Chapter 23

On Earth, Sui Xiong's homeland had a famous saying: children were flowers in a garden, flourishing beneath their country's sunshine and warmth.

But in this otherworld, which so clearly lacked warmth, the young flower buds did not grow quite so robustly. Some withered, some wilted, and some bloomed without bearing fruit... And then there were a very few who did bear fruit, only for it to turn out peculiar.

Well, the orc before him, nicknamed Blood Hand, was a perfect example of one such oddity.

"Let's hand over the 'Legendary Treasure' to him, or he'll slaughter innocent villagers... Gerald, is this guy's head full of water, or is something wrong with his brain?" Sui Xiong thought about it for a long time, but couldn't make sense of this godforsaken logic. In the end, he could only humbly ask.

Gerald had no reasonable answer for him either. He was just as baffled.

Being kind didn't mean being stupid. Picking some villagers they didn't even know and taking them hostage to threaten them... That was practically an insult to their intelligence!

"What exactly are you trying to say?" Gerald couldn't help asking. "Why should I trade a precious treasure for your promise not to kill these villagers? Why not just wipe you out?"

Luer had clearly expected this answer. He cackled smugly. "You can certainly kill me, but I've already sent my men out in different directions. If you don't give me that bracelet, they'll soon start hunting down every commoner they can get their hands on!"

"Make your choice. Do you care about that one measly treasure, or the lives of those innocents?"

His grin was mean and vile. His short, thick nose was practically turned up, and sticky saliva dripped from his fangs, filling the air with a nauseating stench beneath the sunlight.

Gerald laughed in anger and was about to punch him in the face, sending him back to the forge to be remade as a good person in his next life—assuming he had one. But Sui Xiong stopped him.

"Heh... I've never seen anyone so shameless!" Sui Xiong sneered, murderous intent spilling from him. "You can't beat me in a PK, so you come after the newbies I'm helping level up? Heh... Hehehehe... If I don't make him delete his account and crawl away, too afraid to log back in ever again, I won't be able to rest easy!"

"Your Majesty, what do you intend to do?"

"Give him the bracelet," Sui Xiong said coldly. "Once this is over, I'll let you know."

Gerald was shocked. "What?! Give him Void Gaze? To this despicable, shameless scoundrel?"

"Give it to him. Then turn around and leave. Don't look back."

From the sinister tone in Sui Xiong's voice, Gerald realized what he meant and shivered.

He understood that this outrageous orc bandit had completely enraged the great Void Mask. A miserable fate awaited him.

He had provoked a True God and then stupidly carried around a sacred relic that housed the deity's divine incarnation. What sort of fate awaited such an idiotic fool?

Kindhearted Gerald didn't want to think about it. He was afraid that if he did, he'd have nightmares.

He pulled the Bone Bracelet off his right wrist and tossed it to Luer. He couldn't be bothered to watch the greedy bandit scramble to catch the treasure, then fall into uncontrollable joy. He simply turned and left.

He walked quickly. Partly, he didn't want to witness the miserable fate about to befall the man. More than that, he was disgusted.

The orc bandit's conduct could no longer be described as evil or ugly. It was as revolting as rotting meat. Gerald wasn't a fly or a dung beetle; he couldn't force himself to stay around such a thing.

Luer couldn't care less about the foolish do-gooder. His attention was now completely absorbed by the Bone Bracelet he'd just acquired.

The treasure really was just as the rumors he'd heard described it: it contained powerful magic. Its magical glow didn't look all that dazzling. It seemed like the sort of trinket an adventurer with a few years of experience could afford. But once he gripped the bracelet, he could feel that the magic within it was so abundant, it seemed endless!

He tried to put the Bone Bracelet on, only to find that what was a bracelet for a giant was far too large for him. There was no way he could wear it on his wrist. After some thought, he hung it around his neck and used it as a collar.

Even... as a collar, it seemed a little too big.

But he didn't care anymore. The moment he put on the "collar," a flash of white light appeared before his eyes. Then he felt an endless surge of power rising from within him. He seemed to have become incredibly strong and confident, as if he could do anything. For a moment, he felt the kind of heroism that said, "If the heavens seek my destruction, I'll defy the heavens; if the gods stand in my way, I'll kill the gods." His presence was so imposing that even the plants around him rustled and bowed in submission.

"What a treasure!" He couldn't help laughing aloud.

After laughing, he turned to his subordinates and asked smugly, "What do you think of this treasure?"

The next moment, his smile froze on his face.

What met his eyes were not the subordinates he'd known for years, but soft, gooey lumps of flesh, waving countless tentacles and making strange noises.

Luer cried out in alarm and instinctively stumbled back several steps, until he bumped into a tree and finally steadied himself.

But he immediately sensed something was wrong. What pressed against his back didn't feel hard like a tree. It was soft and sticky, as if it were trying to glue him in place.

He hurriedly wrenched himself free of the sticky thing and looked back. The place where the forest should have been was devoid of trees. Instead, it was filled with wildly writhing tentacles of all shapes and sizes.

Looking closely, he could make out what seemed to be faces on the tentacles. They looked vaguely familiar.

He stared more carefully, and the blurred faces gradually came into focus. They were covered in fur and hideously ugly, with short, thick noses, tusks protruding past thick lips, and scars across their faces...

Suddenly, he understood.

They were the faces of his subordinates, the members of the Orc Wolf Rider Band!

In that instant, every one of the blurry faces became perfectly clear. They were all faces he knew well! But there was none of their usual ferocity or obedience in their expressions. Instead, they were filled with terror, their features lifeless and deathly pale, like corpses.

Luer roared and swiftly drew his scimitar, warily readying himself.

"What... what are you things?" he bellowed, waving his scimitar to bolster his courage. "Dare to play tricks in front of Blood Hand? I'll hack you to pieces!"

A strange laugh suddenly rang in his ears. Without hesitation, he swung his scimitar toward the sound, but hit nothing.

He turned his head and saw a monster floating in the air. It had an orc's face, but its entire body was made of tentacles and had no fixed shape. Its lifeless eyes stared at him.

A shrill sound, like a cat's claws scraping across steel, came from what seemed to be its neck.

"Come back. Come back to us."

Voices came from every direction, repeating, "Come back, come back." Some were high, some low; some old, some young. Yet all were lifeless, not a trace of vitality in them.

But if he listened closely, he could clearly hear boundless joy in those voices.

Luer let out a desperate cry and swung his scimitar, charging toward the direction with the fewest monsters.

As a hardened bandit, he was certainly afraid of death. But even if he had to die, he would not die at the hands of these bizarre monsters!

His instincts told him that if these monsters got hold of him, he might find it impossible to die even if he wanted to!

"King of Beasts, Orc God, please protect me!" he prayed, running as fast as he could in an attempt to leave the monsters far behind.

But for some reason, even though he was sprinting, he didn't seem to be moving forward at all. The scenery around him didn't change in the slightest.

He looked down and saw that the ground beneath his feet wasn't solid earth. It was some kind of writhing thing, its surface coated with cold slime that flowed over the tops of his feet.

Luer cried out in a frenzy and swung his blade in every direction. Though he couldn't hit anything, it seemed to restore his courage, and even helped him steady himself.

"Come on! Luer isn't afraid to die!"

The things with strange tentacles and the faces of his men soon closed in. They weren't very strong, but they were both sticky and tough. His sharp, magical scimitar often couldn't even leave a mark on them.

Driven to the edge, Luer gritted his teeth and fought desperately. If one slash didn't work, he struck two or three times. If his blade wasn't enough, he punched and kicked, even trying to bite them with his teeth.

He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd last been in such a miserable state. His thoughts grew muddled and indistinct, as if his head had been filled with half-congealed grease—sticky and unclear.

He didn't know how much time passed. His scimitar was no longer in his hand, and he'd lost all strength in his arms and legs. Even his natural weapons—his teeth—ached too badly to bite.

The tentacled things finally defeated him. They wrapped tightly around him, squeezing tighter and tighter until he could barely breathe.

His vision began to blur. He was so exhausted that every breath made his heart and lungs ache, but compared with the pain deep inside his head, the pain in his chest was nothing.

The pain rising from the deepest part of his mind was so achingly itchy and unbearable that he wanted to smash his own skull with an axe, dig out his brains, and throw them on the ground to stomp them to pieces.

But he could no longer do anything. He could only watch as an enormous tentacle, bearing a similarly blurred face, slowly approached him. At some point, a huge mouth had appeared on the tentacle, lined with tiny teeth. The countless little teeth ground against each other, making a shrill sound.

For a brief moment, he thought he should pray. But his mind, lost in Chaos, could no longer come up with a clear answer.

Who should he pray to? How should he pray? He couldn't remember any of it.

The next moment, he even forgot the very idea of praying.

As the tentacles wrapped around him and carried him toward the enormous mouth, he finally saw the face on the great tentacle.

It was his own face.

The last sliver of clarity in his mind collapsed with a crash, leaving only an endless, viscous Chaos. The bandit chief, now nothing but a human-shaped shell, grinned strangely.

"Heh... hehehe... ohahahahaha..."