MTLNOVEL Chapter 222: Lonely Soul
Clang!
The longsword was unsheathed, and after putting away the remaining parts of the sheathed sword, Li Zheng stared at the mysterious eye.
The vivid gaze proved that this wasn't a toy effect like the "Fright Box"; it was a real eye.
Old Pu still didn't provide any relevant prompts, which gave Li Zheng the illusion of entering a solo dungeon.
"Less than twenty seconds left for the Power Demon Incarnation, just in case."
Gripping the longsword tightly, Li Zheng burst forth with full force, sprinting forward, leaping up, and slashing horizontally with a shout: "Kill!"
The sword light flickered. Using the swordsmanship of the Power Demon Incarnation, it looked like a rolling thunder, majestic in momentum.
However, the eye reacted quickly, shrinking down, causing Li Zheng's first strike to miss.
As the sword stance paused, Li Zheng suddenly stomped on the crossbow arrow hole on the side of the coffin, jumping atop the coffin with the longsword reversed, stabbing downward!
Thud!
"The feel isn't right, this isn't the reaction of piercing flesh!" Without hesitating, Li Zheng flipped and leaped up, kicking the coffin lid.
The power of the kick only slightly shook the coffin lid, revealing the scene inside.
Flying upward, Li Zheng saw that eye hiding in the shadow, peeping out with a gaze that seemed human, showing rage.
"Huh? No counterattack?"
Looking thoughtful, Li Zheng ignored the eye, flew to the other end of the coffin, and grabbed the protruding part, pulling it back with all his might.
Rumble.
This time, the coffin lid moved more than three meters.
The eye took this chance to leap out from the other end, landing lightly and sprinting away.
Only then did Li Zheng see the full appearance of his opponent.
This eye had no eyelids, about the size of a fist, with pink nerves connecting the back.
As it sprinted, the nerve branches acted as legs, moving back and forth rapidly.
"Trying to escape?"
Li Zheng leapt forward, easily catching up, landing in front of it.
Slap!
Kicking it over, the eyeball clumsily got up, changed direction, and ran back, trying to return to the coffin.
"This... so weak."
Li Zheng stopped his pursuit, even canceling the follow-up original force supply of the Power Demon Incarnation, leaving almost ten seconds remaining.
Seeing the eye jump back into the coffin with his own eyes, he slowly flew over, the powerful jet stream from the flying device creating a massive noise in the tomb chamber.
Just like before, the eyeball hid under the coffin lid, staring at Li Zheng in mid-air.
This time, however, its gaze showed panic and unease, with hints of grievance.
"Something this weak shouldn't be able to suppress Old Pu..." Li Zheng suddenly stopped, staring straight inside the coffin, looking astonished.
Not far behind the eye, a head turned to a skeleton could be vaguely seen.
And the nerve ends of the strange eye were entwined in the eye sockets of that skull.
Comparing sizes, Li Zheng speculated that the strange eye originally belonged to that skull.
It's unclear why, but this eye didn't decay with the rest of the corpse.
Li Zheng was puzzled. Why did every other part of the dead creature rot, except for this eye?
Corpse mutation?
Or another reason?
"There's something under the skull." Li Zheng glanced at the eyeball, which scurried deeper into the coffin in fright, not daring to show its face.
"Fine, I'll let you off for now."
Holding a lamp in one hand, putting away the sheathed sword, Li Zheng reached inside, taking out the things beneath the skull.
As he did so, he touched the skull, attempting to decompose it.
[Decomposition failed.]
Murmured for collection.
[Invalid action.]
Two consecutive system prompts indicated that the ownership of this skeleton belonged to the eyeball.
Unless he killed it, forget about obtaining it.
"Forget it, it's just a skeleton after all. Even if I get it, it can only be decomposed for bone material, which is useless to me. It's irrelevant whether I want it or not."
Abandoning the skeleton, he looked at what he just took out.
There were two items: a wooden token and a piece of parchment.
[Identity Token: Belongs to Player: (Garble)]
[Detected ownerless token in player's possession, whether to merg...]
[Warning! Token version too low, unable to merge!]
[Warning! Token version...]
[Warning!...]
[Detected original owner of ownerless token holds channel admin identity, separating regional management reclassification certificate...]
[Separation successful, obtained: Regional Management Reclassification Certificate +1]
[Low version token has been recycled.]
With successive prompts shifting, the token in his hand turned into light and vanished, becoming a reclassification certificate.
"I don't know how long this player has been dead. The skull's shape is very similar to Earth's humans, no wonder their living habits are about the same."
But judging by some details in the tomb chamber, the civilization level of this species was relatively lower.
Putting away the reclassification certificate, he looked at the other item - the parchment.
It's said to be parchment, but it's actually a thin little booklet. Li Zheng glanced at it. The recorded words were the same as on the tombstone, all incomprehensible.
The attributes were simple:
[Strange Diary
Description: A diary mistakenly preserved, seems to record something, readable after translation.]
"I'll ask the doctor to see if he can help me translate it."
Putting the diary away, Li Zheng looked down to see the eyeball peeping sneakily. Upon meeting his gaze, it cautiously retreated into the coffin.
Like a frightened rabbit.
After much hesitation, Li Zheng gave up the idea of killing it. Without bothering to know if an eyeball could hear, he warned: "Stay put here, don't wander around."
He planned to check his Identity Card first to see if he could leave.
If unable to leave due to hostile creature relations, then killing it later wouldn't be too late.
Activating the flying device, Li Zheng swiftly flew out of the tomb chamber, heading for the next door indicated on the card.
Without caring about the information behind the door, he directly swiped the card beside it to open it.
Confirming the green light blinking, and the metal door successfully opened, Li Zheng started reading the probe information provided by Old Pu.
[Behind the door is empty, suggested... correction, there's a platinum-level wandering monster behind the door, the monster seems injured, get it!]
"Back to normal!"
As Old Pu came back online, Li Zheng breathed a sigh of relief.
Actually, once he left the chamber where the coffin was, Old Pu was already back online, just a bit rigid in style.
Li Zheng guessed that the strange occurrence might be related to the corpse buried in the tomb chamber.
The being's tier was truly high, even though the corpse had thoroughly decayed, the remaining power still caused Old Pu to enter a "crash" state.
"Getting used to the goofy tone, suddenly having this happen is quite disconcerting."
Shaking his head, he flew back into the tomb chamber, just in time to catch the eyeball sneakily running to the doorway, attempting to sneak out.
Upon seeing Li Zheng's return, it was so frightened that it ran full tilt, managing to escape again under Li Zheng's "chase".
"Since you're not a hostile creature, I won't make things difficult for you."
"But you are too dangerous in this state, so I'll just lock you back up."
Regardless of whether it comprehended or not, Li Zheng was too lazy to consider its feelings further.
Unceremoniously activating the Power Demon Incarnation, he restored the coffin.
After carefully inspecting the tomb chamber for anything he might have missed, he left the chamber, sealing the stone door behind him.
"Xiao Ying, let's go!"
Calling back to the two little figures playing nearby, they exited through the opened metal door.
Compared to when Li Zheng came, besides being short on some items, this room also had one more lonely soul.
At least,
it now had the concept of "loneliness".
Perhaps someday, another player would come here, release it, and take it away.
Or perhaps...
Kill it.