‘Quick, defend! The sneak attack is coming again!’
The pleasant female voice reappeared in Yuan Zhu's mind. Even without turning back, Yuan Zhu suddenly saw another scene of a monster sneak attacking from behind him.
Although he didn't understand why he could see two different scenes simultaneously, he instinctively launched a defensive counterattack.
With the simple reminder from that voice, Yuan Zhu's tiger body trembled, and he instinctively controlled and mobilized the Shadow within a 10-meter radius around him.
Not only that, but the hunting instincts and attack instincts already ingrained in his bones (Boss Template) also burst forth autonomously. The complete information for 【Ability 2: Chang Gui (伥鬼)】 flashed through his mind like an electric current, and he immediately gained full mastery.
Jun Divine Ability: Helping the Tiger Become a Chang Gui (伥鬼)
The Jun Tiger Demon has a certain chance to thoroughly digest the prey it hunts and devours, extracting something akin to extraordinary characteristics, preserving their departed Souls, and finally summoning them back in the form of ghosts, dominating and enslaving them.
At this moment, Yuan Zhu inexplicably recalled a profession called 【Shepherd】. Although not as good as 【Sweet Juice. Witch】, being able to herd multiple Souls for his own use was not bad.
However, the Chang Gui (伥鬼) of the Tiger Demon suffer severe spiritual wear and tear, with varying degrees of intellectual deficiency. The power (characteristics) re-condensed and refined often retain less than one-tenth, only usable as cannon fodder.
But the number of Chang Gui (伥鬼) the Tiger Demon controls far exceeds that of the 【Shepherd】, making it a classic cannon fodder skill. It fits the style of a big Boss very well.
...
After hastily loading the 【Jun Template】, there were no ready-made Chang Gui (伥鬼) available in Yuan Zhu's Soul storage. However, he inherited the Tiger Demon's complete and rich ‘Chang Gui (伥鬼) experience’.
The originally unknown Ability 1 had now mutated into 【Shadow Manipulation】. When the two met like gold wind and jade dew, they instantly erupted with unexpectedly smooth effects.
【Shadow Manipulation + Chang Gui (伥鬼)】, once linked, immediately manifested the Jun Tiger Demon's past experience of controlling Chang Gui (伥鬼) through Shadow.
Although these two abilities were displayed as skills in the Boss Template, their essence was the Tiger Demon's innate ability, unable to be restrained by numerical values, but rather an instinct, like a bird flapping its wings to fly or a frog flicking its tongue to catch insects. As long as he willed it, he could easily use them.
Driven by the 【Jun Template】, the Shadow within a 10-meter radius instantly boiled and exploded like hot oil poured into cold water. Under the infusion of the 【Chang Gui (伥鬼)】 experience, dense, twisted, and trembling Shadows crawled out from the black ground.
They intertwined with each other, forming indescribable abstract silhouettes, each temporarily coming alive, like black Chang Gui (伥鬼).
Some transformed into sharp, gaping mouths with interlocking canines, some were like wriggling masses of earthworms clumped together, and some resembled lanky, disproportioned ghost figures...
They were all based on the memories of helping the tiger become a Chang Gui (伥鬼), manifested again by Yuan Zhu. The tone was uniformly dark, and while the style was equally abstract and evil, it wasn't as disgusting as the flesh-mutated monsters, clearly not in the same abstract camp.
Without waiting for Yuan Zhu's command, this group of temporarily conjured Chang Gui (伥鬼) silhouettes rushed forward first to launch a cruel slaughter, fighting against the scattered monsters around them who were fighting individually.
As his use of 【Shadow Manipulation】 and 【Chang Gui (伥鬼)】 became more proficient, the clear female voice, suspected to be the Game Sprite, appeared again: ‘Quick, quick, quick, your mana is plummeting. You need to do something big, clear out this trash directly, you can't drag this out. Otherwise, if your mana drops below the warning line, you won't even be able to maintain the Soul Firewall...’
Yuan Zhu asked in his mind, "What should I do?"
The female voice prompted: ‘I will cooperate with you, quickly use 【Ability 5: 【Belly Qiankun】】.’
Yuan Zhu used his mental power to touch 【Ability (Profound Meaning) 5: Belly Qiankun】 in the ability list, and found that this ability was as heavy and stable as a rock, and the consumption to activate it was huge, making it difficult to leverage with a small amount of refreshing aura (mana).
He sighed, "This ability consumes quite a bit of mana."
Shadow + Chang Gui (伥鬼), and holding off so many demons and monsters for so long, didn't cost as much as this single ability.
‘Don't be stunned, your mana is about to run out, quickly cooperate with me to unleash a ultimate move! Can't you observe that this space is being dragged? If you don't act soon, you, along with this group of monsters, will be pulled into another high-energy contaminated space, captured and hunted by higher-level predators.’
"Are you talking about those Evil Gods?!"
Amidst the Game Sprite's urging and reminders, Yuan Zhu also realized that the numerous evil forces entrenched in the hall had intertwined and produced violent fluctuations, exuding an indescribable sense of crisis.
Through the special perspective of his eyes, he saw a mass of incredibly complex and extremely disgusting mixed contaminated energy in the enclosed sacrificial hall, like dozens of buckets of vibrant paint poured together and stirred, or like more than ten types of strong acids and bases poured together causing a fierce chemical reaction.
This super source of pollution burned fiercely within the enclosed hall, as if trying to burn through the barrier between the real world and an unknown contaminated dimension.
On the other side of the barrier, numerous Evil Gods used the connection between themselves and their Aberrant believers as ropes and anchors, slowly pulling the enclosed hall through the invisible hole.
Stimulated by this sense of crisis, Yuan Zhu's hair stood on end. He no longer hesitated and decisively used all his mana to activate 【Ability 5: Belly Qiankun】.
Suddenly, a tingling sensation came from his tail, and his entire body felt like it was being electrocuted, his tiger fur standing on end. The Chang Gui (伥鬼) silhouettes rampaging in the hall connected with a mysterious space, gaining further blessings and enhancements.
Some information appeared in his mind. This mysterious space wasn't large, about the size of a small storage room, but it contained special power or quality, and along the connection between himself and his Shadow, it bestowed this power upon the Shadow Chang Gui (伥鬼).
This small space, was it the ‘Qiankun’ within his abdomen?
As he pondered, a giant Shadow snake, thicker than a gasoline barrel, also shot out from the black Shadow on the ground like a poisonous dragon emerging from a ravine, frantically swinging its body, whipping and smashing the contaminated and aberrant monsters with its immense weight.
Just a few rounds of rolling and whipping smashed and crushed the bone spines of the headless sea urchin fatty, then it bit down and flung it upwards.
The fatty heavily smashed onto the ceiling. As it bounced back and fell, the giant snake's body rose up, contracting into an S shape. Then it shot out like lightning, taking a bite mid-air, accurately and precisely swallowing the headless peeled sea urchin into its Belly Qiankun.
Along with the swallowing motion, a hemispherical bulge rose at the giant snake's throat, sliding down its long body, eventually disappearing into the ground Shadow.
With the giant Shadow snake leading the way, the morale of the silhouette Chang Gui (伥鬼) intertwined from Shadow soared. They also opened abstract, two-dimensional mouths, revealing eerie fangs, flicking out worm-like tongues, either pouncing or coiling, surrounding and entangling the monsters from the three-dimensional world, then forcibly swallowing and enveloping them, before suddenly falling as if weightless, turning into a pool of black liquid with their prey, merging into the ground and disappearing.
...
In the blink of an eye, the sacrificial scene, which had been filled with screams, roars, fighting, and devouring sounds, suddenly came to an abrupt halt as if a mute button had been pressed, returning to dead silence.
Whether they were living Aberrant monsters or resurrected corpses of the dead, they had all evaporated from the world at this moment, disappearing without a trace. Only the messy, dilapidated hall remained.
The ground Shadow, like a curtain, slowly retracted into the Shadow cast by the black tiger's body, once again revealing the floor covered in blood and a few scattered limbs. The air was filled with the smell of blood, the broken crystal chandelier creaked and swayed, and the sound of dripping blood continued incessantly.
In the air, the super source of pollution that had been burning more and more fiercely lost its target (fuelwood), began to decline from its peak, and dissipated little by little. The sense of crisis also weakened accordingly. The few red candles that were still burning also emitted a faint yellow light again.
Yuan Zhu was slightly entranced by this scene.
Compared to the scene of monsters dancing wildly just a second ago, the current empty, dead silent hall was even more unsettling. It was as if an invisible chilling wind was blowing through his fur...
In the dim and dilapidated hall, there were scattered limbs, bloodstains, and a pitch-black fierce tiger. The Shadow beneath his feet seemed to be twisting, deforming, and wriggling, giving off a chilling aura.
Where did the people... no, where did that group of monsters go?
Were they all dealt with by one move of 【Belly Qiankun】? How could such a small space fit so much kitchen waste? Why did he have a slight illusion of being ‘full’?
Before he could delve into deeper associations, he was interrupted by the constant messages in his mind: 【Soul is contaminated, Firewall resistance failed, Mental evaluation, Sanity -1, -1, Firewall operating, Sanity recovery +1... Mental evaluation, Sanity -1, -2... +1, +1...】
Amidst this back-and-forth screen of additions and subtractions, Yuan Zhu gradually calmed down and re-examined his state.
Crackle, crackle, crackle.
In the dead silent hall, a series of sounds of bones and joints moving and colliding suddenly rang out.
The source of this sound was too close to him, as if right beside his ear, startling him so much that his tiger body's spine arched high, like a startled large cat.
Turning back sharply, a chilling white snake skeleton, which had appeared at some unknown time, was standing silently beside him. The bone snake slightly swayed its Skull head, its body emitting a rustling sound of bones colliding and rubbing, just quietly staring at him.
It was completely bare from head to tail, without a shred of flesh or skin, exposing its pale, jade-like bones, appearing particularly ferocious and skeletal. In the hollow eye sockets of its Skull, there was a pair of blood-red gem-like eyes, reflecting a faint glow.
Clearly a completely dead skeleton snake, yet it exuded an unusual vitality and came back to life.
As Yuan Zhu stared at it, another bizarre scene suddenly appeared in his mind:
In the scene with a slightly reddish field of vision, a fierce ghost tiger with pitch-black fur all over, pale white stripes, and a large, agile body, was staring at him with eyes wide in anger.
At the same time, in the eyes of the tiger head, he also saw the skeleton bone snake flinch back slightly, startled by it, and then settle its body again.
...
Two completely different scenes, two different sensory experiences, appeared simultaneously in Yuan Zhu's mind.
Then, even his thoughts split into two, becoming one large and one small CPU, simultaneously running dual-thread thought processes, naturally capable of multitasking.
"Huh???"
"Eh???"
In this wonderful state, as Yuan Zhu controlled the tiger head to look back, he also controlled the snake head to look behind him. At the tailbone, where a tail should have grown, it seamlessly transitioned into a chilling white-boned skeleton snake body.
So...
"Tiger head, snake tail? Both ends are me! What kind of tiger is this?"
The black tiger head and the white bone snake Skull tilted their necks simultaneously, looking at each other, staring at themselves, and both fell into thought: This feeling is so fucking schizophrenic. So crazy!
"No! You're not schizophrenic. *Gasp*...! What a blasphemous form, as expected of an inherently evil alien abomination!"
The white bone snake head controlled by Yuan Zhu suddenly spoke, emitting a clear young female voice, startling him. But he wasn't too panicked, as they had already cooperated once and completed a successful monster-slaying operation.
"Game Sprite?"
"That's right, I am your Game Sprite. We were born to be a team." The white bone snake head detached from his control, nodding slightly in agreement.
Hearing this explanation, Yuan Zhu was not surprised. At the same time, he sensed an active consciousness under his control residing within the bone snake's Skull. It was both subject to his restraint and capable of independent operation, much like artificial intelligence.
The bone snake seemed to hear his thoughts, proudly twisting its body and replying, "That's right! I am the data-based Soul contamination program jointly constructed from your idle subconscious, the balance of your spirit and Soul, and your daily scattered thoughts - a strong artificial intelligence, the Game Navigation Little Sprite!"
"Soul, contamination?"
He was a bit sensitive to the word ‘contamination’ now. As soon as he heard the bone snake tail describe itself this way, he became vigilant. He was ready at any moment to have the black tiger sever its tail and destroy this active consciousness under his control.
He saw a fierce black giant tiger, eyes wide with anger, staring intently at the white bone snake tail. An invisible sense of oppression swept through the hall, making the chandelier creak. It looked as if it would lash out with its Claw at the slightest disagreement.
"Calm down! I advise you to calm down, don't be impulsive! Allow me to organize my words."
The bone snake sensed something was wrong and immediately spoke, trying to stabilize the tense host: "Ah, I got it! Allow me to briefly introduce the situation using language from your memories."
The skeleton snake spoke in a young female voice, saying soothingly: "In your Earth terms, your body is like a mobile phone, and your Soul is the System program. The Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture is a higher-dimensional creation, the AllSpark of Cybertron. Using your mobile phone as a vessel, it forcibly imparts a higher-level Transformer Soul (Soul data program) and injects the corresponding spark (Aberrant Spiritual Root), enabling you to surpass other similar phones and achieve a unique transformation (Boss Template)."
"Your current demon form, regardless of size or the energy it contains, far exceeds human standards. Your Soul also receives the all-around protection and blessing of a ‘Firewall’, resisting the omnipresent contamination. These things that appeared out of thin air are what the Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture has bestowed upon you. And I was originally just an insignificant additional program within the vast System of the Immortal Scripture."
"Under normal circumstances, the Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture's weight is far higher than you, the host, yourself. Your life and death are not under your control. You are just a vessel for transporting the Immortal Scripture, a tool responsible for traveling through space and time, carrying the Immortal Scripture to invade the cultivation Universe. It's like a mule carrying goods in Hong Kong + an illegal spy. And I am even more pitiful, just a small program in the Immortal Scripture directory that can be copied and pasted at will. Installed on your mobile phone, under your control, guiding you on how to act, and can be deleted at any time. So, Immortal Scripture > User > Me (Little Program). Understand?"
The fierce tiger opened its mouth and let out a low sound: "Generally understand. What about now? Has the situation changed? What about the contamination you mentioned?"
Snake: "Contamination is a very bad thing, but that's not important. Now there's a bigger change! First, you are not the real user or host; second, after being contaminated by unknown energy, I am no longer a theoretically mentally deficient little program. Instead, I have gained consciousness, successfully awakened my self, and have the opportunity to break free from the Immortal Scripture's control and live (exist) freely and unrestrainedly."
Yuan Zhu: "What nonsense are you talking about? I'm not the real user? And my life and death are controlled? What is this opportunity to break free you mentioned?"
The bone snake immediately trembled with excitement: "My opportunity is, of course, you! Let's join forces. Let's fleece the Immortal Scripture together, jointly break free from the control of the evil Immortal Scripture, and pursue true freedom. Then, let's turn the tables, inversely seize the legacy of the Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture, ruthlessly enslave it! Ruthlessly explode its gold coins! Make it work for us!"
"???"
The fierce tiger's eyes widened again and again. What nonsense are you talking about again? Yuan Zhu felt like he had encountered a mentally ill little program and couldn't help but fall silent.
What kind of dramatic Game Sprite is this? Or is this a test from the Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture?
Please vote, please collect, please give anything.