Foreseeing Body (Grade B, Lv. 32)
Effect upon equipping: Grants Instinct C+ (Upgradeable)
Instinct C+: Allows the user to foresee incoming fatal attacks 0.3 seconds before they strike.
This equipment card didn’t provide any boosts to his base attributes, but Bai Qiu had already witnessed firsthand just how powerful the newly acquired Instinct ability was.
Even so, he didn’t use the card immediately.
Instead, he inspected the dead boy’s belongings.
The young man had equipped four cards in total.
Three of them were basic enhancement cards: Strength, Agility, and another standard enhancement card.
After his death, even his Extra Equipment Card Slot (Grade B) had dropped as loot.
However, after experimenting for a while, Bai Qiu discovered that he couldn’t use the extra card slot.
This suggested one of two possibilities: either five equipment card slots were the absolute limit, or if he wanted to unlock a sixth slot, he would need a higher-grade extra slot card.
That was one reason he hadn’t immediately used the transcendent card that granted the Instinct attribute.
Another reason was his own exceptionally useful eye technique.
With the Sevenfold Arcane Crystallization Eyes, Bai Qiu possessed terrifying dynamic vision.
If he wished, he could predict an opponent’s next attack to a considerable degree simply by observing their movements.
In the end, he stored the transcendent card inside his Storage Card for the time being.
The remaining spoils consisted of the boy’s Storage Card and a blood-red katana.
Although he and the boy had communicated without any language barrier, Bai Qiu could more or less guess that the boy wasn’t from the same country as him.
After all, if the system could automatically translate the languages of another world, translating Earth’s own languages shouldn’t be difficult.
Otherwise, it would be absurd if he could chat happily with people from another world, yet when speaking to fellow Earthlings, all he could say was:
“Sorry, I don’t understand, smida~”
The thought alone was ridiculous.
As for proof…
The people standing on the ship’s deck had every imaginable skin color—black, brown, yellow, and white.
Setting aside those whose appearances had mutated after the world’s corruption, these people were most likely powerful players scattered across every corner of Earth.
Demonic Blade: Thousand-Man Slayer (Grade C++, Growth-Type)
Mana Absorption Efficiency: +30%
Mana Conversion Efficiency: +30%
Passive – Bloodthirst: Every human killed with the Demonic Blade grants one stack of Bloodthirst. Upon reaching certain thresholds, the blade’s grade increases, and the attribute bonuses it grants its wielder become stronger.
Current Bloodthirst Stacks: 4516
Attribute Bonus: +45.16% to Agility, Mana, and Strength
Description: An extraordinarily sinister weapon. While it possesses immense growth potential, it also brings disaster. Its wielder will gradually lose themselves in endless slaughter.
The moment Bai Qiu grasped the katana, a crimson energy seeped from the blade into his body, attempting to seize control of not only his body but also his consciousness.
“Hmph.”
Bai Qiu remained completely unfazed.
A mere Grade C weapon actually thinks it can control me?
He released his mana and poured it violently into the blade while tightening his grip around its hilt.
Moments later, a shrill scream echoed from within the sword.
Crack.
Crack.
The hilt began splitting apart with a series of sharp fractures.
After Bai Qiu thoroughly subdued it, the Demonic Blade became completely listless.
Not only had its malevolent nature been forcibly erased, but its grade had even fallen to C+.
Even so, it was still the finest sword currently in Bai Qiu’s possession.
Thinking about it, though…
That kid was truly monstrous.
In just one month, he had slaughtered 4,516 people.
That averaged over 150 people every single day, all just to level up one lousy sword.
“Brutal” wasn’t even enough to describe such behavior.
He had treated human beings as if they were monsters to be farmed for experience.
Even if the boy hadn’t attacked him first, the moment Bai Qiu learned about those atrocities, he would have hunted him down and killed him without hesitation.
As for the boy’s Storage Card…
Its capacity had reached an astonishing 1,200 slots.
However, judging by the fact that each Storage Card upgrade increased capacity by ten slots, it should have reached an even higher number by now.
Yet it had stopped at 1,200.
That meant 1,200 slots were most likely the Storage Card’s maximum capacity.
Bai Qiu sorted through all of the resources, transferred everything useful into his own Storage Card, then fed the remaining pile of worthless, space-consuming junk into his Storage Card as upgrade material, conveniently disposing of it in the process.
Meanwhile…
At the exact moment Bai Qiu killed the young man, players in distant Safe Zones all over the world stared at the rankings with expressions of disbelief before breaking into joyous celebration.
“Ryunosuke—that murderous psychopath—is gone?!”
“Thank goodness!”
The weaker players could hardly contain their excitement.
Among the fifty connected zones, Ryunosuke had been the undisputed strongest player—and an unrepentant mass murderer.
For low-level players with little strength, becoming food for his Demonic Blade was only a matter of time.
Yet less than an hour had passed…
The butcher had vanished from every leaderboard.
His name had disappeared completely, as though he had never existed.
………….
Bai Qiu returned to the deck once again.
This time, however, no one treated him like an easy target anymore.
Most of the players were busy with their own affairs, keeping to themselves and avoiding unnecessary conflict.
The majority appeared to be between twenty and thirty years old, and the ratio of men to women was overwhelmingly skewed.
Among the dozens of players on board, there were only two women, judging by their attire, one likely a Caster and the other an Assassin.
In truth, this was the natural state of affairs.
The so-called “gender equality” of the old world had largely been a social welfare concept created to protect women.
In this new world, where strength reigned above all else, men—who were generally more inclined toward combat by nature—made up the overwhelming majority of those standing at the forefront of power.
According to the description on the boarding pass, the ship would depart at midnight tonight.
That left the players with only nineteen hours to board.
As for where the cruise ship was headed, how long the voyage would take, or even what sea this was…
Bai Qiu had absolutely no idea.
Still, none of that diminished his curiosity or anticipation.
The boundless ocean stretched endlessly before him, its waters a deep sapphire blue.
Even with the enhancement of his Sevenfold Arcane Crystallization Eyes, Bai Qiu could only see a few hundred meters beneath the surface.
Yet despite peering more than six hundred meters down into the water beneath the harbor, he still couldn’t catch a glimpse of the seabed.
Just how deep was this ocean?
That was another question with no answer.
However, under the gaze of his Sevenfold Arcane Crystallization Eyes, Bai Qiu noticed something else.
Roughly ten kilometers away, on the distant horizon, a gigantic barrier of magical light enveloped the entire harbor.
He was convinced that living creatures inhabited these waters.
And those creatures were almost certainly beings far beyond what players at the current stage could hope to challenge.
Otherwise, there would have been no reason to erect such an enormous protective barrier around the harbor.
Although he couldn’t understand why the System, after opening this so-called Shattered Celestial Realm, hadn’t simply teleported every player directly there…
Instead, it had gone to the trouble of creating boarding passes, ports, countless passenger ships, and even an enormous barrier isolating the harbor from the outside world.
In the end, Bai Qiu couldn’t be bothered trying to guess what the System was thinking.
He simply stood quietly on the deck, letting the sea breeze wash over him as he waited for the ship to begin its voyage.
Time ticked by, second after second.
Yet the cruise ship remained motionless.
One after another, the players—including Bai Qiu—eventually gave up waiting and returned to their rooms.
— The end of the Chapter–
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