2025-08-06 20:58:25Almost at the exact moment the giant crocodile's massive body completely turned into a desiccated husk.
In Viridian's mind, the long-awaited final verdict from the system descended like an oracle with a thunderous proclamation!
[Quality Transformation Complete!]
[Congratulations, Host! You have acquired your first permanent talent: [Talent · Hardened Skin (Basic)]!]
[Talent · Hardened Skin (Basic)]: Passive talent. Your skin has been tempered through countless trials, its physical structure qualitatively transformed, with toughness and density greatly increased. Effect: grants a fixed reduction to physical damage taken.
Viridian's breath halted for a moment.
It's done.
He slowly raised his left hand.
It was a hand belonging to the bloodline—pale and slender, knuckles well-defined, the skin so fine it resembled the finest porcelain, even appearing somewhat delicate.
But Viridian knew it was no longer the same.
He moved to the nearby stone wall, bent down, and picked up a shard of stone that had been smashed earlier by the giant crocodile, its edges sharp as a blade.
Without the slightest hesitation, his gaze cold and focused, he summoned all his strength and slashed the sharp shard viciously across his forearm!
"Clang!"
A harsh, metallic-sounding screech rang abruptly in the silent sewer!
The sound was piercing, even throwing off a spray of tiny sparks.
Viridian looked down.
On his forearm there remained only a faint white mark; even the outermost layer of skin hadn't been broken.
But the hard stone shard he had used to test it had a small, visible chip along its sharp edge.
It worked.
It really worked!
An indescribable ecstasy, mixed with a paranoid, vindicated sense of enormous satisfaction, detonated from the depths of his heart and swept through his whole body in an instant!
In his previous life on the sickbed, every breath had been accompanied by a stabbing pain in his organs; every test meant life had been lopped off a little more by the grim reaper.
In this life in the castle, that holy light seeping through the door crack hung over him like the sword of Damocles, ready at any moment to fall and burn him to ashes.
The kind of despair that comes from watching yourself walk toward death with no power to stop it was the deepest, most inescapable nightmare of his two lives!
And now!
At this very moment!
With his own hands, he had laid the first indestructible cornerstone for this fragile, battered life of his!
This was no longer a nebulous, easily atrophying skill that could fade from lack of practice.
This was a permanent, passively active talent, etched into soul and flesh, a gift that no external force could strip away!
It was the first rung on the ladder to that supreme realm he pursued—the absolute immortality!
Yet the ecstasy lasted less than three seconds before it was replaced by a deeper, soul-deep paranoia and sense of crisis.
"Not enough..."
Viridian murmured, his voice hoarse, eyes burning with a flame hotter than at any time before.
"Far from enough!"
One [Hardened Skin] was still far from enough!
He was going to grind the "Blunt Resistance" talent until it became "Damage Absorption"! Turning the blunt damage he took into his own vitality!
He would push "Holy Light Resistance" all the way up until it fundamentally transformed into "Holy Light Affinity"! Let the paladins’ judgmental holy light become the sunbath that warms his body!
He would turn "Pain Endurance" into "Hyper Regeneration"! Make the enemies’ attempts to shave down his HP forever unable to keep pace with his cells dividing and wounds knitting shut!
He would take "Pierce Resistance", "Slash Resistance", "Fire Resistance", "Frost Resistance", "Mental Immunity", "Soul Ward"…
He would grind every life-preserving skill he could think of into gilded talents!
With hundreds and thousands of immortal talents, he would outfit himself from the inside out, from the physical to the conceptual, into a monster that no god or demon could kill, that even the very concept of "death" could not touch—eternally undying!
Viridian forcibly pushed down the tumult of thoughts in his mind, restoring absolute calm and reason with the utmost speed.
Living in fantasies was meaningless; taking stock of gains and planning the next move was the only rule for survival.
He thought for a moment and brought up his brand-new attribute panel.
[HP: 20/20]
[Strength: 3.3] [Agility: 6] [Constitution: 2.5] [Mentality: 7] [Talent: Hardened Skin (Basic)] [Skills:] [Impact Resistance (LV3: 388/400)] [Holy Light Resistance (LV2: 259/300)] [Blood Drain (LV1: 181/300)] [Basic Bite (LV1: 131/200)] [Environmental Utilization (LV1: 101/200)] [Claw Attack (LV1: 11/100)] [Endure Pain (LV0: 51/100)] Staring at this lavish-looking panel, Viridian's mouth finally curved into a genuine, cold, and satisfied smile. [Stun Resistance] only 12 proficiency points away from leveling up again.[Holy Light Resistance] was also within reach.
The first elite boss in the newbie village had been drained of its last ounce of value, transformed into a stepping stone on his path to immortality.
It was time to go find the next "experience gift pack."
He turned his gaze into the deeper darkness of the sewer.
Beneath the glittering surface of this vast city called Silver Sail, countless crimes and filth inevitably lay hidden.
The gangs, assassins, and scoundrels that lurked in the darkness...
They were all walking "skill potions" in their own right.
Viridian smoothed his collar—already soaked through with muck and torn to shreds—with an elegance as if he were not in a foul-smelling sewer but preparing to attend a grand banquet.
Yet, just as he was about to set off—
His movement froze abruptly.
He slowly closed his eyes.
After drinking the giant crocodile's blood and having his constitution strengthened, his vampiric, extraordinary senses became even more acute.
Especially his hearing.
After he filtered out the babble of running water, the distant squeaks of rats, and the thudding of his own heartbeat...
A sound, exceedingly faint yet astonishingly clear, crawled from deep within a branch of the sewer and, like a spider's thread, wound itself around his eardrums.
That wasn't the sound of water, nor the roar of a wild beast.
It was...
The heavy chain, making a "clank... clank..." as it was dragged across the wet floor.
And, mixed with the clatter of iron, suppressed to the extreme, intermittent sounds belonging to a human woman...
Sobbing and crying.
Viridian slowly opened his eyes, and a flash of cold surprise crossed his scarlet gaze.
Anyone who could play imprisonment games deep in these sewers was by no means a good person.
And those capable of committing such crimes would have a concentration of "evil" steeped through their souls and blood that was without doubt far greater than that of the apprentice knight from before!
A quiet curve of expectation tugged at the corner of Viridian's mouth.
The feast was truly about to begin.
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Chapter 150
“Ashen Council…”Lilith mouthed the unfamiliar name, her pulse tightening like a drawn wire.Gaia’s last whisper still echoed through the bridge—its ancient presence fading, leaving behind a silence vast enough to drown a galaxy.“Thank you.”The words came not through speakers but directly into their minds, faint as dying starlight. Gaia’s final thought watched the quiet void now freed of the swarm’s madness, where only the distant suns still burned in mute witness.Veridian did not answer. A promise was a promise. The transaction was complete.He lifted his hand. At his fingertip coiled a wisp of purest Termination—not energy, not light, but the embodied concept of an ending, the point where even “protection” itself ceased to exist.He touched the void.The power leapt forth, silent as breath, striking the fading core of Gaia’s consciousne
Chapter 149
The ancient voice echoed through the mental link, carrying with it a weariness that seemed to have endured across countless ages.Veridian’s will did not waver in the slightest. He didn’t even answer the question—instead, he asked in return, his tone as cold as the vacuum between stars.“You—or rather, you all—where do you come from?”Lilith stood beside him, lips pressed tightly together as she tried to process what had just happened.The Heart of the Swarm was not a chaotic beast—it was rational. That realization frightened her more than facing the swarm itself.The voice was silent for a moment, as though struggling to find words—or perhaps recalling a memory buried too deep in the abyss of time.“I… I am called Gaia. I am not a being of this universe.”As it spoke, torrents of vast information flooded directly into Veridian’s an
Chapter 148
“Talk?”Lilith’s voice quavered; the word itself seemed absurd, trembling as it left her lips. Talk—with that? With the Hive Mind that had just vomited out a moon-sized abomination?Veridian didn’t answer her question. He simply acted.“Nexus,” he commanded, calm and measured, “activate the Genesis Engine. Engage phase-walking protocol. Target: the Heart of the Hive.”The Expedition’s engines made no sound.Instead of roaring to life, the vessel grew still—eerily still. Then its massive hull began to blur, edges dissolving like ink in water. A shimmer rippled through its frame, and in the next heartbeat, the warship became translucent, a phantom adrift between realities.And then, the ghost ship plunged straight into the crimson nebula of living flesh.Lilith’s pupils contracted to pinpoints. She could <
Chapter 147
“The core… it sees us!”Lilith’s voice trembled—a terror older than reason, born from the marrow of life itself.Veridian’s gaze did not linger on the starmap for even a heartbeat.That colossal eye spanning the heavens, brimming with cold malice, stirred nothing within him.“No,” he said evenly, as though reciting a law of physics. “It doesn’t see us.”Lilith turned toward him, confused. Beyond the viewport, the red tide of the swarm was rising—a galactic tsunami of flesh and chitin surging from every direction toward the Expedition.The sheer magnitude of it crushed the mind; despair built not from power, but from numbers beyond comprehension.“But they—”“It only senses the void,” Veridian interrupted, his tone calm, almost patient.“I’ve cut the Expedition from the inf
Chapter 146
The Expedition tore through the fabric of space, completing its jump.Outside the bridge viewport, the cold, infinite darkness of the void was gone—replaced by a vast nebula of flesh and sinew, dark crimson and pulsating, like the entrails of some cosmic beast.Viscous clouds churned and bled with motion; within them, billions of glimmering motes flickered like fireflies in blood—each a living Zerg organism.The sheer scale of the nebula dwarfed entire star systems.Lilith’s stomach lurched. A wave of nausea rose from the primal depths of her biology—an instinctive revulsion born of life itself recoiling from its antithesis.“Expedition, enter stealth mode. Begin data acquisition.”Veridian’s voice was calm as still water, cutting through the dead silence of the bridge.Optical camouflage engaged instantly; the warship’s presence was erased from the physical spectrum.
CHAPTER 145
The pain that pierced Veridian’s soul came swiftly—and vanished just as quickly—but it left behind a trace he could not ignore.His expression darkened slightly as his consciousness sank into the core of his being.There lay the perfect loop of law-runes, a luminous circle woven from pure order. It was the foundation of his power, the symbol of his existence, the embodiment of the “Absolute Order” he had built himself upon. Yet now, on that immaculate ring, a flaw had appeared.At the node that governed the concept of “Void,” a microscopic breach had opened—a gap smaller than a grain of dust, but vast in meaning.From it emanated a faint wisp of Chaos, clinging there like a line of corrupted code deep within the logic of his soul—an anomaly that defied identification, coexisting alongside his own law of the Void.Veridian immediately summoned the silvery Primordial power he had just used to clea
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