Chapter 389: Act 145 – The Nest Lord (First Update)
Brandel lowered his hand from the massive head of the black wolf lord. To form a new wolf pack, it was essential to subdue the alpha wolf and rally the ordinary members.
The black wolf lord could be subdued through the pressure of the pack leader, but ordinary members had to be multiplied by the abilities of the nest lord himself.
In a black wolf pack, the male wolves were at the core of the nest lord, guiding the magical power to coalesce into shadow beings like black wolves. Now that Brandel had inherited the title of pack leader, he could naturally use the ability through the disaster heart of Echis on his brow.
He switched windows in his retina, the light green screen shifting pages until he found the new skill in the newly opened “Nest Lord” panel.
Nest Lord (Black Wolf): Consumes 50 mana to summon a black wolf.
Nest Lord (Shadow Rock Beast): Consumes 20 mana to summon a shadow rock beast.
Brandel paused slightly at the sight of these two skills. Summoning a black wolf was understandable, but what was this shadow rock beast?
Or could it be that Echis’s disaster heart provided two types of black wolves for players to choose from? To be honest, Brandel was not very familiar with this before; he only knew it could summon black wolves, but this was his first attempt to figure out how to summon them.
He recalled that he didn’t remember a variety called shadow rock beast among black wolves.
Moreover, since it was the disaster heart of the mist howl, even if it provided additional variants, it should have been the limping wolf, right? Judging by the mana consumed, the so-called shadow rock beast seemed to be much weaker than the black wolf, which puzzled him.
However, since he couldn’t figure it out, he decided to give it a try. Although Brandel initially consumed a lot of spirit (mana) when summoning the wind spider, he had mostly recovered and could gather a few black wolves without issue.
Not wanting to waste time, he lifted the Earth Sword and pointed it casually at the empty grassland not far away. Suddenly, the void surged as if something was materializing, pools of flowing black light converging there.
Finally, with a flash of light, a black wolf leaped out from the whirlpool of black energy, landing firmly on the ground.
Brandel nearly dropped the Earth Sword as he saw the black wolf. What the hell was this?
He looked in surprise at the creature standing firmly on the ground, stretching its limbs, nearly the size of a small pony, with jet-black fur and blood-red eyes surveying the surroundings, revealing its white fangs—by any measure, it looked like a black wolf.
However, aside from its head, neck, shoulders, spine, thighs, and four claws being covered in a thick layer of plating; those strange gray plates resembled armor draped over the black wolf, giving it a majestic appearance from a distance.
Brandel did not remember black wolves looking like this.
He thought it resembled the fierce guard wolves of the male wolf, but he could clearly see that the luster of the plating on the black wolf was obviously a layer of rock, not keratin or bone.
“This ecology… is a semi-elemental creature, how could it be like this?” Brandel was perplexed, but Kargris beside him seemed even more confused. “Did my lord summon that?” he asked, with a look of interest. “Is it a black wolf?”
Antinna and Xi remained silent, used to their lord always knowing some obscure knowledge, which was definitely related to the black tower wizards.
Secondly, it was a secret.
The noble maiden knew not to ask too much about things that shouldn’t be questioned, which was fortunate because otherwise, most people wouldn’t be able to restrain their curiosity. The red-haired girl was more straightforward; now, as far as she was concerned, whatever Brandel did was right—regarding the reasons, they were but trivial matters.
Meria, however, asked with curiosity, “Mr. Baron, did you just… merge that strange stone into your body without any issues?”
The red-haired girl shook her ponytail, “I actually think it looks quite good. Besides, don’t those wizards do the same?”
Antinna then glanced at the aspiring priestess and replied, “My lord knows what he’s doing.”
At this moment, Brandel was too preoccupied to care about what his subordinates were thinking; he even overlooked Kargris’s question. He could say he was not familiar with the disaster heart of Echis, so he was unsure whether the black wolves summoned by it were supposed to look like this.
There might be such a possibility.
Brandel stood there in silence, pondering for a while before deciding to test another skill. He pointed the Earth Sword at the black wolf.
20 mana depleted.
The magic gathered once again, this time the black energy flowed entirely towards the ground, where the earth suddenly bulged, and a bizarre creature burst forth.
What the hell was this!
Brandel reeled in shock as the creature stabilized; he nearly dropped his jaw at the sight. Not only him, but the people beside him were also stunned, with Kargris exclaiming, “Ah, isn’t that a rock leopard?”
The young man blurted out.
Indeed, it was a rock leopard, but unlike the typical gray body sculpted with streamlined rock lines, this strange creature was composed entirely of flowing black energy and sharp rocks floating amidst that energy, almost identical in appearance to the original rock leopard.
The magic formed its body, while the floating sharp rocks outlined its silhouette and limbs.
Brandel swore he had never seen such a creature before; it looked like a magical abomination—a being purely formed from twisted magic—yet it possessed some elemental creature characteristics.
“What the hell is this!” Brandel regained his calm after his initial shock; he immediately thought of his Earth Sword, raising it to scan.
Upon scanning, Brandel found the source of the problem—because of the Earth Sword, the property of the Stone Nest from Halangya had disappeared from the sword.
If it were normal times, losing an important attribute from his equipment would have caused Brandel to curse loudly. But now he understood—the attribute on the Earth Sword had not disappeared; it was more accurate to say it had been merged by Echis’s disaster heart.
Did the disaster heart of Echis even have this function? Brandel was momentarily perplexed; in his original impression, the disaster heart was simply a talisman with wolf nest attributes.
Perhaps it was special; to use it, it had to be integrated into the body, but Brandel thought that was just because the talisman had the potential for special growth.
Now, he realized it might not be that simple.
It suddenly dawned on him that in his understanding, equipment rarely offered unique systems to players. Just like in past games, he was aware of several special systems—the elementalist’s elemental pool system, which was unlocked by the profession.
The lord system was opened by identity and territory; the elite and boss systems of monsters were provided by templates. Guilds and team systems were self-explanatory, and there was also the wanderer system brought by destiny cards.
In other words, Echis’s disaster heart was at least a product of that level.
Therefore, it seemed the ability of the nest system was to gather all attributes with nesting ability on the player, making it a part of the player’s abilities rather than an external ability.
Brandel vaguely guessed at the system’s operation but was curious whether this ability could absorb fixed nests. If it could, that would be incredibly powerful.
He could search the world for nests, defeat their guardians, and absorb each nest—wouldn’t he ultimately become something akin to a mother nest?
Of course, Brandel knew this was merely a thought. If such a possibility existed, the game would have long since produced a few players who could easily summon legions.
But in reality, there were none.
Brandel pondered and suddenly thought of another possibility—that the nest lord system brought by Echis’s disaster heart might be something that didn’t exist in the game.
This was akin to his wanderer system.
The two were remarkably similar, both being special systems, and both brought about by a piece of equipment.
Brandel looked at the shadow rock beast and then back at the black wolf clad in rock armor, a sudden thudding in his heart; he thought of a possibility—
Since the ‘shadow’ property of the black wolf’s shadow nest could influence the rock leopard, could the ‘rock’ property of the stone nest also influence the black wolf?
At least everything he had seen so far confirmed this.
In other words, the nest lord system provided by Echis’s disaster heart absorbed nest attributes by breaking them down and then merging them within the entire system to create new creatures?
Brandel quickly switched to the information panel for the nest lord system; the green light net in his eyes shifted, and his pupils suddenly contracted:
Nest Lord—Acquired attributes: 2 (Minor Shadow, Minor Rock), Acquired nests: 2 (Shadow Nest, Stone Nest).
“Damn!” Brandel almost jumped in excitement; it was indeed as he thought! The nest lord system breaks down and absorbs the attributes of nests, then re-integrates them to form entirely new creatures.
He just didn’t know if the newly created beings only gained traits or became stronger due to the new traits. If it were the latter, he would not just be winning big; he would be raking in an enormous fortune.
Without saying another word, Brandel thought to try it out; he immediately instructed Kargris to test the strength of those two monsters.
Kargris didn’t hesitate, or rather, he was eager to see what these two creatures were—after all, to him, they were also summoned by Brandel, and they had faced off against the rock leopard before—it wouldn’t be an issue to treat that black wolf like a rock leopard.
Drawing his sword, Kargris took a step forward, raising his sword to test with the military swordsmanship he was most familiar with. But as soon as he tested, he was taken aback.
He thrust his sword forward, only for the rock shadow beast to charge directly at him without dodging. Kargris didn’t expect the thing to be so aggressive, allowing it to rush past his sharp blade toward him.
In the next moment, everyone saw Kargris being pounced to the ground.
…
(PS: The second update is back; you know what that means. Starting tomorrow, we’ll return to the original update schedule.) (To be continued, to know what happens next, please log in; for more chapters, support the author, support authentic reading!)
