Cheng Tian and Demon Cicada possessed combat ability. They also had to stop temporarily to replenish their torches and boil water. That five-kilometer straight-line journey took them nearly two hours.

But they had not gained nothing else.

Cheng Tian's main- and off-hand equipment slots held a straight sword and a cane, while two slots in his inventory held the "Demon King's Castle Map (Limited)" and "Red Imp Wings (Material)."

Cheng Tian had temporarily abandoned the two-handed hammer and one-handed axe, handing them over to One-Ear and Blood Scab. Considering the Cyclops' size and strength, trying to fight it head-on could only be described as wishful thinking. Strength-based weapons were therefore of little use. Movement speed and attack speed were what mattered.

The third and fourth slots held a pouch stacked to two layers and a King Statue stacked to three layers, respectively.

Pouch: Valuable Item. The universal currency of the Demon Village world setting. Contains 50 Kingdom Silver Coins and can be exchanged directly for 50 Heaven's Chosen Coins in the Chosen Evolution Space.

King Statue: Valuable Item. A king statue crafted from special materials. Has some value and can be exchanged for 40 Heaven's Chosen Coins.

Additional note: Under the world settings of other sourcebooks, valuable items may bring greater returns than direct exchanges, but they may also be worthless.

Unlike opening a treasure chest and having the contents directly placed in the wealth tab, these valuable items required an additional means of converting them into money. This meant that the inventory would probably need to be used for something.

Moreover, these valuable items from Demon Village might also have uses in other instances.

Fortunately, valuable items could be stacked. That was a setting in this pile of troubles that provided at least a little comfort.

To guard against the unexpected, Cheng Tian had also left one slot empty. The fifth slot contained a Mobi-chan Windmill that he had previously not dared to touch casually.

Of course, this was not the one with negative effects. It was the second Easter egg triggered on the second river island before the stage's end. This Mobi-chan Windmill was a valuable item that could be exchanged directly for 500 Heaven's Chosen Coins—one-third of the value of killing Red Arremer and ten times that of a pouch.

At least on the surface, the other two had no objections to Cheng Tian taking all the valuable items. And after fighting all the way there, Cheng Someone himself had no intention of yielding anything.

I earned this! It's my money!

One-Ear and Blood Scab both swallowed unconsciously, because the enormous creature blocking their escape from Demon Village alive had already entered their field of vision.

Even while sitting cross-legged on the ground and dozing, its buttocks and hunched upper body already rose almost higher than a two-story residential building. Its arms and thigh muscles were as thick as massive boulders, and it wore sleeveless metal armor covered in spikes.

The towering single horn directly above its head, along with the enormous upper and lower eyelids closed over its ugly face below—clearly shut because it was dozing—had already proven its identity.

It was one of the Six Great Demon Generals guarding the first gate barring formal entry into Demon King's Castle—the Cyclops!

Thanks to "I Was Never an Emperor" for the tip!