Chapter 451: Act 201 – Survive a Great Disaster and You Will Be Blessed
“Alright then, young one,” Veronika said, looking at Brendel with her emerald green eyes. She had gotten the answer she wanted from him, so her tone was less direct: “I’ll go check out the west first. Of course, if I find anything, I’ll inform you, the ‘little lord’, first.” She smiled cheerfully.
Brendel tugged at the corner of his mouth. For some reason, Veronika seemed to harbor an inexplicable leniency towards him and enjoyed teasing him, whether there was a reason or not. Setting aside the identity of the Crusian, he still admired her way of handling things, and maintaining a personal relationship with a powerful female count in the Empire had its advantages. However, from the national perspective, the two were bound to calculate against each other.
“As long as there are sufficient shared interests, for now, that’s enough.” Brendel needed a breather to develop and grow, and this agreement with Veronika might help him achieve that. Thus, both had obtained their most satisfactory results, and the cooperation was relatively pleasant.
At this moment, the imperial legion commander had elegantly led the flower-leaf-bedecked little princess away from the square. Before leaving, Brendel noticed her stopping beside Mephistopheles, though he couldn’t tell what they said, the infamous Gray Saint surprisingly glanced back at him.
Andisha was naturally taken away as well, leaving only a few of them remaining in the square. Funiya had quietly held his hand since earlier; she had always been a steady character. Brendel squatted down to wipe the dust off her somewhat dirty face and looked at the little girl with hair cascading down to her ankles like wisteria, suddenly worried whether she would turn out to be like Xi when she grows up.
While the quiet demeanor was a cute point, Brendel was always concerned about Xi’s mental state. He glanced back at the red-haired maiden, and the peculiar look she gave even made Xi feel a bit strange; she silently lowered her head, frowning, wondering if her face was very dirty, which was why the lord was staring at her.
Could he want to help her clean her face? She suddenly recalled Brendel carefully cleaning Funiya’s face while squatting beside her, unable to help but feel restless, unsure whether to accept or reject such a gesture.
But Brendel had merely looked at her a bit longer. There was still Amann’s corpse in the square, which was what truly interested him. Amann was dead, obliterated entirely; thus, he had no hope for loot from this fallen priest—although Brendel knew a figure of Amann’s rank must have contained numerous valuable items on him. At least that equipment, which had repeatedly triggered high-level defensive divine spells, would be priceless in the game. However, the chaotic energy from the obliteration black hole carried the property of annihilation principles, making it impossible even for items of the Azure Sky level to withstand, let alone anything else—regret was pointless, and the earlier situation was beyond his control. Fortunately, not all was lost; Brendel confirmed that at least one item would remain.
That was a fragment of the Book of Mavikart.
The fragment of a relic was at least a high-level material in the game.
The spot where the obliteration black hole had collapsed now left behind a bottomless pit, smoky remnants wafting upwards, surrounding silence reigning—there was no typical scenario of players scrambling for loot after a boss battle, and Brendel felt somewhat unaccustomed to it. He cautiously slid down the pit, stopping multiple times, quickly spotting something flickering in the black mist. In the depths of the pit, a black light floated in mid-air. Though Brendel had never seen a fragment of the Book of Mavikart, he recognized it at a glance.
Relics far surpassed ordinary equipment; even broken, the lines of principle that had adhered during forging were still preserved. That floating black light was pure remnants of law—chaos, entropy, the essence of wandering power; in fact, all high-level equipment left similar fragments.
As he approached, a powerful aura surged forth, and Brendel was unsure how to handle this item. In the game, he rarely had the opportunity to interact with such high-tier items alone. Although it was considered material, the wandering principles were challenging to manage. Because it lacked a physical form, it couldn’t just be stowed in a backpack, unless he had something like a dimensional bag. But since his crossing, he hadn’t seen anything with dimensional attributes.
He pondered for a moment and extended the silver right hand covered by Bahamut’s Grip to grasp that black light. Bahamut’s Grip, known as the Dragon King’s blessing, was also a product inheriting higher-order principles. When he grasped it, his brow involuntarily lifted. “Oh, this thing…” Brendel was immediately shocked, a wave of ecstasy surging through him as he realized the fragment of the Book of Mavikart was purely the remnants of opposing rules of order. After being refined, it turned out to be the same as the magical power that generates monstrosities.
To put it simply, he found that he could directly convert this into usable experience! Brendel nearly exclaimed in amazement at his luck since, compared to the rule layers of the Book of Mavikart, any monster below golden tier was mere refuse. This was practically treated like a boss battle, and not just any boss, but one nearing demigod power.
Experience points from a boss over level 160!
Moreover, this was not during an era where monsters roamed rampant 120 years after the great demonic tide, and world-level bosses were pushing over level 200. This was still in the year of the Sword, just after the outbreak of the Black Rose War, where even Xi, transformed into a demigod, counted as a minor boss. A character like Andisha, barely reaching levels 80 or 90, would be considered a world leader. “Oh, my Martha, am I dreaming?” Brendel felt as if he had been struck by a massive pie from the heavens. Just [drawing] a thread of it granted him 20,000 to 30,000 experience, while that black light seemed unwilling to diminish even a tiny bit; Brendel estimated it had several million experience packed within.
He couldn’t help but mutter several curses, feeling as if he had never been this lucky since crossing over; could this be the so-called blessing of having great misfortune? Of course, extracting experience from this wasn’t so simple, as the principle of a relic was tightly bound. Extracting power from it was akin to peeling away the law from it. Brendel felt resistance as soon as he began to extract; while this resistance didn’t affect him much, thoroughly absorbing all that experience would still take some time.
He thought for a moment and decided he needed to find a way to store this precious item. Brendel felt that even if he fell asleep holding it, he would wake up smiling; he was about to individually claim the experience of a world-level boss from the mid-stage of the demonic tide, a thought that was simply unimaginable. But in order to store this thing, the problem returned to square one—
Where was he supposed to get a dimensional bag?
Dimensional bags in Vaunte weren’t exactly rare, but they weren’t cheap either. The average person certainly couldn’t afford one. However, Veronika and Mephistopheles would surely possess such items. Brendel thought about it and decided it was time for the Gray Saint to cough up some blood; after all, he still needed to help restore his country, right? This would be a way to collect payment in advance.
With that in mind, he quickly climbed out of the deep pit, preparing to go ‘borrow’ a dimensional bag from Mephistopheles. But just then, a familiar voice echoed in his heart: “Oh, is that a relic fragment? How did you get it, little brother?”
It was the voice of Otales, the senior sister.
In fact, ever since he encountered the lingering will of the Dark Dragon Odin, Brendel had felt that Otales seemed to be trapped in slumber. He almost thought the Dark Dragon might have done something behind the scenes—after all, Otales was a subordinate of the Four Virtues, and they were supposed to be sworn enemies. But unexpectedly, she had ‘awoken’ at that moment.
“Otales, where have you been?” Brendel immediately asked, wanting to confirm whether Otales had sensed Odin’s presence.
“You should call me sister, you silly little one. Of course, I saw that guy; he should feel my presence as well,” Otales replied, sniffing with a low voice in his heart.
Brendel couldn’t help but grin.
“So I…?”
“You accepted his inheritance, right? I already knew that.” Otales’s tone did not sound angry. Although the wind spirits were known for their indifference, her emotions were still quite evident. Brendel sensed no anger from her, knowing that this senior sister might truly not mind. However, he found it odd; logically speaking, people affiliated with the Four Virtues should be absolute enemies of the Dark Dragon. When Otales handed him her Wind Queen ring, it meant she had selected him as her inheritor, so how could she not care about his acceptance of the Dark Dragon’s inheritance?
But she seemed to guess Brendel’s confusion and replied, “Power itself has no right or wrong; what matters is who wields it. You didn’t think I lack such broadmindedness, did you? I have faith in you; otherwise, I wouldn’t have handed the ring to you. And I’m quite curious about that guy’s inheritance—”
“It sounds like you admire him?”
“Mm,” Otales did not shy away from it and spoke with a hint of nostalgia: “After all, he was our strongest adversary. Generally speaking, someone whose power reaches his level must possess charisma. However, we’re ultimately not in the same camp, and the philosophies we represent are different; so-called good and evil cannot coexist. But now that we’re both dead, past grievances have long since vanished, leaving only respect for the opponent—”
Upon hearing Otales’s response, Brendel couldn’t help but fall silent. If a person fights not out of personal grudges, but based on beliefs, that would indeed be worthy of respect. However, history is history, and as a mere observer, he cannot easily understand—the thoughts belonging only to that era might be completely beyond his grasp.
“Then what was going on with you earlier? He didn’t do anything to you, did he?” Brendel asked again, concerned about the well-being of this senior sister of the wind spirits since the opposing entity had been notoriously wicked throughout history.
The elven lady knight shook her head in his heart: “No, he merely transmitted some information about the inheritance to me, and I didn’t react immediately.”
“Inheritance information?” Brendel wondered what kind of information the Dark Dragon had to share with his deadliest enemy. Although there was respect for rivals, they were indeed still deadly foes; could it be that these factions had actually achieved a level of mutual understanding akin to the legendary communist ideals?
That thought seemed too strange.
However, Otales appeared reluctant to delve deeply into this subject. She switched topics: “By the way, dear little brother, it seems that guy has awakened some ancient bloodlines within you. I feel you can learn some of my sword techniques now.”
“What?”
Brendel felt as if another large pie had fallen from the sky to knock him unconscious. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please consider voting for it or subscribing on qidian.com; your support is my greatest motivation.)
