Sacred Souls: Genesis-Chapter 197 - 196: Cannibalism! (3rd Update)
Chapter 197 -196: Cannibalism! (3rd Update)
The time was 11 pm on May the seventeenth.
Three minutes prior, players had slain the Heavenly Frost Dragon, and they had completely stripped its body, their precision akin to that of a surgeon’s scalpel.
Every single scale, every bone, and even every piece of flesh and organ from the pitiful Heavenly Frost Dragon’s body had been removed and placed into the players’ backpacks.
As for the core crystal within the Heavenly Frost Dragon, Hai Lan had swallowed it whole, and besides that, there were thirteen mother crystals inside its body, which the players also took without exception.
While players from various guilds were busy dividing the colossal creature to place into their backpacks, Jiang Qiao, still in his tombstone state, appeared forgotten, tightly clutched in the hand of the Heavenly Frost Dragon.
As the players were occupied tallying up their spoils of war, Jiang Qiao too was busy counting his… along with the lost Creation Energy.
That’s right… lost Creation Energy.
“Are you sure it was eaten by this Heavenly Frost Dragon?”
Jiang Qiao, in his Spiritual Body form, floated before the Heavenly Frost Dragon. Now that the flesh and scales from its face had all entered the players’ backpacks, the gigantic skull still stood erect over the Snow Plain, a testament to the terrifying creature it had once been.
“Quite sure!” Hai Lan was still holding the Heavenly Frost Dragon’s core crystal and crunching on it like a snack.
“Two thousand one hundred points of Creation Energy, about one third the appetite of Queen Mei,” Jiang Qiao opened the Book of the System, looking at the Creation Energy he had lost.
In this battle to conquer the Heavenly Frost Dragon, eight major guild’s elite raid teams collectively faced two hundred and ten deaths. In Jiang Qiao’s view, the challenge of slaying the Heavenly Frost Dragon was far less than that of the battle with Queen Mei.
Because Queen Mei was a small target and extremely agile, the Heavenly Frost Dragon was practically a sitting duck for the players. Plus, with the encirclement by the eight major guilds, although two hundred and ten deaths was decidedly a grievous number, it still took less than eight hours to kill the dragon.
In contrast, now Queen Mei, in the reproduced battle of the godly figures, already caused the players to be cut down right at the gates of war.
The Wasp Knight kept sending mocking messages in the lord chat group like, “This generation of spirits just isn’t up to par.”
Follow curr𝒆nt nov𝒆ls on fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com.
While the death of the players was one thing, the loss of Creation Energy was the key…
Every player was a congregation of energy, and their death amounted to just that energy being resurrected elsewhere.
If it was in the spirits’ home world, players wouldn’t need to expend any Creation Energy to resurrect, but on Biland Island, due to being in a foreign world, each resurrection of a player needed a low as point one of Creation Energy.
However, this time in the battle against the Heavenly Frost Dragon, the stake players had to pay for resurrection soared rapidly from point one to ten. Keep in mind that during her heyday, Mei, wielding the divine power of Hai Lan, could only absorb twenty to thirty points of Creation Energy by killing a single player.
“The fundamental question is, how could this Heavenly Frost Dragon take away Creation Energy from you? And where did the energy it took go?”
Jiang Qiao closed the Book of the System. If it weren’t for Hai Lan’s reminder, he might not have even noticed that the loss of Creation Energy in this battle was… so devastating.
“I’m not sure about that, but what a loss… This dragon was only worth seven hundred points, and the remaining one thousand four hundred points, God knows where they have gone,” Hai Lan glanced at the players who were almost done stripping the Heavenly Frost Dragon, as they even planned to take away the smashed skull and rib bones.
Hai Lan checked the total Creation Energy that the Heavenly Frost Dragon could be converted into, which was only around seven hundred points. Logically, such a powerful being, comparable to the avatar of a god, should contain more energy than that.
“The key issue isn’t that; the key is why creatures on this island can snatch away the power of spirits!”
Jiang Qiao hit Hai Lan’s head with the Book of the System, signaling that it was time for Hai Lan to drop the dumb and cute foodie persona at this juncture.
“This… could this Heavenly Frost Dragon be my descendant? But I can’t feel any connection to it that relates to me,” Hai Lan speculated.
The idea was that this dragon was a descendant of the Devouring God.
Firstly, the concept of Creation Energy was put forth by Jiang Qiao in his Creator persona state. Creation Energy is a pure form of energy so refined that those with divine status can use it to shape anything.
This is a very mystical concept, somewhat equivalent to the very existence of certain things.
Everything that exists in this world possesses its own characteristics, just like a handful of soil. Jiang Qiao might be able to refine iron from the soil, but Jiang Qiao cannot turn that handful of soil into a piece of meat. That handful of soil exists in this world, it has its mass, the composition of its material, etc.
If Hai Lan ate that handful of soil, it would be akin to ‘formatting’ it. Its mass, physical form, and such would no longer exist, turning into a pure ‘energy’.
This is the authority of Hai Lan as the Devouring God, as well as the reliance for her to create her own world, and can also be said to be ‘a skill only Hai Lan possesses.’
Other gods are incapable of doing this. Jiang Qiao learned from the Earth Mother Goddess that she can only create things like soil, leaves, and trees. For any god to shape the world with the casual ease of Hai Lan is impossible.
Thus, even if the gods of this world killed the players, they would only make them resurrect and become stronger, causing no impact on the players whatsoever.
But this Heavenly Frost Dragon learned to devour the players’ constitutive energy in battle, just as Queen Mei who possesses the divine nature of Hai Lan.
“Are you suggesting this Heavenly Frost Dragon has learned my ability?” Hai Lan incredulously said.
“Magic Thieves can replicate the skills of the players, and it is… no, it doesn’t make any sense for the Heavenly Frost Dragon, who has even more power than the Magic Thieves, to replicate a god’s power. If those with the crystal sickness could replicate your power, the worlds on the star chart would probably have been devoured by them long ago.”
Jiang Qiao could glimpse from Hai Lan’s memories that on the star chart, Hai Lan was an existence of high status. Hai Lan’s power was not something that could simply be imitated.
“Yet this Heavenly Frost Dragon devoured my 1,400 points of Creation Energy and has yet to show its face,” Hai Lan said angrily, stomping on the snow-covered ground, and although she couldn’t leave any marks on the snow in her spirit form, Jiang Qiao could tell she was furious at being outwitted by her foe.
“Perhaps… it wasn’t the Heavenly Frost Dragon who devoured it?” Jiang Qiao’s gaze fell on the foot Hai Lan had placed on the snowy ground.
“If not the Heavenly Frost Dragon, then who? Other monsters on the island?” Hai Lan asked, spreading her hands. There were still many players on the island hunting the other monsters on Biland Island, and likewise, quite a few players were being taken away by the island’s monsters in various forms of dragon chariots.
“Is it possible… that the entire Biland Island has eaten your Creation Energy?”
As Jiang Qiao uttered these words, Hai Lan froze in place, unwilling to move; her foot that was previously resting on the snow retracted instantly.
It sounded like a ghost story! An entire island was actually a monster that devours humans!
“Step on it,” Jiang Qiao commanded Hai Lan, pressing the tip of his finger to her forehead. “The Snow Plain and the Spiritual Vein Forest should be under our control by right, and if this island truly has its own consciousness… after you have devoured two core crystals, you should be able to communicate with it.”
“No way!” Hai Lan hissed, her back arching like a startled cat, and any cat would bristle at their owner commanding them to give their fish treats to another cat.
“Stop your whining, I’ll take you out for roast lamb tonight.”
“I want three! With cumin and spicy sauce.”
“Two.”
“Two and a half!”
“Fine…”
After an inconsequential negotiation with Hai Lan, she finally carefully placed her foot back into the snow of Biland Island.
At that moment, Jiang Qiao pressed his fingertip to the center of Hai Lan’s brow, a pale gold light emanating from his pupils as he shared his senses with Hai Lan.
Jiang Qiao was overwhelmed by an intense hunger and an obsession with roast lamb, but beyond that… he felt something else, a very faint cry for help… so soft that Jiang Qiao couldn’t hear it, and it was in a language that Jiang Qiao couldn’t understand.
After searching through the star chart languages Hai Lan knew, Jiang Qiao found the one corresponding to this cry, and translated its meaning to…
“Save me!”
