Chapter 251 - ’Times Have Changed 2.0

Chapter 251: Chapter 248: ’Times Have Changed 2.0The sudden downpour was particularly fierce at the moment; in the midst of the storm, the suspension bridge resembled a small boat that could be flipped by the waves at any time.

Su Ming’an stepped onto the wooden planks and rushed forward quickly, the raindrops striking his face and blurring his vision.

The cliffs at both ends were about two hundred meters apart—a dangerous distance, but one he covered swiftly, and in a short while, he had quickly crossed to the opposite bank.

After setting down Dong Xue and Suzune, he took out his sword, crouched down, and observed the construction of the suspension bridge.

The suspension bridge hung on several thin wires, with a wooden surface made from thin planks that seemed ready to collapse in the wind and rain.

He observed it for a moment and felt that his idea might be feasible.

He wanted to create a trap here, to kill those white creatures.

As long as the enemy chased him here, he would stand at this end of the cliff, waiting for them to rush at him one by one. He would then use the narrow terrain of the wire bridge to avoid a situation where he was outnumbered, making it easier to pick them off separately.

He did not know whether using the terrain counted as his experience, but if necessary, he could seize the chance to immediately sink the suspension bridge, dropping the white creatures into the river below.

This was a very good place to harvest experience points.

Having crossed the bridge, he was now somewhat invincible.

The rain was pouring down heavily; he wiped the water from his face and noticed the columns that held the wires on both sides, and the triangular supports underneath the bridge, which prevented the bridge from falling in the rain.

He stepped forward, his sword’s tip infused with annihilation, cutting the surrounding wires thinner and thinner. Then, squatting down, he also cut the iron pieces connecting the wooden planks, thinning their thickness so they could be easily severed in one strike.

While cutting, he suddenly felt a surge of pain all over his body. This pain erupted momentarily from various parts, as if his body was being pierced by numerous sharp implements.

Especially his eyes, he felt as if something hook-like was piercing through his pupils, extending ferociously from the back of his skull, bringing with it a bone-deep sting.

"Hiss..."

He sucked in a breath of cold air, pausing his actions momentarily.

He knew where this inexplicable feeling of pain came from; it was the equivalent shock of his clone’s death.

... Ming’an had also died.

Earlier, when he let Ming’an part, he knew the clone would not be returning, and its survival till now had already exceeded his expectations.

He glanced at the experience bar and kill notification; Ming’an had killed nine white creatures during this period and had advanced to Third Rank Three.

There were still about twenty-odd white creatures left for him to face.

With the bridge blocked, it wasn’t difficult.

He looked up, gazing at the storm-tossed suspension bridge in front of him, and sheathed his sword.

The rain seemed to be getting heavier, turning from moderate to downpour, darkening the surrounding environment as the river below clashed against the cliff walls, creating a massive crashing sound.

In the dark, rain-heavy environment, he felt the scene before him darkening further.

He looked at his san value, which had already dropped to 58 points.

It was a value where hallucinations could occur; this was not a safe level, and he needed to avoid further deterioration of his mental state.

... he would switch back to Shadow State first.

Su Ming’an returned to the edge of the cliff and began to switch states.

The power he could control receded bit by bit, and the sword in his hand felt much heavier; he could feel each raindrop that hit his body becoming heavier.

However, fortunately, after completing the switch, his vision seemed much clearer immediately. The pervasive sense of eeriness also receded, including a dramatic enhancement in his perception of his surroundings.

Every time he switched states, he needed a period of adjustment; after all, the contrast between the Shadow and Bright states was stark, and just adapting to it took a while.

He shook his hands and moved his body, then noticed Dong Xue and Suzune standing nearby.

These two indeed saw him as the leader and now listened to everything he said. They just stood silently on the side without any orders, even if they got drenched like two drenched chickens.

Dong Xue’s pair of pitch-black eyes were now intensely focused on him.

Her disheveled black hair clung to her body, and the straps on her shoulders trembled with her body, apparently she was freezing.

The clothes on them were initially thin because Dong Xue had been running all the way, and her legs were covered in cuts from grass blades.

...Continuing this way, she might be at risk of developing a high fever.

Su Ming’an certainly did not want the person he had finally saved to end up dying from an illness.

"Go

He noticed that there were fine cracks on the blade, likely left from the intense battle earlier.

Glancing at the Sword of Yarman’s panel, its durability was now only 8 points.

He took out two repair stones from his backpack, crushed them, and blue light flew from the stones, swirling around the blade, seemingly performing repairs.

The Sword of Yarman’s durability gradually rose back to 18.

He had looted about thirty or forty of these repair stones in the Fifth World, considering the overall base, this should count as a precious prop.

Generally speaking, equipment and weapons should be maintained during the rest periods in the Main God Space before being brought into an instance. They should not be using such items for last-minute repairs in the instance.

But at the current stage, the backup occupation players responsible for maintaining the equipment were quite behind in skill, and maintaining the equipment was not only costly but also risked equipment breakage. Therefore, many players carried onwards without maintaining their weapons, simply discarding them in their backpacks once used up. Perhaps in the later stages, this situation might improve since discarding a weapon just because its durability ran out seems too wasteful.

Su Ming’an had evolved the Sword of Yarman once before, restoring its durability to full value. He hadn’t expected that this instance would require such intense fighting, thus he was forced to use the repair stones.

Watching the cracks on the Sword of Yarman slowly heal, he entertained the idea of finding another weapon.

After all, in the future it was inevitable that he and Ming would be fighting simultaneously, so it was necessary to prepare more than one weapon.

Moreover, he also needed to consider some special circumstances where weapons might slip from his hands.

While thinking, and wiping the sword, Su Ming’an suddenly felt a void above him.

Dong Xue spread the dry clothes over his head, shielding him from the torrential downpour.

Su Ming’an yanked down the clothes, "What are you doing?"

"Don’t get rained on, it’s cold," Dong Xue said. "You will feel cold too."

"Mind your own business," Su Ming’an stuffed the clothes back into the compartment of his backpack, and since this garment had gotten wet, he had to give Dong Xue another set of dry clothes.

"Just make sure you don’t fall ill or get a fever, that would be the biggest help to me," Su Ming’an handed her a new set of clothes and told her the truth.

He hadn’t expected that such cold words of his would actually make Dong Xue show a bright smile.

"Yeah. I understand," Dong Xue smiled and said, "I know, Xia is the best."

She looked at him as if viewing a satisfying piece of work.

Smiling, she took Suzune and left.

Gazing at her retreating figure, Su Ming’an still found it hard to understand her tendency to form emotional attachments to fictional characters.

But this was not the time to think about that.

He turned around, discarded the blood-stained cloth in his hand, held his sword, and looked toward the white stream rushing in from the other side of the cliff.

A pair of fierce, wolf-like eyes, flickering with blood-red light, gradually appeared against the darkening sky.

Before them stood a tall, thin figure in a white coat, twirling a sharp scalpel in his hand—it was Xia Luoyang.

"Luoyang," Xia Luoyang called out to him loudly from the other end.

The white creatures behind him slowly came to a halt, seemingly obeying Xia Luoyang’s commands.

Su Ming’an stared intently at the other side, where the figure of Xia Luoyang was slowly approaching in his dimming field of vision.

Accompanied by a "ding-ding-ding" sound of chains clashing, Xia Luoyang stepped onto the wooden plank with one foot.

Through the cold wind and the curtain of rain, Xia Luoyang’s voice carried over with a leisurely hint:

"...Luoyang, are you really going to leave without gaining all the clues?"

Su Ming’an knew in his heart upon hearing these words.

The most crucial clue he had obtained earlier was a narrative given to him by Flax before his death.

In that narrative, the system panel clearly displayed a (1/3).

This meant that besides the crucial clue from Flax, he was still missing two crucial clues.

From the perspective of the game mechanics, he believed that the remaining two crucial clues were from Dong Xue and Xia Luoyang.

...Since there could be no others.

He had activated the escape line in advance, so the teacher of the third day would not fall within his range of consideration; the only key people he could contact were Dong Xue and Xia Luoyang.

Dealing with Dong Xue was manageable; he had saved her and believed that after some time, he could persuade her to provide the clues.

But Xia Luoyang...

He guessed that the conditions to obtain Xia Luoyang’s clue might be the same as with Flax.

If he wanted to achieve a perfect pass, he would likely have to defeat the opponent...

Su Ming’an raised his head.

There, Xia Luoyang stood on the chained wooden plank, his body swaying slightly with the bridge’s movement.

Xia Luoyang seemed to have anticipated that the bridge might have been tampered with; he stood on one foot and showed no intention of fully stepping onto it.

Su Ming’an checked his own status; his health and mana bars had already been fully replenished. He casually opened the attribute panel and allocated all his free attribute points to physical strength.

...What he needed most now was physical strength.

Even if physical strength did not add to health points in the shadow state, he still needed it.

Physical strength encompasses not only health points but also a person’s ability to endure physically, resistance, load capacity, stamina, and more... If he wanted to last in this kind of group battle, he needed to enhance his physical strength.

As the sky grew darker, the heavy rain pressed down onto the ground.

Facing the piercing cold wind, Su Ming’an wiped the rain off his face and stood atop the cliff, staring at the line of white figures formed on the opposite side.

The sight was becoming increasingly dark, and he could already faintly hear the eerie singing of children.

"It seems you don’t really want to answer me?" Xia Luoyang called out distantly from the other end.

"There’s no turning back now," Su Ming’an said, "You’ve already said that you won’t help me."

"...you chose the path you least should have chosen," Xia Luoyang said with some regret, looking at him. "If you could have just stayed quietly in White Sand Paradise, maybe there wouldn’t be so many barriers between us."

Su Ming’an didn’t speak.

He was originally named Xia Yang and started as a doctor; naturally, his sanity value was not favorable.

After undergoing a sanity valuation by Dong Xue, his condition had drastically deteriorated.

He couldn’t stay in White Sand Paradise any longer; he had to choose the escape line; otherwise, he might truly be driven mad.

"Ming," he called to his Cloning.

He now had 256 points, 2 Occupation Points. Since he had already used 10 Occupation Points to summon Shadow and Ming, this time, points would be deducted.

points were deducted, and Ming appeared in front of him.

Su Ming’an tossed the Sword of Yarman he held to him, slightly stepped back, his expression focused.

He was calculating the number of enemies opposite him.

"...Are we starting the battle?" Xia Luoyang asked from the other side, seemingly quite regretful.

Su Ming’an ignored him, silently counting the number of opponents.

If the opponent had not hidden any abilities and had deployed all the living white creatures, there were twenty-six people standing on the opposite cliff, not including Xia Luoyang.

He didn’t dare bet on the chance of Xia Luoyang letting him go; he preferred to include Xia Luoyang in his precautionary measures.

If Xia Luoyang were on the same level as Flax, he would face twenty-six Berserkers, each only vulnerable at the neck and unafraid to die, plus an enemy with 2000 Combat Power.

The storm intensified.

Su Ming’an was looking at the opposite side from a distance of 200 meters, watching as a white surge gradually approached.

Xia Luoyang was deliberately retreating; on his sides, white creatures made way for him, and after he retreated, the white defensive line silently closed up again.

The suspension bridge creaked as the first white creature stepped onto the wooden planks.

"Dingling— Dingling—"

Heart locks still hung on the suspension bridge’s cables; their collision created a crisp sound even through the heavy rain curtain.

Ming stood at the cliff edge, hands gripping the sword.

Su Ming’an was consuming a Mana Potion; his Mana Points slowly recovered.

He had used up his three Spatial Displacements within the hour and had no way to retreat; if he could not hold off the attackers, he would have to cut the bridge’s cables.

He watched the bridge’s edge, observing as Ming swung his sword at the incoming white creature.

"Whoosh—!"

A line of blood spurted out; Ming very precisely struck the opponent’s neck. Blood mingled with the rain, and the white creature’s body twisted as Ming kicked it into a turbulent river.

The next white creature lunged forward. Although the suspension bridge was not wide, it could accommodate four people walking side by side—this was also why defending the bridge was difficult.

As Ming swung his sword, the white creature appeared to have learned, shielding its neck with its arm. "Clang—" the blade struck as if hitting steel, producing a fierce clang of metal dispatched.

Ming’s hand didn’t tremble; his close-combat Combat Power in the Bright State was actually above these individual white creatures, and the rebounding force couldn’t threaten him.

But suddenly, Su Ming’an, who was standing by recovering his mana, felt an intense sense of crisis.

He instinctively dodged to the side, feeling something swiftly graze his ribs, causing a burning pain.

He looked up to see Xia Luoyang, who was well-protected on the opposite cliff, holding a black gun.