Chapter 86 - Pet

'Would this be what an asura looked like made flesh?'

Mamorota turned to look toward Lee Jasong's advancing main army. It was noticeably closer than before. If they delayed another quarter of an hour, their retreat would plainly be cut off, and they would be surrounded and annihilated.

"Aaaagh!"

The screams never stopped. One by one, the remaining Gray Wolf Corps warriors had begun gathering around Mamorota, fleeing Dong Bongsu.

"General! W-we must withdraw!"

The fearless warriors of the Gray Wolf Corps were stammering. No one needed to say who was responsible.

"All troops, retreat."

Mamorota gave the order.

"Withdraw! All Gray Wolf Corps warriors, withdraw!"

"Back to the fortress! Hyah!"

Repeating orders was a fairly efficient means of communication on a battlefield. Soon, the Gray Wolf Corps warriors began retreating toward Guishui Fortress one after another.

Yet Mamorota himself, who had given the order, did not leave.

"General! You must leave at on—!"

Mamorota raised his enormous hand and crushed the head of the warrior shouting beside him.

"Damn, they're noisy. They could just go on their own. Don't you think?"

That single move sent the remaining Gray Wolf Corps warriors hastily fleeing the battlefield as well. They had guessed how Mamorota felt.

SPLASH, SPLASH.

Dong Bongsu approached. The brief but fierce battle had left blood pooling everywhere. Even his footsteps had become thick, wet sounds.

He stopped one zhang in front of Mamorota and spoke.

"Only a few seconds left now."

Incomprehensible to the very end.

"Heh heh heh."

Mamorota gave a dry laugh. Then he bent to retrieve his signature weapon, the iron mace that happened to be lying at his feet. Its cold touch traveled through his palm and spread throughout his body.

"There are a few things I wanted to ask..."

Especially through his neck.

"I told you quite clearly that you only had a few seconds left."

Even as he died, Mamorota was probably wondering.

What were seconds...? Now he would never know.

"You give less experience than I expected."

What was experience...?

And so Mamorota, the War Giant, met a futile end.

His one consolation might have been that he had destroyed most of the trebuchets. But suddenly, a large contraption with several legs appeared reflected in his dead eyes. It was a trebuchet.

Unbeknownst to Mamorota, one trebuchet had been preserved intact inside Dong Bongsu's Inventory.

Dong Bongsu's turn was not over yet.

◆Rules of New Murim Online

- New Murim Online Rule 1: The Inventory is space-based, not slot-based. The space is a cube with equal width, length, and height, measuring one hundred pyeong.

- (Revised) New Murim Online Rule 2: Any object in direct contact with any part of the body (Added: whether inside or outside the body) can be placed in the Inventory (provided it is smaller than the Inventory and is not a living organism).

- New Murim Online Rule 3: Insects and animals give no experience (not yet certain; experiments with animals other than rats are needed), while killing humans increases experience (differences based on strength or weakness need to be verified).

- New Murim Online Rule 4: Items removed from the Inventory can emerge from any part of Dong Bongsu's body.

- (Revised) New Murim Online Rule 5: Upon a Level Up, white light radiates from the body in all directions, and all wounds on the body heal. At the same time, all stats increase slightly. In other words, Strength increases, the body becomes more agile, and Intelligence rises.

- New Murim Online Rule 6: Skills use a proficiency system. In other words, the more a Skill is used, the more proficient it becomes.

- (Revised) New Murim Online Rule 7: The passive Skill Spirit Eye detects threats approaching within a twenty-meter radius of Dong Bongsu and alerts him. The threshold is a ten-level difference.

- New Murim Online Rule 8: When multiple people kill a single person, the experience Dong Bongsu receives is proportional to the damage he inflicted on the deceased (the effectiveness of the first hit and last hit requires further research).

- New Murim Online Rule 9: Items gifted by the system are not indestructible. They can melt, break, or wear down.

◆Skill Types (Active) - Skills below the dotted line are acquired after class advancement.

[Qinggong Lv.8 Proficiency: 55.77%]

Current Applied Level: Lv.8 (The player can adjust this Skill's level.)

Jumping Power Bonus: 80%

Movement Bonus: 80%

True Qi Cost per Second: 8 JP

[Three Forces Sword Art, First Form: Sweep Away a Thousand Armies Lv.9 Proficiency: 28.91%]

Current Applied Level: Lv.9 (The player can adjust this Skill's level.)

Horizontal Slash Range Bonus: 9%

Horizontal Slash Attack Power Bonus: 9%

Horizontal Slash Execution Speed Bonus: -8%

True Qi Cost per Use: 110 JP

[Three Forces Sword Art, Second Form: Direct Strike Yellow Dragon Lv.9 Proficiency: 5.88%]

Thrust Range Bonus: 9%

Thrust Attack Power Bonus: 9%

Thrust Execution Speed Bonus: -8%

[Three Forces Sword Art, Third Form: Mount Tai Bears Down Lv.7 Proficiency: 95.99%]

Current Applied Level: Lv.7 (The player can adjust this Skill's level.)

Vertical Strike Range Bonus: 7%

Vertical Strike Attack Power Bonus: 7%

Vertical Strike Execution Speed Bonus: -6%

True Qi Cost per Use: 90 JP

[Qi Circulation Lv.3 Proficiency: 56.23%]

True Qi Cost per Use: 300 JP

Current Skill Bonus: Attack Power/Defense Increase 90%

.........................................................................

◆Skill Types (Passive) - Skills below the dotted line are acquired after class advancement.

[Slash (Passive) Lv.Max Proficiency: 0%]

Current Action Bonus: 50%

[Thrust (Passive) Lv.

[Throw (Passive) Lv.

[Block (Passive) Lv.

-See New Murim Online Rule 7

· Upon achieving 5 consecutive slashes, all stats increase by 5%. (Lv.1 activated)

· Upon achieving 10 consecutive slashes, all stats increase by 10%. (Lv.2 activated)

※ The Kill count is maintained only if the next enemy is slashed before Consecutive Slash's effect expires.

※ Additional Skills may become available through Level Ups.

The black monster dropped an apple on Newton's head.

- Anonymous

Mamorota was dead.

Bato, one of the Gray Wolf Corps' leaders of ten, had still not withdrawn. Everyone else, friend and foe alike, was leaving the battlefield, but he alone could not bring himself to go. He felt something like a sense of duty to witness Mamorota's final moments, even if no one else would.

The enemy captain, whose bangs hung low enough to cover his eyes completely, had spoken those words to Mamorota's corpse. Naturally, the corpse gave no answer.

He raised his head and swept his gaze across his surroundings. Apparently seeing everyone scatter in a desperate bid to survive, he casually looked this way and that again.

Then his gaze naturally fell on Bato. Bato froze. There was no need to fight to know that this man was stronger than him. It was an obvious fact, and Bato felt it more keenly than anyone. But Dong Bongsu did not look at him for long. He must not have been interested.

Dong Bongsu soon lowered his head to examine Mamorota's wolf, Kaiji. To Bato, it had looked dead already, but apparently it was not.

No, had it clearly not been dead? As the dying Kaiji met Dong Bongsu's eyes, its lone eye, whose lid had been drooping as though it weighed a ton, rolled fiercely, suffused with red. Hostility. Its eye was filled with nothing else.

"Yes. You need at least that much spirit to be my pet."

Dong Bongsu spoke, the corners of his mouth lifting wickedly. Like Mamorota before him, Bato had no idea what his words meant.

His hand moved strangely through the air. Was Bato imagining things, or did it look as though he were pressing something?

Suddenly, a peculiar sound rang out, and a mysterious, faint purple radiance enveloped Kaiji's entire body. Bato had never seen anything like it in his life. One thing was certain: the energy emanating from that auspicious radiance was profoundly sacred. The very opposite of the smile on Dong Bongsu's lips.

That smile carried such an inauspicious air that even Bato's gray wolf involuntarily backed away a little.

'Is this one of those strange martial arts he used earlier?'

There was no way to know. Such a simple conjecture was all he could manage.

Having witnessed Mamorota's end, Bato had no reason to remain here any longer. What could lingering accomplish except getting him killed by Dong Bongsu?

Yet he could not easily leave. He did not know why, but he simply felt he had to remain in this place a little longer. If anything, he felt he would die if he left.

Bato decided to stay where he was, despite the deeply unsettling figure nearby.

When the radiance vanished, Kaiji rose. Bato had thought it was dead... but now it looked positively vigorous. What had that radiance been?

That was not the only change. The hostility toward Dong Bongsu had already vanished from its eye.

It was... how could he put it? There was nothing there. If anything remained, it was sheer blankness. Not a trace of emotion was visible. It was a meaningless gleam, the sort one might see in the rotting eye of a corpse.

Dong Bongsu stared intently into Kaiji's eye, then stroked its head and spoke.

"I like this in its own way, too. Just like me."

With that done, Dong Bongsu stood. Then he looked at Bato. No, that was not it. Looking more carefully, Bato realized he was gazing somewhere far behind him instead.

Bato involuntarily turned to look back. It was the road he should have taken long ago—the road to Guishui Fortress. Every other member of the Gray Wolf Corps was racing back along it.