74 Fighting Like a Mortal
Joshua held his sister, who wasn’t even ten years old, and stumbled across the fields.
There was an extremely hideous bite mark on his right arm, and blood soaked his entire sleeve. The bite mark was very irregular, and it didn’t look like it was an injury made by a creature with sharp teeth like a wild beast.
The two of them ran on the seedlings that had turned grayish-white from the blight, raising a wave of dissipating dust along the way.
“Brother, are you still bleeding…” his sister asked worriedly.
Joshua had a chunk of flesh bitten off from his arm by the bloated undead that was covered in mycelium and mold about an hour ago while saving his sister from the monster that was no longer the blacksmith they knew.
He took the opportunity to stab the red-hot soldering iron in the forging furnace into the monster’s eye socket, igniting its head from the inside. It emitted a crackling sound like ferns burning.
Then, he kicked over the furnace and ran out with his frightened sister while the fire spread.
The town was filled with miserable screams and sticky moans.
Countless bloated undead that was covered in mold and mycelium dragged their feet as they surrounded the surviving residents under the command of a group of strange people in brown-red robes and strange pointed hats. He held his breath and hid in the shadows with his sister. Taking advantage of the fact that the undead had been attracted to the Holy Spirits Church in the center of the town, he slipped out of the field through a tiny trail.
“It stopped some time ago. Save some strength and stop talking.”
As Joshua spoke, he turned his head uneasily and looked at the wound on his right arm. Then, his heart sank.
Mycelium that resembled white hair was slowly growing. The exposed flesh on his wound seemed to have turned into fertile soil to nourish them, and greenish-black mold began to spread on the intact skin around the wound.
From the moment Joshua was bitten, he began to feel that something was amiss. The pain of being bitten only lasted for a short moment before turning into a strange itch. He felt as if something had spread through the wound into his flesh, taking root, and then growing.
Gradually, a strange hunger arose.
This made him involuntarily swallow his saliva when he spoke to his sister.
Recalling the bloated undead that was covered in mycelium and mold, Joshua gritted his teeth and stopped in his tracks.
“Brother, what’s wrong? Is this place safe?”
His sister, who had suddenly stopped, panted for a while. When her breathing stabilized, she asked curiously, “No, I just suddenly remembered that there’s a Bramble Guards sentry over there. There must be a military doctor there who can treat my wound.”
As he spoke, he pointed at the other end of the field. The girl instantly beamed when she heard that.
“Great, let’s head there now.”
Joshua shook his head and said, “No, we don’t have time to waste now. We have to quickly go to Thorn City and inform the overlord of what happened in Red Spring Town.”
“Then what should we do?” his sister asked anxiously. Thorn City was more than 70 to 80 kilometers away. It usually took them a while to travel by carriage when buying things in Thorn City.
Joshua tried his best to make his expression natural and said,
“Therefore, the best solution now is for me to go to that sentry post to treat my wound while you go to Thorn City. This way, we won’t be delayed.”
“But…”
“Follow this path and you’ll reach Thorn City. You should still remember the places we’ve gone past before, right? Don’t worry, I’ll come looking for you immediately after my wound is treated. Just wait for me at the entrance of the shop where we usually buy iron ingots.”
Joshua didn’t give the girl a chance to think. He gently patted the girl’s head with his intact hand and smiled at her.
The girl hesitated for a long time before finally nodding.
“Let’s move. Let’s not delay any further.”
With that said, Joshua turned around and ran to the other side of the field. His sister looked at his back and hesitated for a while before running along the road in the direction of Thorn City.
There was naturally no Bramble Guards sentry in the direction Joshua was talking about. He stopped after running for about a kilometer.
He only felt relieved when he turned around and saw that his sister had turned into a black dot on the road.
Leaning against the weeds piled up on the ridge, he sat down and heaved a long sigh of relief.
The itching sensation had spread throughout his right arm, and a small number of white mycelium had gradually bloomed into gorgeous bacteria crowns. Although he didn’t know when he would become a disgusting undead like the townsfolk, he didn’t know how to stop it. He only planned on having a good rest.
Leaning against the soft pile of weeds, Joshua quickly fell asleep.
After an unknown period, he was woken up by a sticky sound.
“I thought you would run further.”
The person in a brownish-red robe and a strange pointed hat he had seen in the town stood in front of him.
Seeing him wake up, the person grinned with festering sores all over his mouth and revealed a malicious smile.
Joshua looked around. There were about 40 to 50 of the undead wandering around, and all the directions he could run in and had been blocked.
However, even without these obstacles, there was no need for him to run. He had woken up to find his entire right arm completely festered, and countless fungi grew out of the festering scars. Layers of fungi covered his arm like a shell.
However, strangely, he was still very lucid.
“How lucky. I never expected to find two hosts who can bear the Lady of Starvation’s Rotten Blessings in such a small town.”
Host? Him?
Joshua thought uneasily.
Although he didn’t know what the Lady of Starvation or the Rotten Blessing were, since the other party had surrounded him with so many monsters but didn’t kill him, he definitely wasn’t trying to be merciful.
Thankfully, he let his sister leave first.
“Come to me, blessed one.”
With a buzzing that made Joshua’s head spin, an armored man with wings on his back and maggots crawling in his eyes landed beside him. His entire body was wrapped in a constantly squirming sticky biomass armor.
A complicated dark-green mark on the monster’s chest constantly flickered as if it were alive.
Just looking at the monster made Joshua feel nauseous.
“Isn’t it very beautiful? You will also look perfect after receiving the blessing.”
The person in the red-brown robe squatted beside him and looked at the soon-to-vomit Joshua excitedly.
“Abandon your mortal coils and embrace the power of the Moon Realm to completely sublimate your life. You might not be used to it at the beginning, but you will definitely understand how merciful this is in the future…”
As the person spoke, he opened his palm, and an identical complicated dark-green mark appeared in midair.
Under Joshua’s shocked gaze, the mark slowly floated to his chest.
“No!”
“Feel this…”
Chi…
It was destined that no one knew what he wanted Joshua to feel.
This was because the remaining half of his sentence was forever stuck in his throat by a bright silver bolt.
…
“I’ll be in charge of long-range support from here,” Nizemar said indifferently to Cass, who was behind her, as an arrow pierced the Bloated Church priest’s throat.
Upon hearing this, Cass revealed an extremely odd expression.
After all, the last time he heard this voice say this, the other party was a Lunar Monster in Nizemar’s skin. Not long after, it left him with an unforgettable nightmarish memory.
Nizemar, who had no memory of this, continued, “In an emergency, I’ll use Storm Gain to increase the power of the next bolt to reinforce you. If…”
“Alright, alright… Don’t worry, I can resolve it.”
Upon hearing those familiar words, Cass hurriedly interrupted her as he drew the sword on his back.
Cass glanced at Liz, who was sitting on his shoulder. The faerie consciously jumped down and flew to William’s side with an indignant expression.
However, this was the only condition Cass had raised before agreeing to have Liz join him. She had to stay in the safest place when they encountered any battle.
“This can be considered as actual combat training. Remember to control the scale of strength to the Master domain.”
William reminded him.
William didn’t plan on taking action. A group of bloated undead and a Blessed would be perfect for Cass to spar with. He could also take a look at the results of his training in the meditation room.
Cass nodded and took a step forward with his sword. With a flash of lightning, he instantly appeared dozens of meters away.
His movements looked like he was running, but every step he took allowed him to blink dozens of meters ahead. However, after taking seven to eight steps, he appeared beside Joshua.
At this moment, the Blessed was raising the flaming saber in his hand and planning on severing the youth’s neck when Judgment 4 in Cass’s hand happened to tear through space and flash in front of the saber.
With a clang, Judgment 4 blocked the strike.
The Blessed turned its head to Cass, and only then did it seem to realize the other party’s existence.
The muscles in Cass’s arm bulged, and thumb-thick lightning crawled up the sword like a snake. The spot where the weapons collided instantly exploded with a bolt of lightning, and the intense blast sent the Blessed flying.
Joshua, who had his eyes closed under the blade, felt as if he had heard two claps of thunder.
The first sound exploded in his ears, almost deafening him. As for the second sound, it seemed to come from afar with a rumbling echo.
A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and realized that the surroundings had changed for some reason. The tall swordsman who had blocked the strike was carrying him and turning around to explain something to a man in a brown robe.
“I’m sorry, Lord William. The situation was pressing. I didn’t have the time to guide my strength according to your instructions.”
“It’s fine. A person’s life is more important, but we have to try our best to avoid such situations in the future.”
The swordsman nodded gratefully and put Joshua down.
“Don’t worry, little fellow. It’s safe now.”
With that said, he held his sword and took a step, disappearing from where he was again, leaving behind an afterimage that flickered with lightning.
Joshua looked in the direction the swordsman had run in and immediately saw the weed pile he had been leaning against a few hundred meters away.
Therefore, the two thunderclaps he heard just now were one? That swordsman had instantly brought him here?
Before Joshua could figure out how the other party did it, a familiar voice pulled him back to reality.
“Brother!”
Joshua turned around, and his sister threw herself into his arms, her face covered in snot and tears.
“Sob… I thought I would never see you again.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m here…”
Joshua comforted his sister as he patted her back with his uninjured hand.
Nizemar subconsciously frowned when she saw this scene.
After hesitating for a moment, she put down the repeating crossbow in her hand, got up, and walked to the siblings.
This bit of long-range support from the crossbow wasn’t even dispensable for the nearby battle.
“Stop hugging him. Your brother has a serious bloated infestation,”
Nizemar said coldly. Then, she pulled the girl away from Joshua’s arms.
Then, she ignored the girl’s glare and gently chanted an incantation. Her hand lit up with a faint green light from the Hand of Healing.
…
“Using human actions to guide the power of authority is the most effective way to resist the mental influence of the mythical echo.”
Cass flashed with every step as he recalled the words William had taught him during training.
As the person grasping God King Oka’s authority, Cass didn’t need to go through the trouble of charging over to fight a monster head-on. He could even stand on the ridge and smite the other party to death with a glance.
It was just like how he had instantly carried the youth to a safe spot. He could do such a short-distance blink with a thought.
However, William prohibited him from doing so.
“To mortals, ideas have to be acted upon to become reality. Even magic chanters have to construct spells to guide magic power to complete miracles. If you’re used to solving problems with a glance and a thought, your mind will subtly resonate with the God King of Blackwater mythology, Oka. You will eventually lose yourself in the authority and gradually lose your personality to transform into a Disaster.”
“Then what should I do?”
Cass asked during training.
“Fight like a mortal. Fight the way you fought before you obtained the authority,” William replied.
“I don’t understand. Are you asking me to give up on using that power?”
“Of course not, but you can’t treat this authority as a part of you. Instead, you should treat it as an external force, just like the sword in your hand and the armor on your body. You have to use your actions to guide the authority, not your thoughts. Only then can you truly tame this arrogant power.”
Authority often required a large number of self-restrictions to ensure that the user didn’t get lost. In the Golden Calendar, such superhumans were known as Pledgers. They would even swear an oath that could result in death to restrain their arrogance.
Therefore, he needed to run before using his authority to shorten the process. It was also why he needed to wrap the sword in lightning before using it to meet the enemy.
He could reach his goal with a thought. That was the domain of a god.
That was too arrogant and boring.
Only mortals would learn to take a long detour.
With the last step, Cass appeared in front of the Blessed in a flash. Lightning coiled around Judgment 4 in his hand as he stabbed at the other party’s throat.
As for the other party, it opened its mouth, releasing countless flies, as if it had expected it. From afar, it looked like it had spewed out a thick black fog that buzzed.
Cass was instantly drowned in the endless black fog.
Not far away, Liz, who had been watching the battle, exclaimed. Then, she looked nervously at William.
William sighed.
“Tsk, he still can’t control it?”
Just as he said that, a few silver lightning bolts vaguely appeared in the black fog of flies. Then, they became more and more dazzling until they reached a point that forced one to look away.
The dancing flies were instantly reduced to dust by the dazzling lightning. Then, the Blessed turned into a charred skeleton as the lightning danced.
The lightning extended into a dense lightning net and spread out. The dozens of bloated undead around him fell to the ground, charred.
After the lightning net dissipated, Cass was left standing alone. All around him was scorched earth.
The sword in his hand was stabbed into the ground.
Thank you for reading on myboxnovel.com
74 Fighting Like a Mortal
Joshua held his sister, who wasn’t even ten years old, and stumbled across the fields.
There was an extremely hideous bite mark on his right arm, and blood soaked his entire sleeve. The bite mark was very irregular, and it didn’t look like it was an injury made by a creature with sharp teeth like a wild beast.
The two of them ran on the seedlings that had turned grayish-white from the blight, raising a wave of dissipating dust along the way.
“Brother, are you still bleeding…” his sister asked worriedly.
Joshua had a chunk of flesh bitten off from his arm by the bloated undead that was covered in mycelium and mold about an hour ago while saving his sister from the monster that was no longer the blacksmith they knew.
He took the opportunity to stab the red-hot soldering iron in the forging furnace into the monster’s eye socket, igniting its head from the inside. It emitted a crackling sound like ferns burning.
Then, he kicked over the furnace and ran out with his frightened sister while the fire spread.
The town was filled with miserable screams and sticky moans.
Countless bloated undead that was covered in mold and mycelium dragged their feet as they surrounded the surviving residents under the command of a group of strange people in brown-red robes and strange pointed hats. He held his breath and hid in the shadows with his sister. Taking advantage of the fact that the undead had been attracted to the Holy Spirits Church in the center of the town, he slipped out of the field through a tiny trail.
“It stopped some time ago. Save some strength and stop talking.”
As Joshua spoke, he turned his head uneasily and looked at the wound on his right arm. Then, his heart sank.
Mycelium that resembled white hair was slowly growing. The exposed flesh on his wound seemed to have turned into fertile soil to nourish them, and greenish-black mold began to spread on the intact skin around the wound.
From the moment Joshua was bitten, he began to feel that something was amiss. The pain of being bitten only lasted for a short moment before turning into a strange itch. He felt as if something had spread through the wound into his flesh, taking root, and then growing.
Gradually, a strange hunger arose.
This made him involuntarily swallow his saliva when he spoke to his sister.
Recalling the bloated undead that was covered in mycelium and mold, Joshua gritted his teeth and stopped in his tracks.
“Brother, what’s wrong? Is this place safe?”
His sister, who had suddenly stopped, panted for a while. When her breathing stabilized, she asked curiously, “No, I just suddenly remembered that there’s a Bramble Guards sentry over there. There must be a military doctor there who can treat my wound.”
As he spoke, he pointed at the other end of the field. The girl instantly beamed when she heard that.
“Great, let’s head there now.”
Joshua shook his head and said, “No, we don’t have time to waste now. We have to quickly go to Thorn City and inform the overlord of what happened in Red Spring Town.”
“Then what should we do?” his sister asked anxiously. Thorn City was more than 70 to 80 kilometers away. It usually took them a while to travel by carriage when buying things in Thorn City.
Joshua tried his best to make his expression natural and said,
“Therefore, the best solution now is for me to go to that sentry post to treat my wound while you go to Thorn City. This way, we won’t be delayed.”
“But…”
“Follow this path and you’ll reach Thorn City. You should still remember the places we’ve gone past before, right? Don’t worry, I’ll come looking for you immediately after my wound is treated. Just wait for me at the entrance of the shop where we usually buy iron ingots.”
Joshua didn’t give the girl a chance to think. He gently patted the girl’s head with his intact hand and smiled at her.
The girl hesitated for a long time before finally nodding.
“Let’s move. Let’s not delay any further.”
With that said, Joshua turned around and ran to the other side of the field. His sister looked at his back and hesitated for a while before running along the road in the direction of Thorn City.
There was naturally no Bramble Guards sentry in the direction Joshua was talking about. He stopped after running for about a kilometer.
He only felt relieved when he turned around and saw that his sister had turned into a black dot on the road.
Leaning against the weeds piled up on the ridge, he sat down and heaved a long sigh of relief.
The itching sensation had spread throughout his right arm, and a small number of white mycelium had gradually bloomed into gorgeous bacteria crowns. Although he didn’t know when he would become a disgusting undead like the townsfolk, he didn’t know how to stop it. He only planned on having a good rest.
Leaning against the soft pile of weeds, Joshua quickly fell asleep.
After an unknown period, he was woken up by a sticky sound.
“I thought you would run further.”
The person in a brownish-red robe and a strange pointed hat he had seen in the town stood in front of him.
Seeing him wake up, the person grinned with festering sores all over his mouth and revealed a malicious smile.
Joshua looked around. There were about 40 to 50 of the undead wandering around, and all the directions he could run in and had been blocked.
However, even without these obstacles, there was no need for him to run. He had woken up to find his entire right arm completely festered, and countless fungi grew out of the festering scars. Layers of fungi covered his arm like a shell.
However, strangely, he was still very lucid.
“How lucky. I never expected to find two hosts who can bear the Lady of Starvation’s Rotten Blessings in such a small town.”
Host? Him?
Joshua thought uneasily.
Although he didn’t know what the Lady of Starvation or the Rotten Blessing were, since the other party had surrounded him with so many monsters but didn’t kill him, he definitely wasn’t trying to be merciful.
Thankfully, he let his sister leave first.
“Come to me, blessed one.”
With a buzzing that made Joshua’s head spin, an armored man with wings on his back and maggots crawling in his eyes landed beside him. His entire body was wrapped in a constantly squirming sticky biomass armor.
A complicated dark-green mark on the monster’s chest constantly flickered as if it were alive.
Just looking at the monster made Joshua feel nauseous.
“Isn’t it very beautiful? You will also look perfect after receiving the blessing.”
The person in the red-brown robe squatted beside him and looked at the soon-to-vomit Joshua excitedly.
“Abandon your mortal coils and embrace the power of the Moon Realm to completely sublimate your life. You might not be used to it at the beginning, but you will definitely understand how merciful this is in the future…”
As the person spoke, he opened his palm, and an identical complicated dark-green mark appeared in midair.
Under Joshua’s shocked gaze, the mark slowly floated to his chest.
“No!”
“Feel this…”
Chi…
It was destined that no one knew what he wanted Joshua to feel.
This was because the remaining half of his sentence was forever stuck in his throat by a bright silver bolt.
…
“I’ll be in charge of long-range support from here,” Nizemar said indifferently to Cass, who was behind her, as an arrow pierced the Bloated Church priest’s throat.
Upon hearing this, Cass revealed an extremely odd expression.
After all, the last time he heard this voice say this, the other party was a Lunar Monster in Nizemar’s skin. Not long after, it left him with an unforgettable nightmarish memory.
Nizemar, who had no memory of this, continued, “In an emergency, I’ll use Storm Gain to increase the power of the next bolt to reinforce you. If…”
“Alright, alright… Don’t worry, I can resolve it.”
Upon hearing those familiar words, Cass hurriedly interrupted her as he drew the sword on his back.
Cass glanced at Liz, who was sitting on his shoulder. The faerie consciously jumped down and flew to William’s side with an indignant expression.
However, this was the only condition Cass had raised before agreeing to have Liz join him. She had to stay in the safest place when they encountered any battle.
“This can be considered as actual combat training. Remember to control the scale of strength to the Master domain.”
William reminded him.
William didn’t plan on taking action. A group of bloated undead and a Blessed would be perfect for Cass to spar with. He could also take a look at the results of his training in the meditation room.
Cass nodded and took a step forward with his sword. With a flash of lightning, he instantly appeared dozens of meters away.
His movements looked like he was running, but every step he took allowed him to blink dozens of meters ahead. However, after taking seven to eight steps, he appeared beside Joshua.
At this moment, the Blessed was raising the flaming saber in his hand and planning on severing the youth’s neck when Judgment 4 in Cass’s hand happened to tear through space and flash in front of the saber.
With a clang, Judgment 4 blocked the strike.
The Blessed turned its head to Cass, and only then did it seem to realize the other party’s existence.
The muscles in Cass’s arm bulged, and thumb-thick lightning crawled up the sword like a snake. The spot where the weapons collided instantly exploded with a bolt of lightning, and the intense blast sent the Blessed flying.
Joshua, who had his eyes closed under the blade, felt as if he had heard two claps of thunder.
The first sound exploded in his ears, almost deafening him. As for the second sound, it seemed to come from afar with a rumbling echo.
A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and realized that the surroundings had changed for some reason. The tall swordsman who had blocked the strike was carrying him and turning around to explain something to a man in a brown robe.
“I’m sorry, Lord William. The situation was pressing. I didn’t have the time to guide my strength according to your instructions.”
“It’s fine. A person’s life is more important, but we have to try our best to avoid such situations in the future.”
The swordsman nodded gratefully and put Joshua down.
“Don’t worry, little fellow. It’s safe now.”
With that said, he held his sword and took a step, disappearing from where he was again, leaving behind an afterimage that flickered with lightning.
Joshua looked in the direction the swordsman had run in and immediately saw the weed pile he had been leaning against a few hundred meters away.
Therefore, the two thunderclaps he heard just now were one? That swordsman had instantly brought him here?
Before Joshua could figure out how the other party did it, a familiar voice pulled him back to reality.
“Brother!”
Joshua turned around, and his sister threw herself into his arms, her face covered in snot and tears.
“Sob… I thought I would never see you again.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m here…”
Joshua comforted his sister as he patted her back with his uninjured hand.
Nizemar subconsciously frowned when she saw this scene.
After hesitating for a moment, she put down the repeating crossbow in her hand, got up, and walked to the siblings.
This bit of long-range support from the crossbow wasn’t even dispensable for the nearby battle.
“Stop hugging him. Your brother has a serious bloated infestation,”
Nizemar said coldly. Then, she pulled the girl away from Joshua’s arms.
Then, she ignored the girl’s glare and gently chanted an incantation. Her hand lit up with a faint green light from the Hand of Healing.
…
“Using human actions to guide the power of authority is the most effective way to resist the mental influence of the mythical echo.”
Cass flashed with every step as he recalled the words William had taught him during training.
As the person grasping God King Oka’s authority, Cass didn’t need to go through the trouble of charging over to fight a monster head-on. He could even stand on the ridge and smite the other party to death with a glance.
It was just like how he had instantly carried the youth to a safe spot. He could do such a short-distance blink with a thought.
However, William prohibited him from doing so.
“To mortals, ideas have to be acted upon to become reality. Even magic chanters have to construct spells to guide magic power to complete miracles. If you’re used to solving problems with a glance and a thought, your mind will subtly resonate with the God King of Blackwater mythology, Oka. You will eventually lose yourself in the authority and gradually lose your personality to transform into a Disaster.”
“Then what should I do?”
Cass asked during training.
“Fight like a mortal. Fight the way you fought before you obtained the authority,” William replied.
“I don’t understand. Are you asking me to give up on using that power?”
“Of course not, but you can’t treat this authority as a part of you. Instead, you should treat it as an external force, just like the sword in your hand and the armor on your body. You have to use your actions to guide the authority, not your thoughts. Only then can you truly tame this arrogant power.”
Authority often required a large number of self-restrictions to ensure that the user didn’t get lost. In the Golden Calendar, such superhumans were known as Pledgers. They would even swear an oath that could result in death to restrain their arrogance.
Therefore, he needed to run before using his authority to shorten the process. It was also why he needed to wrap the sword in lightning before using it to meet the enemy.
He could reach his goal with a thought. That was the domain of a god.
That was too arrogant and boring.
Only mortals would learn to take a long detour.
With the last step, Cass appeared in front of the Blessed in a flash. Lightning coiled around Judgment 4 in his hand as he stabbed at the other party’s throat.
As for the other party, it opened its mouth, releasing countless flies, as if it had expected it. From afar, it looked like it had spewed out a thick black fog that buzzed.
Cass was instantly drowned in the endless black fog.
Not far away, Liz, who had been watching the battle, exclaimed. Then, she looked nervously at William.
William sighed.
“Tsk, he still can’t control it?”
Just as he said that, a few silver lightning bolts vaguely appeared in the black fog of flies. Then, they became more and more dazzling until they reached a point that forced one to look away.
The dancing flies were instantly reduced to dust by the dazzling lightning. Then, the Blessed turned into a charred skeleton as the lightning danced.
The lightning extended into a dense lightning net and spread out. The dozens of bloated undead around him fell to the ground, charred.
After the lightning net dissipated, Cass was left standing alone. All around him was scorched earth.
The sword in his hand was stabbed into the ground.
Thank you for reading on myboxnovel.com
