The Almighty Ring

With the boss dealt with, Jiang Fei quickly made his way out of the swamp with the little girl in his arms. As he trekked pass the thick swamp waters, Jiang Fei concocted his next waypoint.

Jiang Fei was following 0541’s advice; to slay Celestial tier NPCs, but he was unable to bring himself to kill allies. Primordial Celestials were easy to deal with since all of them were considered as enemies. About allies though, Jiang Fei had a loose grasp of the possible situation.

0541’s message was clear—to kill all NPCs of Celestial tier and higher. Back when the Dragon God and the Divine Light God went missing in the game, Jiang Fei had guessed that it was the military’s doing. These two NPCs’ programming were extracted out of the game to be used as artificial souls for their Androids. There was no way he could prove it, hence it was just a hypothesis. He had literally zero clue on how the military coded the artificial intelligence, however, from what he knew about the breakthrough in computer science and machine learning tech, there could not be any other faster method to make a “perfect” artificial soul.

That thought led to another. The military had shown their hostility toward their own citizens, even if it were only the martial artists. Who’s to say that the military wouldn’t deploy their Supreme Android Project to go against him? 0541 had went ahead, without Jiang Fei’s knowledge, to inform him about the possible coming conflict and tried to take it into its own hands to stop it. As a result, 0541 was sealed away. However, the result was still pending. It did what it could; to inform Jiang Fei to kill all high intelligence NPCs. That way, the number of possible A.I. that could be extracted was reduced, decreasing the number of soldiers that the military could actually produce.

There was one thing that Jiang Fei could not fully comprehend. It was about Akatziris. Her entire existence was treated like a silent companion or even a servant. Besides engaging in fights, there was literally nothing special about her. Jiang Fei had little to no emotional attachment to her. In the simplest manner of explanation, she was nothing but a true in-game pet.

However, 0541’s advice caught Jiang Fei’s attention, and that granted her a spot in the limelight.

On the one hand, she was only an intermediate Overlord tier NPC. Her strength was not to be feared as she was not really a damage dealer but more of a disabler. Her A.I. programming was no way close to Hua Mulan or the other girls that Jiang Fei had managed to court. Hence, why would an NPC that possessed mediocre strength and intelligence be paid attention to?

“Why did you do, Akatziris? Why did 0541 call out your name?” said Jiang Fei to himself.

Befuddled, Jiang Fei opened his character window. Her pet slot was still displaying an error code and she herself was missing. 0542 was probably too slow in relaying 0541’s message. If Jiang Fei was supposed to do something, it was probably too late.

“Big Brother! Look!” cried Miluya while Jiang Fei was busy with his thoughts.

“Huh?”

Jiang Fei traced the little girl’s finger and saw a glimpse of bright light at the end of the swamp. Unknowingly, Jiang Fei had almost made it out of the smelly dump. It was not far from where they were, but Jiang Fei noticed a huge mountain with a peak that he could not even see. At the bottom of the steep cliff was a cave. That was the source of the light which Jiang Fei had mistakenly thought was the end of the swamp.

“Let’s go in,” Jiang Fei said. Besides the cave, he could not see anywhere else that could serve as the exit of the swamp. As soon the two entered the cave, everything went dark. Light was already scarce in the swamp and it got worse upon entry.

“Be careful.”

It was too dark. Although he was giving Miluya a heads up, he was actually just trying to boost his own courage. Right then, the Rebirth after Death effect of the ring was ready. Even so, Jiang Fei was still incredibly nervous as he might encounter other Primordials.

The deeper they went, the darker it got. The light that was barely coming in from behind them vanished from their vision. At that point, Jiang Fei could only move forward, one step at a time as he kept one hand on the side of the cave wall, tracing them as he moved.

“Big brother! It’s all black!” Miluya grunted.

“I know… I do wish we have a torch or something…” said Jiang Fei with a heavy sigh. Tracing the wall while walking forward was too slow. Even so, he dared not move too quickly as walking with his eyes closed was no different to when they were opened.

“Leave this to me!” cried Miluya as she let his hand go. Quietly, she whispered something, like a chant.

“Miluya~ Luya~ Luya~!”

As soon as she was done, a small orb of yellowish light floated up from her tiny palms. It was small, about the size of a baseball. The light it emitted was weak yet it was sufficient enough to illuminate at least a meter away, allowing Jiang Fei to see where he was going. The light floated around Jiang Fei before it remained within an arm’s reach. It was then that Jiang Fei realized the light was being emitted by a rather large firefly!

“Lead the way, little firefly!”

“Wow, I didn’t know you had that kind of magic!” said Jiang Fei, happy.

“Heh! You can praise me more often you know?” said the little girl with her chest puffed out proud. The little girl did not have any attack power but she did know some odd forms of magic.

With the firefly leading the way, Jiang Fei was able to move forward at a slightly faster pace. It had gotten easier since he no longer needed to watch his steps.

“Big brother? When are we going out? I’m bored…” Miluya complained.

“Soon.”

“Okay then!” She smiled, trusting Jiang Fei.

Chi!

It happened in a fraction of a second. An arrow came out of nowhere and killed the poor firefly. Without light, the entire cave turned pitch black.

“Hyah!”

The sudden attack made the little girl scared.

The loud piercing cry distracted the would-be assassin toward the girl instead of Jiang Fei. With nothing but Miluya’s cries to go on, Jiang Fei only knew that they were under attack. Who was attacking and what their numbers were unknown. In that darkness, Jiang Fei had failed to notice that a pair of daggers had been thrust toward Miluya!

When the attack almost reached Miluya, something far darker than the darkness itself came hurling from behind. The shadow engulfed the attacker like a blob of glue, slowing down the attacker.

What came next was the sound of punches and beatings. From what Jiang Fei could hear, it was someone beating up someone else. But after the first beating ended, he heard the same sound of beatings coming from further ahead. There was more than one attacker!

“Miluya! Miluya? Where are you? Are you alright?” cried Jiang Fei. He was frantically waving his hands around, trying to make sense of where the girl was.

“I’m fine. Someone was picking on me and Brother Lucifer came to teach them a lesson!” said the little girl. Her voice was somewhat jubilant with a hint of smugness. The girl’s strong supporter was there and there was nothing that she would be afraid of.

“Heh…” Jiang Fei sighed a breath of relief. Even though he could not see his surroundings, there was nothing to be feared since her big brother Lucifer was there. As long as it was not a random Level 300 boss, nothing could stop the god-like Lucifer!