| WRIAWW | A Wonderful Beginning | 61
Joshua had indeed experienced moments when plans went awry.
But to have things go so wrong so abruptly caught him off guard.
However, the silver-haired man reacted with lightning speed. The moment Zong Le's voice appeared, he spun around and retreated, simultaneously issuing a forced command to summon the weird infants, who had been left bewildered by the disappearance of their prey.
"Hehe..."
In an instant, the corridor was filled with sharp, piercing cries. The weird infants, which had been scattered, began to reform. Their rotting little hands clawed through the maze walls that had turned into mud, and dozens of black eyes opened simultaneously in the darkness.
Zong Le clicked his tongue in annoyance.
This move of using others to do the dirty work confirmed one thing for him.
If he doesn't deal with these weird infants, he wouldn't get his answers.
In a flash of thought, the black-haired youth decisively turned around.
His immediate priority was to find a suitable weapon.
Thanks to his exceptional night vision, Zong Le quickly locked onto his target.
In the dimly lit room stood a statue of a knight in full armor, a common decorative piece in churches. It was composed of a genuine set of armor, including a gleaming helmet, a steel breastplate, and... a chillingly sharp century-old great sword.
Once the target was locked, Zong Le moved through the onslaught of the weird infants with ease. With a swift roll to the side, he perfectly dodged three crisscrossing claw strikes.
No matter the angle of the attack, he always managed to evade the claws at the last moment.
His precise prediction was as if he had eyes in the back of his head, or as if he had experienced such an assault countless times before, engraving every attack trajectory into his muscle memory.
Watching this, Joshua, who had managed to catch his breathe briefly, grew increasingly astonished.
He had initially thought Zong Le merely possessed top-tier combat talent, but he never expected that, faced with the frenzied assault of dozens of S-level weird infants, Zong Le could hold out for so long without showing any signs of defeat.
Yet, Zong Le was about to show him what true absurdity looked like.
After effortlessly retrieving the sword from the center of the armor, Zong Le gave it a quick feel and muttered with some dissatisfaction, "It's not even sharpened? It's really just a decoration... Well, it'll have to do."
Despite being an unsharpened old great sword, its hefty weight confirmed it was indeed forged from solid steel.
As his thoughts flowed, his body instinctively dodged, and he countered with a sweeping strike.
The seven or eight-pound great sword felt weightless in his hands, slicing through the air with a whooshing sound, not hindering his movements in the slightest.
Screech—
A piercing shriek suddenly rang out.
One weird infant's claw was severed, while another deformed head was sent flying, drawing a dark bloodline in the air before landing on the ground with a sizzling, corrosive sound.
At the pinnacle of the pyramid of the weirds, the weird infant's would use their powers to protect their entire body at all times. As meticulously cultivated experimental subjects, these weird infants had undergone multiple enhancements.
For instance, their ferocious, nearly steel-hard claws, or the scaly keratin layer covering their atrophied skin.
Clearly, the creator's intentions were obvious, they aimed to craft these weirds into perfect killing machines. From skeletal structure to muscle fibers, from neural reflexes to the instinct to kill, every detail exuded a chillingly meticulous design.
"Ah—"
Yet, even these near-perfect creations were no match for Zong Le's great sword, which decapitated them with a single strike each. Every swing of the great sword was sure to sound out a cry, some didn't even have the chance to scream, only the sound of their heads rolling could be heard.
The ease with which he did this was no more strenuous than chopping vegetables on a regular day.
From the moment he dodged, retrieved the sword, and began to swing it, only half a minute had passed, and the weird infants that had just been swarming him now lay scattered on the ground.
The leader among them was even brutally impaled through the chest by the great sword, pinned to the ground, now only exhaling with a single breath left.
It's worth noting that the church's floor was made of genuine marble. It's hard to imagine that such a casual, seemingly effortless strike could carry such terrifying force.
Outside the dim room, the survivors trapped in the corrido that were flailing about like flies, suddenly felt a blur before their eyes. The endless, mirror-like space of the maze that had surrounded them moments ago shattered abruptly.
"Hey, what's going on?!" Everyone was stunned.
Old Fu was the first to react: "I can see you all now. You were indeed not far from me. Wait, has the weird domain shattered?"
"How could the weird domain suddenly shatter? We haven't even seen that S-level weird yet!"
"I don't know. Did you encounter any weirds?"
"No, I was about to ask you the same thing."
After a moment of silence, someone suddenly had an epiphany: "Oh, I know! It must be Lord Joshua!"
"Right, right. Only Lord Joshua is outside right now. It has to be him."
"But doesn't 1st have no offensive abilities?"
"Are you dumb? He has so many healing and sacred skills, if he were to use his skills on the weird, it would be no different from throwing acid at it."
......
In fact, as early as when Zong Le approarched. Joshua realized that something was wrong and had already retreated. His white robe traced an arc in the corridor, and in the blink of an eye, he had moved dozens of meters away from the room.
"Hey, answer my question."
Zong Le waited until the distant commotion subsided, and a faint figure appeared behind him.
Joshua's pupils constricted sharply. He swiftly pulled a gilded button from his sleeve and hurled it backward.
The button disintegrated mid-air, revealing a sapphire core embedded within, which exploded instantly.
Thousands of dark blue crystal shards shot out in a fan shape, each imbued with a soul-freezing chill. In an instant, the corridor walls were covered in frost, and the air itself condensed into fine ice crystals.
"Fuck! What the hell?!"
Further down the corridor, survivors who had just escaped from the weird domain and hadn't had time to cheer were hit full force by this storm.
"Huh? Why is it suddenly snowing? Could it be that the weird is still not dealt with yet?"
"I remember the ultimate dungeon's current climate is supposed to be summer! Snow indoors must be caused by a weird. Everyone, be careful. The system hasn't given the mission completion prompt yet. There might still be remnants of the weird!"
"Alright, I can't take it anymore. Let's find a place to get rid of this ice on us. I'm freezing to death."
This was a one-time item Joshua had obtained in a previous dungeon. Its effect was immediate, causing instant freezing and a small-scale ice storm.
This type of item is extremely suitable for use in critical moments. Its effect is comparable to having an extra life.
Even guilds as vast and powerful as the Temple doesn’t possess many of these in stock. If such an item were to fall into the hands of a merchant guild, it could fetch an astronomical price at auction.
Unfortunately, he no longer had time to lament the loss of this item.
In the midst of a snowstorm that covered half the corridor, the black-haired young man merely shielded his face with his hand. With this simple gesture, he walked out of the raging storm of ice crystals as if nothing had happened.
This shattered Joshua's composure.
“What on earth are you—” he began, but before he could finish, he was slammed to the ground with tremendous force.
The golden sacred barrier that erupted between his slender fingers was shattered before it could fully form. His elegant and expensive monocle shattered into pieces, the shards scattering across his pale cheeks, leaving several shocking bloodstains.
Zong Le stepped on the pristine white robe of the church with one foot, his other hand gripping the silver cross chain around the neck of the silver-haired patriarch. He leaned down and spoke coldly.
“Well, when have I ever offended you to deserve such a ruthless attack?”
Under normal circumstances, Zong Le, who loved peace and was kind to others, wouldn’t have acted so harshly.
In fact, he had a strong sense of identity with his role as a survivor. Usually, he only went all out when fighting weirds and had never harmed his colleagues.
But Joshua was different.
He was a bad person (a conclusion drawn from eavesdropping), and he had intended to kill (though the reason remained unknown). This alone was enough for Zong Le to classify him as a bad guy.
“If I recall correctly, we’ve only met twice. Once during a mission at Tianmen Mansion, and another time during a question mark-level mission. Last time in the operating room, it was you who took the initiative to help me out. Personally, I don’t believe there’s any life-or-death hatred between us, and I can’t understand how such minimal interaction could drive you to want me dead.”
“Speak,” Zong Le urged, his brows furrowing tighter as Joshua remained silent. “My patience has its limits. You’d better not expect me to be kind to someone who wants me dead.”
“I’ll ask you again, when did I ever offend you—”
His words were abruptly cut off, drowned out by a beam of white light descending from above.
Unnoticed, the S-level weird that Zong Le had casually impaled to the ground breathed its last breath, its eyes wide with unfulfilled vengeance, before dissipating into black smoke.
After its death, all the survivors who had accepted this mission received a notification from the system indicating the mission’s completion.
As per protocol, after the mission was completed, the main system would wait for a period of time before using a transmission light beam to bring all the survivors who had ventured into the dungeon back to the infinite space.
When the blinding beam of light disappeared, the black-haired young man irritably ran a hand through his hair as he looked at the now empty ground.
Zong Le had been so focused on figuring out what was going on and ending the fight quickly that he had overlooked this detail, allowing Joshua to slip away.
On the other side, the priest stationed in front of the Temple’s teleportation array was startled.
This teleportation array was located deep within the Temple’s chapel and was usually only used by the patriarch. No one else is able to use it.
When the golden runes engraved on the ground lit up, the priest immediately put away the scripture in his hands and bowed his head, standing guard in front of the array.
As the light of the teleportation array faded, it revealed not the usual elegant and composed figure, but a disheveled form sprawled on the ground. The once pristine white robe was now stained with dust and blood, and the iconic silver hair was tangled and disheveled.
"Patriarch, what happened?!"
The priest was visibly shocked, his voice trembling with alarm: "What is this...!"
Before he could finish, a low muffled laughter interrupted him.
"Hah... hahaha... hahahaha!"
The laughter started weakly, tinged with a cold edge, but gradually grew more unrestrained, resonating from deep within his chest.
Joshua lazily rolled over, lying on his back in the center of the teleportation array, his silver hair splayed out like a shattered spiderweb. He gazed up at the fresco of "The Last Judgment" on the chapel's dome, the blood-stained corner of his lips curling higher and higher.
Having been in a position of power for so long, Joshua had forgotten how long it had been since he had experienced such a humiliating slap in the face. The sensation of blood flowing down his cheek and the taste of iron in his mouth felt foreign, as if it were an experience from a past century.
But at this moment, compared to the failure of his plan and the setback, another emotion had taken root and sprouted, growing into a towering tree in a short span of time.
"That power, a power that transcends all things... it's simply magnificent."
His cobalt-blue pupils contracted sharply, flickering with a gleam of delight. Like a child who had discovered a fascinating new toy, the pure, greedy desire in his eyes was almost tangible.
The man reached out, his long fingers curling before his eyes, the nerve endings transmitted to the fingertips were still trembling with excitement. The warm light by the chapel's candles cut through, casting a sharp line of light and darkness across his flawless face.
He must get him. Joshua's chest heaved violently, his smile widening.
If he could control Zong Le, he could control such a powerful power.
He dared not imagine what a beautiful world would be within his grasp.
TL: Yes, after 61 chapters we will finally get more of MC and ML's interactions. ╰(*´︶`*)╯
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