Chapter 16: Darkness Erodes, Abandoned Castles
"Sixth, this is the sixth case of skinning on Sakari Avenue this month, before which five innocent young girls died tragically at the hands of the Skinning Demon......, what is the police department doing? Perhaps, this will help you to be more productive. Terrence TV reporter, Thatcheri reports here. The female reporter in the video is obviously incoherent with anger, that is, the country advocates so-called freedom of speech, otherwise how could such a woman who is easily controlled by her own emotions become a famous TV reporter.
It was not only the Thatcheri reporter who was outraged, but also the online comments that followed the video filled with the anxiety and resentment of the country's residents about the poor security around them.
There were more than 20 people in the classroom, only the sound of flipping materials sounded, and the small faces of many female students were already flushed with anger, their eyes were sharp, and they controlled their minds and tried their best to find clues that they might find.
The materials in the hands of Zhu Peng and these people are not covered with mosaics, and next to each of the skinned and bloody photos is the smiling pretty faces of the skinned girls, who are generally not more than twenty years old, often beautiful and cheerful, so that the young girls correspond to the bloody corpse photos, giving people a huge spiritual impact.
"These ...... eroded by darkness The beast is the opponent you will face in the future. In fact, these are people who are gifted in mental power, and they have achieved certain conditions to comprehend the power of darkness, and they are controlled by this power and cannot control themselves, as long as they can't catch that skinning demon for a day, sooner or later there will be the next victim."
"Teacher, are we just going to sit here and watch, even if we can't do anything, if the Holy Mountain Monastery is willing to make a move, we will definitely be able to speed up the speed of catching the skinning demon, right?" a girl with brown hair slammed the table and stood up. Dilan, who used to be an orphan in an orphanage, is even worse than Weixi, she doesn't even have her own surname, she was placed at the door of the orphanage when she was a baby, but she was taken away by the director as a granddaughter from the baby, and she has become more and more beautiful over the years, and her sense of justice is bursting.
“...... My duty is to teach you the course well, your duty is to study hard and train yourself to be stronger, this year's skinning demon, last year's 'decapitator' Noel, the previous two years' 'ogre' Dartves are the most interesting, as a priest is actually addicted to the flesh and blood of the living, if you don't want this to happen again, or reduce the number of victims after it happens, then try to make yourself stronger, stronger, stronger, the power of light, is the most powerful deterrent to darkness. The teacher's words made Zhu Peng inadvertently think of his homeland, the burning flame has a powerful and incomparable power, as long as it wants to burn more fiercely, all the evil forces of bulls, ghosts, snakes, gods, and evil will be wiped out in an instant.
After class, there were still many students talking about the case of the skinning demon, speculating about who would be able to step on the tail of this poisonous rat first by the police or the seniors who had already rushed there.
The Holy Mountain Monastery was originally a special college for paladins, and it was a descendant of the Holy See, but the successive abbots were relatively powerful, and gradually the Holy Mountain Monastery was cut off from the power of the Holy See. Even the assassins who wander on the edge of light and darkness have taught and cultivated that as long as they can resist the invasion of darkness, they are already taboo, and the Holy Mountain Monastery is located in the belly of the Great Snow Mountain, and below is a town, which has become one of the important strongholds of this world to resist the invasion of darkness, although from Zhu Peng's point of view, it is just a matter of breathing, such a weak civilization has no possibility of resisting the invasion of the endless abyss and purgatory.
Even in a bachelor's uniform, the blonde girl Di Lan who still looks slender in thighs chatters beside Zhu Peng and talks about her opinions, both of them are from the same place, plus Di Lan feels that this junior brother looks at him with clean and pure eyes, so he is naturally close, of course, the more important aspect is that Zhu Peng's schoolwork in all aspects is really good enough, in this plane where there is no overtime tutoring by teachers, students with strong enterprising spirit want to get greater promotion, in addition to their own hard work, to a "good student" Seeking advice is certainly a quick and effective shortcut.
"There's no class in the afternoon, Visie, aren't you going to take a stroll around town? I've heard that there's a new bar, and business is doing very well. ”
"No, I haven't studied the vitality rune yet, I'm going to practice meditation in the ashram in the afternoon, you guys go, I won't go." Zhu Peng shook his head and directly refused the invitation of the beauty, although Dilan was the most outstanding beauty in the orphanage, even among the women in the entire Holy Mountain Monastery, Zhu Peng also tempted Wei Xi to pursue this girl back then, but Wei Xi did not agree back then, and his request to Zhu Peng was only to kill the demon that destroyed his family. In this case, Zhu Peng has no interest in messing with flowers and grass, what kind of girl, banshee, and goddess have not enjoyed in two hundred years of life, and Dilan is not very outstanding among them.
"Isn't it, Weixi, your grades are already so good, what are you doing so hard, you should relax while you are young, not to mention that I want to go. ”
"When we graduate and meet powerful dark creatures, those ghosts won't stop us because my grades are good enough, if you believe that you can succeed and break through the legendary rank in the future to get a long life, then now is a good deal...... Of course, if you feel that your future is to feed the demons, now is indeed a good time to have fun in time. With a smile, the black-brown haired young man walked away quickly, the cultivation system of this world is actually quite interesting.
In the afternoon, while practicing the hammer and sickle in the ashram room, Zhu Peng unexpectedly met the puffed Dilan, who sat beside him with a thick book in her arms and read there with her head bored.
"Didn't you go to the bar?"
“...... I don't think I'm going to feed the devil in the future, of course I have to work hard now, but I'm not like someone who is arrogant enough to be promoted to a legendary knight in the future, and only a big man will come out in hundreds of years, how can you be so sure that you can?"
"I'm already the best student at the Holy Mountain Monastery, and the 'Great Knight of God's Blessing' Tyrell from two hundred years ago is no more than that, so as long as I continue to work hard, I naturally have a good chance of success. "It is very unlikely that an ordinary high school student will be admitted to a world-famous school, but a top student in a key high school is more likely to be admitted to a world-famous school, but Zhu Peng's firm words made Dilan speechless.
"Megalomaniac ......"
The paladin cultivation system in this world is very interesting, and Zhu Peng meditated on it and integrated it into his Five Elements Realm system:
The paladin's combat skill tree is divided into three parts: offensive and defensive rune system, combat skill system, and the combat skill system is the control and use of swordsmanship and holy light energy, which is very common and has nothing outstanding in this regard. What really caught Zhu Peng's eyes was his offensive and defensive rune system. Because the whole world is on the verge of destruction, the dimensional consciousness of this world really reveals a lot of things to human beings.
Attack rune system, the first-order runes are power, holy flame, and thorns, and the essence of the role is holy light, but it is too cost-effective to attack and defend purely with holy light, and the paladin cultivation uses itself as the carrier and the holy light as the driving force, portraying the magic array on the physical body, and inlaying it into the entire plane world to obtain all kinds of supernatural powers, such as transforming the holy light into ice, fire, electricity, and so on.
The power rune is to increase the strength of the physical body, and if you cultivate it to the level of about seven levels, you can double the physical attack of the physical body, and it is a simple but very useful attack rune.
The Holy Flame Rune is the power to transform the holy light in the body into flames, which is the supernatural power that paladins can master with the highest priority, and it is handsome and lethal, so it is loyal to many paladins. The body is faintly wrapped in flames, and the long sword is covered with flames, so awe-inspiring as a god, it is the only way for the paladins to bubble ignorant girls and school girls. Of course, those with a little experience will often not be confused by this bells and whistles, the Holy Flame Runes are easy to learn and difficult to learn, and the Endless Abyss Demons, the Devils of the Nine Layers of Purgatory, many of them have outrageously high flame resistance.
Thorn rune, widely recognized as the most powerful first-order rune, within the scope of this rune array, anyone who attacks the paladin or even the paladin's teammates will be affected by the damage rebound of the thorn rune, the first-level thorn rune can already rebound back 250% of the melee damage, and if it is repaired to level 10 or above, the damage rebound will reach 600%, the only problem is that it only has an effect on melee/physical attacks, and high-level demons, The devils have their own means, and it is too difficult to bounce them to death with damage reflection.
Paladin's beginner runes have their own effects and disadvantages, so they ...... Zhu Peng generally understood that none of them had learned. Although he had memorized all the relevant knowledge in his soul library, the carrying capacity of his body in this world was limited, so the choice of the first rune must be cautious.
Although the paladin's offensive and defensive rune system is infinitely wonderful, faintly revealing the secrets of the world, but the human body is not the world, and the upper limit of the two sides is not at the same level, the paladin depicts the magic array with holy power, and embeds itself into the world to obtain all kinds of incredible powers, but the paladins who depict too many rune magic arrays in the body often can't cultivate any rune power to the advanced level, and even, it is not written in the textbook, and the professors do not say it, but Zhu Peng suspects that the choice of the primary rune will even affect the upper limit of the future promotion, so Zhu Peng does not hesitate to spend a lot of time, and does not choose any of the first-level runes, and starts directly on the second-level runes。
It's a bit ironic, but it's actually about winning at the starting line.
The initial rune that Zhu Peng majored in was the second-order defensive rune: energy, this rune magic array was actually considered highly difficult among the second-order defensive runes, and it was a third-order rune a little more difficult than it, and the average paladin had to learn the first-order defensive rune in advance to purify and resist before he could be qualified to learn this rune, but in the opinion of Zhu Peng, who was in the fourth-order semi-god realm, this rule could be bypassed.
The second-order defensive rune energy can increase the upper limit of the physical strength of the completer, speed up the movement speed of the enhancer, and improve the recovery speed of physical strength, and in Zhu Peng's view, improving one's own body can strengthen one's ability to swing the sword and continue the battle, which is more meaningful than any fancy power, holy flame, and thorns. The difficulty of the second-order primary rune of anti-lightning is very low, and at this point, Zhu Peng's combat system has basically taken shape: he can fight, he can carry, he can run, he can output, although the combat method is only hand-to-hand combat, which is a little colder.
........................
Two years later, two tattered cars appeared next to a deserted castle, a country where cars are easy to get hold of, especially for demon hunters, who often come by car and don't intend to drive it back.
"Hi ladies and gentlemen, it's time to get out of the car, a romantic and exciting adventure awaits you just ahead. A fat, strong bearded white man got out of the car, and next to him was a tall and thin middle-aged man, one short and the other tall and thin, inexplicably contrasting with each other.
Bethsey and Lordas, two veteran demon hunters, although they seem to be two raunchy down-and-out old men, they are indeed raunchy down-and-out old men, but at the same time, they are two seniors who graduated from the Holy Mountain Monastery, this time as the internship guide of the new graduates, responsible for the safety of the juniors' first mission, this is an old tradition of the Holy Mountain Monastery, which has been used to this day, and has become the best opportunity for single old-timers to deceive the ignorant girls who have just graduated.
After the two of them, two men and three women got out of the car in the back, the barbarian warrior Kudas and his girlfriend Assassin Messi, Dylan and her friend and best friend Kelly, and finally the somewhat listless Vesie.
"Anyway, your first time on an internship, why do you have to bring me here? You need an internship, and I am exempt from the exam, and I will share your honorarium for nothing. ”
"Got it, Chief Student. I was a little nervous about a practical internship, and after so many years of friends, don't you help me check the gates? I am so righteous to introduce such a lovely little girl as Kelly to you. Dilan's words were heard by the female magician Kelly on the side, the little girl was so ashamed that her little face was flushed, a shy and introverted blonde girl with unscientific plump breasts, she had always been covered by Dilan as a big sister, but she didn't know that she was actually being used by her eldest sister this time.
The three girls of Dilan, Kelly, and Messi are all in the same dormitory, and Zhu Peng and Kudas are all strong men who have been pulled, and the graduates of the Holy Mountain Monastery are formed into their own teams, so it is often the excellent students who look for excellent students, the average ones who look for the medium, and the weakest ones who feel that they do some marginal tasks.
"Lovely juniors, you rush up first, and if you are in danger, Lordas and I will go up to save you. As he spoke, as if to give confidence to the five new tenders, the short, bearded Bercy slapped his wrist, and with a twist of the air around him, the illusion was lifted, and steel armor and a heavy hammer appeared in his hands, and several hand axes were strapped to his waist like a wine barrel, and a violent shotgun was carried on his back.
No matter which world Zhu Peng experienced, as long as he was invaded by the lower plane, he would basically choose to block the news under the condition that the situation could still be controlled and the news could be blocked, because the panic and fear of the vast majority of mortals would only increase the speed at which the entire world fell to the lower plane, and there were many madmen who pursued power, and after knowing the truth, they would often offer rich blood sacrifices to the darkness in exchange for the power to survive.
More accurate description...... Just like battle royale, a school is eroded by the darkness of the lower plane, and those who kill the invading demons will get a power boost, but the classmates who kill themselves will get a higher strength power boost, and the order will naturally exist at the beginning, and the friendship between classmates will make them instinctively rely on each other in the face of danger, but once everyone is clear about the rules of strengthening, suspicion, vigilance, and even the killing of each other in the end, it will begin.
And what is the difference between wantonly killing people of their own kind and invading this world, the demons of this campus?
They are even more cruel, hideous, crazy!
Zhu Peng and others also slapped the watch on their wrists to unravel the illusion, revealing their own equipment, the paladin, who has been lazy and lazy, after holding the sword in his hand, his temperament gradually transformed into fierce and strong, because of the initial funds obtained by the old Burr gambling back then, Zhu Peng was dressed in a fine eighty percent of the old and new leather armor, especially the long sword in his hand in the blue of the steel faintly revealed a bone white, that is the bones of the devil, the enchanted equipment of this world uses the remains of the devil as the main material, and it can be regarded as a practice of raising war with war.
"Tsk, a newcomer who has just graduated, is holding an enchanted weapon that has penetrated into the demon's bones, and our brother has worked hard for half his life to use the strengthening potion. Bethesy grumbled to his companion beside him, and the tall, thin Lordas turned pale and said nothing, watching as the five approached the abandoned castle from a remote curve.
The correct approach should be for the assassins to sneak in first, wake up the necromantic rotting corpses around the abandoned castle one by one, and then sneak into the castle as quietly as possible, but Dylan was not so commanding, and Zhu Peng did not intervene, and directly raised his long sword and recklessly passed.
The enchanted weapons in this world are very expensive, Lao Boer pressed all the value back then, eighty percent of the equipment used to prepare for Zhu Peng, and waited for two years to buy a new leather armor of eighty percent, and an enchanted sword that was picked up, although it was only a small holy flame blessing, but it was still worth a lot.
In the Faren Continent of the World of Gods, Zhu Peng obtained a set of light swordsmanship from Farrell Adam Han, although it was performed in conjunction with the realm and holy power, in the main world Zhu Peng could only use part of the sword technique, but in this world, especially at the low level, it could be used perfectly.
The long sword that lingered in the flame of the holy flame was faintly covered with a layer of holy light, making the sword body reveal a golden-white meaning, and when the sword was wielded, those necromantic rotting corpses that were only eroded by the dark power were all knocked down by a sword, but it was Lotas, who was powerful and used a double axe, and it took three axes in a row to successfully overturn a dead corpse, and the efficiency gap was extremely obvious.
"Hey, Wei Xi, this is our first internship, don't you behave so conspicuously, okay?Is Shengyan so easy to use?Why did some senior sister tell me that knights who majored in Shengyan are all showy, and they must not be deceived by them!" Di Lan and the others lacked vision and experience, and only thought that the flame sword in Zhu Peng's hand was the effect of the Holy Flame Rune of the Holy Knight's Beginner Rank, but in fact, Zhu Peng had not strengthened the Holy Flame Rune at all, and he could have such a powerful shot at this moment, all relying on the accuracy of swordsmanship, the vital blow, and the dual damage enhancement of fire and holy power.
While talking and laughing, the group quickly rushed to the abandoned castle, as for Dilan's words, Zhu Peng didn't pay much attention to it, the purpose of coming out was to test the power of swordsmanship and swordsmanship, how can you not let me kill enough? What's more, this dimensional world is eroded by the lower plane, and the more dark monsters are killed, the more favored by the world's general consciousness, and the more beneficial it is for their own cultivation of holy power, so even if Di Lan is angry, Zhu Peng still has a sword in his hand and kills without calculation, and as for other people, he won't say anything, so easily following behind and mixing tasks should be a good thing that many people can't ask for, right?
"Spread out and watch out for the fireballs. When a group of five people came to the near side of the abandoned castle, four flame bombs were shot from several directions of the castle, Zhu Peng threw off the kite-shaped shield he was carrying from his back while opening his mouth to warn, and then opened the anti-fire rune array to rush to the top, as long as the response was right, the paladin was the strongest demon hunter, two of the four flame bombs were blocked by Zhu Peng, two fell to the ground, the explosion and flames overflowed for a while, Zhu Peng's chest was stuffy, he inserted the long sword on the ground on the side and quickly took out a tube of red reagent from the skin bag on his waist and poured it into his mouth, and the cool medicine pressed the injury down in an instant。
Originally, Zhu Peng planned to take the appraisal and pharmacist senior qualification in the college, but after thinking about it, he felt that it was too public, so it was very simple for him to have those knowledge, but he didn't take the exam, Zhu Peng just didn't look for an appraiser, bought all kinds of materials and went home to make his own medicine, which saved a huge amount of expenses, and at the same time he didn't feel distressed when using various medicines.
"Rush in, quick!" While speaking, Zhu Peng pulled out his long sword while holding the shield and charged, and the other four people tried to surround him as much as possible, the effect of the rune magic array is often ranged, so the paladin is often the role of the captain in the demon hunter squad, the paladin's physical attack power is not as good as that of the barbarian, the instantaneous explosive power is not as good as the assassin, the supernatural power is not as good as the magician, and the agility of the machine is far inferior to that of the Amazon, but the paladin professional has no obvious weaknesses, of course, this can also be interpreted as no obvious advantage, so the polarization of this profession is very serious, and the high-level paladins are a little particularly fierce, and they can fight, carry, run, and output ultra-long-range, although just one move of the Fist of Heaven is domineering enough, but just this move has already made the paladin class very domineering. And some are particularly scummy, even in the demon hunter team, they can often only play the role of panacea to reconcile the team, whether they are particularly strong or particularly scum, it all depends on the paladin professional cultivators, for the excavation of their own professional potential.
"Boom", the wooden door of the castle was slashed by the axe and sword, and was blown down by a large fireball from Kelly, and at the moment when the gate collapsed, a large group of dead bodies poured out of it, maybe they were not conscious, but they hit the weak point of the team's attack power.
Zhu Peng raised his shield in his left hand, put his sword back into the sheath with his right hand, and quickly took out a bottle of dark green medicine from the skin pouch on his waist at the same time, and smashed it on the ground, the green mist rose for a while, and Zhu Peng's shield charged into the group of corpses, and he turned around to hold his breath to defend, and after a while, the group of necromantic corpses that surrounded him fell to the ground one after another, in the narrow door, there were only so many people who could attack Zhu Peng, but in this area, they were all subject to the damage of the poisonous mist, Zhu Peng already knew something about the overall system of this world, so his pharmacist level was already very high, and the poisonous mist elixir he configured was undoubtedly a big killer for some low-level necromantic rotting corpses。
"Ahem...... Vesie, Vesie, are you alright?"
"Why is it okay, do you know how expensive a bottle of poison mist potion is? I'll help you this time, don't call me next time, you won't be able to recover the cost." Take out a bottle of distilled water reagent from your waist bag again, pour it into the water and rinse your mouth, and then spit it out in one gulp, Zhu Peng wiped the corner of his mouth and said.
However, at this time, Zhu Peng found that everyone was looking at his waist with a very strange look.
"What's wrong?"
"I just think that the chief student is amazing, Brother Weixi, it seems that there is everything in your skin!" Kelly said with some curiosity, as if there were stars twinkling in her eyes.
"There are not many potions in it, there is still a bottle of vitality potion left, in case I will meet an opponent who can't be beaten, I will drink this bottle of medicine and turn around and run, then you guys will be stupid." ”
"Brother Vesy scares people, you won't run, and there are two seniors, Bethie and Lordas, we can be saved even if we are in danger. ”
“...... With such a naïve idea, I advise you to go home early and find someone to marry, or apply for a clerical job in a monastery...... I don't know why, but when I think of the two old white faces, one tall and one short, I feel that they are unreliable. "Zhu Peng didn't treat Dylan as his own team at all, from his point of view, he came to brush this abandoned castle alone, exercise and polish his skills, understand the limitations of tactics, enjoy the process of fighting, and gain the favor of the pan-consciousness of this world's plane, even if Dylan is just a person who is more familiar with it in Zhu Peng's eyes, as a spy wizard, he is naturally separated from these plane natives.
The last big boss of the abandoned castle is an inflated ancient corpse, it seems to be a medieval aristocratic general before his death, burly and strong in the south and the north to fight and kill countless people, after death, the corpse remains murderous and tyrannical, strong desire to pull the darkness to sweep in, when it wakes up again, the original tall body has swelled to nearly three meters of block, when the demon hunter team woke it up, this big guy climbed down from the castle, and smashed down to the first floor in the process of fighting with Zhu Peng, and Zhu Peng also fell down from a very high position, but his body was light, a few borrowed strength halfway, and finally hit the ground with a tower shield to unload most of the force, facing the swelling ancient corpse that climbed up, he didn't suffer any injuries.
The swelling ancient corpse roared, and then lifted the fist that was really bigger than the sand pot and smashed it down, Zhu Peng rushed forward with a group of people and rushed into the arms of the ancient corpse to swing his sword and slash, and Di Lan, who was running down from the upper floor, found that in the battle with the ancient corpse, Wei Xi's offensive and defensive movements and body speed had obviously become faster, and the faint white light flowed under his skin as if through the circuit board, providing it with faster speed, stronger strength, more lasting endurance, and more amazing physical recovery speed...... Vitality Rune!?
There is no shortage of paladins who have graduated from the Holy Mountain Monastery who can cultivate second-order high-level vitality runes, but the vitality runes on Wei Xi's body are obviously of a high level, and this is by no means something that can be polished in a short period of time in a day or two.
In the interval of the battle, he took out a bottle of poisonous mist potion from the skin pouch around his waist and smashed it at the feet of the swelling ancient corpse, and at the same time the poison rose, Zhu Peng slashed and fought around it in this area, crazy rage, and cruel will had ruled the mind of the swelling ancient corpse, so it really chased Zhu Peng to fight, even if it was eroded by the poison. Zhu Peng's own poison is formulated by the inherent system of the fundamental world, of course, there is a corresponding antidote, especially Zhu Peng also infiltrated the ingredients of the antidote into his diet and bath water before the war, which will not improve the overall poison resistance, but will improve the targeted poison resistance, in other words, although Zhu Peng cannot be immune to the monster's toxin ability, the effect of the poison mist medicine is zero for him.
When Dylan and the others ran down from the upper echelons of the ancient castle, Zhu Peng had already discarded the kite-shaped shield that had been smashed everywhere by the swollen ancient corpse, held the long sword that extinguished the pale gold flames, and violently trampled on the wall and flew at the ancient corpse, turning over in the air and faintly avoiding the giant palm that came from the swing, and a sword pierced through the head and face of the giant corpse.
The raging Shengyan accompanied Zhu Pengde's continuous exertion gradually enveloped the entire body of the swelling ancient corpse, and when Dilan and the others finally ran down, all they saw was Zhu Peng, who was sweating and panting, half-kneeling between the ashes with a black ash breath, holding a skull condensed by the magic power of the swelling ancient corpse in his hand, in this world, most of the enchanted equipment was cast from the remains of creatures in the lower plane.
“......... Although the three little girls are indeed very tender, this team of interns should let it go. That paladin kid is too strong and perverted, if he really has a tube of vitality potion in his waist bag, our two brothers may not be able to beat him!"