"Will ye please get the hell away from meh? Staring at meh with dat big oranj’ eye of yers gives meh th’ heebie-jeebies!"
"I am sorry about that, but you are my Sun and Moons, my Beautiful Goddess, so my heart cannot help but be moved by your very presence."
*PUNCH*
"AH, YES! PLEASE! HIT ME MORE! I WANT TO FEEL YOUR TENDER TOUCH UPON MY FLESH AND METAL!"
"DON’T MAKE MEH PICKAXE YE! How do yah expect meh to look atcha when ye resemble a creatcher from th’ burnin’ hells? Not t’ menshn’, yah don’t even have a willy anehmore! Yer crotch is plated! Even if oi somehow accepted ya, how ye gonna be a father to meh children?"
"I CAN GROW IT BACK! YOU CAN EVEN PICK THE SIZE YOU DESIRE! I CAN EVEN MODIFY MY COHONES TO OUTPUT THE STRONGEST, PUREST GENES IN THE WORLD! WE CAN HAVE THE MOST PERFECT CHILDREN EVER!"
*PUNCH*
"Well, ye work on dat, an’ den come back to meh! Till ye figure it out, GIT OFF MAH CASE!"
Hmm...was Carmine actually playing Tsundere dwarf with Yi Gore? Pfuahaha! Was it because nobody had told her that she’s beautiful before? I could see that she was flushed in the face. Oh, look at those cute blushies! What do you know, Yi Gore might even stand a chance if he fixes himself up properly!
Fortunately, we had not encountered any more Hellbound after we had purged the cave, and we were now almost to our destination. I could see the village in the distance, which was surrounded by a tall wooden fence all around its borders, and also the Buddhist Temple which was even further up the road, on top of the hillside, looking a lot like the pyramidal Borobudur temple from Earth’s Indonesia, bells and statues included.
"Soo...what’s this place called? You never mentioned." I asked Lingfeng.
"Village of Piece."
"Don’t you mean Peace?"
"No, Piece as in component. Well, the long name would be The Village Where A Piece Of The Heavens Fell, but that’s too long. Everybody just calls it Piece now."
"And where is it?"
"Is what? The village is right there!"
"The Piece of the Heavens, duh!"
"Aw, THAT? Ah, no...that was just a rather large stray meteor that hit the surface of the planet a while ago. It left a decently large crater when it impacted the earth, but nothing else. A small village of craftsmen came into being over here after they struggled for a few years to dig out the leftover celestial rock from where it had landed, and then sold it off to one of the larger Sects.
"Just keep in mind that I’m talking only about normal, mortal people digging for years here, not any Cultivators. Any decent enough Geomancer worth his salt could have probably just plucked that thing right out of the ground in a matter of seconds. But the villagers used only their muscles and mortals skills to dig out the immense rock, and then sold it to the Major Sects as a rare crafting material, since it’s generally believed that space rocks like that have a stronger affinity with Attributeless Qi-manipulation than normal metals, having arrived from the very Void Beyond the World itself.
"The village prospered for a little while after that, and then a small Buddhist temple was built with some of the earnings, before everything evened out, and the village transformed into just another everyday place, albeit with a background story they could be proud about.
"After a few years though, the Buddhists dug into the earth to expand the Temple a little bit, only to find out that they had built their own small Temple on top of a much, MUCH larger and older Buddhist Monastery that had already been there in the first place, one that had been forgotten by the ages. When they broke into the layers of the Old Monastery beneath, that had been built deep into the hillside itself, they encountered large amounts of treasure, which seemed to have been an old and lost Kingdom’s entire treasury-worth of gold and jewels which had probably been taken here for safekeeping during a conflict, only to wind up lost to the annals of history for some unknown reason.
"After the Monks struck literal gold, they expanded the Temple and hired some very skilled architects and builders, resulting in what you see right now. It’s one of the most impressive Temples in the Empire, that’s for sure. Too bad it’s in the boonies, so nobody ever bothers to visit it.
"It’s also one of the safest places I know of, because the way the Temple was designed in the first place was to keep assailants at bay, so I thought it could make for a good Safe-Haven, even if the demoniacs found us somehow.
"Outside of the weird Temple, there’s nothing in this place that stands out. The people in the village are just average folk, and so are the Monks. You could find a setup like this in hundreds of other places around the three Empires if you were to look."
"Still...there has to be some sort of a gimmick to this place, otherwise you wouldn’t have picked it specifically and carried us halfway across the whole Ming Empire just for that."
"True enough. The reason why I brought everybody down here is because somewhere in the mountain peaks near this place, there’s an old abandoned Dungeon that nobody knows about. It’s a shabby old thing, barely even worth mentioning, and the only people that know about it in the entire world are me and my party, since we’re the ones that discovered it by accident in the first place, then sealed it back up. It was a low level Dungeon for us, and the loot and respawn rates were horrendous, so we just let it be. The Core wasn’t fueled enough to cause any trouble for the local population, it barely even had the capacity to perform basic maintenance on its own Dungen sections. While it was useless for my high-level party, that does not apply to you youngsters. If anything, I’m afraid some of the monsters in there might be too tough for you, since some of the Bosses in there can even go up to level 35. Still, it’s an ideal place for your party to go in and gain some experience and fight-coordination."
"My ”party”? What “party”?"
"Well, you know, Fung, Liliam, Xibei and Jin. Aren’t they your companions?"
"The rest, sure, I can work with them just fine, but JIN? AW HELL NO! I’m not helping that little fucker anymore! Nor do I want to involve myself in any more of his “destiny” bullshit-sequences. I’m done acting as a lightning-rod and problem redirector for all of his troubles! I thought you would just dump him together with the Monks, so he could get his shit together once we got to our destination. I have been putting up with him just because I thought we were going to be getting rid of him soon!"
━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━
As we were nearing the town’s walls, I began to smell the stench of death once more, as I spotted a few dangling corpses from some of the nearby trees. They were all wearing Cultist Robes, so I knew immediately why they had been hanged. The crows were having a feast pecking away at the bodies, ripping small chunks of flesh before flying away with the “prize” in their beaks.
*HALT! PUT YOUR HANDS UP WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!* An angry Guard suddenly shouted from one of the wooden wall parapets, while a whole group of armed men were pointing bows in our direction.
*WHAT DO YOU SEEK, COMING HERE DURING THESE TROUBLED TIMES?*
*WHAT DO YOU MEAN? I’M A SENIOR MONK OF THE TEMPLE, YOU TWIT! ISN’T IT OBVIOUS?* Lingfeng yelled back while holding his Monk staff above his head.
*HOW DO WE KNOW THAT WHAT YOU SAY IS TR…*
*AH! BROTHER ZHANG IS BACK!* Immediately a young Monk interrupted the rude Guard, waving his hands at us with joy in his eyes.
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? OPEN THE GATES! BROTHER ZHANG IS BACK!"
"But it’s not safe to…"
"It’s alright, he’s one of ours!" The Monk patted the Guard on the shoulder.
"UGH...Fine!"
*CREEEEEEAAAK* The wooden doors of the village slowly pried themselves open, leaving only enough room for a single person to pass through at a time.
"Zhang is back? What an auspicious day! Quickly, everybody, come welcome him!" An Elderly Monk rushed to our welcome, followed by a pack of youngsters.
"Brother Zhang! Where have you been?"
"Brother Zhang! Welcome back!"
"Brother Zhang! Brother Zhang! Are you going to tell us more of your adventuring stories?"
"UUU...Brother Zhang, are those your disciples? But you told us that you aren’t taking any disciples last time we asked you!"
The little Monks were fawning over the presence of “Brother Zhang”, and it became obvious to all of us by now that he had used this disguise before in the past.
"Head Monk Fan Hui! This prodigal son has returned home once more, and begs for your forgiveness." Lingfeng cupped his fist.
"Zhang! No need for that sort of talk! You will always be welcomed here among us!"
"Umm...sorry to ask, but why is everybody down here in the village though? Is there something wrong? And why the super-tight security?"
"Ah...about that...you come during troubled times, my friend. Everything was peaceful until the Dark Cultists came and overrun our Temple! Many were cut down, and those that survived were sacrificed to the dark overlords of those insane people! We never saw it coming! They just simply attacked all of us during the night, when everybody was sleeping...it was terrible! So many of the Children lost…(*SOB*HIC*)" The Monk began to cry and then took a swig out of a booze bottle, as the surviving acolytes were trying to comfort him.
"I...See..." I could feel the seething fury boiling away from Lingfeng’s body, as he was getting poised to go and shred some Cultist ass into pieces. "Tell me more about what actually happened. Come, everybody, let’s go to the inn."
"Cough...Senior “Brother Zhang”, it seems that the people here really love you. What have you been doing here in the past?" I elbowed Lingfeng while we were walking down the road towards the local inn while being followed by a bunch of small Monks who looked like little bald ducklings following their momma.
"Complicated story...I had to lay low for a while because of a Quest a few years ago, so I hid among the Monks of the Temple here. They somehow took a liking to me, and I got promoted to Senior Monk without me having a say in the matter. They are just naive, innocent children or simple Monks, with barely any of them having the potential to awaken their roots. They usually just live in harmony with the village at the base of the hill, trading goods back and forth, but now it seems that we have run into some trouble once more. If I get my hands on those Cultists, I will shred them into tiny little cubes then use them as fertilizer!"
"Sure...but we need more Info first. Something about this whole situation does not sit right with me."
"Right...Caution first."
Once we got to the inn, we all propped a few tables together to fit our whole group, and the Head Monk ordered himself another bottle of booze, much to the protests of his younger counterparts.
The old Head Monk then told us all about the recent night attack, and how they had been driven away from their Monastery from the top of the hill.
From the description of their robes and their behaviour, we gleaned that the assailants had been Blood Cultists, belonging to either the Blood Armageddon Sect or one of the offshoot branches, which were mad men that wanted to bring about the end of the world by “bathing it in blood to purify it”, and were also one of the five Sects that had been in cahoots with the Moon-Devouring Sect before its fall.
The worst news came when one of the younger Monks told us that he had seen some of the cultists carry down into the catacombs of the Old Monastery a “red swirly orb”, and I could bet my nonexistent hat that it was probably the Dungeon Core from the former nearby Dungeon that Lingfeng and his party had left untouched, which had now gotten transplanted to the bowels of the Monastery instead, turning the whole thing into a Dungeon Domain.
It made a lot of sense now why we were getting such high Qi concentration readings coming from the old Buddhist Temple, and the “Boss” of the Dungeon seemed mobile but still unable to come out to the top, since it was probably imprisoned down there by the Dungeon Core itself, and they were feeding off eachother in a vicious cycle.
This whole thing stank of Mother System’s interventionism!
Being totally pissed off about not being able to rest for even a single day without trouble showing up, I went to order myself a drink as well. Fortunately, this world had no laws forbidding minors from drinking, so I would have been able to get tanked without any problems if I really wanted to.
Still, I had never understood the joy of getting intoxicated until nearly passing out, since it did not contribute to anything good, therefore I never did that. Sure, I could imbibe one or two pints of ale to loosen the inhibitions and get into a jolly mood, but anything after that was just excessive and harmful to myself. It dulled my thinking and reaction time, and I hated that.
As I was ordering my drink, I spotted a muscular fellow with an overly large decorated pauldron that did not match the rest of his gear, which was talking loudly with a small girl with a pony-tail that had a bow strapped to her back and was sipping a drink at the bar, and I was able to catch some of their conversation.
"Please, nobody seems to want to listen to me! You seem to be like a person that knows what she's doing with that bow, so you could become a great support character if you could somehow shoot all of my enemies from behind me while I hold them at bay."
"So, what's in it for me if I choose to help you?" Asked the short huntress. "Look, I know that you are some sort of a Lordling, but I am not going to go and risk my neck out there there just for some empty promise of future rewards. You should know that even the crudest mercenaries are paid half up-front. You should show your “sincerity” first if you want my help." The girl rubbed two of her fingers together.
"Cough...I...don't currently have that much loose currency on myself. But I can assure you that you will be properly rewarded if..."
"What about that ring? Or that necklace? Those two look mighty expensive! A lot of jewels seem to be socketed in those things!"
"I can't possibly trade those! The ring contains the Seal of my House, and the amulet is a heirloom from my Grandmother!"
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Hmphff! If you're not willing to even sacrifice even a meager piece of jewellery to save your own Brother and Father, I do not know if I even want to be in your company..."
"How dare you! You know what? Fine, here! Take it! *Plong* Will this be enough for you to be willing to accompany me?"
"Maaaybe? I mean, I could consider this a downpayment, but how are you going to pay me if we keep going for a few days? Or weeks even? Also, how are we going to split the spoils that we find inside of the dungeon?"
"UGH!"
Personally, I was rather amused watching how the girl was milking the Lordling for all of his worth, as I would have probably done the same in her position.
So it seemed that there were more people besides us that wanted a piece of the action, which was good. More bodies meant more safety, especially when facing any Mad Cultists and Demonic Sects and Demons.
I left the Huntress and the Lordling to their negotiation, as I headed back to the Monk table with my newly-acquired drink.
After listening to the details about what had happened inside of the temple from the old Head Monk, Lingfeng and the Senior had begun to talk about their past and all of the people that had died, so I decided to make myself scarce and leave them to their sorrows, as I begged another of the younger Monks to show me around town.
The twenty-something years young Monk immediately complied with my request, and asked me which parts I wanted to see first, so I inquired whether there were any available spaces for rent or for sale around the town, since I did not want for all of us to have to remain cooped up inside of the inn for the entire duration of our staying. I needed some private space to unfold my Alchemical cauldron, so I wanted a house of my own.
He immediately nodded, and told me that a few “openings” had become available in the wake of the Cultists’ assault, as the former owners had died during the conflict. Hearing that one of the available places was also the former Blacksmith's house and had a forge inside of it, Carmine also decided to tag along with us, as she wanted to see exactly how rusty her Blacksmithing skills had become during her years of isolation.
After getting shown around the village a little bit, I stopped together with Carmine and the young Monk by the forge of the abandoned Smithy building, to check whether it was still usable.We walked right inside of the building, as it was already unlocked, since nobody had bothered to seal the place up after the old Smith had passed away.
"The owner...died recently." The Monk told us with bitterness in his voice.
"Do ye mind if oi use th' forge den? Oi 'aven't crafted anyfin' in many years, and oi want t' see how rusteh oi 'ave become."
"Sure, help yourself... I don't think he would have minded…"
"Wow! This forge has some really nice stuff inside of it! So many tools! The former owner must have been a true artisan!"
"He was indeed, and the village will most certainly miss his skills. He used to maintain the farming tools for the entire village, and now that he is gone, I do not know what we will do when something will start breaking down. He did not want to take any apprentices during his life, so his craft basically died with him once the cultists…(*Hic*Sniff*). God's dammit, the Dharma says that I shouldn't have such violent thoughts, but I cannot help but want to go back inside of the monastery and crack some cultist heads open!"
"I am sorry! I shouldn't have pried! Were you two close?"
"He was my drinking buddy for the last 5 years…"
"Damn... My sincere condolences then…"
*Screek*
*Tklunk*
Turning my head towards Carmine once more, I immediately noticed that she was handling herself around the entire forge like she had been born there, which only served to add fuel to the dwarven-blacksmith stereotype inside of my mind.
She was currently stocking the fire with the help of the bellows, to raise the temperature of the charcoals rapidly to a temperature high enough to process metal.
After the flame inside of the forge was burning hot enough, she then grabbed one of the iron bars that was still left over from the former Smith and began to heat it up until it was glowing yellow.
After that, she placed it on the anvil, picked up a medium-sized forging hammer, and then began to rapidly pound the freakin daylights out of the incandescent metal with extreme precision.
And when I say rapidly, I mean 1000 bpm or close in striking speed sort of rapid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vphSInneDNA
She was pounding the thing faster than an industrial machinery. I had no idea that she could even move that quickly! The twitch muscle fibre that she must possess in that arm of hers must be incredible! Why wasn't she using that skill during combat as well? Striking any target with her armor-ignoring pickaxe at those sorts of frequencies would probably obliterate anything alive on this planet!
After shaping the whole metal ingot by forming a dagger in barely under a minute, she tossed the whole thing into the tempering pool, and then left it there to cool down. She then began to sculpt a piece of wood which would become the handle of the knife in the meanwhile. Moving again at incredible speeds with just a simple wood-carving knife and a few wood-files, she swiftly grinded down the wood-block in front of her into the exact shape of a knife handle that would fit around the metal of the dagger she had just crafted, and then went back to the iron blade which had just cooled down.
Picking the blade back up, and then polishing it for a little while against a circular grinder, she then plopped the blade once again onto the anvil, except that this time she had also picked up a bunch of small chisels that were used for engraving jewellery, which she then used to delicately carve into the centre of the blade a bunch of what I could only assume were runic symbols, based on the weird shapes that she had drawn.
After reheating the blade and tempering it down once more, I literally saw how the runic symbols became alive, glowing with a brilliant blue light for a few seconds before fading out inside of the tempering vat.
After affixing the wooden handle and finishing the product, Carmine gave the entire thing a look of deep disapprovement, as she held up the dagger in front of her eyes.
"Bleh! Whata piece o’ crap! Oi realleh lost all of mah edgj!" Carmine then tossed the blade away in anger, as if she had somehow committed a grave sin against the Smithing Gods.
"How is this a bad product?" I inspected the Well-Balanced [Superior Quality] Dagger with a Sharpness enchantment engraved upon it. "You could sell this thing anywhere around the world for quite a decent sum of money! It even has a magic enchantment upon it!"
"Wot, dat piece o’ junk? Den yah don’ kno dwarf culture, gurl! Dat thing over dere would not even qualify for a basic pig sticker back in mah village! Th’ minimum oitem qualiteh that yah needed t’ produce t’ even begin t’ count yourself as a Smith Apprentice back in mah village was Blue. And dat shaite is Green! Even th’ magic runes yonder oi have not carved properleh upon it, so dey ‘ave lost a lot of potenceh! Garbage, oi tells ya!"
"But, you are failing to see the point, Love! You created this thing in barely under 10 minutes! Even if it is as crappy as you depict it to be, which is not, you could arm the whole village with some of these in under a day of continuous work if you had enough materials at hand! And that is nothing to scoff about!"
"Aye, but a good, proper, dwarven Smith would be able t’ arm th’ whole village wid Blues and maybe even Yellows instead!"
"Sure, you may be right about that, but do you see any OTHER dwarven Smith for hundreds of miles around here? I think not! For now, what you CAN do is to keep on making as many of these as you can, even if you consider them “crappy”, to get yourself back into a shape that you would consider acceptable. Only through repetition will you be able to remove the “rust” that has accumulated upon your skills. If my instincts are right, and they are seldom wrong, we are going to be needing quite a lot of good quality weapons in the nearby future!"
"Why? Ye plan on waging a war against all of dem cultists or somthin'?"
"Something like that indeed. Actually, this reminds me, I have located where all of the Blacksmithing Plans and Manuals are located inside of the Heavenly Library, so you should go and have a look at them as soon as possible, because some of the items depicted in there seem rather incredible. The best way for you to get out of your “rusty” state is to get yourself an unimaginably high goal to pursue, like trying to craft some sort of an armour or weapon that would put even the Angels to shame, as the skills required for such a thing would probably be even higher than when you were at your Peak in the past."
"Aye! Dat sounds loike a good idea, gurl! Mehbe oi shud do just dat!"
Immediately after, I left Carmine at the forge, as she had already begun to craft her next item, as my young Monk escort guided me towards the South-Eastern edge of the town, where an empty residence was also now available, as the former tenant had been slain during the conflict as well. The shack at the edge of town was quite nice, as it had a lot of shelves on which I could store my ingredients, as the former owner had been a Cook, so I decided to unpack my Pill Forge into this place, since I wanted to craft a few more of those Regeneration pills, as I felt that they would become quite necessary in the nearby future.
Seeing me to take out the Pill Forge, the Senior Monk instantly told me that I should probably go and and have a chat with the local Healer, since he also dabbled into the ways of Alchemy as well, and was fortunately still alive and tending to some of the victims that had been injured by the Cultists. I immediately agreed, so we headed back toward the centre of the town, where I met the local Physician which was currently cooped up in a rather long shack which could efficiently allow for emergency patient triage, as it had many bunk beds crammed together near each other in a long series.
"Benefactor Ping, this is Trina, and she is one of Brother Zhang's disciples. She says she knows a little bit of Alchemy and a Healing spell, so I thought that she might be able to help you somehow."
"Oh! Of course! I could always use a helping hand! Please, please, come inside, both of you. Sorry about the...ugh...mess. I never had any spare time to clean up so far."
Sure enough, the entire floor was littered with bloodied bandages and smeared trays and pots, and the whole place stank of bodily fluids. I decided that the highest priority at the moment should be cleaning up the place, as I did not want any of the patients to get infected even more.
I immediately used my party chat to call over Fungus, Liliam and Xibei, so they arrived together with another Monk about five minutes later and they all proceeded to clean up the entire place without uttering a single complaint, as myself and the healer had begun to tend to the wounds of the patients that were still affected, as most of the remaining people in the shack had not responded very well to the healing potions that they had been previously administered.
Ping the Healer had fortunately been smart enough to cease the potion treatment the instant that the patients had displayed unusual symptoms, and had reverted to more “classical” ways of treatment instead, which had probably saved the lives of most of the people under his care.
This was indeed a case of infections becoming more severe because of the general accelerated regrowth that the magic from the potions usually induced into the body, and the only thing that we were able to do at the moment was to help the immune system of the patients to fight off the infections by itself, since all of my attempts at creating antibiotics so far had ended up in failure, especially after stupid Jin had ruined my Petri Dish Lab.
Clean bandages, good hydration, and “chicken soup for the soul” were the only things that we could provide to help the patients at the moment, as I had also asked Yi Gore through our Raid Party chat to go and “milk the rooster” for a few extra bodies, so we could use them in the creation of the aforementioned chicken soup.
Amusingly enough, I had found out that the midget had already invented a sort-of contraption mixed with a torture device in which the chicken could be affixed, as a certain blade would then spin around after a certain timer, and would decapitate the unfortunate bird over and over again, as soon as its entire body would get recreated. It was probably the most efficient harvesting method of the chicken meat, but I still couldn't help but feel sorry for the innocent bird. The poor rooster had done nothing wrong to deserve such treatment, but its meat was simply just too precious for us to ignore.
I was also impressed with how kind Mr. Ping's bedside manner was, as he comforted all of his patients with kind words of reinforcement, lifting their spirits, so they would fight off their infections better.
We had spent the rest of the day tending to the victims of the recent Cultist assault, until the evening finally arrived and we had been forced to go back to the inn.
Once I got there, I stumbled upon the site of Jin getting all buddy-buddy with the Lordling and the Huntress, as they had all seemingly gotten drunk together. Stupid little Jin had seemingly found himself coaxed by the pleas of the Lordling and the mental manipulations of the Huntress into joining their Dungeon exploration group, and was now demonstrating to them how powerful he was by tossing a small orb of fire from one hand to the other.
Only after Jin had agreed to the requests of the Lordling, did everything click together inside of my mind.
I rushed out of the inn immediately, only to see that where the Tavern sign was supposed to be hanging, only two dangling empty chains were left.
CRAP! AW HELLS NO!
Ok, so let's see:
Idiotic Lordling trying to persuade an Archer at the local pub while also trying to recruit a Mage as companions - Check.
Bald Loremaster that can identify stuff and is currently leaning against the round well at the center of town - Check
Rambling drunkard aka Lingfeng's former Head Monk of the Monastery that was now puking his guts out near the well - Check
Very skilled Blacksmith with a weird accent that will produce increasingly better gear from now on - Check
Crazy midget with prosthetic appendage at edge of town - Check.
Inn with a missing Tavern sign - Check
Demonic infested monastery - Check
People that were driven away from said monastery - Check
Weird Lady that sells pills, potions, magic stones and spells at the edge of town, which would probably be ME - Check
Helpless local healer - Check
Naive gossip girl Liliam - Check
Fungus that looked like a veritable Barbarian after being for so long on the road - Check
A Bard in the form of Xibei - Check.
An aggressive young Monk that wanted to fix the problems at the Temple using his fists - Check.
Cows - Check
Timmy: Tap Me, Lol!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnMR6SOBa9k
FUCK! The moment those guitar riffs hit my ear, it instantly confirmed my darkest fears. I now knew with certainty which Earth stories the Mother System had been plagiarizing as of late, and it wasn't a nice find. This wasn’t even plagiarism, it was a straight rip-off!
Timmy, you bastard! Why the hell are Western-themed stories finding their way into the deep East anyway, you lazy circuit-board? Shouldn't this whole setup be happening somewhere near the Golden Kingdoms instead? How is this whole thing even related to Cultivation in the first place? Why the hell did you and your Momma System get the Buddhist Monks involved into this whole scenario! Dammit!
Timmy: Well, remember when I told you that some of the stories have become “expired” in the West, and we had to shuffle them around? This is one of such cases.
Wait, so how many times has this whole “thing” happened in a similar fashion throughout history?
Timmy: Oh, about 200 times or more? You would be surprised how many people are willing to summon Ancient Evils.
And nobody has been able to link all of these occurrences together?
Timmy: Well, the outcomes have never been the same, nor has the progression during the storyline, so they all looked like self contained narratives from a historian's point of view.
"Mother...ChickenClucker!" I yelled out loud towards the Heavens.
Since our whole group had been pushed towards this place, and we now had already assigned roles in the narrative, it really felt like the Mother System was indeed pigeonholing us towards a certain outcome, since we could not just simply ignore the Demonic Sect that had taken sanctuary up in the Monastery, as they would create even more casualties if we left them alone.
Not doing anything about them was not an option, but if we did indeed go and clear all of them out, we would be playing right into the Mother System's machinations.
I knew immediately that it was time for me to go and find a way to derail this whole narrative once again, as if I left this whole scenario play out by itself, the outcome would become quite sad.
*DEMONS! RUN AWAY TO SHELTER!* One of the guards on the walls suddenly yelled, dragging me back to reality from my introspection.’
HRRR! NOT EVEN A MINUTE, MOM SYSTEM?
I immediately rushed into action together with Lingfeng which was nearby, as a strange red quadrupedal creature rushed to the center of the town while trying to topple random people over by biting them. Following right behind it were also a bunch of Hellbound, and they were also trying to kill everyone in sight, but were failing miserably because of their short stature.
I immediately pulled my bow, and started shooting the Demons together with Lingfeng, and we soon toppled all of them down, but not before a couple of the bystander townsfolk got injured in the surprise attack.
"Damnit! They are getting bolder!" One of the Guards commented.
"They keep on coming from the insides of the Monastery!" Said another.
"How did they get in here anyway? I thought the whole village was closed-off!" I asked one of the Guards.
"This bloodied “thing” dug a tunnel under the wooden fence before we noticed it, and the little Demons probably just followed after it." He pointed to the weird bloody quadruped.
"What the heck is this thing? It looks absolutely horrendous!"
"We have no clue, but more and more keep showing up everyday, even as we keep on killing them over and over."
I had seen many strange creatures so far, or at least I have read about them, but this thing in front of me? There was only one thing that I could relate it to. It basically looked like a skinless rabbit, since I have hunted enough of those critters to know how they look without their fluff, except that this one was the size of a rather large dog instead. What a weird animal indeed! I wonder what gave birth to it?