Amulet

The Diablo Parasitic Corpse is a creature with vitality as stubborn as a cockroach; even when gutted, it is not necessarily dead.

Its wound was a mess of churning, rotten flesh, with pinkish granulation tissue wriggling and weaving like maggots. The hissing sound of its regeneration was enough to make one's scalp tingle, and it looked as if it were about to stitch itself back together.

But Zhou Kai never dawdled; delivering the finishing blow was a habit ingrained in his very bones.

He reached behind his waist and drew a short-handled hatchet. The blade caught the lamplight, flashing with a cold glint. Without a word, he aimed at that still-wriggling head and brought the axe down!

Squelch!

Zhou Kai remained expressionless, his wrist flicking as the axe turned into a blur of afterimages, hacking the head into a pulp of meat.

Even after pulverizing the head, he did not stop. He violently split the chest cavity open and, deep within the tangled tentacles, found a core still pulsing with a faint rhythm.

Zhou Kai reached in, plucked the slimy thing out, and without even glancing at it, tossed it onto the floor and crushed it under his boot.

[You have killed "Diablo Parasitic Corpse (Adult)", gained 7 General Experience Points]

The core had been wrapped in several things resembling egg sacs—slippery and possessing an ominous texture.

Zhou Kai frowned and stepped down, intending to grind them into paste, but his foot sank; the egg sacs were forced deep into the gaps of the wooden floorboards.

Hm? They're that tough?

Puzzled, Zhou Kai pulled a spare sample bag from his pocket and picked up the resilient egg sacs. There was something strange about them; he would have to study them later.

With his experience reserves now at nine points, it could be considered a windfall.

If he dragged this corpse back to burn it, he could probably squeeze out another three or four points of experience.

But...

"Can't go back!"

Zhou Kai stood at the entrance of the hallway, his gaze drifting toward the living carpet of countless black, glossy carapaces covering the floor below.

Scritch, scritch, scritch...

The dense sound of scraping merged into a single roar.

This black "tide" was rising at a speed visible to the naked eye.

To be submerged by this stuff...

Just thinking about it made Zhou Kai's entire body go numb.

"What the hell is this?"

Zhou Kai retreated to the side of the Parasitic Corpse, grabbed its arm, and dragged it toward the window in the distance.

The corpse left a wide, sticky trail of blood across the dust-covered hallway floor.

In the process of dragging it, plop—a small notebook wrapped in bloodstains fell out of the corpse's pocket.

Zhou Kai leaned the body against the window frame and bent down to pick up the book.

Crunch... crunch...

The sound of wood being gnawed to pieces grew closer.

Zhou Kai had calculated everything, but he hadn't accounted for this danger emerging from beneath the ground!

He leaned against the window, and by the light of a flash of lightning outside, he saw that the ground outdoors was also covered by a layer of wriggling black insect tide.

Like a black flood, they were surging toward the low-lying areas of the town.

Returning to No. 777 without coming into contact with these insects was nothing short of a fantasy!

Those monsters could remain unscathed within the insect tide, but he didn't think his flesh-and-blood body could withstand it!

What to do?

In his moment of helplessness, he cast his gaze back to the small notebook in his hand and brought it under the oil lamp.

He flipped to the first page, and a line of scrawled handwriting came into view.

[Moonlight Orchid isn't of much use once picked, unless you use their flowers; at least, it's effective against Blood Beetles—Morning Star.]

Another note from Morning Star.

Zhou Kai flipped through the notebook quickly. There wasn't much written in it, and he reached the end in less than two minutes.

Amidst the interweaving of customary ancient Latin and unfamiliar scripts, Zhou Kai distilled four key pieces of information.

One was about the function of the Moonlight Orchid.

The other three were...

[This is the third volume of my journals. I should leave nine in total... perhaps more, here in Soraka Town. My next stop is the Mansion on the high ground of the town, serial number thirteen. If anyone wishes to follow in my footsteps, then come!]

[There are blessed, special buildings everywhere; one can barely survive by relying on these things... but please, don't treat your life as a joke. Resurrection? Do you really think you're dead? I should provide some reliable conclusions regarding special buildings in subsequent journals.]

[Blood Beetles... let's call them the Blood Tide. This rhythmic disaster occurs every twelve hours, lasting anywhere from three to six hours. When the Blood Tide occurs, it is best to stay near Moonlight Orchids or other plants/areas/items with holy attributes.]

Zhou Kai no longer had the energy to ponder the other two pieces of information.

His gaze was pinned firmly onto the words "Blood Tide."

"Once every twelve hours."

Zhou Kai's heart turned cold.

A bug tide every twelve hours—no matter how he tried to hide, he was bound to run into one eventually.

There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run!

The only good news was that his forced Nightmare time and the Blood Tide time did not completely overlap.

He had a precious window of opportunity that he could use for exploration and preparation.

But... there was also bad news.

Right now, the only place in the entire town that could shelter him was seventy meters away!

And he couldn't get there at all!

Click-clack, click-clack...

The bug tide had already surged onto the second floor, a black wave crawling all over the corridor.

The rustling, scraping sounds intertwined with the rain, so clear it made his scalp tingle.

Layers upon layers of insect bodies, like darkness made manifest, swarmed toward Zhou Kai.

Click-clack.

A chewing sound erupted from behind Zhou Kai...

Several Blood Beetles had actually crawled up the exterior wall of the building and were using their mouthparts to gnaw through the glass and window frame.

These bugs were small and numerous; how was he supposed to fight them?

A despair far deeper than what he felt when facing the Chain-Hammer Armored Soldier and the Dough-Face welled up from within.

Zhou Kai pulled the Moonlight Orchid sprout from inside his clothes, a bitter expression on his face.

"This thing is nowhere near blooming... I have it, but I can't use it. That's the most fucked-up part!"

The nearest beetle was now less than two meters away from Zhou Kai.

But suddenly, Zhou Kai's eyes shifted.

"Add points!"

[The Moonlight Orchid sprout has undergone a special change...]

[You have consumed 9 General Experience Points. You have obtained: Moonlight Orchid Amulet (Consumable)]

[Moonlight Orchid Amulet: When clashing with the ominous, consume durability to release holy moonlight; when the ominous recedes, the tranquil moonlight will grant you a long-lasting Clear-Headed effect.]

The moment the experience points poured in, the sprout seemed to be ripened before his eyes; it shot up and expanded violently!

The emerald leaves turned scorched and withered, all their vitality drained and concentrated into the deep blue flower bud at the center.

The stem and leaves twisted and coiled on their own, a black cord manifested out of thin air to thread through the knot, and a crude amulet hung in Zhou Kai's palm.

Whoosh.

The next second, it lit up.

An ice-blue halo of light exploded outward, like a drop of pure water falling into an ink pool, violently pushing away all the filth in the vicinity.

Zhou Kai watched this blue light, his breath hitching.

At the same time, the maddening scraping sounds around him came to an abrupt halt.

Dead silence, a dead silence heavy with pressure.

And after this silence lasted for a few breaths, those nearby Blood Beetles acted as if they had been branded by a hot iron, emitting sharp "squeaks" as they retreated frantically, as if Zhou Kai were carrying some kind of lethal plague.

Soon, they had retreated to six meters away.

Squeak, squeak...

The bugs seemed unwilling to give up, still struggling at the edge, testing the waters to get closer.

But every time they moved an inch closer, white steam would rise from their bodies as if they were being burned, and they would instinctively pull back.

In this silent confrontation, Zhou Kai noticed that the light of the amulet dimmed by a fraction, visible to the naked eye.

"A consumable, huh?"

Zhou Kai's expression turned serious.

The bug tide would last for at least another three hours; he would be lucky if this amulet lasted for ten minutes.

Moreover, the higher the density of the bugs, the faster the amulet would deplete.

If he wanted to rely on this to clear a path all the way to the first floor...

He feared the amulet would burn out completely while still in the corridor.

So, what was he supposed to do?

Zhou Kai stared fixedly out the window, his gaze gradually turning resolute.

He leaned down and dragged the cold corpse up.

Then he took a deep breath, and the moment he exhaled, he lunged forward!

Crash—

Glass shards mixed with blood exploded outward, and like a cannonball, he leaped decisively from the second floor!