The Righteous Player(s)

“Roar—”

Count Urie spread his wings and let out a roar of pain.

Even though his body underwent such mutations… it was still expanding. Rather, it was precisely because his skin had become extremely tough, leaving his constantly proliferating flesh with nowhere to go.

His abdomen was bulging high, filled entirely with liver.

His internal organs also began to deform, with flesh continuously proliferating and strengthening. Scales appeared on the surface of his body, and the overgrown bones on his forehead turned into horns — no, more like a crown of thorns.

The curse energy that remained in his body was still rapidly strengthening his body, further aggravating this vicious cycle.

“…There’s no need to fight any longer.” Zorgen took a deep breath, stored the curse back, and disengaged from combat mode: “He’s finished.”

In the end, “Count Urie”, whose appearance was beyond recognizable from before, roared and swooped down.

He couldn’t think at all

He couldn’t bear this pain anymore—

This “death chrysalis” originally had the physique of Gold Rank, but as it was continuously strengthened by curse energy, its strength exceeded the limit of Gold Rank.

But without the curse energy device and skill, it couldn’t even break the “AT force field” created by the Child with its physical strength alone.

[TN: AT force field refers to Absolute Terror Field from Evangelion[1]. ]

It could only watch helplessly as the cooldown refreshed after a minute had passed. Citalopram chanted divine art to summon the Pale Princess.

Such a robust demonic body could not resist soul damage.

However, the moment Count Urie lost his life, Annan clearly saw relief in his eyes.

Even after losing its primary consciousness, this demonic body still didn’t die — its heart continued to beat, just as it did when it was the “death chrysalis” at its base form. What was killed was only the consciousness of Count Urie, which had attached itself to the physical body through the Worm Ritual, and the death chrysalis absent of soul and desire.

This body at this moment was in a vegetative state that would never wake up.

However, this “body” was overfilled with vitality.

It was even gradually deforming — visibly losing its human form at a noticeable speed, transforming into a giant lump-like meatball. This seemed to be the state that could maintain its existence for a longer period.

It seemed that until it exhausted the immense life force given by Annan, it would continue to maintain this state of being both dead and alive.

Zoya asked hesitantly, “Your Majesty… what about this…?”

“Take it with us.” After a moment of thought, Annan spoke with some hesitation, “It’s somewhat of a spoils of war after all. It might be useful… At the very least, it can serve as one of the pieces of evidence for Count Urie’s rebellion.”

“Would anyone believe that this ball is Urie?” Suuankou couldn’t help but complain.

“The worst case scenario is to give it to the senior.” Annan replied without hesitation, “Maybe he will like it. I will cast divine art on it once or twice a day to nurture it first.”

“Curse energy is too dangerous.” The Child handed the curse energy device to Zorgen and dispelled what he had created. Looking at the additional debuff, he couldn’t help but smile bitterly, “If you want to use the curse energy in the future… Let me do it. Anyway, I’m not clean anymore…”

[Curse: Creator’s Bane (your aging rate doubles every 7 years, but your maximum lifespan is extended 7 times; any influence you obtain will produce an influence on that day; when you increase the erosion rate in any way, you will get 7 times the additional increment; you cannot get any rewards from nightmares except profession level, curse vessel and curse; you will die immediately when you fail or trigger any negative feedback from not fulfilling the curse; you will inevitably enter nightmares when you sleep; your soul emits a faint odor)]

[“—Those who harm the world will eventually be despised by the world.”]

The moment the Child inhaled the curse energy, a new curse appeared.

A total of seven debuffs shocked him.

No wonder Count Urie didn’t try curse energy beforehand, he must have seen the others using curse energy.

Even by the standards of players who had the ability to reset their corruption level at any time and possess unlimited resurrection chances, this curse was somewhat excessive. For the indigenous people, it could be described as a curse that went “bone-deep” and personal.

The only advantage would be that the Child had infinite dungeon instances to grind.

I will think of a way to make it up to him after returning. Annan thought.

I may meet other curse energy users in the future.

After taking a look at the “Count Urie Ball of Flesh”, Annan suddenly realized the battle between curse energy users was a cognitive war.

What curse energy created was just a shell.

It was not the “real form”, but the “form in the creator’s mind”.

Just like the Child’s creation of a “bullet train,” it was essentially just a “piece of iron that could run as fast as a bullet train.” He even forgot to build the tracks, but this “bullet train” still raced at incredible speed.

The “bullet train” didn’t even have a control panel — it could certainly go, at least for a dozen meters or so, but it had no way to stop because the Child hadn’t created any braking mechanism for it. There were no seats inside either… it was either empty or filled with steel plates.

What the Child created was just “that thing” he saw while waiting for the high-speed train.

What the Child created wasn’t a genuine AT field at all; it was more of a “kinetic energy transfer barrier” with the “AT field skin.” It lacked the other functions of an AT field and didn’t possess the essence of the “Wall of the Heart.”

If the Child directed the curse energy to create an “extremely powerful defensive barrier”, then it would consume much more curse energy than creating a “kinetic energy transfer barrier”.

The Child realized that when facing simple projected weapons, it was sufficient to neutralize their kinetic energy. Hence, when he created this barrier, he hardly used any curse energy.

Just like the more detailed and reasonable the demands made by Party A, the more money (curse energy) they paid, the more Party B was able to reproduce.

With the knowledge and awareness of Count Urie, he failed to realize that the harm inflicted on him was not from any curse, but rather from the excessive stress on the body caused by healing spells. Therefore, he had not set up any defensive strategies against healing spells… Even now, he had not figured out exactly how he had fallen into this situation.

Even if he had attacked himself immediately, dislocating his arm, discarding his leg, or even beheading himself for a ‘separate action,’ he could have quickly alleviated the “damage”.

However, he didn’t realize where this pain came from…or should I say? He never thought that he would be hurt by the healing spell.

Due to intense pain, he became aware that his body was about to burst. Therefore, instinctively, he hoped that curse energy would help strengthen his body—and indeed, the curse energy did just that.

The curse energy continued to strengthen his body. Still, his internal organs continued to proliferate, his blood pressure increased rapidly, and his body temperature continued to rise, which caused the pressure in his body to continue to increase.

However, Urie didn’t understand why — so he hoped that curse energy would help him strengthen his internal organs again and heal this injury.

Unfortunately, that would be adding fuel to the fire.

Thus, the spell energy followed his wishes, tirelessly and thanklessly providing him with further treatment…

…The curse energy was probably the perfect Party B who could fulfill “any ridiculous design idea from the client”.

Following these rules…

If curse energy were used to trigger a nuclear explosion, given the understanding level of these players, perhaps what they would ultimately produce would just be an ‘immense explosion with a mushroom cloud and shockwave,’ rather than a real nuclear blast… As for radiation, it might be simulated in the form of a curse or the Gray Mists.

What curse energy could create was only part of the imagination.

Therefore, Count Urie did not allow his weapons to reach three or five times the speed of sound… because he had only seen speeds of that magnitude. If it were faster, he would have no idea what it would look like, so he could not create it.

If curse energy were used to create artificial humans—based on the general understanding of the human body in this world, what would likely be created were ‘dolls that think and power themselves with hearts’, possessing simulated souls, composed only of flesh and bones. Having a lung or a kidney would already be considered quite cultured.

—This was not a resource used for battles, wars, or to meet luxury needs, nor was it something that the indigenous people of this era should use.

It was a specialty product with extremely high value… Even in the stars, it was probably a specialty mine that required purple rarity technology or even red rarity technology to collect and use it.

[TN: Color rarity is a metaphor from games.]

The World’s Blood regenerated slowly. It was almost considered a nonrenewable resource.

What Count Urie did was undoubtedly an absolute waste—a tremendously extravagant waste.

The extent to which future generations even wanted to travel back in time to kill them.

Annan was fully aware of this.

The elves, who first discovered curse energy, used them to escape from the desert as a last resort. They initially thought, “Once they escape, they will never have to use it again.”

However, they did not resist the temptation.

After that, the elves used curse energy to adventure unexplored parts of the Yaselan Continent. It was considered a reasonable use — but after that, it was a complete waste of resources.

It was not a case of giving aid in time of need, but rather adding the finishing touch.

During the Empire times, the elves had the ability to use curse energy to do various things — they could extend their own lifespans, skip the research process to obtain results, heal irreversible injuries, even resurrect others, enhance their living environments, create various forms of entertainment, and even directly craft housing for residents.

…and to build wonders.

Of course, building wonders might not be considered a waste.

Would building a wonder be considered a waste?

“Can we go back?” Jacob smiled and said tremblingly, “I can teleport us back again.”

“No, this isn’t over yet.” Annan said solemnly, “Look for their curse shaft—it should be nearby.”

“There are other nobles too. We have to put an end to this matter immediately.”

“Curse energy technology must not be spread anymore.”

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