Chapter 118: What Happened to Teacher Hom?
“Wait! What’s going on!” Hom’s eyes widened.
The horn and bell sounded together, signaling the end of the duel. The invisible audience roared in disappointment, their cries growing sparser as if they were leaving.
Above the pool of water that Abyss’s body had become, the minuscule crystal, emitting an almost imperceptible light, continued to spin. It was incredibly small, perhaps less than 0.1 millimeters in diameter. An ordinary person, without Dou Qi or special magic to enhance their body, wouldn’t even be able to see it.
This tiny crystal seemed to mock Hom, reducing all his previous elation and excitement from gaining power to nothing.
“What happened! What happened!” Hom screamed, rushing forward. He snatched the tiny crystal, looking at the speck, small enough to get stuck in his fingerprint, completely bewildered.
Why did the enemy turn into water after being killed! Why was the spoils of victory just this speck, smaller than a grain of sand!
Where was the enemy? Where did that substantial opponent I was just facing go?
As Hom picked up his “spoils,” the arena surrounding him dissipated into thin air, leaving a baffled Hom standing alone.
…
“Mm, not bad, not bad. We gathered quite a lot of intelligence this time,” Abyss smiled, speaking to the girls beside him.
“Hahaha, priceless! That Hom was so smug after gaining Supreme-tier Dou Qi power, only to punch an alchemical golem to bits, hahaha!” Leona laughed heartily. She loved this kind of farce, plus she had just gotten her pure, undefiled body back (Abyss hadn’t even touched it much during the three days). Today became her happiest day recently.
“Abyss, you really know how to crush someone’s self-esteem. I almost feel sorry for this Hom,” Flora said softly from the side, though her tone held no reproach. She certainly wouldn’t protect a villain who had indiscriminately killed many people.
Yes, Abyss hadn’t gone out to face Hom directly just now. Although he was bold, he wouldn’t rashly engage in a one-on-one fight without understanding the enemy’s power.
He had retrieved one of the alchemical golems Rebecca had previously made for him from his Magical Catfish. This golem was almost identical to him and could also use magic and Dou Qi. From yesterday until noon today, Abyss hadn’t just been staring blankly at Hom, the muscle-bound brother; he had spent time improving his artificial soul technology, creating a wisp of soul similar to his own but with minimal spiritual power, and placed it inside the alchemical golem.
The alchemical golem acted according to pre-set programming, which explained the previous “Abyss’s” abnormal behavior. It spoke according to the program, sometimes interrupting Hom or responding slowly. It also fought according to the program, running around randomly like a headless fly, completely disregarding whether it could actually hit Hom.
Simultaneously, this artificial soul eliminated the need for Abyss to control it directly, preventing Hom from using the Lord of Bullying’s teeth to cause any harm to Abyss’s actual soul.
The alchemical golem possessed the same strength rank as Abyss, but it was merely a paper tiger, easily broken, lacking the power corresponding to its rank. Although Hom could use the arena rules to elevate his own rank to Supreme-tier, he didn’t know his opponent, despite having the rank, lacked the actual strength.
Because the golem was so weak, Hom received practically no reward after winning. The power contained within that crystal might strengthen an insect, but even slightly larger animals might find it useless.
Not only did Hom gain nothing, he suffered a net loss. His self-esteem was likely shattered. Even more tragically, Abyss was happily watching the show with his companions from the sidelines, utilizing the properties of the Shadow Realm – Leona was even eating a bag of french fries from the Magical Catfish.
“Okay, let me organize this. The intelligence gathered so far is: first, he was indeed waiting here for us. The leader of the Iron Lilies is very interested in me.”
“The way he looked at you was really off, you know,” Leona commented from the side. “It felt like he was really lusting after your body. Could his leader be into that too? Honestly, being so delicate-looking, you really are prone to attracting attention from people with that taste, like the nobles of the Western Empire…”
“That possibility can’t be ruled out, but there’s no concrete evidence yet, let’s leave it at that for now,” Abyss nodded seriously, completely unfazed by Leona’s words – he knew his face was quite delicate; with a wig, no one could even tell he was male.
“Next, his arena is stronger than the fish-man leader’s. I don’t know by how many levels, but I can confirm the Lord of Bullying doesn’t treat all his followers equally. He ranks them, providing different levels of power for their use,” Abyss continued. “This indeed fits the Lord of Bullying’s ‘survival of the fittest’ philosophy, even applying to his own followers.”
“So, does that mean the Iron Lily leader and Prodo might also possess higher-level powers?” Flora asked curiously. “Because it’s now basically confirmed they’ve all allied with the Lord of Bullying…”
“Possibly,” Abyss nodded, continuing, “Then there’s the arena he uses. He said the arena is a projection, meaning like the fish-man leader, he uses it to pull enemies into another space, except his arena can be seen by more people – I don’t think this is just for showing off. An arena visible to others seems to utilize some mechanism related to the ‘audience’.”
“You can even deduce that much?” Leona sucked on her fingers, which had just held french fries. “What purpose do the spectators serve?”
“That I don’t know, but I feel those spectators aren’t just there to hype the atmosphere,” Abyss shrugged. “The Lord of Bullying is also very mysterious; we still haven’t chatted with him. So this can only remain speculation. Hmm, one last piece of intelligence: the teeth around his neck. Those should be the passes for the arena. If he wins, the used teeth return. But look at the teeth on his neck now, isn’t one particularly small?”
Everyone looked towards Hom, who was standing there dazedly. Indeed, on his tooth necklace, a pathetically small tooth had appeared at some point.
“Does the size of this pass affect the arena’s strength? I’m quite curious,” Abyss said with interest.
Just then, Abyss felt a small hand tug at the corner of his clothes.
It was Agnes. She was happily pointing at Hom’s necklace and saying to Abyss, “Water! Water! Tree drink water! Tree likes drinking water!”
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