Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 36: Letter Opener

Teest stood on a thick branch, seemingly weightless. The accumulated snow on the branch didn’t move at all.

His eyes were fixed intently on Jack’s bloodied mouth.

There was no deflection of the damage, indicating that Jack had no items that would reflect damage. Jack didn’t immediately put on a protective shield, which meant his previous shield must have been from an item and was limited in use.

Jack’s face twisted in pain, his mouth half-open, the root of his tongue writhing, unable to regrow a new one for a long while.

Nol’s judgment was right; this guy had at least the talent for “rapid healing”.

“Teest, you’ve applied both [Malicious Corrosion] and [Unstoppable Bleeding] on your blade. Both these skills are possessed by the Fallen Knight.”

Before they set off, Nol had told him this alone. “If there’s abnormal growth at the wound, it means the enemy has the ‘rapid healing’ ability. Remember to adjust your tactics accordingly.”

His mage husband was truly omniscient, Teest thought happily.

He suppressed his breath and jumped down from the branch without stirring a single snowflake.

Greeting Teest were countless bone-like hands.

Teest tiptoed across these skeletal hands, charging at Jack, who was riding the shadow wolf.

Jack commanded the shadow wolf to pounce forward, suddenly surrounded by thousands of gray-black needles. These needles, hidden among the snowflakes and cold wind, had tips that shimmered with a mold-green glow.

They were like piranhas that sensed blood, madly rushing towards Teest.

Teest jumped to the nearest tree, with the poison needles chasing relentlessly. Jack charged at Teest, attempting to pincer him mid-air.

Needles from the back, a wolf’s mouth in the front.

Just as the needles were about to touch Teest’s clothing, he quickly ducked. The needles instantly pierced the shadow wolf’s fur, making it cry out in pain and fall from the sky. As a storyline boss of the instance, the shadow wolf was immune to all special statuses but couldn’t resist the pain caused by the rain of needles.

Jack’s vision was disrupted; the Teest that was just before him had suddenly vanished.

“Surprise!” A voice with a hint of amusement sounded close by.

Suddenly, an upside-down head appeared in front of Jack—Teest had somehow sneaked behind him. This unexpected guest stood on the shadow wolf, bending forward, looking at him upside-down, with silver hair flowing down with his movements.

Jack’s vision was almost completely obscured by the hair, reminding him of the white cloth used to cover the faces of the deceased back in his hometown.

In the next instant, accompanied by a clear “snap” sound, Jack’s vision spun around wildly.

Teest twisted his arms and neatly turned Jack’s head 180 degrees.

“It doesn’t feel like you’re dead, worthy of a player,” Teest muttered regretfully, as if biting into undercooked meat.

He didn’t get greedy and instead nimbly jumped away—

First bound by someone, then face pierced by poison needles, and now stepped on by the target player, the shadow wolf roared in rage. It rolled wildly in the snow, trying to shake off the burden on its back. The [Advanced Rider’s Saddle] relied on the system’s power to adhere to its back. Enraged, the shadow wolf raised its head and howled.

‘The boss’s big move is coming!’ Jack thought with joy.

He hastily applied several protective shields to himself and shoved three or four potent recovery pills into his mouth—having his spine snapped was really brutal. Even with “Rapid Healing” and “Damage Reduction”, he was almost killed by Teest.

With the shadow wolf’s howl, surrounding shadows transformed into sharp blades, which then morphed into several black tornadoes. They swirled around the shadow wolf, instantly shredding nearby trees.

The shadow blades scattered, and Teest’s arms, which he used to shield his face, were immediately scarred. Yet, he barely bled as numerous bone pillars rose from the ground, directly dispersing the tornado of shadow blades.

Nol stood at the original spot, blocking the others, with no expression on his face.

With his left hand pressing the dragon-skin notebook to his chest and the staff in his right hand occasionally raised, it seemed as if he was directing an invisible orchestra—

Massive troll rib bones pierced out from the ground like bamboo shoots, and toxic python bones moved swiftly among them. The shadow wolf was trapped by the thick ribs and entangled by the snake-like bones. In a snap of its jaws, those bones turned into fragments, instantly replaced by new ones.

While Jack was busy recovering health, he clung to the shadow wolf’s back, getting caught directly in the onslaught.

His head hadn’t even been straightened yet, weirdly tilted at ninety degrees.

“As expected.”

Nol spoke in a flat tone. “By fixing yourself to the shadow wolf, it can’t use shadows to move freely. To control it so effortlessly, we should thank you for your assistance.”

As he spoke, his actions didn’t stop. Countless skeletal rats took every chance they got, climbing up Jack’s body. By the time they reached the throat, the one on top bared its teeth and bit directly into Jack’s neck. The ones that followed were fiercely tearing at the flesh around the throat, drilling into the wound.

A few steps away, Teest whistled with a hint of admiration in his expression.

The skeletal rats pried the flesh apart, making the wound hard to heal. The HP that Jack had just managed to restore was rapidly declining. With his throat shattered and his tongue destroyed, he couldn’t even scream.

[You have died. Your experience is being deducted… Your level has decreased: 1]

A few seconds later, an indifferent female voice echoed in Jack’s head.

[You have died. Your experience is being deducted… Your level has decreased: 1]

[You have died. Your experience is being deducted… Your level has decreased: 1]

[You have died. Your experience is being deducted… Your level has decreased: 1]

……

“The [Advanced Rider’s Saddle] requires the user to be ‘at least level 50 after a class change’. Your level is quite high,” Nol remarked without glancing at the gruesome wound. “Let’s see when you lose your qualification to use it.”

“Guh guh”

After a moment of silence, Jack opened his mouth, which no longer had a tongue, and laughed as if he was exhaling. He reached into his pocket and crushed something.

A rich black mist emerged from his pocket, quickly enveloping Jack’s body and forming into black armor. The skeletal rats were instantly kept at bay by the armor and fell to the ground with pitter-patter sounds.

In an instant, both Jack and the shadow wolf vanished from the spot.

The rare item [Shadow Armor] allowed the user to operate in a shadow state for 60 minutes, hiding in the shadows of all things. This was a one-time-use item and was more expensive than any item seen so far.

Nol stood still, pointing with his staff. “Teest, Rosen.”

He sounded almost calm.

Behind Nol, giant troll-like ribs protruded once again, forming a cage that protected the couple, the hunter, and the white wolf at the center.

Rosen sat on Julie’s shoulders, waving both hands. Countless light orbs filled the bone cage, locking out all shadows.

At the same time, Teest moved through the bushes, appearing outside the rib cage. His “Betrayer” transformed into a sword—

Ding!

The fangs of the shadow wolf clashed with the blade. Its tongue was cut by the sharp edge, and the “Betrayer” had a faint bloodline.

Inside the skeletal cage, Julie let out a deep roar. Protecting Rosen behind her, she reached out with scalpel-like claws and her fur took on a rock-like texture.

Rosen maintained the light orbs, chanting hurriedly. With a crackling sound, the outside of the bone cage was covered with a thick layer of ice, soon to become an ice fortress.

Jack clicked his tongue harshly, directing a swarm of needle-like mosquitoes towards the not yet sealed ice fortress. The shadow wolf bent its body; its fur stood on ends due to magic.

Teest did a backflip and stood firmly on the edge of the ice.

Ding ding ding. Dazzling light from the sword emerged, and all the needles were knocked onto the ice by him. They trembled helplessly, like birds trapped in a vice.

The blood on the “Betrayer” was completely shaken off, leaving tiny red dots on the white snow.

Cursing in his mind, Jack was about to use an explosion spell on the ice shell when an almost simultaneous interruption occurred.

The mage seemed to be able to predict the future, as his interruption was precise—Jack’s explosion felt like it had exploded inside him, and the shadow wolf’s charging skill was disrupted by an ice cone, both shaking in pain almost simultaneously.

Enduring the pain, Jack changed his strategy, trying to physically break the ice shell. Unfortunately, his fist had not been out for a second when it was deflected by Teest’s sword, missing its target.

“How did you know…”

Jack finally managed to speak; his voice was hoarse and malicious. At this moment, his face was hidden behind the helmet of the shadow armor, looking no different from a monster.

“Let me answer that—Nol is a protector. You dare not face him head-on, so of course you want to kill those he protects first.” Teest’s golden eyes appeared above the sword’s blade, still annoyingly bent. “As for your attack methods, if I were you, I would do the same. Consider this a compliment.”

Jack let out a bitter laugh, directing the shadow wolf away from Teest, intending it to bite the frozen bone cage.

Unexpectedly, the shadow wolf showed resistance for the first time.

Before Jack could think further, a pair of cold arms suddenly wrapped around his waist. These arms carried a hint of magic, sticking firmly to him, preventing him from sinking back into the shadows—just as he had done to the shadow wolf moments ago.

Jack slowly looked down to see a pair of scarred, pale arms.

It was a pair of hands belonging to a corpse.

Then came more and more hands. These corpses slowly crawled out from beneath the snow, their bodies mutilated and diverse in race, with expressions frozen in despair.

Like drowning people longing for a piece of driftwood, they tried their best to grasp at Jack. Jack’s wrists and ankles were tightly bound by countless cold, heavy hands, as if they were shackles made of flesh.

Jack wanted to shock the shadow wolf to urge it to flee, but the corpses broke his fingers one by one, rendering him immobile. Underneath him, more corpses clung to the shadow wolf, which was frantically biting at them.

But these corpses weren’t fragile bones. Many still emanated residual magic. Even when physically torn apart, they wouldn’t disintegrate like skeletons and continued to cling to Jack and the shadow wolf—even if only a hand remained.

Then, poisonous needles pierced down, lightning flashed, and the shadow blade became a storm, but the corpses remained unfazed.

These people had died long ago on this desolate snowy plain. They couldn’t die again.

Jack was sweating profusely. He couldn’t help but look in Nol’s direction and exclaimed, “Fuck, where did all these dead people come from?! All summoning takes time, when did you start summoning…”

“The moment I laid eyes on you,” Nol interrupted distractedly.

He stared at the stiff and cold corpses. More and more corpses emerged. The earlier ones were torn apart by the shadow wolf and thrown into the snow, looking like broken plaster statues. The newcomers stepped over these fragments, silently reaching out.

There was a woman with swollen arms, a skinny child, a man with bite wounds on his legs, a young man with rotten feet, a beastman with a hole in its chest…

How many people had died in this instance? Nol lost count.

“Fuck you. How much mana do you have?!” Jack roared, desperately using items to fend off the persistent corpses. “This is cheating! This is cheating! There’s no such spell, and there’s no necromancer in this game—”

“There is now,” Nol whispered.

Jack felt like he was sinking into a marsh of corpses. Their stiff bodies choked his throat while cold fingers clawed at his mouth, as if they wanted to tear him apart alive. He felt heavier and colder, almost as if he were becoming one with the corpses.

Skeleton rats appeared again, this time focusing on the electric whip around the shadow wolf, trying to pull Jack off.

‘It’s time to end this,’ Nol thought.

‘It can’t end like this,’ Jack thought, almost as a curse.

He stopped struggling, reached for his neck, and violently tore off the amulet on his chest. It had been hidden under his armor, unseen by the mage.

Let’s see how you predict this now. Under the mask, Jack revealed a twisted grin.

[The Eternal Amulet has been damaged. You will sacrifice 10 levels to deal true damage at your current level’s limit. This attack will ignore all interruptions and defenses—]

With the appearance of the powerful special profession “Necromancer” in the game, the information was valuable enough. Since he couldn’t win, he might as well complete the mission and run.

Having lost fourteen levels, he was way behind the main force. But no worries, there were still many people outside to kill…

[“Eternal Sacrifice” activated. Please select a target—]

‘[White Wolf],’ Jack thought.

His phantom armor disintegrated on the spot, and Jack turned into an afterimage, rushing towards the white wolf in the bone cage. The Necromancer stood directly in his path of attack. Surely, he would prioritize self-defense.

If not, Jack would happily kill two birds with one stone—this was the absolute item given by the Eternal Church. Nothing could interrupt his attack!

Noticing Jack’s full charge towards the cage, Nol was taken aback for a moment. Everything happened too fast, and he only managed three thoughts.

…He didn’t recognize this skill.

…He didn’t have time to chant a spell.

…He had to stop this charge.

So, Nol let go of his staff and grabbed the only offensive item he had. As they passed by each other, Nol sidestepped and swung his arm with all his strength, plunging the letter opener deep into Jack’s shoulder.

Jack abruptly stopped, as if his skill was paused. He let out a non-human shriek and collapsed on the ground, staring in disbelief at Nol.

Player “Jack’s” face began to melt.

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The author has something to say:

Defeating Jack can hardly be considered the climax of this arc. He’s not worth it—

The letter opener finally makes its appearance.

Teest: …This knife is different from what was described. (Scared)

Nol: Bug(?). So it’s finally my turn, right?

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