IRM Chapter 142

The “adventurers” fell silent.

They originally came from another major city in the Saint Trilley Empire, and as a group of poachers who walked along the edge of the law, they were naturally intimately familiar with the empire’s changing tides.

So… how could they not know the characteristics and strength of the new generation Demon King?

The few people who had been discussing around the campfire last night had already silently shut their mouths. When they had been talking big, they had cursed louder than anyone, but when directly facing the real person, they were frightened like a nest of trembling little lambs.

Moreover, once they recognized one person, the rest could all be matched up.

The red-haired one was the young Earl, the blonde one was the Academy’s top student… and there were others who, when pieced together in a convoluted way, could completely form a team capable of sweeping across the continent, invincible wherever they went.

Saintess Coralie stood before the pale-faced uncle, the corner of her mouth curling up. “Such a large forest, only sending two people in to explore isn’t enough, is it?”

The uncle swallowed, saying in a trembling voice, “Then what… what do you want…”

Saintess Coralie raised her fair, slender finger and leisurely waved it in a circle over them. “Why don’t you all choose another person to accompany us inside?”

The demon race all had very small hearts; an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was their undying creed.

The uncle suddenly turned his head back, his gaze sweeping across each of his teammates’ faces one by one. Everyone he looked at involuntarily averted their eyes and lowered their heads.

No one was willing to go to their death.

“Can’t choose anyone?” Saintess Coralie smiled and tilted her head. “Then how about you protect me and go in together?”

“Mog! You follow them!” The uncle shouted toward the back without hesitation.

Mog shuddered, looking at the uncle in disbelief. He had long ago used up all his potions, and the half of his arm he had lost could no longer grow back. For the uncle to push him out at this time was clearly to abandon him, to make him become one of the countless teammates abandoned in the forest!

“You can’t…” Mog gritted his back teeth until they creaked. His eyes were bloodshot. “Gerald, I’ve followed you for ten years…”

There was no emotion in the uncle’s eyes as he looked at him, saying softly, “Then you should know even better what I mean.”

“Fine… fine…” Mog stared at him fixedly for a while, then lifted his heavy steps, his body swaying as he walked toward Saintess Coralie.

Saintess Coralie smiled as she watched the show from the side, her eyes full of undisguised malice, looking like a female demon villain forcing a group of pitiful children.

Just as she crooked her finger and turned toward the black fog—

“Kill them!” The uncle roared loudly!

The poachers who had danced on the blade’s edge for years instantly shed their terrified expressions, raised the weapons in their hands, and pounced toward them!

Their earlier fear had not been feigned either; they simply understood very clearly that with their team complete at this moment, this was their best chance to counterattack—

What desperadoes were most familiar with was gambling with their lives as the stakes!

When the uncle put away that friendly expression, his brows and eyes seemed filled with pitch-black poisonous juice. He bent down and hid in the shadow beneath a tree. His form gradually disappeared from everyone’s sight, and the last things to fade from view were the two poisoned daggers in his hands.

At the same time, Saintess Coralie slowly turned her head. Mog had already nocked an arrow on the string with one hand, using his teeth to pull it back with all his might. The fine, tough bowstring cut his lips until they were bloody, blood filling the gaps between his teeth, making him look like a crazed beast.

Snap— He released his teeth, and an incisor fell away with the force.

The arrow shot toward Saintess Coralie’s face. In the blink of an eye, it touched the skin of her brow, then pierced through her skull, spraying out a stream of bright red blood!

Intense joy exploded in Mog’s eyes. He hurriedly nocked another arrow, but with one tooth broken off, he could no longer hold the taut bowstring.

Breaking into a sweat from anxiety, he heard a demon’s whisper from beside him. “Heh, need my help?”

Mog froze. He slowly turned his head and shouted, directly gripping the arrow and stabbing it toward Saintess Coralie’s skull. “Impossible! You’re dead! I clearly saw you die!”

The head of the “Saintess Coralie” before him was pierced through again. Another “Saintess Coralie” walked out from behind him, looking indifferently at the corpse that was identical to herself. “That’s not the real me, you know. If you want to kill me, you need to know where the real me is.”

“Ahhhh! I’ll find you! I’ll kill you!” The string that had been taut in Mog’s heart suddenly collapsed. He began to shout and scream frantically, his eyes bloodshot as he waved his bow and arrow around, making the other poachers shudder.

However, very soon they had no time to pay attention to others’ situations. The poachers used every dirty trick they had, yet they couldn’t even break through the light shield that Evan had casually raised. They grew more and more desperate, and some people had already begun planning escape routes—

Crack— The uncle who had been absent for a long time finally appeared. He appeared behind the Light Spirit, which was also behind Ji Chi. He had long since seen that this blind man held an extraordinary position in the team, so he had the confidence to make this gamble—

By taking the blind man hostage, they could turn defeat into victory!

With his emotions surging, he even accidentally said his thoughts out loud! But that was fine—he had already succeeded anyway. The blade of his dagger was already inserted into… hmm?

The uncle looked at the curled and deformed tip of the blade in his hand, his pupils trembling, unable to say a single word.

The Light Spirit glanced back and laughed. “He cursed you like that, so why did you stop me from killing him just now?”

Ji Chi smiled lightly and swung his legs. His back didn’t hurt or itch at all; the damage the uncle had caused hadn’t even torn through his thin shirt. “Because someone once told me that dying in hope is a very happy thing, and as for me, I won’t give him such a luxurious experience.”

Appreciation appeared in the Light Spirit’s eyes as he agreed. “You’re quite right.”

Only then did Ji Chi turn his head slightly, his dim ink-colored pupils turning to the corner of his eye.

Even though he knew he couldn’t see, the uncle still had an intense feeling of being watched, but when he tried to sense it carefully, this gaze seemed ethereal and intangible… like a god calmly waiting for a life to perish.

The uncle’s thoughts suddenly became clear for a moment. He finally understood the true identity of the person before him and staggered back in shock. “So it’s you… you came back long ago…”

The heel of his retreating foot suddenly stepped on a round object. The uncle lost control of his body and fell backward, and directly behind him was the thick black fog.

“He fell into the black fog and couldn’t endure it; he only became the lowest-level undead,” the Light Spirit reported to Ji Chi in real time. “Oh, right, he was also tripped by the forest rat he himself had chopped up. Does that count as very unlucky?”

Ji Chi blinked. “I actually think it was inevitable. He walked by the river for so many years; his shoes should have gotten wet eventually.”

The Light Spirit asked curiously, “Is that another maxim?”

Ji Chi smiled and said nothing.

They didn’t waste too much time on that group of poachers. Since they had gotten information about the unicorn’s location, they didn’t entangle with them for too long.

In a short while, several people cleanly and efficiently killed all the poachers. Bright red blood flowed all over the ground. The forest immediately became much quieter, with only a low-level undead wandering aimlessly in the black fog.

Saintess Coralie picked up a notched iron sword from the ground, walked into the black fog, and used one sword strike to cut off the undead uncle’s head. She removed the magic pouch from his waist and walked back into the sunlight, raising her palm to look through it for a while.

“How is it? Are there any uncomfortable places on your body?” Evan had already prepared potions early on and passed them to her worriedly.

“Take it. The task points for killing poachers are very high; we’re quite lucky.” Saintess Coralie tossed the magic pouch to Evan and casually took the potion, drinking a small sip. She furrowed her brow. “No good. I’m a dark creature now. My resistance to dark elements is already high enough, but I’m still affected. The harm to you all would be even greater.”

Hearing this, the others all looked grim. They had witnessed the power of light within the Light Spirit’s barrier and naturally didn’t dare underestimate the danger pervading the black fog. They just hadn’t expected that they would be so helpless before the black fog.

For a moment, the worry above their heads was even thicker than the rolling black fog before them.

Ji Chi could sense their increasingly conflicted emotions without even looking and couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

The young master’s little gaze immediately drifted over, full of resentment. “You’re doing it again! Ji Chi! Is watching us worry very interesting!”

Ji Chi touched his nose and smiled guiltily. “No, no. I just remembered something…”

That was a very, very small side quest in the game, yet it was the place where Ji Chi had died the most times. The reason naturally wasn’t with the game itself, but because Ji Chi was stubbornly unyielding and refused to use the quest item no matter what, leading to this result.

The side quest was to clear out a boss. This boss actually wasn’t difficult to fight at all—it was simple enough that even players with disabled hands and feet could clear it by button-mashing, but there was one prerequisite—they had to take a potion that eliminated elemental effects.

Unfortunately, Ji Chi at that time was forced to take medicine every day in real life, and he hadn’t expected to be unable to escape it even in the game… So his rebellious psychology whooshed right up. Even if he was beaten bloody by the small boss, he refused to drink a drop of the potion.

Finally, after dying countless times, he cleared it without using a single quest item. His extreme completion was discovered by the development team, who recorded it as a video and posted it on the game’s official website.

That day, a certain oddball player ascended to legendary status.

Thinking of the past, Ji Chi couldn’t suppress the corners of his mouth from turning up. He had already let go of many things, so he found his past stubbornness both cute and laughable.

Ji Chi took out several bottles of quest items from his magic pouch—no, they should be potions he had crafted from memory here—and sighed. “You all need to remember—taking potions is also one of the ways to clear quests~”

Potion Name: [Elemental Resistance]

Quality: [Epic]

Effect: [Your resistance to various elements increases by 300%, effect lasts for 6 hours]

Evan carefully held a bottle of potion in his hand. Thinking of something, he suddenly frowned. “Then why didn’t you take it when you were in the light element barrier before?”

Ji Chi smiled faintly and shook his head. “It has no effect on me.”

He indeed couldn’t take this kind of potion, because the development team had given this overly persistent player a special reward, for example—permanent five-times elemental resistance.

After everyone drank the potions, the black fog’s effect on them was within their tolerance range. However, Ji Chi hadn’t refined very many resistance potions. After several people shared them evenly, they only had a short four hours.

This didn’t include the Light Spirit. He stood outside the black fog, staring at it in a daze.

After gazing for a long time, he smiled at Ji Chi on his back. “I won’t go in. I’m composed of pure light elements. After going in, either they kill me or I kill them. It’s better to avoid this kind of thing for now.”

Ji Chi nodded and jumped down from his back, planning to find another companion to ride on.

The Light Spirit grabbed Ji Chi’s sleeve and said, “Wait a moment. I haven’t fulfilled my promise yet—to give you a rich reward.”

To be honest, Ji Chi really didn’t lack those worldly possessions, let alone in such circumstances—he was even less willing to calculate these things.

The Light Spirit saw through his thoughts and smiled. “I understand you lack nothing, so I will give you colorful light in return, and… the absolute loyalty of a light spirit.”

The Light Spirit covered his hands over Ji Chi’s eyes. He closed his eyes, and the radiance around his body became increasingly brilliant. When it neared its peak, it suddenly dimmed—

After an unknown amount of time, the Light Spirit lowered his hands. His closed eyes didn’t open again, and the skin on his body had also lost its luster.

On the contrary, Ji Chi slowly opened his eyes. His newly restored vision was exceptionally clear, and moreover, besides the tangible objects he could touch, the things he saw had multiplied.

Mischievous fire elements burning and leaping in the young master’s hair, the pale blue-green traces left by passing wind, and the blue threads connected to the tails of dewdrops as they fell.

The world before him was like a kaleidoscope, vivid and beautiful.

After the Light Spirit waited for him to gradually adapt, he said “oh” and instructed him. “By the way, I can tell you how to soothe a dark spirit.”

“Dark spirits originally symbolize negative power. They don’t need to be forgiven or relaxed. The best way to soothe them is—” The Light Spirit revealed a kind smile and said, “Just beat them half to death.”

Ji Chi: “…”

You’re the dark spirit here, hey.