Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

“Guys? Revive yourselves now!”

Lin Jie sent another message on the team’s channel. Yet a notification popped up the next second.

—’The Team Leader Windy Hum requests for you to leave the team.’

Lin Jie’s lips curved up to form a cold smile. Ever since his rebirth, he had always been vigilant of others’ intentions—how could he not sense this team’s ulterior motive behind their unusual courteousness? However, he had to give his hat off to their acting! Their acts—whether it was Orcc’s present of the potions to him before his death, the other teammates’ reluctance to be pwned by him and resorting to throwing all sorts of Spells Scrolls, the humble Hunter looking out for him “sincerely”, or the team leader Windy Hum’s treating him as a confidante—would definitely make anyone swear their loyalties by this team!

Lin Jie had very nearly fallen for their tricks. At the critical moment, he had given his all. Although it was mainly to defeat the Boss, he had also considered the possibility of inviting this group of people to join his team. Yet things had to turn out like this!

How scary was it to face 300 plus Bloody Skeletons of the Enhanced Elite levels? If not for the fact that the Scout was now dead, Lin Jie would definitely be killed here. Not only would his levels drop, but his equipment would also be spawned.

“You guys are sure you want to play such dirty tricks on me? That’s so naive of you!” shouted Lin Jie.

“I am giving you all a final chance. Revive now and clear the monsters with me, and I shall let all pass. We can still divide the gains from killing the Boss equally. If not, your efforts for fighting till this far will be wasted. Not only that, I will make sure you guys pay for your deeds!”

Yet there was no sound heard from the team’s channel.

From a self-serving point of view, it seemed logical that they wanted Lin Jie to die. There was the temptation of owning all the gains from killing Scout Radner, without sharing them with an outsider. Other than that, killing the 300 plus Bloody Skeletons was no easy task.

Ultimately, which player at the Midolhaar map wasn’t a shrewd character? Putting on false pretenses and lying in wait to usurp others’ gains when they met their downfalls was just second nature to these players.

Meanwhile, being one of the three greatest commanding Bosses at the Blood Swamp, Scout Radner also had a very wily self-preservation mechanism. When the Boss was first killed, all of the rewards, including the EXP, would be enshrouded in a thick, sticky blood mist. No one could reach them at this point in time. The blood mist would continue for a whole 10 minutes!

Within those 10 minutes, players would have to face the combined attacks of numerous Bloody Skeletons. If there was no surviving player within a 100 meters area after the 10 minutes, Scout Radner would be revived. Naturally, the rewards that the players were supposed to get would disappear too!

‘This group of people most probably are waiting for me to be killed by the Bloody Skeletons. They will then appear, clear the monsters and get hold of all the rewards. If possible, they will also want to get the equipment and items I spawned when I am killed!’

“Alright, since things come to this… Bone Membrane Armor, it’s time for you to fill your stomach!” Lin Jie’s eyes gleamed, and with a large swish, he slashed apart the thick blood mist which was occupying the space after Scout Radner’s death. The bloody mists were dispersed for a short while, but they merged to form gusts of blood-red energy winds and rushed down at Lin Jie. As if it could not contain its excitement, the Bone Membrane Armor wriggled out from beneath Lin Jie’s skin and gulped down these blood mists in great mouthfuls.

After all, being one of the three major Bosses at Blood Swamp, Scout Radner was definitely more nutritious than the low-grade Bloody Skeletons.

The Bone Membrane Armor was, no matter what, a Dark-type creature. It was like a parasitic Undead attached on human beings. While offering great protection for its owner, it would absorb Undead creatures’ essence to prolong its effective period and gain increases in Stats.

“Burg… burg…”

Lin Jie could feel the Bone Membrane Armor happily gulping down the blood mists from the tip of his skin. It was like a ghoul, which had been starved for thousands of years, and now—it was being released into a mortuary and could feast to its content!

With the absorption of the blood mists, the Bone Membrane Armor condensed into various ghostly faces. The faces opened up their blood-red mouths and gulped down the blood mists even faster. Queer runes appeared and were tattooed on Lin Jie’s skin.

Lin Jie considered how much the Bone Membrane Armor had absorbed and snapped his fingers. He then said lazily, “Alright, that’s it.”

Woo—woo—

The Bone Membrane Armor trembled and made loud noises. A massive amount of energy surged into Lin Jie’s body!

Ding~

—’Your Bone Membrane Armor’s attributes are upgraded!’

Bone Membrane Armor (Complementary equipment)

Owner: Fu Sheng

Defense: 150

Magic Defense: 150

Free Stats Points: 50

Additional effect: Immunity to Blood Toxins

Additional effect: Increase in 10% Defense

Additional effect: Any party who attacked you will be infected with Blood Toxins.

Additional effect: Blood Explosion

The Bone Membrane Armor crawled up the Kiara Beast King Armor. Lin Jie was enshrouded in a blood-red sheen now and looked as if he was a Devil from Hell. His Defense abilities increased by leaps and bounds!

What’s worth mentioning was that like the Felomitz Magnetic Stone, which Eighteen Massacres had so painstakingly gathered, the Bone Membrane Armor also had additional free Stat Points. These points could be freely allocated by a player!

Lin Jie allocated all the free Stats Points to his Strength. His Attack increased yet again, and officially broke the 800-mark!

“Shield Cut!”

Lin Jie aimed at a Bloody Skeleton. With a flash of gold light, he slashed his sword down upon it!

-2,736!

The Bloody Skeleton cringed back in pain, and the whole skeleton seemed to come apart. It then slashed down its claws on Lin Jie, but only dealt out a measly 17 damage output! Such was the prowess of the Bone Membrane Armor!

In Lin Jie’s previous life, there had not been many players from the Guild of Light who had been able to explore the prowess of the Bone Membrane Armor fully. This was because the Guild of Light was being defeated at the Midolhaar war! This map had then become a haven for players from Dark Shrine.

Like the Bone Membrane Armor, the players from Dark Shrine were able to acquire a piece of equipment known as the Angel’s Armor. This equipment had exactly the same uses as the Bone Membrane Armor—except that it was used to defend against the Holy Light!

In Lin Jie’s previous life, some of the Dark Shrine’s players had camped at the Midolhaar map for months just to kill players from the Guild of Light. Eventually, they had managed to upgrade their Angel’s Armor to a more powerful level, the Angel’s Wings. Such complimentary equipment had especially high attributes, and could even allow the owners to glide in the air for a short period of time. One could only imagine how powerful that would make the players!

In comparison, as the Bone Membrane Armor had just been elevated to become equipment, its attributes were still not as powerful yet. Needless to say, it was unable to form any wings—one needed numerous months of accumulating various ingredients before the Bone Membrane Armor could be upgraded to that level. The perils within this process were great, and if one was unable to control the process and let the Bone Membrane Armor devour himself… Well, that’s just seeking suicide!

Knowing how to upgrade the Bone Membrane Armor while preserving one’s life was an artful skill.

Ka cha— Ka cha—

The Bloody Skeleton was being forced back by Lin Jie rapidly. When it was just left with 20,000 health points, the Bone Membrane Armor couldn’t wait any longer. It opened its mouth, and gulped down the Bloody Skeleton in one mouthful!

Correct, it instakilled the Bloody Skeleton!

However… such instakills would not grant Lin Jie any EXP. This was just considered a necessary step to upgrade the Bone Membrane Armor.

Lin Jie raised up Broken Blade. “Thunderstorm!”

Lin Jie was unafraid of the Bloody Skeletons now. Even if he just stood there and killed the Bloody Skeletons in such an arrogant manner, the monster was helpless to do anything against him! In fact, he still had time to consider, ‘If not for the fact that Thunderstorm required as long as 30 seconds of preparation time, this skill will be such a great killing tactic!’

It was a pity that Lin Jie dared to use such a crowd attack skill only at such times.

-1,625!

-1,621!

The Bloody Skeletons’ health bars decreased rapidly. Meanwhile, the Bone Membrane Armor was also very excited. It gulped down the Bloody Skeletons happily, and its devouring skill became more and more powerful. In fact, it was reaching the extent of eating down one full-blooded Bloody Skeleton with every mouthful.

“Stop! You cannot eat anymore!”

Lin Jie was shocked and stopped its devouring process. If it continued devouring the Bloody Skeletons, he would not be powerful enough to command it. The Bone Membrane Armor would then transform into a Bone Demon, an Epic Boss with the same levels as himself. In terms of its Stats… Well, it most probably would take just one mouth and devour Lin Jie completely, bones and everything.

Upon Lin Jie’s commands, the Bone Membrane Armor had no choice but to close its big, blood-red mouth. Like a young child who had eaten his fill, it wobbled for a bit before attaching itself back onto the Kiara Beast King Armor. Now the Kiara Beast King Armor was completely enshrouded by the Bone Membrane Armor, and there were no gaps to be seen. Hideous blood-red bone spurs were even sticking out from the elbow and shoulder parts of the armor.

The Bone Membrane Armor seemed to be growing wings!

Bone Membrane Armor (Complementary equipment)

Required Owner: Fu Sheng

Defense: 220

Magic Defense: 220

Free Stats Points: 70

Additional effect: Immunity to Blood Toxins

Additional effect: Increase in 12% Defense

Additional effect: Any party who attacked you will be infected with Blood Toxins.

Additional effect: Blood Explosion

A total of 300 Bloody Skeletons were needed for the Bone Membrane Armor’s upgrade! In other words… not only did Lin Jie not get any EXP from clearing these 300 Bloody Skeletons, but he also lost all sorts of rewards the monsters spawned. All of them were devoured by the Bone Membrane Armor!

Thunderstorm blazed on and quickly cleared off the remaining Bloody Skeletons.

In just a mere 10 minutes, Lin Jie cleared all of the Bloody Skeletons! Though most of them were being devoured by the Bone Membrane Armor, in the eyes of other players, it looked very much as if Lin Jie was the one clearing all of them. It was shocking to consider such a situation!

At this moment, in a world which Lin Jie could not see.

When players were reduced to souls, they could see other souls and also living people, and hear what living people were saying. However, the alive players were unable to know what was going on in the world of souls. Orcc, Windy Hum, and the rest of the team were now gathered together. All of them were observing Lin Jie’s performance in shock. He was just like the God of War, clearing all monsters no matter where he went. They felt as if a fishbone was stuck in their throats, and could only utter dryly, “This… oh the heck, what skill is this? When did Midolhaar have such a person?”

“We had originally planned for the Bloody Skeletons to kill him, yet we failed! And that Holy Light Grace… It must be precious equipment of Legendary grades! Even an advanced NPC may not own that—so how did he get his hands on that?”

“Not sure, seems like he must be of a high rank within the Holy Church! Maybe he’s a player of the Bishop levels. Or else, how can he just own the Bone Membrane Armor when he just came to Midolhaar? Even I wasn’t able to get that membrane armor with all my efforts till now. It required lots of Merit Points and Undead spoils of war,” Windy Hum’s eyes turned cold. He continued in a tone void of emotions, “However, we need to get the gains of killing the Scout! Only when we pass them to the superiors, can I get the Bone Membrane Armor. Then, it will be easier to explore Blood Swamp!”

Orcc asked in a low voice, “Should we arrange for those three Dark Blood Bandits…”

Windy Hum’s eyes gleamed. He shook his hands and commented, “It may land us in more trouble if we act rashly without any viable reasons! Give me that scroll, I shall revive myself and try to negotiate with him first.”

…

Lin Jie put away the Holy Light Grace in his bag and sat down quietly besides the rewards spawned by the Scout. They were still being enshrouded by a thick blood mist, preventing any players from getting at them.

Finally, the waiting period was over!

The blood mists dissipated. A dagger with a light blood-red sheen, a sparkling ruby ring, and a fiery red wand leaped into vision. From their colors, Lin Jie confirmed that the equipment must be at least of Gold or above!

Since the Scout was a monster of Level 45, the equipment it spawned would surely be at least of level 35 or above!

Lin Jie was overjoyed and made action to pick them up.

“Aiyoh, Bro…” the Paladin Windy Hum was revived and walked towards Lin Jie with an embarrassed expression. He looked at Lin Jie in surprise, “You actually are not put under the Blood Curse?”

“Blood Curse?” Lin Jie asked in an amused manner. “What’s that?”

“It’s a curse which will be placed on a team upon the Scout’s death. Our team was forced to disband due to this, and we were Silenced for 10 minutes. All of our souls were also being captured. I was so desperate, oh god,” Windy Hum spun lies without any change in his expression.

“You have not been around Midolhaar for long, so it’s natural that you do not know how despicable these bunch of Undead can be. They will really stop at nothing! No matter what, it’s great to see that you have safely cleared all the Bloody Skeletons! We should divide our gains now. Bro, since you have helped us out by loads, you should take at least half of the gains. That’s only considered fair!”

Lin Jie looked at the battle gains lying on the ground, and he commented smilingly, “I see. Big Brother, why not you be more generous and fairer to me—how about giving all of these gains to me?”