"BOOM!"
Li Wei crouched down with his hands over his head. Wind roared in his ears as countless fragments whistled overhead. Only after a while did everything settle down again. He stood, brushed the dirt off himself, and looked toward where the Skeleton Warrior had been.
All that remained was a large crater. Above the mangled remains at its center, something round gave off a faint red glow.
That's much bigger than the others.
Li Wei walked over and examined it closely. With the Big-Headed Baby and the Ghost Knight, he had never gotten a clear look at what was inside those red lights, but they had only been about the size of billiard balls. This one was much larger, roughly the size of an apple.
It was round all over and looked very much like a fortune-teller's crystal ball.
"Although I don't know what battlefields were like in your day..."
Looking at the crystal ball, Li Wei silently raised the Punisher in his hand.
"Times have changed, sir."
Then Li Wei pulled the trigger.
"BANG!"
The bullet mercilessly pierced the crystal ball. The next instant, as it shattered completely, a piercing wail rang out. The red light it emitted suddenly coalesced into an agonized human face, which opened its mouth toward Li Wei. Then the ring on his right hand shone brilliantly once more, swallowing the face whole.
Ah, just like before.
Li Wei frowned at the red ring on his right hand. He distinctly remembered the Skeleton Warrior saying something like "Give me back my fragments" when it attacked him. If anything on Li Wei had a connection to the Skeleton Warrior, it was... this ring.
He also remembered clearly that every time the ring finished absorbing something, the system's mission results included the notification "Soul Fragment +1."