Chapter 134: It’s Not Purely Personal, Right?!
Yuliya stared blankly for a moment, then burst into ecstatic laughter.
Legend has it that in the past, people who sincerely called upon the name of a divine being might receive a response.
And it seemed the legend was true! Not only did she get a response, but she was also blessed!
“Hahaha! I’m a little genius loved by all!”
Talk about blowing my own trumpet! Let me strike a pose first!
Yuliya chuckled for a while, then respectfully bowed to the statue of the goddess.
After contemplating the customs, she switched to a prayer mode to express her thanks again before getting up to explore the church.
Venturing deeper into the church, she discovered a staircase leading downward.
Confirming that the air down there was still fresh, she descended without any hesitation.
The staircase was short; she made it to the bottom in just a few steps, finding herself in a dark underground storage room.
Unfortunately, it was pitch black, and there were no torches for illumination.
Yuliya pondered for a moment and pulled out the bl**d gemstone she had previously obtained, giving it a little pat.
The bl**d gemstone emitted a faint red glow, just enough to make out some shapes.
“Hmm, not bad! I always knew you’d be useful!”
She stepped into the basement, relying on the dim red light from the gemstone to survey the surroundings.
What she saw almost gave her a heart attack.
Bones, a lot of bones.
She instinctively adopted a combat stance but sensed at the same time that these bones were not of monsters; they held no presence whatsoever.
These were true, human remains.
Scattered all over the basement, many were huddled together, making it impossible to tell which bones belonged to whom.
“Sigh.”
Yuliya let out a heavy sigh.
If they were monsters, she wouldn’t feel so affected; her warrior instincts would filter out much of the unnecessary emotions.
But now the remains belonged to real humans, and that brought a tinge of profound sadness.
She could only imagine the scene of so many people curled up in this tiny basement.
With dangers lurking outside, only this church could offer a sliver of peace.
But what if rescue didn’t come? What if supplies ran out? How could those trapped withstand the overwhelming tide of despair?
Yuliya raised her hand and clenched it tightly.
With a crack, all the bones on the ground shattered into dust.
“Let this be your final funeral.”
She flung her hand up, and the wind swept up the dust.
Suddenly, she heard something clatter to the ground.
Following the sound with the red light, she spotted a small cross-shaped pendant.
She picked up the pendant, and an item panel popped up.
[Item Name: Holy Light Pendant (Accessory)
Item Rarity: Blue Rare
Item Description: Enhances corrosion resistance. Perhaps a thank-you gift from someone.]
“A thank-you gift, huh? Well, I’ll take it!”
Yuliya hung it around her neck.
“Since I’ve received such a gift, I guess I should see what happened in this city.”
She exited the church’s safe zone and headed toward the densely packed residential area.
She casually strolled into a house.
The situation inside was vastly different from the previous village and more in line with what Yuliya imagined it to be.
Chaotic and in a panic.
Various overturned items, scattered belongings, half-eaten food.
Yuliya searched around but found no useful information, so she moved on to the next house.
After checking several houses with no findings, she began to look farther away. This area, being closer to the church, had thinner black mist, but further away lay thick swirling smoke.
Time to gear up; got myself an accessory, so my bl**d’s thicker too.
As she approached the area shrouded in black mist, the atmosphere began to change—monsters started showing up along the way.
After dispatching a few, Yuliya squeezed into a room.
This room was much tidier than the previous ones, but the tidiness felt eerie.
Either they didn’t have time to run when things went south, or the source of the problem didn’t require them to run at all.
She looked left and right, eventually finding a diary titled “Sofia’s Diary” in a drawer.
The initial entries were normal records until one day, things took a turn.
Her father started returning home later and later.
When she asked him, he only said he was working.
Eventually, he stopped coming home for dinner.
Later still, he wasn’t there when she went to bed.
Finally, she decided to see where her father worked, devising a plan she thought was clever.
And that plan turned out to be the last entry in the diary.
Yuliya closed the diary, reaching up to rub her temples.
But as she did, it seemed she poked something unusual.
“What the heck?”
She irritably turned her head and found herself staring into a giant, ghostly blue mouth—half of her own head already swallowed.
“…”
“Ghost!!! Get off me!!!”
With Yuliya’s scream that blended terror and fury, a powerful force swept away everything around her.
Tables, furniture, walls, the floor—everything shot away at breakneck speed.
Objects that crashed into anything just pushed those obstacles back with them, creating waves of dust and debris.
When the dust settled, the ground within a twenty-meter radius of Yuliya was completely clear, leaving just a layer of yellow dirt.
As for the pesky ghost that was bothering her earlier, it had vanished into thin air.
Yuliya was panting heavily, calming her racing heart.
“Why are there always these creepy things?! This is personal!”
First, they sealed me off, then they tried to pull my headphones off! How dare they disrupt my fun!
She glanced at her status, realizing that just that burst of power had used up nearly half of her mana.
Suddenly, she heard movement from the nearby rubble, and a skeletal arm pushed away the debris to crawl up.
Then its eye sockets flared with two little flames that locked onto Yuliya’s gaze.
Skeleton: …
It promptly flopped back down, covering itself with debris again.
Yuliya: …
What the heck are you playing dead for!!!
“Get up, you bonehead!!”
Yuliya stomped her right foot hard.
With a bang, an unidentified object shot up from the rubble.
When the dust cleared, only white bones were left suspended in the air before they crashed to the ground.
“Still just an elite monster. That’s what I’m here for!”
Yuliya formed a fist the size of a small pot, her expression dark. She was extremely frustrated and needed a punching bag to vent.
Well, what do you know? Seems your luck just ran out.
The elite monster was just as confused.
It was having a perfectly fine nap, minding its own business, when suddenly it was blown away.
When it finally clambered out of the heap, it was met with a fierce glare.
It realized its weapon and shield had mysteriously disappeared, so it decided to pretend not to see anything.
Then…
“Thud! Crack! Bang!”
Yuliya felt much better, but this world just lost another skeleton.
“Here, the elite monsters are different. They’re tougher, thicker, perfect for my punching bags.”
After collecting herself, she took out the diary she had just browsed through.
Luckily, that diary was tucked away in her backpack, escaping disaster.
The diary recorded Sofia’s route to her father’s workplace, and Yuliya planned to check it out.
