Chapter 264: Dekan Can Always Believe in Shijiang |
The good news was that the Warden was gone.
The seventh level had been speed-run.
The Beautiful Mind Squad could spend Devil Points to go directly to the eighth level.
But the problem was—
Information.
What about the information on the Chief Warden?!
Based on the information collected from the previous levels, they could only determine that this Rank 9 Chief Warden was invincible.
The key information needed to defeat her was bound to be on these last two levels.
But before Dekan even reached the seventh level.
At this moment, Dekan actually felt a bit of Fahim’s pain.
The feeling of having this Frenzy Bishop—Clay—as a teammate was that he might just ruin the situation before you even entered the field.
Besides feeling a bit mentally disturbed.
Dekan was now more confused.
He could not understand, from Clay’s standpoint, why a bishop of the Resurrection Church would go all out to clear obstacles for the challengers?
The Warden of the seventh level—Azkasa of Silence, definitely surpassed the strength of a quasi-bishop, and was probably at the bishop level of combat power.
Even if the Ice Snow Princess and Judith came, they would not be able to win.
To forcefully kill this great demon, even Clay would have to lose half his life.
The Clay before him did not seem to have many injuries, purely because of this guy’s epic spell passive, 【Super-Speed Regeneration】.
In reality, Clay’s magic and stamina were far from their peak state.
If they really had to subdue Clay, it would be much simpler than Dekan had originally anticipated.
Dekan had thought that Clay might be on this level.
But he had not expected that Clay would go so far as to kill the Warden without regard for his own safety.
Whether from a standpoint or for personal gain, it made no sense.
Unless Clay had realized early on that this Rank 8 Warden had extremely important information, and then wanted to deliberately sabotage it, that would barely fit his position.
The price was still too high.
The always-free Clay did not seem like an employee who would be too devoted to the company’s goals, and Dekan felt that Clay should not have this kind of insight and intelligence analysis ability.
“Why did you kill him?”
Dekan questioned, full of confusion and anger.
Clay was first a bit stunned by this little succubus' aggressive attitude, then he answered righteously:
“I made a bet with him, but that bastard cheated. How could I let him get away with it?”
As he spoke, Clay started to get angry.
He recalled some things that made him furious.
He even wanted to go and give the already-dead demon a few more kicks.
Originally, the Warden of this level, Azkasa of Silence, wanted to recruit Clay.
But as they were playing a game, Clay’s precise dynamic vision saw that the Warden was cheating.
Clay’s anger exploded on the spot, and he launched a deliberate heavy punch at the Warden, starting a Rank 8 battle that left the entire seventh level in ruins.
And so, the current scene came to be.
"..."
Dekan was speechless for a moment.
He did not know whether to comment on Clay or the Warden Azkasa.
What kind of moron was the Warden of this level?
You still need to cheat when playing with Clay?
Why couldn't you just play fair? Clay would lose on his own.
And then there was Clay.
You say he's an idiot, but he does have a bit of wisdom, and his logic is clear, his motives are well-founded.
But you say his thinking is clear, yet you really can't predict what he'll do.
In short, Dekan would rather see Clay on the opposite side than by his side...
“Having you as a teammate is the worst luck of eight lifetimes…”
Dekan held his head and said, on the verge of a breakdown.
His blood pressure was really about to explode.
He now felt that he would rather have a Rank 7 teammate who could act a bit more according to common sense than a weirdo like Clay whose brain was different from a normal person’s.
Clay was strong, but when he messed up, he only caused huge problems.
Every move was fatal.
Let's not even talk about whether Clay would be reliable in a real fight with the Chief Warden.
Lacking a key piece of information about the Rank 9 boss, Dekan only felt an extreme headache.
Besides not being able to buy information about the Chief Warden, Dekan could not even buy information about the eighth level anymore.
Now Dekan could not even be sure if the eighth level was a normal level or an eviction zone.
If the eighth level was an eviction zone, it would be even worse.
That would mean the information held by the seventh-level Warden was the last piece of information about the Chief Warden!
Once this piece of information was permanently lost, they could only rely on guessing.
All their previous information advantage was turned into a huge disadvantage by Clay in one fell swoop.
“Teammate?”
Clay heard Dekan’s frustrated complaint and asked with a frown.
He had felt that this demon was a bit strange from the beginning.
Then he sensed the several prisoners behind the demon, and recalling the information and mission prompts given at the start of this Shadow World, he seemed to have suddenly figured something out.
“So you’re a challenger? What’s the time situation now? And share the information with me.”
Clay’s tone softened considerably.
He roughly understood that the jailer before him was the one and only “special challenger,” while the other few prisoners were regular challengers like himself.
Clay had tried to go to the eighth level before but found that he did not have the permission to pass.
It seemed that only the jailer could take him down.
So he had been waiting for the challengers from the upper levels to arrive.
“You, are you going to help us?”
Clay’s reaction surprised Dekan slightly.
Originally, Dekan had planned to subdue Clay.
Or trick Clay into a duel, so that Clay, who would honor his bet, would become their ace fighter.
He did not expect Clay’s attitude to be so cooperative.
Clay shook his head and smiled helplessly, seemingly not surprised that his identity had been recognized.
“I, Clay, may be the Frenzy Bishop of the Resurrection Church, but whether you are from the Kingdom Federation or the Empire, any high-level Shadow World challenger should have heard that I have never treated a Shadow World negatively. I just have a personal grudge against the Kingdom Federation and don’t want to harm the innocent.”
Clay said proudly.
It seemed as if he was proclaiming his disdain for the other bishops and making no secret of the depth of his resentment towards the Kingdom Federation.
Dekan had indeed heard about Clay’s attitude towards challenging Shadow Worlds.
He was the only one who had never done anything bad in a Rank 8 Shadow World and had seriously conquered them.
The Resurrection Church also tacitly allowed this. After all, what the Resurrection Church valued was Clay’s combat power. As long as he was a sworn enemy of the Kingdom Federation, it was enough.
But the problem was not Clay’s conquest attitude.
What Dekan had always been puzzled about was, could Clay really not see that he was his enemy?
“Then are you willing to swear an oath? That you will do your best to cooperate with us to clear this Shadow World and will not cause trouble due to any personal grudges.”
Dekan decided to have Clay swear an oath before probing him.
“I can. I, Clay, swear to cooperate with you wholeheartedly in challenging this Shadow World, and I will never cause trouble or harm you due to any position issues or personal grudges.”
Clay swore without hesitation.
Dekan nodded.
Hearing Clay say this, Dekan was mostly relieved.
He believed that this man was a man of his word.
However, Dekan felt that the sense of incongruity regarding “Clay not recognizing him” had become even stronger.
Even if he took ten thousand steps back.
Even if Clay was an idiot, it was impossible for him not to see that his appearance had nothing to do with Dekan.
This was clearly a case of twin siblings.
Unless Clay was blind, or was pretending to be stupid.
So Dekan tentatively waved his hand in front of Clay’s eyes.
After a while.
Clay did not react.
Dekan then raised his middle finger in front of Clay and asked, “How many is this?”
PART 2
Clay: “…I can’t see.”
Clay could not answer.
Dekan was finally convinced.
Clay was indeed blind.
The reason Clay was able to capture their movements just now was purely through his perception as a Rank 8 martial artist, as well as by distinguishing through sound and aura.
“What happened to your eyes?”
Dekan asked, puzzled.
One of Clay’s strong points was his superhuman dynamic vision; no cheater could escape Clay’s eyes.
And the Warden’s cheating behavior was precisely caught by Clay’s sharp eyes.
So that meant Clay’s eyes had gone blind only recently.
“Hmph, the Warden of this level is quite similar to that bastard, the Silence Bishop. They’re all full of annoying sealing techniques. Luckily, this Warden can’t use magic cards, so his overall combat power and versatility are much worse than the Silence Bishop’s. That’s how I was able to beat him so quickly.”
Clay explained.
It was just that even Clay did not know that after he killed the Warden, he had triggered the Warden’s death passive, which forcibly sealed one of the killer’s five senses, unable to be purified or dispelled.
The Warden, full of venomous resentment, naturally sealed the sense that had the greatest impact on Clay’s combat effectiveness: his vision.
He must have deeply resented Clay’s dynamic vision that could see through cheating.
This state, which could not be purified by any rank of purification magic nor be dispelled, was equivalent to a god-level curse of blindness.
Even if Clay had super-speed regeneration, or even if Cloix could heal Clay now, it would be useless.
Fortunately, the exit mechanism of the Shadow World was similar to that of an artificial Shadow World; no matter what buffs were active, they would be automatically cleared upon leaving the Shadow World.
So Clay was not too depressed about his blindness.
“Uh…”
Dekan stroked his chin and thought for a moment.
Clay seemed to have inadvertently sold out the Silence Bishop’s secrets again.
After all, the Wardens in this Shadow World always seemed to have some strange correspondence with the powerful figures in the real world.
Dekan had never heard that the Silence Bishop had a deathrattle effect.
Of course, this information could not be investigated.
But now, through a strange coincidence, Dekan could not help but boldly speculate that killing the Silence Bishop might also result in a serious deathrattle curse.
It seemed that when dealing with the Silence Bishop in the future, he would have to find a scapegoat to deliver the final blow first.
And he would have to find a way to extract the remaining value of the Silence Bishop after his death.
So Dekan began to explain some shareable information to Clay.
Being able to directly make Clay a temporary teammate like this was still much better than what Dekan had anticipated.
Because it saved him a big trouble—
The issue of their grudge.
The current Clay really had not discovered, and could not discover, that they were the Beautiful Mind Squad.
Although Dekan was still a little annoyed by Clay’s teammate-sabotaging behavior.
But on the bright side.
At least it saved time.
And now, reviewing what happened on the seventh level.
Dekan could not help but fall into deep thought.
If Clay had not killed the Warden, Clay would not have gone blind. If Clay had not gone blind, so much trouble could have been avoided.
It felt like a fluke again.
So far, Clay’s motives had been quite reasonable, even to the point of being irrefutable.
But the result of every one of Clay’s actions was to inadvertently help Dekan.
Dekan really could not tell whether this was luck, causality, or if there was a true mastermind orchestrating everything…
It couldn’t be that everything was within Zhuge Clay’s calculations, could it…
Dekan could not help but start speculating again.
He thought about it and decided against it.
To deify a guy like Clay, Dekan felt that he himself was a bit of an idiot.
…
After accepting the fact that the seventh level had been speed-run, the group did not waste any more time. After some brief preparations, they set off for the eighth level.
After meeting Clay in a different way, the Beautiful Mind Squad actually felt that Clay was surprisingly easy to talk to.
However, perhaps due to the differences in team philosophy and corporate culture between Clay and the Beautiful Mind Squad, there was an inexplicable feeling of being out of place.
After entering the portal, the vision of the few people darkened, and then they began to accelerate uncontrollably as if in a free-falling elevator.
Not only was the speed heart-stopping, but the bone-chilling and gloomy cold air that swept in from all around made it difficult to maintain normal breathing.
“By the way, were the portals on the previous levels like this?!”
Clay shouted and asked.
Even Clay felt that this portal was very strange!
“No! The previous portals were very peaceful! Something is wrong with the eighth level! Be careful!”
Along with Dekan’s shout, in the high-speed dark current that was almost suffocating, they finally reached their destination.
【Deception Hell】
【This level of the prison is an eviction zone. Jailers and the Warden can kill each other.】
【The Warden will strictly enforce the rules and will not rashly attack jailers.】
【On this level, only demons can move freely. Non-demon races will be sealed by the magical power gathered by successive generations of Demon Kings.】
【This place is the Demon King’s Mausoleum. No lies or deceit are permitted.】
【To proceed to the ninth level, no Devil Points need to be paid.】
【Warning】
【The portal has no barrier protection. You have entered the eighth level.】
The moment Dekan saw the sentence “Non-demon races will be sealed” and the “Warning content,” he felt a bone-chilling and irresistible terrifying magical power instantly climb up his body from the soles of his feet like countless black snakes.
Although Dekan had obtained a disguise and transformed into a little succubus form.
This was just mimicry. His true race was still human!
He would be sealed before he could even call for Shijiang.
“Mas…”
His body lost all sensation in an instant, and time seemed to freeze as his consciousness also stopped.
However, just as the seal was about to spread to his eyes.
In his wide-open eyes, his pupils changed.
The blue demon pupils transformed into a more sacred golden demon pupil.
And even though Dekan’s racial appearance still looked like a succubus at this time, no demon who saw the current Dekan would think that he was a succubus.
Without a doubt, this was the highest, most primitive, and purest demon.
“Whew—”
The seal on Dekan’s body receded like flowing water, and Dekan’s consciousness was restored.
He felt as if he had just returned from the gates of hell, gasping for breath.
He had Shijiang to thank for that just now.
She was a great help.
Talomati, who was one with Dekan, seemed to have anticipated the rules of this level at the most critical moment, and urgently seized control of Dekan’s body, forcibly demonizing it.
At this time, Dekan turned his head and looked at the companions beside him.
They had all been sealed into statue-like existences by the Demon King’s magic.
Even someone as strong as Clay was completely sealed after only holding on for a little while longer.
Presumably on this level, the Saintess of Darkness was also sealed in this way.
If even Dekan was sealed, it would have been completely over.
Fortunately, he himself had the demonization special skill.
Just as Dekan adjusted his mentality and prepared to deal with the challenge of this level properly.
He suddenly felt his heart start to beat with a bit of restlessness.
“Shijiang?”
This was not caused by Dekan’s emotions.
It was Shijiang.
She had returned control of the body to Dekan after helping him demonize.
But she had only returned a part of it, because complete demonization required them to maintain it together.
At this time, it was equivalent to the two of them sharing consciousness and perception to control the body.
“Shijiang, what’s wrong?”
Dekan could feel that Shijiang, who was always calm and collected, her emotions had clearly become uneasy.
Shijiang’s thoughts carried a bit of worry and a bit of confusion:
“Dekan, I… seem to have an impression of this place…”